“The mind needs exercise as much as the body.” — John Morgan
We know that exercising the body is good for our health and wellness. But we forget that the mind needs exercise to be healthy. If we learn to exercise the mind, we can increase our cognitive abilities. We need these skills more than ever in our modern world.
Exercising the Mind
Exercising the body can make you physically fit. Physical fitness benefits the health of the mind. Physical exercise is the platform on which we can build the abilities we need to make better decisions. However, physical exercise does not exercise our critical thinking or our memory. Enhancing the connections within the brain requires specific kinds of mental exercise.
Any discipline that requires sound judgment can benefit from enhancing the power of our mental ability. It is essential in the domain of spirituality. To learn quickly, you’ll need sharp analytical and critical thinking skills. You’ll also need them to help you avoid the con-artists selling various religions and counterfeit spiritual information.
Learn How to Learn Then Learn How to Think
Learning how to think requires deepening and expanding awareness. Testing what we memorize is the basis for most of our educational systems. Unfortunately, most school systems do not teach us how to learn or keep the data they want us to learn.
Learning how to learn involves our memory. When we expand the memory, we expand the bandwidth of awareness. Some techniques help us “learn how to learn.” These techniques deepen awareness so we can use the power of the mind.
Learning how to think is just as important as increasing the bandwidth of what we can memorize. Learning how to think involves the skill set of critical thinking. This is the ability of the mind to analyze arguments and data accurately. This differs from memorizing data. You can use your memory to memorize inaccurate or false data. Learning how to think enables us to sort out the facts from fiction.
The study of logical thinking is a skill set that increases the depth of awareness. This increases our ability to understand how premises and arguments should be used. When our analytical abilities and intuitive awareness are healthy, we can function at our highest potential. If we increase our memory, we can remember the correct use of premises and arguments. This increases our ability to apply logic.
Exercising the mind should include techniques to deepen and expand awareness. That means studying both logic and increasing the ability of our memory.
For example, mathematics is a discipline that can help build logical thinking. However, mathematics isn’t constructive in the realm of spiritual matters. You can be highly adept with advanced mathematics and still be deceived by a good sales agent’s arguments. As proof, we offer you the worldwide membership of Western organized religion with over 4 billion devotees.
Being able to discern fact from fiction is very important in modern society. Our culture bombards us with hundreds of advertisements every day. Religion and politics are advertising. They are both propaganda selling everything from deodorant to ideologies.
The mind is a delicate instrument of consciousness. We are all susceptible to the manipulation of social and cultural programming. The more you expose yourself, the more susceptible you become. The study of critical thinking skills helps guard the mind against such tactics.
Critical thinking skills are a good antidote to propaganda, but we still need to guard ourselves against the cultural narrative’s negative programming. Learning how to think more clearly is essential to maintaining our health and wellness.
The Study of Logic
As stated above, the study of logic is one of the best ways to protect and enhance our thinking ability and basic awareness. The study of logic is one way of exercising the mind, which gives us multiple benefits. It is a part of maintaining your mind’s health and protecting you from adverse propaganda.
The core of thinking is logic. At a minimum, one needs a working understanding of logical reasoning. This helps us see how arguments are used to sell things. Because if we learn to recognize an improper argument, this will help us discern facts from fiction. We also recommend two other complementary tools. These are spotting logical fallacy and logical axioms. Studying and using these tools daily is essential in our world today.
Learning and working with these tools takes a little time and some mental effort, but it’s well worth it. Learning how to think with common sense is a skill set missing from the West’s education system.
Intelligence is no match for the power of groupthink manipulation techniques. Many intelligent people succumb to the programming of the dominant cultural narrative. They think they are too smart to become addicted to the brainwashing of propaganda, but they are wrong. Anyone can be brainwashed. The more you subject yourself to negative bias and prejudice, the more susceptible you become.
Most people fancy themselves to be above average, a Freethinker. But almost half of the world’s population believe in an imaginary friend with an imaginary enemy. Most people expose themselves to far too much religious propaganda, which contains negative bias and prejudice.
The study of logic isn’t a type of meditation. However, it’s a benefit to the process because it helps you follow processes and troubleshoot your thinking. It makes using any seated or moving meditation easier. The discipline of logic expands the mind’s capabilities and awareness. These are essential to spiritual exploration.
So, the bottom line is that exercising the mind is just as important as exercising the body for our overall health and wellness. Above all, it’s an essential tool in spiritual exploration.
Most people don’t learn how to learn properly. They only use one of the eight fundamental tools for enhancing memory. And the one most people use repetition. But, we don’t learn to use it correctly either.
There is a whole science behind the development of memory. It isn’t a new science, but it is not highlighted in our culture. We are not sure the reasons for this. People like Jack Lannom even had a free series in the 1980s on public television. Now, we see these same techniques being sold under a variety of names for prices upwards of $5,000 per person.
We make these learning techniques a part of our blended learning process because it facilities learning.
Spiritual technologies are methods for exploring human consciousness; they comprise a diverse body of practical mental tools. You can use these tools to develop your potential, expand awareness, and reach higher states of consciousness.
These tools differ significantly from religion. They do not require faith or belief in any religious doctrine. Anyone can use these processes to develop their full potential. All you need to do is follow the process, and it’s just like following the recipe for baking a cake. If you combine the right ingredients in the right way and you get something delicious.
We select the best of these ancient methods for our blended learning method. These processes are time-tested by generations of use, and they stand up to the rigorous tests of science. They are repeatable processes, and several produce measurable effects on our physiology. These changes include increased brainwave coherence, lower heart rate, and increased skin resistance. Changes like this prove these partitions of consciousness differ significantly from waking, dreaming, and sleeping.
We divide these tools into four major categories:
Everyone can use these methods to create their unique spiritual path, and you can start with any of these methods. The more of them you use, the faster your progress.
Intuition is the ability to gain knowledge without proof, evidence, or conscious reasoning. One derives information without understanding how the knowledge was acquired. The word “intuition” a great variety of different meanings. It ranges from mystical insight to unconscious pattern-recognition. This would appear that intuition is at odds with logic, but intuition complements common sense and logic rather than at odds.
Albert Einstein talked about his own process he coined, intuitive thought. While at a Physics conference in Kyoto in 1922, he explained how he used images and music to solve problems. Einstein’s insightful leap forward in physics did not come from analytical reasoning or mathematics alone. These tools became the medium for the communication of these concepts.
“When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come close to the conclusion that the gift of imagination has meant more to me than any talent for absorbing absolute knowledge”. — Albert Einstein
To do this, we need to work equally with both the mind’s analytical and intuitive aspects. The only way to do this is with practice. Study logic and cultivate your intuition. Those eureka moments come when we are in the sweet-spot between intuition and logic. Understanding your personality is essential to this process.
The techniques for expanding awareness and investigating higher states require the ability to follow logical processes. It requires one to think logically. Learning to think is a lifelong endeavor. Learning should be fun. Logical reasoning is a basic skill set that can enhance all areas of your cognitive abilities. Logical reasoning helps us to troubleshoot issues and find solutions.
One also needs to learn to trust their intuition. Spend time in meditation and contemplation. The experienced seeker understands a connection between a healthy body and mind. And that logic and intuition are necessary for maintaining a healthy balance.
Thanks for reading this article. We welcome your opinion, so don’t hesitate to comment or email us. We hope it provides some food for thought. You can find more mind-opening topics on our blog.
If you register on our site, you will get special offers, online training discounts, and free unadvertised downloads. We comply with all GDPR guidelines and never share or sell your contact data.
Please donate to support our mission of providing these ancient spiritual development tools.
(1) Joseph Campbell & Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero’s Journey, Wikipedia