(Abstract of my paper for the National Conference on ‘Guidance and
Counselling in India: Status, Trends, Practices and Innovations’ organized
by Regional Institute of Education (National Council of Educational Research
& Training), Mysuru, 16 - 18 November, 2016)
Abstract
Knowledge is power; information is power. The hereditary knowledge/information
stored in our DNA genes empowers the body’s cells to carry out all bodily
activities that ensure our life, health and wellbeing. But as the food and
nourishment that the cells need for maintaining their life and integrity has to
be sourced from the environment, the body also requires information of the external
world to enable it to get the nourishment. The body acquires this information
from the experiences of its external sense organs and its tactile sensory
receptors, or the sense of touch – “Learning is the acquisition and storage of
information as a consequence of experience”. The information about the external
world that we learn over a period of time influences the body’s motivation for
behavior, and emotions. But, our behavior can become dysfunctional when this
learned information has been inappropriate, and also because the mind –
consciousness-faculty – is unable to take into account the body’s tactile
learning while making decisions, because it is unaware of the tactile learning,
which generally occurs implicitly – without our conscious awareness.
Ancient
Indian sages had developed Bhagavad Gita’s Sankhya
Yoga technique for consciously observing and learning from our own tactile
sense experiences. The technique is called Vipassana
by the Buddhists and “Mindfulness” in clinical psychology. Many PubMed Library
articles have reported the efficacy of Mindfulness in alleviating not only stress
but also the suffering associated with physical, psychosomatic and psychiatric
disorders. A simple Sankhya Yoga
technique has also been found to be highly effective in helping children with
special needs and those diagnosed with learning disorders.
This
paper details the physiology of the body’s cognitive processes – the body’s
learning mechanism –and also explains the simple Sankhya Yoga technique, so that teachers and extension education
workers can use it in the guidance and counselling of students.
