Life has a major dilemma in how we navigate the intersection between community and cultural expectations with spiritual and psychological realities. Further, Ironically ;), the only reason there is a dilemma is that we believe and require for this dilemma to be navigated or controlled in the first place. In relation to the concept of control, the disciplines of psychology and spirituality have landed on a number of humbling points which are a bit inconvenient in relation to the mandate we all have to control our behavior.
let’s start with psychology (and neurology/biology) as its a bit easier to grasp. Control implies choice… Control is based on the hypothesis that we can generally choose the body and ‘mind’s’ responses to various stimuli in the environment. Let’s use a ridiculous scenario to investigate this subject.
Scenario: Imagine that a person from the opposite political persuasion approached you and placed there hand firmly on your shoulder.
really try to visualize this to the point as if it feels as though it is happening…
now, let’s look at what is happening and what you can control…
can you control your emotional response (ex.fear)?
can you control your physiological reaction (ex increased heart rate)?
can you control the thoughts that will begin flying through your mind (ex. this person doesn’t respect my basic human rights!)?
… and given the answer to all of these questions can ‘you’ control your resulting behavior? The answer is… kind of…
then we arrive at the spiritual element and find our selves asking the question “who is controlling what?’ … or “what is the you which is being called upon to control who’s behavior?”
in this way the command, “Control yourself” becomes rather humorous… as the authentic response becomes “I neither know the controller nor the self that is to be controlled… and I hadn’t thought them to be separate… and now I see that the statement implies that the controller is separate from the self – and both of these entities seem to also be separate from this ‘authentic entity’ which is observing the relationship between the controller and the self… so am I a minimum of three people?”