Ordering The Blissful Brain

The Blissful Brain is published by Gaia Thinking. For more information on how to order your copy, please click here.

Guardian G2: Mind over matter by Andy Darling

"Neuroscientist Shanida Nataraja has proven meditation does more than clear your head, it can put both halves of your brain to work, improving your concentration, memory, and decision-making...". To read more, please click here.

Upcoming talk: Yoga Ananda, Reigate, Surrey on Friday the 4th of June

Shanida Nataraja will be speaking at a seminar on The Blissful Brain on Friday, 04th June 2010 at 19:30 at Yoga Ananda Ltd. 46 Albert Road North, Reigate, Surrey, RH2 9EL. For more information, please click here.

What is a Worldview?

A worldview can be defined as a psychological lens or filter that determines both the way in which we perceive the world and our actions within it. It can be seen to comprise all of our belief systems i.e. our accumulated knowledge and understanding of “God, Life, the Universe, and Everything”. The concept of a worldview can be used both at the level of an individual (i.e. a personal worldview) and at the level of the human species as a whole (i.e. a collective or consensus worldview).

All change in the consensus worldview stems from personal experience. There is a wealth of anecdotal evidence that shows that a single experience can completely transform an individual’s personal worldview. In these cases, the experience is so profound, such that it alone, without any external validation, can lead to a permanent shift in perspective; a permanent re-focusing of the psychological lens so to speak. Examples of such transformative experiences include mystical experiences, near-death experiences, severe trauma, and significant life events (e.g. marriage, parenthood, divorce, and bereavement). In most cases, however, our experiences are seemingly less profound, and therefore validation is sought through comparison with the experiences of other people. If a number of independent sources can support the individual’s experience, the experience is considered to warrant a change in the individual’s personal worldview. Once a “critical mass” of individuals have had comparable experiences, and have modified their personal worldviews accordingly, these changes emerge within our collective view of reality. Thus personal experience transforms the consensus worldview.

Our society is constructed such that the individual does not need to make any personal decisions about how to perceive or interact with the world; we are instructed what to believe, how to act, what are goals should be, and what to value through a number of available worldviews or metanarratives. Each of these metanarratives claims to provide an all-embracing and unambiguous description of reality. As a scientist, for example, you are taught only to believe in that which can be perceived, repeatedly, through the five senses; to investigate nature using a rigorous, controlled, and highly methodological approach; and to value certain theories or so-called laws over others. As a Buddhist, on the other hand, you are taught to believe that everything perceived with the physical senses is impermanent; to investigate the nature of the mind through introspection and contemplative practices; and to value and therefore respect all things equally. The freedom to choose one worldview over another is a luxury afforded to a small minority; typically those in the Western world. The large majority of the world population do not have this freedom of choice. Instead, their worldview is imposed on them by the society within which they live and its dominant religions, and this worldview is continuously reinforced by the beliefs of their immediate family and peers. Often any deviation from this socially accepted worldview is condemned, or at least “frowned upon”.

Social knowledge (i.e. knowledge and experience of your peers and authoritative figures) therefore plays an important role in determining an individual and indeed a consensus worldview. Craig Rusbult has identified a number of additional important contributors to the formation of a worldview. He proposes that worldviews are assembled from personal experience, social knowledge, scientific knowledge and experience, historical knowledge and experience, legal knowledge (i.e. eye witnesses and forensic evidence), and spiritual knowledge (i.e. intuitive insight). All of these elements collectively form our belief system, and thus equal value should be assigned to each element. Any one of these factors alone can therefore instigate a dramatic shift in the worldview, and the most radical of these shifts arise as a result of input from all of these different experiential sources.

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