Every thinking person has his own inner world. For some, he is bright and rich, rich, as psychologists say, “a person with a fine mental organization.” Some, on the contrary, have a small room filled with phobias and imposed stereotypes. Everyone is different, unique, and therefore the world inside is different. How to understand this diversity, who is who?
What is the inner world of a person?
Some call it the soul, but this is not entirely true: the soul is unchanging, but the attitude towards the world that leads a person through life can change.
A set of internal character qualities, a way of thinking, moral principles and life position, combined with stereotypes and fears - that is what the inner world is. He is multifaceted. This is a worldview, the mental component of a person, which is the fruit of his spiritual labor.
The structure of the inner world
The subtle mental organization of a person consists of several segments:
Based on all of the above, we can conclude that the inner world is such a clear structure, an information matrix as the basis of a human being. Together with the soul and physical body, they form a person as an individual.
Some people have a very developed emotional sphere: they subtly feel what is happening and notice the smallest changes in the emotions of those around them. Others have extremely developed thinking: they can handle the most complex mathematical equations and logical problems, but if at the same time they are poor on the sensory plane, then they cannot love with all their hearts.
Therefore, it is important, if a person wants to unlock the potential inherent in everyone and expand his inner world to unprecedented horizons, to simultaneously develop all segments of his being.
What does a rich inner world mean?
This term means that a person lives in harmony with himself and the outside world: people, nature. He lives consciously, and does not go with the flow artificially created by society.
This person knows how to create a happy space around himself, thereby changing the outside world. The feeling of contentment with life, despite all the ups and downs, does not leave him. Such a person tries every day to become better than he was yesterday, consciously developing in all areas of his inner world.
Are principles and worldviews the same thing?
Principles are patterned subjective attitudes of the mind towards a situation, people and the world, which often control a person. They are individual for everyone, develop in the process of upbringing and are laid deep in the subconscious by life experience.
The worldview has no templates - it is flexible, but at the same time stable, like bamboo: it can bend strongly, but in order to break it, you will have to try very hard. These are moral values, priorities in choosing a life path and ideas about what life should be like.
What is the difference between the external and internal world of a person?
What is the outside world? This is the space surrounding a person: houses, nature, people and cars, sun and wind. This also includes social relationships and interaction with nature. The organs of cognition - vision, tactile sensations and smell - also relate to the external world. And the way we react to them, experiencing various emotions and feelings, is already a manifestation of the inner world.
At the same time, the inner world of a person is capable of influencing the outer world: if a person is satisfied with life, then his affairs will go well, his work will be a pleasure and he will be surrounded by positive people. If inside a person is irritated or angry, condemns everyone and everything, then nothing works out in everyday life, failures haunt him. Phobias and complexes have a destructive effect on the inner world: they distort the perception of the world and people.
Everything that happens to a person in life is a reflection of his inner state, and if there is a desire to change the world around him, then he needs to start with himself - with the transformation of the inner space.
How to develop your inner world?
What unusual things must be done for the spiritual world to begin to change? Actually do some pretty normal things:
- Proper nutrition. Often the food that people eat poisons not only their body, but also their mind. A person with a fine mental organization will never allow himself to eat another creature, so vegetarianism is the first step.
- Walk outdoors. This also includes traveling to other cities or countries, hiking and just trips out of town or to the sea. There is only one difference - these are not gastronomic tours: eat barbecue, drink beer with friends, try all the pizzas in a new city. Connection with nature is important: lie on the grass, admire the sunset or sunrise, watch the animals.
- Meditation is one of the most powerful tools for development. Just don’t confuse this process with sitting with your eyes closed and legs crossed, waiting for the lesson time to end. Meditation is introspection, a path inside: a person immerses himself in observing his emotions, thoughts, or simply breathing (in the first stages of mastering his mind).
- Reading spiritual books. This does not mean that you need to read the Bible or the Bhagavad Gita; each book has its time, and Pollyanna or The Little Prince are equally highly moral creations.
- The ability to be grateful to everything that surrounds you, everything that happens. Even if it goes against plans. The Universe knows better which way to direct a person towards development.
The development of the inner world implies a strong desire, aspiration and subsequent actions with full awareness of what is happening. “I want” alone is not enough here: it must be followed by “I do” and “regularly.”
The inner world of a person, or subjective reality, is all that internal content of psychological activity that is characteristic only of this particular person. Therefore, the inner world is always individual and always unique. Each person, through knowledge of the external world, tries to penetrate his inner world, understand it, in order to use such understanding to build his life, his unique life path. It is very difficult to study the inner world with objective methods; we can only see its “glimpses” that appear in the external world. Nevertheless, attempts to objectively penetrate into the inner world will probably never stop - its nature is so interesting and attractive. In psychology, there are quite interesting experiments in describing and analyzing the inner world, its structure, its “work”. It has been established, for example, that the inner world does not arise on its own, it is a reflection in a specific form of the outer world and has its own spatio-temporal characteristics, its own content.
The inner world as a reflection in a specific form of the outer world. According to some religious and philosophical concepts, the inner world is given to a person initially, and in the course of life he only discovers and cognizes it. According to other ideas, which have a more materialistic basis, the inner world arises and develops as it is active in reflecting and mastering the surrounding reality.
A person can become a person only thanks to the human brain, which is ready for a special reflection of the external world and in which consciousness arose and developed. There are experiments in psychology where a baby chimpanzee was raised in the same way as a child, but the chimpanzee never became a human due to the fact that his brain was not initially adapted to master speech and consciousness in general. Thus, the presence of a human brain is the most important prerequisite for appropriate development. But suppose for a moment a situation where a born child, having a human brain, from birth does not see, does not hear, does not touch, does not feel. For some time he may live as an organism, but he will never become a person, a person, much less a person with an inner world. In another case, when a person was born with all functioning senses, but was not raised among people (and such cases are known), he also will not become a person with his own unique inner world.
From here it becomes clear that the inner world of a person is not given initially, it arises as a result of the reflection of the external world. As a result of such reflection, the Image of the World appears (as the famous Russian psychologist A.N. wrote). But such an image is not a simple cast of the external world, it is initially individual and subjective, since each person constructs the reflected reality in his own way, creates his own unique system of images, he has his own unique experiences, his own vision of reality and himself. All this is carried out thanks to one’s own activity in reflecting the external world, adapting to it and transforming it, and affirming one’s existence as an individual.
Thus, the external world and the internal world are interconnected, have points of intersection, and depend on each other.
Spatiotemporal structure of the inner world. If the inner world exists, then it is logical to assume that, like the outer world, it has its own. internal space and its internal subjective time. Special studies conducted by psychologists fully prove this fact. For example, let us turn to the results obtained by the domestic psychologist T. N. Berezina, who conducted a series of interesting experiments to study the inner world of a person.
In her opinion, internal space in a broad sense is a form of existence of the psychological in general, and in a narrower sense - a form of existence of internal images. It does not exist outside of these images, just as the images themselves cannot exist outside of space. Images are subjective forms of objects and are generated by the inner world, acquiring unique uniqueness as a result of the influence of attitudes on them. They themselves play an informational, emotional, regulatory role in the human psyche. As a result of experiments, it was shown that these images can be located in the internal space and localized differently for different people: left, right, behind, above, below, panoramic, they can be taken out as if outside the person, they can be close, distant, vary in shape, color, located on the time axis: past, present and future.
Example. Conduct a little experiment on yourself: imagine going to school for the first time. What image emerged? What is its shape and color? Where was it located: top, bottom, left, right, etc? Where are you, inside the image or outside it? If you have done all this and answered the questions posed, then you will understand what an image is and where it is located in the internal space.
No less interesting data were obtained regarding subjective time. Firstly, it has been proven that such time really exists. Secondly, facts have been discovered about the acceleration or deceleration of internal time, its reversibility, the possibility of obtaining information from the future or past, the existence of parallel time, etc.
Example. Let's consider the facts of acceleration and deceleration of subjective time (each of us knows about this from personal experience). If we are busy with something interesting and exciting, then time passes very quickly and imperceptibly, but for us, subjectively, it seems to stop. On the contrary, if we are inactive for a long time, do nothing, wait, for example, for a train for several hours, then time flows very slowly - it also seems to stop, but the nature of such a stop is different than when we do not notice it. After several weeks or months, the period that passed very quickly seems to us longer, since it was full of interesting events, and the period where we did nothing is perceived as one moment.
Age-related changes in the flow of subjective time are also known. One person internally lives faster, due to this he feels older than he really is, the other - slower, so even in adulthood it seems to him that everything is still ahead, that he is just beginning to live and will have time to do a lot.
We may also encounter some paradoxes of time, when, for example, getting into a place or meeting certain people, it seems to us that it has already happened, or, conversely, getting into a well-known place, it seems to us that we see it We are starting to study it for the first time and with interest.
Contents of the inner world. So, the inner world has its own internal space, subjective internal time. Who “lives” in this space and time? And each of us lives there, our personality, our Self, which, thanks to reflection, has unity and plurality at the same time. Thus, the content of our world is the psyche as a whole, consciousness and the unconscious. It is extremely difficult to structure this content; each of us learns it independently: consciously and intuitively. At the same time, attempts are being made in psychology to identify some leading structural elements in this content. Let us again refer to the theoretical and experimental studies of T.N. Berezina. The author notes: on the one hand, the inner world is subjective and includes our thoughts, feelings, experiences, dreams, dreams and much more; on the other hand, it is social, since it includes images of other people, their actions and deeds. The inner world of a person, that is, his thoughts, fantasies, dreams, exists either in a sensory-figurative form, or in the form of a thought, clothed in the form of inner speech, or, most often, in a combination of both. A way of existence is a monologue or dialogue: with oneself, with others, telling another about the events that are happening to you, a complex dialogue - one’s own Self is presented through the eyes of another.
With the help of a special study, the seven most common states of ours, characterizing our inner life, were identified.
1. “Self-expressions of the Self” - a person’s thoughts about himself, attributed to the present time; features of the state are monological thinking (monologue) and the predominance of the pronoun “I” in internal speech.
2. “Thinking about another” - characterized by dialogue, the predominance of the pronoun “You”. This state is characterized by self-approval, but mental self-criticism is possible.
3. “Non-objectivity of mental images” - the other or Others are imagined in an abstract form and exist as if in the head. The subject is focused on himself, his strengths, shortcomings are rejected.
4. “Planning the future” - a state in which a person comprehends his prospects, plans for the future, sets certain goals, and reflects on the problems of their implementation.
5. “Fixation on an obstacle” - characterized by the fact that a person, fixating on obstacles, difficulties, feels (“no one needs anyone”), and rejects the possibility of interaction in resolution.
6. “Sensory perception of the world” - all images are presented very brightly, in contrast, thoughts are voiced (thoughts in the form of voices).
7. “Fantasy” is the most creative state, where any goals seem achievable, while obstacles are considered insignificant (“There is no such hopeless situation from which a way out cannot be found”). The person presents himself as strong and active, capable of reaching any heights.
So, we tried to show that the inner world of a person, or subjective reality, is closely connected with the external world and is its reflection in a specific individualized form, introducing one’s own “vision” and one’s “bias” through one’s own activity. It has a spatio-temporal structure and exists in sensory-imaginative and mental form, enlivened by monologue and dialogue that a person conducts with himself, real or imaginary people, plans his future, praises or scolds himself and others, fantasizes and much more.
It seems to us that our idea of the world around us is, if not the ultimate truth, then certainly the closest to it. After all, we can directly perceive its objects and phenomena on our own. However, the real picture is very different from this usual idea.
Firstly, we have a limited set of senses that provide us with sensations from interaction with the infinite variety of the world around us. There are only five main types of sensations that we use. These are sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. And with their help, every moment of our lives we try to “embrace the immensity.” Secondly, we perceive the world indirectly through the filters of sensations available to us. The operating range of the sense organs mentioned above is many, many orders of magnitude narrower than the spectrum of incoming external signals. For example, the wavelength range of visible (perceivable by the human eye) light is 380 - 780 * 10 -9 m. If you try to express as a percentage the ratio of this range to the width of the entire studied spectrum of radiation, then the resulting decimal fraction will have at least ten zeros after the decimal point (!!!). The human eye is thus an ultra-narrow-band filter. As for other sense organs, the situation with them is similar. Thirdly, on the path of incoming signals there is another intermediary - our mind, which controls the process of converting signals coming from the senses into images that we understand. But! He does this relying on his sophisticated architecture - ego, inferiority complex, ideas, attitudes, thoughts, feelings, desires and much more. With each stage of transformation, the degree of adequacy of internal contents in relation to the reality that gave birth to them falls, falls, and falls.
But that's not all!
Fourthly, the resulting images are collected into a certain mental model, which is a virtual reflection of the processes occurring in the external world. We, therefore, observe in front of us not real reality, but a mental image or model, separated from it by a chain of transformations and filters and existing with this reality simultaneously. Model on the stage of our mind. I can’t help but remember a quote from W. Shakespeare - “The whole world is a stage. There are women, men, all actors in it.”
Fifthly, each of us has a more or less rich and intense inner life. Its contents are also displayed on the “stage” of our mind. The result is a performance in which both professional actors and the most emotional spectators from the audience appear on stage in random order. What can I say? Unless we turn again to Shakespeare - “This is a fairy tale, full of rage and noise, told by an idiot and devoid of any meaning!”
And how, with such baggage, can you not only develop, but at least simply live in relative harmony with yourself and those around you, each of whom has his own, unique “theater” in his head?!! What can keep a system of the universe in balance, consisting of such unstable elements? Where is this invisible connection or fulcrum? What should you do and where should you look to find it?
There are 2 obvious answers. The history of Western civilization says that the fulcrum is the human mind (even if it boils at times - butting heads, so to speak) and his logic. What? This option has one undoubted advantage. It is time-tested. However, it is not surprising that this time took shape in a centuries-long sequence of wars and disasters. Look at who rules this show and don't be surprised by the consequences!
There is an alternative option. The mystics of the past and present are united in defining the main point of support. This is the heart, which is a unique human organ that combines both the lower (material) and higher (spiritual) nature. It is this space, connecting the material with the spiritual, that is the channel (or portal) that has the potential to establish a connection with the Creator. This connection can take different forms depending on the spiritual development of a person, manifesting itself in the form of conscience, intuition, spiritual vision of the phenomena of the internal and external world, direct perception of the Will of the Creator. At the same time, the level of spiritual development, which is the key to opening this channel, at the same time represents a kind of fuse or “block from the fool.” The essence of blocking is simple. It cannot be bypassed with the help of cunning, nor can it be disabled by force of will or the influence of ardent desire. The spiritual level cannot be “pumped up” like muscles in the gym. Achieving the goal will require a will sufficient to travel a path of years, and appropriate time, which, as is known, heals everything, including the mental problems of the traveler, who is internally reborn to the end point of the route he travels. The emerging connection with the Highest brings characteristic influences into the life of the seeker:
The light penetrating into the inner space of the seeker reveals to his inner gaze those problems that he could not see before; eliminating these problems frees up space for the energy so necessary for self-development and Work;
The heart, which has connections with all parts of the human body, becomes a tuning fork that tunes the entire human being into resonance, allowing the seeker to move faster along the Path;
The Seeker gains the ability to directly perceive the Will (in addition to intuition) to a greater extent, the more open the heart channel;
The ordinary perception of the world is complemented by spiritual vision, which allows one to read the true essence of objects and phenomena.
The power of this influence is such that, having transformed the inner world, it begins to pour into the outer world, smoothly and imperceptibly harmonizing the mystic’s environment. First, this concerns the near zone, then more distant areas of the external world are connected, reacting to waves emanating not only from the open, but even from the opening heart.
It would seem that the choice is obvious. We must strive to open our hearts. All that remains is to pave the route to this noble goal. And - faster, higher, stronger! This is what our mind says. He, as always, habitually minds his own business. He wants to because he knows that an open heart will make his life fuller and more meaningful in the eyes of others. He had already imagined what it would all look like, and from books he learned how the process itself should proceed. Now you just need to push! And now the “high” desire haunts you...
Stop!!! The hotter your desire and the more you try to achieve the goal drawn by your mind, the higher the tension of your bodies (physical, etheric, mind). This tension makes you stubborn, and your bodies stiff and almost insensitive. This is not your Path, this is the path of your mind! Leave him alone! Relax! You have allowed yourself this so rarely in your entire life. Accept your current situation - it is exactly what you need now, no more and no less! Just listen to your Heart - take a step towards it and stay alone with it! Let your mind not interfere. Feel this connection! She has always been and will be with you! And one day she will change you and everything around you!
To recognize this fact is to be wise. And wisdom comes down to understanding the presence and power of God in you, to the fact that you realize that everything that you imprint in your subconscious will manifest itself in reality, regardless of whether it is good or bad. You will act wisely if you begin to reinforce in your subconscious what is true, what is lovely, what is honorable and what is godlike. You show wisdom when you understand that thoughts are material; and what you feel is what you attract into your life; What you picture in your imagination is what you become. You are wise when you realize that you can take any idea and weave it into the fabric of your mind, nurturing, emoting, and feeling its reality.
Wisdom is not an accumulation of information. If you have wisdom, then, like a true poet or musician, you will sit comfortably in a quiet corner and listen to the inner movement that brings inspiration from above. And the Almighty will definitely send you inspiration, and you will be able to give people the delightful sounds that you heard with your spiritual ear.
If everything you feel, think, picture, and talk about is dominated by the pronoun “I,” then you will not be able to change your emotional life. Don't forget that different thoughts may arise in your mind; your heart may be stirred by different feelings. And if you start adding the pronoun “I” to all negative thoughts, you will thereby identify yourself with them and will no longer be able to get rid of them. But you have the power to refuse this. You have made it a habit to avoid puddles and mud when you walk down the street. In the same way, try not to walk along the dirty “paths” of your mind where fear, anger, hostility and ill will lie in wait. Don't listen to negative comments. Don’t go where your mood can be spoiled, and don’t let the “carriers” of a bad mood get closer to you. Learn to internally fence yourself off from those negative feelings that come from the outside.
Understand that your real self is none other than the Infinite Spirit. Begin to identify yourself with His images, qualities and abilities. And then your whole life will change. No one can disturb you, because everything depends on your own thoughts. You can curse or bless. The whole secret lies in transforming the negative emotional principles of your character through the process of self-analysis. Being observant and being able to observe yourself are two different things. When people say that they are observant, this means that they are able to focus attention on external phenomena and objects. And by introspection we mean the ability to look inside ourselves. You can spend your whole life studying atoms, stars, human anatomy, that is, the attributes of the external world that lies beyond your mind. But this knowledge will not be able to change your inner world. In order to change what is inside you, what is in your heart, you need to learn the art of self-observation.
Learn to differentiate, that is, to distinguish and separate the wheat from the chaff. You become better at the art of self-observation when you begin to ask questions: “Is this or that idea true? Will it bring me blessing, healing and inspiration? Will it bring me peace of mind and help me contribute to the common cause of humanity?” You live in two worlds at the same time - external and internal. But in reality it is one world. It’s just that one part of it is visible and the other is invisible. This is the difference between subjective and objective. You live in a world of opinions. Your five senses bring you an avalanche of sights, sounds and concepts - both good and bad. You also live among the delusions of the crowd. Think about what controls you - external, objective! The world or your inner world?
The inner world is the world in which you really live. This is the world of your thoughts, images, emotions, feelings, beliefs, dreams, aspirations, plans and goals.
The outside world comes to you through your five senses and you share it with other people. Your inner world of thoughts, feelings, images, beliefs, beliefs and reactions to the surrounding reality is invisible and belongs only to you. So ask yourself:
“What world do I live in? Is it the one my five senses present to me, or something else? Am I controlled by the outside world? Maybe the inner world of my mind controls the outer one? You live precisely in your inner world. Only he determines what you feel and what you suffer from.
Suppose you are invited to a banquet. Everything you see and hear there, everything you feel, all the smells and tastes - all this relates to the outside world. But everything you think about; all the emotions that arise; everything you like and dislike is part of your inner world. It turns out that you are present at two banquets at once: one - internal, and the other - external. The main one is the one that “takes place” in the inner world of your thoughts, feelings and emotions, in which you experience ups and downs and rush from one extreme to another. To change yourself, you must start by changing your inner world by purifying your emotions and changing the attitudes of your mind by introducing right thoughts into it. If you want to grow spiritually, you must completely change yourself. You must channel your emotions in a positive direction, but to do this you first need to change your thoughts. Emotions follow thoughts, not the other way around. You cannot visualize the emotion. You can imagine this or that scene from life or how someone says something to you, but you cannot imagine the emotion. Therefore, in order to direct your emotions along the Divine path, you must first of all change your thinking, directing it to what is only true, what is kind, what is just, what is pure, what is only virtue - only think about this.
You can give a lot of examples of transformations from the field of the material world. For example, sugar is converted into alcohol during distillation. Radium gradually turns into lead. The food you eat goes through a series of transformation stages and eventually turns into all the substances that your body needs to survive. For example, if you eat a piece of bread, the creative intelligence within you will transform it into your cellular tissue, muscles and bones. We can say that even bread becomes a thought in your head, because some of the elements included in it turn into particles of blood, which circulates through the vessels of your brain. This is the process of transformation of substances in the body: turning what you eat into your body and blood. When you enjoy food, it transforms into beauty. But it could be different. If you eat the most delicious and healthy food and you are angry or resentful, it can turn into poison in your body and cause stomach ulcers, arthritis or some other disease. The same applies to the impressions you receive from the outside world. They all go through a process of transformation within you.
Suppose you see in front of you a person whom you love and admire. You get some impression about him. You “sort out” this impression in your mind. Now suppose you meet someone you don't like. You get an impression again, this time a negative one. Your spouse or child sitting on the couch while you read this book also awakens some thoughts in you. In other words, your mind is constantly receiving impressions of one kind or another. If you were deaf, you would not be able to hear the voices of these people, and then the impression would be different. But you have a wonderful ability: you can change the impression you receive at will. Changing your impression means changing yourself. To change the course of your life, change your reaction to it. Are your reactions to life phenomena stereotypical, the same as everyone else's? If they are mostly negative, then so will your life. So don't let your life become a series of negative reactions to the impressions you take in every day.
If your neighbor shot her husband, then you do not bear any responsibility for this act. You didn't give her that advice. So why should you feel guilty about anything? This act was the result of her mind position. You should direct your attention not to this event, but to your own goals, such as harmony, health and peace. Bless this woman and go on your way with the praise of the Lord on your lips.
To clearly see your own internal attitudes, you must learn to detach yourself from all special cases; no matter what happens, your thoughts and feelings should be unwaveringly focused on this next great truth: What does it look like from the point of view of God and the heavenly, ideal state of things? Heaven means peace in our mind. God is the Living Spirit, the Principle of Life, who renews and sustains you, who takes care of you when you fall asleep. He was never born and will never die, water does not wet him, fire does not burn him, the wind does not blow him away. This is the Eternal Being within you.
If you become internally aware of the presence of God, you will be able to rise very high and transform all your negative thoughts and emotions in accordance with the Divine eternal truths of God. You may be tempted to attribute all the negative experiences you receive to other people. But if what they say or do resonates negatively with you, then that means you are the problem. This means that you are now living in a negative state, moving and staying in it. What is written in the newspapers should not or could not bother you if you knew the law of life. Journalists have the right to write whatever they want. And you have every right not to pay attention to it. Why do you let some piece of paper disturb your peace? It's all about your reaction, your own thought, and not what caused it. You yourself created this reaction.
You cannot allow yourself to fall into negativism. It will suck the vitality out of you; will dampen your enthusiasm; will make you physically and mentally sick. Think about where you really live: in the room where you are now, or in your thoughts, feelings, emotions, hopes and disappointments?