Have you ever wondered how and what makes the mind strong? The answer is there are 6 faculties that show how the mind works.
These faculties are: Perception, Will, Imagination, Memory, Reason and Intuition.
It’s important that we are aware of them because they all play an important role in getting the results we want in life - whether it be at work or at home.
I regard these as faculties our mental muscles. They are to the mind what our biceps or triceps do for the body.
Just as physical muscles can become limp and flaccid without use, so can our mental ones.
So let’s go through each of these and see what they are and how they help us.
1: Perception
Perception is a faculty that determines the way we ‘see’ things. It’s synonyms are perspective, point of view, viewpoint, etc.
For example, I could hold up a book and claim there’s nothing on the cover.
However, anyone looking at me could be puzzled, because to them it does have something on the cover - the title of the book and it’s author. In fact, they are only looking at the front of the book - on the back of the book there is nothing.
Their perception (in this case perspective) of the book was from the front only.
Likewise the cartoon above illustrates this with the number 6 and number 9.
The lesson here is if we think some things are bad for us, try and see them from another angle or perspective. We may just realise that not all is lost!
2: Will
The will is both the ability to focus or concentrate on something, whether it be a goal, a puzzle or a chess game, as well as the desire to do something.
The will allows you to hold a picture or concept in your mind without being distracted.
There are ways of training yourself to be focused. For instance, sitting down in a room with a lit candle and just focusing on nothing else but the candle flame.
Being focused is analogous to placing a magnifying glass in the sunlight and seeing it burn the surface below.
It has the effect of enhancing the effectiveness of your thinking processes by eliminating other distractions.
3: Imagination
The imagination is a wonderful tool that we can all use to improve the results in our lives.
Every part of the man-made world was once in someone’s head.
Everything in our lives is created twice. First in our imagination and second in reality.
The airplane started out as something in the Wright Brothers’ imagination before it ever took to the skies.
The Star Wars movies started out in George Lucas’s imagination well before they hit the big screen.
The faculty of imagination is one of the main differences between man and the animals.
"Imagination Governs The World"
- Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)
4: Memory
We all have the faculty known as memory. There are those who claim there’s no such thing as a bad memory - that, in fact, our memory is perfect.
We all have the ability to recall our experiences and what we absorb though our standard senses.
It’s how efficient we are at the process of recall that can be a problem.
However, it is possible to improve the recall process - for instance, the former basketball player Jerry Lucas helps people memorise the Bible and currently has a best seller called 'The Memory Book'.
5: Reason
The faculty of reason is what gives us all the ability to think, and is often called thinking logically.
However, we can also have flawed reasoning processes that we call illogical thinking.
Reason can be perceived as the highest faculty of them all. The skill of reason is the ability to take ideas and join them together in a logical manner.
This joint project is called an idea. An idea is thus a collection of thoughts that are directed towards a purpose.
6: Intuition
The last of these mental faculties is intuition. What is intuition? In my opinion, intuition is the faculty of knowing things that are not immediately obvious to our main senses.
Some say it is God talking to us. It could be a connection to the rest of the ‘universal mind’ or ‘God’, but no one knows for sure.
A more scientific explanation could be that it is a reasoning or thinking process going on in our minds that is somewhere between the conscious and unconscious minds.
However, evidence suggests that intuition is a real thing - people are able to ‘second guess’ what’s about to happen to them or others that may not be logical according to the evidence at hand.
In Summary
When we consider these 6 faculties, these powers are quite astonishing to us.
It goes without saying that these 6 things that truly separate us from the animal kingdom.
It follows therefore, that it is incumbent on all of us to use them and develop them to the best of our abilities.
