Child Intelligence and the Cakras - An Agamic Science Perspective

Child Intelligence and the Cakras I provide an English translation of the following posting from my TiruneRit TeLivu in Tamil because of the demand to have a look at the notion of intelligence and its growth  as perceived in Agamic Psychology so that we can evolve an pedagogy that is effective.    The views are quite similar to that of Piaget but goes well beyond him  in including also the adult development within the same theoria or metaphysical understanding that serves to ILLUMINATE the observable events.   The Mental Growth of Children 1. In addition to the Cakras or Inner Mental Ecologies (composed of mantra-complexes) in terms of which we understand the personality growth of the adults, we can also recognize developmental stages of young children along the same lines. These stages of development are actually bringing to the functional level the antakaraNas, i.e. the inner cognitive utensils, manam, buddhi, akankaaram and cittam in that order. 2.  When a child is just born, it functions immediately with the senses and hence with Manam, that antakaraNam that deals with information that become available through the senses. This is Manakaruma Patam (corresponding to the sensory-motor stage of Piaget) , but here  the stage of action through Manam, that module of mind that functions closely with the senses. The anma becomes one with manam and effects mental actions through that. The Buddhi emerges next and perhaps along with speech at about 9 months or so. This is simultaneous with the capacity for symbolic functioning where a certain sound  can be made to stand for an object. The free babbles  become reorganised into meaningful words initially that of the child’s own and later displaced with the language of social exposure.  3.  The Angkaraam is the inner cognitive utensil that emerges next and perhaps around 3 years of age  and allows the differentiation of self from others and the birth of sociality. There is the beginning of an understanding of self as the Ego and the competence of self-actions become functional here. Because of this there is also the learning about self that is facilitated by the third module of mind-- Akangkaaram.  We can equate this with the egocentrism of Piaget. This also along with the imaginative and fantasy functioning of the Buddhi where there is an absence of the discrimination of the real vs irreal    4.  Next emerges the fourth and final mind module - that of Cittam and now with all the four mental modules operational, the child becomes capable of rational or planned actions.  There is also a distinction between the real and the irreal.  However initially action fuse with thinking so that only through  the child's actions we can intuit his thinking.  This is Piaget's Concrete Operational Stage The child cannot hide his thoughts, they become transparent in his actions. This is the stage of Cintana Karuma Patam, a stage where thoughts are actions and actions are thoughts.     5.  After this begins a differentiated understanding of Time and Space and the capacity to separate thoughts from actions . The child can reason and hypothesize so that it can avoid prior to effecting  the actions that are nonproductive of what are wanted and so forth. A plan of action can be conceptualized and evaluated prior to executing by severing the psychic fusion of self with action made possible by the differentiation of Time and Space. The self is extricated and put OUTSIDE Space and Time and this allows Logical Thinking and the capacity to plan an action, weigh mentally its consequences prior to effecting it. This is the final stage of child development -- that of becoming a rational individual and which simultaneous with the onset of puberty.    6.   The different theories of child development in the West can be better understood in terms of emergence of the functioning of the mental modules of the antakaraNas - manam, buddhi, akangkaaram and cittam and in that order.    7.  When all these mental modules are fully functional, the child enters as  if spontaneously one of the Six Cakras but mainly as its Unconscious. This may be related to the Prapta Karma of the child.      8.  The motivational dynamics and hence the growth of Intelligence would depend which Cakra lies as its immediate unconscious and to which Cakra the child is DRAWN unknown to itself. For example a child who has within itself an inner pressure towards Svatistanam will be more interested in scholarship than a child who gets attracted to basic Mulatara Cakra and this because of the channeling of the psychic functions by Brahma and Saraswathy, the deities of Svatistanam. .   9.  Even among the children who move towards the Mulatara Cakra, there will be many differences constituted by the different intensities in which the other higher cakras are present and along with the deities.  Ultimately the motivational dynamics and growth of intelligence is determined by the archetypes that takes possession of the mind of the child.  ULLAGANAR ( 24-7-2010, AT )    ( editing and re-paragraphing by his student ) ( photo taken from  https://pixabay.com/ with thanks )