As we deal with constant pressure from a constantly connected world, suffering through loneliness and searching for peace, happiness and love from those around us, these are troubled times. Similarly, the impact of COVID-19, concern for the health of our planet and widespread social injustice has left many feeling hopeless and lost. Exploring the idea of pain, the exhibition poses the question “ what is the medicine that can heal the mind?”, aiming to help people find solutions through ideas on how they can improve their own mental wellness. In this masterpiece of a book, Peter Brown takes us on a journey from his native Ireland to Oxford, Berkeley, and Princeton as well as the Sudan, Iran, Turkey, and the Mediterranean. Along the way, we learn of the books and people who inspired him and contributed to the steady development of his influential ideas. It is written with deep humanity and generosity; one comes away richer, wiser, immensely grateful, and still wanting more.”—Averil Cameron, author of Byzantine Matters

Resonance” is another key Grossberg theory. The idea is that the mind allows us to understand and react to our environment by taking outside stimuli, comparing them with internal concepts, and seeing how well they match up. Also important is the “complementary thinking principle,” the concept that different parts of complex brains like ours — called “modules,” each with different skills — cooperate to make sense of existence. A multi-disciplinary exhibit exploring a unique way of understanding, connecting and healing the ailing mind.Smell– to sense how God’s words can have fragrance like flowers, aroma like natural oils, the strength of a lion’s roar and the sweat of a hard day’s work.

What 'Journey of the Mind' does is give you a completely different way to imagine intelligence and consciousness. I wasn't always convinced (for example, I didn't see an explanation for the claim that chimpanzees only have a sense of self for as long as they have a mirror in front of them), but I felt intellectually exercised, and my mind feels satisfyingly broadened. The programme features guests David Barnett, digital scenographer, designer, and senior lecturer at Chelsea School of Arts, Deep Kailey, artistic director of Without Shape Without Form and includes works by graphic designer Rejane Dal Bello, motion designer Christian Wood and a collaboration with 4BYSIX.Call it junk science – e.g. “a mental representation… looks like scribbles of ink. Writing…” [p. 290] I find this view of the mind, consciousness, language, and the self to be infinitely more poetic, inspiring, useful, and scientific than the blasé statement you repeatedly hear from Buddhists of various stripes that “the self is an illusion” or that “the self doesn’t exist.” Of course there is a self, but the self is more dependent on and connected to others than is typically recognized. Journeys of the Mind is a rich and personal recounting of the birth of late antiquity, full of unexpected and fresh insights. It is also an engrossing tableau of now-vanished social worlds, from prewar Ireland to mid-twentieth-century Oxford to prerevolutionary Iran to 1970s Berkeley. Lyrical, profound, and deeply moving, the book puts Brown’s powers of empathy and imagination on full display and ranks as one of his finest accomplishments.”—Kyle Harper, author of Plagues upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History In today’s terms we would probably consider these three powers to be our understanding, knowledge and memory. Conceived by arts organisation Without Shape Without Form, and supported by Arts Council England, Journey of the Mind combines Sikh teachings with new forms of storytelling to encourage visitors to think about their own minds to help improve mental wellbeing.

I’m delighted that the Library of Birmingham will be the first venue for the Without Shape Without Form exhibition, ” says Councillor Jayne Francis, cabinet member for education, skills and cultureThe mission of the Gurus was supported by brave and inspiring warriors who, following the teaching of the Gurus, devoted their minds to Waheguru (the Creator) and found peace in the face of adversity. I also fault the book for trying to make such sharp distinctions between humans and other animals. Other animals do learn by imitation, even as to what foods to eat and to avoid, and of course how to use tools. Parrots can employ language in creative ways, albeit they first need to be taught by humans (see books, journal articles by Irene Pepperberg). Currently, “a number of disciplines are being used to determine if sperm whales do, in fact, utilize something humans can classify as language." (story in Jerusalem Post, link provided to Project CETI which has representatives from many universities and other institutions).

A mind-bending survey….an original take on the nature of consciousness that gives readers plenty to think about.

Days Three & Four : Moving Inwards to Ourself

No historian has evoked more vividly the strange waltz between a transcendent faith and earthly powers in the centuries from Constantine to Muhammad (a period the book’s author named ’late antiquity’) than Peter Brown. Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History is a gripping new memoir about how he came to do it. . . . A sustained and moving meditation on how historians of any faith cope with the strangeness of its past."—Michael Ledger-Lomas, Los Angeles Review of Books What Bonaventure is telling us is that our souls are immersed in sensory experiences and desires of the body and that these prevent us from seeing and knowing we are made in the image of God and that He dwells within us. Our senses [emotions and physical – internal and external] dent our ability to chose well and make good choices, when we allow these senses priority we become ego-centric and the tendency of sinful actions becomes stronger. It is our willingness to enter into God’s Grace that helps us to break through. His spirit helps us to see that our choices must be better. To avoid sin we must become “clothed in the three theological virtues” [faith, hope and love/charity], we can then be “purified and enlightened”. Through “devotion, admiration and exultation” our soul remembers its spiritual senses [rather than being overwhelmed by bodily senses] and we become better able to embrace goodness and truth. Mystic Night by Rassouli DAYS Five & Six : Moving Above ourself emergence of consciousness and the invention of Sapient culture –– peppered with insights into problems Journey of the Mind combines Sikh teachings with new forms of storytelling to encourage visitors to think about their own minds to help improve mental wellbeing. Featuring figurative drawings and digitally created paintings by world-renowned Sikh artist Kanwar Singh, and short films by British animator Christian Wood, the exhibition explores the stories of those who historically attained the highest spiritual levels.