The Mind

The mind is an instrument of intelligence through which knowledge and understanding are acquired. It has no objective essence of its own; it is no more than a subjective flux of impressions, associations and thoughts. The mind is linked to the soul through the sense of me, the essential quality that distinguishes it from artificial intelligence. Around the axle of me, the mind creates the coherent structure of identity that we experience as the personal self.

Initially, the mind developed as a tool for survival. However, through the evolution of intelligence, the functions of the mind have gradually extended into other spheres of reality, such as conceptual thinking and scientific understanding. Psychological processing that transcends the survival instinct has opened the doors to our conscious evolution, allowing the mind to expand and gradually awaken our spiritual intelligence. The highest endeavor of the mind is enquiry into the dimension of spirituality, as it initiates the actualization of its ultimate destiny — its own surrender.

the world of the mind

The ability of the human mind to observe and analyze its own activ­ity is most extraordinary, and indicates a highly evolved conscious­ness. Also remarkable is that it does not rely solely on its individual capacity, but is capable of expanding through the conceptual knowl­edge that it gathers from the collective mind. The mind receives stim­uli from the external world, processes the data in its internal world, and arrives at its own personal interpretations and conclusions. It is a self-programming thinking system that enlarges its inherent capacity for learning through the process of its own education.

A complex, multi-dimensional organism, the mind is composed of three basic interpenetrating layers: unconscious, subconscious and conscious.

The unconscious mind: The ability to think consciously manifests only on the mind’s surface. It is similar to an ocean whose waves are visible on the surface while its depths lie hidden in the darkness beneath. The foundation of the mind is the unconscious, the store­house of all the memories and impressions we have gathered from our present and countless past lives. Our human intelligence actually could not function without the unconscious mind, for it is the inner ground of reality from which the conscious mind arises. Thus we can see that unconsciousness is not the polar opposite of consciousness; it is its ontological foundation.

The unconscious mind is individual, collective and universal. The individual unconscious relates to our personal history and past evolution. The sum total of the memories, knowledge and destiny of all humans and other species constitutes the collective unconscious. The universal unconscious is the existential root of the manifested universe — the original source of the phenomenal reality.

The subconscious mind: The subconscious mind is the link between the unconscious and the conscious mind, the subtle sphere of con­sciousness in which spontaneous thoughts, emotions and percep­tions manifest prior to the conscious mind becoming aware of them. ‘Subconscious’ signifies a low frequency of consciousness that oper­ates just above the unconscious level, and just below the conscious level. Unlike the unconscious, in the subconscious a degree of cogni­tion is active; semi-conscious experiencing and knowing are present.

There is a hierarchy of cognition that reflects the ladder of con­sciousness. The highest degree of cognition is the knowledge of I am, as it represents consciousness in its pure form. In the unconscious realm, cognition is zero. No one can actually experience the uncon­scious, because the knower is absent. The level of cognition inherent to the subconscious mind is sufficient to produce a subconscious experiencer, but too weak to crystallize a clear sense of ego. We can experience this clearly in the dream state, where the sense of me is present, but in too rudimentary a form to generate a lucid conscious­ness of its own. The lower the frequency and lucidity of me, the more subconscious its consciousness.

It is a common misperception that we experience the subcon­scious mind only while asleep or daydreaming. Most human beings actually live their whole lives in a subconscious state. Their sense of me is not truly conscious, for they are too busy frantically maintain­ing the insubstantial reality of personality to connect to their essence. In their ignorance, they mistake subconscious mental activity for conscious thinking, unaware that they are lost in a waking dream. Since the subconscious mind is the foundation of one’s perception of reality, it is essential to become more aware of its nature in order to evolve towards higher consciousness.

The conscious mind: The conscious mind represents the stage in the development of consciousness in which thinking becomes self-conscious. It can be seen as a solidified ego that is able to focus the thinking process in a clear and directed way. This ability to focus attention and hold onto particular streams of thought is the chief characteristic that distinguishes the conscious from the subconscious mind. From a spiritual perspective, it is the conscious mind that performs self-enquiry and supports our awakening by establishing a connection between our lower consciousness and the dimension of pure subjectivity.

the mind and the sense of me

The mind operates within the objective reality, but serves its subjec­tive host, for it cannot function without the presence of the one to whom it refers. Yet, the thinker is not the thought. The vital ques­tion then is: who is the thinker in separation from thinking? The thinker is the sense of me created by the mind that arises when the mind becomes self-conscious. In its essence, however, the thinker’s sense of me lies deeper than the mind’s self-consciousness; it points beyond thinking to the sense of I am. The thinker is not only a part of the mind, but also the bridge between the mind and I am. The thinker is in fact both this bridge and the one who crosses it. By first turning attention from thinking to the sense of me, and then from the sense of me to I am, the thinker discovers his true center.

How conscious we are directly reflects the strength of our sense of me. In the subconscious state, our sense of me is too feeble to become self-conscious. When we sleep or daydream, we cannot expe­rience ourselves as separate from our fantasies at all — our identifica­tion with the wandering mind is total. In contrast, in the conscious state, our sense of identity is crystallized to a significant degree. Our me can recognize itself clearly as a knower separate from the known.

Within the conscious mind, me can recognize itself as distinct in relation to thought, but not in relation to its own essence. It senses itself as separate from thinking, but depends on thought to reflect its existence back upon itself. An ignorant me is just a shadow of the mind — it feels that it exists because it thinks. No thought, no me. Conscious me, or ego, does not possess true subjectivity; it has no quality of being or existence of its own.

the mind: friend or foe?

Thinking does not necessarily stand in opposition to spiritual illu­mination — it can be a creative expression of our true nature. If we are unconscious, the mind is unconscious as well; as we awaken, the mind becomes conscious. If we don’t bring awareness into the mind, it is our worst enemy, a parasite that eats away at our spirit. But the moment we instill it with the qualities of presence, clarity and wis­dom, the same mind becomes our ally.

The notion that we need to transcend the mind is correct, but this transcendence cannot be actualized until the mind itself has become highly evolved. Until we are ready to surrender it, the mind remains a fundamental component of our identity and our quest. Our goal is not to negate, but to transcend the mind through its integration as an integral part of our existence.

the illusory nature of the mind

The mind has no substance. It arises, but has no being. It merely creates the illusion of solidity by enveloping us in a net of endless thoughts. Blinded by a dark cloud of mental reality, we do not see the real world; a veil of thought separates us from reality as it is. Instead of being, feeling and knowing, we constantly think, think about what we think about, and think about what to think about. We are locked in the never-ending interpreting, checking, comparing and labeling commotion of the mind. The mind cannot rest, for it would cease to exist. It must constantly move in order to be.

We are prey to two false assumptions about the nature of the mind: that it has its own being apart from arising thoughts, and that it can capture the truth of reality. The mind is not an entity, and therefore has no identity. It is a mental flow devoid of any solidified sense of self. For lack of a true center, the mind can only grasp at objectified existence through thinking. It has no power to reveal the truth of reality, for it is always external to it.

Ironically, one can be intellectually convinced of the illusory nature of the mind, but remain fully identified with thinking. The mind can believe various concepts about its own unreality, but cannot actually experience itself as unreal. One cannot think about reality. Only in the absence of thought is that which is real revealed.

the power of the mind

Each thought is a unit of mental energy that carries an emotional charge — it has a force that affects reality. We must take responsibil­ity for how and what we think, because that which the mind strongly believes and desires most often creates our future. Thinking is not a private affair limited to the headspace, but has karmic consequences that shape our lives and impact everyone around us.

Most humans think in circles, ruled by the mind’s obsessive tendencies. When the mind cannot find something to think about, it will think about anything just to escape boredom. In this vacuum of purposelessness, the mind generates dull and depressing thought-forms and energies, utterly powerless to create anything positive. Unconscious, mechanical thinking is a misuse of energy and serves nothing.

The positive power of the mind is rooted in silence and pres­ence. From a place of pure awareness and being, the mind is able to function with true creativity, intelligence and purpose. Abiding in mirror-like consciousness, an awakened mind reflects reality with clarity, and manifests the correct understanding and action.