Daily Theosophy

‘Is what we see and hear ‘normally’ around us really normal? Was it closer to ultimate divine reality than hallucinations? Or is the whole world just one grand hallucination? Or is the modern ‘hallucination’ of clean intellectualism just as unreal and dangerous, besides in a way helpful, as the hallucinations of the ancient shamans?’

(166)

(the subconscious mind)

13. The subconscious mind

Mustafa had always wanted to keep everything under control. He had always thought that his excellent mind would lead him to understanding of all that could be understood. He had also thought that consciousness was a part of the mind, and that there were no aspects of consciousness which the mind could not grasp. But from the wasps he had learned that, even if a living being has little or no reasoning power, it could still do a lot of things consciously. Wasps seemed to act almost automatically, still they made choices, could feel happy and unhappy within certain limits – so they were conscious even without an individual rational mind. Mustafa had soon realized that his own body worked like that: he didn’t have to think about his heart to make it beat. Also activities like walking went almost automatically. We don’t have to learn to beat our heart, and walking is merely a matter of readjusting and training the growing muscles and coordination of your new body according to pattern of old knowledge. Nature’s mind knows these things from even before our birth, and does it perfectly. For a human heart as well as a wasp’s heart. But walking had to be learned – at least in the case of humans – and once it was learned it became almost automatic. The same applies to swimming, riding a bicycle or a car. After some training this mental achievement moved from conscious to subconscious, but just as with the wasp’s automatisms, a car driver constantly has to be alert (unless he had a fully self-steering automatic car as practically everyone had in the days when this story place). The mind that is needed for the natural functions of the body such as beating one’s heart or breathing or flying for a wasp were more subconscious. He realized that he had learned in the first few years of his life many things without even remembering them now. This included physical actions – like walking, but also mental and psychological habits he now took for granted – like saying ‘hi’ or ‘thank you’ or the feeling of liking or disliking something. With some people very strong subconscious habits had been acquired in a period of which they had no more memory. A toddler bitten by a dog may completely forget that, but still always remain afraid of dogs. A strong disappointment, like not being accepted by one’s mother as a baby or even as a fetus, may cause unexplained depression for the rest of one’s life, always feeling rejected. So a tip for parents: “Never ever reject your child, even if at first you may not have wanted it!” Even certain harsh events at the end of the last former life – such as being shot to death or being tortured – can carry over as unconscious memories in the next subsequent life if incarnation takes place quick. That is why some people have phobia’s for which they can find no explanation. So far about the subconscious mind. Dying calmly in a friendly environment is as important as being born at good parents. Memories can apparently be stored below the level of personal consciousness. All educators should always be attentive to that.

Mustafa concluded that on a level which does not belong to the conscious brain-mind memory, such storage is possible and can give conscious results on the conscious level. This memory might belong to another type or frequency of matter than that of the normal physical molecules of the mind. Mustafa clearly realized that this was dangerous knowledge: outsiders would be able, by means of psychological tricks, to insert ideas into the subconsciousness that could pop-up in later life and than be taken as ‘original’ thoughts or ideas sprouting from the mind of the victim. Such a person could possibly perform actions which were pre-programmed by others without being checked by his or her own free will and ethical intelligence. That is one reason why one should never act from unknown impulses from within without reflecting it in the mirror of sane mind and ethical intuition.

14. The superconscious and the subtle mind

More important than subconscious processes, Mustafa thought, was the possibility of superconscious processes: processes that were too subtle or to high for a brain-mind to be aware of – let alone to work with by one’s mental control or command. It was an intriguing idea for Mustafa that a human being might be learning and growing intellectually and spirituality beyond his or her own daily awareness. ‘For such a process it would be necessary that a mind can work beyond the brain mind – perhaps making use of a more subtle type of matter than brain molecules. Such learning processes would then not be dependent on the conscious intellectual mind, but take place in dreams, even after death perhaps, because coarse physical molecules would not be involved in the process.’ Mustafa had noticed that there were problems that first he had not been able to solve, but which he could later solve without difficulty. Had his mind been pondering about the subtle ideas while he was asleep, or perhaps awake but thinking of something else? ‘Could there be processes of a more subtle mind which would follow their own paths while at the same time normal, worldly mind was doing its work on its own plane? Was that subtle mind more divine and more perfect than daily mind? Was it closer to God’s mind – or was it Gods mind?’ The last option he rejected, because God’s mind was by nature all-penetrating and clear on all levels of being – it would not need a process of reasoning to come to conclusions. Still it seemed to Mustafa that the subtler mind was of a higher nature than daily mind. ‘Could that subtle mind receive information and be taught by beings who were functioning on that same level of subtlety? Could information be given to the subtle mind by other means than words and intellectual processes? Could the “absolute, infallible, non-dualistic mind of God” leave impressions on the subtle mind of a devoted student, which would then become part of his or her individual consciousness? This would then be recognized as intuition (i.e. ‘tuition from within,’) and show a clear light on a mass of thoughts which at that very moment became connected into a coherent wholeness? Is this what some great scientist who concentrated for considerable time on a complex problem call “intuition” – a sudden insight? In this way new scientific and philosophical insights would be born, and many other scientists could then deduce conclusions and check the results in the light of perceived fact.’

But still, even then, the new insight could later be proved false! We know that from scientific history. ‘So even this ‘intuition’ was no gate to ultimate knowledge – it was just a subtle aspect of the human mind,’ Mustafa concluded.

‘A God-given insight can never be false,’ thought Mustafa, ‘but our daily mind is so coarse, so unstable, so vulnerable for impulses and desires, and is so addicted to dualistic reasoning, that a genuine divine insight would immediately be poisoned by our own mind-habits. Only a pure, 100% unbiased human mind would be strong enough to receive an intuition in the right way. To understand God, one would have to leave the daily discursive human mind behind, abandon it entirely as a tool for the purpose of reaching universal, divine understanding. The human mind is only fit for daily, mundane affairs,’ Mustafa concluded. He had to transcend his mind. But how?

15. The non-thinking mind

After many years of intellectual thinking without break – during every second that he was awake – during his child years, his secondary education years and his university years – he had more and more become a super-intellectual. He had gone to the desert to intellectualize even more. Ultimately the result was the opposite. There came moments that he did not think at all. These periods became longer and longer. Then he became completely silent. He reached a state beyond excitement and boredom, beyond joy and sorrow. He had no more questions of whether he was or was not, whether he or all other beings and things existed or not. It was what can be called ‘bliss.’ In fact, he had no more wishes, no more needs for himself – there were only the necessities to maintain his body.

He was still thinking a lot. His first lesson had been given by the wasp. For a few seconds he had been the wasp – not completely, but he had crossed over the limits of his old logic for the first time and be at one with her consciousness. Immediately after the experience he had begun to rationalize, put everything in order, almost overpowering the actual experience and in that stage it had been most useful for him.

Especially about his experience with what he afterwards called ‘the lower mind.’ He had a lot to think over and interpret. It had brought him a step in the direction of a loftier reality. The lower mind, he saw, was a mind connected with desire and habit, prominently the habits of desire – of immediate satisfaction, of impatience – of forgetfulness about the Reality behind all activities and thoughts. Nevertheless is had its use. The ‘lower mind’ was only lower because it connected itself with temporary things, like a short satisfaction, or a useless fantasy that was cherished for a while and then destroyed; but this included all the things we have to do in daily life: taking care of ourselves, living in the society, etc. His own ‘higher’ mind though, was also directed towards a desire: a desire to understand, and perhaps tinged by a little bit of mixing in of the low desire or pride which belong to the worldly mind, of being praised and recognized, and looking down on people who didn’t have what he had – it was difficult to entirely separate the lower from the higher mind. But he was aware of it, and fought against such weaknesses. His motivation had been to have clear vision of the universe, of the mind itself, of having control over everything, ultimately of understanding God – perhaps subjecting God to his mind. He realized that by doing that he had abandoned or overlooked some things. He had never cared very much about other people. He had sometimes trodden on their feelings without even noticing it. He had despised sentimentality and emotions. He himself didn’t have such feelings as sentimentality, and certainly did not give in to low, personal emotions. He analyzed everything and then accepted the results as truths with could not be disputed. They had to be accepted, and he was courageous in accepting the things as they presented themselves before him. He did not flee, he did not cry. This gave him a strong character, and saved him much of the emotional misery under which most people suffer. He was polite and kind, even helpful, but not compassionate. He had understood feelings and problems of others rather than that he felt them. For most problems he had an intelligent solution, and was greatly respected for that.

Now he understood that the mind can strongly bind itself to emotions, unsolved problems, selfish attitudes, theatrical behavior etc. Realizing these feelings – imperfections from his point of view – as very common parts of the human awareness, he started to feel compassion. He could now recognize feelings within himself without being chained and dragged away by them, and without ignoring them or pushing them aside. By this realization his character became softer and he felt and showed more understanding for people’s emotional problems and insecurities. He lost his intolerance for emotional and sentimental people, for people who created an emotional elephant out of a mosquito. He himself could have been that other person who he had despised earlier.

Then it happened – when he was riding through the desert with his camel friend who was now strong enough to carry Mustafa.