Category: Merging With Siva

The Mind’s Potent Alchemy

It is only when the emotionally charged experiences that go into the subconscious are of a strictly instinctive nature that the subsubconscious is uncomely or not beneficial and becomes a strong hindrance to well-being. On the other hand, experiences of a positive, intellectual or spiritual nature merging in the subconscious can create a subsubconscious that is quite dynamic and helpful, giving courage and competence in worldly affairs. Feelings of security, love and compassion can come up from the subsubconscious during psychological moments in one’s life to counteract and eliminate or subdue feelings of jealousy, hatred and anger, which are natural to the instinctive mind.

For example, a man’s business flourishes during the summer. The next winter he experiences great exhilaration and satisfaction at winning a skiing competition. The summer success and the winter accomplishment merging in the subconscious create a third, different impression which builds an abiding confidence and impulsion toward future victory. The next year, he goes into a second business and again prospers. His competitors wonder how he has avoided the seasonal ebbs and flows of this particular business. “How has he been so lucky?” they wonder. The strong impression of being successful planted in the subsubconscious has created a positive habit pattern for the forces of the subsuperconscious to flow through.

The subsubconscious can also be formed by the blending of strong, intuitive, religious or mystical impressions. For instance, a devotee has an elevating vision of a Deity in an early morning dream or a conscious vision during meditation. A year later, while meditating, he has the experience of flying through the ākāśa in his astral body. These two impressions merge in the subconscious and create a deep-seated faith and unwavering certainty in the inner realities. Such vāsanās bring up courage and eliminate the fear of death, replacing it with the assurance that life is eternal, the soul is real and the physical body is but a shell in which we live. Now we have seen that the subsubconscious state of mind can be beneficial, or it can hold impressions that are actual obstacles in our path that must eventually be dealt with and overcome. Both positive and negative impressions can lie vibrating within it at the same time without interfering one with another.

Fathoming the Unfathomable

Yes, two different reactionary thoughts of a similar vibration sent into the subconscious at different times under similar psychological conditions create a third, different subconscious happening. This happening registers in the subsubconscious and continues to vibrate there until it is dissolved and reabsorbed within the subconscious itself. If psychological structures build up as problems in the subsubconscious and are not resolved, they can inhibit or hold back the superconscious. One then easily feels depressed and subject to many lower emotions. Then the concept that one is a self-effulgent being seems quite distant, indeed. When the subsubconscious build-up is problem free, superconsciousness is there, bringing success and well-being.

The subsubconscious concerns us primarily as the state of mind which relates to congested subconscious force fields, or vāsanās, caused by two similar intense emotional reactions at psychological moments. The resultant deeply suppressed emotions are puzzling to the seeker because, unless he is able to resolve through periodic review his subsubconscious, he may find them welling up from within him unbidden, and he knows not why. The subsubconscious influences us when we are encountering an experience similar to one that caused one of the two component reactions. This releases highly unexpected emotional responses, inobvious reactions and new behavioral patterns, some positive, some negative. The hybrid formation continues to react within the subsubconscious mind until resolved. Once understood, the mystery is gone. The vāsanā loses its emotional power. To a very great extent, it is the subsubconscious that harbors our subliminal aspirations, self-esteem, impulses toward success, neuroses and overall psychological behavior.

An example of this state of mind is as follows. A young man goes to an office party and accidentally spills coffee on his suit. Being a gentle, shy man, he becomes embarrassed and emotionally upset when everyone turns to look at him. Many months later, he attends his sister’s wedding. In her excitement at the reception, she accidentally spills tea on her beautiful new sārī. She is naturally embarrassed. But it is a psychological moment for him, intensified by his attachment to his sister, and he becomes more embarrassed for her than she is for herself.

A year later he discovers that each time he attends a social gathering, his solar plexus becomes upset, his digestion is affected, he gets a headache and has to leave. The fear mechanism, stimulated by the subsubconscious mind, is protecting him from another upsetting condition among a group of people. This continues for a number of years until the subsubconscious, in a semi-dream state, reveals itself to him and he sees clearly how the two reactionary thought patterns, caused by the dual experiences, met and merged and gave rise to a different conscious experience—the indigestion, the headaches and the dread of being among people. Once the obstacle was resolved in the light of understanding, he would be able to be among people in gatherings without these ill effects.

Where One Plus One Equals Three

There is one area of the subconscious mind that seems rather devious and extremely hard to program. It is called the sub of the subconscious mind. It often could seem like faulty software in the computer. But when finally programmed correctly, it can become the greatest asset. It brings us good luck and assists with perfect timing through life. At times we feel as if nothing is happening to us anymore. Everything is going along smoothly. We walk up to a closed door and the door opens for us. We walk up to a telephone and it begins to ring. These signs show us that the subsubconscious is going along very nicely. As soon as we do not enjoy this fine timing, it is generally because of the sub of the subconscious area. For when two programs of a similar nature go into the subconscious computer at different times, they mix and mingle and form a third program within the subconscious that is difficult to fathom intellectually. This is recorded in the sub of the subconscious. For this reason, the sub of the subconscious mind seems awesome and foreboding. If both of the programs are good, beneficial, positive and spiritually vibrant, things go smoothly for us. But if they are not, this area of the subconscious can be very disturbing. Remedies are deep introspection and emotional-intellectual honesty. The subsubconscious can become very powerful, creating healthy new tendencies in this life and molding a dynamic personality.

Two thoughts, at different times, sent into the subconscious mind, form in what is called the sub of the subconscious a totally different rate of vibration when intermingled—that is, if the psychological arrangement of the mind was the same at the time each thought entered it. This subconscious formation of thought often turns into feelings of the lower, instinctive nature and causes the external mind to react to situations in a way that it normally would not have done.

The subsubconscious mind not only attracts situations that express its contents, but creates situations by playing upon the subconscious itself. The sub of the subconscious mind, therefore, is the part of the subconscious that stores and manages the unfathomable result of the combinations of intense, emotionally-charged experiences, either positive or negative. These combinations create a third, hybrid reactionary condition quite unlike what either experience alone could have caused.

Color shall be our example. Blue stands alone as a color, and so does yellow. When they merge, they make a third color, green, which creates a mood when you look upon it, different than the mood that arises from looking upon blue or yellow alone. Only in understanding that green is a composite of yellow and blue is the mystery dispelled. Add white to red and you get pink. Add water to soil and you get mud. This is easy to understand and shows the nature of impressions coming together in the subconscious. Add oxygen to hydrogen and you get water. That is a mystery which parallels the nature of the subsubconscious mind, a realm where one plus one equals three, while in the subconscious the sum is two.

Seeing Oneself In Others

It is a principle on the path that until we are rather advanced we do not really know whether we have reprogrammed the subconscious mind or not, or if the reprogramming has been done correctly. However, we do know when we create something with our hands whether it is done correctly and carefully. We also know when it is finished, for we can see it on the physical plane. Taking a physical substance into our hands, using it carefully and systematically, and disciplining ourselves to finish that which we have begun is a powerful process. By doing this, we overcome habit patterns of carelessness and of not being able to pay attention to details. We also overcome the habit of becoming distracted. So, choose a hobby or a craft. It should be something that you do with your hands that changes the form of physical objects, such as taking clay and out of it making a beautiful vase or using yarn to weave a lovely tapestry.

As soon as the subconscious mind has been positively reprogrammed, even just a little, the channels of intuition begin to open, and you feel peaceful. Disturbances within your mind subside. At this stage on the path you often wonder if you are making progress anymore. You hold a consciousness like being in an airplane going a thousand miles an hour while holding the feeling of not moving. When you feel as if nothing is happening to you inside anymore, you are living in an intuitive state, the eternity of the moment. Your intuition is now penetrating your external mind all of the time.

When your subconscious has been cleared of past reactionary patterns and reprogrammed thoroughly, you do not take exception to things that happen in the world. In understanding, you love everyone and embrace every event. You intuitively sense just what they are all going through, because you have in your memory banks knowledge of each happening acquired during all the lives you have ever lived. This becomes available to you subsuperconsciously. You begin remembering when you went through the very same thing your friend is going through. It may have been a life or two ago, but you went through it all the same. Therefore you know his next step, because you know how you got out of the same experiential pattern yourself. Then you begin to know that your soul body and your physical body are becoming one. You are slowly beginning to realize that you truly are an effulgent, spiritual being living on the Earth.

The only thing that is not spiritual, seemingly, is the subconscious mind, but that is an illusion because it has been programmed in a haphazard way. You have gone along through your many, many lives, having many, many, many experiences. It has collected up diverse habit patterns and erratic programming. When you attack this programming positively and work with it, the subconscious becomes a tremendous tool and is no longer the unfriendly obstacle that it was. It becomes subsuperconscious and new energies start flowing into the physical body. New understanding begins to come from within. Your perspective in looking at life is steady now.

Man has not always realized that a subconscious area of mind exists. For hundreds of years, humanity in the West believed that the conscious state was the only reality. Humanity has had religious inclinations also, and believed in superconsciousness, but felt that superconsciousness was totally outside and away from the individual self. That is why God is talked of as being way up in the heaven, and the angels high in the sky. These beliefs caused the superstition, religious misunderstandings and contradictions that have come down to us through the ages.

Why was God supposed to be outside the being of man, way up in the sky? It was because the subconscious area of mind was in-between. From this limited perspective, man saw himself as a little, insignificant nothing that has come from someplace, not knowing for sure when or how he got here in this conscious state. He knew he was a kind and hateful, generous and greedy, jealous, intellectual, instinctive being. He knew that. He knows it today. That is how one gets along through life. You have to fight for what you want. You have to argue. You have to be jealous, or else how are you going to get anyplace? You have to be quick-tempered to dominate others. You have to scare people, get your own way and elbow your way through life. That is the way to live when totally in the conscious mind.

Meditation’s Great Obstacle

Things that you cannot face in yourself you will hate when you see them in someone else. To counteract this, your universal love, the platform for Self Realization, must be awakened into the emotions of the instinctive mind and filter out into the conscious mind. So, as you are meditating and the various aspects of your subconscious come up, face them positively, reprogram them beautifully, and they will settle back into simply a memory pattern, resolved and incapable of disturbing you again.

If you see something in someone else you do not like and it is affecting you emotionally, sit down and face it within your own subconscious mind. The sore spot is located there. If you feel someone is doing something that you do not think he should be doing, and this really gets on your nerves, just know that under the right circumstances you may do the same thing, because the tendency to react to it is there in your subconscious. Get into yourself and reprogram that area of your subconscious with good, positive affirmations. Firm up your lifestyle, be more strict with yourself, use your willpower and think positively. Do not allow a weak link in a chain of habit patterns to bar your spiritual unfoldment even for a moment. Sometimes we detect the weak link in our own chain by looking into the lives of other people.

If your parents are living the type of life that grates on your nerves, begin to realize now that perhaps when you become their age you may live a similar life. The grating effect that you feel indicates that the seeds of that kind of life are just coming up, and you are trying to suppress them by criticizing your parents; whereas what you should be doing is strengthening yourself through having compassion toward them.

One of the biggest barriers on the spiritual path is to dislike our own subconscious as we become familiar with it. We must watch this pitfall very closely. The subconscious mind is not an enemy. It is just a well-used piece of equipment that we are renewing. If we make an enemy out of the subconscious mind and walk around hanging our head wondering why this happened and why that happened, and “If it were not for the subconscious I would be farther along the path,” we are simply programming the subconscious to become an even more formidable barrier. Instead, we have to bless the subconscious mind and look at it as a vital tool to help us in our spiritual evolution.

Take a mountaintop attitude. If you are having a difficult day, tell yourself, “I’m working with my subconscious mind. Admittedly, things are not working out very well for me today, but I think I will have it all adjusted by evening.” Run to the store, buy a lot of paper, do a lot of writing and burning and clear up various subconscious areas and release awareness to soar within again. This is called the vāsanā daha tantra.

The point I want to make is: do not fear the subconscious mind. Realize that it has not been programmed as it should be. Therefore, the program has to be changed. Realize that your superconsciousness is the master programmer. Get busy and reprogram your subconscious through the power of affirmation. You can do it through the powers of meditation.

Of course, there is a portion of the subconscious mind that remains more or less the same, handling the instinctive, involuntary processes of the physical body. But by following a sattvic diet, which is conducive to meditation, this area of the subconscious also begins to improve. As we improve food intake and elimination processes, we stop storing up poisons in our cells. As stored poisons are released within the body, they are eliminated regularly. This more physical area of the subconscious mind is also improved through proper breathing, proper posture, haṭha yoga, getting plenty of sun, exercise, walking and all of the many wonderful things that benefit the physical body.

Add to your contemplative lifestyle a craft. Working with your hands in doing a craft as a hobby, taking physical substance and turning it into something different, new and beautiful—this kind of creativity is important in remolding the subconscious mind. It is also symbolic. You are actually remolding something on the physical plane and, by doing so, educating yourself in the process of changing the appearance of a physical structure, thus making it easier to change the more subtle mental and emotional structures within your own subconscious mind.

Never Fear The Past

Generally, people start meditating and do fairly well in the beginning, for their great desire to unfold spiritually propels them within themselves. But when the subconscious mind begins to upheave its layers—as it naturally must for the unfoldment process to continue beyond an elementary stage—meditators become afraid to look at the subconscious patterns of their seemingly not-so-perfect past. To avoid facing themselves, they stop meditating, and the subconscious subsides. The once-meditating seeker returns more fully to the conscious mind and becomes distracted again in order to forget “all those terrible things.” At the time, the remembered past seemed to be terrible because the impressions were strong, magnified by sensitivities awakened through meditation.

For many years thereafter the one-time meditator can be heard to say, “I’d like to meditate, and I do sometimes, but I don’t have time, really, to meditate.” What he is actually saying is, “Most of my time is used up distracting myself so that I won’t have to meditate anymore and won’t have to face my bothersome subconscious.” On the path to enlightenment, you have to face everything that has gone into the subconscious, not only in this life, but what has been registered in past lives. Until you do, you will never attain Self Realization. Your final obstacle will be that last subconscious area that you were afraid to face, looming up before you in the form of worries, fears and repressions that you will wish to push away, hide from, so that neither you nor anyone else can see them.

To hear of the Self is a great blessing, indeed, but to desire to realize the Self means that in this and your past lives you have gone through all of the experiences that this Earth consciousness has to offer. You have died all of the deaths and had all of the emotional experiences. You have had the good of the world and the bad of the world, and the mixed good and bad of the world through all of your many lives before you come to the life where you say, “I want to realize the Self in this life.” Now you begin to tie up all the loose ends of past experiences that have not been fulfilled or resolved, because those loose ends are what bring you back to birth.