Category: Merging With Siva

The Donkey And the Carrot

When we are in the conscious mind, we are like a donkey with a carrot in front of our nose. We are always walking to try to get that carrot. We are never satisfied, and we are never happy. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. No matter how much money we have, we want more. No matter how many clothes we have, we need more. No matter how many television programs we watch, there is always a better one coming up. No matter how many sights we have seen, the next one may surpass them all. No matter how much food we eat, there is always the next big wonderful meal to enjoy. No matter how many emotions we experience, the next set of those emotional experiences will be the high point of our entire life, and we are sure of it. That is the conscious mind.

When we live in the conscious mind, we only surmise. We make guesses. We are never quite sure if we are right. Therefore, we are insecure, because the conscious mind only knows what has gone before it. It is certain only about the past. If it has been provided with a good memory, then it knows the past very well. But without a good memory, the conscious mind doesn’t know the past well at all. So, when we are in the conscious mind, we have one predominant and solid quality that we really can be sure of, and that is fear. We are afraid! We’re afraid of the future. And many of the things in the past petrify us, for we don’t want them to happen to us again. We don’t know quite how to avoid them, because with awareness caught in conscious-mind concerns, our superconscious faculties are temporarily cut off. The superconscious mind is seen as a figment of imagination, a product of superstition.

The conscious mind is the real enemy, the real barrier, the real distractor to someone on the path of enlightenment. It is intriguing. It is the temptress. It leads us on and on and on, life after life after life after life after life after life after life. It is a wonderful state of mind, however, as long as our superconscious faculties are also available for awareness to flow into once in a while to become refreshed and renewed by a change of perspective and influx of energy. Otherwise, the conscious mind is a difficult and onerous state of mind in which to live, day after day after day. The spiritual path leads us out of the morass of the darkness of the conscious mind into the mind of light, which we call superconsciousness.

Not Getting Bogged Down

Concentrate on the following aphorism and try to ferret out its deepest meaning. Begin by breathing diaphragmatically for a few minutes until you feel relaxed and at ease. “There is but one mind. The consciousness, or ego, functions within the mind’s various phases. The one-tenth of the mind of the conscious plane, in ramification, is carried on by its own novelty. The object is to control the conscious mind and become consciously conscious.” After looking deeply into this aphorism from within yourself, write out your own explanation of it on a piece of paper and keep it for future reference. When we are functioning in the conscious mind, we must not totally identify with it, but hold on to our individual awareness as the watcher and controller. Think deeply on this as you concentrate on the aphorism and realize that in our study of the one mind we are moving along an ancient path to enlightenment which has five sequential steps: attention, concentration, meditation, contemplation and God Realization.

Mind is vast, and from a mystical point of view it includes everything, even encompassing the elements of the physical plane. Mind and matter are not two different things. Matter is simply one phase of the mind, and it is in the conscious mind that material existence has its existence. Expand your concept of the mind to include the entire universe, from atom to galaxy. Then realize you are that mind, and that its outer manifestation is but one-tenth of the totality of the mind.

When we live in the conscious mind, we are aware of other people’s ideas. We listen with our ears, we see with our eyes, we feel with our fingers. We are involved in our physical senses, functioning instinctively as far as the physical body goes. We are functioning intellectually as far as our education goes, and we are dealing and working vibrantly and vitally in the world of external form. We can live in the conscious mind and be aware of that area of consciousness life after life after life after life, because the conscious mind is ever changing, perpetuated by its own novelty. One thing or idea leads us to another, and then on to another and another and another. We listen to people talk, and we want to know what they will say next.

The conscious mind is very curious. We taste something and we want to taste something else. We see something and we want to see something else. We feel something and we want to feel something else, and we go on and on, completely dominated by our five senses. This domination by the senses makes up the totality of the conscious mind. These five senses are constantly active, as energy continually flows out into the external world through them. The conscious mind makes up what is called the external world, and the external world is the conscious mind. We are all participating in making our own conscious mind as we go along through life.

Though the conscious mind is only seeming, it is very real while we are in it, as it glorifies in adding to itself. This process is called the intellect. As concepts and partial concepts are added one after another, the average person develops his or her intellect, and if it is not balanced by inner knowing, it holds the person firmly in the external realms of consciousness. Many people are trained to think, having had their conscious mind programmed in such a way, that the superconscious mind is nothing but a farce, that it doesn’t exist at all, that the only reality is the external world, and pleasing the external senses is what life is all about. They are coached to believe that anything of an inner life or an inner nature is just pure fantasy, imagination, which only weak-minded people believe in. Many people live this way, with their awareness bogged down in the conscious mind—believing reality to be outside their physical body. The object of spiritual unfoldment is to transcend the conscious mind into superconsciousness and beyond.

Understanding Is Control

When a situation comes up, I observe how the conscious mind looks at it. Then I ask how my subconscious would see it. Pondering further, I inquire how my subsuperconscious relates to it; then, how my superconscious views it. Through this process I get a clear picture of what happened, how it happened and if I should take it seriously. You might react strongly to a happening, but when you look closely you see it wasn’t much to be concerned about. It was just the subconscious reacting, so you forget it. The subconscious was the problem. It is your subsuperconscious, intuitive understanding that makes such judgments.

Remember, these are not five separate departments. They all interrelate. The conscious and subconscious work together. The subsubconscious seems to work independently of both the conscious and the subconscious, but it is not really independent. It is just another aspect of the subconscious. The superconscious is our vast, pure intelligence. The subsuperconscious is one aspect of the superconscious, functioning through subconscious patterns.

As we begin working with ourselves, we remold the patterns that set the course of our life. We remold our subconscious mind. We begin to identify with infinite intelligence, not with the body or the emotions or the intellect. As we prepare for the realization of the Self in this life, we set new energies into action within our body. We begin to flow our awareness out of the past and into the present, right into the now. This steadies emotion. Then we cease to have concepts that the physical body or the emotional body is “I.” We begin to claim spiritual independence and are able to watch the mind think. By remolding old habit patterns in the subconscious mind, we cultivate a contemplative nature and become nonviolent in thought and action, having that innate understanding of the karmic cycles of the working of the various states of mind. We are able to love our fellow man. It is easy to keep promises and confidences, for we have a certain restraint. We can begin to direct desires and acquire a certain inner poise which we did not have before, and we continually find new understanding through meditation.

In order to meditate, it is not enough to memorize the five states of mind—conscious mind, subconscious mind, sub of the subconscious mind, subsuperconscious mind and superconscious mind. It is not enough to memorize the processes of unwinding awareness and reprogramming the subconscious through affirmation, attention, concentration and observation. We must study out and apply these teachings to ourself. We must master them. This is the way we become a different person than we are today. When we simply memorize, we are only putting another intellectual covering over the beauty of our soul.

Surround yourself with superconscious people, people who are on the path. Being in their presence will help you, and their being in your presence will help them. The group helps the individual as the individual helps the group. This is provided the group is of one mind, both inner and outer. Place yourself in a good environment, a physically clean house, clean clothing, clean body, and among people who are shining forth from within. Do not surround yourself with people who are bound in the conscious mind, engrossed in jealousy, hate, fear and the other instinctive-intellectual qualities that cause contention in and among them. This will disturb you and hinder your progress on the spiritual path. If you are going to sit for meditation, you must follow these inner laws.

Do not argue with anyone anymore. A mystic never argues. Argument pulls awareness into the conscious mind and programs the subconscious in a strange way. It becomes mixed up. Then it has to be unscrambled. Also, never try to convince anyone of anything. If you are talking to a mystic, he will understand what you are going to say as you speak it. Usually before you have spoken he will have grasped the point of it. He is that sharp. He is that keen. If you are talking to someone who lives deep in the intellect of the conscious mind, he will want to discuss endlessly. He will want to argue subtle points, and the issue will never be fully settled, especially if you disagree with him.

The mystic sits in meditation and asks himself, “Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?” He has the sensitivity to take a little flower and study it and conquer the functions of distraction as he works to hold his awareness at attention, like a well-disciplined soldier of the within, with a will supreme in governing that attention. This caliber of mystic will in this way learn to concentrate inwardly, as his supreme will dominates his powers of awareness, bringing forth the body of the soul into the physical elements so its keen inner observation is unfolded.

Unfolding the Superconscious

The average man may have occasional subsuperconscious experiences and rare superconscious intuitive flashes. His awareness, however, is not attuned to know the intricacies of the working of his own mind. Therefore, he is not able to identify one from the other, making his sense of enjoyment less than that of the mature mystic. Because he is unaware of the higher states of mind, the average man may harbor his awareness deep in a subconscious state of suffering over the past for long periods of time, thereby completely ignoring his superconscious intuitive flashes when they come. As a result, his ability to bring awareness inward, out of the external, conscious and subconscious states of mind and into more blissful and refined areas, is lessened. Now sādhana is necessary for him to unfold his inner depth. Although he is unaware of these superconscious happenings within himself and unable to astutely pinpoint and dramatically distinguish them from his turbulent subconscious, his superconscious breakthroughs do have an effect upon the totality of his being. But when man lives externalized in the conscious and subconscious states, all the inner enjoyment and conscious abilities of exercising perceptive faculties are completely lost. The ritual of daily sādhana must be performed to quell the ordinary mind’s tumultuous turbulence.

There are many mystics in the world today who have had no formal training and seem to unfold inwardly very rapidly simply by learning about the five states of mind, how to distinguish one from another, and how to move awareness within them consciously and systematically. They are participating in and enjoying some of the benefits of being able to experience step-by-step direct cognition of the five states of mind—conscious mind, subconscious mind, sub of the subconscious mind, subsuperconscious mind and superconscious mind. There is but one mind and, in its functioning, it works the same in everyone, as an autonomous, interrelated, self-perpetuating mechanism. Concentrate upon that mind. Find out what the mind is. Observe your thoughts, feelings and actions from within, and know that your mind is yours to use to the extent that you control the mind with the will.

Why must you study the mind? Because understanding alone is fifty percent of the control of the mind. This understanding is necessary to impress the subconscious deeply enough to secure awareness so that spiritual strength continues to come from within, from the superconscious through the subconscious. Before we can meditate, we have to know our way around within the mind. What part of you understands how the mind works? It is your superconscious. The subconscious can’t understand how the mind works, because it’s the repository. The subsubconscious can’t understand. It’s a collective repository. Your conscious mind can’t understand either, for it is opinionated knowledge—looking at the world through the eyes of others. Only the superconscious and subsuperconscious can conceive how the mind works.

The Five States of Mind

Observing the great vastness of the mind, we can draw another conclusion and say that there are five states of mind: conscious, subconscious, subsubconscious, subsuperconscious and superconscious. The first state is the conscious mind, in which we perform our daily routines. When awareness is in the conscious mind, we are externalized. This means we take our direction mainly from memory of past experiences, from other people, from newspapers, magazines, radio, television or our emotions. The average man is aware in the conscious mind from the time he awakens in the morning until he falls asleep at night. That’s what makes him average. Only when he becomes mystically inclined does he become consciously aware of some of the other four states.

The second state is the subconscious mind, the grand storehouse and computer of man. It faithfully registers all thoughts and feelings that pass through the conscious state, whether correct or incorrect, whether positive or negative. It registers them and acts or reacts accordingly.

The subsubconscious, the third state of mind, is a conglomeration of various actions and reactions that we have experienced in daily life. It is a subtle state composed of two or more vibrations of experience which mingle and form a third vibration. We have an experience. We react to it. Later we have a similar experience. We react to that. These two reactions merge in the subsubconscious, causing a hybrid reaction that lives with us many, many years.

The fourth state is the subsuperconscious mind. Deep, refined and powerful, it filters intuitive flashes from the superconscious mind through the subconscious gridwork. There are times when you want very much to find a clear answer from within yourself. However, being aware in the conscious mind predominantly, awareness is cut off from direct contact with the superconscious. So, you begin to ask questions of yourself. These questions are registered in the subconscious. The subconscious, like a well-programmed computer, begins to search for the right answer from the superconscious mind. Then, all of a sudden, you know the answer from the inside out. Finding solutions through insight or intuition is one of the functions of the subsuperconscious. It also is the source of all true creativity, inspiration, understanding and perfect timing in daily events.

The superconscious is the fifth state of the mind. Within it is one world within another world and yet another. All mystical phenomena and deep religious experiences come from the superconscious. It is the mind of light, beautiful and vast. When one is superconsciously alive, he feels joyously alive throughout the totality of his being—physically, emotionally and mentally—for new energies are working through his nerve system. This state of the mind is available to everyone to be aware in. The superconscious is the mind of bliss. It is vast, pure intelligence. The subsuperconscious mind is that aspect of the superconscious functioning through established subconscious patterns.

As we learn to identify these states, one from another, we also become more sensitive, like the artist who learns to observe depth, color and dimension within a beautiful painting. His sense of enjoyment is far superior to that of the average man who simply sees the painting as a nice picture, having no appreciation of the intricacies of color, depth, movement and technique.

Intellect And Intuition

Mystics never demean or belittle intellectual reasoning. The intellect is not bad. It is good and necessary when used correctly. But they also do not elevate it too highly, knowing it is not the whole mind, it is only one phase of the mind. Instinctive, intellectual and intuitive phases define the whole of the mind. We often use the terms “unfolding intuitive faculties” and “developing intuition” in an effort to encourage an individual on the path to work within himself in subduing his intellect so that he can actually observe the already functioning totality of his intuitive mind.

In order to subdue the intellect—that partial conglomerate of thought patterns and modes of procedure which accord with the culture of the day—it is first necessary to inwardly observe how one’s acquired intellect actually functions. Observation is a faculty of the intuitive mind, and this particular aspect of observation only comes into usage after daily meditation has been maintained over a long period of time. Once an inkling of success in knowing intuition and how it differs from reasoning, emotional impulses and pre-programmed patterns within the subconscious awakens, the contest is won. Then and then only we can sustain this knowledge and dive deeper into the inevitable, all the time losing the future and the past, and loosening the reins of the intellect.

Some men say they are part of God, that the God Spirit is within them. The intuitive mind we consider to be that part of God’s vast mind—our inspiration. If you have ever had a hunch and had it work out, that is the intuitive mind working within you. It has temporarily dominated your conscious mind and made it possible for you to look into the future and estimate its happenings. The intuitive mind is the essence of time, yet it understands time and timelessness, its essence. It is the essence of space, yet it comprehends space and spacelessness. It is real, yet it does not exist—real only when used, nonexistent to the lower realms of the mind.

Man’s individual awareness is either captured by the nerve system of external consciousness of the animal bodies, which his soul inhabits as vehicles to live in on Earth, or captured by his celestial nerve system. This, then, is the intuitive nature, the natural expression of the transcendental soul known as man.