THINKING & THE BODY-MIND

 

Although humans are conscious that they are conscious, most of us never think about our thinking, we just do it. We awaken in the morning and think about what we are going to eat, what we are going to wear, where we are going for the day, and then we try to think about where we left our car keys. Most of our thinking revolves around the activities of our physical body: feeding it, clothing it, protecting it, moving it, and satisfying its many needs and desires. We seldom consider how it is that we are conscious or for that matter, we never think about what consciousness actually is. Consciousness is something we just take for granted like life itself.

 

We waken to the world of consciousness much like we awaken from a deep night’s sleep, yet we have no idea where we came from or where we were prior to our births. We gradually emerge from an unconscious state in our infancy to a slowly expanding consciousness of ourselves in the world at large. Over time, our natural minds adapt to the world, and we identify with the body, family, culture, and life into which we were born. When we are awake, with a sense of growing permanence, we think of ourselves in terms of “my body” and “my consciousness” as we busy ourselves with our daily activities. We conveniently forget that we did not create the body we are using nor do we know how it is that we are conscious. 

 

The Natural Mind

 

It is through the physical body that conscious intelligence meets unintelligent nature. The elemental matter of this universe is nature-matter, which includes our physical bodies; in and of itself nature-matter has no self-awareness. Nature is not conscious. Nature is conscious of its function only. Our physical body is conscious of its function only; it cannot be conscious as itself. It is only when conscious light or conscious intelligence is integrated into a physical body that the body appears to be alive and conscious. 

 

The conscious intelligence we experience as “our consciousness” is so dispersed in the nerves and blood of our body that we are unable to formulate an awareness which allows for us to distinguish “who we are” separately from the body and senses. As we become more oriented to our physical form, we become conscious of the impressions of the senses and the sensations of the body and gradually we become more and more conscious of the natural world in which we live. After a time we are unwilling to disengage from nature long enough to become conscious that we are a conscious being separate from the body. It is the constant indulgence of physical sensations in the body that holds captive a person’s attention and personal power in this natural world.

 

It is only because of conscious intelligence being integrated into the nature body that we are able to formulate an understanding of the natural world. After years of experiencing physical sensation, conscious intelligence becomes completely identified with this world and the physical body. Conscious intelligence becomes the “body-mind” which is a “collective consciousness” comprised of the body’s instincts, cravings, impulses, feelings, desires, and physical sensations. The body-mind facilitates and identifies with the ego/personality and intellect, causing these aspects of consciousness to identify with the physical body and the natural world. 

 

The Doing Self

 

For all human beings, the conscious intelligence which is integrated into the body has three aspects or characteristics to its function as consciousness: knowing, thinking, and doing (see diagram below). Each of these aspects of the spiritual Self has an active (+) and a passive (-) quality as the diagram reveals. The knowing and thinking aspects will be explained in another paper. The subject of this paper focuses on the doing self which is comprised of desire (+) and feeling (-). In a much greater degree than the knowing and thinking self, desire and feeling of the doing self gets integrated and influenced by the body/body-mind. The body-mind becomes the mediator between the physical body and the doing self which causes feeling/desire to be extremely susceptible to the pull of the instincts and impulses of the elemental body and the senses. 

 

It is the body-mind’s unique relationship to nature and its influence over feeling/desire that sets the stage for the interaction between nature and intelligence which creates the life experiences each soul needs in order to evolve. These experiences are possible only because conscious intelligence expresses itself in the human body as the 3 minds of the dong self: the feeling mind, the desire mind, and the body-mind. In each of us, these 3 minds synthesize and collectively turn their attention to the objective world and thus, we become conscious as the sensations of the elemental realm of nature in which our bodies reside. The ego/personality forms a sense of identity around the sensual experiences of the “synthesized mind” and physical body and gradually a personal history develops and this is who we “think” we are.

 

Since we are conscious intelligence, we become conscious asnature which means complete belief in and identification with our surrounding environment. This world is real to us because our attention is conscious as the objective world, and we believe the sensations we experience through our 4 sense organs and in our touch validate this notion. The tactile encounter we have with a substantial world is why touch has been mistakenly identified as feeling, a fifth sense. However, in reality feeling is intelligence and the passive aspect of the doing self. Feeling is the meeting point where conscious intelligence experiences elemental nature-matter in the form of a tactile (touch) experience. Thus, feeling is conscious as elemental sensation, but feeling is not itself that sensation. The 4 senses originate in the 4 vital systems (see diagram below) producing the senses of sight, hearing, taste, and smell.

 

 

Duality and Self Perception

 

We are all trapped in the realm of duality and don’t even know it. It is like the story I tell young people about the fish and the water. Imagine that we go up to a fish swimming in the ocean and say to him, “How is the water, Mr. Fish?” And he says, “What water?” We lift him up out of the water into the air and drop him back in and he says, “Oh, the water is fine.” We are stuck in third dimensional reality like the fish is stuck in water until we have an experience that shows us otherwise. 

 

We experience life in a third dimensional reality of time and space which has up-down, near-far, and slow-fast. We also occupy an elemental body of nature and decipher our experiences with conscious intelligence explaining life in terms of good-bad, right-wrong, profit-loss, like-dislike, and favorable-unfavorable. It is primarily our desire for various things in life that makes us feel good or bad. We are happy when we get what we desire and feel disappointed when we don’t get our way. There is also a tendency for us to explain and orient the experiences of life in terms of feeling and desire as they relate to our body. We frequently monitor our well-being in terms of how we are feeling or we gauge our success in life by how well we are getting what we desire. In addition, the process of orienting our experiences based on feeling and desire is different for men and women.

The body-mind experiences an elemental body of nature whether it is male or female, mainly through the body as instinct, but also through the 4 vital systems, the senses, and the blood. Feeling/desire in the body-mind experiences the sensation and stimulation of the body through the nervous system. Sensation and stimulation can stir the body/body-mind on an animalistic level which is the case with instinct or impulses, or it can stir feeling/desire on a psychic level creating emotions, sentiments, and desires. In a similar manner, when sensation and stimulus are experienced on the psychic level, there is a different orientation for male (+) and female (-) in regard to desire (+) and feeling (-). For the male, life is oriented and motivated primarily by desire and secondarily by feeling. Whereas, for women, life is oriented primarily by feeling and secondarily by desire. A man sees something and measures it by how much he desires to have it. A woman experiences something and measures it by the way it makes her feel. A conscious awareness of this dual polarity is important in order to recognize spiritual balance. In 64.3 Christ said, “As in the man, the Father is manifest, and the Mother hidden; so in the woman, the Mother is manifest and the Father hidden. Therefore shall the name of the Father and the Mother be equally hallowed, for They are the great Powers of God, and the one is not without the other in the One God.” All humans with a properly balanced polarity in the body should be able to recognize the difference between the expressions of desire and feeling.

 

Thus, although experience in a human body can be explained in terms of elemental sensation and stimulation from nature being interpreted by conscious intelligence, there are infinite variations on the overall experience. On the very base level, we need to be aware of how our bodies feel in order to know that we are hungry, thirsty, lonely, or satisfied. But when we add intellect and sentiment to this base equation, we begin to delve into the infinite variations of human beings. Some of us are smart and others are not; some of us are compassionate and others are not; some of us are perceptive and others are not; some of us are analytical and others are not; some of us are optimistic and others are pessimistic; some of us are peaceful and others are violent; some of us are caring and others are loveless, and the list goes on.

 

The difference in the quality of life of an individual human being is directly proportional to how the aspects of higher intelligence operate in a person’s life. These characteristics of higher consciousness are reason, conscience, inspiration, empathy, intuition, selflessness, compassion, integrity, persistence, and courage. Some people incorporate these characteristics into their lives and strive to become a “quality person.” Other people ignore these higher characteristics because they are focused on satisfying the desires of the body/body-mind/ego (personal self) which is the realm of duality: like-dislike, profit-loss, happy-sad, satisfied-dissatisfied. These people serve their egos and leave the truly important thing undone.

 

The quality of being has a great deal to do with the way we explain to ourselves the experiences we go through in life. Are these experiences explained in terms of higher values or are they explained in terms of satisfying the personal desires? The synthesis of the body/body-mind, feeling/desire, and the ego/personality has oriented each of us to a unique perception of our individual life experiences. The “chattering mind” of the ego/personality has a running commentary going on about what is happening with our bodies and our lives: who the ego likes and who it doesn’t like, what it wants and what doesn’t want, how the body looks, and how we should act and react. With the exception of when we are sleep, this “chattering of the ego” takes place 24/7. Although it is not real thinking, it influences and configures our worldview, our feelings, our desires, and how we deal with life and the people around us. The chattering of the ego is the means by which the ego/personality keeps a person’s attention trapped in the body/body-mind and in this third dimensional world of duality.

 

7 Levels of Perception

 

What determines the quality of the person is on what level his or her thinking takes place. In order for a person to truly think or perceive, the first thing that has to be done is to stop the chattering of the ego. This is accomplished through focused breathing (See: Meditation). Here is an analogous story to explain the chattering ego. Imagine a natural pool of water and you are standing next to it looking at it. Every second, your hand tosses a pebble onto the surface. The water is always filled with ripples and splashes and that is how you have always seen the pond.  Now you decide to stop throwing pebbles into the water, and as you gaze at the pool, it becomes still. For the first time, you notice another world reflected on the surface of the water and then you notice that you can see to the bottom of the pond. This pool is like our world; there are other realities right in front of us, but seeing them is just a matter of how we choose to look and perceive.

 

In order to examine the different levels of perception, it is necessary to realize and understand the miraculous qualities of the human body. Like the quality of being of the individual, the physical body means something different to each person. At one end of the spectrum, a person sees the body as a burden filled with cravings, fears, and impulses which need to be satisfied. Life for this person often revolves around fulfilling the body’s desires for: food, sex, rest, addictions, and entertainment. 

 

At the other end of the spectrum, we are told that the body is the temple of God with miraculous capabilities and potentials that we are unable to even imagine. We are told by science that we use less than 10 % of our brain. We know that 2000 years ago the Christ spirit filled the body of Jesus and performed many miracles while in a human body such as becoming invisible in the midst of a hostile crowd, walking on water, healing and restoring people, feeding thousands from a single loaf and a few fish, appearing and disappearing before his disciples, living a selfless life in unconditional love, forgiving his enemies, and ascending in the body. Jesus Christ said, “These things I do so shall you do also and greater than these.” He came to show us a way of living; he manifested for us the full potential of the divine human, and he sanctified all human flesh meaning that what Christ did in the body of Jesus opened the same door to the divine for all human beings who embrace the Christ light.

 

The body has many potentials and internal realities, but before we can perceive and understand them, we must “stop the pebbles” and we must stop believing that the “rippling water of the pond” is the only reality. Then, the next step in understanding reality “beyond the pond” is to understand the levels of our self-perception, all of which take place in the body through the “synthesized minds.” As stated earlier, being in a body and using the synthesized minds to perceive our life experiences causes us to think about ourselves a lot. Although these self-perceptions happen continuously on 7 different levels in the nervous system, not everyone is consciously aware of them nor do most people know how to “think” on the different levels. See diagram below.

 

The Personal Self

 

The simplest way to describe how people manifest in the world would be to divide this diagram in half at the level of the heart. The forces at play below the heart, which include the rational mind, are dedicated to the “personal self” of the individual, and the forces at play above the heart, which include the reasoning and intuitive minds, are dedicated to the “spiritual self” of the individual. These forces tend to manifest in the character of a person in terms of selfishness and selflessness respectively. 

 

All humans determine which of these forces come into play in their lives simply by how and where they direct their attention. With the exceptions of focusing the intellect on work, study, or some creative endeavor, our conscious attention will be working through or identifying with one of these levels of self-perception. Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs diagram represents the way the doing Self manifests in the world based on these 7 perceptions of self.

 

If the chattering of the ego rules our lives, we will be self-absorbed in the lower 3 regions trying to survive, trying to gratify the desires of the body, and constantly trying to validate and bolster our self-identity which is an elusive possibility. On occasion, as a result of ideal external conditions, the ego/personality can feel temporarily “validated,” but the ego/personality will never feel permanently validated because is not real. In the Gnostic teachings, the ego is referred to as the “counterfeit spirit.” The ego/personality borrows its “sense of identity” from the knowing Self and with the experiences and sensations garnered from being in a body and having intelligent awareness, the ego/personality feels that it is real; but it is not because it is not intelligence. The ego’s lifespan lasts only as long as the physical body and its vital forces.

 

This earthly life is temporary, the body is temporary, and the opportunities we have are temporary; but there is an important purpose to this journey – life experience. Life experience is the only thing we take with us when we leave this world. Depending on the quality of the person, the life experiences either serve the body and personal self or they serve the soul and spiritual Self. If the life experiences revolve around the personal self, they are serving the desires of the nature body. If the life experiences revolve around the spiritual Self, they are serving the conscious light which nourishes and educates the soul. Cause and effect is the law of life; we reap (in the future) what we sow (in the present). So which would be better to serve, spirit and soul or form and dust? Lection 64.7 “From the Eternal they flow, to the Eternal they return. The spirit to Spirit, soul to Soul, mind to Mind, sense to Sense, life to Life, form to Form, dust to Dust.”

 

The Spiritual Self

 

Every one of us slowly and gradually awakens into this material world in phases and stages. As an infant, we are unable to comprehend the “things” of this world; we have no personal identity, but are one with our parents. As a small child we begin to discover the “things” and “magic” of the world. We still have no personal identity, but we are one with our parents and siblings. As we reach our teens, we “separate” ourselves from our family unit in order to seek and develop our own personal identity. By the time we reach our early 20’s, our personal identity has been mostly formed. We now work diligently for the rest of our lives to find and establish our place in the world. The big problem is that this world is not our home, but just a temporary stopover.

 

In order to experience the nature of the spiritual Self we have to “divorce” ourselves from our worldly intentions, from our bodily desires, and from the influence of the ego/personality. This is the “burden of light” spoken of by Christ or what could be referred to as the spiritual struggle for life and light. In this case, the term divorce is a very appropriate term because it means the cessation of a former relationship and the beginning of something entirely new. As Christ has told us, we must serve either God or mammon (the material world) because no one can successfully serve two masters at the same time. We cannot serve the personal self and the spiritual self at the same time; we must die to who we “think” we are so we can become who we really are.

 

Throughout history and in all parts of the world, spiritual awakening has been about separating ourselves from the rush of the world, sitting quietly, and trying to remember who we really are. There are various techniques for quieting the chattering ego and various methods for awakening the spiritual nature, but all of them place us in the upper regions of self-awareness. 

 

As we begin this spiritual journey, our hearts, with the aid of reason and conscience, will seriously discriminate about what we will and will not be involved with in our new lives. Self-expression will be extremely discerning about our present motives and intentions in life. We will spend a great deal of time reflecting upon the subtle and inspirational differences between our life in the world and our life in the light and spirit. As our understanding, realization, and conviction grows, so grows our self-knowledge.

 

Although this is a very simplified explanation of the spiritual journey, it nevertheless illustrates the distinction between the two paths of life we can choose from: light or darkness; nature or intelligence; body or soul; desire or spirit. We are all born into the darkness of this world and to get free from this world each person must make a conscious choice to awaken to life and light. To defer from making a choice about life and light is to choose the opposite.