RAJA YOGA/PART 8
THE EIGHTH LESSON.
THE HIGHLANDS AND LOWLANDS OF MIND.
The
Self of each of us has a vehicle of expression which we call the Mind, but
which vehicle is much larger and far more complex than we are apt to realize.
As a writer has said "Our Self is greater than we know; it has peaks
above, and lowlands below the plateau of our conscious experience." That
which we know as the "conscious mind" is not the Soul. The Soul is
not a part of that which we know in consciousness, but, on the contrary, that
which we know in consciousness is but a small part of the Soul—the conscious
vehicle of a greater Self, or "I."
The
Yogis have always taught that the mind has many planes of manifestation and
action—and that many of its planes operated above and below the plane of
consciousness. Western science is beginning to realize this fact, and its
theories regarding same may be found in any of the later works on psychology.
But this is a matter of recent development in Western science. Until very
recently the text books held that Consciousness and Mind were synonymous, and
that the Mind was conscious of all of its activities, changes and
modifications.
Liebnitz
was one of the first Western philosophers to advance the idea that there were
planes of mental activity outside of the plane of consciousness, and since his
time the leading thinkers have slowly but surely moved forward to his position.
At
the present time it is generally conceded that at least ninety per cent of our
mental operations take place in the out-of-conscious realm. Prof. Elmer Gates,
the well known scientist, has said: "At least ninety per cent of our
mental life is sub-conscious. If you will analyze your mental operations you
will find that conscious thinking is never a continuous line of consciousness,
but a series of conscious data with great intervals of subconscious. We sit and
try to solve a problem, and fail. We walk around, try again, and fail. Suddenly
an idea dawns that leads to the solution of the problem. The subconscious
processes were at work. We do not volitionally create our own thinking. It
takes place in us. We are more or less passive recipients. We cannot change the
nature of a thought, or of a truth, but we can, as it were, guide the
ship by a moving of the helm. Our mentation is largely the result of the
great Cosmic Whole upon us."
Sir
William Hamilton says that the sphere of our consciousness is only a small
circle in the center of a far wider sphere of action and thought, of which we
are conscious through its effects.
Taine
says: "Outside of a little luminous circle, lies a large ring of twilight,
and beyond this an indefinite night; but the events of this twilight and this
night are as real as those within the luminous circle."
Sir
Oliver Lodge, the eminent English scientist, speaking of the planes of the
mind, says: "Imagine an iceberg glorying in its crisp solidity, and
sparkling pinnacles, resenting attention paid to its submerged self, or
supporting region, or to the saline liquid out of which it arose, and into
which in due course it will some day return. Or, reversing the metaphor, we
might liken our present state to that of the hulls of ships submerged in a dim
ocean among strange monsters, propelled in a blind manner through space; proud
perhaps of accumulating many barnacles as decoration; only recognizing our
destination by bumping against the dock-wall; and with no cognizance of the
deck and cabins above us, or the spars and sails—no thought of the sextant, and
the compass, and the captain—no perception of the lookout on the mast—of the
distant horizon. With no vision of objects far ahead—dangers to be
avoided—destinations to be reached—other ships to be spoken to by means other
than by bodily contact—a region of sunshine and cloud, of space, or perception,
and of intelligence utterly inaccessible to parts below the waterline."
We ask our students to read carefully the above expression of Sir
Oliver Lodge, for it gives one of the clearest and most accurate figures of the
actual state of affairs concerning the mental planes that we have seen in Western
writings.
And
other Western writers have noted and spoken of these out-of-conscious realms.
Lewes has said: "It is very certain that in every conscious volition—every
act that is so characterized—the larger part of it is quite unconscious. It is
equally certain that in every perception there are unconscious processes of
reproduction and inference. There is a middle distance of sub-consciousness,
and a background of unconsciousness."
Taine
has told us that: "Mental events imperceptible to consciousness are far
more numerous than the others, and of the world that makes up our being we only
perceive the highest points—the lighted-up peaks of a continent whose lower
levels remain in the shade. Beneath ordinary sensations are their components,
that is to say, the elementary sensations, which must be combined into groups
to reach our consciousness."
Maudsley
says: "Examine closely and without bias the ordinary mental operations of
daily life, and you will find that consciousness has not one-tenth part of the
function therein which it is commonly assumed to have. In every conscious state
there are at work conscious, sub-conscious, and infra-conscious energies, the
last as indispensable as the first."
Oliver
Wendall Holmes said: "There are thoughts that never emerge into
consciousness, which yet make their influence felt among the perceptible mental
currents, just as the unseen planets sway the movements of those that are
watched and mapped by the astronomer."
Many
other writers have given us examples and instances of the operation of the
out-of-consciousness planes of thought. One has written that when the solution
of a problem he had long vainly dealt with, flashed across his mind, he
trembled as if in the presence of another being who had communicated a secret
to him. All of us have tried to remember a name or similar thing without
success, and have then dismissed the matter from our minds, only to have the
missing name or thought suddenly presented to our conscious mind a few minutes,
or hours, afterwards. Something in our mind was at work hunting up the missing
word, and when it found it it presented it to us.
A
writer has mentioned what he called "unconscious rumination," which
happened to him when he read books presenting new points of view essentially
opposed to his previous opinions. After days, weeks, or months, he found that
to his great astonishment the old opinions were entirely rearranged, and new
ones lodged there. Many examples of this unconscious mental digestion and assimilation
are mentioned in the books on the subject written during the past few years.
It
is related of Sir W. R. Hamilton that he discovered quarternions one day while
walking with his wife in the observatory at Dublin. He relates that he suddenly
felt "the galvanic circle of thought" close, and the sparks that fell
from it was the fundamental mathematical relations of his problem, which is now
an important law in mathematics.
Dr.
Thompson has written: "At times I have had a feeling of the uselessness of
all voluntary effort, and also that the matter was working itself clear in my
mind. It has many times seemed to me that I was really a passive instrument in
the hands of a person not myself. In view of having to wait for the results of
these unconscious processes, I have proved the habit of getting together
material in advance, and then leaving the mass to digest itself till I am ready
to write about it. I delayed for a month the writing of my book 'System of
Psychology,' but continued reading the authorities. I would not try to think
about the book. I would watch with interest the people passing the windows. One
evening when reading the paper, the substance of the missing part of the book
flashed upon my mind, and I began to write. This is only a sample of many such
experiences."
Berthelot,
the founder of Synthetic Chemistry has said that the experiments leading to his
wonderful discoveries have never been the result of carefully followed trains
of thought—of pure reasoning processes—but have come of themselves, so to
speak, from the clear sky.
Mozart
has written: "I cannot really say that I can account for my compositions.
My ideas flow, and I cannot say whence or how they come. I do not hear in my
imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once.
The rest is merely an attempt to reproduce what I have heard."
Dr.
Thompson, above mentioned, has also said: "In writing this work I have
been unable to arrange my knowledge of a subject for days and weeks, until I
experienced a clearing up of my mind, when I took my pen and unhesitatingly
wrote the result. I have best accomplished this by leading the (conscious) mind
as far away as possible from the subject upon which I was writing."
Prof.
Barrett says: "The mysteriousness of our being is not confined to subtle
physiological processes which we have in common with all animal life. There are
higher and more capacious powers wrapped up in our human personality than are
expressed even by what we know of consciousness, will, or reason. There are
supernormal and transcendental powers of which, at present, we only catch
occasional glimpses; and behind and beyond the supernormal there are fathomless
abysses, the Divine ground of the soul; the ultimate reality of which our
consciousness is but the reflection or faint perception. Into such lofty themes
I do not propose to enter, they must be forever beyond the scope of human
inquiry; nor is it possible within the limits of this paper to give any
adequate conception of those mysterious regions of our complex personality,
which are open to, and beginning to be disclosed by, scientific
investigation."
Rev.
Dr. Andrew Murray has written: "Deeper down than where the soul with its
consciousness can enter there is spirit matter linking man with God; and deeper
down than the mind and feelings or will—in the unseen depths of the hidden
life—there dwells the Spirit of God." This testimony is remarkable, coming
from that source, for it corroborates and reiterates the Yogi teachings of the
Indwelling Spirit Schofield has written: "Our conscious mind as compared
with the unconscious mind, has been likened to the visible spectrum of the
sun's rays, as compared to the invisible part which stretches indefinitely on
either side. We know now that the chief part of heat comes from the ultra-red
rays that show no light; and the main part of the chemical changes in the
vegetable world are the results of the ultra-violet rays at the other end of
the spectrum, which are equally invisible to the eye, and are recognized only
by their potent effects. Indeed as these invisible rays extend indefinitely on
both sides of the visible spectrum, so we may say that the mind includes not
only the visible or conscious part, and what we have termed the sub-conscious,
that which lies below the red line, but the supraconscious mind that lies at
the other end—all those regions of higher soul and spirit life, of which we are
only at times vaguely conscious, but which always exist, and link us on to
eternal verities, on the one side, as surely as the sub-conscious mind links us
to the body on the other."
We know that our students will appreciate the above testimony of
Dr. Schofield, for it is directly in the line of our teachings in the Yogi Philosophy
regarding the Planes of the Mind (see "Fourteen Lessons").
We
feel justified in quoting further from Dr. Schofield, for he voices in the
strongest manner that which the Yogi Philosophy teaches as fundamental truths
regarding the mind. Dr. Schofield is an English writer on Psychology, and so far
as we know has no tendency toward occultism, his views having been arrived at
by careful scientific study and investigation along the lines of Western
psychology, which renders his testimony all the more valuable, showing as it
does, how the human mind will instinctively find its way to the Truth, even if
it has to blaze a new trail through the woods, departing from the beaten tracks
of other minds around it, which lack the courage or enterprise to strike out
for themselves.
Dr.
Schofield writes: "The mind, indeed, reaches all the way, and while on the
one hand it is inspired by the Almighty, on the other it energizes the body,
all whose purposive life it originates. We may call the supra-conscious mind
the sphere of the spirit life, the sub-conscious the sphere of the body life,
and the conscious mind the middle region where both meet."
Continuing,
Dr. Schofield says: "The Spirit of God is said to dwell in believers, and
yet, as we have seen, His presence is not the subject of direct consciousness.
We would include, therefore, in the supra-conscious, all such spiritual ideas,
together with conscience—the voice of God, as Max Muller calls it—which is
surely a half-conscious faculty. Moreover, the supra-conscious, like the
sub-conscious, is, as we have said, best apprehended when the conscious mind is
not active. Visions, meditations, prayers, and even dreams have been
undoubtedly occasions of spiritual revelations, and many instances may be
adduced as illustrations of the workings of the Spirit apart from the action of
reason or mind. The truth apparently is that the mind as a whole is an
unconscious state, by that its middle registers, excluding the highest
spiritual and lowest physical manifestations, are fitfully illuminated in
varying degree by consciousness; and that it is to this illuminated part of the
dial that the word "mind," which rightly appertains to the whole, has
been limited."
Oliver
Wendell Holmes has said: "The automatic flow of thought is often
singularly favored by the fact of listening to a weak continuous discourse,
with just enough ideas in it to keep the (conscious) mind busy. The induced
current of thought is often rapid and brilliant in inverse ratio to the force
of the inducing current."
Wundt
says: "The unconscious logical processes are carried on with a certainty
and regularity which would be impossible where there exists the possibility of
error. Our mind is so happily designed that it prepares for us the most
important foundations of cognition, whilst we have not the slightest apprehension
of the modus operandi. This unconscious soul, like a benevolent
stranger, works and makes provisions for our benefit, pouring only the mature
fruits into our laps."
A
writer in an English magazine interestingly writes: "Intimations reach our
consciousness from unconsciousness, that the mind is ready to work, is fresh,
is full of ideas." "The grounds of our judgment are often knowledge
so remote from consciousness that we cannot bring them to view."
"That the human mind includes an unconscious part; that unconscious events
occurring in that part are proximate causes of consciousness; that the greater
part of human intuitional action is an effect of an unconscious cause; the
truth of these propositions is so deducible from ordinary mental events, and is
so near the surface that the failure of deduction to forestall induction in the
discerning of it may well excite wonder." "Our behavior is influenced
by unconscious assumptions respecting our own social and intellectual rank, and
that of the one we are addressing. In company we unconsciously assume a bearing
quite different from that of the home circle. After being raised to a higher
rank the whole behavior subtly and unconsciously changes in accordance with
it." And Schofield adds to the last sentence: "This is also the case
in a minor degree with different styles and qualities of dress and different
environments. Quite unconsciously we change our behavior, carriage, and style,
to suit the circumstance."
Jensen
writes: "When we reflect on anything with the whole force of the mind, we
may fall into a state of entire unconsciousness, in which we not only forget
the outer world, but also know nothing at all of ourselves and the thoughts
passing within us after a time. We then suddenly awake as from a dream, and
usually at the same moment the result of our meditations appears as distinctly
in consciousness without our knowing how we reached it."
Bascom
says: "It is inexplicable how premises which lie below consciousness can
sustain conclusions in consciousness; how the mind can wittingly take up a
mental movement at an advanced stage, having missed its primary steps."
Hamilton
and other writers have compared the mind's action to that of a row of billiard
balls, of which one is struck and the impetus transmitted throughout the entire
row, the result being that only the last ball actually moves, the others
remaining in their places. The last ball represents the conscious thought—the
other stages in the unconscious mentation. Lewes, speaking of this
illustration, says: "Something like this, Hamilton says, seems often to
occur in a train of thought, one idea immediately suggesting another into
consciousness—this suggestion passing through one or more ideas which do not
themselves rise into consciousness. This point, that we are not conscious of
the formation of groups, but only of a formed group, may throw light on the
existence of unconscious judgments, unconscious reasonings, and unconscious
registrations of experience."
Many
writers have related the process by which the unconscious mentation emerges
gradually into the field of consciousness, and the discomfort attending the
process. A few examples may prove interesting and instructive.
Maudsley
says: "It is surprising how uncomfortable a person may be made by the obscure
idea of something which he ought to have said or done, and which he cannot for
the life of him remember. There is an effort of the lost idea to get into
consciousness, which is relieved directly the idea bursts into
consciousness."
Oliver
Wendell Holmes said: "There are thoughts that never emerge into
consciousness, and which yet make their influence felt among the perceptive
mental currents, just as the unseen planets sway the movements of the known
ones." The same writer also remarks: "I was told of a business man in
Boston who had given up thinking of an important question as too much for him.
But he continued so uneasy in his brain that he feared he was threatened with
palsy. After some hours the natural solution of the question came to him, worked
out, as he believed, in that troubled interval."
Dr.
Schofield mentions several instances of this phase of the workings of the
unconscious planes of the mind. We mention a couple that seem interesting and
to the point:
"Last
year," says Dr. Schofield, "I was driving to Phillmore Gardens to
give some letters to a friend. On the way, a vague uneasiness sprang up, and a
voice seemed to say, 'I doubt if you have those letters.' Conscious reason
rebuked it, and said, 'Of course you have; you took them out of the drawer
specially.' The vague feeling was not satisfied, but could not reply. On
arrival I found the letters were in none of my pockets. On returning I found
them on the hall table, where they had been placed a moment putting on my
gloves."
"The
other day I had to go to see a patient in Folkestone, in Shakespeare Terrace. I
got there very late, and did not stay but drove down to the Pavilion for the
night, it being dark and rainy. Next morning at eleven I walked up to find the
house, knowing the general direction, though never having walked there before.
I went up the main road, and, after passing a certain turning, began to feel a
vague uneasiness coming into consciousness, that I had passed the terrace. On
asking the way, I found it was so; and the turning was where the uneasiness
began. The night before was pitch dark, and very wet, and anything seen from a
close carriage was quite unconsciously impressed on my mind."
Prof.
Kirchener says: "Our consciousness can only grasp one quite clear idea at
once. All other ideas are for the time somewhat obscure. They are really
existing, but only potentially for consciousness, i.e., they
hover, as it were, on our horizon, or beneath the threshold of consciousness.
The fact that former ideas suddenly return to consciousness is simply explained
by the fact that they have continued psychic existence: and attention is
sometimes voluntarily or involuntarily turned away from the present, and the
appearance of former ideas is thus made possible."
Oliver
Wendell Holmes says: "Our different ideas are stepping-stones; how we get
from one to another we do not know; something carries us. We (our conscious
selves) do not take the step. The creating and informing spirit, which is within us
and not of us, is recognized everywhere in real life. It comes
to us as a voice that will be heard; it tells us what we must believe; it
frames our sentences and we wonder at this visitor who chooses our brain as his
dwelling place."
Galton
says: "I have desired to show how whole states of mental operation that
have lapsed out of ordinary consciousness, admit of being dragged into
light."
Montgomery
says: "We are constantly aware that feelings emerge unsolicited by any
previous mental state, directly from the dark womb of unconsciousness. Indeed
all our most vivid feelings are thus mystically derived. Suddenly a new
irrelevant, unwilled, unlooked-for presence intrudes itself into consciousness.
Some inscrutable power causes it to rise and enter the mental presence as a
sensorial constituent. If this vivid dependence on unconscious forces has to be
conjectured with regard to the most vivid mental occurrences, how much more
must such a sustaining foundation be postulated for those faint revivals of
previous sensations that so largely assist in making up our complex mental
presence!"
Sir
Benjamin Brodie says: "It has often happened to me to have accumulated a
store of facts, but to have been able to proceed no further. Then after an
interval of time, I have found the obscurity and confusion to have cleared
away: the facts to have settled in their right places, though I have not been
sensible of having made any effort for that purpose."
Wundt
says: "The traditional opinion that consciousness is the entire field of
the internal life cannot be accepted. In consciousness, psychic acts are very
distinct from one another, and observation itself necessarily conducts to unity
in psychology. But the agent of this unity is outside of consciousness, which
knows only the result of the work done in the unknown laboratory beneath it.
Suddenly a new thought springs into being. Ultimate analysis of psychic
processes shows that the unconscious is the theater of the most important
mental phenomena. The conscious is always conditional upon the
unconscious."
Creighton
says: "Our conscious life is the sum of these entrances and exits. Behind
the scenes, as we infer, there lies a vast reserve which we call 'the
unconscious,' finding a name for it by the simple device of prefixing the
negative article. The basis of all that lies behind the scene is the mere
negative of consciousness."
Maudsley
says: "The process of reasoning adds nothing to knowledge (in the
reasoner). It only displays what was there before, and brings to conscious
possession what before was unconscious." And again: "Mind can do its
work without knowing it. Consciousness is the light that lightens the process,
not the agent that accomplishes it."
Walstein
says: "It is through the sub-conscious self that Shakespeare must have
perceived, without effort, great truths which are hidden from the conscious
mind of the student; that Phidias painted marble and bronze; that Raphael
painted Madonnas, and Beethoven composed symphonies."
Ribot
says: "The mind receives from experience certain data, and elaborates them
unconsciously by laws peculiar to itself, and the result merges into
consciousness."
Newman
says: "When the unaccustomed causes surprise, we do not perceive the thing
and then feel the surprise; but surprise comes first, and then we search out
the cause; so the theory must have acted on the unconscious mind to create the
feeling, before being perceived in consciousness."
A
writer in an English magazine says: "Of what transcendent importance is
the fact that the unconscious part of the mind bears to the conscious part such
a relation as the magic lantern bears to the luminous disc which it projects;
that the greater part of the intentional action, the whole practical life of
the vast majority of men, is an effect of events as remote from consciousness
as the motion of the planets."
Dr.
Schofield says: "It is quite true that the range of the unconscious mind
must necessarily remain indefinite; none can say how high or low it may reach….
As to how far the unconscious powers of life that, as has been said, can make
eggs and feathers out of Indian corn, and milk and beef and mutton out of
grass, are to be considered within or beyond the lowest limits of unconscious
mind, we do not therefore here press. It is enough to establish the fact of its
existence; to point out its more important features; and to show that in all
respects it is as worthy of being called mind as that which works in
consciousness. We therefore return to our first definition of Mind, as 'the sum
of psychic action in us, whether conscious or unconscious.'"
Hartmann
calls our attention to a very important fact when he says: "The
unconscious does not fall ill, the unconscious does not grow weary, but all
conscious mental activity becomes fatigued."
Kant
says: "To have ideas and yet not be conscious of them—therein seems to lie
a contradiction. However, we may still be immediately aware of holding an idea,
though we are not directly conscious of it."
Maudsley
says: "It may seem paradoxical to assert not merely that ideas may exist
in the mind without any consciousness of them, but that an idea, or a train of
associated ideas, may be quickened into action and actuate movements without
itself being attended to. When an idea disappears from consciousness it does
not necessarily disappear entirely; it may remain latent below the horizon of
consciousness. Moreover it may produce an effect upon movement, or upon other
ideas, when thus active below the horizon of consciousness."
Liebnitz
says: "It does not follow that because we do not perceive thought that it
does not exist. It is a great source of error to believe that there is no
perception in the mind but that of which it is conscious."
Oliver
Wendell Holmes says: "The more we examine the mechanism of thought the
more we shall see that anterior unconscious action of the mind that enters
largely into all of its processes. People who talk most do not always think
most. I question whether persons who think most—that is who have most conscious
thought pass through their mind—necessarily do most mental work. Every new idea
planted in a real thinker's mind grows when he is least conscious of it."
Maudsley
says: "It would go hard with mankind indeed, if they must act wittingly
before they acted at all. Men, without knowing why, follow a course for which
good reasons exist. Nay, more. The practical instincts of mankind often work
beneficially in actual contradiction to their professed doctrines."
The
same writer says: "The best thoughts of an author are the unwilled
thoughts which surprise himself; and the poet, under the influence of creative
activity, is, so far as consciousness is concerned, being dictated to."
A
writer in an English magazine says: "When waiting on a pier for a steamer,
I went on to the first, which was the wrong one. I came back and waited, losing
my boat, which was at another part of the pier, on account of the unconscious
assumption I had made, that this was the only place to wait for the steamer. I
saw a man enter a room, and leave by another door. Shortly after, I saw another
man exactly like him do the same. It was the same man; but I said it must be
his twin brother, in the unconscious assumption that there was no exit for the
first man but by the way he came (that by returning)."
Maudsley
says: "The firmest resolve or purpose sometimes vanishes issueless when it
comes to the brink of an act, while the true will, which determines perhaps a
different act, springs up suddenly out of the depths of the unconscious nature,
surprising and overcoming the conscious."
Schofield
says: "Our unconscious influence is the projection of our unconscious mind
and personality unconsciously over others. This acts unconsciously on their
unconscious centers, producing effects in character and conduct, recognized in
consciousness. For instance, the entrance of a good man into a room where foul
language is used, will unconsciously modify and purify the tone of the whole
room. Our minds cast shadows of which we are as unconscious as those cast by our
bodies, but which affect for good or evil all who unconsciously pass within
their range. This is a matter of daily experience, and is common to all, though
more noticeable with strong personalities."
Now
we have given much time and space to the expressions of opinion of various
Western writers regarding this subject of there being a plane or planes of the
mind outside of the field of consciousness. We have given space to this
valuable testimony, not alone because of its intrinsic value and merit, but because
we wished to impress upon the minds of our students that these out-of-conscious
planes of mind are now being recognized by the best authorities in the Western
world, although it has been only a few years back when the idea was laughed at
as ridiculous, and as a mere "dream of the Oriental teachers." Each
writer quoted has brought out some interesting and valuable point of the
subject, and the student will find that his own experiences corroborate the
points cited by the several writers. In this way we think the matter will be
made plainer, and will become fixed in the mind of those who are studying this
course of lessons.
But
we must caution our students from hastily adopting the several theories of
Western writers, advanced during the past few years, regarding these
out-of-conscious states. The trouble has been that the Western writers dazzled
by the view of the subconscious planes of mentation that suddenly burst upon
the Western thought, hastily adopted certain theories, which they felt would
account for all the phenomena known as "psychic," and which they
thought would fully account for all the problems of the subject. These writers
while doing a most valuable work, which has helped thousands to form new ideas
regarding the nature and workings of the mind, nevertheless did not
sufficiently explore the nature of the problem before them. A little study of
the Oriental philosophies might have saved them and their readers much
confusion.
For
instance, the majority of these writers hastily assumed that because
there was an out-of-conscious plane of mentation, therefore
all the workings of the mind might be grouped under the head of
"conscious" and "sub-conscious," and that all the
out-of-conscious phenomena might be grouped under the head of "subconscious
mind," "subjective mind," etc., ignoring the fact that this
class of mental phenomena embraced not only the highest but the lowest forms of
mentation In their newly found "mind" (which they called
"subjective" or "sub-conscious"), they placed the lowest
traits and animal passions; insane impulses; delusions; bigotry; animal-like
intelligence, etc., etc., as well as the inspiration of the poet and musician,
and the high spiritual longings and feelings that one recognizes as having come
from the higher regions of the soul.
This
mistake was a natural one, and at first reading the Western world was taken by
storm, and accepted the new ideas and theories as Truth. But when reflection
came, and analysis was applied there arose a feeling of disappointment and
dissatisfaction, and people began to feel that there was something lacking.
They intuitively recognized that their higher inspirations and intuitions came
from a different part of the mind than the lower emotions, passions, and other
sub-conscious feelings, and instincts.
A
glance at the Oriental philosophies will give one the key to the problem at
once. The Oriental teachers have always held that the conscious mentation was
but a small fraction of the entire volume of thought, but they have always
taught that just as there was a field of mentation below consciousness,
so was there a field of mentation above consciousness as much
higher than Intellect as the other was lower than it. The mere mention of this
fact will prove a revelation to those who have not heard it before, and who
have become entangled with the several "dual-mind" theories of the
recent Western writers. The more one has read on this subject the more he will
appreciate the superiority of the Oriental theory over that of the Western writers.
It is like the chemical which at once clears the clouded liquid in the
test-tube.
In
our next lesson we shall go into this subject of the above-conscious planes,
and the below-conscious planes, bringing out the distinction clearly, and
adding to what we have said on the subject in previous books.
And
all this is leading us toward the point where we may give you instruction
regarding the training and cultivation—the retraining and guidance of these
out-of-conscious faculties. By retraining the lower planes of mentation to
their proper work, and by stimulating the higher ones, man may "make
himself over." mentally, and may acquire powers of which he but dreams
now. This is why we are leading you up to the understanding of this subject,
step by step. We advise you to acquaint yourself with each phase of the matter,
that you may be able to apply the teachings and instructions to follow in later
lessons of the course.
MANTRAM (AFFIRMATION).
I
recognize that my Self is greater than it seems—that above and below consciousness
are planes of mind—that just as there are lower planes of mind which belong to
my past experience in ages past and over which I must now assert my Mastery—so
are there planes of mind into which I am unfolding gradually, which will bring
me wisdom, power, and joy. I Am Myself, in the midst of this mental world—I am
the Master of my Mind—I assert my control of its lower phases, and I demand of
its higher all that it has in store for me.
NEXT CHAPTER
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