Chapter 4
Mind at Large
from the book Breakthrough Consciousness
by Sharon Janis
Each person is at each moment capable of remembering
all that has happened to him and of perceiving
everything that is happening everywhere in the universe.
The function of the brain and nervous system is to protect us
from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass
of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most (of it).
According to such a theory, each of us is potentially Mind at Large.
--Aldous Huxley, "The Doors of Perception"
Neuroscience has told us that we humans use less than 10% of our brain. Some estimates go as low as 3%, but lets give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. After all, we are including use of the brain not just for thinking, but also for all the sensory, expressive, interpretive and experiential pathways, as well as the voluntary, involuntary, sympathetic, parasympathetic, willful and automatic functions of the body. Still, we use less than 10% of this wondrous three pounds of jelly known as the brain. Some of the discrepancy between the amount of brain that exists and the amount of brain that is actively used can be explained by the phenomena of redundancy. Because of redundancy, an injury or lesion to one part of the brain can often signal other areas to take over necessary functions that were not previously their responsibility. You could say the brain is overstaffed in case of emergency.
However, even with redundancy, it is difficult to believe that only 10% of our actual brain potential is being used. Logic dictates that if only 10% of our brains were being used, the extra 90% would not be there. If you think the Republicans are stingy, look at nature. Anything non-essential or unused is bred out via natural selection. When amphibians moved to land and no longer needed webbed feet, they slowly disappeared. When Man no longer needed ape-like fur, it was bred out over time. . . well, except for this one guy. . ..
Regardless, it is not like nature to create an extra 90% of brain to sit around unused for centuries upon centuries. And it certainly isn't nature-like to keep expanding the brain as it has from the reptilian to the mammalian, to the ever expanding outer coating which then convoluted into many fissures to increase its surface area even more, unless all this new brain area was being used somewhere.
Lets consider the possibility that this great expanse of brain is being used, however not by us, or rather not by what our egocentric minds limit and refer to as us.
To leap from this conceptual cliff, we have to make an adjustment in our thinking. For our entire lives, we have thought and structured our impressions of reality in a very egocentric way. Just as a child always thinks of each situation only in terms of how it affects him and his comfort and desires, we, having all been children, grew up with this template for our structure of reality. Even as adults, we look at this world through childlike eyes, acting as though our perceptive mechanisms of sight, hearing and touch are the definitive peepholes through which to observe that unfathomable, limitless energy. We want so much to think we have it right, because this brings a sense of security and alleviates the pain of uncertainty. And we know what slaves to pleasure and pain human beings can be, as documented by behaviorism studies that control behavior through rewards and punishments. If it feels better to not know something, we most likely will never see even a glimmer of the information.
Egocentric structuring is the way of human life. Even our geniuses do it. For example, Freud structured his organization of the human psyche in this way:
We have a conscious mind. Beneath this conscious mind are preconscious layers. Under the preconscious layers is the subconscious mind. Below the subconscious mind is this vast unconscious.
(1) The conscious mind, we know. It is our experience of each day. "He said this to me and then I said this back . . . I can't wait to go on that vacation . . . Don't forget to pick up milk on your way home," and so on.
(2) The preconscious mind records an image of the person standing next to you on the bus who you don't really consciously pay attention to, but whom you are able to identify if questioned by police later that night after he mugs a fellow passenger. Your preconscious layers noticed, but did not focus on that particular set of information until it was later requested and brought into the conscious mind.
(3) Our sub-conscious is much bigger than the preconscious. It contains a great deal of information in the form of memories, both experienced and imagined. The subconscious mind notices things like body language and other symbolic expressions through writing, speaking, and other forms of action. Subconscious information can often be accessed via various contemplative or hypnotic techniques. The information in this level is potentially but not generally available to our conscious minds.
(4) Beneath the sub-conscious mind is the unconscious mind. This is where we dream. It is a very symbolic, pattern-heavy space, existing in a format completely different from that of our conscious minds. It is the stage upon which are enacted our nightly dreams, but even when we are awake, the unconscious mind is fueling our experience from beneath the folds of time and space. In the unconscious mind, many levels of communication go on all at once. Most are far beyond our comprehension, or at least beyond the comprehension of that less than 10% of the brain. The unconscious mind is a dark, murky, deep ocean of connective psychic tissue in Freud's topological theory of the organization of the psyche.
Much about Freud's model does apply to our experience, although, as with any model or map, it labels and represents, or "re-presents" our perceptions to us, in a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. The model or theoretical map itself molds reality somewhat. Or as the scriptures of India declare, "The world is as you see it." Nevertheless, Freud's theories explain and reveal a great deal more about the human psyche and experience than was known before his time. The only problem is that Freud's model is upside-down.
Our conscious minds are not the center of our being, just as the sun and galaxies never did rotate around the earth. In the same way, it is that which we call the unconscious mind, looking from our conscious awareness down into this deep black hole of the unknown, which is the greater, infinitely expansive reality. THAT is the center. That great space of beingness is not inside of us, rather we are inside of IT.
All that is made seems planless to the darkened mind,
because there are more plans than it looked for. So with the Great Dance.
Set your eyes on one movement and it will lead you through all patterns
and it will seem to you the master movement.
But the seeming will be true. Let no mouth open to gainsay it.
There seems no plan because it is all plan:
there seems no center because it is all center.
Blessed be He. . .
-C.S. Lewis, PerelandraWe can keep uncovering layers upon layers of ever-expanding and increasing knowledge; but the infinite continues to be infinite, and our finite knowledge cannot do anything more than touch or allude to it -- and keep growing within it. Though this may be a frightening thought to the person who needs to feel control over his or her world, it eventually, with time, becomes a comforting cradle that whispers to us, "Everything is fine . . . All is as it should be."
The act of letting go into the not knowing can be a powerful tool in opening up our consciousness into higher realms of experience and understanding. An Indian scripture states "He who thinks he knows, knows not; and he who thinks he knows not truly knows". At least if we know that we know not, then our assessment of our not knowing the Truth is true.
None are more hopelessly enslaved
than those who falsely believe they are free.
-GoetheThere may be an initial discomfort in having the egocentricity we've always depended on proven to be a myth, just as when we first realize as a child that our parents are not perfect or all-powerful. The truth is that we'd like to think we know what is going on around here, and it takes a leap of faith to let go and float in the space of knowledgeable unknowingness, knowing that we do not know.
This necessitates living on more than one level of awareness at once, and the ability to do so is part of the ongoing evolution of the human brain and consciousness.
You still change the oil in your car, you still go to work, you continue to live your life as though it were the reality you always thought it was. But at the same time, as if another part of you has split off, you maintain a connection with your higher knowledge, your awareness of the infinite. You have built a bridge, perhaps many bridges, between your normal waking state consciousness of worldly affairs and this vast inner expanded space of knowledge, of pure existence.
All things are known to the soul. It is not to be surprised by any communication.
Nothing can be greater than it, let those fear and those fawn who will.
The soul is in her native realm; and it is wider than space,
older than time, wide as hope, rich as love.
Pusillanimity and fear she refuses with a beautiful scorn;
they are not for her who putteth on her coronation robes,
and goes through universal love to universal power.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
We still have to take care of our daily activities. We can't just say, "Well, there is nothing to be done, I am not the doer, and anyway I don't really know what all is going on here. I'm just a drop in the ocean of consciousness, so I'll just sit here and do nothing at all."
The trick is to live in the higher understanding and the lower understanding at the same time, oscillating back and forth, in essence having a dual or plural experience of whatever circumstances come our way. However, this is not some kind of dysfunctional personality fragmentation. Rather, we identify with the unmoving witness consciousness, and play on all the different levels in whatever way is compatible with each level. We can play freely on the more egocentric levels when that is beneficial to the situation, or we can open up to the higher truth and free ourselves of the limitations we see before us when it is time for deeper peace and healing. We learn to express ourselves according to the circumstances, resonating and moving in harmony with the waves of nature. When it is time to work, we are up and ready to move. And when it is time to sit quietly, even if it is in the midst of rush hour traffic, we blend seamlessly into our destiny as it unfolds around us. And if we flip the bird to the guy who cuts us off in his black BMW, we do it fully, enthusiastically, powerfully, and then move on free and unencumbered into the next moment.
Many people think that the spiritual path makes you some kind of unemotional zombie. It is true that a seeker should become free from ephemeral, external, and egocentric desires and frustrations. Yet, the full palette of interaction is available to the soul artist, from which he can paint whatever landscape is right for the time. So if someone does something offensive, we can yell at them, be angry with them, and express whatever egocentric resentment we may be feeling. But then, after making our point, we can retreat into the higher spaces, whether through meditation or just a flick of the will, and use the pure energy within that emotion of anger, fear, love, or whatever to propel us even further into the place of total detachment, total acceptance, knowledge and bliss. Eventually we stay in this state of unconditional love and higher knowledge even in the midst of each situation, whether pleasant or challenging and don't yell at others much or at all.
In that state is the Spanda-principle firmly established
to which a person is reduced when he is greatly exasperated or overjoyed,
or is in impasse reflecting what to do, or is running for life.
- Spanda KarikasWe have to accept that we exist perfectly within a perfect universe -- inherently, without trying to become anything different than what we are. We were born into this family of universal perfection, and do not need to know why or how or exactly what the rest of the family is doing at all times. Our job is to play our small role with mastery. Just as the electron of an atom in a molecule of a fiber of the wood used in the construction of the desk upon which the Declaration of Independence was signed does not need to know about free speech and free will, about the colonies, the King, or religious freedom -- but still performs its function perfectly in the entire process - in the same way, we don't have to understand the full extent of why we're here, what exactly we are here to do.
The outburst of creative energy, this Spanda throb of the universe, is full and complete. It is not unfolding. It is truly beyond time and space. It is completely ever existent, now and forever. It is we who are moving through time and space via the instruments of our brains and bodies, therefore the world around us appears to be unfolding. And if it so happens that this entire universe we have perceived, with all its galaxies, solar systems, planets and life forms taken together, are all the components of one molecule of the garbage can of some creature far beyond our conceptual abilities -- then so be it. Without the constricting ropes of egocentricity controlling us, demanding the assertion of our individual self-importance, this idea that all we know could be just one molecule of something inconceivably bigger can actually bring a smile to our face, a peace to our heart.
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