The Mind

The following article from John Van Auken adds to the discussion we had in our study group this week and reinforces what Eric said:

The Mind
by John Van Auken

From his deep attunement to the Mind of God, that Universal Consciousness, Edgar Cayce stated that mind is the light, the builder, and the bridge to liberation and enlightenment. Here is his perspective on the mind:

“The Spirit moved ... and there was Light -- Mind. The Light became the light of men.”

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. How? The Mind of God moved, and matter, form, came into being. Mind, then, in God the Father, is the builder. How much more, then, would or should Mind be the builder in the experience of those that have put on Christ or God, in Him, in His coming into the earth?”

“Each entity finds itself in a three-dimensional phase of existence or experience: the world without, the world within, and the mind that may span or bridge the two.”

Mind is the light, the builder, and the bridge between spirit and body.

He explained that life, all life, begins in the spirit, which is the creative force that brings all into existence. Then mind takes this life essence, and builds with it. Finally, the physical is the result: “Mind the builder, the spirit the creator, the material [is] that created. Great truth! Keep it before you.” It certainly is a powerful concept to keep before us. All outer “things” have their origin in the unseen spiritual forces, then find expression in the mind, and ultimately appear out here in the physical. So often we physical beings think that the outer, physical forces are the more powerful. But Cayce frequently encouraged us to accept that “the unseen forces are greater than the seen.” If we want to change something, it must begin in the spirit and the mind.

“That you think, that you put your Mind to work upon, to live upon, to feed upon, to live with, to abide with, to associate with in the mind, that your soul-body becomes! That is the law. That is the destiny.” He expands upon this: “Mind [is] the builder, the appreciator, the paralleler, the drawer of conclusions, the chooser....” And, Cayce says, mind is driven by “the ideal.”

The Ideal is Mind’s Navigator

“As you contemplate, as you meditate, as you look upon the Mind, know the Mind has many windows. And as you look out of your inner self, know where you are looking, [where] you are seeking. What is your ideal? What would you have your mind-body to become?”

In a deep contemplation session on this teaching, my deeper mind saw the ancient boat of Pharaoh, with its twenty-four oarsmen and the navigator’s hut on the bow. As I sought to know the meaning of this imagery, Cayce’s teaching about the twelve nobles before the Throne of God in the Book of the Revelation came to mind. He said that they represent the twelve paired cranial nerves (24) in our own heads! As these nerves turn their attention away from worldly pursuits and toward heavenly ones, they bring a new heaven and a new earth, meaning a new mind, a new body. As I reflected on this, I realized that the twenty-four oarsmen on Pharaoh’s boat represented these same nerves and their ability to bring us across the barrier that the Nile River represented, that barrier between what the Egyptians called “the land of the living,” which is the place of the physically incarnate, and “the land of the dead,” the realm of the spiritually living. I realized that the navigator was indeed the ideal held as we sought to cross the barrier between this world and the spiritual.

“That upon which it [the mind] feeds it becomes. The most important experience of this or any individual entity is to first know what is the ideal -- spiritually. Who and what is your pattern?” Cayce frequently said that Christ is the consciousness and Jesus is the pattern. Jesus, for Cayce, is the ideal pattern for humans to use to build their own mind -- just as one would use a pattern to make clothes from new fabric. Jesus exemplified a human at one with God and making that oneness manifest in his life among others. Cayce often noted that Jesus simply went around doing good according to God’s inner guidance to Him. An ideal way for all of us to live.

We have covered the topic of ideals in detail in a previous issue, but for our purposes here, consider this from Cayce: “What, then, is an ideal? As concerning your fellow man, He gave, ‘As you would that others do to you, do you even so to them’; take no thought, worry not, be not overanxious about the body. For He knows what you have need of. In the place you are, in the consciousness in which you find yourself, is that which is needed today, now, for your greater, your better, your more wonderful unfoldment. This is that attitude of mind that puts away hates, malice, anxiety, jealousy. And it creates in their stead the fruits of the spirit: love, patience, mercy, longsuf-fering, kindness, gentleness. Against these there is no law. They break down barriers; they bring peace and harmony; they bring the outlook upon life of not finding fault because someone ‘forgot,’ someone’s judgment was bad, someone was selfish today. These you can over-look, for so did He.”

Such a state of attitude, of mind, toward life sets up a powerful map for navigating oneself through the day’s challenges and opportunities. This is an ideal, a navigational star by which to guide oneself each day. With this ideal, the mind approaches every obstacle, every crosscurrent, every undertow, and winds its way through them by holding to the ideal, the map set before us as the best way. This is the power of an ideal held by mind as we live life. Yet, as we grow and learn, we may see the need to adjust our ideal. Cayce encouraged us to write our ideals down, but to do so in pencil. As we gain a greater under-standing we see over the next mountain, we gain an increasingly better perspective of the whole truth, the way, and we adjust our ideal accordingly.

Thoughts are Things

Another fundamental Cayce teaching is: “Thoughts are things, and as their currents run they become miracles or crimes in the experiences of individual life.”

For the deeply attuned Cayce, thoughts were as real as actions. In fact, during his readings from the Book of Life, he had to strain to determine whether the person he was reading for had actually done something or had just thought about doing it! “Thoughts are things; just as the Mind is as concrete as a post or tree,” and the Akashic Record, the Book of Life, records them as such.

This is a hard one to hear. The first time I read it, it pained me to think how many times my thoughts had done harm to another and placed a negative influence in the Collective Mind. Watching our thoughts is important.

Watch Self Pass By

Cayce was once asked: “How may I learn to know self as I am known?” He answered: “Being able to literally stand aside and watch self pass by! Take the time to occasionally be sufficiently introspective of that, that may happen in self’s relation to others, to see the reactions of others as to that as was done by self; for no man lives to himself, no man dies to him-self.... Be able, then, to see self as others see you. Stand aside and watch self pass by!” This is a powerful learning tool.

For Cayce, this was not just good mental advice, it was good physical advice: “If the body will watch self and the reactions of the various foods or preparations, and draw a comparison from what may be termed a combination of all the various authorities, then the body will find what is best for self. See?” Want to know the best diet for yourself? Watch how the various foods and cooking methods affect you. This information will be better than anyone else can give you, because it is revealed in your own body.

The Subliminal Mind

Dreams and meditations are two of Cayce most recommended means for fully engaging the power of our minds. According to Cayce, our subliminal mind will engage with our outer mind to review and discuss all influences: “In this there is seen both the action of the subconscious and subliminal mind and the physical mind, reasoning together, as it were, of the past, present, and future conditions as relating to the mental attitude of the entity; for, as is seen in the final analysis of the real Mind, the Builder, and as this is presented in the view of the dreams, the meditations of the entity in those days when the inner consciousness of the entity builded in the mental forces those conditions as would bring the great joy, peace, and happiness to the entity, these, as we see, took on physical forms in the mental aspirations of the entity.”

Seek within ourselves through dreams, meditations, and deep reflections, and our subliminal mind will convey the insights.

Even God will help, as seen in this Cayce reading: “Thus the individual entity finds ... that the first creation of God, the mind, is the way; or the way through which light may come to the entity from the Father. Even as He brought to remembrance the promise, for memory brought in the light of consciousness is the outpouring of spirit. (Memory is the mind of the soul.) Keep not only the body clean, the mind pure, but in the light of the spiritual forces as aid -- keep in at-onement with same.” [The parenthetical statement about memory is Cayce’s.]

Subconscious: The Police

“The only real guide that may be relied upon is that subconscious force that is as the police to the entity, both in the physical, material, and in the spiritual planes. And, as this [the subconscious] will guide and direct the entity, in that same way and manner as the police in their regular capacity ... in the physical life.” What a fascinating concept. Our subconscious is our conscience, our policing power. “That is, the police, the subconscious mind, represent the law that guides, directs, and that way upon which the entity, which any entity, may rely for the enforcement of that which will keep in peace, in war, in any condition, that straight way for the best interest of each and every individual.”

However, even as physical police departments can become corrupt, so can our subconscious police become misdirected by powerful suggestions of self-doubt, self-condemnation. “In the same way and manner as these (the police) may become subject to all of the vicissitudes that are ever present within the conditions in life, so may the subconscious forces, misdirected, misguided, or seeking to belittle the self ... through its experience in the Earth’s plane.” The only way to protect against this misdirection is to hold to a higher ideal that lifts us beyond our self-doubt, self-condemnation. God does not condemn us. God has erected no barrier. Self is the only obstacle to full enlightenment and reunion.

Levels of Consciousness

Cayce identifies three levels of consciousness or dimensions of mind: conscious, subconscious, and superconscious.

Conscious mind is the level that we are most familiar with. It is the level within which our personality and three-dimensional self develops and has much of its activity.

The subconscious is that part of our minds that bridges the outer self with the spiritual self. According to Cayce, the subconscious is both in the body, through the autonomic system, and beyond the body, in the soul realms of telepathy, non-physical life, and timelessness. This mind is the mind of the soul, says Cayce. As the mind of our outer self is the conscious mind and that portion containing our personality, so the subconscious mind contains our developing “individuality,” which Cayce identifies as our true self.

The superconscious level is the portion made in the image of the Creator, as recorded in Genesis. It is that portion of us that is a god or godling, as the ancient Egyptians termed it. Cayce explained that the superconscious is a thing apart from anything earthly, and only makes its presence known or is knowable when the soul-self lifts itself and portions of the conscious mind up into the vast, expansive level that is the superconscious. This is the portion of our being that Cayce referred to when he said that “not only God is God, but self is a part of that oneness.”

To know the superconscious, Cayce says that one must learn to achieve deep levels of meditation. He said that if a dream feels more like a vision than a dream, then it most likely originated from this highest level of consciousness.

At death, the conscious mind is gradually absorbed into the subconscious (the mind of the surviving soul), and the subconscious becomes the operative mind, with the super-conscious now in the position the subconscious held while we were incarnate. Later, upon reincarnation, the subconscious projects another portion of itself into the newly developing outer, three-dimensional mind. Intuitions, “knowings,” and psychic perceptions come from the projected subconscious. Cayce explains that not all of the subconscious is projected; some of it remains in very high levels of perception and activity. But the portion that is in the body maintains the autonomic systems of the body (respiration, circulation, digestion, etc.) and the seven spiritual centers or chakras, which correspond with the seven endocrine glands.

We may feel that we do not know our subconscious soul-self, but we do, and we are comfortable with it. For example, when we are waking with a dream, but notice that our bladder is full and go empty it, only to return to the bed with no recall of the dream, then we have just experienced our two selves. One is the dreaming mind, the subconscious soul-mind, and the other is in charge of the bladder and the central nervous system that moves the body to the bathroom (somatic system). Yet, notice how comfortable we were in the dream state. Notice how we felt that WE were dreaming. That is because this is the true self, and we know it well. Yet, there is a veil that drops when we move outward, a veil that is opaque. The outer self cannot see back through that veil, cannot recall the contents of the dream, because it never had the dream and was only awakened when the physical body needed to move. Now you can see how we can die to this body and this world, and still live, still be active. Sleep, the shadow of death, is that condition in miniature each night.

Mind is our true nature. It is that portion of us that lives forever. What would it be like to live our lives as minds in bodies, rather than bodies with minds? Surprisingly, Cayce considered the mind to be a savior, a redeemer. It is that portion of our being that can mend and restore us. Let’s engage our minds and fully awaken to our spiritual selves.