What we call the “mind” is three-fold in nature, as three aspects that systematically birth each other as outgrowths, all of which perform different functions as a unified being within a multi-dimensional reality. These three aspects of the mind are what we call the Higher-mind, the lower or subconscious mind, and the self-conscious or conscious mind. The Higher mind exists in a primary unified state and contains both lower aspects of the mind in their potential state. The Higher Conscious acts to birth the subconscious mind as it descends into material reality as the intelligence that constructs and then inhabits the body, which then births the self-conscious mind as a natural growth and development process. We are born into life with a subconscious mind that contains the latent potential of the self-conscious mind, which doesn’t begin forming until the age of seven or eight, and becomes fully active between fourteen and twenty eight. The self-conscious mind is what most think of when we use the term “mind”, and is the brain (grey matter) consciousness as the “thinking mind” that thinks in verbal terms as our internal dialogue. The conscious mind, for the most part remains almost completely unaware of the subconscious mind, which thinks in “experiential” terms as imaginary, sensory realities, and is the aspect of the mind that is fully awake throughout the entire life span of the body and operates all the biological systems of the body, without ever resting, sleeping, or turning off, unlike the conscious mind.
The self-conscious mind is the brain aspect of the mind that’s fully identified with the body and forms our basic identity as what we call our “false ego”, and is what forms the most basic form of ignorance as a form of mis-identification. It’s self-aware in terms of body image and it’s perception of the outer world, and thinks almost exclusively in materialistic terms, but remains predominately unaware of the subconscious mind as its true nature and what serves to sustain it. The subconscious mind, which is the primal consciousness that fully manages the body while interacting energetically with the outer environment, is what structures and develops the brain and births the brain-consciousness giving it life, yet the conscious mind fails to recognize this fact because it doesn’t have a direct awareness of the subconscious mind, and so perceives itself as being independent of both the subconscious and higher consciousness of the soul.
This aspect of the mind, being of the brain, is mortal and temporary in nature, because it’s identified with and dependent on the brain as an organ of the body, existing only as a concept of itself “as” the body, and so it “dies” with the body. This is the aspect of the mind that’s often referred to as the “ego”, when it should more accurately be called the “false ego”, because the soul develops and bonds itself to whatever it associates and identifies with, and is not only what spawns the body-brain identification, but has developed and formed through many identities and multiple lifetimes. Just as the subconscious mind is the same aspect of the mind we share with the plant and animal kingdom as a form of mass, shared, or collective unconsciousness, in humans, we have a higher capacity through the conscious mind that imbues us with the ability to shape our own identity by creating an “image” of ourselves, and thereby determining our own destiny as a form of co-creation within the material world. Through this ability to self-create and become an individual, we also form a part of the mass or shared consciousness of the creative, spiritual realm.
Ignorance is formed from the basic sense of a lack of awareness that doesn’t comprehend its other, immortal aspects, and perceives itself instead as independent of its subtle, spiritual, or unconscious aspects which actually served to create it by birthing it, and sustain it throughout its lifetime. When we identify with our body and material existence through a basic form of a lack of awareness, we perceive death as an annihilation of the “self”, because it’s the death of our brain consciousness of the body as our outer awareness. If however we recognize the other aspects of ourselves that are subtle and subliminal in nature, and we identify with our spiritual nature that created and gives life to our body, we become immortal because this aspect of our consciousness is actually independent of the body and simply exits and “sheds” the body, which is what causes it to die. The body is only “alive” (operating as a biologically active system) when the soul is inhabiting it. The subconscious is birthed into the material body by the higher consciousness (from a purely spiritual plane), and is the immortal aspect of the self, and what forms the “life” of the body, and expresses through the body in a completely natural and automatic fashion as the most prominent use of will, that’s the natural expression of the Higher Will, being acted out without resistance of any kind, and is what establishes the personality of the body as the accumulated experiences acquired through various identities from previous lifetimes, as the souls “karma” that forms the “paradigm” of the mind and gives it all of its natural perceptions and tendencies.
Karma is the natural paradigm of the soul as the mind (vibratory frequency), and forms our natural disposition, temperament, talents and developed abilities, tendencies, thematic perceptions, and natural behaviors as our personality, which are reactivated, brought out and expressed through our formative conditioning that sets the outer stage and mental state to continue creating our life through the same patterns as we left off in the previous life. The soul develops through accumulated experiences (which are all self-created) through many perspectives and life conditions, circumstances, and situations, that are integrated and harmonized to modify, develop, and reform the paradigm of the mind, and becomes the memory we continue living out of as a means of creating ourselves by way of our own self-created experiences (interpretations) that form the evolutionary growth of our soul as our eternal and immortal self.
The conscious mind is simply the identity formed and taken on in this lifetime as a body within a certain set of conditions and circumstances that form the basis for our life situations, which we use to create our experiences out of. The conscious mind is the “material mind” in terms of its limited awareness (located within space and time) as the body. When it “wakes up” and recognizes that it has multiple aspects as states of being, and the subtle, intuitive communication as feelings and mental impressions coming from an internal and invisible realm of pure consciousness that its always engaged in “talking to and with”, it can then choose to align itself with its “whole self” as the expression of the divine will that created it. Through alignment with all aspects of ourselves we can become aware of why we’re the way we are in terms of our karma as tendencies and psychological patterns that we’re always in the process of repeating, we can act in our own life to resolve patterns by first becoming aware of them, gaining self-realization around them as our own creation, and then act willfully to transform perceptions, direct our thoughts and become conscious of our behaviors, in order to break old patterns, and form new ones that are more creative, productive, and healthy. Through self-awareness and active use of our will, we can become conscious creators and act to facilitate our souls growth in an intentional and deliberate manner, instead of continuing to live out unconscious patterns that are degrading to the souls evolution and keep us attached to lower forms of expression that ultimately prevent us from ascending to higher levels of self-expression. The conscious mind, through its current identity has the power of choice and free will to actively make changes and reprogram the subconscious mind by embodying new qualities that create new types of experiences of itself, but of course it has to realize it has this ability and begin actively participating in its own development instead of living its life in a predominantly unconscious, disconnected and haphazard manner.
Integrative Health Consultant and Spiritual Mentor