HOW WE THINK
GIST: Objective mind can decide but has no power to implement. Subjective mind can’t decide but has unlimited power to implement. Knowing how to make them work together is the secret of success in any area of life.
Levels Of Living
We live on three levels: spiritual, mental and physical. Spirit reasons, chooses and decides what it wants; Mind carries out these decisions; and the outer physical is the result. By the physical we mean not only the body but all of our material affairs, including our home, business, and finances. It is important for you to clearly understand exactly how your mind works, because your whole success hinges on the proper understanding of this.
Conscious and Subconscious Mind
From the beginning of the history of mankind, we have been thinkers and have been intensely interested in our own thinking ability. Up until recent years, philosophers had classed all our mental activities into one group. Whatever we think, they said, we think with our mind. But in the 19th century, certain psychologists began to make a distinction between those thought processes of which we are conscious and those of which we are not conscious.
They observed, for example, that picking up a stone and throwing it at a target is a conscious, choosing mental activity, but that in walking, we do not consciously move one foot after the other; we simply walked without consciously thinking of the method of walking. Similarly, we could be talking on the phone while unconsciously moving our legs and walking.
During the daytime, we think consciously of our various activities, but when we go to sleep, we are not thinking consciously. Nevertheless, in our dreams we have experiences, say, perhaps dream that we are traveling to a far country or being chased by a lion. The dream experience was a thought process which we didn’t consciously select and carry out.
This led close observers to make a distinction between what they called “conscious” mind and “subconscious” mind. These terms are now giving way to the words objective for conscious and subjective for subconscious.
Objective Mind
Objective mind (the conscious) is the phase of mind that reasons, chooses, observes, judges, estimates and decides. Its chief characteristic is that it has the power of choice. All our voluntary actions are in the realm of the objective mind. For example, when we want to scratch our nose, we have to choose to lift our hand from our side to do it. This may be an instantaneous process of choice, but it is the product of a reasoning process.
Subjective Mind
Subjective mind, (the subconscious) on the other hand, never reasons. Its chief characteristic is to obey the choice of the objective mind. It is always the servant of objective mind, yet its power and scope are far greater than that of the objective mind. It is estimated that 90% of our mental activities are subjective.
It is as though an elephant was following the directions of an ant. All the elephant’s tremendous strength to lift and move heavy objects would be entirely at the served of the tiny insect. Or think of a 5-foot man at the wheel of a tractor trailer or a bulldozer.
Now, when it come to the matter of healing diseases or developing courage and self-confidence, or producing conditions that seem far beyond our ability to create, we will see the significance of a clear understanding of this relationship between the objective and subjective mind. Understanding this obedient servant-master relationship is key to tapping the power of the mind for success in every area of life.
Subjective mind is highly intelligent, but it is not a reasoning mind. Its intelligence is perfect. It has all knowledge, and knows how to do anything. It knows how to create anything that ever was created. It knows how to build a body because it builds every body that was ever built. It knows how to build new, healthy cells to replace sickly ones. It started building the body from when it was just one cell in the womb.
Subjective mind knows how to make supply flow in the direction to which it is ordered. It knows how to increase business and to attract customers and friends. It knows how every successful business is run and how every success in life is achieved. It keeps the heart beating in the body. It keeps the cells absorbing nutrients. It keeps the nerves in condition to transmit lightning messages from one part of the body to another. In fact, subjective mind is the worker that has created every objective thing in the entire universe.
Microcosm and Macrocosm
In order to better understand this, let’s go back to the creation of the universe because humankind is on the small scale what God is on a large scale. The same creative process by which the world was constructed we also use in building a new set of circumstances for ourselves. By coming to a real understanding of this fact we can remake our own little world.
Just as there is a Cosmic Trinity, so there is a Trinity in us of Spirit, Mind and Body.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
When God speaks, mind moves into action to produce that which it is the will of Spirit to create. This act of creation is not the making of something out of nothing, but the bringing of the substance of Spirit into tangible form-(manifestation) It is some act of Spirit within, an upon itself.
Creation is the bringing into form of this previously formless substance. In other words, God spoke the word, and mind carried it out unquestioningly and brought the universe into substantial form. Thus, the universe that we see is in reality a spiritual system composed of spiritual substance, and is as truly an expression of God as our Spirit and Mind.
Only One Mind
There is only one mind in the universe. The same mind that formed Mountain Kilimanjaro formed the grass of the field, the oceans, and the human body. We will come to see that the human body, created out of this formless substance, is likewise spiritual substance, and its form and condition of health follows the activity of Mind under the direction of Spirit.
In the meantime, we will content ourselves with knowing that this obedient, responsive mind (subjective) which has all knowledge and can create anything, is as a great, unseen ocean pervading and filling the entire universe. Leading out of this fact is the second important truth: That which we call our subjective mind is merely the portion of this great ocean of subjectivity that we are using at any particular time.
We have at our instantaneous disposal the greatest, in fact, the only power in the universe. It is entirely subject to us and will work obediently for us in a constructive way when we understand how to direct its activity. Our earlier ant-elephant illustration is totally inadequate to convey the full picture of the unlimited power that we have at our disposal awaiting our word.
Why People Fail
If this is all true and we have at our fingertips such a tremendous flow of power waiting to be directed toward the solution of our problems, the logical question that arises is, “Why does anyone ever fail?”
In spite of the availability of unlimited assistance, yet on every hand we see people struggling weakly in the grasp of circumstances, pleading with God to lighten their loads, running back and forth seeking some way of escape and giving way to the blankness of despair. What a bleak picture! Human beings, the crown of creation made in the image and likeness of God, scourged by our fears and cringing in the dark corner, afraid of life and sometimes even seeking death at our own hands!
One reason why people fail is that they break away from God’s method of creation, and are therefore unable to create for themselves. They see two or more things, not one. They see and know the thing they want, but they also constantly see another picture of some power, force, circumstance or influence that is bigger than themselves, which they think is able to stop them from getting what they want.
“The double minded are unstable in all their ways. Let’s not those think they will receive anything.” “If your eye is single, your whole body shall be full of light.” James 1:8; Matt 6:22
These are two statements of a fundamental truth, which is that any idea held steadily in mind is bound to reproduce itself in the outer life. It is unthinkable to imagine that Spirit decided what it wanted to create and then began to wonder if some power could hinder it from creating it. God saw what God wanted, God knew that God could create it, and God spoke the words to decree it without the slightest wavering. “And God said, “Let there be light… and there was…” Gen. 1:3
We fail to hold unswervingly to a single picture, the picture of the thing we want and the fact that it is now ours. Our double mindedness produces a distortion that can manifest only in distorted circumstances. Just as a person whose eyes focus imperfectly sees two pictures overlapping and dimming one another, so the untrained mind sees two pictures- the thing wanted and the hindering force- both of which manifest to the degree that they are seen.
Fear Is A Squatter
Fear is the greatest liar in the universe, and our chief obstacle to singular vision. Moreover, it is always squatting on territory in which it has no rights. Yet it lies so expertly that most people do not see through it. Most people fail to see that their mental world is more real than their material world. Through their imagination, fear can paint a picture that can cause the same mental distress as that which will come from an actual experience.
For example, you got lost at night in the forest on a hunting expedition. You were dominated by fear, you could go through all the torture that would be yours in an actual experience by allowing your imagination to tell you that some wild animal or poisonous snake one is prowling around. Every little sound can cause your heart to beat wildly, cause you to be so scared, and may even bring you into a hysterical condition, even to the verge of insanity. And over what? Over nothing at all, nothing that has any basis in reality!
There is only one thing to do with fear, and that is to face it. Fear will never accept a good look in its face. If you had allowed your objective mind to choose and had boldly stepped taken control of your thought, you will have found that your suffering was completely caused by your imagination. Fear always seizes on nothing and tries to fool us into believing it is something.
Meditation
There is No Fear in love, because perfect love casts out all fear. I now recognize that the ultimate nature of the universe is love. Since the universe is an expression of love and I am some part of the universe, I know that love dwells in me. It is in me in all its fullness, freedom and Infinity. This must be so, because God is love, and Spirit is always present in all its fullness at any point, at any time. Since I am a partaker of this divine love-nature, which is free and perfect, there is no room in me for fear. Love lives in me and casts out all fear.
Questions and Answers
Question 1. What do we mean by objective mind?
Answer: By objective mind, we mean the self-conscious mind that reasons inductively and makes choices.
Question 2: What is the chief characteristic of subjective mind?
Answer: The chief characteristic of subjective mind is its complete obedience to objective mind. It reasons deductively only, taking any statement at face value and bringing it to its logical conclusion.
Question 3: What is the real meaning of creation?
Answer: Creation is not making something out of nothing, but bringing substance into form in correspondence to thoughts or choice.
Question 4: What is the subjective mind?
Answer: There is only one mind. The subjective phase of our mind is our individual use of the universal subjective Mind.
Question 5: How do we use creative power?
Answer: Spirit creates by contemplation, and what it contemplates, it becomes. We use this same creative power by holding ideas steadily in mind until they reproduce in form and condition.
Extracted from:
“Life Is What You Make It” by Ernest Holmes @2015