Text: Keep your heart (mind) with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life Prov. 4:23
Introduction:
Why do some people succeed in life while others fail? The simple answer is that the people who succeed are those who think and those who fail, do so because they don’t think. Then, what is the difference between a lunatic or criminal and your family doctor, and why is one in forced confinement while the other is highly sought after in society? Again, doesn’t the difference lie in the mind? They could even be identical twins, but it is their mind that determines their place in society. Considering the importance of the mind in determining our place in society, we can say that MIND MAKES THE MAN. In other words, you are what your mind makes you. This seminar will be exploring this phenomenon.
Definition:
The Oxford Dictionary defines the mind as an ‘Element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, feel desire and decide.’ while Merriam-Webster.com defines it as: ‘Elements of an individual that feels, perceives, thinks, wills, and especially reasons.’ Both definitions and others too, invariably link the mind and thinking.
Mind: The Great Enigma
The human mind is perhaps the most mysterious and profound of all the gifts of the Creator. Yet it is one of the least understood faculties, and therefore the most abused; because when use is not understood, abuse is inevitable.
In the mental realm, the mind is the equivalent of the heart in human physiology. As heart failure leads to severe illness and death, so does mind failure leads to severe mental illness and mental death in the form of various anti-social behaviors and degrees of insanity. You ought therefore to know as much as possible about your most valuable asset, so you can maximize its benefit.
Duality of Mind
You have only one mind, which functions at two levels, named conscious or objective mind and subconscious or subjective minding; names that indicate the way each works. The major functions of the conscious faculty are thinking, feeling, and desiring while those of the subconscious are survival, preservation of life and health, and determination of destiny.
The Conscious or Objective Mind
This is the part of the mind that makes us aware of objects or things, places, space, time, and other humans, and it is the part that thinks reasons, chooses, feels, and expresses emotions using the five senses as inputs. It is the factory for producing ideas based on the inputs from the senses, and it serves also as a gatekeeper to the subconscious mind. For example, you make all voluntary decisions like choosing your friends, what you eat, and the color of your clothes with your conscious mind.
The Subconscious or Subjective Mind
The subconscious mind operates below the level of your awareness and runs all the systems of your body without your knowledge, keeping your body alive and healthy around the clock. For instance, you are usually not aware that your internal organs like lungs, liver, kidneys, etc. are working, and you cannot voluntarily stop, slow, or speed them. Only via emotions, both negative and positive such as anger, worry, love, etc. can you interfere with its work, and even then, only indirectly.
The subconscious mind does not think, decide, or argue with the conscious mind’s decision of right or wrong. It can only obey the instructions of the conscious mind. (Suicide ideation illustration).
The subconscious mind knows no impossibilities because it knows everything through intuition and not the senses. Impossibilities exist only with the senses, not with Divine Intelligence. It knows the answer to every question in the universe and will move heaven and earth to accomplish whatever task you assign to it through your conscious mind. This is the mind power that inventors and all creative people of all ages use.
THE DEPARTMENTS OF THE MIND
The mind operates like a large establishment such as a university or factory, which is divided into different departments with a lot of synergy between them. We will use, as our example, two faculties of a university with nine departments between them.
The faculty of the conscious mind houses these seven departments: Reason, Will, Conscience, Emotion, Imagination, Memory, and the Five Senses, while the Subconscious faculty houses two departments, the department of the Subconscious and the department of the Sixth Sense.
FACULTY OF THE CONSCIOUS MIND
- The ‘REASON’ Department: This is the ‘Judge’ of the mind. It pronounces judgment on any plan, decision, or idea that is brought to its attention. However, its judgment can be set aside by BELIEF, and two other departments: Will and Emotion. People often do something they know is wrong because they are overcome with emotions or they are weak-willed because emotions have no regard for reason or logic, which is why emotional decisions often turn out to be unsound. Decisions made under emotions such as love, hatred, anger, fear, jealousy, etc. had better be vetted with both reason and will to avoid regrettable or even tragic consequences. Many sexual indiscretions stem from this phenomenon. The story of Amnon in the Bible, who raped his half-sister because of his passion for her, thereby provoking his revenge murder is an example.
- The EMOTION Department: Emotion is the starting point for major actions of the mind. It is the trigger for many of what drives people to make life-changing decisions in life. For example, many people confessed that they joined the United States military following the intense emotion they felt after the 911 attack. Similarly, extreme childhood poverty was the trigger for the determination of many adolescents to vow to be wealthy in life. Love is generally believed to be humanity’s strongest emotion, which also makes it the most dangerous because people hardly submit their love-based decisions to the moderating influence of the Will and Reason.
One of the reasons medical doctors do not, as a rule, take major responsibility for the care of close relatives like spouses, children, parents, etc. is that their decision may be clouded by emotion. Many emotionally induced heroic or heinous acts are committed by people.
- The IMAGINATION Department: This is the ‘Architect’, ‘designer’, or ‘innovator’ of the mind. With imagination, man can design his destiny and change it as frequently as he wants, and the only limitation is that imposed by himself.
With his imagination, man can access the wisdom of the universe, and traverse the ends of the earth in split seconds. He can create anything in his mind, combine reality with fantasy, and come up with outlandish, never-heard-of ideas, which are usually the starting point of great discoveries or inventions. Nothing is impossible for the imagination to conceive, and conceiving an idea is an indication that it is already in the realm of possibilities
While Imagination has practically unlimited potential, it needs constant supervision, and submission to Will and Reason or it may lead to disasters. Many children in the US have shot their siblings dead because they have watched someone shot on TV or in movies, who got up and continued to run. Children have also jumped to their deaths from upper floors in attempts to imitate the superman they watched in movies.
Imagination and the emotion of love when combined without supervision often to regret and disaster. Someone put it succinctly thus: ‘When the emotion of Love and Imagination get together and go on a joy ride, the individuals may never recover from the damage they do to themselves or each other. (Murder of Gabby Petito by her boyfriend is a case in point)
- The Conscience Department: The conscience is the ‘MORAL POLICE’ of the mind because it gives moral guidance to the individual. It evaluates the individual’s motive for desiring anything and tries to harmonize it with the moral laws of nature and the norm of society. If the desire does not comply with moral laws, the conscience can only warn and advise, but it has no enforcement powers. If its warnings are routinely ignored, the worst it can do is stop warning the individual. (Permissive will) It is easier to accomplish the desire when the conscience approves than when the approval is withheld. When the conscience disapproves of something, the individual is more likely to develop ‘cold feet’ as doubts and fears begin to set in.
- The Memory Department: This is the ‘LIBRARIAN’ of the mind, which files and stores the thoughts, experiences, and all the inputs the five senses ever sent to the brain. The only problem is that the memory is not very reliable for two reasons. First is that the large number of information and sensations the brain has to process is overwhelming for it. Secondly, the individual often filters out certain sensations and information that he may find unimportant or unpleasant and wants to deliberately forget. or simply be careless about it. Some kinds of amnesias are a result of disruptions in this department.
- The Five senses Department: The five senses send every sensation that impacts them from the physical environment to the brain. The five senses are also not very reliable, especially when colored by emotions, such as fear, anger, love, hatred, jealousy, etc. For example, you may exaggerate or diminish what you heard because you were angry or afraid. Decisions made based solely on the senses need to be reevaluated when the prevailing sensation has subsided. Our senses tell us the sun rises and moves to the east to set, whereas it is the earth that goes around the sun. The tiny size of the stars belies their size, being bigger than our planet earth. It is better to reevaluate what your senses tell you under emotional stress before acting on them.
FACULTY OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND
- The Sixth Sense Department: Thoughts are vibrations, and the sixth sense is the transmitting and receiving station of the mind in its communication with other humans, and the all-wise God of the universe. For example, as you enter a room full of strangers, if you have a well-developed sixth sense, you can detect the overall mood in the room. Or if you are visiting the home of friends or colleagues, you can tell if there is strife or concord as soon as you enter, even before anybody says a word. Another example is when you have just thought of calling a friend, with your phone in hand, and in comes a call from the friend. Its major benefit is to protect us from what the five senses cannot detect. That instinct that warns you not to go somewhere and there is no obvious danger or reason not to go is your sixth sense. Telepathic communications are rooted in the sixth sense.
- The Subconscious Department: This is the most important department of the mind and can be called the ‘heart’ of the mind. It started your heartbeat at birth, controls your blood circulation, and regulates all your body processes such as digestion, assimilation, elimination, etc. Imagine the complexity of converting bread, eggs, milk, apples, etc. into blood, bones, hairs, and muscles. This complex process is the work of your subconscious mind, and to know that this enormous capacity resides in you is proof that nothing is impossible for you.
This department is the databank for everything that has ever happened to you, but you are unable to recall immediately. Everything you ever saw, heard, learned, smelled, or contacted in any way is stored in the memory department of your subconscious mind. It is also the juggernaut or powerhouse of the mind that gets things done. It knows no impossibilities because it has access to all the power and wisdom of the universe. It is like a super-computer that is connected to the internet and therefore can access all the in the universe.
How The Mind Works
In theory, the mind works like this: Your brain, which is the organ of your conscious (reasoning) mind, receives inputs from one or more of the five senses, which it evaluates in the light of experiences in the memory department either accepts or rejects the idea. If it accepts and believes the idea to the point of faith, the idea is transferred to the subconscious mind, which uses its enormous power and access to the all-wise, Omnipotent God to accomplish the objective of the idea. (God works for us through us,)
In practice, the mind works like a garden in which thoughts, which are products of your conscious mind represent seeds, and your subconscious mind represents the soil. A gardener can decide what seed to plant; you also can decide the kind of thought you plant in your subconscious mind. The soil doesn’t care what seed is planted; it will supply what is needed for growth, whether it is corn or poison ivy. Similarly, your subconscious mind (soil) doesn’t care what kind of thoughts (seeds) you plant. If you plant success thoughts, you will reap success, and if you plant thoughts of failure, you will reap failure. The same goes for thoughts of poverty or riches. You always reap what you sow.
In our garden analogy, seeds must be left in the soil long enough for the soil to do its job, and not dug up frequently. In the same way, you need to focus on your goal long enough for your subconscious mind to complete its work. The same law that causes the soil to supply the right nutrients for each seed type will also cause your subconscious mind to supply the right conditions to make your goal a reality.
Conscious-Subconscious Interaction.
The reason there is so much misery and chaos in the world is that people do not understand the interaction of their conscious and subconscious minds. When these two mind levels work together harmoniously and synchronously, you can have health instead of sickness, success instead of failure, and peace instead of confusion and anxiety.
How The Two Levels Communicate
There are many ways the two levels of the mind communicate, but because of time, we will mention two, namely repetition and trauma, and expand on, one of them in the next section.
Repetition: Whatever your conscious mind believes; if you repeat it to yourself long enough, the message is sent to your subconscious mind which is able to make it become a reality. It figuratively ‘becomes flesh,’ inseparable from you. (This was how you learned your multiplication table earlier in life)
Trauma: Anything that shocks the emotions either positively or negatively traumatizes the conscious mind, forcing it to abandon its gatekeeping duty, and throwing open the gate to the subconscious. For instance, if you ever had a car wreck, the event is part of you that you never forget. If you received some shockingly good news, (promotion, jackpot win, pregnancy, etc.) you will remember it for life because it has become part of you.
It is also possible to simulate this process by whipping your desire into a frenzy as often happens during initiation rituals and ceremonies, ecstasies, mountain-top experiences, and intense worship and prayer services. The result is that your demands pass to the subconscious and becomes a reality in your life.
Being able to make your desire known to your subconscious mind is the key to making the most of what you know about your mind, and that is covered in the lecture titled ‘Application of the Philosophy of Success
Summary
You reason and decide with your conscious mind, while your subconscious mind controls the vital processes of your body and knows the answer to all your problems.
The power of choice is your greatest power on earth, and that power lies with your conscious mind. It is the gatekeeper at the entrance of your all-powerful subconscious mind to protect it from harmful suggestions from outside sources.
What others say about you has no power to hurt you unless you accept them as true. What matters is what you say about yourself because you can reject theirs’s and affirm yours.
Whatever your conscious mind believes to be true (faith) your subconscious mind will accept and accomplish for you.
Keep your conscious mind busy with the expectation of the best, and your subconscious mind will faithfully reproduce your habitual thinking.
However, you can interfere with the normal working of your body systems by worry, anxiety, fear, and unforgiveness, thereby disrupting your health. Rid yourself of such thoughts and your health will be restored.