Edward’s Diary Entry 128: Fake News: "We Control our Feelings"...

Today, we’re making it nice and short: Feelings are produced in the mind, as we said, either from downstairs (the body) or from upstairs (the head brain, ie, the thinking process). So unless we are in control of our thinking process, we cannot be in control of our feelings. 

If we were complete masters of our minds, we would be in control at all times; our minds would be part of "us" and subject to “our” commands, the orders given by our own Selves, our “I’s”. If you look at external things, you can see that we are never complete masters of externals, or things outside of our own Selves. This is because externals will always do whatever they have to do, subject to their own circumstances and laws. We can only control what we have incorporated into our own Selves, for example, our own minds, which must be thoroughly understood and incorporated into our sense of “I”.

So if we observe ourselves in our present state and see that what is happening is that a succession of drifting, wandering, automatic and semi-automatic Thoughts, Emotions or Feelings seem to be controlling us, making us feel whatever the external situation induces, then obviously, "we" are lost, we are not in control of our minds, but rather the contrary: our minds control us. Only occasionally does a volitional Thought actually work!

And we have already seen that our “minds” are just a compendium of data, inputs, interpretations, identifications, memories, and much of these from quite unconscious origins, so who is doing the controlling, if any?

This is the sad state of human beings, modern or otherwise. Because we believe lots of Fake News, and confuse data input of any kind from the five sense with Reality. And data input is always limited, and subject to interpretation, and who is doing the interpreting?

Not much of a way to face Reality, is it? But there is a solution to this… if we really want to find it.

Edward’s Diary Entry 127: More on Feelings...

The most popular article on this blog since it started up is about “The Feelings”, so let’s take a new look at feelings and emotions for our growing audience.

Now “feelings” may be very popular, but when we look at our Mind Map, they seem to occupy a very tiny place in the whole arrangement, which might be a problem for the feeling-oriented! …Not that feelings cannot be very powerful and produce all kinds of reactions, both good and bad. Of course they do. But they can be seen to be dependent on either of two processes:

1) The Bodily Sensations, Movements and Reflexes. When “pushed” from the body, what we can call the Emotional Process may generate first, emotions, and then cognised emotions can become actual Feelings.

2) The Thought Process itself. When the Thought Process generates a thought that “connects” to the Emotional Process, it generates Feelings.

So Feelings can arise from either of these two areas, which are not mutually exclusive and may interact. What seems reasonable is to suppose that in any case a “Thought” is triggered first (from either direction) and that Thought, being given more energy, is converted into a Feeling. It’s as simple as that. A Feeling is an energised and augmentative root-thought. Here is another view of our Mind Map, showing the place of Feelings:

Awareness (Chitta) “I”, the Observer, the Witness, That which sees but cannot be seen, hears but cannot be heard, etc.	Source of Consciousness /  (Self-Awareness) Corresponds to “Being”	ßß Sense Organs	E X T E R N A L W O R L D
Identity (Ahankara) When sufficient Awareness is not present, the Will is usurped by a spurious “I” (a fragmented will) which attaches to or is engulfed by a Thought, Feeling or Action.	Source of Will / (Fragmented will) Corresponds to “Willing”
Intellect (Buddhi) Thinking or thought process, Producing emotions, feelings. Receiving sensations and bodily movements.	Source of Function Corresponds to Functioning Thoughts Feelings Movements/Actions/ Reflexes
Memory (Manas) Automatic “Image picturing” and “Word thinking”, of which one is aware or unaware (unconscious origin), triggering more of the same, and occasionally triggering thoughts or feelings of one kind or another.	Internal Mental Action - with “Will” and “Intellect” dipping into Memory, and triggering Thought, Feelings or Movements/Actions/ Reflexes
↑↑  ↑↑      Bodily organs     BODY

But, in addition, we have to recognise that there are different variations of human beings – we are not all of the same “type”. And Feelings will be stronger or more frequent in some than in others.

1. Enneagram personalities 5, 6, 7. Some of us live more in our thoughts. We intellectualise most of the time, we have more difficulty recognising and connecting with our Feelings and those of others. We live more in the head brain.

2. Enneagram personalities 2, 3, 4. Some of us transform thoughts more easily into Feelings, and are more connected to our feeling patterns and, when not self-obsessed, can actually connect with the Feelings of others.

3. Enneagram personalities 1, 8, 9. Others are simply too active or action-based to bother too much about thoughts and feelings – we just do things all the time, and thoughts and feelings trail behind our actions.

And then comes the question of more or less Self-Awareness, or a degree of initial separation within the Mind-Stuff to permit a certain level of objectivity. The lower awareness is, the more engulfed in reaction we are; the higher our awareness, the more “control” we exercise over thoughts and feelings…

3 Degrees (minus, midrange and plus):

S-A 2-.  In low awareness, the “pushes” from downstairs or upstairs bypass the Intellect, and are immediately infused with Identity (a piece of fragmented will), and automatically trigger a reaction in the form of an Emotion, Feeling, or Reflex Action, as in self-defence, or perhaps offense against a supposed instigator.

As an example of Body to Feelings, take someone who insists they are “afraid of insects” (Identity engulfed in Memory), automatically getting anxious, putting on a painful expression and waving their hands around because of a buzzing fly.

As an example of Thought to Feelings, imagine someone who is a out-and-out bullfighting opponent (Identity attached to a belief in Memory) feeling incensed and insulted upon seeing a famous bullfighter walking down the street in Spain!

S-A 2.  In occasional Self-Awareness, the “pushes” from downstairs or upstairs may either bypass the Intellect, resulting in the above, or are classified by it into desirable or undesirable stimuli, where Non-Virtuous Feelings are nipped in the bud, by the application of non-judgmental Awareness. This may also happened socially, but it is of the judgmental kind, when it is “not appropriate” to express a certain Feeling, and this emotion (having been produced) is forthwith repressed, which may subsequently cause upset in the Thinking Process (as in self-incrimination, guilt and increased anxiety over guilt).

S-A 2+. In more frequent practise of Self-Awareness, a “space” or “distance” is created between Awareness and the Identity-Intellect-Memory section of the Mind, and the “pushes” from downstairs or upstairs may still occasionally bypass the Intellect, resulting in the above, or more frequently they are observed as being desirable and acted on and emoted to, producing Feelings and Action. If undesirables are detected, increased Awareness helps to see them and cancel them out. This result is greater inner freedom, saves energy by non-emoting negative feelings, and automatically brings more of the positive feelings.

As an example of Body to Feelings, take a Self-Awareness practitioner who realises he receives strong messages from the stomach that it wants food, but refuses to give it food until a pre-established time.

As an example of Thought to Feelings, imagine a reasonably aware subject who in the face of an angry person who cannot stop talking, breathes deeply, repeats the initial instruction calmly, and keeps a potentially explosive situation from getting worse.

And so, we come back to the knowledge of and practise of the Virtues, as widely discussed on this blog. As far as Feelings are concerned, modern theories about “normal human emotions” are entirely fallacious and we cannot reasonably subscribe to them at all. The so-called negatives are due to wrong Thinking. Once wrong Thinking is rectified, all Feelings will be positives, thereby overcoming our inheritance from the mammals, which developed all kinds of emotions over millions of years, and which we now transform thanks to Consciousness into truly human positives. 

When we say that feelings like fear, despair, impatience, envy, sadness, boredom, anxiety, annoyance, irritation, anger, frustration, nervousness, jealousy, disgust, contempt, hostility, guilt and pride are "natural" or "normal", it is just an excuse for unconscious lowly human behaviour, as most of the time these negatives don’t make anything – either things, situations, relationships or people, or even our own Selves – any better. 

More soon...

Edward’s Diary Entry 126: More on Reality?

Continuing from the last entry, let’s look at “Reality” in different states of Awareness.

In S-A 0, or deep sleep, we have no knowledge or impression of Mind. We do not know what happens in that state.

In S-A 1, or REM sleep, we see spurious “realities” in the Mind, and our bodies react to them, but objectively they do not exist. It is mere fantasy. This is what is meant by “psychological”, i.e. taking place in the psyche or mind only. There is no existence to these experiences; they are all self-created and only dimly reflect some kind of previously-experienced “reality”.

In S-A 2, or the “normal civilised waking state”, social conditioning tells us we are actually seeing “reality”, but this is questionable, as what we see, hear, smell, taste and touch all happens within the Mind, in piecemeal format, as we stated previously, due to the discriminatory and divisive nature of the Intellect. This is where “my reality” vs. “your reality” cause all the normal conflicts and ensuing arguments and even violence in human life. All experience in this state is subjective and depends on the state of Mind of the beholder. And no two minds will agree fully on anything immaterial. Only physical or material evidence is susceptible of being accepted by various parties, if they are willing! So Reality, here, can only be considered partial and it basically involves only the physical world. The rest is all psychological, fictional and therefore unreal.

In S-A 3, or a Self-Aware state, which may come and go, there is more Reality but it is still mixed with fiction from our own psyches. The trick is that the Intellect now doubts the “fictional realities” put forward and sees the mind as a tool only, not as a definite solution to any problem. The solution must be to perceive Reality through dimensions above the physical, or at least to test out the theory – in one’s own experience – that other dimensions of perception actually exist.

In S-A 4, which we might call Cosmic or Solar Awareness, i.e., beyond mere existence or survival on our planet, it would seem that Reality can be grasped from a space beyond the sense impressions of the physical body, through newly-developed “organs” of perception, if this theory is True, which yogic science purports it to be, and all true spiritual teachings try to point to.

Now the interesting thing here is that modern-day science has come to this in its own way. What we take to be the physical world, or matter – because of our sense impressions – starts disappearing at high magnifications… Look at these images. 

Here we can see a view of the nucleus of a single leaf cell at a magnification of 10⁴ (1 micometer). It is still a comprehensible shape, something we can grasp with our minds, although it is too small to see with the naked eye. So we can say it exists, in a way, but we only see what the microscope gives us to see via our sense impressions. What it really does is also interpreted by our sense impressions and mind and may or may not correspond to Reality.

But when, in successive magnifications, the chromatin, the individual DNA strands, the DNA nucleotide building blocks, and the outer electron cloud of a carbon atom are enlarged step by step, we get the empty space between the inner shell and nucleus, shown here, enlarged to 10^-12, or 1 picometer, where we can see that “matter” has all but disappeared, and there is just a dot hanging in a lot of “empty space”.

In fact, this "empty space", at a ficitonal 10 minus the 12th power (virtually reduced), looks a lot like our Sun if we could look at it from a distance of 10+15, or 1 trillion kilometres away out in space! So at the far poles of imagination – infinitely small and infintely big – there is very little “matter”, and just a lot of big “empty space”. So where or what is Reality?

Well, it looks like whatever Reality may be “out there” and being fed into our sense organs to give us impressions and tell us about the world is actually QUITE UNKNOWN, as it is always surrounded by a lot of "empty space".

In other words, we must find this "empty space" inside our own bodies and Minds, which will possibly correspond to some kind of Reality and see if we have the faculty of knowing or perceiving what that empty space really is. And the 5 yogic bodies seem to indicate this, as we have already stated that the yogies say the food body is Earth and water, 72% water and 12% earth; the mental body, or Air, is 6% of us: the energy body, or Fire, is about 4% of us; and the etheric body, or Akash, or space, is 6% of us. That must be where Understanding of Ultimate Reality will occur. And Self-Awareness is the path along which we must travel to test out the theory.

Shown above is The Death of Socrates (La Mort de Socrate), oil on canvas by French painter Jacques-Louis David in 1787, housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The virtual magnifications used here are from articles published by http://education.jlab.org/

Edward’s Diary Entry 125: Is there a Reality?

O-oh! We are now hopelessly lost, like Lost inSpace! In past ages, for most people, obedience to the powers-that-be was essential. So “Reality” was first what ancient Kings said it was, then Lawgivers, then Religious leaders, then Monarchs and Emperors, and only recently what Dictators, Democracies and Schoolteachers – and of course TV and Newscasters today – tell us. That’s what Reality is for most of us…

Since Gutenberg, the lucky few could debate about Reality after reading various dense tomes and treatises wrapped in leather covers. In the 20th century, bookworms could research various opinions about Reality in silent, dusty libraries. Today, in the 21st century, Reality is right here for all of us in “0-1”, “yes-no”, binary format… on the Internet!

So we’re lucky, in a way, aren’t we? We can now see at a glance that Reality – really – is subject to about a couple of million different interpretations, not just a dozen. And if we take “reality” in the sense of “my reality” vs. “your reality”, then there are 7.4 billion “realities” in the world! See Wikipedia, where about 5,600 words with half as many external links to other pages will tell you all about “reality” according to modern thought!

This proves at least one big “reality” – that no one really knows what Reality is, because there are so many different variants on offer.

A Student of the Mind, however, after initially accepting and then thoughtfully rejecting all “realities” received from parents, youthful self-experience, book learning, schooling, and society at large, will eventually discover that Reality is everywhere, but being inconceivable and unexplainable, we never see it. We only get to discover bits and pieces of it through our sense impressions. It cannot be otherwise. The 5 inlets receive impulses of some kind from outside; these are interpreted as impressions, and give us certain information, but they cannot masquerade as any kind of real knowledge of what the Thing-In-Itself is. We only see a part of any one thing: if you look at someone’s face, you don’t see the back of that person’s head; if you look at a mountain, you only see one side of it; if one thought pops into your mind, it drives out another… So sense input is piecemeal at best, and always subject to interpretation.

Take the body, though. That is reality. The body is “existential”, meaning it exists. Bodies have been around for millions of years. They do not need any training to grasp reality and be influenced by it. They simply do it. They need air, and they get it. They need water; they get it. They need food; they get it. Rest and activity; they get it. The body is a reality in this sense.

Our minds, however, are mostly “psychological”, not "existential"; Human minds have been around for only about 35-40,000 years – built up from mammalian minds going back much further. Modern human minds suddenly popped up with enormous capacities and a degree of awareness that may or may not be developing over the centuries, from local and tribal relationships, to internationalisation and globalisation today. But does this current civilised human mind really exist? Apart from allowing the body to survive – or to degenerate if social customs include lack of exercise, use of drugs and pernicious body-and-mind-altering substances – does this mind really produce anything existential, ie, bring something into being, or existence? Is this mind real? Does it correspond to any reality? Or is it all self-made and self-invented? Our thoughts may use energy, but is there any reality to a thought? Some say a thought can be so strong that it can move an object. I have never seen that, have you? A thought can be strong enough to trigger an emotion, that’s for sure. But is an emotion produced from a thought any more substantial than the original thought? Is there not something or someone hidden behind any thought or emotion that is the real “you” producing the thought, response or the action?

The mind, in this sense, is a convenient fiction that may produce a real action in the outer world, but in itself, since it cannot grasp Reality fully, how can it be real? or let's say the degree of reality in the mind varies depending on the part of the mind involved... Taking the normal civilised human mind and referring back to our classification of the parts of the mind in previous posts, here's a short summary:

Memory (Experience). Unreal. This is just a heap of stuff picked up from the environment. Something of it may correspond to reality, other things are just dreams, fictions, or hallucinations.

Identity (Ego). Not real. It is just an attachment to (an identification with) an idea picked up from the environment or a thought produced by the mind itself. It can be quite unreal or fanciful.

Intellect (Discrimination).  A little more real, maybe. This is a kind of intelligence that says “yes” or “no” to certain things. It may correspond to Reality if a “yes” is given to something real; however, if influenced by Memory or Identity, a “yes” may be given to something quite absurd and unreal, or a "no" to something quite real!

Awareness (Chitta). Getting quite real. This comes from pure Intelligence, filtered down through the mind to our level of Self-Awareness (S-A 0, 1, 2, 3, etc), so it is our key to discovering Reality. As a sense of being “present” or “experiencing our self and the outside world at the same time", it is an essential pre-condition to discovering what Reality might be.

And so, we have to keep striving to understand how to increase Self-Awareness as the method for investigating Reality, and go beyond the "normal, civilised" mind to see if there is anything else IN THERE. Stay tuned for more.

Edward’s Diary Entry 124: More Mind Stuff...

There’s a huge mix-up with the modern theories of mind – even from great thinkers like A.R. Orage, who was one of Gurdijieff’s “star” students... let alone mainstream psychology, with its countless theories. Orage used this diagram, left, of the human psyche, which receives impressions from the external world through 7 channels of Sensation (below), which are classified by the Emotional or feeling function as pleasant or unpleasant, and deposited as images in Memory, with Imagination being the ability to recall Images from Memory and combine them into new forms, and Thought being the classification of images by their likenesses and differences. With Thinking pre-supposing Imagination, Imagination Memory, Memory pre-supposing Sensation, and Sensation an external world as the original source of sense impressions. But these processes, he says, are mainly Unconscious at present (shaded parts) and the aim of real education is to make them increasingly Conscious.

This may very well be true to a certain degree, but if the process is mainly Unconscious, how are we supposed to “make it more Conscious”? Where does this “Consciousness” come from in this diagram? I can’t find it. Normally, in so-called “esoteric groups”, some big boss-man or teacher points things out to you, give orders and tells you what to do… And presto! like magic, “Consciousness” is supposed to appear on the scene! That can’t be right, can it? So a student of one’s own mind will see that things don’t work exactly like this. The only thing that really works is the D-I-Y method, doing it yourself: going inside and seeing how your Mind really operates. But for that, of course, there has to be a willingness and some degree of preparation…

And once again, any diagram that represents the so-called Mind as a “self-contained” unit cannot depict the real situation, just like the pictures of the body that we are normally presented with. Because living bodies are connected to every other living body and every other living thing – both animal and plant – by the invisible medium of AIR, not to mention by the element of EARTH itself, which is present in every cell in the body. So “self-contained” diagrams don’t even work for Bodies, let alone MINDS. Minds are connected by Consciousness or Awareness, to lesser or greater degree. Awareness (Chitta) is the natural medium of the Mind, and probably its Source.

So this division into Conscious mind, Unconscious mind (and/or Subconscious mind) makes room for all kinds of tricks and/or treats, and again negates the existence of a Source or Energy or Fuel for the Mind itself, which comes from inside the Mind of Man. If there is no Source, there is no Mind – as when the Body gives up the ghost and dies, thereby disconnecting Mind from its Source and dispersing it into the recycling bin. Whatever else there may be, we don’t know, do we?

And diagrams like this do not explain much, as they only take into account “normal” activities in our civilised state, without much Mind-Training, which, we have to say, is what Orage was really interested in. So what about all these other “functions”? Where do the following come from? 1) Intelligence, i.e. Problem-Solving Capabilities; 2) Creativity; 3) Imagination, Imagery, imaging… 4) Fantasy; 5) Ideas; 6) Inspiration; 7) Intuition; 8) Wisdom; 9) Understanding 10) Joy, Bliss and Ecstasy; etc.  Are they important? They are all supposed to somehow “occur in the mind”, but how? From sense impressions? No, they have to be interpreted and classified first; impressions are just raw material. From our ancestral sack of Memory (manas)? No, in our view, Memory is all past input through the sense organs, and variations of these inputs within the Mind. From Awareness (chitta) or pure Intelligence? Maybe that’s it…

So there’s no other remedy – if you don’t want to go crazy and waste your time. You have to go inside the Mind and look around, and that’s a tough task, isn’t it? And yet, it has to be done.

Cave Series 13: Blue Force Field

No black cave the other day… It was a bluish force field, an immense expanse of power extending before me, something like the picture shown here, and I sat there just gaping at it with bated breath, caught up inside it and feeling how I could look around and expand into it at will. I lifted my arms – they weighed nothing. I brought them together and spread them apart  – effortlessly. The field grew stronger, and I was in the midst of it. It was me. Or I was it. I couldn’t tell. Waves of power swept through me, from feet to head. And just as I was beginning to revel in it and enjoy it, I decided, hey! this is all very nice, but it’s beside the point. I am here to get answers to my questions, not watch sideshows. For decoration, I already have the world outside. I don’t really need any modified world-models in the mind. I want an answer to my question. I won’t settle for less. And so I came back to blackness, and kept asking…

Edward’s Diary Entry 123: Mind Map 2: The Problem-Solving Life

Whereas the “Automatic Operation of Mind – S-A 2” was described as the “Problematic Life”, the initial state of the Seeker or Student of the Mind with increased Awareness provides for a life that is freer from normal everyday problems, although there are also many “issues” to deal with! 

Let’s see where things can go wrong in this re-trained state of existence where an incipient separation has been achieved in the Mind-Stuff. 

Semi-Automatic Operation of Mind – S-A 3 According to one’s “type” (more thinking, feeling or doing) the mind-body complex still often works in automatic mode, receiving sense impressions from “outside” and pushes from “inside” in the form of:
Awareness (Chitta) More frequent realisation of “I” as Awareness, due to the formation of an initial separation in the Mind-Stuff, and motivation to seek and understand the operation of the Mind, or find “Oneself”.	Awareness is “problematic” in that it requires Energy or fuel to remember our aim, our goal – which is to increase Awareness – but the Mind often lapses into a lower state of automatic functioning. How to fuel Awareness is something that we are working on and finding answers to. It seems that exercising Awareness does not use up this Energy, but actually increases its supply, i.e., practise makes perfect.
Intellect Greater discrimination of occurrences in the mind, and tracking of the thinking or thought process (which may or may not produce feelings), and incipient ability to control thoughts (repetition, breathing, self-observation, reasoning).	Thinking may now be of various kinds: 1) Intentional thinking = contemplation, when we actively direct our train of thought along certain lines to try to ascertain and keep up with Reality, or try to cut through Falsehoods or attitudes indicative of false thinking, or unproven assumptions. 2) Automatic thought trains = wandering, or mental monkey-business, when our Awareness detects the movement of the mind along habitual grooves or channels, dipping into Memory (manas) and receiving inputs from Identity. 3) Corrective thinking or thought-train stoppage, when our Awareness detects process 2) and brings us back into either process 1) or strives for 4) Non-think, which is detention of thoughts through greater Awareness or via non-think techniques: a) awareness of breathing, b) awareness of sense impressions, c) occupying the automatic thought-process with a mantra, counting, Vichara or prayer, d) becoming meditative and doing sadhana, etc. When the “closed loop Thinking-Identity-Memory” problem occurs, Awareness kicks in to remedy the situation. The greater responsibility of our Intellect now prevents most “normal” problems from being seen as such, i.e., through right attitude and right thinking, we solve most life problems, as these problems are created by the mind itself due to wrong attitude to Life. With this, our feelings – what modern-day science calls our “nervous system” – are freed from many of the sympathetic reactions and tends to more parasympathetic reactions, i.e., we are liberated from the “bad” and ”negative” emotions due to Right Thinking, and therefore have more room and opportunities for experiencing the “pleasant” and “positive” emotions of joy, delight, thankfulness, love and compassion, etc.
Identity Greater recognition of past conditioning, and rejection of engulfment of “I” in thoughts, feelings or actions, with greater separation in the Mind-Stuff of Intellect, Identity and Memory.	Identity, or our “sense of me”, is no longer allowed to become problematic, because right Thinking and right Intellect already tell us that this “sense of me” is a product of past conditioning at best, and a fictional entity in any case. We are actively still investigating all of this “me” and searching for the so-called “I”. So criticism or rejection by someone from outside is taken as an opportunity for applying Awareness. Self-criticism is directed by intentional thinking 1) as above. Occasional diving into Memory (manas) is checked by Awareness as required, whenever the Intellect “remembers” its aim of directing mental affairs and disallowing automatic and semi-automatic operations.
Memory (manas) Automatic “Image picturing” and “Word thinking”, of which one is increasingly aware, but still sometimes unaware (unconscious origin), not always triggering more of the same or sparking off feelings considered (by the Intellect) to be impractical or useless (the negatives or vices, occurring due to wrong thinking or wrong outlook).	Awareness strives to observe the upsurge of Memory as triggered by internal (Thinking) or external (input) (chance) sources. Intellect then attempts to either accept or reject the Memory, as required by the situation. This may happen at any time: 1) During Intentional Thinking: The Vichara technique is used to detain the Memory and redirect the Mind back to its Source. Another Memory comes? Question the Source. A thousand Memories come? Always question back to the Source. 2) At low-awareness times, Automatic thought trains will occur, wandering, or mental monkey-business. Same technique as above. During 3), same technique. 4) During Non-think times, Awareness is newly applied depending on what we are doing: a) breathing, b) sense impressions, c) mantra, counting, Vichara or prayer, d) meditation or sadhana, etc.

Let's now look at the list of “problems” we gave before, with the solutions found in state S-A 3 and S-A 3+ below. Hope you're following.

Problem Chart 2: Solutions

Here’s the "Problem Chart” again as mentioned above, with the solutions found in state S-A 3 and S-A 3+

Problem Chart 2 with Solutions 

Problem Chart 1: Crying is not the Solution!

Here’s my Problem Chart, which you can use to classify your problems (replace “I” with any other pronoun of your choice!).

Problem Chart 1

Edward’s Diary Entry 122: Mind Map 1: The Problematic Life

Using the diagram of the “Automatic Operation of Mind – S-A 2” given yesterday, it is easy to see where things can go wrong in this normal civilised mode of existence. In a low state of awareness and without the necessary training in the field of mind, all problems take on huge proportions and occupy the mind in futile automatic functioning. 

Let’s take a look and see how the description of the parts of the mind can shed some light on the creation and perpetuation of the so-called “problems” we humans normally have.

Automatic Operation of Mind – S-A 2 According to one’s “type” (more thinking, feeling or doing) the mind-body complex works mostly in automatic mode, receiving sense impressions from “outside” and receiving random pushes and shoves from “inside” in the form of:
Intellect Predominance of the thinking or thought process (which may or may not produce feelings) connecting with:	Problems from the “Intellect” (thinking) Thinking runs along in a closed loop, but Identify with Thinking fuels this and increases the thought process. At the same time, Thinking dives into Memory to justify its Identification, and of course it finds past experiences which justify present thinking, and this spirals into strong feelings, which also reinforce the initial thinking patterns, which continue unabated. This occurs until Awareness of the double bind comes in (maybe from someone outside), but if not, the subject spirals into stress, anxiety, frustration and violence, and may cause actual physical harm to him or herself (psychosomatic damage).
Identity Based on past conditioning, the “I” (the Will) gets engulfed in the thought, feeling or action itself, with no noticeable separation in the Mind-Stuff of Intellect, Identity and Memory.	Problems from “Identity” (sense of “me”) Identity is criticised or rejected by someone from outside (or internally by one’s own self!), which fuels Thinking in a closed loop, increasing the thought process, which dives into Memory to justify its own picture, of course finding past experiences which justify present thinking and sensations, and this spirals into very strong feelings of hurt or damage to the Identity, which again reinforce the initial thinking patterns, and this spirals out of control if Awareness fails to enter (maybe from someone outside), producing anger, hurt, sadness, frustration and violence, also leading to actual physical harm (psychosomatic damage) in the subject, and perhaps even to violence toward the original criticiser or instigator.
Memory (Manas) Automatic “Image picturing” and “Word thinking”, of which one is aware or unaware (unconscious origin), triggering more of the same and occasionally triggering feelings of one kind or another.	Problems from “Memory” (the past) A Memory is triggered by internal (Thinking) or external (input) (chance) sources. Identity immediately accepts this and starts the Thinking loop as above. Continued Thinking and diving into more Memories produce strong feelings affecting the Identity, which again reinforce the initial Thinking patterns, and this spirals out of control if Awareness fails to enter (maybe from someone outside), producing sadness, depression, frustration, guilt, anxiety, despair, etc. This can also lead to actual physical harm (psychosomatic damage) in the subject.
Awareness (Chitta) Occasional realisation of “I” as Awareness, usually when the subject is queried, as the Identity usually remembers the last input or the habitual mode of action and invests the sense of “I” in the corresponding thought, idea or feeling and justifies this to him or herself and/or to the enquirer.	Problems from “Awareness” (“seeing”)? No! Given false thinking or wrong outlook or not, Awareness of a “problem” simply triggers case 1, 2 or 3 above and the Thinking process sets in. There is no problem in being aware or conscious of a thing or event. It is only a recognition by Consciousness, and as such, it is always good, but may either correspond to Reality or not – that is for the Intellect to determine. So Awareness as such is never a problem creator, only a problem detector and observer. So no problems here!

Then all of the so-called “problems” can be relegated to one of the categories shown in the "Problem Chart", linked here. A problem is seen as a life-threatening or self-threatening situation only due to false reasoning, wrong thinking or incorrect outlook; improper identification or wrong sense of “me”, or predominance of past memories in the mind-stuff, all due to lack of Awareness.

Take any of your “problems” and put them in the right category. An extended Problem Chart with solutions will be here soon. Stick with me please.