Many teachers view our mind as our biggest block to enlightenment, and that when we are thinking, we aren’t very enlightened. However, the mind in general is not the issue, but how we use our mind that is our problem. According to Hermeticism, which is the foundation of all of the mystical and religious traditions, the ALL is mind, and everything is mental.
“THE ALL IS MIND; The Universe is Mental.”–The Kybalion
Conscious mind, unconscious mind, subconscious mind, superconscious mind, and the other minds we haven’t discovered yet. “As above, so below, as below, so above” — if mind is there, it is also here, and if mind is here, then it is also there.
It’s how we use our mind that is our problem; as in our perceptions, and how we perceive and relate to existence. Once we change how we perceive each relationship and interaction to our Self and others, we are finally able to use our mind in a way that is harmonious with and within the ALL.
As humans we have three brains, the neocortex, the limbic brain, and the reptilian complex, and the three must be harmonized/unified as One mind to achieve our full potential — but in the correct balance and method of thinking. Each brain corresponds to the Hermetic and Psychological models of “thoughts (perceptions), feelings, and actions”, where we think as cause, we feel as an effect of our thoughts, but as the cause of our actions, and then we act, which is the effect of both our thoughts and feelings.
Perceptions cause our feelings, and our feelings cause our actions.
Most people are not conscious of their thoughts, feel something that they’ve been socially conditioned to feel, such as feeling turned on by sexual images, and then act upon their sexual feelings without consciously understanding “why” they are behaving as they are. They then create reasons for “why” they act, as a justification for their feelings and actions, while consciously ignoring the actual root perceptions/thoughts/programs that caused their behaviors in the first place. This justification is what we term “ego” thinking, as it isn’t an actual reason for “why” the feelings and actions are actually there, but a reason to justify acting without conscious understanding of “why” (aka, what perceptions caused the feelings and actions), and as a means to avoid taking personal responsibility of their lives.
Our block to enlightenment (remembering our true nature) isn’t from thinking in general, but how we utilize our thinking and reasoning, as most of our reasoning is channeled into avoiding personal responsibility for our perceptions, feelings, and actions – through justifying them instead. With true causality, the question “why do I behave this way?” can then transformed from “because I’m a man/woman (insert other unaware nature and nurture reasons here), and it’s how I was born and raised”, to “because I was perceiving this interaction through a specific lens, based on such and such childhood experiences, conditioning, and traumas, but now I can integrate the experience and find a new way of relating that is more harmonious and balanced with life and the ALL”.
In this way, we can transform / transmute our thinking from the baser pre-programmed thinking, to a higher divine thinking. This transformational process is a part of our differentiation from the unconscious collective of humanity, also known as “individuation“.
