F.: The pointer was offered yesterday that humans are born with brains and that consciousness manifests within the space for a time but that no one has ever been born with a "mind.” In fact, there is no such thing as a “mind,” so there is most certainly no such thing as a “my mind.” What a person will refer to as “my mind” is really a collection of “their” concepts that form the illusions of “their minds” that become the illusions of “your mind” after exposure to their programming and conditioning. So who are “they”?
Typically, they are your parents or guardians. They might be your relatives. They are teachers you listened to in schools. They are the politicians you hear on television. They are the religious people you’ve met or heard. They are the authors of all the books you've ever read that contained their concepts and their efforts to teach you more rather than to help you get free of all the nonsense in the culture. They are everyone who has ever told you anything that either gave you a concept that you now believe in or that gave you a counter-concept that you now believe in because you disagreed with them. Each concept is a thread, and each thread became another part of a huge net that eventually envelops the consciousness, shrouding it in greater and greater darkness as the threads are overlaid one layer upon another.
Typically, they are your parents or guardians. They might be your relatives. They are teachers you listened to in schools. They are the politicians you hear on television. They are the religious people you’ve met or heard. They are the authors of all the books you've ever read that contained their concepts and their efforts to teach you more rather than to help you get free of all the nonsense in the culture. They are everyone who has ever told you anything that either gave you a concept that you now believe in or that gave you a counter-concept that you now believe in because you disagreed with them. Each concept is a thread, and each thread became another part of a huge net that eventually envelops the consciousness, shrouding it in greater and greater darkness as the threads are overlaid one layer upon another.
Eventually, all those threads result in a mass that eventually blackens the consciousness to such a degree that no light can enter. From that point forward, everything you have ever thought about, emoted over, or believed in was determined by the learned ignorance within that shrouded, clouded “mind” that no light could penetrate. After reaching a state in which no light can penetrate, that corrupted consciousness blindly determines everything that you think or believe or do. One tiny thread could not have imprisoned and taken from you an ability to choose rather than to be driven by the forces of unconsciousness and sub-consciousness, but millions of threads have done just that.
In Gulliver’s Travels, the lead character finds himself struggling to regain consciousness. Coming to, to some degree, he finds himself utterly immobilized by a series of threads that have been used to imprison him. A group of six-inch-high humans called “Lilliputians” have used what they take to be ropes (but which amount to nothing more than threads to the full-sized Gulliver) to bind him completely. The Lilliputians are described as being “mean and nasty, vicious, morally corrupt, hypocritical and deceitful, jealous and envious, filled with greed and ingratitude—they are, in fact, completely human.” And during the time that Gulliver was unaware, those mean, vicious, corrupt, hypocritical, deceitful, jealous, envious, and greedy humans used their threads to tie Gulliver down to take away all choice and all freedom. Where one thread would have had no effect, the accumulated mass of threads left Gulliver completely under their control.
So it is with that mass of threads that have covered your consciousness and—as a result of being left in darkness—have also left you bound and imprisoned. One tiny thread could not have trapped you, but millions of threads have done the job. As with Gulliver, you have been struggling to regain consciousness. You find yourself utterly immobilized by a series of threads that have been used to imprison you and to bind you completely. You think you are making choices when you are merely being driven by the force of their concepts which give them control over you, though they may be "long gone." But your programmers have been hypocritical and deceitful, telling you that you are free, that you live in the land of the free, that you can do anything you want. But you can’t do anything you want.
In Gulliver’s Travels, the lead character finds himself struggling to regain consciousness. Coming to, to some degree, he finds himself utterly immobilized by a series of threads that have been used to imprison him. A group of six-inch-high humans called “Lilliputians” have used what they take to be ropes (but which amount to nothing more than threads to the full-sized Gulliver) to bind him completely. The Lilliputians are described as being “mean and nasty, vicious, morally corrupt, hypocritical and deceitful, jealous and envious, filled with greed and ingratitude—they are, in fact, completely human.” And during the time that Gulliver was unaware, those mean, vicious, corrupt, hypocritical, deceitful, jealous, envious, and greedy humans used their threads to tie Gulliver down to take away all choice and all freedom. Where one thread would have had no effect, the accumulated mass of threads left Gulliver completely under their control.
So it is with that mass of threads that have covered your consciousness and—as a result of being left in darkness—have also left you bound and imprisoned. One tiny thread could not have trapped you, but millions of threads have done the job. As with Gulliver, you have been struggling to regain consciousness. You find yourself utterly immobilized by a series of threads that have been used to imprison you and to bind you completely. You think you are making choices when you are merely being driven by the force of their concepts which give them control over you, though they may be "long gone." But your programmers have been hypocritical and deceitful, telling you that you are free, that you live in the land of the free, that you can do anything you want. But you can’t do anything you want.
Instead, your history shows that you have not been free, and you cannot even find a way to sustain the few, fleeting moments of what you call “happiness.” And as with Gulliver during the time he had been unaware, those corrupt, hypocritical, and deceitful humans have used their threads to tie you up, to cloud your consciousness, to inspire you to accept “their ideas” and to adopt their concepts as “your own.” Where one thread would have had no effect, the accumulated mass of threads have left you completely under their control. Recall scenes from “The Night of the Living Dead” and see the zombies staggering through life, a hypnotic glaze across their eyes, preventing them from seeing clearly but leaving them able enough to stumble through life.
For Gulliver to be free, the removal of a thread or two would have no effect. He had to rip loose all of the bindings to be free. The threads of concepts that form the mind are your bindings. To allow the light to come and to provide the opportunity for clarity, the web of ideas and beliefs that you think of so proudly as “your mind” must be ripped away. Full Realization comes when the last thread goes. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
[TOMORROW: The "mind," continued]
For Gulliver to be free, the removal of a thread or two would have no effect. He had to rip loose all of the bindings to be free. The threads of concepts that form the mind are your bindings. To allow the light to come and to provide the opportunity for clarity, the web of ideas and beliefs that you think of so proudly as “your mind” must be ripped away. Full Realization comes when the last thread goes. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
[TOMORROW: The "mind," continued]
