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This month's contents: The Mind (part 2 of 2) by Richard Rose | Poems by Shawn Nevins | To Change or Not to Change by Shawn Nevins | Still Point of the Turning World (part 1) by Bob Cergol | Take Notice by Jim Clatfelter | Awakening into Awareness (part 4 of 4) by Metta Zetty | That Problem Mind by Bob Fergeson | Honesty by Gary Harmon | Humor | Reader Commentary Note: This page is checked with Internet Explorer 6.0.2 and Netscape 6.2.1. Some of the graphics may not show in older versions of Netscape and may not come through in Forums sent by e-mail. Index of Issues to Date | Submissions, e-mail list & misc.

The Mind (concluded), by Richard Rose

Man is continually trying to find himself. He stumbles from illusion to illusion. He rarely stands on any sure ground in his entire lifetime. His confusion begets despair, and he acts out his life toward the end like a man in a nightmare, from which he can escape only by going deeper into sleep.

As has been stated before, there is no better way to see the self-deluding nature of man than through hypnosis. The application of belief to an individual mind through hypnosis is like tapping one of the great laws of the Unmanifested Mind. The Law of Creation involves Imagination plus Faith, plus the Fiat. It is said that God imagined, or dreamed up the physical world, believed in himself, and said, "Let there be Light." The spoken word was the Fiat. Or the Logos.

In hypnosis, we create a small microcosmos. We shut out the projections of the individual mind, and project with a proxy-Light, originating from within the operator. The fact that the individual mind accepts this new projection as his own, and adopts a new state of mind as a corollary, is evidence that his previous states of mind which he would like to identify with sanity, are not on too sure a ground.

We can see that we can never be sure of any state of mind, until we are knowledgeable of all the factors that cause such, or all of the agencies that project their light upon us.

We can see ourselves as a colony of cells, or a group of cell colonies, -- and we do not feel very much like an individual. We do, however, have the knowledge that we are a group of cell-colonies, -- a feeling of individuality, and a feeling of incomplete knowledge about ourselves.

A Rosicrucian might say that we are in reality a string of luminous, colored flowers of light and brilliance, forming a general radiance called an aura, which with its chakras is more real than the body which we see. And once more, we find ourselves to be a group of something.

And the deeper we peer into transcendentalism, the closer we approach an inescapable paradox -- that is, if we are anything at all, we are somehow closely related to everything.

The Unmanifested Mind is not demonstrable. The technique for studying it is. If you would see the true source of illusion, instead of living vicariously on the screen of the theatre, follow the light back through the lens of the projector.

This may appear utterly ridiculous if taken literally, but it remains that we must observe the observer, not the make-believe which all of us agree is life-drama. We are chained to the theatre, rather than to a Platonic cave. We identify ourselves with veritable shadows, and laugh and weep at their motions. And perhaps we come back repeatedly to see the same show, to purge ourselves of Reality in a repetition of drama drawn from the Matrix of the dimension of the Unmanifested Mind.

When we observe the observer, we sense several things. One is that we have been in a dream state, and must return to a dream state as long as we are in this body. We observe also that the Dream State is very real, in that it is for us the only life for us until we awaken. And it is inescapable that we must deduce that dream-life is a real manifestation of some agency within ourselves that acts as a creator. It is as though we were born with a false face, which all through life we accepted as our true face, because it was all we knew as a face, and because our friends accepted it as true. The face would literally have to fall off by accident for us to know that it was not our true self.

*

Let us try to get behind the false face. We can observe, by introspection, that much of what we would like to think of as thinking, is nothing more than reaction -- and mostly automatic reaction without any volition on our part. Of course we can get into some very complicated reaction patterns, and this complexity (as is noted in the law of complexity) is visible life. (See Laws - Ed.)

Desire is not a reaction -- we may have quite varied reactions to it. Curiosity is not a reaction, but an external force. We are not that -- which was here before we learned it. Curiosity exists for the amoeba, and thus for every white corpuscle. And possibly for every cell in our bodies. It is planted in the unborn beings, and for want of a better word we call it instinct. It propels the new-born to look for food, and propels him so relentlessly that there is no chance for the food-seeking to have any origins in deliberate action. Desire is likewise implanted in the being before it is born, and it continues to propel us until the day of our death. It, too, is not something learned, or reasoned out.

Some of us may be generals, priests, or Indian chiefs, but we are still basically robots, hiding beneath elaborate robes the gears that are the signs of our slavery. While we pose as movers of planets.

Next, we are inclined to look at the above analysis of the mind, and take pride in being able to "Project." We might think for a while that our ability to project is our individuality. The truth is that we are but a channel for the projection, if we are referring to the individual mind and the Unmanifested Mind, neither of which we really are.

We like to think that we are the sum total of our thoughts, or our experiences. This is like saying that a dog is a composite of fleas, lice, ticks, intestinal worms, germs, and a final glorious heap of maggots. It is vain for us to claim to be that which happens to us, which we cannot control. And if you think that you are the one that is thinking, try to stop it. You will find that every thought is tied to another thought by an inexorable chain. This chain is the chain of reaction. It is basically rooted in the body, starting off as a baby, by the two catalysts, desire and curiosity.

Now you might at this point demand that we identify desire and curiosity as being implanted in us by a superior entity, which we might call God. It may well be that we are acted upon by other entities, but this interaction being other dimensional, appears to be divine. The proper definition for "other dimensions" is "other accepted world views" -- other than our own. And they may well emanate from the same Unmanifested Mind, and are so related to our world view.

Our true umbilical cord is toward the Absolute, beyond the womb-matrix of the Unmanifested Mind.

The projection that animates the whole picture of creation, as well as every cell in our bodies, we will call Light. I use a separate term, because it might appear that curiosity and desire are the sole motivating forces. However we can see, all through nature, that there is a central fountain that regenerates decaying force-fields, isotopes, delicate protoplasmic combinations, which we know are in a constant state of precipitation and deterioration. This fountain is not curiosity alone. This fountain is the force behind the entity or mechanism that implants the desire and curiosity within us. This fountain likewise supports the eternal growing and dying of celestial bodies (planets and stars).

This Light begins beyond the Unmanifested Mind. The Unmanifested Mind acts as a sort of prism that separates the differentiated rays from the undifferentiated source.

The use of the word Light here should not be construed in the same sense as the light that is the cause of eye-stimuli. I wish to emphasize this to prevent an ardent investigator from pursuing the analysis of such manifested light. This particularized light of the eye is still differentiated and lower mind matter.

Likewise, we can take some steps away from illusion. We begin by recognizing that the material world presents an illusory picture. We secondly notice that we are automatons of a sort, galvanized by desire and curiosity.

But then we settle back and say, -- well at least we perceive, remember, react, and project. Actually these qualities are also automatic. We cannot control these functions, unless we control the entire environment.

So we look to our motivating force. We look back through the eye of the projector. We are projectors of a sort ourselves. But we are like little prisms that have been projected. And this microcosm is no better aware of his function than when operating as a hypnotist.

Why are we projected? (Not questioning the reasons for our origin, but the reason for this illusory projection instead of something more real.) It is impossible to presume the reason for this diffusion from the Absolute. It is likewise impossible to assess all of the life-forms or intelligence quanta that function in the Unmanifested Mind matrix.

Some modern psychologists have come to believe that we exist only in the mind, which must of course place all phenomena, material or abstract, as being mental phenomena. They must then take the next step, and admit that they are -- body and environment, and their individual mind as well -- a mental phenomena over which they have no control. Unless the dreamer would pretend to be consciously creating his dream. And of course, if we are all mental phenomena, we are extremely vain in legislating human conduct for our fellow-man.

We take another step and say that if we are nothing but mental phenomena, then there is no self, and consequently no immortality. And if neither of these hopes exists, then why should we confuse ourselves further with any study of the subject?

Of course the answer is that, as regards the self, our only true essence must be Real instead of illusory. This true Self is not the individual dream character that flits across the stage. It can find its real life only in the Light that is its source, absolutely.

And in regards to immortality, immortality is measured in our objective minds by Time. And time is inexorably tied to space as space-time in the clearer world-view, and in the Unmanifested matrix. So that not only is there not a day, or a year, but there is also not a billion years.

There is only Isness.

Our immortality is dependent, not on our ability to extend our personal illusion indefinitely but to transcend it. Our immortality is dependent upon our becoming the Light, by identifying with that which is Real, and really is us and has been us all the time.

The scientific psychologist will always fail to understand even the world-view, because he is like some bumpkin in the audience, taking pot shots at the villain on the screen. Or like a child grasping at the surface of the water whereon is playing an elusive, dancing reflection.

*

In order to better understand the umbilical function of projection, we might take a television set as representing the individual mind. Channel Three (three dimensional) would present the same world-view to all of its viewers. By changing to another channel through the use of drugs or other means, we might get another world-view, coming from a different level or studio.

The television set Reacts in a very complex way to the waves coming through its antennae. It sorts out the incoming percepts and projects them upon the screen. Its range is not its own option. It is set by the manufacturer.

Now we might build in a memory-bank for the television, and install electronic devices, so that at any suggestion, reactions would trigger projections. In time, the television set might even be operated by and from the broadcasting studio, which is the equivalent of the Unmanifested Mind-matrix. And at this point the television set might begin to think that it was an individual, answering only to the broadcasting studio.

It never took into account the fact that its real power and life, as well as the power and life of the broadcasting studio, came from an inconspicuous electric wire. When the plug is pulled, all of the lights and life go out.

By this analogy we can realize the three types of projection. The television set projects into our room the picture of our accepted world view, analogous to the individual mind. The broadcasting studio likewise projects -- from a matrix of cardboard sets, trick mirrors, two dimensional cities consisting of buildings with only facades, and with various trick-noises -- a picture that upon reception by us will seem to be real. However, both are dependent upon another projection -- the voltage from an invisible power-source.

The individual experiences sleep when the power source is diminished to near-zero, and death when completely severed between the individual mind and the Unmanifested Mind.

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