Do You Know How the Mind Works to Create Results?

We have learned a great deal about how the mind works since Nichiren’s time. I think it helps to understand how the mind works to create the kinds of results we want to create through chanting.

Conscious Mind
There are three different major levels of the mind. The first is the rational mind. The conscious mind works through the senses, is selective and can make decisions and judgments. In Buddhist philosophy, these are the first six levels of consciousness. It is created to work in our three-dimensional world, Newton’s world, where things appear to be separate and events happen on a timeline of past present and future. When the rational mind is presented with information it makes a decision about what to believe or not believe.

Now imagine you are looking into a microscope and as you go inward, the subconscious mind lies below the conscious mind. If you were looking into a microscope a material object would become more and more subtle, turn into smaller and smaller particles until it would turn into the energy of the quantum field. It is the same with the subconscious mind and a thought.

Subconscious Mind
The subconscious mind functions quite differently from the conscious mind and has multiple functions. Within the 7th and 8th levels of consciousness the subconscious runs the systems of the body that are not within conscious control. It contains the storehouse consciousness where the memories of past lives and the seeds of karma are held. It is the seat of our sense of individuality.

The subconscious is not selective and does not make decisions. It takes what the rational mind has accepted and decided to believe, receives those ideas and then gives form and expression to them through its connections with the intelligent life force, consciousness itself, the superconscious level of mind. This relationship is the source of the physical and spiritual phenomena that take form in our lives as our environment.

Superconscious Mind
The superconscious connects with the subconscious mind and exists within all phenomena. In Buddhist philosophy it is the 9th level of consciousness. It has been called Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, the intelligent life force, the unified field of consciousness, consciousness itself. Scientists would call it the void of potentiality. It works only in the eternal present and lies within and without everything in creation.

The relationship between the conscious and subconscious minds
The rational mind acts as the gate keeper to the subconscious. It makes judgements about what to accept and believe. The ideas that are accepted are then impressed through repetition and feelings on the subconscious mind. The subconscious accepts any idea that the conscious mind gives to it without question. It then goes to work to bring that idea into form in our outer world. This is the expression of the law of cause and effect or oneness of life and its environment.

Ideas can be impressed on the subconscious mind consciously and on purpose, or we can impress an idea on the subconscious mind without realizing what we are doing.
Ideas are impressed on the subconscious mind through repetition and through the medium of our feelings. People have asked me why certain goals don’t happen. It may well be that that they are only intellectual goals, that have no feeling behind them. Goals that we don’t want sometimes show up. If we’re focusing on what we don’t want, our fears and our worries, then these are what we are impressing on the subconscious. If we don’t control those feelings we can produce undesirable results. I don’t say this to scare you. We are doing it all the time unconsciously, anyway, sometimes to our benefit, sometimes not. It is important that each of us become aware of what we are doing so if we wish to we can change our results, the conditions of our lives, on purpose.

In order to change our results, we must learn to control our feelings. This doesn’t mean to suppress them, but rather to only entertain those feelings which contribute to our happiness. You don’t want to entertain an undesirable feeling or entertain feelings that accept things that are wrong. You also don’t want to dwell upon the imperfections of other people but always to be looking to what you do appreciate in them. The subconscious will only take what you have accepted and will bring it into form whether it is beneficial to you or not.

If you set a goal but actually don’t really believe it will happen, it probably won’t. But if you set the goal and then repeat for 30 days that you already have it, your feelings will follow suit and you will start to believe it. That’s when it can begin to take form. You do already have it because you are working in the eternal now. It is only in our three dimensional world where there is a timeline that it hasn’t happened yet.

The Challenge
The challenge is to keep our thoughts and feelings in line with our goal before we can see it in our three dimensional plane.

This reminds me of a story about a practitioner married to an Indian man. She went to live in his village. It turned out he was an alcoholic and created mayhem for the family. She had to deal with the fall-out from his behavior and was resentful and condemning of it. One day she was told by a member of his family that she only thought negatively about him. Having self-awareness, she recognized the truth of what his family member had said. She deliberately changed how she spoke and thought about him, appreciating his good qualities and saying nothing about the bad ones. Over time he started drinking less and less and finally gave it up. He became the man she had married again.

This is why we say,” See and feel the goal as already realized in the present and don’t acknowledge any of the circumstances that say otherwise. Remember that in the eternal now of consciousness it is already done. A way to do this is to think of something concrete which would say to you that you have achieved your goal.” For example, if you were buying a house, you might see yourself putting your key in the front door for the first time or signing the mortgage papers. How would you feel if you were putting your key into the door for the first time or signing those papers? That’s what you want to feel when you are chanting or thinking about your goal. Our desires are not formed in reality, until we have the feeling of their reality. Acceptance of the accomplished goal automatically produces the steps towards realizing that end.
This is all you need to do. You don’t have to know how your goal is going to come about or worry about any difficulties or delay or obstacles in bringing it about. And never try to force it, The subconscious doesn’t respond to force but to focus and relaxation.

To Change Conditions You Don’t Like
I have received a number of questions about how to change someone else. You have to envision them the way you want them to be and turn your attention away from what you don’t like in them.
Buckminster Fuller says, “ Never change things by fighting existing reality. Too change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

In Summary:
1. We discussed the way the mind works.
2. There is the conscious level, the subconscious and then the superconscious
3. The conscious mind works thru the senses and makes decisions and judgments about what to believe. It impresses what it believes on the subconscious through repetition and feeling.
4. The subconscious runs the major physical systems of the body, holds the seeds of karma and the memories of past lives. It is the seat of our sense of individuality. It takes without question what the conscious mind believes and works thru its relationship with the superconscious to bring it into form in our lives.
5. The superconscious mind, the life force, Nam-Myoho-renge-kyo

Comments
i love hearing from you and try to respond to everyone. Thank you for ideas for future vlogs. I apologize that this was late. My husband was admitted to the hospital and I got distracted. He’s home now.