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Please note that the text below was written by the feeling-being ‘Peter’ while ‘he’ lived in a pragmatic
(methodological), still-in-control/same-way-of-being Virtual Freedom before becoming actually free. |
Mind
Mind: 1 Memory. The faculty of memory.
Remembrance, recollection, memory. 2 Thought; purpose, intention. 3 a. The action or state of thinking about something; the
thought of. Chiefly in have mind of, think of, give heed to. b. Attention, heed. 4 a. Purpose, intention. b. An
inclination, a wish; a liking. 5 The direction of a person’s thoughts, desires, inclinations, or energies. 6 A person’s
opinion, judgement, or view. 7 The intellect, intellectual powers, esp. as distinguished from the will and emotions. 8 The
healthy or normal condition of the mental faculties. 9 a. A (usu. specified) disposition, character, or way of thinking and feeling. b.
A particular feeling or attitude towards something. 10 The state of a person’s thoughts and feelings. 11 Mental or psychic
faculty. 12 a. The seat of awareness, thought, volition, and feeling; cognitive and emotional phenomena and powers as constituting a
controlling system, spec. as opp. matter; the spiritual as distinguished from the bodily part of a human being. b. A person or a group
of people collectively as the embodiment of mental faculties. c. A controlling or directing spiritual being or agency. Oxford Dictionary
Peter: What a potpourri of a definition –
no wonder people are so confused when the word ‘mind’ is mentioned, and Mr. Oxford seems to aim at satisfying all comers including the
spiritualists.
Perhaps a good starting point in sorting the confusion is to
simply regard mind as the brain in operation.
The human brain is the most advanced of the all the sentient
beings and is biologically exceptional in having a large neo-cortex or modern brain covering and overlaying the primitive, reptilian brain.
Thus it is that the human mind retains all of its animal instinctual functions and primitive self, and these are combined with an ability to
think, reflect and communicate to a degree unsurpassed in any other species.
The human brain, in its present state of evolution, is thus two
brains – primitive and modern – and it is this very duality that is the cause of human sorrow and malice and results in a mind almost
continually in a state of confusion, fear and angst. For millennia, humans have relentlessly sought freedom, happiness and peace as an escape
from this torturous state and yet have found no solutions save the fickle solace offered in believing and hoping for an imaginary ‘better
life’ after physical death.
In the Eastern Religions the mind is seen as the problem, and a
sophisticated yet puerile belief-system and associated torturous practices have evolved, deliberately aimed at stifling and eradicating
sensible thought such that imagination and feeling are given free reign. A common theme in all ashrams, temples and sanghas is that the devotee
is admonished to ‘leave your mind at the door, surrender your will, and trust your feelings’. This stifling of the mind has left
much of the East wallowing in poverty, ignorance and disease with repression, suppression, corruption, fatalism, subjugation, servitude,
despotism, and theocratic rule rampant.
That these Ancient traditions and wisdoms are still practiced is
witness only to the desperation of those seeking freedom and obviously has nothing to do with the sagacity or success of the belief-system. In
the Buddhist tradition, one estimate is that there have been at least 1 billion followers over the centuries, and no more than one thousand
have achieved Enlightenment – the Altered State of Consciousness that masquerades as freedom. This is a success rate of 0.0001% – and the
rest dutifully believe that they get recycled to suffer earthly existence yet again until they manage to achieve freedom from the cycle of
birth and death – the wheel of misery. ‘There is always next lifetime’ is a common belief. What a depressive and oppressive, mindless
belief-system!
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