Our mind has a conscious part and a subconscious part. Anytime you’ve ever made a voluntary effort to focus or concentrate or pay attention, that was your conscious mind. Anytime you’ve made an effort to be mindful of your surroundings, that was your conscious mind. Anytime you’ve ever made an effort to be aware of where you were and what you were doing, that was your conscious mind.
The subconscious mind is different. The subconscious is very mechanical and automatic. While the conscious mind requires a voluntary effort from you, the subconscious mind just acts on its own. The subconscious is reactive and has us reacting to circumstances. The consciousness is passive.
Our subconscious mind is made up of a ton of components or psychological aspects or “psychic aggregates”. We do not possess a definitive individuality, but we are a psychological multiplicity. Because of the subconscious no person is continuously the same. We’re never the same person. We’re constantly shifting. Our personality is very fluid. We’re constantly changing and adapting as various aspects of our psychology come in and out.
We change our mind because one aspect of our psychology is replaced by another. We react in situations and then regret what we have done when certain aspects of our psyche replace each other. We can’t make up our mind. When we make up our mind we change our mind. We are full of contradiction and hypocrisy.
Our subconscious can essentially be broken down into anger, envy, lust, gluttony, laziness, pride, greed, and fear. Each of these is seen as the head of a legion of many more aspects of our psychology. It’s like each one of those categories is the captain of a giant army. Anger might be the general, but underneath anger might be hate, bigotry, discrimination, impatience, annoyances etc. Gluttony would include overeating, as well as addictions, such as drugs and alcohol. Greed might include attachment to money and material things. Fear includes all major anxieties and phobias, as well as little worries and concerns. Essentially, all aspects of our psychology can be grouped under one of those categories.
Our consciousness is essentially “trapped” within the various aspects of our subconscious that we have. Every aspect of our psychology that we have whether it be envy, anger, fear, lust, they all have our consciousness “trapped”.
Consequently, the subconscious controls our lives and causes us to sleep profoundly. The irony of being human is right now you’re saying “well I’m not in bed, I’m not asleep.” The irony is right now you are asleep, but firmly believe to be awake. Life is a continual dream. It’s full of distraction.
We find ourselves constantly bombarded with thousands of thoughts everyday. We can’t keep track of all these different thoughts. We’re constantly thinking about errands we have to run, chores we have to do, our plans for the weekend etc. While we’re doing that we’re never in the present moment.
Our consciousness lives in the present moment. Anytime we put ourselves into the present moment, we’re activating our consciousness. The subconscious is constantly trying to take us out of the present moment. It’s dragging us back into the past, reliving memories and experiences. Or it’s pulling us into the future so we can worry and plan and plot. It generates those thoughts and images so we can identify with them and stay out of the present moment. It continuously distracts us in an attempt to keep us out of the present moment and prevent us from working with our consciousness.
When we work with our consciousness, we’re essentially “feeding” it, and “starving” the subconscious. The subconscious wants to be fed. It wants to be in control of our personality. When the subconscious is in control then we’re “feeding” it, and allowing it to sustain itself.
The consciousness is almost like a seed within us. It starts to germinate when we are born, but without light, food, and water the seed cannot grow beyond germination. If we planted that seed in the some dirt and watered that seed and placed it near a sunny window, that seed would continue to grow.
Let’s say there’s another seed in that soil, the seed of a weed. As our plant starts to grow and develop, so does the weed. The problem is the weed grows faster than our seed. So the weed takes all the water and nutrients from the soil and because the weed grows faster, its leaves shade our little plant.
So every day we water the weed, make sure it’s free of bugs and fertilize it. And that weed keeps growing into a giant weed. We totally forgot about that consciousness. That’s what happens with humanity. That weed that we grow and develop is the subconscious.
If we give our seed the right conditions it will grow and transform us. We have to realize at some point that the weed is not our plant. If we pull that weed out of the soil and go back to tending to our seed, it would continue to grow and develop, leading to an awakening of the consciousness.
We have to work on our psychology to remove or control that which prevents the consciousness from growing, the subconscious. The keyword is “work” on our psychology. This isn’t going to happen automatically. We’ve been identifying with that weed for so long that we don’t know what the consciousness is. We’re so disconnected from it that we forget that it’s even there.
Imagine yourself in a crowded room and in the corner is a small child. That small child represents the consciousness. The problem is other than that child in the room there are a hundred other people. And those people are shouting and getting in the way. We can’t even notice that child in the corner. We’ve even forgotten that it’s there. We’re too busy noticing all those other voices clammering for our attention.
The average person has between 30-50 thousand thoughts in a given day. All those different thoughts are like different people screaming for our attention. We end up identifying with the loudest person and then stop and listen to what they have to say and have a conversation with them. We’ve forgotten about that small child in the corner. Now if we could shut up every one else in that room (i.e. meditation), turn off every other voice, we could focus on that small child and hear what it has to say.
Because we spend the whole time identifying with our subconscious, our consciousness never gets fed and doesn’t grow. There’s a Native American fable about an Indian chief talking to a child about a white wolf and a black wolf constantly at war for dominance. This is analogous to our consciousness and subconscious being constantly at war for domination of who we are as a person. The child asks the chief “which one wins?” The elder responds “It depends which one you feed.” We all have that choice.
Every time we identify with anger and we surrender to it, then we’re feeding and sustaining it. Anytime we identify with fear, then we’re feeding that fear, and we’re causing this viscous cycle where these things just keep growing and growing. The more times we feed it, the stronger it gets, and the more it wants to recur. So the more it generates thoughts and images in our mind that cause us to identify with anger and fear.
All the aspects of our subconscious are triggered by various circumstances. Most of our behaviors, the thoughts, the emotions, and the actions are simply reactions. If someone insults you, you get angry. If someone compliments you, you feel happy. You get caught up in traffic, you get angry. You find some money on the ground, you get happy. That’s what our emotions are for many cases, just simply a reaction to circumstances.
The circumstance could be a person saying or doing something, or an inanimate object, like a traffic jam for example. “I am late, therefore I am angry. That’s the equation. Why? Well, because I’ve reacted that way my entire life. That’s the way I’m programmed through previous experiences and behavior, and education and upbringing, society. That’s the way I’m supposed to react.”
A lot of our emotions and our thoughts follow a pattern like that. That pattern has been developed over the course of our lives by the type of parents we had, the area that we grew up in, the people we went to school with, the experiences we had. All of our life experiences have molded these sets of equations of A + B = C. And we carry hundreds of different equations within us, where the “equals” part is just a different aspect of our psychology.
So, all kinds of different aspects of our life are affected by various aspects of our psychology. The course of our life is like a car just flying all over the place with different people fighting for the steering wheel. The whole time there’s that consciousness, the one who should be driving the car, but can’t even get near the steering wheel.
We put ourselves on a pedestal and think that we’re “perfect” or we’re fine. We excuse behaviors in ourselves that we wouldn’t tolerate for a second in other people. We spend so much time criticizing and judging other people, and never direct that at ourselves. We never get to know who we really are. That’s one of the difficult things about being human and examining our own psychology. If we want to transform ourselves we really have to hold up that mirror and look at the reflection staring back. And not a lot of people want to do that.
That’s where the technique of self-observation comes in. Self-observation is holding up that mirror and really studying what’s there.
We must observe ourselves and try to get to know the different aspects of our subconscious mind. Just like the moon has a dark side that you never see, your psychology has a hidden side that you can’t see. Imagine a dark cave with a small candle. That small candle represents the consciousness and it illuminates a very tiny area. And because of that there are all kinds of stuff that can hide in the darkness. We want to develop that consciousness and turn that candle into a huge spotlight that shines everywhere leaving nowhere for the subconscious to hide.
We have to discover what aspects of our psychology control us the most? What aspects of our psyche appear regularly? What triggers them? What problems do they cause us? When you look back over a particular day what emotions were there? What thoughts were there? What triggered them? Where did they come from? What were the results of those thoughts or emotions?
Observation is the first step in working on our psychology, and the next step is comprehension, really understanding everything about that particular aspect of your psychology. This includes how it works, what causes it, where it comes from, and the different formulas that allow it to happen. Once you fully understand a certain aspect of your psychology, then the third stage is changing it, essentially controlling it or “removing” it from your behavior.
- Observe it.
- Understand it.
- Change it.
Our daily life is like a psychological gymnasium where we can essentially “work-out” or “exercise” our consciousness. Every situation we find ourselves in is an opportunity to learn something and perfect ourselves. Every situation in our life is an opportunity to observe, comprehend and change an aspect of our psychology.
The social interaction of life is the perfect mirror in which we are able to discover ourselves. In social interactions hidden aspects of our psyche come out spontaneously and if we are in a state of alertness we can see them. So our friend comes over in a car. If we’re paying attention we can see “that’s jealousy I’m feeling right now. Why should I feel like this? This is my friend. I’m supposed to be happy for them.”
We must be alert like a sentry in a time of war. We have to be waiting for the manifestation of a particular emotion or a particular thought. So if we really want to get to know anger or envy, then we must swear to be “conscious of the different manifestations of anger that occur during the day. I am going to be prepared and waiting for them to happen.”
Eventually we want to observe ourselves in action from instant-to-instant, moment-to-moment. That’s the goal. That’s a state of continuous consciousness. That’s going to take some practice to be constantly aware of our thoughts, feelings, and actions. That’s something we’ll develop over time. Right now we just have to look at what aspects of our subconscious cause us the most problems in our lives and those will be ones that we will start to observe.
The goal of awakening the consciousness is controlling and changing the various aspects of our subconscious mind, and “freeing” the consciousness. Recall the story of Aladdin and the lamp. Aladdin was an average person who found a brass lamp where a magical genie was trapped within. Aladdin rubbed the lamp and allowed the genie to escape. The genie was able to transform his life, and make him happy, and grant him wishes. This story is like an analogy for the concept of the consciousness and subconscious.
Awakening of the consciousness is eliminating the subconscious and freeing the consciousness, allowing the consciousness to grow. It’s ripping that weed out of the soil, cleansing the psychology. It’s choosing not to identify with anger, envy, greed, fear, lust, but identifying with our consciousness. It’s kicking all the noisy people out of the room and focusing on the small child in the corner, listening to what it has to say, allowing it to guide the course of our life. It’s taking hold of that ship’s wheel and steering it in the right direction. It’s no longer allowing the wind and the waves to determine the course of our life, no longer being a victim of circumstance.
This can only happen through conscious work. It’s not going to come unless we work on ourselves. The awakening of the consciousness isn’t going to happen spontaneously someday. It comes through a slow process of working directly on our psychology. It doesn’t come overnight.
We have to struggle against the subconscious. It is unnecessary for us to continue to live in misery. It’s really a choice that we can make. We can choose to fight against the subconscious. We can choose to develop the consciousness.