Wednesday, November 9, 2011

more on the Unconscious mind.

How freeing is this ? Wow!
i used to think that i was at the mercy of the unconscious mind. That it caused feelings and behaviour that i couldn't control. i called a certain part of it Ego and believed it needed to be killed for me to be free.
How different now!
Without the need to playact Vince there is no conflict between one part of mind and another.
The part that thinks how I should be and the part how I really am are all thoughts to be observed as one observes an interesting piece of art or a scene in nature (which is what it is)
Not being compelled to obey conscious or unconscious thoughts means being relaxed regardless of what thoughts arise.
None of them speak of 'me'
What/Who 'i' am is before the thoughts, is the seer of the thoughts and as such can't be considered by thought/mind.
i used to think it was unconscious mind that tied shoelaces without attention, but as Ilona said yesterday, it is just brain. Itch and Scratch.
The only difference between conscious and unconscious mind is attention.
Unconscious mind seen is no longer unconscious.
Conscious mind seen may well calm down to only task oriented behaviour. This is likely to conserve a large amount of wasted energy.
This will be interesting......

the unconscious mind,
made conscious by attention,
may laugh and giggle.

further confirmation... and the Unconscious mind.

Here is further confirmation that something is happening.
Jiddu Krishnamurti seems to have started to speak more coherently. :)
For 30 years i have been reading him, knowing that what he was saying was good & important but couldn't really relate to his words.
Yesterday, glancing at Flight of the Eagle, what he was saying is so clear. Wow!
One of the things he spoke about, of particular interest, is the division between the conscious and unconscious mind.
Quote;
"We said we would go into this question of the conscious and the deeper levels, the unconscious: and we are asking why is there this division, this division between the conscious mind, occupied with its own daily activities, worries, problems, superficial pleasures, earning a livelihood and so on and the deeper levels of that mind, with all its hidden motives, its drives, compulsive demands, its fears? Why is there this division? Does it exist because we are so occupied, superficially, with endless chatter, with the constant demand, superficially, for amusement, entertainment, religious as well as otherwise? Because the superficial mind cannot possibly delve deeply into itself while this division arises.
What is the content of the deeper layers of the mind? - not
according to the psychologists, Freud and so on - and how do you find out, if you do not read what others have said? How will you find out what your unconscious is? You will watch it, will you not? Or, will you expect your dreams to interpret the contents of the unconscious? And who is to translate those dreams? The experts? - they are also conditioned by their specialisation. And one asks: is it possible not to dream at all? - excepting of course for nightmares when one has eaten the wrong food, or has had too heavy a meal in the evening.
There is - we will use the word for the time being - the unconscious. What is it made of? - obviously the past; all the racial consciousness, the racial residue, the family tradition, the various religious and social conditioning - hidden, dark, undiscovered; can all that be discovered and exposed without dreams? - or without going to an analyst? - so that the mind, when it does sleep, is quiet, not incessantly active. And, because it is quiet, may there not come into it quite a different quality, a different activity altogether, dissociated from the daily anxieties, fears, worries, problems, demands? To find that out - if that is possible - that is, not to dream at all, so that the mind is really fresh when it wakes up in the morning, one has to be aware during the day, aware of the hints and intimations. Those one can discover only in relationship; when you are watching your relationship with others, without condemning, judging, evaluating; just watching how you behave, your reactions; seeing without any choice; just observing, so that during the day the hidden, the unconscious, is exposed.
Why do we give such deep significance and meaning to the unconscious? - for after all, it is as trivial as the conscious. If the
conscious mind is extraordinarily active, watching, listening, seeing, then the conscious mind becomes far more important than the unconscious; in that state all the contents of the unconscious are exposed; the division between the various layers comes to an end. Watching your reactions when you sit in a bus, when you are talking to your wife, your husband, when in your office, writing, being alone - if you are ever alone - then this whole process of observation, this act of seeing (in which there is no division as the `observer' and the `observed') ends the contradiction."
end quote. 

vince as a character


Can you look at vince as a character and tell us what you see. How does a character operate?
There are qualities distinctive to an individual mind/body, but they are not "in there". They occur because of the conditioning and experience that has happened.
There used to be a part played by an actor attempting to be Vince. Now there is no need to be Vince. There is just what occurs.
What mechanism drives it?
Reaction. Reaction to external stimuli. Reaction to thoughts that occur. Reaction to feelings (stimulated by thought)

Hmm, i get your point about ego. Even though i was using it as a convenient label for a collection of certain thoughts, it does start to look like a description of an entity, but i wasn't giving it existence as anything separate. Certainly better to drop it even as a description.