Personal growth is about resolving the impact of the past (healing) as well as working towards creating something new in your life (transformational). Past and future rest upon what we know, or think we know. But I have found that self transformation is far more dependent upon how we think, not on information. Knowledge is not power: thinking is power.
There are two ways we can think about things. The way comes from understanding the world as it is given to us by others. We accept the statements and actions of people at their face value. We unsuspectedly allow ourselves to become a part of another’s world view, while also feeding a basic human need: to belong. However, in exchange for becoming a part of any group the “social” (or conditioned) mind moves us away from contact with our original (non-conditioned) mind.
The original mind is with us when we experience life for ourselves, directly, and outside agendas set by others. The original mind is not burdened by the past because it revels in the present moment. The original mind is not restricted by common-sense wisdom but stretches to embrace crazy wisdom. The original mind is not bound by the patterns of family heritage but can opt out of any system. The original mind is your non-dual or essential self; your social mind is merely adaptive to your family and your society.
Asian spiritual insight has known about the differences between these two minds for thousands of years, with only a small interest in non-dual philosophies such as Advaita. But the West is at a disadvantage with grasping the importance of the original mind because the experience of it offers runs counter-intuitive to the generally-accepted notions of how we should operate in the world. The social mind learns by gathering information from outside sources, and then taking it on as your own knowledge. You learn about the politics, for example, and then internalize that informational map as though it is the actual territory itself. In the grasp of the social mind you come to believe that people are actually are split into red and blue, conservative and liberal, deniers and non-deniers. The natural functioning of the social mind is for us to belong to a group or extended family, to choose one thing over the other. But one problem with this is that the information we are given is usually supportive of someone’s agenda, rather than being truly objective knowledge.
The original mind breaks free of the social mind once it learns thinks for itself, even though in doing so if may feel like it is skirting the edge of madness. But what the original mind drops us into is not the madness of a dysfunctional brain; it is merely disorientation, where all those things you were told were true suddenly are clearly not true. When the original mind takes over your awareness, if only for a few seconds, the world you thought was real becomes inauthentic, distorted, and hopelessly entangled in its own machinations. Any release from the social mind offers the opportunity to drop into original mind. You find yourself no longer a red, no longer a blue: you become aware of yourself in a totally new way. You no longer hide inside symbolic maps given to you by others, but start to walk the actual territory of information and experience by yourself.
Personal growth starts with the birth of a self that emerges from the narcissistic infant, and then moves into the relational world of the adult. But there is a dream within the dream; for the social mind is also another narcissistic world, albeit a shared experience with others. Only when the bubble of the social mind suddenly bursts are we awoken to the raw impact of original mind. Only when we wake up from this dream within a dream can we truly come to evolve to our full potential as spiritual adults.
Let’s learn to think for ourselves. Let us strive to see things as they are: with eyes of the authentic mind. The results will be nothing less than life-changing, because we can then begin to live the life we were meant to live, and not the life someone else wanted to give to us.
Such a great article, and important subject, especially with this kinda material, spirituality, with so many guides and teachers.. I already have a bunch of new questions, just by letting myself think about everything my way and not try to fit into concepts presented. Thanks Dean, i so much needed this..