Tuesday, April 27, 2010

The Mind and the Soul

The mind/ego thinks it knows the Soul because that's what the mind/ego does: it anchors itself to something that it can attach to and creates boundaries so that it can separate you (as the observer) from the object of your perception (the observed).  This allows you to be conscious of the experience.  But the Soul is not something that can be grasped and bounded because it is expansive, limitless, and boundless.  In fact, it is invisible and immaterial and because of this the mind/ego does its best to interpret what it is.  From the Rene Magritte painting to the left (The Human Condition) you can see that the painting of the ocean is a reflection of the actual ocean outside.  This is similar to what the mind/ego is as a limited and fragmented painting which is only a reflection of the greater, boundless Soul such as the actual ocean.  The mind/ego as a sense of self is only a reflection of the True Soul.

The Soul can become addicted to the body and fall into the illusion of the mind/ego's sense of self and forget its actual true, eternal Self.

How does one discriminate between what is from the Soul and what is from the mind/ego?

From the practice of vigilant observation.  The mind/ego operates in the realm of time and space.  The Soul realm is timelessness.  Commonly, if a thought requires some time, it's from the mind/ego and what's the first thing to pop up out from what appears to be nowhere is usually a message from the Soul.  The Soul communicates through images, vibrations, feelings, dreams, and an inner knowing and not so much through the use of words such as with the mind/ego.  The mind/ego uses thoughts based upon past experiences and knowledge (elements of time) and the Soul uses intuition which is a living, dynamic process of guiding the Individual.  With vigilant observation, one develops discriminative intelligence and there is no longer a painting separated from what is painted.  There simply is what Is.....

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