You Are What You Think: Navigating the 3 Levels of Mind

When I told this topic to people, people shook their heads, laughed, and wheeled their fingers around by their temples showing signs that they are not understanding why "you are what you think" and "you are not what you think."

During this webinar we will:

• Understand what thought is, and how it works
• Breathe, relax, and visualize the Self
• Explore the 3 levels of mind – how to move from lower mind to higher mind
• Practice the conversion of thoughts
• Practice cultivating virtues and eradicating vices

How Thought Works?

When a thought wave arises in the mind, if you don’t feed into it, the wave falls back into the ocean of consciousness. The wave does not have a reality in itself. It only has reality as far as you keep feeding it. That is, we name the wave and give it meaning. Feed it, and the thought becomes more solid, gains more power, and has reality.

We have a choice. We can make these thoughts (whatever they are) the reality, or we can make blissful thoughts reality. Yogis look at the thoughts to understand them, then don’t feed into the thought (give it energy), and let it go. They also can transform the thoughts from darkness to light.

Evolution of the Mind

The mind has different levels and functions. The mind is not ourselves. Our thoughts and feelings are not ourselves. We have the tendency to repeat familiar thoughts and feelings and lose ourselves in the thoughts or emotions.

We need to learn to navigate our thoughts and emotions. If we know how to develop our own mind, we will know how to accelerate our process of spiritual evolution. Do we want to evolve? Evolution means coming closer to our core self, our blissful self, satisfying the purpose of our life, being closer to the truth, being truly happy—that happiness and fulfillment of our soul that lasts no matter what happens outside.

What is the Atman? Who am I?

The Self is called the Atman – the Truth about the Self is what we have been looking for all our life. It is our inner motivation. Vedanta philosophy and quantum physics talk about consciousness as the ground of being. Brahman (or Atman) is absolute pure consciousness, it is Satchitananda:

• Existence Absolute: Beyond ages of the body, beyond birth and death.
• Knowledge Absolute: Consciousness, awareness, not thinking automatically, not knowledge coming from the mind.
• Bliss Absolute: Complete fulfillment, no desire, no frustration, no complain, happiness without condition, feeling perfection, beyond emotions.

Attributes of the Atman

• Gives light and beauty to the universe: It is your own consciousness full of light that gives beauty to the manifestations of nature.
• Unbroken awareness: Unbroken sense of Self and of happiness, not functioning automatically out of habit.
• Eternally present: It is the truth that is always there. Whatever the problem that you have, just come back to the present, the problem will dissolve by itself.
• The Subject: Without whom nothing exists, it is the master, the perceiver, not the object of perception.
• All-pervading, unbounded, free: You cannot be confined to a place, a relationship, or a condition.
• Unchanged and unmoved: Stable, giving a sense of security.
• Pure love: The essence of love, beyond more love or less love. It is 100% love and all the time.

Thoughts are waves that rise and fall in this infinite ocean of consciousness. Therefore, it is said you are not what you think. You are the observer, you are not the doer. You are not your thoughts.

How to Train the Mind and Unveil the Self?

How to move the mind from lower to higher functioning and be closer to our bliss and truth? We will use the theory of the 3 levels of the mind in order for us to know how to navigate our minds.

1. The Subconscious Mind (Lower Mind)

The base of the triangle, the iceberg is the Subconscious Mind. It is the basic mind from which the conscious mind emerges. It consists of unknown, hidden, submerged thoughts; it is very POWERFUL and governs our life 95% of the time.

• Storehouse of Past Experiences: It governs automatic functions of the body and stores learned experiences and memories. Most of the time we are on AUTOPILOT following its commands.
• Instinctive: It is the seat of our ANIMAL INSTINCTS (Survival, Procreation, Herd, Territorial). Instincts are fast, strong, powerful and irresistible.
• Emotional: It is the seat of our LOWER EMOTIONS: anger, fear, greed, hatred, jealousy, lust.
• Seat of Habits: All thought patterns are lodged here. Like a computer with hidden software, you can use autosuggestion to program it like having 100 secretaries working for you.

2. The Conscious Mind

The conscious mind is our capacity to make choices in the present. The conscious mind guides the subconscious mind; that is its role.

• Uses Intellect: It is our reasoning power. It makes decisions by analyzing the pros and cons of any given situation.
• Can Make Mistakes: Even though more reliable than the emotional mind, the intellect is limited by time, space and causation. A finite instrument cannot perceive the Infinite.
• Owns the Present: To be aware is to feel empowered and alive in the present. Dwelling in the past causes us to feel victimized and powerless. "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness from which it was created." – Albert Einstein.

3. Super-Conscious (Intuitive Higher Mind)

The super-conscious mind is the seat of intuition. Intuition allows us to know in a flash and does not make mistakes.

• It comes from a sattvic (pure) mind and is not an impulse which comes from the emotional lower mind.
• It is luminous, warm, considers everything, transcends time and space, and is closer to the truth.
• The super-conscious mind inspires the conscious mind, pulling it up. We keep this inspiration going through Satsang (company of the wise) or through scriptures.

Navigating the 3 Minds – The Yogi’s Journey

The yogi’s journey is an inversion of the triangle. The yogi endeavors to become aware of the contents of the subconscious mind, to be guided by the intuition. Keeping automatic functions to a minimum, the yogi is no longer guided by instinct and past programming. Using the conscious mind, the yogi thins out the veils of the lower mind to see the Reality, the Truth.

What happens during meditation?

1. Subconscious imprints are cleaned up. Problems are resolved by themselves.
2. Conscious mind is activated and becomes clear.
3. Super-conscious can operate – intuition dawns.

Exercises of Thought Conversion

By thinking about something, you will become it. However, you are not your thoughts, so you can change your thoughts to the opposite. You need to counteract the tendency of the mind. The more you do this exercise, the more you will become an expert in the manipulation of your thoughts from negative to positive.

Positive Words to Cultivate

• Joyful: General disposition to be joyful will give you more prana.
• Healthy: Do not think about disease but think about health.
• Loving & Compassionate: Towards everybody, it is the quality of your heart.
• Courageous: Very important quality, it allows you to change.
• Flexible & Adaptable: Flowing with life instead of being stagnant.
• Equanimity: Evenness of mind, not up and down and high and low.

Words to Convert to the Opposite

• Opposite of Depressed ➔ Joyful, energetic
• Opposite of Hatred ➔ Loving
• Opposite of Judgmental ➔ Accepting, tolerant
• Opposite of Lazy / Slothful ➔ Enthusiastic, caring
• Opposite of Angry / Revengeful ➔ Content, forgiving
• Opposite of Fearful / Anxious ➔ Courageous, having faith
• Opposite of Selfish ➔ Selfless
• Opposite of Attached / Possessive ➔ Detached, generous

Exercises of Thought Cultivation

Daily Focus:

• Monday: Detachment / Attachment
• Tuesday: Courage / Fears, anxieties
• Wednesday: Compassion / Judgmental
• Thursday: Faith / Doubts
• Friday: Charity / Greed
• Saturday: Patience / Impatience
• Sunday: Forgiveness / Narrow-mindedness

Monthly Focus:

• January: Austerity / Indulgence
• February: Generosity / Stinginess
• March: Vigilance / Slothfulness
• April: Pure love / Lustful
• May: Creativity / Stagnant
• June: Forgiveness / Vengeful
• July: Equanimity / Bias
• August: Serenity / Disturbed
• September: Straightforwardness / Hypocrisy
• October: Adaptability / Rigidity
• November: Self discipline / Distracted
• December: Charity, selflessness / Egoism