Recently an apartment block in Germany burnt to the ground. Several people died and others were injured in the tragic incident. In an apartment 4 floors above the ground a family huddled together, sensing that their end had come. A man grabbed his nephew off the baby’s parents and walked to the window. He made eye contact with a police officer below and prepared to drop the baby. The man’s sister and her husband screamed for him to give the baby back to them and not to drop him. After all, dropping a baby four floors out a window is completely irrational. Amidst the pandemonium, the uncle described his decision like this-

"My mind went blank and I knew what I had to do.” He dropped the baby who was safely caught below.

What is this “blank mind” experience? Surely it is a figure of speech for a moment of profound clarity. Or is it somehow related to the meditative state, described by religion for centuries, as a quieting of the chattering mind? Or can the blank mind be explained neurologically? (positively as a slowing down of neural activity, or the predominance of alpha waves or negatively as a circuit dysfunction between the thalamus (the gateway to the cortex), and the prefrontal cortex (which handles goals, plans, working memory, and much more)

What unseen, inexplicable, clarity was called forth into the consciousness of the uncle?

Consider another true story- a psychologist was called to a cliff edge, where one of his patients was threatening to jump to his death. The psychologist tried to reason with the desperate man, asking him to consider how his death would impact his children who would be scarred for life. The man was unmoved. The psychologist asked the man to consider the finality of his actions. Life could improve if he gave it a chance. But still the man was not convinced. A police expert was called. The expert never arrived and the man never jumped.

What happened was that another police man, unaware of the situation, came towards the group on the cliff edge demanding to know who had left their car illegally parked. It turned out that the suicidal man had left his car in the middle of the street after arriving in a blur of confusion and despair. The suicidal man responded to the demand, climbed off the cliff, parked his car legally and calmly went with the police to the hospital.

What unseen, inexplicable motivation came into the man’s consciousness at that moment? His mind seemed to be made up when the psychologist was talking to him- but which mind?

How might you explain a person resisting so many momentous factors that affected so many people, and yet finally succumbing to the demand to stop breaking the law? You would think that would be the last of his concerns at that point.

Which mind was calling the shots? Part of his mind was already made up in regards the future and his children and finality. Another part of his mind, a reflex impulse, would not break the law. It was this reflex response, somewhere deep in the recesses of his subconscious brain, that won the day.

In both cases, thank goodness for the subconscious. Subconscious responses saved lives, and in each case appeared as if they were angels sent from an unseen world.

Where is Consciousness?

Woody Allen once said, "There is no question that there is an unseen world. The problem is, how far is it from midtown and how late is it open?"

Today I want to focus on the unseen from the perspective of consciousness and the subconscious mind. Where in the mind is consciousness? Where in fact is the mind located? Who is the one we call a ‘self’ and where is this ‘self’ located? Is it in the midtown of the brain at the gateway to the cortex? Or is it located outside of matter altogether? Does it ever rest, or is it, like midtown, open for business 24/7?

Why do these questions of mind and consciousness even matter? Consider mind in this context!

We live at a time of enormous change in global consciousness. People are becoming more and more aware of the ecological crisis, and self aware that for the first time in history this evolutionary crisis is being hastened by human behavior. People are becoming aware of raging religious conflicts and self aware that peace is not the absence of war. War is just a symptom. Violence is the absence of peace. Peace is an inner and outer state that must be proactively maintained.

In a remarkable convergence of human consciousness, people are becoming aware that health is not the absence of sickness as if you are just waiting for illness to come. Health is a positive state of inner and outer balance that must be proactively sustained.

These and so many other truths, such as interrelatedness and holistic health, are truths that religions and spiritual paths have taught for centuries. Now, they are truths that are being internalized by people at a rapid rate.

Do you see where I am heading? Thank God for evolution, because human consciousness seems to have evolved to a place where you and I can self reflect and choose for life to be better, more human, more connected.

Can you make a difference? Hell, yes. Transformation of the planet doesn’t require a change in consciousness in a majority of people. It requires a change in consciousness of roughly 11% of the population. Will you be part of the 11%? Your self reflective consciousness can transform the planet. Claim the power of unseen possibilities, the mystery of global mind shifts, the marvel of people working together. Claim the universal power that shift does happen.

Change your thinking. Enhance your future. Change your thinking. Transform the planet.

Even for those of us who don’t live to see the planet transformed, let’s die trying.

Purging Self Limiting Beliefs

One of the ways you can change your thinking is by purging yourself of the self limiting religious beliefs of the past. There is no original sin, no one is a slave to sin and there is no predestined plan of an external God. These are just doctrinal fabrications designed to keep the masses codependent on the church.

When St Paul described his dilemma in Romans 7 as being possessed by some unseen nature, he had misunderstood his Jewish tradition. Judaism taught the distinction between Yetzer ha- Ra, and Yetzer ha- Tov. This wasn’t so much the distinction between good and evil, as it was a balance of sometimes competing demands, like the suicidal man on cliff edge.

The Yetzer ha- Ra is the nature that seeks to protect and serve the most basic needs, survival needs, like food and shelter. It is un-self conscious. It is a reflex response. Whatever need is most immediate is satisfied. If there is no risk to food or shelter, then the subconscious will satisfy more evolved needs like loyalty to a tribe or ensuring the survival of genes. And on I could go, until the need for the survival of the planet is basic and immediate to consciousness.

Yetzer ha- Tov, on the other hand, is moral conscience, self awareness that others are impacted by your actions. Yetzer ha- Tov can weigh up competing possibilities and make decisions, form judgments and prioritize importance.

Neuroscience may now offer a more detailed description of this ancient wisdom. Yetzer ha-Ra may be the subconscious mind, or it may describe the working of the amygdale. Yetzer ha- Tov may be the conscious mind or it may describe the pre frontal cortex. In a healthy person, they function together in balance.

Paul was stuck in his theology, a faulty interpretation of Jewish ideas. In his words (* see below), he was doing what he hated and not doing what he wanted to do; as if it was out of his control, somehow built into his nature. Actually, a more accurate explanation is that Paul was trying to think positively, but until he had shifted his attitudes at a subconscious level, he would not really change. The most powerful messages in his life seemed to be that he was a wretched man with a body of death. He separated flesh and spirit, seeing spirit as his higher self and flesh as his basic selfishness. He believed that flesh was calling the shots. He failed to realize that it’s all flesh and it’s all infused with spirit (evolving consciousness?). Flesh and spirit could, just possibly, be reinterpreted as conscious and subconscious mind.

You can change your thinking, but only by changing your subconscious attitudes. As you evolve in your humanity, you find yourself making decisions, as if spontaneously, that encompass a wider group of people and a wider range of perspectives. This evolution is the retraining of the subconscious. Your Yetzer ha- Ra expands in limitless ways and feeds the consciousness of your Yetzer ha-Tov.

How do you change your subconscious attitudes? Here are three places to start-

1. mental memory 
2. holistic living 
3. meditation practice

Building Mental Memory

Your brain has 100 billion neurons; fine, thread like cells that are not just located in your brain. They link every part of your body with countless electrochemical neuron impulses. It is said that the number of these connections in just one body is greater than the stars in the universe. There are so many that there is no chance that the exact same neural impulse could ever be repeated

Every moment carries its own unique balance of nature and nurture; DNA and environmental cues. 500 years before Jesus and Paul lived, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus had it right, you really can’t cross the same river twice. Every moment is a new experience.

Every moment is a new opportunity, bringing scientific meaning to the religious teaching on resurrection. Every moment is a new experience, with a unique configuration of nature and nurture, full of possibility and open to the future. At a cellular level, you are not a victim of your past, and you are not locked into any self limiting religious story. You can choose to see life optimistically just by recognizing that this is a new moment.

At the same time, mind does seem to have memory and approaches each moment with certain in built assumptions and beliefs.

An episode of the comic strip, "Pickles," describes muscle memory. A boy named Nelson comes to his grandfather with a long pencil:

"Nelson: Grampa, can you sharpen my pencil with your pocketknife?
Grampa: Sure. [whittle whittle ...]
Nelson: Wow, how can you do it so fast?
Grampa: It's called 'muscle memory,' Nelson. You see, if you do something over and over, your muscles learn how to do it all by themselves. After a while you don't even have to use your brain anymore. Pretty amazing, huh? [He gives Nelson his pencil back, and now it's sharp ... but short!]
Nelson: Yeah ... [looking down at small stub of a pencil] But I think I like it better when you use your brain too. (The Argus, Sunday Comics, 11/13/05)

Both things are true. Each moment is new, and yet at the same time you come to each moment with a set of subconscious beliefs. If you can retrain your subconscious beliefs, in effect creating new muscle and brain memories, then you approach each new moment with a positive armory of resources and attitudes. With a combination of these retrained subconscious memories and the belief that each moment is fresh and alive, you can literally change your mind.

Holistic Living

Surround yourself with the kind of people who model the life you aspire to. Choose friends and acquaintances according to their ability to inspire you to deeper humanity.

Remember the Senility Prayer-
“God grant me the senility to forget the people that I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones that I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference.”

Choose to spend your time in activities that build your dreams.

Consider that what goes into your body has a physiological relationship with your subconscious mind. Eat mindfully. Exercise mindfully.

Refuse to buy into self limiting beliefs. Choose not to dwell in negativity.

The story is told that one evening, an old Cherokee chief told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.  He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves.  One is destructive–it is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.

The other is life affirming.  It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

 The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked, “Grandfather, which wolf wins?”  The old Cherokee chief simply replied, “The one you feed.” 

Consider what attitudes you are feeding, and consider the long term consequences of choosing to dwell in negativity.

Frederick Buechner said-
“Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back -- in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.”

Meditation Practice

The meditative state builds a bridge between the conscious and unconscious minds. Beta brain waves are your normal thinking state. Theta brain waves are the subconscious state, creative inspiration and dreaming. Alpha waves are the state of relaxed and detached awareness, forming a bridge between the conscious and subconscious minds. It’s said that in meditation, a mixture of alpha and theta brain waves predominate.

The neurological effect of meditation could be explained another way. Meditation works because of the relationship between the amygdale and the prefrontal cortex. The amygdale is a group of neurons deep in the brain that process memories and emotional reactions. The amygdale is simpler and older than the prefrontal cortex. It is the seat of the fight or flight impulse. The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that causes you to stop and reflect before acting. It takes a long time to make a decision, whereas the amygdale makes rapid judgments in order to keep you alive in the face of immediate threat.

The amygdale is prone to error, and to reacting to every day challenges and conflicts with the same fight or flight response as it would have in wild and dangerous situations. Meditation appears to increase activity in the left prefrontal cortex, which is associated with concentration, planning, self reflection, and optimism.  The mind trained by meditation could intervene before the amygdale takes over and perhaps even redirect it into more constructive or positive feelings.

More could be said, but suffice to say there is science that affirms the timeless wisdom of religions and spiritual traditions that meditation enhances your life and trains your mind. There are many different meditation practices and I encourage you to find the practice that works for you.

Apparently, the time immediately before going to sleep, and immediately after waking are the times when your conscious and subconscious minds are most closely aligned. These are great times to practice some form of meditation, or even just positive affirmations for the day. Bring your subconscious attitudes and your conscious intentions in harmony.

Consciousness as a Vast Ocean

Consider the metaphor of an iceberg. Consciousness is only the tip over the water surface. The vast majority is under water. This is the subconscious mind.

From an archetypal perspective, under water is an open and free space of discovery and becoming one with all this is. The subconscious mind does not have to be a shark that devours you, rather it can be a well spring of possibility.

From your subconscious, arises the creative impulse, the imagination that connects you with ancestors and future generations. From your subconscious, you will direct your intention. Train your subconscious attitudes, form memories that make a positive difference, choose your life wherever possible and be part of the transformation of the planet.

There is no fixed self. Religions have taught that mystery for centuries. Now neuroscience affirms that there is no fixed self and no fixed consciousness. You are a unique combination of nature and nurture, DNA and environmental cues, conscious and subconscious mind, amygdale and cortex. You are beautiful drops of water in an ocean of possibility.

In the words of Patanjali-

“May your mind transcend limitations,
May your consciousness expand in every direction,
May you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”

* Romans 7; 15-25

15I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. 17But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. 19For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 20Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. 22For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, 23but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.