10/15/10

A theory of mind

"Your state of mind and your recognition of what is in it depend on what you believe about your mind. Whatever those beliefs may be, they are the premise that will determine what you accept into your mind.
A Course In Miracles
Suppose it is a simple as that. Suppose the big problem stems from a fundamentally flawed notion of what your mind is. Perhaps you consider yourself to be a single point of awareness floating in a subjective experience, contained within a body that is a small cog in a much larger world full of countless other minds, bodies and assorted stuff.

That's backwards. It's all mind.

To say "It's all in your mind," runs the risk of trivializing mind as a self-deprecation. That's what they say to crackpots who are imagining things. The other risk is to encourage a solipsism where everything is shrunk down to the size of your personal singular point of view and awareness. This is a trivialization that promotes grandiosity and narcissism. Neither are an improvement, because each maintain the basic structural flaw.

A Course in Miracles states that mind is the creative aspect of soul, and that your soul is your reality.

The singular point of awareness that you think of as "you" is your ego, or separated self. The "you" in your mind, in your body, in the world, is not you. What you think of as your mind is not your mind, your mind is not within your body, and the world is not what you think it is.
"It is surely clear that you can both accept into your mind what is not there, and deny what is."
A Course In Miracles
-  oOo   -

Tom Fox
Louisville, Kentucky

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