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Writings by Richard Rose
The Mind
by Richard Rose
Introduction
Mind is the workshop of the mystic, the student of Zen, the occultist, as well as the psychologist. [1] [2]
We are still dealing with words, even though the approach of the transcendentalist is direct rather than objective, and we still must labor with definitions.
The reader can reject the whole concept if he wishes, since the object of this book is to encourage the reader to find things out for himself. It may be that this concept will, at least, simplify rather than add to the confusion that has resulted from trying to understand the mind.
Modern psychologists, meaning even those who go back to the turn of the century, have been busy trying to identify everything but the mind. They have created a vast new Babel in their pretence as being scientific and "functional".
While some of the early psychologists tried to qualify the mind by naming the various qualities of the mind, the present-day books on psychology cleverly avoid any listing of mental qualities, but confine themselves to various phases of behaviorism. They do not start from the bottom, or try to get to the essence of mind, as the science Physics does with the essence of matter. Instead they begin almost anywhere, and carry on experiments which are basically productive of statistics on reaction, rather than definitions of mental processes.
The age-old controversy over whether the mind and the body were separate or not, is not even touched. In fact the more you read of modern psychology, the more you will begin to imagine that there is no mind at all, but rather protoplasmic reactions.
There is of course a certain absurdity about trying to define the mind by observing the reaction pattern, or by introspection. However doing nothing is just as absurd. We must continue to try to understand the mind, and to try to find words or diagrams to bring forward ever simpler and clearer pictures of the mind's strange dimension.
Attributes
Many of the earlier authorities who felt obliged to define their work came up with several compartments, and seven to nine attributes of the mind. The attributes in some cases overlapped each other, and in some cases were downright absurd. Such attributes as Imagination, Will, Intellect, and even Love were listed. For brain compartments, we learned a new one with each new author. Conscious, and sub-conscious compartments. The Ego, the Id, the Super-ego, the Super-Conscious, the Unconscious, the Libido.
When we try to understand the mind by first believing all the terminology created to date, we are faced with cliff-hanging uncertainty. We must approach the subject in a simple manner, until we are able to experience the mind directly - which is the correct way to study it.
We experience two minds: the individual mind and the unmanifested Mind-Stuff.
The individual mind is individual in appearance only, but we will call it that, when we refer to the mind of personal observation.
This mind has four apparent qualities or attributes. Perception, Memory, Reaction, and Projection. All human actions are contained in these four. We perceive, we retain, and we project. We are like a camera that takes pictures, and projects pictures aided by Light.
Now you will immediately ask, "But do we not think? Or do we not will to do certain things?" The truth of the matter is that we do not perceive, or remember, or really act or react, by virtue of will or volition. The Will is in itself only a reaction.
Diagram 1: Percepts, memories, reactions, projection
For symbols, we will say that perception is P. The mind is represented as a field represented by a circle. Memory is represented as M. Reaction is represented as R, or a two way vector arrow (an arrow pointed in both directions). Projection is Pr.
* * *
The great motivating factors of man are not attributes, but are external. They are curiosity and desire, implanted in both man and amoeba. Without them, all flesh would precipitate into slime or solids.
We do not begin life willfully, nor live it willfully, until we are able to find out the limits of our bondage. When we find out whether we are able to do anything on our own, then it is possible to try to enlarge that ability.
Looking at life, as a new-born baby, we try to visualize the first thought. The first thought was preceded by a perception to inspire the reaction, because thought is little more than reaction.
The first P became automatically the first M. It recorded. Still there was no thought. But the second P, or incoming vector, influencing the first recorded M, causes the first reaction, simply because it takes more than one thing to cause a reaction. So that the first thought may make little impression on the consciousness of the baby.
We now use the symbols P, M, R, Pr, to represent a single of each, and use the symbols Pn, Mn, Rn, and Prn, to represent the accumulations of each that are the history of our experience. [Represented in the diagram just as M.]
Thus the individual mind is somewhat automatic. A "P" automatically reacts upon the multiple M field, and this reaction in turn, while being only an automatic process, still will explain much of our thoughts. Likewise, the significance that a Reaction or thought will have, will depend on the violence or sharpness of incoming Percepts. A percept, such as a blow, will possess considerable voltage and stir up perhaps all of the memory bank, Mn. Likewise, another percept coming in later may only be the symbol of the blow, but will likewise stir up nearly the same amount of voltage and memories.
The Reaction of memories upon memories is imagination.
The Reaction of Reactions to Reactions, is awareness, – of the limited mind alone, not the Unmanifested Mind.
The Reaction to curiosity (an external influence) is action.
The Reaction to desire (an external influence, or implant) is pleasure, and movement toward increased pleasure, whether that pleasure is brought about by sex or the digestion of food, or the senses.
We see that imagination is not an attribute in itself, but merely a form of Reaction.
Will is but a particular Reaction to various Reactions and Percepts.
A gestalt is but the Reaction to or by a familiar pattern within the Memory.
A State of Mind is a memory-and-reaction pattern that we identify as being valid, even though hours or days later we may consider it invalid – depending upon the voltage of a [subsequent] strong percept that is able to place the prior state of mind in a position of lesser importance.
The behavior of man becomes complex with the increasing complexity of the interaction of Percepts, Memories, Reactions and the ever-present "implants," which being external might be labeled as Percepts except for the lack of a Percept to be motivating. An "implant" moves us, and is organic, chromosomic or transcendental. An implant causes Percepts.
Telepathy received is still perception. Telepathy transmitted is projection. The Percepts are not limited to the five senses. In our efforts to limit perception to the five senses, we limited our understanding of the mind.
Mind-camera analogy
We come now to another analogy. This is the mind-camera analogy.
The mind is like a two-way camera that takes pictures and projects the picture at the same time. Like the camera, it can record a limited number of impressions from any one lens. Likewise, it has a focus. The eye may be open and may be taking in miles of panorama. Simultaneously many sounds may be registering upon the ear, and many odors may be registering on the olfactory nerves. We will register all of these things, but our reaction may be limited to a point of focus.
The mind is like a camera in that it has points of focus, similar to lenses. It has a big roll of film, or memory bank, – Mn. [The large circle in diagram 1 becomes the small circle "individual mind" in diagram 2.] The light seems to be coming from the external world.
Diagram 2: The mind-camera analogy (a.k.a. Ray of Projection/Creation)
However there is a Light, coming from behind, for the Unmanifested Mind, [3] which is actually projecting a picture, which we are in reality only able to see when stimulated by percepts.
The Unmanifested Mind is the first experienced Reality, or the first plateau which we rest upon when reaching for Reality. The Unmanifested mind is more real than our individual mind.
Do not get the idea that this projected picture is correct. It is looked upon as illusion. While presuming the Unmanifested Mind to be more Real, it is beaming a pure light through a very cloudy medium – meaning nerve-chemicals.
Several writers have tried to show that the manifested world-view is an illusion. Brunton uses the example of the eye viewing a pencil, in which we feel or know that the pencil is actually registered upside-down,* with the readjustment projected by the mind. We would immediately say that the mind is thus projecting the correct picture.
[* On the retina. The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, ch 9.]
This is a projection of the individual or limited mind. We know that our awareness of colors is more of a chemical change in the delicate retina, brought about by vibrations or wave-lengths of different rate. Taste is likewise chemical. The associations may not be.
Somehow we seem to have similar associations, as though the associations or states of mind were forced upon us by being aware of the world-view of those associations.
The aspirant to cosmic consciousness may come to believe that the Light that comes from the Unmanifested Mind, actually comes through that medium or matrix also, while its true origin is in the Absolute.
Illusion
Man is continually trying to find himself. He stumbles from illusion to illusion. He rarely stands on any sure ground in his entire lifetime. His confusion begets despair, and he acts out his life toward the end like a man in a nightmare, from which he can escape only by going deeper into sleep.
As has been stated before, there is no better way to see the self-deluding nature of man than through hypnosis. [4] The application of belief to an individual mind through hypnosis is like tapping one of the great laws of the Unmanifested Mind. The Law of Creation involves Imagination plus Faith, plus the Fiat. It is said that God imagined, or dreamed up the physical world, believed in himself, and said, "Let there be Light." The spoken word was the Fiat. Or the Logos.
In hypnosis, we create a small microcosmos. We shut out the projections of the individual mind, and project with a proxy-Light, originating from within the operator. The fact that the individual mind accepts this new projection as his own, and adopts a new state of mind as a corollary, is evidence that his previous states of mind which he would like to identify with sanity, are not on too sure a ground.
We can see that we can never be sure of any state of mind, until we are knowledgeable of all the factors that cause such, or all of the agencies that project their light upon us.
We can see ourselves as a colony of cells, or a group of cell colonies, – and we do not feel very much like an individual. We do, however, have behind that knowledge – that we are a group of cell-colonies – a feeling of individuality, and a feeling of incomplete knowledge about ourselves.
A Rosicrucian might say that we are in reality a string of luminous, colored flowers of light and brilliance, forming a general radiance called an aura, which with its chakras is more real than the body which we see. And once more, we find ourselves to be a group of something.
And the deeper we peer into transcendentalism, the closer we approach an inescapable paradox: that is, if we are anything at all, we are somehow closely related to everything.
Technique
The Unmanifested Mind is not demonstrable. The technique for studying it is. If you would see the true source of illusion, instead of living vicariously on the screen of the theatre, – follow the light back through the lens of the projector.**
[** From The Albigen Papers, ch 8: "Some transcendentalists have described the Absolute or Brahman as having tentacles or rays that touched upon, and were one with, every particle of moving matter in the universe. We can understand this possibility only when we travel back along that particular ray which is aimed at our relative mind. It does no good to describe Brahman unless we describe the means to witness that which we describe."]
This may appear utterly ridiculous if taken literally, but it remains that we must observe the observer, not the make-believe which all of us agree is life-drama. We are chained to the theatre, rather than to a Platonic cave. We identify ourselves with veritable shadows, and laugh and weep at their motions. And perhaps we come back repeatedly to see the same show, to purge ourselves of Reality in a repetition of drama drawn from the Matrix of the dimension of the Unmanifested Mind.
When we observe the observer, we sense several things. One is that we have been in a dream state, and must return to a dream state as long as we are in this body. We observe also that the Dream State is very real, in that it is for us the only life for us until we awaken. And it is inescapable that we must deduce that dream-life is a real manifestation of some agency within ourselves that acts as a creator. It is as though we were born with a false face, which all through life we accepted as our true face, because it was all we knew as a face, and because our friends accepted it as true. The face would literally have to fall off by accident for us to know that it was not our true self.
* * *
Let us try to get behind the false face. We can observe, by introspection, that much of what we would like to think of as thinking, is nothing more than reaction, – and mostly automatic reaction without any volition on our part. Of course we can get into some very complicated reaction patterns, and this complexity (as is noted in the Law of Complexity) [5] is visible life.
Desire is not a reaction; we may have quite varied reactions to it. Curiosity is not a reaction, but an external force. We are not that, which was here before we learned it. Curiosity exists for the amoeba, and thus for every white corpuscle. And possibly for every cell in our bodies. It is planted in the unborn beings, and for want of a better word we call it instinct. It propels the newborn to look for food, and propels him so relentlessly that there is no chance for the food-seeking to have any origins in deliberate action. Desire is likewise implanted in the being before it is born, and it continues to propel us until the day of our death. It too, is not something learned, or reasoned out.
Some of us may be generals, priests, or Indian Chiefs, but we are still basically robots, hiding beneath elaborate robes the gears that are the signs of our slavery. While we pose as movers of planets.
Next, we are inclined to look at the above analysis of the mind, and take pride in being able to "Project." We might think for a while that our ability to project is our individuality. The truth is that we are but a channel for the projection, if we are referring to the individual mind and the Unmanifested Mind, neither of which we really are.
We like to think that we are the sum total of our thoughts, or our experiences. This is like saying that a dog is a composite of fleas, lice, ticks, intestinal worms, germs, and a final glorious heap of maggots. It is vain for us to claim to be that which we have happen to us, which we cannot control. And if you think that you are the one that is thinking, try to stop it. You will find that every thought is tied to another thought by an inexorable chain. This chain is the chain of reaction. It is basically rooted in the body, starting off as a baby, by the two catalysts, desire and curiosity.
Now you might at this point demand that we identify desire and curiosity as being implanted in us by a superior entity, which we might call God. It may well be that we are acted upon by other entities, but this interaction being other dimensional, appears to be divine. The proper definition for "other dimensions" is "other accepted world views" other than our own. And they may well emanate from the same Unmanifested Mind, and are so related to our world view.
Our true umbilical cord is toward the Absolute, beyond the womb-matrix of the Unmanifested Mind.
The projection that animates the whole picture of creation, as well as every cell in our bodies, we will call Light. I use a separate term, because it might appear that curiosity and desire appear to be the sole motivating forces. However we can see, all through nature, that there is a central fountain that regenerates decaying force-fields, isotopes, delicate protoplasmic combinations, which we know are in a constant state of precipitation and deterioration. This fountain is not curiosity alone. This fountain is the force behind the entity or mechanism that implants the desire and curiosity within us. This fountain likewise supports the eternal growing and dying of celestial bodies (planets and stars).
This Light begins beyond the Unmanifested Mind. The Unmanifested Mind acts as a sort of prism that separates the differentiated rays from the undifferentiated source.
Diagram 2 (repeated): The Ray of Projection/Creation
[The Albigen Papers, ch 8: "The third step involves a conscious effort to retraverse our projected ray. It does not involve the reversal of the projection from the Absolute, because it is impossible to reverse that which IS, or is the final Reality. We can only reverse the forces of Nature, because Nature is part of the relative world-view, – which being relative, automatically possesses negative characteristics. I have used the picture of peering back into the focus of the projector, as the final step of being one with the Absolute. Actually, we go back in one sense, and at the same time we find that we were back there all the time."]
The use of the word Light here, should not be construed in the same sense as the light that is the cause of eye-stimuli. I wish to emphasize this to prevent an ardent investigator from pursuing the analysis of such manifested light. This particularized light of the eye is still differentiated and lower mind matter.
Likewise, we can take some steps away from illusion. We begin by recognizing that the material world presents an illusory picture. We secondly notice that we are automatons of a sort, galvanized by desire and curiosity.
But then we settle back and say, – well at least we perceive, remember, react, and project. Actually these qualities are also automatic. We cannot control these functions, unless we controlled the entire environment.
So we look to our motivating force. We look back through the eye of the projector. We are projectors of a sort ourselves. But we are like little prisms that have been projected. And this microcosm is no better aware of his function, than when operating as a hypnotist.
Why are we projected? (Not questioning the reasons for our origin, but the reason for this illusory projection instead of something more real.) It is impossible to presume the reason for this diffusion from the Absolute. It is likewise impossible to assess all of the life-forms or intelligence quanta that function in the Unmanifested Mind matrix.
Some modern psychologists have come to believe that we exist only in the mind, which must of course place all phenomena, material or abstract, as being mental phenomena. They must then take the next step, and admit that they are, body and environment, and their individual mind as well, – a mental phenomena over which they have no control. Unless the dreamer would pretend to be consciously creating his dream. And of course, if we are all mental phenomena, we are extremely vain in legislating human conduct for our fellow-man.
Immortality
We take another step and say that if we are nothing but mental phenomena, then there is no self, and consequently no immortality. And if neither of these hopes exists, then why should we confuse ourselves further with any study of the subject...?
Of course the answer is that, as regards the self, our only true essence must be Real instead of illusory. This true Self is not the individual dream character that flits across the stage. It can find its real life only in the Light that is its source, absolutely.
And in regards to immortality, immortality is measured in our objective minds by Time. And time is inexorably tied to space as space-time in the clearer world-view, and in the Unmanifested matrix. So that, not only is there not a day or a year, but there is also not a billion years.
There is only Is-ness.
Our immortality is dependent, not on our ability to extend our personal illusion indefinitely but to transcend it. Our immortality is dependent upon our becoming the Light, by identifying with that which is Real, and really is us and has been us all the time.
The scientific psychologist will always fail to understand even the world-view, because he is like some bumpkin in the audience, taking pot shots at the villain on the screen. Or like a child grasping at the surface of the water whereon is playing an elusive, dancing reflection.
* * *
In order to better understand the umbilical function of projection, we might take a television set, as representing the individual mind. Channel Three, (three dimensional) would present the same world-view to all of its viewers. By changing to another channel through the use of drugs or other means, we might get another world-view, coming from a different level or studio.
The television set Reacts in a very complex way to the waves coming through its antennae. It sorts out the incoming percepts and projects them upon [the screen]. Its range is not its own option. It is set by the manufacturer.
Now we might build in a memory-bank for the television, and install electronic devices, so that at any suggestion, reactions would trigger projections. In time, the television set might even be operated by and from the broadcasting studio, which is the equivalent of the Unmanifested Mind-matrix. And at this point the television set might begin to think that it was an individual, answering only to the broadcasting studio.
It never took into account the fact that its real power and life, as well as the power and life of the broadcasting studio, came from an inconspicuous electric wire. When the plug is pulled, all of the lights and life go out.
By this analogy we can realize the three types of projection. The television set projects into our room, the picture of our accepted world view, analogous to the individual mind. The broadcasting studio likewise projects, – from a matrix of cardboard sets, trick mirrors, two dimensional cities consisting of buildings with only facades, and with various trick-noises, – a picture that upon reception by us will seem to be real. However, both are dependent upon another projection, – the voltage from an invisible power-source.
The individual experiences sleep when the power source is diminished to near-zero, and death when completely severed between the individual mind and the Unmanifested Mind.
[ end ]
© 2002 Richard Rose. All rights reserved.
Endnotes
[1] Wording in the original typwritten document, later crossed out, indicates that this essay was intended to be part of a book.
[2] Crossed out: "As gathered from chapter two, I would guess that the first three [mystic, student of Zen and occultist – i.e., excluding the psychologist] would be more qualified, at least at this writing, to lay claim to clarity of language that would portray the mind."
[3] Crossed out here: "(world mind)". This was
apparently a tentative reference to Paul Brunton's conception; see "Nature of
World-Mind" paulbrunton.org/
[4] The Albigen Papers, chapter 4 (under "Magic"): "But there is no better lever than hypnosis to understand the human mind."
[5] The Albigen Papers, chapter 7, "Discernment".
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