THE POWER OF MIND. William Walker Atkinson

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      Lesson III.

       The Basements of the Mind.

       Table of Content

      IN THE lower planes of the Inner Consciousness are performed the various forms of mental activity which have to do with the building up, preservation, repairing, etc., of the physical body. Every cell has its share of mind, and every combination of cells into cell­groups and organs of the body, has its group or organ mind also. That which we call “Instinct” or “Nature” in a person or animal is a manifestation of Mind on some of the lower planes of the Inner Consciousness. And these lower planes are susceptible to suggestions or orders from other planes of mind, and will take on suggested ideas or conceptions, the result being that we are often made sick by ideas absorbed or suggested in this way; and we are likewise cured of physical ailments by similar methods, the suggested idea be placed on the proper plane by means of “auto­suggestion,” “imparted ideas,” and mental “treatments” of various kinds. Mind pervades every part of the physical body, and is always capable of being impressed by orders or suggestions coming from the more dominant portions of the mind of the individual.

      On some of the lower planes of the Inner Consciousness are to be found the seat and abode of the so­called “automatic” or “habit” actions of the mind. The Habit mind is made up of various things which have been placed there by the individual, which things were once performed in the field of consciousness, but which gradually became almost automatic by reason of experience, repetition, etc., until the performance of them passes from the field of consciousness down to some of the lower planes of the Inner Consciousness, thus becoming “second nature” and being likely to be repeated with little or no attention being bestowed by the conscious mind. You are familiar with this fact—all of you perform certain work almost automatically. You run the sewing machine, typewriter, or play the piano almost automatically, and may be thinking of other things at the same moment. These tasks were originally performed only by an expenditure of much attention and effort on your part, but constant practice has enabled you to delegate the work to certain planes of your Inner Consciousness, until now they almost “work themselves,” with a minimum of attention and concentration on your part. Some writers hold that no one really learns how to perform a task properly, until he or she is able to pass it down to this part of the mind, where it is performed almost automatically. Musicians and others are aware that their best work is performed by this part of their mentality, and that when, as occasionally happens, their conscious attention is directed to the work, there is a “slip up” and less perfect performance. The artist knows what it is to “lose himself” in his work and his greatest successes come at such times. Every writer knows this also, and the phenomena occurs in all manner and kinds of work. How many of us lose ourselves in “day­dreams” when performing our habitual tasks? How many of us seem to stand aside and watch ourselves work at tasks rendered familiar by habit.

      We often cross the streets without paying conscious attention to our actions, and many of us have had the experience of “forgetting where we are going” and after a time finding ourselves brought up standing in front of the place from which we started. We put on our clothes in this way, the same arm going into the same sleeve, etc., without our thinking about the matter. If you will notice which arm you place in your coat the next time you dress, and then after taking off the coat again, try to insert the other arm first (reversing the regular order) you will be surprised to see how awkward you are, and how the “habit­mind” rebels at the change. The same is true of buttoning a collar—you always button on a certain tab first, and will find it most difficult to reverse the process.

      We are in the habit of thinking of these things being “done by themselves” or as “doing themselves,” but a moment’s consideration will show you that nothing can manifest such activity except by means of mind of some kind and degree. The activity is the result of mental processes and direction, and without mind could not be performed. We may call it “automatic” or “mechanical” if we please, but it is really the result of mind—there is mind back of and in every “automatic” action of the individual. But being below the field of the outer consciousness, we do not recognize the mental operation. It is part of the phenomena of the lower planes of the Inner Consciousness.

      And there are other planes of that wonderful region, in which certain “habits” are implanted, but which were not placed there by ourselves. We allude to the field of hereditary influences which have come down to us from those who lived before us throughout countless generations. There are planes of the Inner Consciousness filled with impressions, ideas, habit, emotions, feelings, desires and impulses which we have acquired by inheritance from the past. From the time of the cave men, and even further back, have come to us certain mental seeds and forces, which lie slumbering in the deep recesses of the lower planes of the Inner Consciousness. We are able to control and subdue, or else use, these latent impulses, by means of our higher mental faculties, but they are there just the same. As some writers have said, we have “the whole menagerie within us”—the tiger, the ape, the peacock, the donkey, the hyena, the goat, the sheep, the lion, and all the rest of the collection. We have come by these things honestly, and there is no reason to be ashamed of them—the shame consists only in turning these wild beasts loose into actions unworthy of our higher state gained through arduous evolution. As Luther Burbank has said: “Heredity means much, but what is heredity? Not some hideous ancestral specter, forever crossing the path of a human being. Heredity is simply the sum of all the effects of all the environments of all past generations on the responsive ever­moving life forces.” And all of the effects of all the past environments of all past generations are registered, faintly or strongly on certain planes of our Inner Consciousness. An understanding of this fact will enable us to submit such tendencies when they occasionally poke their heads out from their dark caves in response to some familiar call which has roused them from their slumber—and an understanding will enable us to call upon the past within us for help and aid when we need the same to perform certain of the work of life. We have many things within us, which can and will manifest in outer consciousness when so called СКАЧАТЬ