What Is the Essence of Mind?

[abstrktion]

Most interesting bits of this thread for me...

1) I see JustLikeYou and Plenum's discussion of "Mind" as different from the discussions of thought/perception (thought/perception = the activities of Mind, among other things.)

2) Unity is "unmanifest"--inherent in "manifestation" is duality/division. Thus duality/separation is the foundation of this manifest illusion, but the reality is unity. I just had to hear it in these terms for it to make sense.
@JustLikeYou--this goes along with those first couple chapters of The Mystical Qabalah. The division is what gives us "manifestation."
@Shin'Ar--I think I see how you understand this world as being, in its nature, dualistic--or as Ra says, polarized. Is the foundation of your understanding of good and evil based upon this notion? As participants in the illusion, we have to participate in the game, so to speak, playing by its own rules. On this 3D chess set, there's a white queen and a black queen, and we have to pick a side. It's fine and dandy to KNOW that there is no good and evil when all is One, but here, in the illusion, they are real forces and we make choices to be part of either one or the other. And Ra did clearly say that there is a bias towards STO and that it is the most efficient polarity.

Further, even the Confederation, when faced with an EQUAL foe, must choose the path of resistance to avoid enslavement. We can absorb that which is less powerful, but an equal force will neutralize us or enslave us if we "accept" it. Interesting...in terms of daily application...but I suppose that would be another thread.

Nevertheless, I think it may not be entirely useful to conceptualize oneself as taking a side in a war against other selves because such a stance emphasizes the illusory nature of 3D. So, while not condoning, accepting, or supporting that which steals free will from others, one must paradoxically hold the ideal in one's mind that all are one.

Max Levner: "Life is a protracted struggle agains the Adversary, which is man himself."

Anais Nin: "We see things not as they are, but as we are."

Great quotes for discussion...

Sorry...I guess I'm off track--@Gary--feel free to move this if it doesn't belong here in this thread.

Back to Mind--I think the quote given by Plenum gives us a definitive and comprehensive description so I'll repeat it:

The mind is a complex which reflects the in-pourings of the spirit and the up-pourings of the body complex. It contains what you know as feelings, emotions, and intellectual thoughts in its more conscious complexities. Moving further down the tree of mind we see the intuition which is of the nature of the mind more in contact or in tune with the total being-ness complex. Moving down to the roots of mind we find the progression of consciousness which gradually turns from the personal to the racial memory, to the cosmic influxes, and thus becomes a direct contactor of that shuttle which we call the spirit complex.

So the spirit complex is a shuttle--and so what then might be "the soul" as differentiated from the spirit?...new thread anyone? Plenum?

Lastly--on animals...I believe they have "Mind", but they have not yet evolved the same kind of "consciousness" that is prerequisite for true free "will" to exist--but they will evolve it, and will be a higher "humanity" than we have been (just as each successive generation builds upon the foundation of the last). Notice in the underlined part that there is a "progression" of consciousness--consciousness is something that evolves. As we are to the Angels, the animals are to us...yep, you can add that thought to the meat-eating thread... (yes, I'm a vegetarian).