Beyond the Power of Your Subconscious Mind (15 page)

Mark Twain confided to the world on many occasions that he never worked in his life. All his humor and all his great writings were due to the fact that he tapped the inexhaustible reservoir of his supraconscious mind.

In Dr. Murphy’s example of how Robert Louis Stevenson accessed his supraconscious, what is interesting is that solutions that “come to us” from this area of the mind are
complete
.
They are total solutions. When Stevenson wrote another chapter or verse for one of his books, he did not have to edit or rewrite what he had put on paper. He was quoted as saying, “The Brownies come in my sleep and write it.”

Other famous creators credit the supraconscious for their creations. Mozart started writing music at the age of three. He published his first sonata at the age of six. He was not a “composer” by his own proclamation. “Music came to me. I am a transcriber of music, not a composer.”

He would hear the string section of the music and write it down. He would then hear the brass, piano, and other instruments and “transcribe” what he heard. When completed, the score he had transcribed was perfect. No need for revision. You may recall in the movie Amadeus, there was a great attempt to make Mozart a fraud because those who composed music said it was “impossible” to just create a musical score in one sitting with no alterations or rewriting.

Beethoven said, “Those moments when full and rich, music comes to my inner ear.” Later in life when he was totally deaf, he produced some of his best music.

Stravinsky stated, “I heard and I wrote what I heard. I was a channel for the music.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson used automatic writing. “I sit at my desk, take pen in hand and an alien force seizes my arm and guides it in writing my material which I generally read with great interest not knowing that I had known these things.”

Imagination is far more important than knowledge.

Albert Einstein

How the body portrays the workings of the mind

The interaction of your conscious and subconscious mind requires a similar interaction between the corresponding system of nerves. The cerebrospinal system is the organ of the conscious mind, and the sympathetic system is the organ of the subconscious mind. The cerebrospinal system is the channel through which you receive conscious perception by means of your five physical senses and exercise control over the movement of your body. This system has its nerves in the brain, and it is the channel of your volitional and conscious mental action.

The sympathetic system, sometimes referred to as the involuntary nervous system, has its center in a ganglionic mass at the back of the stomach known as the solar plexus, and is sometimes spoken of as the abdominal brain. It is the channel of that mental action which unconsciously supports the vital functions of the body. This is why we often say, “What does your gut tell you?”

The two systems may work separately or synchronously. Judge Thomas Troward* says, “The vagus nerve passes out of the cerebral region as a portion of the voluntary system, and through it we control the vocal organs; then it passes onward to the thorax sending out branches to the heart and lungs; finally, passing through the diaphragm, it loses the outer coating which distinguishes the nerves of the voluntary system and becomes identified with those of the sympathetic system, so forming a connecting link between the two and making the man physically a single entity.

“Similarly different areas of the brain indicate their connection with the objective and subjective activities of the mind respectively, and speaking in a general way we may assign the frontal portion of the brain to the former and the posterior portion to the latter, while the intermediate portion partakes of the character of both.”

There is an intelligence which takes care
of the body

When you study the cellular system and the structure of the organs, such as eyes, ears, heart, liver, bladder, etc., you learn they consist of groups of cells which form a group intelligence whereby they function together and are able to take orders and carry them out in deductive function at the suggestion of the master mind (conscious mind).

A careful study of the single-celled organism shows you what goes on in your complex body. Though the mono-cellular organism has no organs, it still gives evidence of mind action and reaction performing the basic functions of movement, alimentation, assimilation, and elimination.

Many say there is an intelligence which will take care of your body if you let it alone. That is true, but the difficulty is that the conscious mind always interferes with its five-sense evidence based on outer appearances, leading to the sway of false beliefs, fears, and mere opinion. When fear, false beliefs, and negative patterns are made to register in your subconscious mind through psychological, emotional conditioning, there is no other course open to the subconscious mind except to act on the blueprint specifications offered it.

Your subconscious has a life of its own which is always moving toward harmony, health, and peace.

How man interferes with the innate
principle of harmony

To think correctly, scientifically, we must know the “Truth.” To know the truth is to be in harmony with the infinite intelligence and power of your subconscious mind, which is always moving lifeward.

Every thought or action which is not harmonious, whether through ignorance or design, will result in discord and limitation of all kinds. Scientists inform us that you build a new body every eleven months; so you are really only eleven months old from a physical standpoint. If you build defects back into your body by thoughts of fear, anger, jealousy, and ill will, you have no one to blame but yourself.

You are the sum total of your own thoughts. You can keep from entertaining negative thought and imagery. The ways to get rid of darkness is with light; the way to overcome cold is with heat; the way to overcome negative thoughts is to substitute good thoughts. Affirm the good, and the bad will vanish.

Why it’s normal to be healthy, vital, and strong—it’s abnormal to be sick

The average child born into the world is perfectly healthy with all its organs functioning perfectly. This is the normal state, and we should remain healthy, vital, and strong. The instinct of self-preservation is the strongest instinct of your nature, and it constitutes a most potent, ever-present, and constantly operative truth, inherent in your nature. It is, therefore, obvious that all your thoughts, ideas, and beliefs must operate with greater potentiality when they are in harmony with the innate life-principle in you, which is forever seeking to preserve and protect you along all lines. It follows from this that normal conditions can be restored with greater ease and certainty than abnormal conditions can be induced.

It is abnormal to be sick; it simply means you are going against the stream of life and thinking negatively. The law of life is the law of growth; all nature testifies to the operation of this law by silently, constantly expressing itself in the law of growth. Where there is growth and expression, there must be life; where there is life there must be harmony, and where there is harmony, there is perfect health.

If your thought is in harmony with the creative principle of your subconscious mind, you are in tune with the innate principle of harmony. If you entertain thoughts which are not in accordance with the principle of harmony, these thoughts cling to you, harass you, worry you, and finally bring about disease, and if persisted in, possible death.

In the healing of disease, you must increase the inflow and distribution of the vital forces of your subconscious mind throughout your system. This can be done by eliminating thoughts of fear, worry, anxiety, jealousy, hatred, and every other destructive thought which tends to tear down and destroy your nerves and glands—body tissue which controls the elimination of all waste material.

Pointers to review

1. Your subconscious is the builder of your body and is on the job 24 hours a day. You interfere with its life-giving patterns by negative thinking.

2. Charge your
supraconscious
with the task of evolving an answer to any problem, prior to sleep and it will answer you.

3. Watch your thoughts. Every thought accepted as true is sent by your brain to your solar plexus—your abdominal brain—and is brought into your world as a reality.

4. Know that you can remake yourself by giving a new blueprint to your subconscious mind.

5. The tendency of your subconscious is always lifeward. Your job is with your conscious mind. Feed your subconscious mind with premises which are true. Your subconscious is always reproducing according to your habitual mental patterns.

6. You build a new body every eleven months. Change your body by changing your thoughts and keeping them changed.

7. It is normal to be healthy. It is abnormal to be ill. There is within the innate principle of harmony.

8. Thoughts of jealousy, fear, worry, and anxiety tear down and destroy your nerves and glands bringing about mental and physical diseases of all kinds.

9. What you affirm consciously and feel as true will be made manifest in your mind, body and affairs. Affirm the good and enter into the joy of living.

13

The Supraconscious and
Creative Problem Solving

The most essential part of the Self is the supraconscious, not ordinarily accessible to conscious awareness. Access to the supraconscious may be enhanced by meditative disciplines, life crises, attitudes (e.g., nonattachment), autosuggestive approaches, ritual, etc.

—Willis Harman*

The supraconscious is such an important part of our overall being that it must be included in any discussion of truly creative problem solving.

It is important to understand that the conscious area of the mind, the subconscious, and the supraconscious are all spheres of our one mind. They each have their own specific functions. The functions of the conscious and the subconscious were explained in detail in Chapter 7. As promised, we will now delve more deeply into the supraconscious and provide you with a step-by-step procedure for engaging the supraconscious in creative problem solving.

First, let’s examine the functions and characteristics of the supraconscious.

1.
The supraconscious is the source of all pure creativity.

•
The conscious area of the mind cannot create. It extrapolates data already stored in the subconscious or accesses data and information from other sources, such as people (”experts”), books, computers, etc.

•
The conscious mind, through deductive reasoning, can solve problems when it accesses data that provides solutions to such problems.

•
The supraconscious has access to data not stored in the subconscious. It literally has access to universal knowledge which leads to “pure creativity” beyond the normal reasoning of the conscious and subconscious. We gave examples in the previous chapter of those artists whose creations (music, writings, et al.) came
to
them, not
from
them.

Conclusion: The idea(s) comes through on the level the conscious mind is working on (and desires).

—music to musicians

—gadgets to inventors

—prose to writers, etc.

2.
The supraconscious is capable of goal-oriented motivation.

There are two types of motivation:

A. Constructive motivation—this is when we are driven to achieve or attain something we really
want
to happen.

B. Restrictive motivation—this is doing something we have to
do, which may often be the desire or need of someone else, such as our employer, parent, teacher, et al. It is not our desire (to do), but we do it because we have to.

The supraconscious provides free-flowing energy only when we are constructively motivated. We seldom get tired doing those things we love to do, while getting exhausted doing those things we “have to do.”

It is important that we align our goals with constructive motivation and wherever possible reduce or eliminate our “have to-s.” Even changing our self talk from “I have to” to “I choose to” reduces or eliminates the energy drain from being restrictively motivated.