Let`s Straighten the Conceptual Curves and Clear the Fog

In my conscious experience so far I came to the conclusion that there is a general misunderstanding and a lack of understanding of all those elusive concepts and terms that are used to address the intangible aspects of the human being.

Since the ancient times of the Persian and Greek philosophers we have inherited the terminological concepts of the Soul, Consciousness and Mind. From these three many other immaterial terms derive like Spirituality, Enlightment, Insight, Revelation, Inspiration .. they all signify the intangible and hidden contents of human nature.

All these words are burdened with so much conceptual confusion and misinterpretation today, that it is hard to use them without provoking different degrees of prejudice, which is a result of this layered and accumulated misunderstanding throughout the ages.

Despite all the semantic and dogmatic misconception, the fact is that human beings are intelligent and deeply spiritual creatures. Furthermore, intelligence did put us on the top of the vertebrates pyramid, but it is the spiritual ritual that first served as a community-gatherer and fascinated those ancient predecessors of ours.

Spirituality, which later evolved into religion is this deeply symbolic fruit of the sensitive and creative human soul.

Now, let`s define some of the major concepts we often use, so that we leave the least room for misunderstanding and clear up the conceptual fog a bit.

We will start with the Mind. the Mind is a widely used concept in our everyday language and unsurprisingly so, since this term defines this essential entity that you are. Think about it, when you say “I” you generally don`t really mean your body, but this entity in your head that thinks and experiences the world consciously.

In general, the term “mind” addresses the rational and analytical abilities of our brain that distinguishes homo sapiens from all the rest living beings on this planet. This full of beauty, magical planet that gave us life! And on the other hand, the “mind” also addresses another aspect of the human brain, that we feel much closer to what we perceive ourselves to be, namely the Consciousness. Human consciousness is this phenomenon that we address when we say “I”.

The “Mind” concept is like a two-sided coin that, on the one hand signifies the “mechanical” qualities of the human brain like Intelligence, and on the other the conscious perception that the individual has for him/herself and the world.

Let`s take a brief look into Intelligence and its relation to Consciousness, since those two are both referred to by a common “mind” concept.

Intelligence is the overall evolutionary quality of the human mind due to its sophisticated design of neuron networks that give us the ability to learn, remember, think and analyze on a much wider scale and higher level than all the other animals on this Earth. Human memory capacity, for instance, is yet undefined nor there are defined boundaries of human imagination. Our ability to remember, analyze, estimate and think associatively makes us intelligent beings. Yet, intelligence as a property of the brain is not in a direct relation to this elusive consciousness of ours and specifically to the self-awareness aspect of consciousness.

There are numerous examples of this odd disrelation between ingenuity and self-awareness as in being conscious of yourself and analyzing yourself. There have been not one and two geniuses who had deep psychological controversies, unsocial behaviors and general lack of self-integrity. So, it is a fact that intelligence does not automatically lead to higher levels of consciousness as well.

Just as there are those spiritual teachers and gurus who have reached profound insights and deep understanding of their very nature and soul, yet they may not have much of what we call common knowledge of the official sciences of the day.

A controversy this is, undoubtfully. But, what causes it? And why intelligence is easier to develop than your psychological self? The human mind by default is outwardly oriented and our thoughts revolve around issues that regard the world around us in relation to us, but rarely we think about the world within us in relation to what we are. This is because of a very simple and pragmatic reason – our physical senses are outwardly oriented and our psyche has evolved on the background, where we cannot see it nor perceive it as being there. We experience its influence only indirectly as our changing moods, spontaneous reactions or thought associations and in different ways in our behavior and personality.

However, the purpose of this lecture is to briefly define the main ontological concepts we will be using much as we advance further.

We defined the “Mind” concept and its two conceptual and factological “branches” – Intelligence and Consciousness.

Now lets` take a closer look to the “consciousness” concept. As we mentioned above, the term Consciousness addresses our self-awareness on the one hand, and on the other it is used as a wider term that signifies the everyday awake state of the mind, like the opposite of being asleep. So, “consciousness” in our language defines two states of our mind – one is our average awareness of the world around us and the other is our self-awareness that realizes and observes the world within us.

As a quick note, “Consciousness” and “Awareness” are two generally interchangeable concepts that both define the same aspects of the mind. To be aware off.. something is to realize it, to observe it, to comprehend it, to notice its presence.. In this order of thoughts, we can define “awareness” as the active state of consciousness, as in running process that we are engaged in.

While, “consciousness” in modern psychological terms describes the mental wholeness of the human being, that is all your thoughts, memories, views and ideas, character and personality.

The term “consciousness” is related to the term “psyche” in this that the Psyche describes all that the Consciousness addresses in regard to self-awareness, but the psyche goes beyond and encompasses the vast, dark depths of the unconscious part of our minds. To clear it up, “psyche” is the general term addressing the wholeness of the mind in its psychological aspects of consciousness and unconsciousness. You can also think of it as the term "consciousness" encompasses your outwards perception of the world as well as your inwards (self-conscious) but excludes the unconscious part of your mind, while "psyche" relates and encompasses the whole inner, psychological world of your soul only. We are talking about semantic meanings of the words and etymological analysis here.

The unconscious expanses of our minds are very little explored, most notably in the last century with the birth of psychology as an official discipline of practical research. Despite all the amazing advancements in this field made by notable minds in the past and all the empirical knowledge on the subject that has been reflected in the books, psychology is a poorly understood matter by the wide majority of people.

Briefly, the term “unconsciousness” addresses this undefined psychological depths of yourself that unfold into layers as the newest is “situated” closest to your conscious awareness and the farthest goes beyond your individual experience and physical boundaries.

Want to see the border of your consciousness, live?! – then observe yourself! Think about, say an aspect of your personality (behavior) that you do not feel comfortable with. Maybe you are too shy? Or react inadequately in certain situations? You find it hard to fully communicate yourself to the others? Or do you have anger-management problems? Certain things in other people annoy you unbearably? Whatever it is, there is something you can find for sure.

Now, analyze! Remember the importance of the question “Why?” and sincere honesty with yourself. Honesty with oneself is essential, if you intend to deluse yourself and search for justifications you will not achieve any advancement.

So anyway, keep searching for the reasons you think might be behind your behavior and reactions. Follow the cause-and-effect chain down until you are unable to anymore. It may be a very short road, or a longer one. But at some point your thoughts disappear into an impenetrable darkness where you can not follow them any further. This is the realm of your unconscious mind. It is an interesting and very fruitful mental engagement, if you find yourself able to achieve any results. Concentration on the subject you follow is needed as well. And remember – practice makes perfect, it is a golden rule!

The “Psyche” concept is essentially interchangeable with the “Soul” concept, since they both address the same thing.

And lastly, lets` briefly summarize the conceptual definitions we deducted!

• Mind --> Intelligence and/or Consciousness
• Intelligence --> Rational and analytical abilities of the brain, memory capacity, imagination

• Consciousness --> Opposite state of being asleep, realizing the world around you and/or self-awareness
• Consciousness = Awareness
• Psyche --> Consciousness and Unconsciousness, psychological wholeness of what you are

• Psyche = Soul

What Is the Difference Between Your Psyche and Your Soul?

What is consciousness? What is to know yourself?
This elusive entity that signifies your awake self in your everyday mind set that experiences and realizes the world.

Consciousness is a term with relatively wide meaning. It has been used even before the birth of ancient Greek philosophy as a term addressing the general thought activity in your mind, your thoughts that assimilate and interprete the information you get from the world around you.

Furthermore in old esoteric systems of different periods and cultures we meet the concept of levels of consciousness, that are higher and wider than our everyday awake state of the mind, that is our “I consciousness” it is the entity you address when you say “I”.. think about this for a moment – What do you address when you say “I”? What are you? Try to describe yourself. Examine the content of this “I”, it is one of the most used words in any language, the “I” pronoun! But so rarely it is put on the place of the observable object, most of the time the “I” observes and judges the world around, as if it doesn`t notice itself at all. As if by default the human consciousness is designed to be one-sided and the conscious “I” so narrowly aware of its own self. This is so because, as incredible as it may sound (considering the long history of mankind), the human mind is not yet fully awake and still lingers in its primitive darkness of instinctive behavior and limited self-awareness.

The old wisdom speaks about self-realization and expantion of the limits of your consciousness as the highest goal and divine meaning of human life. Spiritual evolution, divine insight, Satori and illumination – all these are the state your mind acquires gradually following the path of realization. And there is more to it, there is self-control, so difficult for the ordinary human being, there is the improved communication with others and better relations, there is the inmost harmony and balance that give the person strength to advance and achieve higher peaks than the average person. And most of all there is intransitive meaning and inspiration!

In psychology the concept of consciousness is used to address the I-consciousness or Ego that is all your thoughts, dreams, memories and perceptions of the world that form your persona on the one hand, and on the other it is used as a wide term addressing your whole psyche.

Psychology can be viewed as a modern method for self-realization and improvement, just like the ancient esoteric wisdom. Though psychology as a field that explores the human soul is still in its infancy today.

Although human beings are born sensible and potentially intelligent, human consciousness develops very little and on a superficial level through the growth of the child until it becomes a fully grown adult with somewhat settled personality that in most cases will remain generally the same for the rest of its life. Intelligence needs practice in order for it to grow and develop and so does the human consciousness and self-awareness, these are the two sides of a coin, the coin of completeness. Practice makes perfect.

The concept of mental advancement has been known to humanity since ancient times. And certain individuals had been able to advance significantly above the average person of their time, becoming open or hidden spiritual leaders of their generations.

Undoubtedly humanity is slowly advancing in our spiritual evolution, but mostly our advancement is one-sided expressed in external development, while the inmost and unexplored darkness in every individual soul remains unknown.

Say some two hundred years ago people did not had the knowledge and general awareness about the factology and mechanisms of their psychology, nor they had the notions of neurosis or behavioral stereotypes. They did not knew nor thought about the reasons for their emotional unease at times and mostly had no idea how the character forms as a unique psychological set. People back then in the past lacked all the scientific knowledge we have today, yet they felt that inmost darkness in their souls, the limits of their awareness where it could go no further. People since before the written history intuitively perceived the presence of something beyond their senses, something hidden and intangible that was behind the visible aspects of nature. Alchemy, for instance, had the unconscious as an object of exploration and transformation through symbols and associations, although the alchemists didn`t really knew what exactly they were dealing with.

And long before contemporary psychoanalysis, ancient teachings developed methods and practices for mental advancement and symbolic tools for self-realization of the narrow human consciousness we are born with.

“You will find yourself only in yourself” said Lao Tzu, and on the central ark stone above the entrance to the Delphi oracle there was engraved the short inscription urging people to “Know yourself”

Self-awareness and expanding the limits of human consciousness were ideals that inspired great persons to lead entire nations and lay down the foundations of great religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Unfortunately, religious institutions and human narrow-mindedness and greed hid and obscured much of this pure knowledge in order to gain administrative control over the masses.

In the center of this practical method of knowing yourself is self-observation. Self-observation is a state of the mind, it is active and alert consciousness that operates on two sides, not just one. That is, you perceive and analyze the world around you, while in the same time you are aware of the world within you, so that if say someone provokes unpleasant emotions in you you will reflect on and search for the reasons about it, not simply react on impuls mindlessly.

Whether it be an aggressive reaction, insult to someone, saying something stupid or inappropriate or not being able to control your shyness etc. If you think about it, you will realize how much of your behavior is controlled by mechanisms and urges beyond your conscious will, like a toy in the hands of intangible entities, the entity of your unconscious mind.

Self-awareness is not some kind of meditation or exercise for a certain time of the day – it is a state of the mind! Self-realization is not something that happens suddenly at once. It is a gradually unfolding process as a result of the self-observation and analysis.

Human thought activity is closely related to memory. We memorize different pieces of information from different sources and in the process of thinking we assimilate and synthesize this information into knowledge and understanding. Most of the information we use to create our views, theories, ideas and discoveries comes from external sources including our five senses. But it is not until we transform and sift out this information with the tool of our thoughts and imagination that it turns into knowledge. Knowledge is information that you understand and fit into the big picture, not just something you have memorized from the books.

In our contemporary world we are overflown with information, we live on the fast lane with autopilot-on most of the time. So rarely do we stop to look around and think, to reflect on intangible matters such as the hidden reasons behind our behavior, the motifs that drive us, to follow our emotions and thoughts to their source.

The journey into yourself is a lifepath and a state of the mind when your thoughts penetrate into the deepest levels of reality and your psyche. It is when you are able to wield yourself, not the other way around. It is a tough journey and only the most determined are able to make the first steps, which are the hardest. And the journey itself is a deeply rewarding process that becomes ever more fruitful the more you persist. We have barely tapped into our potential and our ability to create a world of peace and unimaginable prosperity!

“Psychic, or "psi" phenomena fall into two general categories. The first is perception of objects or events beyond the range of the ordinary senses. The second is mentally causing action at a distance. In both categories, it seems that intention, the mind’s will, can do things that – according to prevailing scientific theories – it isn’t supposed to be able to do. We wish to know what is happening to loved ones, and somehow, sometimes, that information is available even over large distances. We wish to speed the recovery of a loved one’s illness, and somehow they get better quicker, even at a distance. Mind willing, many interesting things appear to be possible.

Understanding such experiences requires an expanded view of human consciousness. Is the mind merely a mechanistic, information-processing bundle of neurons? Is it a "computer made of meat" as some cognitive scientists and neuroscientists believe? Or is it something more? The evidence suggests that while many aspects of mental functioning are undoubtedly related to brain structure and electrochemical activity, there is also something else happening, something very interesting.”
prof. Dean Radin

P.S. The answer to title`s question: They are the same thing

Questions, thoughts and reflections

"... I feel endless torment deep in my inmost self which grasps my soul like a cold gust of frost that engulfs my heart when I see all the sorrow, all the pain, all the tears, all the hatred, all the violence, all endless conflicts that engulf our world like the frost engulfing my heart. It burns of sorrow and melts the ice off of it, and bloody tears leak through my being, soaking my mind.."
Ateviel, October 28, 2006

Why people learn to apologize at an early age, instead of learning not to behave in a way that will require an apology?
Why when we meet something different our first reaction is aggression?
And why when our beliefs are questioned, we always assume defensive positions, without even taking the time to think about what is being said?

Why we overuse the words, so they loose their emotional meaning for us? For instance, we use "love" for just about everything we like and find agreeable - "I love chocolate", "I love pink", "I love this movie" and then we look at the people we share emotional affection with and say to them with the same "passion" that we love them too (almost as much as beer).

As for the opposite emotion - "hate" - things are the same. Just that I want to ask, why do we need to use this word at all? Why do we have to hate?!

Why we need religion to believe in God?
Does God need religion in order to exist?
If we do not think about the Universe, does it vanish?
Why we act first and then think about the consequencies?
Why there is so much discontent, unhappiness and conflicts in the world?
Why the human mind is constructed in a way, so that it prefers ignorance and inactivity rather than expantion of its conscious horizons?!
Why we don`t pay attention to the reasons behind our reactions and behavior?
Why we are used to not think too much and why it is so hard for the ego to overcome itself?
Why do we prefer to be instinctive, and unaware?
And why we prefer someone else to think for us?
Why people behave aggressively and become racists when meeting with different peoples?
And why we need to fill our lives with intrigues, lies, fights, insincerity and problematic relationships?
Why do we always search for the blame only in others and never in ourselves?

And why we read a question and forget about it at the moment we finish reading the sentence, instead of reflect on it and search for the answer and then imply it in our daily lives?

Know yourself is the answer key. You know, in my life so far I came to the conclusion that the ancient proverbs are indeed true. You do get to know other people and understand them much better when you understand yourself. When you understand the reasons behind your reactions, moods, affections and characterological traits.

In the upcoming series of lectures we will search and discuss the answers to all those questions and more that will raise in the process. I wish to share some poetry with you. The first is written in the old Persian Sufi style and the second is a spontaneous product of rushing emotions written in the summer of 2004 and it is an appeal to all those who are love-sick or brokenhearted.

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Look outside and see the morning glory blooming under the inspiring rays of the morning sun.
It`s light spreading across the blue sky, touching the clouds with mild pink and purple smile.
Hear the song of the birds, praising life and the air we breathe.
See the playful dance of the wind with the leaves of the lush trees - green, red, yellow and orange, like the rainbow in the summer sky.
Feel the tranquil rush of the river down the mountain hills, reaching towards the ocean.
Become one with the sounds of the Universe preaching a perfect unity of the whole of Creation.
Each atom resonates with the beat of your heart. Submerge into yourself, dissolve in yourself, fuse with yourself.
The whole Universe is listening to your song, don`t stop dancing, become One.
Fly with the light across every corner of the cosmos, reach each molecule with your thought.
Fire burns within your soul of water, filled with fresh air from the soft Earth.
Open your eyes and see the beauty all around, that fills your being and makes it shine as the brightest star!

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What is Love?
It is the fire within our souls!
What is Hate?
It is the fire within our souls!
What is the difference between Love and Hate?
The difference is that one is constructive and the other - destructive.
But to destroy, you must first create.
Don`t destroy what you have created!
Don`t hate what you have once loved.

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There are two criteria for the utter happiness - a sense of meaning and inspiration!
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This girl is not me, it is a photo I stumbled upon searching for visual material on a specific topic,
but her eyes got straight into my heart - as if they speak to you with the language of the soul, expressing thousands of words, as if you can peer into her young soul. Those innocent eyes of a child hiding much pain, yet a subtle smile is stretching for the photo, after all the smile is an international language that all people understand.