Judge, William Quan, 1851-1896; Theosophists -- United States -- Correspondence; Theosophy
As to the sub-conscious mind. It is difficult to explain. I find
constantly that I have ideas that internally I thoroughly understand,
and yet can find no language for them. Call it sub-conscious if you
like. It is there and can be affected; indeed, it is affected every
moment. It is a nearness to the universal mind. So if I desire to
influence--say your mind--I do not formulate your sub-conscious plane,
but firmly and kindly think of you and think of the subject I wish you
to think of. This must reach you. If I am selfish, then it has more
difficulty to get there; but if it be brotherly, then it gets there
more easily, being in harmony with the universal mind and the Law. The
Psychical Society speaks of it, and says that the influence "emerges
into the lower mind" by one or more of the channels. But they do not
know what those "channels" are, or even if they do exist. In fact, the
whole subject of mind is only faintly understood in the West. They say
"mind," meaning the vast range and departments of that which they call
mind, whereas there must be a need for the names of those departments.
When the true ideas are grasped, the names will follow. Meanwhile we
must be satisfied with "mind" as including the whole thing. But it does
not. Certainly it is not ordinary mental motion--ratiocination--to
grasp in an instant a whole subject, premises and conclusions, without
stopping to reason. It cannot be called a _picture_, for with some
it comes as an idea, and not as a picture. Memory. What is that? Is
it brain-impression; or similarity of vibration, recognized upon
being repeated and then producing a picture? If so, then the power to
recognize the vibration as the same as before is separate from the
matter which vibrates. And if the power inhere in the brain cells,
how is it possible, when we know they are constantly being changed?
Yet memory is perfect, no matter what happens. That it is above brain
is clear, because a man may be killed by having his brain blown to
atoms, and yet his "shell" can give all the incidents of his life, and
they are not taken from the brain, for that is dead. Where, then, is
the sub-conscious mind? And where are the channels, and how are they
connected? I think through the heart, and that the heart is the key to
it all, and that the brain is only the servant of the heart,[A] for
remember that there is in it the "small dwarf who sits at the centre."
Think it out on that line now for yourself--or any other line that you
may choose, but _think_.
As ever,
Z.
[Footnote A: Not the physical heart, but the real centre of life in
man.--J. N.]
IV.
DEAR SIR AND BROTHER:
In cogitating lately I thought of you in respect to some of my own
thoughts. I was reading a book and looking around within myself to see
how I could enlarge my idea of brotherhood. Practice in benevolence
will not give it its full growth. I had to find some means of reaching
further, and struck on this, which is as old as old age.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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