Editor’s note: The following was originally posted on the “Clear Thinking” page.

the dishonest egoic mind, with its tricks and disdain for the truth, is but a temporary developmental stage in human evolvement

In various Word Gems articles, we’ve often spoken of the “true self” and the “false self.” Regarding this latter, a defining characteristic is the “monkey mind,” the incessant “chattering in the head,” which is just plain egocentric thinking. The egoic mind sees itself as the center of the universe, and all people and things coming into contact are evaluated in terms of labeling, comparing, sizing up, “better than,” “less than,” potential enhancement or threat.

Thinking, by the egoic mind, issues as base alloy, just mattress stuffing, not much value to it. There’s no love for the truth in it, no desire to find it; all it cares about is elevating itself. The ten violations of “clear thinking” (above) constitute a dysinformation campaign by which the unenlightened mind seeks to protect itself against all others. The incessantly chattering “monkey mind” demands this call to arms, inspired by an inner whispering-mantra, “I don’t have enough” because “I am not enough.”

Good luck to us in finding “clear thinking” if we’re driven by these demons.

why things are arranged this way

How did all this cerebral chaos come to be? Does not all this self-seeking, this self-serving thought, become the essence of Evil, all the suffering and pain that’s afflicted Humankind? Did God/the Universe/Cosmic Consciousness/Intelligent Design make a mistake in allowing this mayhem to infect the world and all of history?

We certainly might be tempted to judge it this way; many have. However, as we evaluate the situation from a wider perspective, another view presents itself.

Ancient Spirit Guides, thousands of years old, inform us that we came to this troubled planet not fully constructed. Our minds and spirits, strictly speaking, we were not “individuated,” not whole and complete and separate persons, in our own right. The Guides say that we came here to become individuals – a true person; not necessarily, immediately, a “good” person. That’s step two, which might not even happen for many in this world. Summerland is a better place for that ratcheting up of virtue. Further, a way of healing has been provided to make us whole from our disastrous time on planet Earth.

just temporary scaffolding for a building under construction

And so, how does the “chattering monkey mind” fit in with this mega-view? The egoic mind, with its dishonest tricks and violations of “clear thinking,” is a temporary, developmental stage in human evolution. We’re not meant to live there and put down roots. Selfish, self-centered, self-oriented thinking won’t win us the “Miss Congeniality Award,” but it is good for one thing – it’ll turn us into persons -- probably not a “good” person, not right away, but it will individuate us. All of that “Me-thinking” is just dandy for creating a sense of individuality, and that’s what it’s good for. Scaffolding isn't meant to be pretty. It’s like making sausage: we might like the end product, but, as they say, don’t watch the process too closely, it might turn your stomach.

If the “monkey mind” is a temporary, developmental stage in human evolution, what comes next? Well, a fish doesn’t know it’s in water, and those inundated by egoic thinking can’t imagine anything else. What we need to understand and come to see is that ordinary thinking is just part of human intelligence; a minority interest. All true creative thought, all higher-level thought, any thought of great worth and value, comes not from egoic thinking but from accessing the “true self” deep within, which is linked to Universal Consciousness.

This is Individuality’s true home, true residence, where our spirits will live for the next million years and beyond.

the purpose of the brain is to filter out, from universal consciousness, anything not correlating with the body’s perspective; in this ‘step-down transformer’ process, separate egos, with separate personal identities, emerge

Dr. Bernardo Kastrup, PhD philosophy, PhD computer science, for many years worked at CERN, the large hadron collider in Geneva.

“… the function of the brain is to localize consciousness, pinning it to the space-time reference point implied by the physical body. In doing so, the brain modulates conscious perception in accordance with the perspective of the body.

a brain that filters implies the existence of unbound mind, a universal consciousness

"When not subject to this localization and modulation mechanism, mind is unbound: it entails consciousness of all there is across space, time, and perhaps beyond. Therefore, by localizing mind, the brain also ‘filters out’ of consciousness anything that is not correlated with the body’s perspective… like a radio receiver selecting [a particular station], among the variety [with] all other stations being filtered out and never reaching the consciousness of the listener…

"[T]he filter hypothesis implies that consciousness, in its unfiltered state, is unbound. As such, consciousness must be fundamentally unitary and non-individualized, for separateness and individualization entail boundaries.

Editor’s note: Father Benson from the afterlife speaks of a being, formerly mortal, five billion years old, so advanced as to enjoy awareness of all life-forms in the universe; in this, we see the future of the ‘unfiltered’ mind. Read More on the “500 hundred tape-recorded messages from the other side” page.

the filtering brain creates the illusion of separateness, of disconnected personal egos

"The emergence of multiple, separate and different conscious perspectives or egos, is a consequence of the filtering and localization process: different egos, entailing different perspectives on space-time, retain awareness of different subsets of all potential subjective experiences, the rest being filtered out. It is the difference across subsets that give each ego its idiosyncratic vantage point, personal history, and sense of personal identity.

Editor’s note: A brain designed to filter, and reduce to a trickle, experience does not substantively support a theory of reincarnation which exalts much experience. We do not come to this planet to gain experience, as such, but to individualize, to transform one’s tiny sub-set of universal consciousness into a personal ego. With this, we become ready for what comes next in the afterlife, even if we are not yet “good” persons, which can be accomplished later, but only after one becomes a person in one’s own right. Read More on this need for individualization.

"The subjective experiences that are filtered out become the so-called ‘unconscious’ mind of the respective ego. Since each ego allows in only an infinitesimally small part of all potential experiences … the ‘unconscious’ minds of different egos will differ only minimally… As such, the filter hypothesis, unlike materialism, predicts the existence of a ‘collective unconscious’; a shared repository of potential experiences that far transcends mere genetic predispositions of a species…

the likely origin of the mystical experience

"[A]nd most importantly, the filter hypothesis predicts that one can have experiences that do not correlate with one’s brain states. Since here the brain is seen merely as a mechanism for filtering out experience … when this [filtering] mechanism is interfered with so as to be partially or temporarily deactivated, one’s subjective experience could delocalize, expand beyond the body in time and space, and perhaps even beyond time and space [giving rise to what is called the mystical experience]…”

READ MORE of Dr. Kastrup's work on the “quantum mechanics” page

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