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The world is experienced and viewed quite differently from Higher Mind... in contrast to Lower Mind... The degree of difference is almost equivalent to describing two different, contrasting civilizations with different levels of the quality of interpersonal relationships, pleasure, happiness in life, worldly success, philosophies, politics, and most importantly, the level of spiritual awareness and alignment.
...Lower Mind focuses on the linear specifics of a situation and sees them in terms of self-interest. In contrast Higher Mind includes the overall context and is thereby aware of the abstract nonlinear meaning, including spiritual significance.
Dr. David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D.,
Transcending the Levels of Consciousness
One of the things that differentiates we humans from the animals is that at a certain point in our growth we have a choice as to which aspect of our mind we identify with. Those of us who have become aware of the questions of spirituality, who recognize that there is something to our existence other than our animal nature, begin to know ourselves as a sometimes confusing mix of higher and lower needs, urges and desires. We find ourselves sometimes with love for all our fellows, wanting nothing more than peace for all; and then sometimes in the next minute, wanting to hurt somebody for cutting us off in traffic. I have a friend, a good man, who by all accounts is sane and decent, and who once followed a rude driver more than ten miles past his own exit--tailgating, honking, yelling, gesticulating--until finally he saw the terror in this other man's face and was able to wake up to his own behavior and stop himself. Those of us who have had issues with anger and/or rage in the past can find it extremely disconcerting, even disappointing, when old behaviors like this arise. We may think we were past all that, and yet here we are, acting it all out once again.
This can happen no matter what our own issue may be. Perhaps we have a tendency to lie when we are frightened. Or to become obsequious. Perhaps we freeze, unable to speak up, unable to defend ourselves or others. Maybe we gossip, judge, roll our eyes at, or avoid; become self-indulgent or needy; ask for too much or too little, make unreasonable demands; and on and on. We all have at least one thing we wish would go away forever, and sometimes we think we may have accomplished this. And then one day, here it is again. At least the urge, the emotion, the energy of what we might call our 'character defects,' if not necessarily the bad behavior.
This is the way of the human. The 'Lower Mind,' the animal nature, does not go away--not as long as we are embodied. It will continue to come awake, telling us its animal-nature stories about the world. But we become able to choose differently. We become able to see ourselves as the 'Higher Mind' and choose to act from that place, rather than the other.
How does this work? We are involved in it right here. We are in a discussion of who am I, what am I, what about me works, what about me doesn't. What about me do I find worthy of respect and what about me horrifies me when I see it once again rearing its ugly head.
Just to be aware of our attitudes and behaviors from this holistic point of view is to become open to change. We are the highest expressions of consciousness yet created, and we have, in each moment, choice as to how we are going to know ourselves and how the world is going to know us. We have choice in our actions. We have choice in which of our natures we are going to embrace and allow. And the more we choose the higher, the more we find ourselves behaving as the higher.
And when we don't, then we learn to offer forgiveness and acceptance to the self. Why forgiveness? Because we are, indeed, only human. And humans, by definition, are imperfect. To demand otherwise is to pretend to be other than human. And to treat ourselves otherwise is to be identified as the lower self. And around again in a circle.
Today I will find my way to accepting myself as human and fallible, and I will become aware of my attitudes and my point of view and see if I can err a bit more on the side of Higher Mind than on the side of Lower Mind.
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