The Storm

Posted on August 21, 2005
Filed Under Journal, Dreaming, Spirituality, Consciousness |

Contrary to what we may think, we all have more than one voice within our minds. On any giving subject we under take a discourse internally – asking questions, receiving answers. It would appear then, that we posses many voices within our minds, each with conflicting ideas and opinions. Quite often it can be very difficult to know which of these “voices” to follow.

Initially there are a number of questions that can be posed about these voices. Where do they come from? “Where” in the mind are they located? To answer the later question one needs only to pay close attention to their thoughts. From my own experience I have arrived at the following feeling. The loudest voices – the ones with which we think most often (that is the voice in our mind that speaks our thoughts as words) appears to be located in the “centre” of the mind. At least it feels to me as though it is located in the top centre location of my brain.

We then have a number of other voices – those less subtle – which tend to appear as more of a feeling. The first of these I will mention is the one which draws your attention to something; for example the fact you left the bath tap running, or that your forgot to lock the door. This voice can also appear to forewarn you of certain dangers like an approaching car. It is a feeling that tends to prompt you to look or check on something. This voice appears to be located at the centre front area of the mind.

Then there is another type; how many times have you felt someone watching you, and turned to look who is there? Or maybe you get a feeling the phone is about to ring – or that you are needed in the office. This is yet another one of the more subtle voices, and this one seems to be located in the centre rear of the mind.

If we desired we could categorise and label each of these areas according to our own (or some scientific) definitions. But I don’t really like categorising – I think it’s messy. So for now I will leave it to you to decide how you want to refer to these areas of the mind (if at all).

Anyway – for now I want to concentrate upon the loudest of voices. Those that appear in the mid centre of the mind. The voices of our everyday internal discourse.

Quite often we find ourselves in a situation where we cannot decide upon a course of action, or we have difficulty discerning the nature of something. At these times a number of voices talk in our minds. We say to ourselves “I want to go down the pub tonight.” Then we get a response saying “Okay; but you really should fix the shed door!” Sometimes another thought will chime in, “Sod that – you deserve a break.” To which the first line of thought replies “Yeah, damn right!” Then naturally; “You really are a lazy bastard!”

“Well yeah – but who cares.” You conclude…

So where do all these voices come from? And can we be totally sure that all these voices are our own? I can’t claim to have any answers – but I had a dream in which I sat in a classroom. A bald headed guy was at the front of the room near a blackboard, I assumed he was a teacher of some sort. The dream was slightly odd in that I had no reason to have considered this issue myself in the way the dream presented it to me. At any rate – this teacher attempted to tell me something using metaphors and imagery. It seemed to me that the subject was very complex and the teacher had no way of telling me directly the nature of his lesson. So all the metaphors and allegories left me confused for a number of days.

Eventually the dream led me to visualise the nature of our thoughts as follows.

Our consciousness or mind exist within a realm that is not physical – our bodies tend to act as conduits to allow our consciousness to individualise and have a presence in the physical world. The non-physical realm of our consciousness is the etheric (other people use the same term to mean other things). My own meditations and reading other peoples research implies that this etheric is extremely vast. It surrounds everything – or rather everything is located inside of this invisible etheric. You can feel it both inside and outside of your body, depending upon where your awareness is placed. Though I suspect there are a number of different types of etheric.

Anyway it was shown to me that our minds themselves form their own etheric – that in effect over millennia the collective minds of humanity have created an intangible etheric dimension or realm. This realm exists separate to the realm of our consciousness – but both are intertwined. I understood this part of the “lesson” as I had perceived it myself a number of years ago.

Basically the various voices in our head essentially constitute what we call our mind. As mentioned in the earlier part of this article we are able to “feel” the locations of these various voices.

Now; during meditation – these voices tend to quieten, the mind almost dissolves as our consciousness or awareness becomes far more apparent. As far as I can tell then, our mind and awareness are separate from each other; although they share the same “space” these spaces are also different from each other.

This is where the “lesson” became paradoxical and I still have trouble grasping it. Our minds exist inside their own etheric – but at the same time it is our minds that created this etheric.

This “collective mind etheric” is extremely vast and is in itself a dimension.

Now for the clincher. Visualise all these various voices inside our mind – all with conflicting opinions and ideals…often making it very difficult for us to know what to “think” about anything. Now multiply all these conflicting voices by all the billions of people on earth. Next imagine the vast etheric realm of all these collective minds – inside of which are billions and billions of conflicting voices, opinions, beliefs, hatreds, loves and on and on.

I was told that this can be depicted as a massive great electrical storm raging constantly inside this etheric. This storm is destructive and terrible.

Our collective inner turmoil is as destructive upon our inner world as our collective physical actions have been upon the external world.

I suspect one could say that the inner conflict gave manifestation to the external conflict. But the reverse could also be true. So - for me at least - it is pointless to focus on this paradox, and simply move on and further examine this knowledge.

There were many other implications and messages within this dream. I still need to disseminate it all. For now anyway, I take this from the lesson. As important as it is to find outer “peace” , it is just as important – if not more so – to still the inner turmoil of our minds. This can really be the only path if we wish calmness and stillness to manifest itself into our lives. If we cannot think with reasonableness then we cannot act with reasonableness.

But don’t worry – our minds are still largely our own; so if we learn stillness and to find our own pure voice, then we can still our own part of this storm. It is those individuals that continue to rage inside their minds that will be drawn deeper and deeper into that vast dark quagmire.

Marcus - 2005