Me and My Monkey

Is there any time when you haven’t been ‘in conversation’ with yourself? When there hasn’t been a dialogue going on in your head? Have you ever considered why this happens, I mean really thought about it, about what’s going on?

I have the answer and potentially a way to deal with it. Back in time Buddhism had a concept of the ‘monkey mind’. It arose from observations of monkeys (not apes) in the wild. Continuously jumping from here to there and chattering endlessly and it’s just what happens in our heads – we’re talking to our monkey mind.

Hang on where did this come from? Don’t we have a logical mind managing what we do? What’s this monkey mind all about?

The thing is, we’re far more complex than we think we are, and our ‘monkey’ doesn’t like it – it sees itself being usurped by this ‘higher’ and more controlled mind. I’m taking a few liberties with conventional psychology here but bear with me if you will as I expand on what I’ve learned over the past few years.

I want you to suspend your current paradigms about ‘life the universe and everything’ for a few minutes. You and I are infinite beings inhabiting or more correctly ‘enveloping’ a physical body. We call this infinite being our Soul. All the religious texts describe such an entity as our ‘Immortal Soul’ which is exactly what it is.

This isn’t the whole story about how we work, how we operate. Our human part has three minds they’re all one really, but this is a way of describing how it works. It’s probable, although difficult to ‘scientifically prove’ as (speaking as a qualified scientist) ‘science’ has some shortcomings in this area.

How does this all work? Be clear this is my take on it resulting from my learning over the past 6 decades. Here we go.
First the physical entity mind. There are three parts. At the base there’s what’s often referred to as the ‘reptile’ mind. All animals have this in some form or another. It keeps us breathing so we don’t have to think about it and is also responsible for all our ‘automatic’ activities.

Then there’s the monkey mind which has a stab at what’s going on around us, what we see hear and so on and because there’s so much going on around us it does seem to jump around as the Buddhists put it. The monkey mind doesn’t interpret, it just ‘sees’ and asks.

The third level which we share with the ‘higher animals’ is the ‘conscious’ mind. This is the decision-making logical mind which in the majority of people (I can’t speak for other creatures) tends to be dominant over our other, spiritual, or Soul minds.

There are two: the subconscious mind (often misdescribed as unconscious which can be confused with the reptile mind) and the superconscious mind.

Here’s what they do. The superconscious is our external connection with the higher power or whatever you choose to call it. One of the things you and I need to do every day is to make sure this connection is maintained – it’s important.

Then there’s the part of the mind which probably establishes who we really are. The subconscious, which has direct access to the Akashic Records (that’s another story) and stores everything we do, see, hear, eat, say and so on throughout our lives. In a way it’s like our computer file store – everything is in there – but can we remember how to access it?

Unlike our computers, with the subconscious there are several ways we can do this – again another story. We use the subconscious as our mentor, as our guide. We work out our lifestyle through interaction between the human conscious and the spiritual subconscious.

Now – is this all working for you? Probably not, or not in the most effective way. Now you know at this point I’m going to say I can help, well this is true, but there are things you can do. As I explained to a group I was talking to a few weeks ago there are things you can start with but your may may need to know how to do them.

Back to the Buddhist way. Mindfulness and meditation are where you and I start. These will be the subject of a future newsletter and I’m not going to get into details of this now but of course if you do want to know more now you know what to do.

Sources: Dr Joe Vitale, Bob Proctor, Dr Marisa Peer, Neale Donald Walsch, Mary Manin Morrissey, Dr Steve Jones, Andrrea Hess, et.al.