perception that ‘I am separate from the world and need to survive in this separate world.

’
Physiologically, the lower mind is connected to our fight-or-flight survival reactions, elicited and controlled
by fear. When people deny that anything except the physical world truly exists, they are operating only out of
their lower mind. While these same people as scientists may be able to access the ability to use great powers of
abstraction and conceptualization, properties of higher mind, they do not access the higher abilities of higher
mind, which acts as an interface with the causal or spiritual body and the information this contains (see Figure
4.2).

Figure 4.2 The layers of Man. When layers of the aura are perceived as a vertical stack, it can be clearly seen that the physical body is only a
small part of who we are. In traditional systems of the East, the physical and etheric bodies are considered your temporal vehicle to which the
other non-temporal subtle bodies are attached. Consciousness can be expressed either through the lower mind of sensory experience and
intellect, the realm of our personality, or through the higher mind of abstraction and conceptualization, encompassing our higher self.

The continuity in the metaphysical world and higher mind

To move beyond the limitations of the physical world, you need to activate the higher levels of higher mind,
which then accesses directly your connection to your spiritual body and all the information it contains. It is
through the interface of higher mind that the spirit and the soul and the divine can be manifest to our
consciousness (see Figure 4.2).
One of the primary energies accessed by every person through higher mind is will. The will is activated by
conscious intention but originates beyond your physical, even though it may empower your physical to reach
beyond its former physical limits. Another is compassion, when you truly feel from the heart for another
person or animal, and of course the greatest is love, when true fusion with another and even your universe is
possible, and separateness disappears.
It is only through the portal of higher mind that we have direct, personal connection to our divinity and can
experience spiritual transcendence in which all sense of separateness disappears to leave a sense of oneness, of
continuity with the universe. This is the timeless space of Zen and the endpoint of all meditative systems,
where ‘all is one’ and the appearance of separation disappears.

References

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