This article was first published in "Rock 'N' Ruminations" by Daniel McGowan
Thoughts on the Great Transition
The question of what happens to the “physical’ body and the “mental” mind is a fascinating one. If the body is believed to be a physical entity in which the mind dwells during a life time, and then vacates the body at ‘the end’, then Descartes would be correct in his assertion that mind and body are two distinctly separate entities. This belief is similar to the Christian one of the soul or spirit vacating the body at the point of death.
Mentalism, however, reveals that, despite the reports of the senses, which give impressions of the varying degrees of ’physical’ hardness and softness of different parts of the body, the latter is, in fact, a cluster of various mental-constructs that the mind has spun out of itself. In this way, the mind has ‘manufactured’ the entire body by itself. This does not, however, explain the fact that when the individual self, the ‘I‘ vacates the body, this cluster of mental-constructs still remains. The ego – the personality – has been withdrawn from the body by the Overself and lies dormant in the latter until it is time for a new incarnation. The individual is no longer aware of the agglomeration of thought-forms known as the body. How then does this collection of thought-forms remain as a ‘dead body’? The answer is that – like all other ‘things‘ in the universe – it cannot exist without a knowing mind to perceive it: and that knowing mind must be the Universal-Mind, the World-Mind that has spun the entire universe out of itself.
The human being is a thought contained within World-Mind through the medium of the Overself, and remains alive in the form of the mental-construct known as the body over the span of a whole lifetime. The body, therefore, is a co-creation of the indvidual mind and the Universal-Mind. Despite appearances, the mind and body are not separate entities. This is illustrated by the phenomenon of deep dreamless sleep. In this state the consciousness of the ego – the personality – has been withdrawn into the Overself, and knows nothing of the body and the world which still surrounds it. Incidentally, the ego’s total lack of awareness during sleep indicates that Consciousness is the secret source of our awareness of the world in the wakeful state. Individual-Consciousness and the world exist inextricably together. There would be no point in having Consciousness if there was nothing to be conscious of. No conscious individual ego, no world. During sleep, it is the Overself that sustains the body, keeps it working until it re- projects the ego at the point of waking, and the ego resumes its interaction with the body and the world.
All this indicates the limitless power of World-Mind, which can create anything it chooses. Its imagination and creativity are boundless and of infinite variety. The human being has been blessed with such powers – albeit in a limited capacity – and uses them to create that cluster of thought-forms known as the body.
This article was first published in Rock ‘N’ Ruminations by Daniel McGowan. You can download the PDF of this book for free here: FREE DOWNLOAD