Spiritual Psychology: Re-orienting Differing Aspects of the Mind

A spiritual perspective of our psychology says we have three sort of aspects of our mind: the lower mind, the normative mind, and the higher mind. These, in reality, are just abstract concepts, but provide a useful framing for understanding limitations that we impose on ourselves and each other, as well as true spiritual liberation. The lower mind, which is active with the lower negative emotions ranging anywhere from fear and despair to anger and rage, is primarily for immediate danger and somewhat for when we get ourselves into sticky situations in relationships (of course when we aren’t honing our vibration very well). When we aren’t using it for situations like that, and misguidedly using it to reason, it’s because we’ve been convinced that someone's disapproval of us is a threat to our well-being. This is why when we do try to use it for higher reasoning, it's always this frayed and anxious mess of multiple voices, and is truly disorienting (and almost always inaccurate). The normative mind, sort of represented by the lighter negative emotions and the lower positive ones, is really only supposed to be for reporting information and somewhat for determining whether we want or do not want something. Lastly, the higher mind, which is indicated by the higher positive emotions like passion and a sense of clarity, is responsible for deciding the degree of alignment something has with our expansion, the truer meanings behind our experiences, and most importantly for the birthing of ideas.

Spiritual psychology gives an understanding to three aspects of our mind that represent respective aspects of the emotional scale.

Our current culture and even just the nature of a mind that doesn’t yet know itself as an extension of Source energy, gets all of these jumbled up to the point that we’re using our lower mind to understand things, and even to create ideas. How did we get here? Well, a mind that loses touch with Source energy by the time it reaches adulthood, and therefore does not understand the core mechanisms underlying their becoming, only derives their sense of well-being from the approval of or agreement from others. In other words, when they get the approval of other people by pleasing them or by getting others to behave in ways that please them. This is usually done by instilling fear and shame in others. Fear that something terrible will happen to them if they do not behave in a certain way or shame that they’re a bad person for not behaving in pleasing and/or self-sacrificing ways.

These are powerful negative emotions. They play on our most primal genetic memories and we have been doing this to each other for millennia. What this in-turn does is disallows access to the normative mind, and especially the higher mind, unless we are getting the approval of others or getting them to agree with us. This is the sort of simulation or the matrix that people like to talk about that they break free from. It’s not really just a societal structure - that is only the tail end manifestation of it. It can only be upheld by our individuated participation in the approval game. This isn’t to say that our entire society needs a restructuring, but if we were to become more alignment-with-Source oriented, it would certainly change the orientation of a lot of aspects of our society. That’s somewhat of a side note to the point being made though. The point being is that this is a very misguided way of orienting one’s self vibrationally speaking.

Well what is a wiser way of orienting one’s self, then? First is to understand that you’re using an aspect of your mind for things that you really shouldn’t be using it for. You’re deriving meaning and inspiration from an aspect of your mind that has no business doing those things. The lower mind is for snap decisions in the moment to get you out of immediate danger. That’s really it. Unless you get yourself into a very powerless position within a relationship or are on the other end of that. Where you’re so powerless and insecure that you feel the need to subvert the autonomy of another through intimidation and/or manipulation, the lower mind really only serves the purpose of telling you, “Hey! There’s a bus coming for you!” It’s not even really supposed to be for when you make mistakes. It’s a misnomer that guilt is necessary in order to understand that you can make improvements in your behavior. You know very well when you’re making a decision from a place of misalignment that then ends up affecting another person or a situation in general negatively. Contrition isn’t necessary for this. Just acknowledge it, line up better, and act from a better-feeling place.

A correction of behavior or an alteration to a path that you’re currently on in a way that will truly benefit you will never come from a place of fear, shame, insecurity, or guilt. Yes, these emotions can point you towards understanding that there is a better path to take in action, but deciding what that path is will be a stab in the dark if you make that decision from one of these lower emotions, or the lower mind. Sometimes you might be feeling poorly about something because of what someone else thinks about it or how they’re responding to you, which has little to nothing to do with you in the first place. As they have so many things going on in their multifaceted mind as well. The best way to know you’re making the right decision is if it comes with a degree of relief and/or clarity. Even when assessing your current choices and set of behaviors, it is not in actuality guilt and shame that is telling you to course correct, its the recognition that the behavior needs to be altered for your well-being, and this will come with relief if it is true. In other words, you could be misguidedly choosing to do or not to do something and feeling insecurity about it, but you won’t quite know how or why it’s wrong until you start feeling relief from it and more clarity about it.

The normative mind is good for reporting information and generally knowing whether something is wanted or unwanted, but does not have access to higher knowing, meaning, and desire, and therefore its vibrational awareness isn’t super keen and clear. This is why even if an idea feels good, its sort of limp, when coming from a place of just bare satisfaction or hopefulness, in comparison to a true and very clear ah-ha enthusiastic idea. It’s also why, in comparison to the lower mind, thoughts from the normative mind are a bit more clear but don’t quite give very clear direction. Clear direction comes from the higher mind, and no, you can’t just stop making decisions unless they’re completely perfectly in alignment, so the normative mind is great for things that you don’t care about as much as your larger desires and for more day-to-day dealings. It’s sort of the essence of the physical perspective, really. Simple, clear, observant, but not quite creative, sure, and directive.

The higher mind is where our intuition is coming from, well our true intuition anyways. Even when contemplating something less-than-wanted, when in resonance with the higher mind, you can understand whats going on behind the scenes with a situation. That’s the using the higher mind to get out of sticky situations or to recognize a lie being presented to you. More importantly though, is the understanding that you derive meaning and direction from the higher mind. It helps you understand on a vibrational or spiritual level, what the purpose of a negative experience was in terms of causing expansion for you. It also gives you clarity on where to focus and move - that’s intuition about a more wanted path to take than what you’re currently taking. So all-in-all, the best way to navigate these three minds is to recognize the emotional quality of the thoughts you’re thinking and keep yourself from deriving meaning and direction from the lower mind. For everyday things and smaller aspects of larger intentions, it’s okay and useful to use the normative mind. Allow your vibration to rise more before you decide the meaning of a situation and for the larger directional meaning and guidance, to exclusively use the higher mind. It’s pretty simple. Again, this isn’t the most vibrationally accurate framework, but it can be useful to recognize what part of the mind or emotional scale that your thoughts and ideas are emanating from.