Rationality is a very important part of the mind when we learn how this model works. Humans must have a reason for everything. Our ability to rationalize our actions is what keeps us sane. You may ask yourself what it is that puts a person in a mental institution. Many may say it’s a matter of whether a person is a danger to himself or others. Well, that’s not it. Some of the kindest people you may ever meet can be found in mental institutions. And there are, no doubt, some dangerous characters walking the streets free and clear.
The answer lies in a person’s ability to rationalize his actions. As long as a person can rationalize his actions, that person will be found sane by nearly all professional measures. A smoker smokes peacefully as long as he can rationalize this action. A smoker will say that he smokes because it is relaxing and helps the person focus. What’s the truth? The truth is that cigarettes raise heart rate 17 percent and hand tremors as much as 300 percent. So much for help relaxing. And how about their help with focus? Cigarettes take away a hand (a person only has two at the most), require constant attention and consume 30 or more percent of conscious resources while a person manages the act of smoking. The point here is that obviously cigarettes can do nothing more physically than distract us and make us nervous. But as long as the rational mind can fabricate a reason for the actions, it remains at some level of peace. Here we learn the mind’s rationalizing faculty needs no truth that aligns with the universe’s laws. As long as our rational mind can come up with some reasoning for our actions, we will be at peace. If a person can no longer rationalize his actions, the tremors created will rattle the person as well as everyone around that person.
Besides being our Rational/Analytical mind, the Conscious Mind is where we harbor Will Power. How many times have you tried to change the same habit by mustering enough Will Power? Our first clue that Will Power cannot affect internal change is that it’s not part of the inner mind! There is an adage that says, “When will and imagination meet, imagination wins.” That’s because Imagination is part of the powerful, inner mind and Will is part of the weak, Conscious Mind. Healing a person isn’t a matter of helping a person win some battle of inner voices through the mustering of Will. It’s changing old perceptions stored in a goal-achieving Subconscious Mind so that they sing in harmony with a newfound conscious intent. Mustering Will is not the answer that we have been led to believe.
The next part of the Conscious Mind is Temporary Memory. It is a weak and finite memory. I want to hold this weak, Conscious Memory in contrast to the powerful and unlimited capacity of the Subconscious Permanent Memory. When people, young or old, say they have a poor memory or a mind like a sieve, they are wrong. The fact is they have an excellent and permanent memory. They’re just using the wrong one! And there’s usually a good reason for that. If a person cannot easily access his Subconscious, Permanent Memory, it’s because a very important piece of equipment is standing in the way. It’s the most important part of the Conscious Mind. It has everything to do with internal change. Because of its importance, we’re going to save it for later.
The last thing I want to point out about the Conscious Mind is that overall, it’s a weak mind when compared to the Subconscious Mind’s power.
Now let’s look into our Subconscious Mind. And before we get into an inventory of what we find here, I’d like to point out two characteristics of the Subconscious Mind. First, and in contrast to the Conscious Mind’s weakness, the Subconscious Mind is the single most powerful goal-achieving agency known to man.
The second characteristic of the Subconscious Mind is that it cannot judge a suggestion. Judgment is a conscious function. The Subconscious Mind, like a fertile plot of soil, will grow anything that’s planted--no questions asked. Listen again! The single most powerful goal-achieving agency known can’t judge a suggestion. Hold on to that thought as we continue our look into the Subconscious Mind. Again, the single most powerful agency known to man can’t judge a suggestion. Those two traits are important to everything else we learn about the Subconscious Mind.
Now let’s take inventory of the Subconscious Mind. The Subconscious Mind is where we harbor Imagination. Imagination is more than creativity. Imagination is also our perception of the world around us. Everybody has a perception of the world. Everybody’s perception is different. And even though a person’s perception has nothing to do with universal or godly truth, to the individual, his perception is the truth! To make this point, we can take two people off the street, stand them shoulder to shoulder, and to one person, the world has never looked more bleak. We’re overpopulating our planet, there’s nothing left to the ecology, all the money is in the hands of a few at the top, the world is ready to end.
Now the other person, maybe after years of hard work on a personal vision, has finally received financing and is ready to cut the ribbon on a new family business. To that person the world has never looked brighter and never held more opportunity. At the exact same moment in time, two diametrically opposed perceptions of the world exist. Yet the world has not changed. And what each person sees is real! So Imagination is our perception of the world around us. It has nothing to do with His ultimate truth. It’s just a perception. As for the individual, once a perception is installed at the subconscious level, the single most powerful goal-achieving agency known to man accepts it as fact and makes it so!
Now, if Imagination is our perception of the world around us, we are a part of that world. So we hold a perception of who we are. This is how we define that over-franchised term, Self-image. Likewise, this perception has nothing to do with the realities of our truest potential. It’s just a perception. But once installed at this level, it becomes our truth. The Subconscious Mind works to achieve a Self-image this way: I can connect instantly with a person who has been labeled a “klutz’’ simply by asking one question. I’ll ask the person, “True or false, if you have heard this once you’ve heard it a thousand times--‘My God it looked like you did that on purpose!’” And this person who has identified himself as a klutz will respond, “How did you know that?”
Believe me, I am not psychic. I just know the model.
The Subconscious Mind is the single most powerful goal-achieving agency known to man. Once “klutz” is programmed into the inner mind, it will become a fact. A person tired of carrying the label will naturally think that by steering excessively clear of coffee cups, desk corners, curbs, table legs and breakables, the waters will calm and disasters will end. Sorry. The subconscious mind epitomizes tenacity. When a person carrying the label tries to steer clear of disaster by keeping distant from the objects of likely entanglement, the Subconscious Mind is forced to go out of its way to achieve the goal of klutziness. When this subliminal creative stretch takes place in the achievement of klutziness, to the witness it appears that the person did the deed on purpose. And that is correct! It is just that the person’s Conscious Mind would have no idea what the witness was talking about. For the subject of the judgment, hearing that others think such mishaps are done on purpose hurts and confuses and, worst of all, intensifies his belief in the accuracy of the label.
You, like everyone else walking on earth, hold a series of perceptions of what you are worth, what you deserve from life. For athletes it’s how far up the all-time list of player achievements they belong. For the sick it is a perception of how much punishment and hardship is called for. And so important, when we talk about the goal-achieving mind doing its job, these inner perceptions the Subconscious Mind works to achieve have absolutely nothing to do with what a person consciously says he desires. Consciously, most people say they desire wellness. Please know that what we are discussing here is something that is happening much deeper.