Personal mind

The personal mind "seeks to use everything for self-assurance, self-glorification and self-protection because it is weak and vulnerable and has no foundation in life."

“People who are obsessed over their thoughts and their feelings and their dreams will never recognize the deeper current of their life because they are not looking in the right place. They are still self-obsessed at the surface of their mind and have not learned to listen more deeply and to develop the patience, the skill, and the perseverance to do this.”

“It is cruel to demand that the personal mind achieve peace, power and harmony. That is like requiring your body not to feel pain. The personal mind was born in conflict and resides in conflict and will achieve peace only in service to the greater Mind.”

The personal and the impersonal

"There are two aspects of you that we must talk about, for trust is the empowerment that you give yourself to participate in a Greater Reality while you are still in this world. There is your personal side, which you have been developing since you arrived here in this world, and there is your Impersonal side, which is something that is intrinsic to you. You have not been developing it; it is intact already. It is only your Impersonal or deeper nature that can account for Knowledge. If you attempt to develop trust within your personal side, you will have great difficulty."

"The distinction between the personal and the Impersonal is so important. When you are in your Impersonal side, you will see an entirely different world than the world you see when you are in your personal viewpoint. Time will stand still. You will be in the present. You are in a different state of mind now. As you experience this, even momentarily, the sense of contrast will give you an inclination of what you must attain to have peace in this world. It will also clarify your values so that you may have a true goal in life—to serve the Greater Reality so that it may emerge within you."

Directives

"You need to govern your thoughts, feelings and activities so that they may be directed according to a deeper experience. You will want this experience of being in the Impersonal increasingly, for here everything settles down and you can begin to see. You will have confidence here because your confidence is based upon something that is sound and established. And you will perceive your personal self like a loving parent who understands the little child screaming and is not offended.Your personal side will eventually integrate itself into Knowledge and find its rightful contribution. Thus, everything will be fulfilled and unified. You must see that as you live in your personal side, you cannot resolve anything. You will attempt many great resolutions, make new plans, get into new relationships or try to change your scenario, but if your Knowledge is not going in those directions, then you will not have agreement within your own True Being."

Temporary

"Your personal mind is but a part of the means for expressing a Greater Reality in a temporary reality, for expressing the Knowledge of the universe in the unique opportunity you have to live in the world."

"If you live in the personal side, the only reliable source of information for your conclusions is what your senses report to you. Living in the personal side cannot account for a Greater Reality. The personal side hopes that there is a better world somewhere else where you may go when you leave here, but it cannot account for a Greater Reality."

Impermanent

"There is no individual reality. Drawing from a Greater Reality means that you have passed beyond your own interpretations sufficiently that you can now have a direct experience of life. You can see in a new way, hear in a new way, speak in a new way and experience life in a new way."

"It is a Greater Force within you that accounts for intrinsic relationship and speaks for a Greater Reality. It guides you in directions that you have never gone, and yet it is so natural. What can your personal side do in the face of these things but acquiesce, fight or disassociate? Those are its three possible responses. Yet as Knowledge becomes stronger, your personal side must acquiesce because it is overshadowed."

Right order

"Your personal mind cannot know God. Your personal mind can only yield to Knowledge within you, and Knowledge within you yields to Knowledge in the universe. Then everything is set into right order. And with right order comes real relationship. With real relationship comes a steady flow of communication. This is what enables you to be a contributor in the world. Then, you are not merely an individual running around trying to make things happen and trying to acquire things for yourself. You become a translator and a communicator for something greater."

See also

Greater Reality

Intellectual Thinking

Permanent

Quotes About the Mind

Self-Knowledge

Further study

• Wisdom from the Greater Community, Book 1, Chapter 35: Achieving Peace

• Wisdom from the Greater Community, Book 2, Chapter 5: Working with the Mind