The conscious mind and the brain

[inavalan]

"[... 9 paragraphs ...]

These invisible structures preceded the emergence of the physical body. They also exist after the body's death. While the condition of the body is directed by the conscious mind in life, then, the idea or mental pattern for the body existed before the conscious mind's connection with the physical brain.

[... 1 paragraph ...]

Therefore the inner self forms, first, the "invisible" body structure which will "later" emerge in flesh. At the event of this mental seeding, the conscious mind, in your terms, is obviously not connected with the brain, which has not yet been formed in flesh. The idea of the body is held and made physical by a conscious mind.

[... 13 paragraphs ...]

The conscious mind exists before material life and after it. In corporeal existence it is intertwined with the brain, and during physical life your earthly perceptions — your precise and steady focus within your particular space and time system — are dependent upon that fine alliance.

[... 1 paragraph ...]

Now it is here that the seeming division in the self occurs, for in physical life the conscious mind must be connected with the brain, and in terms of time that organ itself must grow and develop. So all of your consciousness cannot be physically aware. The portion that must "wait for" the brain's development is the part you call in life "the conscious mind."

The other portions can be called the inner self. Now all of this inner self cannot become expressed even with its connection with the brain, since the brain must sift perception through the physical apparatus.

[... 3 paragraphs ...]

The brain with its bodily connections must deal with the time lapses that sensual perception always imply. The interior workings of the body, to be conscious, would have to deal with time sequences that would present the physically attuned consciousness with "mathematical" deductions and calculations far too numerous for it to handle. For example, it would have to keep conscious track of all the muscles, nerves, organs, cells, molecules and atoms, while manipulating the body in space and time.

Therefore a seeming division occurs, in which a portion of the invisible conscious mind is connected with the physical brain, and a portion of it is free of that connection. That [latter] part forms what you think of as the involuntary system of the body.

Again, it is important that you realize the initial nonphysical reaction to stimuli that sparks off all physical reactions. There is constant interplay and communication between the areas of consciousness that are connected to the brain and those that are not. The "deeper" purposes of the consciousness involved "circulate," sometimes arising in the awareness that is joined with the brain. Information coming from those deeper sources of the self, reaching the areas connected to the brain, will be interpreted according to the beliefs of that most physically focused segment of the self."

—NoPR Part One: Chapter 5: Session 626, November 8, 1972

[inavalan]

"[... 5 paragraphs ...]

(A long pause at 10:06.) The brain can be called simply the physical counterpart of the mind. By means of the brain the functions of the soul and intellect are connected with the body. Through the characteristics of the brain, events that are of nonphysical origin become physically valid. There is a definite filtering and focusing effect at work, then. Practically speaking, you do indeed form the appearance that reality takes through your conscious beliefs. Those beliefs are used as screening and directing agents, separating certain nonphysical probable events from others, and bringing them into three-dimensional actuality.

[... 13 paragraphs ...]

In surface terms the sense of "I" that you possess is the result of constantly emerging probable identities, given continuity in time through the physical apparatus of the body with its built-in intervals of nerve reaction. You only remember the portion of your identity that is physically realized — those portions that are drawn into corporeal pattern. (With gestures, and forcefully.) This is the result of the focusing and yet limiting behavior of the physical brain, for effective survival behavior in your reality depends upon time reactions. The nerve patterns' activity therefore causes the illusion of a present, in which your consciousness appears focused and alert.

[... 1 paragraph ...]

Impulses possess a far different reality than physicists or biologists suppose. As you think now, "past" is still occurring. The "drag" still leaps the synapses, but, again, is not physically recorded. Past events continue. Consciously you only experience portions of events with your corporeal structure, yet the structure itself records them.

[... 6 paragraphs ...]

They represent your experience on other than physical levels. My dear friend Ruburt (briefly louder) has to some extent given an analogy of this in the first Oversoul 7 book, a novel. You perceive a certain event as present. Your beliefs give it entry through the nerve synapses, and attract it. It then seems to become the past. You have only tuned into a portion of it physically, though; that past event continues to exist with its own "future," which you may or may not perceive, according to which probable action you pull into your next experiences of actuality.

[... 9 paragraphs ...]

This could not happen if your physical structure did not have built-in mechanisms allowing it to, and if under certain conditions the normal intervals between the synapses of the nerve cells could not be leaped in a different fashion. In the same way, a future experience may also be physically perceived in your present. Now beneath your usual consciousness, your physical organism can react to future events without your knowledge, as it can to past ones. In such cases the intensity of the initially nonphysical event is enough to break through normal neuronal patterns.

[... 6 paragraphs ...]"

—NoPR Part Two: Chapter 14: Session 653, April 4, 1973