Dear folks of Baba,

In our last session, a number of us were unclear about what Darwin means by the subconscious and its distorting influence on our lives. He has said, "Often self-interest and secret desires that are lurking in the subconscious have a surreptitious way of veiling our consciousness. We are more conscious of the sanskaras at our surface consciousness, whereas in the subconscious we may be aware of them only as feelings or impelling forces.” He stressed the importance of working at becoming aware of the contents of our subconscious where all the impressions of our past lives (both positive and negative) are stored. These impressions affect our everyday behavior “as if”, as Baba has said, "from behind a screen.”

Much of the distorting influence is due to beliefs and attitudes that we have bought into from past lives as well as from naively accepted beliefs from our early childhood in this life. In childhood, we often take on erroneous beliefs long before we have the emotional maturity to evaluate them, and they greatly distort our behavior in later life. "The relationship between conscious and subconscious sanskaras,” Darwin has said, "is that there is some ‘coloring' of our conscious thought because of our subconscious sanskaras.” To use a metaphor, the subconscious is like the extensive layer of cirrus clouds high above the earth, whereas the cumulus clouds that we are most aware of are near the earth’s surface. We often fail to see the upper layer of cirrus clouds that cause a major veiling of the sun’s rays. Our task is to work with Baba to dissolve the virtually unseen layer of cirrus clouds, so to speak, so that more sunlight can flood into our inner being.

There is a new type of therapy that delves into the beliefs from early childhood that we embraced naively from our parents and in our upbringing that are patently erroneous and which have never been fully examined. For example, we may have picked up from our parents the false and hurtful belief that if we are not constantly working at something, we will never amount to anything in this life. And then as an adult, we suffer under the unexamined belief that we are never enough; we have to be always doing something to give us a sense of self-worth. Thus, in adulthood, this belief is lodged in our subconscious and is not even seen, and yet it exerts a major influence in our life.

There are many beliefs and attitudes that we adopted unconsciously from past lives or from childhood in this life that often live on in our present life and assert themselves from the level of our subconscious. Delving into these subconscious beliefs which are behind our behavior and often exert a negative influence is an important work with Baba, and when uncovered, leads to a growing sense of inner harmony and freedom.

We also inherit many false beliefs from our past lives which are stored unbeknownst to us in our subconscious. Thankfully, in loving and working inwardly with Baba, many of the impressions that form these false beliefs are being automatically dissolved. As we all know, Baba helps by making us face many uncomfortable situations in which these beliefs are examined and eventually sublimated and even eradicated. Is there a problematic situation that Baba has helped you to rise above and gain a larger and more compassionate perspective toward yourself and others?

"The sure sign of a real hidden conflict is the sense that the whole of one's heart is not in the thought or action that happens to be dominant at the moment. There is a vague feeling of a narrowing down or a radical restriction of life. On such occasions an attempt should be made to analyze one's mental state through deep introspection, for such analysis brings to light the hidden conflicts concerning the matter.

When the conflicts are thus brought to light it is possible to resolve them through intelligent and firm choices. The most important requirement for the satisfactory resolution of conflict is motive power or inspiration, which can only come from a burning longing for some comprehensive ideal. Analysis in itself may aid choice, but the choice will remain a barren and ineffective intellectual preference unless it is vitalized by zeal for some ideal appealing to the deepest and most significant strata of human personality."

- Meher Baba

In His love, Jeff

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