A few days back, we had very interesting friends for dinner. After the kids got to bed, the conversation turned to the subconscious...mind that is. I claimed no experience/knowledge of possessing a subconscious - my husband, on the other hand, claimed he was unsure of the mind itself! Our friends, all four of them, on the other hand, strongly believed in the existence of a subconscious both via cumulations of personal experiences and supported by readings, works of neuro-scientists, psychoanalysts. I turned to wikipedia and found this, greatly supporting my skepticism towards the necessity of a subconscious mind. Despite that, I felt I should ponder a bit, reflect somewhat, whether I perceive within me layers of the consciousness - super, and sub- to un-conscious. Have I subordinated a subconscious to favor either the conscious or the utterly unconscious? Have I gone perceptively binary, into a B&W mode, without giving myself a chance to experience the richness of colors, shades, rainbows of perceptiveness and intermingles in between? Or, have I just never looked into the nature of my own perception?
What further intrigued me about the conversation was an unanimous agreement that an 'enlightened' mind, or a mind capable of living completely and constantly in the present, this moment, would be the only, exempt from possessing the subconscious - immediately stopping my claim of a 'no subconscious'. So, if unconscious mind, or actions led by it represent habits with clear separation between mind and actions - i.e. automatic responses, and conscious actions imply a complete awareness with which the action is carried out, then subconscious probably implies a whole gamut of experiences guided by an in-between mind - a partly there mind - a part of mind that is guided by a fuzzy-logic of personal history, uncatalogued influences, memories of peripheral experiences, which, without clear conscious directives, guide action.
Defined in this manner, I can immediately list an enormous sensory bank of transitory, non useful experiences associated with clearly delineated conscious memory. My mom wore a red and black saree in checks that day, when I was little, and we went on a family picnic - she looked like a filmstar! I remember the feel of hot rocks as I ran up the hill of Pakshiteertham, I can recall the smell of the cheap fragrance that I bought when young - my first one, without a name, or what the bottle looked like; and I can still see the setting of that sweet shop where I saw, in a tiny, dark, black room, finest silky threads of mouth watering Sonpapadi being wrought...are all these parts of my conscious, or subconscious memory?
And...now that I am getting more 'aware' of my subconscious, will I subsume it??get enlightened?!! Help! Is there a way to avoid this??
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