Most of us are led to believe that our mind, or intellect, is a powerful tool, our ally and our friend. A refined intellect can serve a person well in life when it is sharp and trained. But in the esoteric path, students are taught that the mind is not always our ally? Why?
In the Book of Golden Precepts, H.P. Blavatsky writes:
“The Mind is the great slayer of the Real.”
“The Real” that she refers to is spiritual reality. This saying confronts the esoteric student with one of the more baffling spiritual truths about the mind. It suggests that the mind, on its own accord, is not capable of apprehending higher truths. True knowledge, in the spiritual sense, resides in the soul, the spirit, or the higher self.
Even so, the intellect is a subsidiary aspect of a higher mind consciousness and a partial expression or extension of the soul so it has its use. The eventual function of the mind might be said to develop the ability to mirror “The Knower” or higher self and transmit and adapt the messages at the intellectual level.
What can go wrong? The mind becomes the creator of illusion when the personal egotism gets in the way. The student becomes the center of his own mental universe and forgets to align with the higher spiritual realities. He does not remember the difference between “The Knower” and the thoughts of the egotistical self. It is as though the sculptor were identified with his chisel.
To believe that anything can be controlled to remain seemingly perfect forever is always just a wishful illusion. This illusion blocks realization of the heart or soul aspect, of higher consciousness. When the intellect usurps all the power it also blocks love and spiritual intuition.
So, how do we make the mind our ally? Put simple, training the mind is a matter of choice.
Annie Besant writes about the mind and thinking:
“The only question we have to decide is whether we will do it beneficially or mischievously, feebly or strongly, driftingly or of set purpose. Here lies our choice, a choice momentous for ourselves and for the world: Choose well; for your choice is brief and yet endless.”
Wisdom Teaching School 