REACTIVE
AND ANALYTICAL MINDS
Psychointegration
09/23/2008
By
Jorge Olguin.
In the
middle of the brain, in the frontal part, we have a corpus called the
amygdala
(2)
and that's where it’s located The reactive mind.
The reactive mind is the mind that
is driven by impulses.
I said that
many years ago, our ancestors – I’m talking about thousands of years ago – they
had no analytical mind, they were exclusively
impulsive.
They saw a
smilodon
(3)
and they did
not say, "Shall I beat him? Or Will it eat me up?"
They automatically had tenths of a
second to escape. Or they saw a small animal and they did not think, "Will I
hunt it or not?" They simple grab a rock, a big stone and threw it at the
small animal to hunt it. That reactive mind saved many of our ancestors' lives at
that time because it was an absolutely instinctive mind.
As the human
began evolving, he was having a conceptual thinking.
He even drew pictures in the
caves. The fact of drawing already made him
analytical.
The analysis
was not entirely beneficial for the human being, because while thinking that
same analysis began to make him believe in gods and
demons.
He was afraid of the thunder and
one day, suddenly, he killed an animal and it stopped
raining. Then, he thought mistakenly: "Oh, to the god of the rain I
sacrificed a small animal and the rain stopped, then that god feeds on
sacrifices"
Wrong,
wrong, wrong.
Obviously that is a tremendous
mistake. As our civilization advanced, the sacrificial ceremony was
also advancing; that is, although the human being was rational, he was
irrational in reference to gods and demons. The gods and demons deserved
sacrifices. From ancient times - even in America before the year 1400 -
the Mayans, the Aztecs, the Incas, who were apparently "more advanced" than
other natives tribes of the continent lived with
sacrifices. They saw a volcano, which was active and killed
a young virgin or a young man and threw them to the mouth of the
volcano; And well, it is not like in the movies that within five
minutes the volcano was appeased. However, in one day or two, that volcano
ceased to erupt, and they thought, "It was appeased due to the sacrifice we
made."
That is,
from ancient times, from thousands and thousands of years ago until today, year
2008, in some religions, they still rely on sacrifices to appease these “gods or
demons”.
The reactive
mind, over time, became useless, because that primitive man began to use a
stick, then he transformed it into a spear, eventually he built bows, arrows,
then large animals no longer had the chance to eat them up so
easily.
That reactive mind was already
useless. However, since the reactive mind has been etched in the
genes of the human beings for thousands of years and the analytic mind has ten
to thirty thousand years, the reactive mind will always react first and not the
Analytical mind.
There are
cases, examples, an example I always tell, which is very painful, happened one
day when
I was at a bus stop and there was
a father in his late thirties with his very small child, who was running back
and forth around while waiting for the bus. The father told him to stay still and the boy did not stay
still, the man took his boy by his wrist and he lifted him up to the height of
his eyes and began kicking him in the legs. He released his hand, and the boy fell to the ground like a
trash bag, they boy was already hurt and he began to cry.
The father took three to four seconds to realize what
he had done:- "What did I do!"-
he lifted him up and covered him
with hugs and kisses. Giving kisses was not going to calm the pain the boy was
feeling.
Well, that's
the reactive mind. The Father first reacted with his reactive
mind. Then, the analytical mind made him come to reason:- "What am I doing?" But since the reactive mind is engraved in the brain from
many thousands of years, it’s the one that is triggered
first.
Does this mean we are doomed? No, this does not mean anything. This only means that the reactive mind takes priority in certain cases. If we live in a state of alert we are going to respond using the analytical mind. A young man wrote to me via e-mail saying:
- "But what
you are saying is absolutely tremendous!"
- In which
sense?
- Yes, in
the sense that it is worse than being reactive, being in a permanent state of
alert, if something happens, it is as if we had our own security
system.
- No, it is
not like that because one gets used to it.
It is true
that the human being is an animal of habits - in some things - and one get used
to be alert;
after all, one lives a normal
life, being alert becomes just like
breathing. After one begins to be alert one
becomes a gentle person, one becomes a thoughtful being, one stops being
reactive. Perhaps you may not be able to prevent the
adrenaline blow in the top of your stomach, when you watch an unfair attitude
from someone else, but if you are alert, it will prevent you from
reacting; You will have the awful feeling, that small tachycardia,
but from there it will not pass, unless some serious event happens, where you
will have to intervene because there is a risk for you or another
person. However, we usually get used to being alert and
so the reactive mind does not take action.
There are
countless cases like the one I mentioned, for example: the girl who came to ask
me because she had been after a boy for months.
I oriented her so that she can
somehow manage to conquer him and start dating him.
One day they went to drink coffee
or something, and the boy said to her something that she did not like and all of
a sudden, she took the glass of her drink in her hand and threw the content on
his face. When she was leaving the place, already in the street, she
grabbed her head and said to herself- "Oh, God! What did I do? -
She said something worse to
herself. She came to me the next day and told me,
"I screwed it up! What do I do? is it possible that I can come back with him
again?"
I said to
her: "I don’t know, I cannot give you any possibility
that you can conquer him again." Sometimes an impulse given recklessly or a word
said mistakenly may take some time to be erased or sometimes it will never be
erased. One will have to make a good effort to regain what was conquered, to
climb once again the hill that we had alredy started to climb. It is very, very
difficult this topic. "
The reactive
mind was first discovered in the 1950s.
That mind was the first reactive
mind discovered,it was the automatic reactive
mind. This mind is activated when a person is crossing the street
unaware or distracted, then, the horn of a car sounds and the person
automatically backs away to the sidewalk and the car passes
by. Let's say this automatic reactive mind saved his/her
life.
At that time
it was not called an automatic reactive mind, it was called just reactive
mind.
When I discovered the second
reactive mind, which is the impulsive reactive mind, in 1997, I had to name the
first mind, the automatic reactive mind.
The
difference between the two minds (reactive and analytical) came from a debate we
had ten years ago, when we debated whether the truth was analytic or reactive,
and I said that the truth was reactive because the person who is reactive has
neither the chance nor the time to concoct a lie, The word just get out from the
mouth, you get the truth.
He told me, "No, because the
automatic reactive mind is like a refrigerator, like a
freezer, it does not lie or tell the truth,
it has no thought."
"Yes," I
said to him, "that impulsive reactive mind somehow makes the person authentic
and says what comes out at that moment.
As we did
not agree, then I said,
-Well,
obviously we are both right, what happens is that we are talking about two
different reactive minds: the automatic one, which is the original, does not lie
or tell the truth, because it is a REFLEX;
And the impulsive reactive mind,
which is the one that tells the truth because it comes from within. For
instance, when you say: -"You suck. You're good for nothing; you do not ask for this raise,
blah, blah. "When this person thinks again, says:- "Oh, I did not mean it!" It was not
true-.
Yes it was true; it was what you
were thinking. If later on you wanted to correct your
sentence, it is another issue.
This
happened in 1997 or 1998. In 2003 I discovered another reactive
mind.
The reactive depressive
mind.
The
depressive reactive mind also tells the truth.
It is the mind that reacts when a
person is absolutely depressive, he/she is dating, a new relationship, but the
person is hurt due to the previous separation and the depressed person tells to
the momentary new partner: "I am feeling empty inside, I feel absolutely
nothing, It's as if I had no feelings inside me… I do
not ... I do not know, I'm feling empty right now. "
And then,
the next day while answering the phone the person says:- "Oh, I did not mean what I said, I do have feelings for
you!"
No,
no.
What you said at the first day,
when you said that you were feling empty, is actually
true! If later on, you tried to disguise your feelings or because
you're in a good mood and you believe
you feel
something, it's something totally different. But the truth is no, because the reactive depressive mind
tells the truth. The reactive depressive mind does not
lie.
There are
some exceptions.
There are people who are reactive
and increase the offense to the other person in order to hurt
her. I mean, I'm not contradicting
myself; The reactive impulsive mind tells the truth, but there are
people who are absolutely taken over by it and to hurt the other person they
exaggerate saying:- "You never made me
happy". "Truly these seven years I spent with you were meaningless
at all from the first day." "I don’t know why I paid attention to
you."- That person is partially telling the truth, but
he/she is adding also lies. So, is it a contradiction to my original
theory? No, because I also said on different occasions that the
reactive mind, sometimes is nurtured from the analytical
mind. I never said that the analytical mind was good, I said that
the analytic mind makes the person think - but a person can also think about a
swindle, then, the analytical mind, at that moment, feeds the reactive mind and
the reactive person offends the person even more in order to hurt
him/her; It tells things that the person does not
even think about. Then, in most cases, the reactive mind tells the
truth. In this case, it also tells the truth, but it seasons it –
just like when one seasons a meal - with some lies to hurt the person even
more. But I still insist that the impulsive reactive mind tells
the truth. Sometimes it can increase that truth to hurt the person and
to torture him/her at that moment ...
Interlocutor_1:
Let’s say the person says that out of anger, right?
Jorge
Olguín: ... just in total anger, because the person is totally
reactive.
Interlocutor_2:
Could it be the other way around?
Jorge
Olguín: How come the other way around?
Interlocutor_2:
For example praising.
Jorge
Olguín: No. The reactive mind never praises, but it is
ironic.
I am going to give you an example,
which is important: -"Oh! Sure, the gentleman now is leaving the house, and I’am
staying here! Very well, congratulations... You are a genius, the best
person there is ... What else can I expect from you?- So, Is that person praising him?
Interlocutor_2:
Yes, a kind of sarcasm...
Jorge
Olguín: But she is offending him; she Is actually humiliating
him.
Interlocutor_1:
It's like a hypocritical compliment.
Jorge
Olguín: It is a hypocritical compliment.
Then, the reactive mind will never
really praise, not even to take advantage. The one that praises to take advantage is the analytical
mind. The analytical mind-as I said before-does not mean that it
is a good mind. A person who concocts a lie or a scam always has a plan to
get someone out of the way...
Interlocutor_1:
And those who praise someone, idolizing him out of
fear?
Jorge
Olguín: No. That is directly done by the analytical mind, but it also does it to
take advantage in some way.
Not always
one takes advantage from someone by taking something from
him. For instance, if you have a position over me being
you a tyrant boss, and I somehow flatter you so that you treat me better, then
I'm not getting something material from you, I'm getting a good
deal. It is still cunning. That would not be a hostile act on my behalf; it would be
hypocritical, but not hostile. Not always being hypocritical means to be
hostile. I am simply praising you; I am telling you a lie to avoid
negative incidents against me.
The Masters
of Light always teach us that a lie is hostile, but it depends on the lie, how
it is going to be concocted and how that lie will
serve.
With a person who is very ill, we
are not going make a joke to that man at the hospital saying: "Ah, Manuel, so
you are dying and you did not say anything!"
No. That seems totally cruel to
me. It's a bad joke from so many years
ago.
Not in all
cases, it is hypocrisy, but it is ethics, it is diplomacy... If there were no
diplomacy, politicians from different nations would say: -"I will not shake
hands with you! You have ruined my twenty-five year of career. Why do not you
rot in hell? And blah, blah, blah."-
No,
no.
Somehow it's like in our society
we need ethics and diplomacy. The right thing, the ideal thing, is that we had this
ethics by ourselves; That is, not by calculation:- "Well, I'm going to be a
diplomat to see what I get in this job or what I get from this
person." It is not a hostile act, I insist, while obtaining a good
deal. It could be a hostile act if the person takes something
away from that person, by flattery, diplomacy or
whatever. If it is only for good treatment, so that our boss treats
us well, it is not a hostile act. Hostile act is all that hurts other
people. For instance, If
you're my boss and I flatter you and somehow you're more elastic with me, I'm not
committing a hostile act because I'm not hurting
you...
Interlocutor_1:
No, you're trying not to be hurt.
Jorge
Olguín: Right, I'm trying that they don’t hurt me.
So, it is not a hostile
act. It is a survival act, somehow.
And this is concocted by the
analytical mind.
That is the
difference between the analytic mind and the reactive
mind.
The analytic mind is one, but it
has several roots or several branches, up or down;
Let's say several
branches.
The reactive
mind tells the truth.
The impulsive, the
depressive. The impulsive reactive mind takes from the analytical
mind; it may lie a little or harbor a dose of lie but
it still tells the truth. The automatic reactive mind - which was already discovered
before I started with this spiritual topic, neither lies nor tells the truth
because it is a conditioned reflex, - let us call it conditioned reflex, so that
it is understood - and there are several variations of minds, but this Is the
most important thing in the spiritual being.
Another
thing that helps the reactive mind, so that it receives nutriment, is the
ego.
The ego is another fruit of the
reactive, but different. It can be more subtle. The ego is like it has a life of its
own. The ego disguises itself, the ego camouflages itself, the
ego hides, and the ego tries to survive.
There are
people who have a gigantic ego and disguise it through
service.
In
Siddhartha’s version of Hermann Hesse, the
protagonist in the middle of the book begins to do service, but he does it in
terms of competence because his ego urges him to be useful;
But look forward to seeing who is
giving more and is competing. This competition wears out, burns energy, destroys the
spirit because it is a competition that does not reach any goal, it simply goes
in free fall. Until truly Siddhartha, in the novel, ends up discovering
that the true service is exempt of any kind of ego, it has no need to compete
against nobody, it serves only by enjoyment, to help others and if it sees the
others happy, He is happy; There, one is free from ego.
But the ego is camouflaged, the
ego disguises itself permanently. The ego is a burden so great that we have, but so great ...
And there is more, the ego does not really exist as such, the ego is part of
ourselves; We ourselves are the ego.
It is not that the ego was
independent of us, like Sybil's Freudian psychological personalities where one
personality did not recognize what the other personality was
doing. We remember perfectly what we do driven by our
ego. For instance, if we have a certain appetite, the ego
will say:- "Take that, what happens later does not
matter, take that fruit, no matter what happens later
on."- Once you are satisfied, another ego says:- "What have you done? And now how do you handle this? Does
it seem right to you? Look at what you have done!"
"Yes, you're
right". And another role of ego comes, with the role of victim:- "I'm good for nothing, I'll never move forward, I let
myself be driven by my impulses." There are different egos that handle the
person.
There are
very practical examples for this.
For example, there are beings who
have abandoned a relationship and try to quench their thirst for a partner with
another relationship, which is not attractive and once they quench that thirst
they continue with the same thirst or even more thirst than before, and they
feel empty, neutral, depressed, because it was not what they expected, the ego
simply blinded them, thinking that this new spring water would make them forget
the previous water spring. That is the work of the ego.
The ego, in some way annuls the
senses of the analytic mind because the ego is not analytic, the ego is never
analytical. But beware because just like the impulsive reactive mind in
some cases, the ego also drinks from the analytical mind;
Because the ego, in order to
quench its thirst or its appetite concocts things.
The ego convinces, the ego
masquerades as a peacock that opens its tail to attract the female, the ego also
disguises... Once the person committed the hostile act, the ego hides like the
ostrich that hides its head. That is, the ego first is like the peacock and then it is
like the ostrich that hides its head. "It wasn’t me!". But there is no excuse because the ego is part of
us. Just as I said before we have to be "alert" so that the
reactive mind does not invade us and makes us say hurtful words that we regret
to have said later on, we also have to be alert with regard to the ego, so that
we don’t end up manipulated by this tremendous burden, which is the against our
evolution; Because when the ego manipulates us, we become clumsy, me
make mistakes, contradictory acts, hostile acts, we are indifferent, we make a
thousand negative things dominated by the ego.
The engrams
can be deactivated.
In other words, engrams can be
eradicated from the person. There are engrams that are very
hidden, but they can usually be eradicated.
The roles of
the ego, no, never.
The ego can never be destroyed
because it is part of us. The ego can be integrated;
it‘s
integrated. That is why my technique is called Psychointegration and
not Psychodestruction. It integrates the roles of the ego into a Central
Self. The one who commands, the one who leads the baton and the
one who leads the orchestra, this one; Is our Central Self. The roles of ego are no longer dispersed in the periphery,
they are all contained. But a role of ego can always come
out. We are not exempt. Not even the best of the Masters, or the wisest will have
his ego integrated 24 hours a day throughout his entire physical
life. It is impossible! We are always going to be disturbed by something, there is
always going to be something that makes us feel bad.
And there
are passive roles of ego.
Suddenly someone hurts you and you
will run away and cry in silence. You are always going to be hurt by a loved one more than an
unknown person. An unknown person may try to offend you and you can ignore
him, but a person who is close to you, near to your affection can hurt you
because he has more power, somehow, even though I always say that the power of
the Word is given by one, but well; We are talking about very close beings, who have more power
and they can hurt you. Then, that passive ego can make you lock up in your room
and cry in silence. Cry, that's fine; It’s a kind of relief, but this means that the ego,
somehow, continues dominating.
On the other
hand, we are sensitive beings.
Sensitive means that we are half
sentimental and half emotional. Feeling? Love is a feeling, love is not an
emotion. Hate, anger, can be emotions.
Love is a
feeling. But as I have said several times, personal love - which can
be the love of a lover, the love of parents, the love of children, the love of
brothers and sisters - drinks from both sides: it drinks from feeling and drinks
from emotion. When you drink from emotion, that love can wobble because
emotion is not a feeling, emotion is part of the reactive
mind; Then, personal love is jealous, it can be possessive,
etc. It can also manipulate to take advantage unlike impersonal
Love that only thinks of giving and as impersonal Love does not need, does not
suffer. However, as all of us on the physical plane, we
feel personal love; we suffer in some way, because more or less each one uf
us needs. Even the highest Master needs.
No one can be entirely
alone; we all need from each other.
There is a
spiritual theory that speaks about us being possessed by
demons.
Let's put aside the part of the
spiritual demons - which I always say have no power over us because we have
divine free will - but there are other types of demons that are the inner
demons. The inner demons can be the engrams or can be the roles of
ego. Those that make us twist, those that make us devalue
ourselves, those that make us think more about things that are not really
important to think, those for which we ourselves make that domino effect, but
against us, every time growing and growing, and we boil in anger by something
that happened, our own demons are those that dominate us and make us commit
those hostile acts. So, we also have to be alert against that, against those
roles of ego that manipulate us so much. They are internal demons.
Sometimes
they ask me if we can be alert 24 hours a day.
No, because we sleep
(laughs). We are not awake 24
hours.
But we can be
alert.
We get used to being
alert.
Many things
can hurt us in life, but those who have more power over us, as incarnated human
beings, are our closest loved beings.
The closer they are, the more
power they have. When I speak about power I am not talking about a real
power by which we obey as if we were robots that if they push a button and we
already walk like zombies. No, no. Power in the sense that we are most vulnerable, the more we
love or the more we care. According to the case we are more
vulnerable. That happens to all of us.
He who says he/she is not
vulnerable is a rock, and I think we are not interested in
rocks; We are interested in living, feeling, enjoying,
complementing ourselves, feeling that we are contained and contain others
because everything has to be a feedback .
Religions
teach - as Master Jesus said - "ask and it will be given to you", other
religions or esoteric schools say: "No, you do not have to ask, you have to
give".
I say, "We do not have to be so
strict, we have to do both." That is, the famous exchange of love, but not by
speculation, because if there is speculation it is like everything was clouded,
the water is already cloudy. Speculation is like the drop of ink in a liter of
water; A single drop of ink clouds a liter of
water. Then speculation clouds service, clouds that exchange of
love. Then you have to do it really, because you feel
it. If not, don’t do it - at least one is not hypocritical -
until you are ready, until it is your time to do it.
In the meantime,
refrain.
I can not
give a scale of values because I am nobody to set a scale of values, but well,
in case I could have a scale of values, I first value the one who gives service
for enjoyment, then the one that says: No, I'm not prepared to give service and
I'm not going to give it. I do not want it, period.
“Perfect;
At least that person is not a
hypocrite”
And finally
the person who does the service to look good.
I put it behind the one who
crosses arms, because the one who crosses arms is frontal and for me he/she is
reliable. Even without doing service
is
reliable. Instead, the person who serves with a smile drawn by lies,
for me is not reliable. That person is like
servile. I always say that the big difference between helpful and
servile is that a helpful person is the one who tries to give to
others. Servile, is the famous office mouse that, in order
to get along with his boss, says:- "I've prepared a
hundred memorandums
more." The boss despises this guy because that kind of people, the
servile, can betray even to his own mother. The servile is a hypocrite to the utmost exponent, but he
is not a reliable person at all. Not at all. Zero reliability. I prefer the person who says, "No, I'm not ready to be
helpful." I do not flatter her, I do not applaud her
...
Interlocutor_1:
It’s like a person who disguises as a lamb and then as a
wolf.
Jorge
Olguín: Yes. To conclude, that's why I say that the person who straight forward
goes and says: "I don’t do it" but looks at your eyes, I will not applaud, but
that person is reliable.
He is above the hypocrite on my
humble scale of values.
(1)
Cerebral
cortex : Is the mantle of nervous tissue
that covers the surface of the cerebral hemispheres, reaching its maximum
development in primates. To continue reading you can click
on the following link.
(2)
Cerebral
Amygala: set
of nuclei of neurons located in the depths of the temporal lobes of complex
vertebrates, including humans. To continue reading you can click
on the following link.
(3)
Smilodon: Smilodon ("tooth knife" in ancient
Greek) is an extinct genus of feline saber teeth of the subfamily of the
machairodont. To continue reading you can click
on the following link.
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