Saturday, April 28, 2018

REACTIVE AND ANALYTICAL MINDS



REACTIVE AND ANALYTICAL MINDS

Psychointegration 09/23/2008
By Jorge Olguin.

Jorge Olguín: We, the human beings, have several minds. The mind that makes us think, the one that makes us restrain impulses, that makes us reconsider, that is the analytical mind. The analytic mind is located in what we call the cerebral cortex, which is just below the skull cap. (1) That is our analytical mind.

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.
              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smilodon