Your Mind Is a Three Story Mansion
The mind is a three story mansion: the conscious mind on the ground floor, the subconscious storehouse of memories and habits above it, and the superconscious source of intuition and creativity on top, and your awareness can only reach the third floor by passing through the second.
Dandapani lays out the three floors of the mind and explains that working on yourself is really about organising the cluttered second floor so awareness can reach the third. He says everyone has a superconscious, from the worst murderer to the holiest person, and describes doubling down on this work when his daughter was born, including the candid friends who tell him what he cannot see.
What this talk covers
- The ground floor is the conscious mind where you function externally, the second floor is the subconscious storehouse of memories, experiences and habit patterns, and the third floor is the superconscious, the source of intuition, creativity and spirituality.
- Awareness functioning on the first floor has to pass through the messy second floor to reach the third, so a second floor cluttered with unresolved experiences blocks it entirely.
- The same picture works as sun, sky and earth: the sun's rays are always shining, but a sky full of clouds keeps the light off the ground until the clouds are cleared.
- Everybody has a superconscious, from the worst murderer on the planet to the holiest person; the difference is access to it.
- When his daughter was born he doubled down on the work, because functioning from a higher state of mind rather than a messy one is the best way he can serve her, and that work is silence, meditation, awareness, and candid conversations with friends who tell him what he cannot see.
Everybody has this from the worst murderer on the planet to the most holiest person on the planet has this superconscious area of the mind.Dandapani
Questions
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Conscious, subconscious and superconscious. He pictures them as three floors of a mansion: the conscious mind where you function day to day, the subconscious that stores memories, experiences and habit patterns, and the superconscious that is the source of intuition, creativity and spirituality.
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Because it organises the second floor. Intuition and creativity from the superconscious are always trying to come through so you can perceive them, but they cannot get past a subconscious cluttered with unresolved things.
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Silence, meditation and awareness, and conversations with friends and mentors you trust to be candid. He describes an entrepreneur friend saying something that landed like a punch in the gut, out of love, that he then thought about for two or three weeks. He works in chunks, starting with the biggest obstacle to what he is trying to achieve.
Transcript
713 words · 3:55
If you look at the mind as a mansion with different areas, imagine the mind as a three-story building. The bottom floor would be a conscious mind where you function every day externally. The second floor is the subconscious that's a storehouse of all your memories, experiences, your habit patterns. The third floor is what he would call the super-conscious.
It's the source of intuition, creativity, spirituality. But in order for your ball of light that functions on the first floor in the conscious mind, you know, emailing on the phone, driving, to go to the third floor and experience that higher state of mind.
It needs to go through that messy second floor. And if the second floor is so cluttered with information, unresolved experiences and all these things, it can never penetrate through to the third floor. So doing the work on yourself is more about organizing the second floor so that you
You can move your ball of light to the third floor where the higher aspects of you are. Everybody has this from the worst murderer on the planet to the most holiest person on the planet has this superconscious area of the mind. It's just that we're not able to access it.
One analogy I give to simplify it. Imagine the sun is the superconscious, the third floor. The sky is the subconscious, the second floor on the ground, the earth is this conscious mind.
The sun's rays are always shining, but if it's a really cloudy day, that subconscious is so filled with unresolved stuff and clouds, this light doesn't get through. You blow away all the clouds, the sun's rays touch the earth, and you feel the warmth of the sun.
And the super-conscious, that higher state of mind where intuition comes from, creativity, your deep spiritual experiences, wants to come through to the first floor so you can perceive it, cognize it, but it can't get through the messy second floor. And that's why doing the personal work on yourself is so critical.
And in trying to be the best dad I can be to my daughter, I realize I need my third floor to shine through me so I can be that to her. I need to clear the second floor. And when my daughter was born, I doubled down on doing more work on myself because
that's the best way I can serve her. I can function from a higher state of mind rather than that messy place of mind. It's not about trying to reshape myself so I can show up better for her. And most of that working on yourself, silence, meditation, awareness.
Conversations also with friends, with mentors that I have a close circle of friends that I share anything intimate with them that I've known for years, a lot of entrepreneurs. So sometimes I'll share with them something that I'm feeling, I'm feeling afraid about my business.
So why do you think I feel this way? Why do you think I behave this way? And then they say something to me and I go, you're really a valid point. I had a friend who was a very successful entrepreneur say something to me
a couple of weeks ago, and they're like, wow, it was like a punch in the gut. And he said it out of love. I've known him for years. We have such a great friendship.
And I just paused and he said, I'm sorry. I said, never apologize. We agreed long time ago. We would support each other with love and compassion.
Canda. Yeah, candid. And, man, I just thought about it for two, three weeks. And I was like, I need to work on this.
He's so right. He saw something I couldn't see. And I'm OK. I'm happy.
I'm so grateful to him for sharing this. Because when I get through this, I'll be so much better for myself and everybody around me. So I'm not afraid to do the work.
But I take it also in chunks, right? So that you don't drown in it. Right. I look at my life, what am I trying to achieve?
And what's the biggest obstacle? And I try and work with that inside of me first.