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We all have been there, feeling stuck behind a closed door for a long time. We did everything we could to open it because we could sense the possibilities behind it. We analyzed every strategy that we could use for opening that lock; all frustrating! We even might have asked for help; mostly useless! What a funny story such a situation could be if the key was in our own pocket all the time and we just needed to take it out, turn it in the lock and open the door! This is, in fact and most of the time, the funny situation we are trapped in. We feel stuck because we forget that the key is in our own pocket. I’m here to remind you, as I need to remind myself all the time, “Use the key in your pocket!”.

This magical key that can open every door, or to say, every obstacle you are facing, is one energy source within you manifested in three forms of your body, mind, and spirit. These three resources are our most important private ownerships because they are innate and tightly connected to our existence. If we take full control over them, we can control our life in any situation. On the other hand, if we lose control over them, we will be under control of our circumstances. In their energizing triangle, we can reach our highest level of potentiality.

Our physical body, the pillar of connection

Our physical body is obviously, and for most, a representative of our natural existence in a specific physical form. Because of it, we are here in a defined spatio-temporal point of history. In addition, our physical body provides the tools for our sense-experiences for connecting with the world around us. These sensors receive the signals from our environment through five acts of seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling. All of these sensory acts are controlled and connected through our brain which is basically a physical part of our body. In most of our daily sense-experiences, the controlling procedure through our brain is done automatically and we barely interfere beyond any objective level. That is to say, there is some predefined information about various cues that our body sends as signals to our brain based on which it commands our body to respond. For instance, our body naturally shivers against the cold because there is predefined information about the normal temperature in which our body can function properly. So, shivering is the natural response of our body to an under-threshold temperature which is controlled by our brain automatically without our interference. Of course, not all of the information is predefined. Some of them are the inputs given to our brain through the process of learning. We learn, for example, that the red color on the street lamp means, don’t cross the street, stop and wait for it to be green. This kind of information is the data saved in our brain during the learning process which is later on used as input for reacting to various sensory cues. With this sort of intervention, our physical body is still acting on the objective level because the information given as input are not from subjective association, namely from within, but from outside.

Let’s call it “non-excited state” where our brain acts as an advanced computer and we are the programmer who has control over the input data. We might not be fully familiar with the complexity of this computer but in running each algorithm, we choose which data should be entered, which data should be stored, and which ones ought to be deleted. The saved data, still objective in this level and received from outside, will be processed by some complex algorithms with various constraints which are mostly based on the data previously saved and processed in the brain. The more we learn and the more data is processed in our brain, a richer database is formed which can turn the brain from being a normal computer to a supercomputer. The data might also be processed based on our persona, our personal experiences and emotions. In this case, our brain is deviating from being totally objective by adding some level of subjectivity which comes from the uniqueness of our personality. In general, the output depends on both input data and the constraints applied for processing the received data. For instance, when we write, as far as our physical brain is concerned, it can just call for those data that are already saved in the database of our brain, that is either the predefined or learnt information about a subject. The relevant data will then go through a processing algorithm which affects the output writing based on how it is defined, for example based on our writing style. Until this point, the act of writing makes a bridge between our physical brain and the world outside, when it is shared in any language which is also a learnt and saved data in our brain. For the reader, the information in our writing will be some sort of input data which he/she should decide how to handle. This circle of mostly objective processes, which can be reciprocal, are done in a mere computational manner. At this level, a supercomputer with complex training algorithms and a huge database can produce a much better output than our brain. Only in creative writing, when we add the subjective elements of our personal experiences and emotions as constraint to the processing algorithms, the output is produced above computational level. It is no longer just our physical brain that is involved, but our mind also plays an important role.

OUR mind, the mysterious subjective source of power

Compared to our physical brain, our mind can be considered as a subjective non-physical cloud. Although it’s subjective, that is, its database is provided as primordial information and not by the learning process, its function is not fully independent. Our mind and our body are obviously connected through our brain. Let’s say, we wouldn’t be able to access the subjective information in this cloud, if our physical brain wouldn’t have been developed enough through a healthy process of aging which includes gathering objective information via learning. The important thing is that this non-objective part of our brain shouldn’t be considered as a physical entity because it possesses non-physical characteristics, such as imagination, originating from our consciousness.

The primordial information in our mind is basically the “common sense”, the knowledge that we have about ourselves and the world without learning them. For example, we know ourselves intuitively through a primitive perception. Consciousness gives us access to a hidden world, namely our inner world, which is subjective and our sensations can’t reach to. One might say that this perception is also influenced by the environment as we grow up and as our brain matures. That’s absolutely true; Learning different things and our interactions with others shape our perspective-taking and the way we think, sometimes even about ourselves. However, there is a part of us that has been there from the beginning, not developed by any process of learning, a primordial awareness given to us as an ab initio knowledge. This is the essential part of us that we have access to through our conscious mind. The essential part of us is a witness, an example, of the essence of something, an object (namely us) that we feel its presence. It can help us accept the concept of “essential being” which is absolutely no fact and not observable or sensed directly; It’s our inner world which can be perceived only by pure consciousness.

“Qualia” or subjective experiences was mentioned in “Shadows of the mind” written by the mathematicianPenrose as the obvious difference between the act of consciousness and computation. In the chapter “Consciousness and computation” of this book, he considers some conscious actions for our mind which are the limitations of robot activity. For example, “understanding” in comprehending the meaning of words “happiness”, “fighting”, or “tomorrow” involves some non-computational process. A common kind of “awareness”, he says, of what possible meanings there could be, makes it possible for it to be communicated between two persons. “Meanings can only be communicated from person to person because each person is aware of similar internal experiences or feelings about things.” So, it seems that the capabilities of a conscious mind is more than computational processes happening in our brain and it can’t be simulated by any computer-controlled robot.

Subjective sense-experiences, body and mind interwoven

Some times ago, just before a birthday anniversary of mine, I decided to escape from my daily life, go to a new calm place, to catch some silent moments and think over, to see what I really want to do with my life. For the first time in my life, I had no plan for my future and it was frightening! It seemed hopeless and I was desperately in the search of a “new beginning”! I did nothing special during those few days of my vacation, just taking long walks along the seashore, or stretching the time by drinking tea while looking at the evening foggy sky and watching the seabirds in some slow moments. Strangely, however, those slow moments concentrated into consciously made sensual experiences gave me an unusual feeling of being born again emotionally. As if, something washed away all my experiences, pains, and feelings, and now I was ready to let the world fill that empty part of me with all new colorful pictures and joyful experiences! For me, those pictures of seabirds flying in the far with their voice heard near, the dawning sun on the horizon while shining and brightening, or the smell of the wet sands in the fresh air will be always associated with “new beginning”. This became my private association rather than a mere diary only because a subjective element coming from the “self”, the willingness for a new start, intersected with objective associations sprang from sensual experiences. This meaning of “new beginning” connected to those pictures with the power that nature awakened in me in some silent and slow moments, is special in my personal dictionary and has no meaning ever for another person.

These subjective sense-experiences are the active aspects of our consciousness. Here, experience is more than mere memories stored as a recording of what might have happened. Subjective experiences are those that necessarily have the element of awareness within selves, through interfering with our subjective associations. That’s why they are different from “common-sense” experiences which are still the act of a conscious mind but similar between different persons. As described perfectly in “The Glass Bead Game”, the book by Hesse, such private associations, when some sensual experiences leap up every time we think about a concept, are precious possessions that we would never willingly give up. They are formed when some sensations are experienced with our awareness while entangled with a concept in our mind. They are unique to each person and their uniqueness makes them powerful. In fact, individualism is the product of subjective associations. Sadly, however, most of us are not aware of our subjective abilities in making private associations.It could be the side effect of artificial intelligence and industrialization that aim to bring us all to the same rules of body language, copied behaviors and styles! They are basically not useless, of course. However, if they enter into every aspect of our life, as it seems to be the pace of their growth in our modern era, millions of potentialities that could burst in the world from the speciality of individualism, will be buried under some norms and rules. We feel trapped by the environmental objective conditions by being reactive instead of interactive, simply because we turn off our mind with its powerful element of awareness in our daily activities. It’s like staying for a long time, perhaps for a life-long, behind closed doors while the key is in our own pocket, which we might never use!

SPIRIT, AN UNKNOWN METAPHYSICAL concept or a private association!

Despite body and mind that are inextricably interwoven, spirit seems to be an all-alone standing pillar. Perhaps, that’s why it can be simply ignored by many of us. After all, why bother with attempting to understand a complex concept without which we can still manage to live in a physical world! We might consider it as a metaphysical concept, something beyond any frame of time and space, perhaps a non-physical version of us that can easily pass over all limitations while shadowing in different ages and histories, being at different places simultaneously! As much mysterious its nature is, so is the private experience of those who took a spiritual journey in their life! We might define it as a form of seeking for perfection through making connection with a sort of supernatural power, “an approach to that Mind, which beyond all images and multiplicities is one within itself-another words, to God.” * With this definition, any spiritual experience is categorized among private or subjective associations which makes it unique and powerful. Though powerful, however, such associations can be only communicated but not transmitted.

Whether we name it a metaphysical concept or a private association, spirit is an important pillar for our existence without which we might be able to have a good life in the limited boundary of this physical world, but also never experiencing the flow of divine supernatural energy in our life.