Unlike other animals, the human being has the advantage of being able to manipulate its environment. The word manipulate originates from “main” the french word for hand. It is through the evolution of a thumb that the human hand has the dexterity and capacity to “manipulate” its surroundings. This ability, coupled with the neocortex and forebrain’s ability to conceptualize and imagine, is layered with a reinforced neural network called the DMN or Default Mode Network, to create a false idea of a “me”, separate from, and apart from its environment. (DMN Blog)

All of this makes the human being into a very annoying meddler. We meddle with nature, with each other, with our bodies and life. Sometimes our meddling is helpful, but it is more often problematic.

The problem does not lie with our hands, our neocortex or forebrain, it is that awareness is clouded over by the DMN, the neural network that creates the delusion of a self that does not acknowledge universal consciousness as its true source, and the source of everything that exists.

We mistakenly believe ourselves to be separate, consider our mind to be individual, and often consider consciousness as the product of this individual bounded body-mind organism. Thus, we identify with our thoughts. “I am what I think” leads to identifying with our beliefs, as well as believing every thought that rambles through our brain. We believe we can “think” our way through problems, and think our way through life. It makes us obsessive, compulsive, neurotic and controlling.

Our identification with our thoughts and our thinking process also inevitably leads to identification with the labels that become our identity: a success, a failure, smart, stupid, lazy, irresponsible, responsible, hard-working, borderline, paranoid, neurotic, compulsive, ADHD, Schizophrenic, BiPolar, and on and on. How many ways do you define yourself and what do you identify with? Defining yourself in any way has negative, and even devastating consequences.