The Hermetic Law of MENTALISM Reflection 1: KNOWING vs KNOWING ABOUT
Most cultures have a concept of a Being, an Entity, an Energy, a Force or SOMETHING that exists within us and beyond all that we can conceive of as human beings. This ‘Essence’ is called by many names: God, Goddess, Allah, Brahma, Great Spirit, and many other names.
In Ancient Kemet, this Essence was called the “ALL” and it represented the energetic foundation of all that is - everywhere - in the Cosmos and beyond.
In Ancient Kemet the first Principle of how this Essence is expressed throughout the Cosmos is
MENTALISM
“The ALL is Mind; the Universe is Mental” (the Kybalion)
The more I read about this Principle, the more it became clear to me that “Mental” means much more than relating to the mind or carried out by, or taking place in the mind. For us as humans beings, intellectual comprehension is one way to attempt to understand the incomprehensible. While it is the faculty of the mind through which we come to know about things, we can only know something by experiencing it.
Our intellectual capacity allows us know about things, but to experience something is to know it in our very being. For people who have some experience of the realm of the Spirit, this is not new information. There are some things that cannot be explained or described. They can only be known.
For example. A person of African descent in the U.S. may live in a location where everybody knows there are certain places black people are better off not going to because the people and police who occupy that location are dangerous for black people. Every Black person and POC knows about the place. But being profiled by a white law enforcement officer in that location is an experience that causes a person to know in their body, emotions and gut, that the place is dangerous for them.
That knowing from experience also gets us in touch with something within us that has to decide what we are going to do to be safe. That knowing awakens an instinct, an intuition, a knowing that does not go through a thought or intellectual process. And that instinct is what protects us and reveals to us what is needed in that moment and the next time a similar moment is imminent.
There is a difference between knowing about something and knowing it. Many people know about the ALL, the ONE, the SOURCE. But knowing Source is different. Knowing is not defining. It is connecting.
Knowing allows us to access the energy of the ALL. To be aware of it. To sense that that Energy, Essence and Force is much bigger than a particular experience or knowing. The ALL exists in everything. In us, in dangerous people, in cars and computers, in love and pleasure, in nature on the earth and in the other planets in the galaxies. We have a common Source. Life’s gift is the opportunity to choose to connect with the depth of goodness and love that is in the ALL and in us and to stay connected with that no matter what the external experience may be at any given moment.
This connection does require some mental work. For we cannot come to know that which we don’t know about. But the mental aspect of MENTALISM is but the beginning of a glorious journey to another whole plane of consciousness.