Most people are so completely identified with the voice in the head- the incessant stream of involuntary and compulsive thinking and the emotions that accompany it that we may describe them as being possessed by their mind. As long as you are completely unaware of this, you take the thinker to be who you are. This is the egoic mind. We call it egoic because there is a sense of self, of I (ego), in every thought--every memory, every interpretation, opinion, viewpoint, reaction, emotion. This is unconsciousness, spiritually speaking. Your thinking, the content of your mind, is of course conditioned by the past: your upbring-ing, culture, family background, and so on. The central core of all vour activitv consists of certain repetitive