Merely glance at the sundry cultures, and readily see, in their religions, literature, music, mythologies, movie making, political and social structures a living proof of this plain fact. Its inescapable reality in fact lurks where you might not tend to look, (e.g.), though the verb mind of a professor at the aforementioned, Lipton-happy hour expressing interest in the intellectual reaction to his latest paper. His real concern is about how its rejection could affect his tenure and income, and thus impact his physical life and well-being.
Only a few men amidst the collective herd even appear to have minds that are almost exclusively devoted to things about the mind. It is nearly impossible not to be bedazzled by a species-wide mirage that says otherwise.
Ordinary men do claim to have among them those whose minds are firmly focused on studying the matter of the mind, such as: philosophers, psychologists, and psychiatrists. But this is not so, (not in the sense pertinent to the special interest of the few), and I do not bring it up for the purpose of promoting the notion of me being correct about it, while everyone else is mistaken. Its importance is in the fact that if you do not eventually distinguish in your own mind the study of a factory’s product from the study of the factory, you will never get to the bottom of all this.
A person could actually start out this special journey by studying any aspect of himself; his body, his feelings, or his thinking – All Roads Lead Home…but once a person’s sense of being alive is grounded to a certain extent, in their conscious thought, that offers the path of most immediate potential.
Trying to achieve a more awake and enlightened state of consciousness could certainly be realized though the proper study of one’s physical existence, or emotional life. Since it would be thought that was used as the instrument of study – why not cut out the middle-man in advance, and from the outset, turn your attention to the place where it must end up eventually anyway?!
J