Hourglass analogy

An hourglass is a versatile analogy for understanding several concepts in The Urantia Book. We observe that mind can be analogized as being divided into an upper domain and a lower domain, with an interface between them:

• The lower domain is what we are most commonly conscious of. It is animal-origin mind, rooted in the material experience. Our animal-origin emotions and outer-life experiences all are seated in this lower domain of mind. Our authors sometimes call this "material mind" although it isn't the literal atoms and molecular matter of the brain, although it certainly "rests gently upon the electrochemical mechanism below." This material mind is on loan to us, and does not survive mortal death.
  • You'll find the level of the flesh and the level of feelings in this lower domain (these are the first and second levels of meaning)

• The neck of the hourglass can appear to be the ceiling below ("there's apparently nothing higher than feelings in human experience"). Or you can better see it at the floor of the upper domain, a firm foundation on which to stand.
  • This is the third level of meaning, the level of mind. A somewhat unexplored space in the experience of the plain man on the street.

• The upper domain is less well known to us, but it is where spiritual thinkers have found the true inner life to be. Our authors sometimes call it "spiritualized mind," and even sometimes refer to this entire domain of mind as "the soul" (e.g., [117:5.4]). Most of us spend the better part of our lives not consciously aware of this domain's existence; thankfully by grace it operates superconsciously all the time quite without our knowing about it consciously. This is the domain that contains that which is potentially eternal in us: the morontia object of the soul, and the Thought Adjuster bestowed into our minds at roughly age 6.