This body. Did you know that all the matter that makes up the human race could fit in a single cube of sugar? pic.twitter.com/Qdw4lz25sl
— Georgi (@GeorginaYael) April 13, 2015
Consciousness is one of those broad words we use to express way too much. In psychology, it is popularly set apart from the subconscious and unconscious states of mind as pertaining to the waking state. In modern spirituality, the word consciousness becomes often synonymous with God – or the absolute source of all we are.
Used interchangeably by many spiritual teachers with the word “awareness”, consciousness is seen as the infinite end point – the source of all perception and of creation itself. To question is to be caught in the “mind” and the illusory processes of thinking. Consciousness is collective, as Jung and other pointed out. It is inherently, apparently formless, in any normal notion of “form”. Yet is it the end point? And could treating it as such present a final limitation that seeds psychopathy and far deeper illusions of separation?
Representation of consciousness from the seventeenth century
It all begins with direct inquiry, and as such, the modern spiritual search often seems to end with a lack of direct inquiry and sometimes with the birth of ego structures of megalithic proportions.
The belief that we are consciousness in an absolute sense, is akin to the belief that light defines the darkness – or that darkness is born of light. Is this true?
The belief that consciousness is the source of all we are rather than an effect of a deeper primal cause has rebirthed such terms as “awakening” and “sleep” as polarized states of spiritual attainment (or lack of it).
The belief that consciousness is the absolute source of creation has led to many false philosophies of personal manifestation – allowing the various agendas of jealousy and greed to eclipse natural human qualities of care, kindness and humility.
The consciousness police create dualities in multiple shadows – from the feeding of a kind of addiction to “humania” – as if human beings were separate or at least superior to other forms of life, and of course, separate from the physical dimension which is this planet and its mysterious solar system. It blinds us to the objective reality of the physical universe, as if human will and perception were the definitive cause.
As such, consciousness, while being a powerful, unified, infinitely intelligent layer of form, common to all human beings, can also bring with it tremendous shadows: arrogance, psychopathy and pure destruction. For consciousness to be truly of service, we must let it be, in its infinite variety of expession letting it work through us according to its own need, unconditionally.
The moment we identify (even with consciousness itself), the agenda of separation is interfering. A split is created between the liberated conscious state, and the unconscious beliefs, agendas, natural daydreams, sleep states and even with out own inevitable death process.
Identification itself rests on the premise of separation. Identification is only possible where there is an “other” to identify with. As such, identification can actually strengthen the illusion of separation.
Consciousness as a way, not a destination
There is a popular modern spiritual myth that consciousness is an end-point – the first source of all creation. Teachers are quoted, cited and used as authorities in this great defence of the perspective of pure consciousness. Yet, if it were absolute, would it need to be defended? Against what?
Following in the wake of this, come the assertions that you are not the body, and that the whole of creation is an illusion of your own mind. The severe split, or duality created in this proclaimed spiritual movement can birth whole new generations of pretenders, hypocrites and lies in the inner world.
Scientists today are looking for the physical origins of this phenomena of consciousness, in a defiance to show the spiritual world that it all comes down to matter.
Yet, when we release identification with consciousness and allow ourselves to wholly surrender to the darkness of our own source which precedes even consciousness itself, such a notion is in way disturbing.
If consciousness is an effect of matter, it would change nothing. It never was separate. The only illusion is in that very belief in absolute separation. No physical particle ever dissappears (except in its raw state where it can appear as spontaneously present and absent/everything and nothing). The material world doesn’t die, but is in constant transformation through time and space. As such, it is much a continuum as consciousness itself. If one is the effect of the other, or are both the effect of something far deeper and more unconditional at the source of all we are?
Conscious moments
An inquiry into consciousness will show us a flickering light of “Nows.” Sometimes the light of consciousness has a slow rhythm, and sometimes it becomes very fast. At the same time, we can move into another mode which in the book I AM HERE, we call awareness. In this dimension of Being, the experience of pure perception resembles more a wave form – with less separation than the particles of the Now.
In both cases, the particle bombardment of “Nows” or the wave flow of “being”, there is a subtle yet ubiquitous continuum, Entirely unconditional, this apparently empty yet intimate prevalence is that which facilitate any form of perception, any movement, thought, feeling or emotion. It precedes perception itself.
It is here when we are outside of time and space, such as in coma state. It is here in dreamless sleep. It is here when we are bummed and here when we are enlightened. It pretends nothing and asks nothing. When we access it, consciousness and awareness itself surges forward. It is at the root of Kundalini awakening (yet rarely noticed, due to the intensity of the experience which is the effect of it). It is that which allows us to create and destroy, that allows us to pass through dimensions of birth and death. It is identical to itself and therefore unperceivable.
Yet this is not a dead end but the final surrender of a belief in absolute separate identity, as in allowing That, a natural process of alignment occurs that moves beyond any concept of separation and beyond all personal agenda or concept.
