“The brain is in consciousness, not consciousness in the brain.”
Processing the plethora of information through conscious awareness is the human brain. The brain is the biological headquarters of information processing and as such, its service is best described as a receiver. Nondual Therapy rests on the experience that the brain is not the generator of consciousness or experience, but the processor of it. To put it more precisely: the brain is a denser vibration through which consciousness manifests into the physical. In the words of the author of Materialism is Baloney, Bernardo Kastrup: “The brain is in consciousness, not consciousness in the brain.”
What this means, is that brainpower is based not on creativity but receptivity; not on doing something or expressing, but on relaxation and opening in curiosity to the unknown. The brain is a receiver, but it also needs to filter information to preserve structure. Like any organ of perception, if there is too much data, or if information is causing too much stress to the whole system, it constricts the flow. It’s like squinting your eyes when the light is too bright, or pulling your hand away from a fire when it burns you, only with the subtler content of thoughts, feelings and frequencies of consciousness.
According to Kastrup: “This selection process is akin to a ‘filtering out’ of conscious experience: like a radio receiver selecting, from among the variety of stations present concurrently in the broadcast signal, that which one wants to listen to, all other stations being filtered out.”
“The key to this selection of reality is in the attunement, and this requires a meta intelligence which exists outside the box.”
Think of a Smart TV that connects to a global network of channels broadcasting live. Any channel is possible, but the hardware can only show you one channel at a time. The receptivity to channels brings possibility; the broadcasting involves a narrowing of choice, in which the selected channel becomes, temporarily ‘the reality’. The key to this selection of reality is in the attunement, and this requires a meta intelligence which exists outside the box.
Normally, this position is predetermined by physical reflex, or conditioned patterns. But as the brain is encouraged to relax through Nondual Therapy, an opening occurs in which deeper attunement is possible. Think of a radio nob: to decide which frequency we want and to get the most clarity, we turn the nob from left to right, listening until it’s exactly right. When we want to switch channels, we turn the nob again, surfing the white noise of confusion, until we pick up the station we need. This movement from left to right is a dance through duality. The listener is a Nondual position – the third point that allows balance to be found and that brings freedom of choice to the selection of live streams appearing in consciousness.
The physical brain and its thought processes operate through polarity. The evolution of the brain to achieve its maximum potential as both a manifestation and a channel of consciousness depends on its relaxation and opening to a field of infinite possibility. The opening of the mind depends on a movement out of the stress cycles of biological survival, or the opus operandi of fear. Irrational fears are generated through cellular and energetic contractions of feeling and emotion born of trauma, as well as through the influence of the social field. As these contractions are released, we also see a relaxation of the fixed structures of reality as reflected in forms of belief and thought processes. When habituated thought programs are released, we might at first experience white noise – or the fuzz of confusion before new frequencies of perception take form through the brain. As the client witnesses everything from the disappearance of old forms, to the confusion, and finally the rebirth of new forms, this witnessing can allow for a wider awakening and liberation of consciousness. At a certain stage, even the controlling movement of attunement surrenders to this deeper, unfettered consciousness that brings an inherent genius beyond any ‘smartness’ of the preconditioned mind.
“The nondual approach invests in the healing power of the unconditioned mind.”
Peter Fenner
