Tuesday, June 26, 2012

External Debris

In envisioning the way things are, there is no better place to begin than with modern science. Equally, there is no worse place to end. . . . Science dominates the modern mind. Through and through, from premise to conclusion, the contemporary mind is science ridden. Its sway is the stronger because we are unaware of its extent.

Huston Smith, the religious studies scholar, expressed those thoughts in his 1958 book, The World’s Religions. Our beliefs are the foundation for our experiences so even false beliefs seemed justified to the conscious mind. Science and religion are deeply rooted in our physical reality. Most of the knowledge we have about those two beliefs comes from influences, associations and conscious ideas. Ideas that materialize in the conscious mind are usually a mixture of the data we receive from the experiences we create for ourselves, and filtered material from the inner self.

The inner self automatically offers us new ideas, but we have a tendency to block that natural process using our existing beliefs. The inner self acts a catalyst for the conscious mind, but our existing beliefs take on a life of their own so we don’t listen to our inner voice. We become a dual entity, and our life’s purpose is immersed in a puddle of confusion. We betray the self and don’t realize it.

The nature of the inner self is fueled by spontaneity. The decisions it makes are valid, but when we refuse to allow it to function, the conscious mind becomes cluttered with external debris. Science and religion makes up some of that debris. The creative power to form our own experiences never leaves us, but we are taught that it does through science as well as religion. Science and religion are just tools we create to experience physical form. When we turn those tools into hard core facts, we betray the self. This behavior is passed from one generation to another until we change our ideas about our creative abilities, and the nature of the self.

We all choose the individual beliefs and patterns that create our personal reality. Within that reality are endless varieties of actions as well as unlimited resources. The conscious mind is so focused on our physical reality that it often perceives our physical phenomena as the cause rather than the result. That misconception puts the physical before the non-physical. The inner self reminds us in one way or another that this is not the case. But, some of our choices tend to create louder voices in order to fulfill our desire to expand in uncomfortable dualistic ways.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Reservoir Of Life

Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness. We all have reservoirs of life to draw upon, of which we do not dream.

William James expressed those thoughts in one of his 1906 Lowell Institute lectures at Columbia University. James understood that we only accept ideas that we believe are true even though there is a steady stream of conscious mind-chatter. That chatter is filled with pertinent information about the self. We are all able to use that knowledge if we expand our beliefs about consciousness. James also understood that we only accept suggestions given to us by another if they fit into our preconceived ideas about the nature of our reality. It seems we only use a small portion of our conscious mind, and that restricts us when it comes to accepting any sort of change.

We are only half conscious when we reject the intuitive ideas that come from the vast wisdom within the psyche. False beliefs create mental roadblocks, and they give the inner self a faulty picture of reality. One example is religious manipulation. The belief in man-made religions has created a wall between the inner self and the conscious mind. Religion uses several controlling devices to limit the amount of information that comes from the inner self. Those controlling devices are anchored in the belief about sin. We believe we sin every day, based on our belief about salvation. Salvation is a controlling device that keeps us from listening to our inner self. All of our beliefs are covered in the rubble of man-made truths not inner truth.

When our reality is riddled with misconceptions, the inner self begins to make adjustments. The inner self takes corrective measures and bypasses these fabricated restrictions by expelling energy in other layers of consciousness. When this happens we usually call it a revelation. The result of any revelation is a new way of thinking, and thinking is the main ingredient in forming as well as expanding beliefs.

Our thoughts create our events. If we think the physical world is evil we will experience events that appear evil. There are no accidents in consciousness. Our beliefs grow in time and space like flowers in a well-watered garden. How they grow is our responsibility. If we recognize and then draw on the reservoir of life, which is the fertile stream of consciousness that exists within the inner self, our physical world becomes a dream. It’s the dream where inner truth fuels our beliefs.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

The Window Of Everything

The nature of oneness is our original Mind, of which we are conscious; and yet there is neither the one who is conscious nor that of which there is a consciousness. To see into the absolute one or unconsciousness is to understand self-nature; to understand self-nature is not to take hold of anything. Self-nature is from the first thoroughly pure, because there is nothing to take hold of.

Shen-hui, the 8th century Chinese philosopher, explains the subjective self in somewhat obscure objective terms. Our subjective self is constantly transmitting insights and intuitions to the conscious mind. We have been educated to believe that this inner self is dangerous and can’t be trusted. We have turned off the power that opens the vault where our truth resides. We have been schooled to accept our difficulties as penance for some alleged deed that spiritually marred all of us, and that belief has tainted our ability to freely interact with the nature of our oneness.

Beliefs and ideas form the foundation for our experiences. The reasons why we believe what we believe are in the conscious mind. If we believe that the reasons are buried in some past life, we create a mental roadblock that keeps us from altering our individual reality. When we come to terms with the fact that we form our own reality, we begin to liberate the inner self, and taste the fruit of our own self-nature. We are responsible for our own being. Our self-nature joins with the flesh of our own choosing. Our self-nature chooses to experience a life filled with incredible beauty so we can help create a dimension of vivid colors and spectacular forms. We are here to enrich our own self-awareness, and to feel the power of the energy that fuels our individual consciousness.

We are not here to complain about the miseries of the human race; we are here to change them. When our conscious mind allows our self-nature to look out into the physical world we see the reflection of our own spiritual activity. When we perceive and assess that reality we have the ability to change it using the gift of self-nature. That gift comes from the consciousness we dress in religious terms, but religion is riddled with fear, guilt and control. We take ownership of those properties and hold them in our psyche. That is our choice. We can also choose to take hold of our self-nature, with our own conscious mind, and experience the window of everything.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Conscious Beliefs

Our own life is the instrument with which we experiment with truth.

Thich Nhat Hanh, the author, teacher, peace activist, and monk wrote those words. Thich wrote more than 100 books. Forty of the books are in English. He spent his life practicing the art of finding peace within.

Our conscious beliefs guide body functions. The inner self or non-physical self creates our physical consciousness, including our ego. Our non-physical self directs our outward physical activity as long as the ego is in sync with those directions.

Our non-physical self is not a closed system, but we think it is. We tend to fear our inner thoughts, so we adopt other beliefs to conform. That practice distorts the data received from the non-physical, and we find ourselves living in an ego-centered world. Thich calls that world experimenting with the truth.

There are different truths. Religious, political, social, and the truth we hold in our core beliefs have an impact on our choices and perceptions. Our core beliefs are the foundation that creates our perception of reality. Core beliefs include Truth, Sex, Religion, God, Relationships, Emotions, Perceptions, the Senses, Duplicity, and the Universe.

These beliefs or truths form our reality. Physical life is for the experience of experimenting with these core beliefs. We create them to express value fulfillment in a specific physical focus. That process is an individual one, but we use the collective to confirm it. We believe there is confirmation in numbers, so the collective truth becomes gospel regardless of how it manifests.

The non-physical self constantly sends data to the ego, but the ego doesn’t have to use that data. But when the ego uses the non-physical self to examine our core beliefs and the reasons behind those beliefs, our perceptions and reality change. Understanding where our beliefs come from gives us the ability to change them. We are the instrument that creates the truths we live.

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Scientific Gibberish

One of the major questions that has dominated discussions of mysticism since the publication of William James’s classic work, The Varieties of Consciousness, is whether or not there is any core mystical experience that is common across cultures and traditions. Some philosophers say yes, but “constructionists,” who argue that all experience, including mystical experience, is constructed from and filtered through a variety of inescapable personal and cultural experiences, say no.

Roger Walsh in his essay, Mapping and Comparing States brings up an interesting point about mystical experiences that change the way we look at the self. We look at the self as only a body and a mind. The body, we think, is solid and the mind is located somewhere in the brain.

Those beliefs limit the way we look at physical reality. Consciousness is structured in various ways. There are regions, densities, forms, aspects, elements, and individual qualities of consciousness. All qualities of consciousness are in a perpetual state of expansion. The fuel for this expansion is the awareness of consciousness itself.

Mystical experiences are part of our expansion, but they are not mystical to the subjective self. Experiences contain innate information that creates awareness. Our thoughts, emotions and beliefs create experiences, and they trigger varying degrees of awareness.

Trying to put our subjective self in a box of rules and regulations is like trying to capture the air we breathe today and use it tomorrow.

There are no boundaries when it comes to mystical experiences. We form countless version of the self and we use them to become aware of the other aspects of our consciousness. We do it without doing and become without being aware of that becoming.

What the caterpillar in us calls death is called life to the butterfly self within us. That butterfly is the mystical self that experiences life.