The God Fire in Our Individual Consciousness

Ineffable is the union of man and God in every act of the soul. The simplest person, who in his integrity worships God, becomes God; yet for ever and ever the influx of this better and universal self is new and unsearchable. It inspires awe and astonishment. How dear, how soothing to man, arises the idea of God, peopling the lonely place, effacing the scars of our mistakes and disappointments! When we have broken our god of tradition and ceased from our god of rhetoric, then may god fire the heart with his presence.

Ralph Waldo Emerson in his 1841 essay, The Over-soul weaves in and out of the mystery of God like a tiger lunging for meal in a galloping herd of prey. The God we worship is indeed the God that we become. There are multitudinous levels of consciousness that thrive in the value climate of our psychological reality. Various beliefs are formed and they are diverse and alien. Beliefs create images that lurk in myths as well as the imagination. People become what they perceive the self to be and wallow in thoughts of a God who abides by traditions and the rhetoric of religions.

Emerson understood that consciousness is like an ocean. As temperatures in different depths change, the color changes as well as the flora and fauna that thrive in their own value climate. We too experiences quality changes as our value climate expresses the distortions and limitations of our outer senses, but our inner senses are not distort. They inhabit our psychological value climate and see through the camouflage of our physical patterns as well as the flow of our distorted patterns and beliefs.

Our camouflage patterns follow the basic rules of our inner universe but reflect them in a distorted and convoluted manner. When we concentrate on and plunge into our inner value climate we dive below our own beliefs and look up and see a foundationless, floating group of beliefs that are enriched with shifting illusions caused by the wind of a non-egotistical will. When this value climate is experienced the most minute to the most gigantic spectrum of knowing becomes the god fire in our individual consciousness.

Deep in the Roots

The mind is ordinarily chock full with all kinds of intellectual nonsense and passional rubbish. They are of course useful in their own was in our daily life. There is no denying that. But it is chiefly because of these accumulations that we are made miserable and groan under the feeling of bondage. Each time we want to make a movement they fetter us, they choke us, and cast a heavy veil over our spiritual horizon. We feel as if we are constantly living under restraint. We long for naturalness and freedom, yet we do not seem to attain them.

Being so long accustomed to the oppression, the mental inertia become hard to remove. In fact it has gone down deep into the roots of our own being, and the whole structure of personality is to be overturned. The process of reconstruction is stained with tears and blood.

D.T. Suzuki in his introduction to Essays in Zen Buddhism is describing what we all believe is vital to a successful physical life. Without intellectual nonsense and passionate rubbish our reality would be a flat line of complacency that has a beginning and an end and both appear at the same point. This necessary group of thoughts and experiences is the catalyst for expansion, but that expansion is manifested in time segments which flow into our probable reality from a pool of consciousness.

We inherently possess pools or separate pockets of experiences where information from the inner self is collected and stored. This information is processed before flowing into our official pool of consciousness where thoughts become experiences. We innately have a selectively significant attribute that creates a reality using innate and learned beliefs to sense our own being, but that being is choked by our self-induced limitations. There are ways to dip into our side pools of consciousness and by pass the selective process and experience other realities physically.

Suzuki calls this pool dipping Zen or seeing into one’s own self nature, but the name is not important unless religious beliefs dominate this process of internal dipping. The pools contain past as well as future probabilities so we can pick up strands of our own consciousness and incorporate them into our physical reality. Explaining this process to the ego consciousness makes this process easier. Expansion does not need tears and blood to physically manifest unless we choose that path.

Deep in the roots of our own being is the natural freedom of expansion and we decide how and when we will experience those roots physically. Just like a tree that chooses to break in half and still grow we choose to break in half in order to grow.

A Minute Consciousness Capsule

Even to-day science and philosophy are still laboriously trying to part fancies from realities in our experience; and in primitive times they made only the most incipient distinctions in this line. Men believed whatever the thought with any liveliness, and they mixed their dreams with their realities inextricably. The categories of ‘thought’ and ‘things’ are indispensable here; instead of being realities we now call certain experiences only ‘thoughts.’ There is not a category, among those enumerated, of which we may not imagine the use to have thus originated historically and only gradually spread.

William James hits the vacillating nail of reality on the head with those thoughts from his 1906 essay, Pragmatism and Common Sense. The sense of separation rings true in our waking reality, and the union of consciousness is discounted in our dreams. Our boundaries of awareness expand in the dream reality and our inner senses operate freely in a world without physical matter. We travel without moving and see without eyes. The fact that both worlds exist in the same place is lost in a limited belief system which focuses on one aspect of the self.

The dream reality is the foundation for widening conscious comprehension. It is a pulling together or a minute consciousness capsule that enables the self to enter other energy fields. The astral body has been a belief for thousands of years; it is another type of energy capsule.

Thought as we perceive it then is created through the union we have with consciousness. Impulses sent from realities that exist within our world of energy capsules are catalyst for physical experiences as well as dream experiences. History it seems is a fruitless word, but an important word that makes sense of our own creations although all those creations have been experienced in many realties in the past as well as in the future.

There is no category to label dream experiences, but it is realistic to say that they reside in fancies, which are as valid as our self created ego consciousness.

The Wind of the Mind

The Buddha is your own Mind, make no mistake to bow (to external objects). “Buddha” is a Western word, and in this country it means “enlightened nature”; and by “enlightened” is meant “spiritually enlightened.” It is one’s own spiritual Nature in enlightenment that responds to the external world, comes in contact with objects, raises the eyebrows, winks the eyelids, and moves the hands and legs. This Nature in the Mind is the Buddha, and Buddha is the Way, and the Way is Zen.

D.T.Suzuki in his 1926 essay, Satori is explaining Zen and Buddhism in terms we all can understand regardless of our religious beliefs. In fact, his explanation sums up the teachings of all the worshipped sages over the years. The Way is in our own mind or consciousness and when we use it in tandem with our objective focus our world becomes a truly unique place.

The inner validity that is within the self forms the integrity of the physical body as well as the integrity of the social body. The inner self functions for the good of itself as well as the good of society. The individual good is society’s good and that action represents spiritual and physical fulfillment or enlightenment.

The inner universe of the self is the true frontier of discovery and exploring it illuminates the private aspects of reality as well as the experiences of the entire species. The ability to be aware of the unknown reality of Zen as Suzuki describes it is our natural state of being. In the cradle of Zen we meet our religion face to face and discover the unity of consciousness.

The names or labels we use for external worship become immaterial because the experience is not about worship; it is all about oneness within the emptiness of consciousness. That emptiness is filled with the bubbling voice of Zen that has nothing to hold on too, but the self that floats in the wind of the Mind.

Something Unknown is Doing We Don’t Know What

Enlightenment vanquishes Ignorance lying at the root of birth and death and laying fetters of every description, intellectual as well as effective. And this vanquishing of Ignorance cannot be achieved except by the exercise of one’s will power; all the other attempts, especially merely intellectual, are utterly futile.

D.T. Suzuki wrote those thoughts in his 1926 essay, Enlightenment and Ignorance. Ignorance is not lack of knowledge it is a subjective choice that outlines the blueprint of physical life. Within the outline of ignorance is an ever-flowing cycle of awareness that manifests physically in accordance with this innate impulse to connect with what we create physically. Those creations become the contrast needed to fill in the outline.

The blueprint for individual reality is an unknown because we think in terms of consecutive time so we assume that there must be an egg or a seed that produces a reality for consciousness. The seed or egg carries the future of reality in our ignorant state of thought, but the idea of first does not exist in the vast field of knowledge flowing in the stream of consciousness. That stream is not limited; it’s only our beliefs about the stream that create limitations. Inner knowledge is real, valid, and accessible at any moment since an inward reality creates an inward sequence of events that manifest as objective effects.

Scientific “workable” objective facts tend to enhance the ignorance since the facts are framed in certain vibrational frequencies. These facts prejudice thoughts about the nature of consciousness so immediate ego-based thoughts become the perceived blueprint of our consciousness.

That blueprint is just one aspect or effect of consciousness not consciousness itself. It is an intellectual attempt to know the something unknown that is doing we don’t know what, which is the basic element of ignorance. That something is actually consciousness units expressing physical life in an active and awareness producing way. Consciousness units expand the whole stream in the vastness of our inner reality.

Bound By Its Own Limitations

It seems to me that the real problem is the mind itself and not the problem which the mind has created and tries to solve. If the mind is petty, small, narrow, limited, however great and complex the problem may be, the mind approaches that problem in terms of its own pettiness... Though it has extraordinary capacities and is capable of invention, of subtle, cunning thought, the mind is still petty. It may be able to quote Marx or the Gita, or some other religious book, but it is still a small mind, and a small mind confronted with a complex problem can only translate that problem in terms of itself, and therefore the problem, the misery increases. So the question is: Can the mind that is small, petty, be transformed into something which is not bound by its own limitations?

Jiddu Krishnamurti was a 20th century writer and speaker on philosophical and spiritual issues. He constantly stressed the need to reconnect with the inner self and he emphasized that this unity cannot be brought about by any external entity, be it religious, political, or social.

We are taught that we are in our body and our mind is in the brain. We perceive our world through our senses and consider what we perceive to be reality. That reality is coated with beliefs that create the experiences we call life and we rely on external entities to confirm the legitimate aspects of those experiences. The mind develops a playing field filled with rules, regulations, and restrictions and we fence our self in a closed network of judgmental beliefs that hinder out innate freedom to be one in our multiplicity.

A few simple exercises reveal that we are not in our body; the body is within our consciousness and the mind is within our consciousness as well. In fact the world and universe we perceive is in that same consciousness. Everything is in an ever-expanding consciousness. We are an individual drop in that ocean and that drop can change the course of a wave or the ocean. When we become aware of our own self-imposed limitations we free ourselves and a transformation takes place. The separated self bound by controlling perceptions imposed by a mind that creates through others is transformed through inner self-created awareness.

Transformation of self created fragments is an ongoing process and it happens in different ways and in different space-time sequences for each consciousness unit. When limitations dissolve through enlightenment new awareness manifests and eventually what is known in oneness becomes what is known in fragmentation.

Where Strength is Born

And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity, and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others!

If any man considers the present aspects of what is called by distinction society, he will see the need of these ethics. The sinew and heart of man seem to be drawn out, and we become timorous, desponding whimperers. We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other.

Our age yields no great and perfect persons. We want men and women who shall renovate life and our social state, but we see that most natures are insolvent, cannot satisfy their own wants, have an ambition out of all proportions to their practical force, and do lean and beg day and night continually.

Our housekeeping is mendicant, our arts, our occupations, our marriages, our religion, we have not chosen, but society has chosen for us. We are parlor soldiers. We shun the rugged battle of fate, where strength is born.

Ralph Waldo Emerson in his 1841 essay, Self-Reliance speaks about responsibility in terms of recognizing the self and its connection with the god stuff we worship in others. The 20th century Indian philosopher and teacher Krishnamurti had the same thoughts:

This is no magnificent deed, because I do not want followers, and I mean this. The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth. I am not concerned whether you pay attention to what I say or not. I want to do a certain thing in the world and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies.

Truth as we see it is only a fragment from a dangling perception of self. We fear this fragment along with all the other fragments that we create from the separation of self within the stream of consciousness. Our universe is a mass shared dream; a dream that presents reality in a certain light. This dream is meaningful as well as creative, but in order to understand it we must go to another level of consciousness where separation blends into the oneness of no space time. It is there within the clear channels of consciousness that we stand outside of this dream and experience the self as god.

Science and society does not comprehend this inner reality until the individual chooses unconsciously to open the gates and allow inner commerce and communication to manifest. This inner meeting place offers answers, solutions, and complete blueprints of every experience of consciousness. It is where strength is born and where we become whole in the ever-flowing stream of god stuff.

Krishnamurti explained that place this way:

And to take such a journey we must travel light; we cannot be burdened with opinions, prejudices and conclusions - all that old furniture ... forget all you know about yourself; forget all you have ever thought about yourself; we are going to start as if we knew nothing.

Brotherhood of the Cells

He who in pursuit of the shadow tires out the body, does not know that the body produces the shadow; and he who attempts to stop an echo by raising his voice, does not understand that the voice is the cause of the echo.

A disciple of the Zen Master Hui-k’e wrote those thoughts in the sixth century. Chasing shadows and hearing echoes is learned behavior; it seems we spend a great deal of energy doing just that when it comes to our political and religious beliefs. The political shadow is a dualistic form shaped by our limited beliefs about the nature of individual as well as mass identity. The echo we hear is our own voice that comes from within the walls of ignorance. Both try to tell us something about the nature of our consciousness.

There is a private blueprint of consciousness that is greater than our physical materialization that occurs within this space and time. This blueprint provides us with areas of choice that are filled with probabilities and we have the final word on what to choose and what to ignore from that blueprint. Our cells however react to the complete blueprint and an idealization of psychic patterns occurs that fuels growth and development of the cells in terms of physical information. The blueprint is our real shadow that casts light on what we perceive. We use impulses to create physical probabilities that already exist within the blueprint.

The spiritual brotherhood of the cells connects all individuals within a species. The faint echo of biological idealization exists within all of us, but it’s muffled by the lack of appreciation we have for the great individuality of each cell within us. Our cells work so well together we overlook their individual uniqueness until they are affected in some way by our thoughts.

We don’t understand the experiences of our eternal world because we haven’t achieved the spiritual brotherhood that is inherent in each cell. When the body is injured the cells immediately begin a cooperative effort to heal it. When the race is hurt the same biological force is set in motion and a mechanism of consciousness tries to heal it, but our ignorance of our biological cellular brotherhood slows down the process.

One segment of our species can not grow or expand at the expense of other portions for very long, but the eternal shadow and echo chasing does helps create a psychic opening for other aspects of consciousness which reveal solutions once the resistance abates.

As the cells respond at certain levels to an ever-present stream of probabilities our thoughts change. The body responds to those thoughts and the reaction of the cells alters our environment and the brain responds to the alteration. The shadow and the echo are messages that express the experiences we choose in life.

Detached Yet Whole

Therefore whatever of matter (or body) there is , whether of the past, of the future, or of the present time, whether internal or external, whether coarse or fine, mean or exalted, far or near, all matter (or body) is to be regarded as it really is, in the light of perfect knowledge. One who thus seeing the world turns away from the world is truly freed from evil passions and has the consciousness of freedom. Such is called one who has the obstacles removed, trenches filled, one who has destroyed , is free, one whose fight is over, who has laid down his burden, and is detached.

D.T. Suzuki uses this thought from the Majjhima Nikaya in his 1927 essay, Enlightenment and Ignorance. Perfect knowledge is knowledge in action. The action of the cells is perfect knowledge since the cells function in the past, present, and future, but we only sense the present action in our time sequence. We carry a blueprint of perfect knowledge which is capable of bringing about the most favorable version of a self in the probable system that we understand.

These blueprints exist spiritually, mentally, and physically; they biologically exist at every level of the self, but they also exist apart from it in the place of no place in the complete action called consciousness. The physical self carries information from these blueprints and that information is used to draw the theories, ideas, and technologies we use individually as well as in mass. This blueprint of impulses is perfect, but is never done or finished because there are inherent characteristics of creativity which seek to surpass or expand physically as well as non-physically.

A fragmented self tries to construct these blueprints in the perfect image of perfect knowledge, but the separation from other aspects of the blueprint makes the quest for perfection a relentless effort filled with egotistical expressions.

The inner world of perfect ideas and impulses are rooted in the consciousness of self and are fulfilled through the selective significance of the individual. Accepting our created reality for what it is allows the cells to draw from this perfect knowledge. The God-stuff in us creates the physical stuff which becomes the oneness of this inner and outer reality.

In that moment we are detached, yet whole and we reach for ideas that are beyond the walls of a resistance filled awareness and we find other fragments of our infinite nature.

Gratitude

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.
It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial
into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.
It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.
Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today,
and creates a vision for tomorrow.

Melody Beattie the author of Codependence No More puts the meaning of gratitude in terms everyone can understand. We always find the art of accepting, allowing, and appreciating staring us in the face, but our focus may be somewhere else. Gratitude is a message that is rooted in all religions. It may be dressed in a suit of authoritative boundaries, and it may be armed with stipulations that impose selective restrictions on its use, but gratitude is always waiting to shine the light of abundance on our journey through life.

A few simple thoughts about gratitude unlock the door of knowing and a chasm of emptiness is filled with the abundant and ever-giving stream of our own consciousness.

If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is,
"thank you," that would suffice.
~Meister Eckhart

Let's be grateful for those who give us happiness;
they are the charming gardeners who make our soul bloom.
~Marcel Proust

Best of all is it to preserve everything in a pure, still heart, and let there be
for every pulse a thanksgiving, and for every breath a song.
~Konrad von Gesner

The Integrity of Truth

The whole notion of truth, which naturally and without reflexion we assume to mean the simple duplication by the mind of a ready-made and given reality, proves hard to understand clearly. There is no simple test available for adjudicating offhand between the divers types of thought that claim to possess it. Common sense, or corpuscular philosophy, ultra-critical science, or energetics, and critical or idealistic philosophy, all seem insufficiently true in some regard and leave some dissatisfaction. It is evident that the conflict of these widely differing systems obliges us to overhaul the very idea of truth, for at present we have no definite notion of what the word may mean.

William James in his 1907 essay, Pragmatism and Common Sense opens an inter canal of knowing that is hard to dismiss without feeling a twinge in the solar plexus. Truth is a fragment in this physical world of beliefs. Beliefs are boxes of truths that bend and expand based on our significant selection of thoughts.

We vibrate to the music of probable constructs or prejudiced perceptions, and assign a meaning to them. These perceptions have roots in truth. We also block other thoughts that have just as much credence as our focused thoughts. We find the self accepting a series of truths that we accept as our reality.

Reality is born out of our selective thought process and belief structure.

The Opaque Air of Consciousness

All that we call sacred history attests that the birth of a poet is the principal event in chronology. Man, never so often deceived, still watches for the arrival of a brother who can hold him steady to a truth, until he has made his own. With what joy I begin to read a poem, which I confide in as an inspiration!

And now my chains are to be broken; I shall mount above these clouds and opaque airs in which I live, opaque, though they seem transparent, and from the heaven of truth I shall see and comprehend my relations. That will reconcile me to life, and renovate nature, to see trifles animated by a tendency, and to know what I am doing. Life will no more be a noise; now I shall see men and women, and know the signs by which they may discern from fools and satans.

Ralph Waldo Emerson is his 1844 essay, The Poet is certainly connected to the opaque air of poetry. When we use our innate senses we become the poets we know ourselves to be. It’s no longer necessary to worship what lies above the clouds for it is our own consciousness that reconcile our lives and renovate nature in terms of our awareness of it.

We could look at figures like Christ, Mohammed, Buddha and all the influential figures we worship in our religious beliefs as poets for they steady truth until we sense our own. Churches certainly used a collective ego consciousness to hide some of these truths for control purposes and the individual self gets lost in the word which is a fabrication or fragments of the inspiration that exists within our collective consciousness.

Dominance and control for economically sound religious reasons transforms ego consciousness into a separate entity that dictates inferiority, but the inferiority of nature and the poet are not tarnished by religious principles. Life is not a noise in the pure air of opaque truth; it is an innate sense that clearly understands that religious concepts keep tribes together, provide social structure, and helps insure physical survival.

It is the awareness of self that opens the clouds and breaks the chains so the poet within us all discerns the foolishness, but the necessity of fragmented religious beliefs.

A Power in the Mind

It is the growing conscious of a new power in the mind, which enabled it to judge things from a new point of view. Ever since the unfoldment of consciousness we have been led to respond to the inner and outer conditions in a certain conceptual and analytical manner. The discipline of Zen consists in upsetting this artificially constructed framework once for all and in remodellling it on an entirely new basis. The old framework is called Ignorance and the new one Enlightenment.

D.T. Suzuki in his 1927 essay, Satori is explaining how consciousness is constantly changing and expanding in awareness. Basic units of consciousness are the foundation, frame, and framework for the expansion of the essence as well as the fragments of self that Suzuki calls Zen.

Consciousness units make up and form all the atoms, cells, molecules, and organs that make up a world. The great organization abilities of consciousness expand the collective from its own precognitive information which produces the impulses that create probabilities. The cells sense the future but the future is only experienced in the now. The cell’s now is a combination of the past and future in our terms and that creates the experience of the now.

There is a constant give-and-take type of communication between the cell in the now time and the cell as it was in the past or as it will be. The present cell is the focused result of a before and after of itself in time and from that knowledge it receives its present structure.

The spiritual and biological presence of cells cannot be separated. Their reality and purpose merge so consciousness is constantly creating a conglomeration of probable issues, abilities, and conditions to be experienced. Ignorance of self is one of those conditions that we choose to experience in order to expand each fragment of the self. Enlightenment is the awareness of a greater self that is a blueprint of consciousness in all forms. Therefore, enlightenment is a progressive state of awareness that continues to create units of consciousness that form new frameworks of expression.

A new power in the mind is expressed in the energy of its own enzymes and that power manifests as the mind becomes aware of its ability to know itself in the expression of fragmented enlightenment.

Rippling Energy

We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. Maugre all the selfishness that chills like east and west winds the world, the whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether. How many persons we meet in houses, whom we scarcely speak to, whom yet we honor, and who honor us! How many we see in the street, or sit with in church, whom, though silently, we warmly rejoice to be with! Read the language of these wandering eye-beams. The heart knowth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote those thoughts in his 1841 essay, Friendship. Emerson used more than his five senses to write thoughts. His words have innateness about them; they’re filled with knowing, but are wrapped in the film of self-created ignorance. There is an energy within us that permeates all thoughts and we constantly project it outward so it mingles with other energy. This energy needs no verbal confirmation or effort to interact with other forms of energy it is always received and utilized in some fashion.

Everyone at some point in time experiences the warmness and the kindness that Emerson talks about, but most of us don’t think much about it. Some say its physical attraction or a kindred spirit that wakes up certain emotions when a person or a group of people just “feel right” about each other. There is a constant flow of energy from us that creates the experiences we call life and we accept some of them and ignore and discount others that are equally filled with this energy of consciousness.

Different actions are stimulated by the energy we receive from others and that can be confusing as well as interesting especially when the action doesn’t fit into the box of perceived, but limited facts we build around our persona. This energy can come from people we don’t know or even interact with physically; energy moves freely and doesn’t need effort or action to stimulate it.

The point is we can focus this energy with intentions and we often do, although we don’t realize it. We prompt individuals to act or say something that is based on beliefs we deem true. We create our own reality but there is a rippling effect created by other energy emissions. When we become aware of the power of this energy it can be directed in kindness and appreciation. We can honor and be honored by accepting the fact that as consciousness all things are connected and all energy creates actions that become experiences in some reality.

Dew from the Nucleus of Self

Penetrate into the ultimate truth of mind,
And we have neither things nor no-things;
Enlightenment and not-enlightenment they are the same;
Neither mind nor thing there is.

Dhritaka the sixth patriarch of Zen expresses his thoughts about non-physical consciousness in this translation. No one is sure exactly what Dhritaka meant when he expressed those thoughts centuries ago, but it is safe to say he was explaining an aspect of self that is functioning in the void of no-thing. This void and the emptiness within it are filled with consciousness units that expand to experience other elements of self.

The belief in religion has in one way or another followed the development of these consciousness units so religion does serve a purpose. Although much of the information about the inner void is distorted by religion some of the messages it reveals touches on aspects of our inner reality. In historic terms the development of religion gives us an interesting picture of the development of human consciousness and the growth of ideas that describe the individual.

The individual physical self is becoming more aware of inner conscious knowledge and that opens new thoughts about the nature of the self. As we do become more aware we recognize that this physical self goes beyond the concepts of one body, one self, one god and one world. The ability to experience other species of consciousness which Dhritaka identifies is as real as this physical world.

The world is moving from the era of religion to the era of the self. The difference is religious beliefs actuality devalue the individual; they emphasize the collective, and they emphasize greater powers than the individual and that emphasize authority. Religious beliefs don’t focus on the individual, except when they are discounting the significance of the individual and emphasizing the significance of the authorities.

The ultimate truth of religion is an interlocking yet free flowing stream of impulses that expands with awareness. The religion of self is constantly expanding as the no-thing expresses impulses that recognize the interaction that exists within basic units of consciousness. Enlightenment and non-enlightenment are the same in consciousness as drops of awareness touch the self with dew from the nucleus of self. Religion becomes a compliment in this multiply self awareness process.

Dimensions of Self

Time rules over all our doings. An idealist does not necessarily ignore the objective aspect of reality, but his eyes are always fixed at one point which stands by itself, and his surveyings are done from this absolute point. The doctrine of abruptness is thus the result of looking at the multitudinousness of things in absolute unity.

D.T. Suzuki in his 1927 essay, The History of Zen is explaining the difference between the two schools of Zen Buddhism that developed during the 7th century. Hui-neng is considered the founder of the Southern school and Shen-hsiu is the Northern school’s founder.

The Southern school teaches that enlightenment is instantaneous and the Northern school takes to position that enlightenment is gradual and requires a lot of time and concentration. Hui-neng was an advocate of absolute idealism while Shen-hsiu was a realist and refused to ignore a world where time rules over all our doings. The difference that exists in those schools is inherent in the human trait of selective significance.

The concept of Zen as well as God is connected to the development of ego consciousness. The ego as it emerged in physical form through the centuries needed to feel its own dominance and control so it imagined a dominant god that exists apart from us and nature. Nations often act as group egos that form their own picture of god and its own concepts of power. When a tribe or a nation decided to create a war it always used a concept of god to lead it as well as protect it.

The concept of god was an important aid to man’s emerging ego. In the process of developing its own specialization the ego forgot the cooperative connection to the earth. The concepts of god that spoke of oneness with nature did not serve the emerging ego as it experimented with physical reality. The ego does know and understand the connection with animals, man, and the earth and as it expands it does remember those connections.

That inner self is always in the background in dreams as well as in the spiritual and biological integrity of consciousness, so the ego has a choice how to experience other aspects of the self. Consciousness, God, Zen are all spontaneous as Hui-neng described and they are gradual and need time as Shen-hsiu believed. Personal beliefs about the nature of self created experiences can be defined in religious as well as spiritual terms. We are unique in our own self-created limitations about the nature of self.

The self fragments and is expressed through consciousness in order to experience differences. All differences have value in terms of expansion. One self can manifest enlightenment spontaneously and another does it gradually. As the separation between the ego and the inner consciousness decreases, the always present inner dimensions of self flower in their own desires.

Attainment Through Self-Realization

While the attainment of Buddhahood was the ultimate goal of his teachings, the Buddha was practical and always close to the facts of life and insisted in his ordinary sermons on a life regulated by moral rules.

Nor had he any desire to disclose intellectually or metaphysically the content of enlightenment which must be experienced but cannot be explained. He never neglected to emphasize the significance of self-realization for enlightenment was to be attained personally through one’s own inner consciousness.

D.T. Suzuki's 1927 essay, History of Zen, explains how Buddha founded a non-religious belief system free from spiritualistic superstitions. His beliefs found root in the Fourfold Noble Truths and the Twelvefold Chain of Causation. Professor Suzuki is an expert in translating Zen doctrine. Suzuki explains Buddha never thought his followers would use his teachings as the foundation for a religion without considering the support of an inner spirit or consciousness. Buddha's teachings only reflected one side of his beliefs, not the whole field of his awareness.

Identifying an aspect of a whole and calling it a complete truth has roots in a specific belief structure that dominates the expression of physical thoughts. There is a greater field or identity independent of the focused self. And it is very much alive and aware of all realities. We all have been mentally, biologically, and spiritually prejudiced against recognizing this field as part of the self. Enlightenment is the awareness of this field, but the expression of that field varies according to the individual belief.

Some touchy aspects of the field start to press inner buttons. We keep those unpressed in our belief system. Then, most of us train ourselves to ignore them. The universe within us is in motion thanks to the action of consciousness. Our consciousness sees itself as the center of our world when focused. The units of consciousness that emerge into electromagnetic energy units express themselves in the moment using the cells.

The illusion of separation creates an inner chasm, but it disappears when we view our reality from another perspective. We do it every day in the dream state. We enter the non-physical and build a bridge. On that bridge, enlightenment can express itself physically using units of consciousness not restricted by beliefs. The innate awareness of our duplicity expands conscious ideas displayed by the physical expression of experiences.

Universal Echo

Deep In The Canyons Of Consciousness
Families Dress Themselves In Enzymes.
Nothing Expands Into A Plethora Of Particles
That Encapsulate A Wave With Unfiltered Awareness.

A Force Filled Form Of Being Manifests Itself
In Tandem With Molecules Dress As Frigates
Of Timelessness.

Elusive Probabilities Actively Dance
In The Fertility Of The Moment.
Energy is Captured In Choices
As A Web Of Being Expands Within Abundance.

Focusing Water Drops Bounce Manifestations
Off The Walls Of Remembering.
They Free Fall Into Primordial History.

Swallowing Another Reality Entrenched In Its Own Juices
Existence Eats The Cracker of Immortality
And Spits Out Another Blip Expressed As Conscious Consciousness.

Simultaneously Wisdom Speaks
In Bilingual Silence
And Our Universal Echo Reaches Eternity.

Second Mile Award

Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.

Groucho Marx made that comment sometime during his illustrious career as an actor, comedian, and singer. Groucho lived to the ripe age of 87, but his energy and work is still alive in the hearts of everyone who has held their side splitting gut while laughing at the antics of the Marx brothers. They skillfully made us look at our culture and ourselves with different eyes. Groucho’s 1950s TV show was one of the highlights of a three channel television industry that was trying to find a way to capture the attention of the young who were fortunate enough to own this new fangled communication tool. TV was an infant in those days but in its old age it’s now younger than ever in its approach to defining our current cultural idiosyncrasies.

There’s no doubt that age is not wasted on the old. Thanks to Groucho and thousands of elders, age is an interesting subject that teaches us all that life is an experience to enjoy and appreciate. Men and women who have put enough miles on the body to move the needle of time to another dimension in living give us all the fuel we need to keep our engines running and lubricated with the energy of love and the desire to be more than we believe we are.

My friend and award-winning poet Janet Riehl has embraced the art of growing older by initiating the Second Mile Award dedicated to her father, Erwin A. Thompson, who will turn his needle to the 95th spot on the age wheel this November 9th.

Janet explains the Second Mile Award this way:

The Second Mile Award honors Elders 75 years and older whose dignity, character, creativity, and connection to community have quietly contributed to the world around them.

My father based his life on the parable of the Good Samaritan: Matthew 5:41: “And whosoever shall compel you to go a mile, go with him, go twain." My birthday present to him is to establish an annual Second Mile Award. The holder of the 2010 award receives a $500 honorarium, a certificate designed by my niece, and publication on Riehlife of the nomination essay

To find out how to nominate an Elder, learn more about the award, the meaning of the Second Mile, and my father's life go to this link:http://www.riehlife.com/this-site-2. The deadline for nomination essays is November 9, 2010--my father's birthday. He'll join me in reading the essays to determine the holder of the 2010 Second Mile Award.

Join me in celebrating the essence of this award and nominate an elder over seventy-five that has impacted life in a normal as well as special way. The award recognizes one individual, but all those nominated receive the award of knowing that age is a very interesting subject.

Prisoner of the Flesh

Thus, because our senses sometimes deceive us, I wanted to suppose that nothing was exactly as they led us to imagine. And because there are men who make mistakes in reasoning, even in the simplest matters in geometry, and who commit paralogisms, judging that I was just prone to err as ay other, I rejected as false all the reasonings that I had previously taken for demonstrations. And finally, considering the fact that all the same thoughts we have when we are awake can also come to us when we are asleep, without any of them being true, I resolved to pretend that all things that have ever entered my mind were no more true than the illusions of my dreams. But immediately afterward I noticed that, while I wanted thus to think that everything was false, it necessarily had to be the case that I, who was thinking this, was something. And noticing that this truth─I think, therefore I am─ was so firm and so assured that all the most extravagant suppositions of the skeptics were incapable of shaking it, I judged that I could accept it without scruple as the first principle of the philosophy I was seeking.

Then examining with attention what I was, and seeing that I could pretend that I had no body and that there was no world nor any place where I was, I could not pretend, on that account, that I did not exist at all, and that, on the contrary, from the very fact that I thought of doubting the truth of other things, it followed evidently and very certainly that I existed; whereas, on the other hand, had I stopped thinking, even if all the rest of what I had imagined had been true, I would have had no reason to believe that I had existed. From this I knew that I was a substance the whole essence or nature of which is simply to think, and which, in order to exist, has no need of any place nor depends on any material thing. Thus this “I” that is to say, the soul through which I am what I am, is entirely distinct from the body and is even easier to know than the body, and even if there were no body at all, it would not cease to be all that it is.

Rene Descartes the 17th century philosophy wrote those thoughts in his 1637 work, a Discourse on the Method for Conducting One’s Reason Well and for Searching for Truth in the Sciences. Part four of the work is where Descartes puts his thoughts about existence in terms that are easy to understand. Thinking and believing are the ingredients for reasoning, but consciousness or the soul in religious terms exists without those ingredients.

Reasoning distorts any innate information even though it is a portion of our being. This active part of our being is not recognized as the official self. This selective significance causes a bit of corporal dishonesty or a cellular imbalance since the cells are made up of these units of consciousness that exist in the non-physical as well as the physical world. The body still responds to the innate impulses of the cells and psychological activity percolates that create hunches, premonitions and other experiences that don’t fit into the rational framework of the self.

Descartes experiment shows how consciousness can conform and shape itself without form and the results can be experiences that are typically called out of body or a heightened level of awareness. These messages from other aspects of the self are used in a variety of ways even when we are not consciously aware that we are using them. We often try to avoid certain probable actions based on a hunch or some sort of impulse that develops spontaneously out of egotistical fear.

The body is a pattern and the material that composes it constantly changes due to the consciousness within the cells that trigger expanded centers of consciousness that respond to external world conditions. Probabilities are determined using cellular activity that is a portion of the “I” as well as the “I” itself. There is nothing to prevent us from viewing the world without a body except our beliefs about consciousness being a prisoner within the flesh which as Descartes discovered is not necessarily a truth.

Flower of the Mind

The poet knows that he speaks adequately, then, only when he speaks somewhat wildly, or, “with the flower of the mind;” not with the intellect, used as an organ, but with the intellect released from all service, and suffered to take its direction from its celestial life, or, as the ancients were wont to express themselves, not with intellect alone, but with the intellect inebriated by nectar. As the traveler who has lost its way, throws his reins on his horse’s neck, and trusts to the instinct of the animal to find his road, so must we do with the divine animal who carries us through the world. For if in any manner we can stimulate this instinct, new passages are opened for us in nature, the mind flows into and through things hardest and highest, and the metamorphosis is possible.

Ralph Waldo Emerson in his 1844 essay, The Poet does speak with the “Flower of the Mind” as he describes the basic units of consciousness that carry us through this world. His presence is the result of his poised consciousness choosing its perceptions from a predictable field that is connected to a greater field of organization. Emerson’s words are not about past history as much as they are a comprehension of future probabilities. His cells like all cells are precognitive.

That’s the instinct that dwells in the unknown channels of our mind and manifest in artistic expressions that wildly speak from a world that recognizes the intellect as an organ, but uses the nectar of consciousness to break it down, and reassemble it to create a metamorphosis that we call enlightenment or thinking with no mind.

The world of the artist blinks on and off pulsating from one creative impulse to another. Atoms, molecules, electrons and other phenomena are constantly in motion and the holes of non-existence that exists within the blinking are filled with selectivity. The blinking chooses significant experiences around which life is felt. The automatic sensations of one kind of life create barriers for other world schemes that don’t correlate or are not in sync with selective personal blinking. The blinking in and out of realities is always an individual experience that is realized as awareness drops from the curtain of separation.

Like the flower that blooms from its bulb we are consciousness from the bulb of our essence. We are modern day cavemen that venture out into the daylight of our objective awareness to explore the dimensions of selfhood that exist between the holes of selectivity that are comfortable and familiar. New passages open as the self recognizes that it is only one petal in the flower of the mind.

Body Stability

It’s a secret which every intellectual man quickly learns, that, beyond the energy of his possessed and conscious intellect, he is capable of a new energy (as of an intellect doubled on itself), by abandonment to the nature of things; that besides his privacy of power as an individual man, there is a great public power, on which he can draw, by unlocking, at all risks, his human doors, and suffering the ethereal tides to roll and circulate through him: then he is caught up into the life of the Universe, his speech is thunder, his thought is law, and his words are universally intelligible as the plants and animals.

Ralph Waldo Emerson in his 1841 essay, The Poet is describing the basic units of consciousness that express themselves in physical life. Faster than the speed of light CU units exist outside as well as inside the framework of light itself. They give it meaning. The extraordinary communication system within the body is dependant upon the constant flow and flux of these units.

Consciousness units form the mind as we know it. The structure of the brain is formulated as CU units permeate mental enzymes. The body’s survival is determined by these units propensity for significance and selectivity. But the body’s reality remains constant in a seeming constant existence thanks to this form of consciousness. Although the body appears permanent and in existence from one moment to the next, it is constantly rising out of a plethora of probabilities. Probabilities hover at the point of now in terms of perception and experience. The body’s stability is dependant on the knowledge of future probabilities as well as past ones.

The present is the result of our own poised consciousness. We limit the present by our own thoughts and beliefs about the nature of our reality. Emerson is challenging those beliefs and in his own 19th century way is explaining that each individual is aware of other intensities and concentrations of consciousness. We use these units to express our individual reality as well as the collective one.

Units of Nothing are the Seeds of Everything

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.

Stephen Hawking co-author of the new book, The Grand Design made that statement at some point in his illustrious scientific career. Few of us question Hawking’s desire to explore the unexplored using scientific truths to answer complicated questions about the universe and the existence of physical life. In that quest Hawking excels but he still fumbles over the question of nothing as far as a rational definition is concerned.

The nothing that spontaneously created the plethora of universes that Hawking and his co-author Leonard Mlodinow describe is indescribable in rational terms, but so are the atom as well as the cells and molecule in our bodies. We only observe and accept what we believe in terms of their abilities as well as accomplishments, but they are capable of performing incredible feats that defy rational descriptions. Those units of consciousness function in time and space but also function outside the limited boundaries of those dimensional characteristics.

Hawking’s statement about intelligence is short and to the point. All energy has the ability to change and does because it is rooted in the foundation of unpredictability units of consciousness. These fundamental units of consciousness could be called electromagnetic energy units. Each unit has the innate infinite properties of expansion, organization, and development, but they always maintains their own individuality. Regardless of what organization a unit becomes part or how it mixes, its own identity is never destroyed. These units are not personified, but they are awareized and they are the source of all kinds of consciousness, so its activities are infinite.

Their unpredictability allows them to become aspects of infinite patterns and fulfillments. They are the vitalizing force behind everything in our physical universe. They can appear in several places at once without going through space which means they can be in all places at once. They can not be recognized because they always appear as something else. They move faster than light and there are millions of them in one atom.

Each unit is aware of the reality of others and can influence others. They can move forward as well as backward in time and can more into aspects of time which are foreign to our limited awareness. All psychological structures are composed of these energy units and they all are endowed with desire and the propensity to create and expand. Since these units all exist at once they are aware of all the organize structures that they are part of, so all possible realities are connected by these units.

All matter is based on these units and their propensity for exploring all probabilities so our atomic structure is poised between probabilities created from the unpredictability of these units. Obviously then we are only aware of one small probable portion of the self we call our identity. That small probable portion is our focused reality.

All systems are being constantly expanded as well as created by these units of consciousness. The nothing that describes the spontaneous creation of our universe as well as the creation of all the universes is rooted in these units of nothing which are the seeds for everything.

The Self is a Divine Master

The two eyes of the soul of man cannot both perform their work at once: but if the soul shall see with the right eye into eternity, then the left eye must close itself and refrain from working, and be as though it were dead. For if the left eye be fulfilling its office toward outward things, that is holding converse with time and the creatures; then must the right eye be hindered in its working; that is, in its contemplation. Therefore, whosoever will have the one must let the other go; for ‘no man can serve two masters.

Meister Eckhart is explaining his multiplicity in religious terms in his work, Theologia Germanica. Our self-created separation is obvious in his words. The left eye is the ego consciousness and the right eye is the inner self. Understanding how to allow the right and the left eye to sense the inner as well as the outer at the same time has been the quest of man ever since consciousness became physical in this dimension.

Man’s physical inception was the result of the left and the right eye working in unison, but free will gradually created a world filled with the idea that man had to serve something outside of himself or a divine master. That divine master is the inner self which is connected to every aspect or quality of consciousness. We are trained through our belief in science to deal with predictable actions, but the motion of consciousness is unpredictable. Our cells straddle probabilities and trigger responses. Consciousness rides on and within vibrational pulses and it forms it own organization. The cohesive picture of our reality is the result of the unpredictable energy of consciousness.

The self as divine master had to surprise himself or herself constantly by granting itself its own freedom or it would stagnate in staleness. So the unpredictability of the right eye flows through all qualities of consciousness.

Our beliefs and intents instigate what we pick to experience from an unpredictable group of actions which the right eye wants to experience physically. The actions that are not chosen from this energy occur on another level and are experienced by another self connected to the nuclei of the self. Probabilities intersect in different realities and out of this unpredictability an infinite number of ordered systems manifest. Anything less than complete unpredictability will result in stagnation. So the left eye has the freedom of motion to experience what it chooses and expands from that choice.

Rather than serving two masters we serve the oneness of our own consciousness in a uniquely unpredictable way.

Other Portions of the Self

There is something we must admit, in Zen that defies explanation, and to which no master however ingenious can lead his disciples through intellectual analysis. Zen is after all is not a thing to be gained through understanding. But once the key is within one’s grasp, everything seems to be laid bare before him; the entire world assumes then a different aspect. By those who know, this inner change is recognized.

D.T. Suzuki in his 1927 essay, Satori explains something which even after it’s explained takes on the air of the unexplained. Zen or consciousness is a whole that will not be broken down in words or symbols. Basic units of consciousness are in the non-physical, but all things physical spring from the innate properties of its expansion. Consciousness develops and organizes a plethora of realities, but within itself always maintains its own individuality. Regardless of the organizations that it becomes part of, or mixes with, its own identity is never destroyed or annihilated.

The varieties of its activities are infinite as well as unpredictable. That unpredictability allows for an infinite number of patterns and experiences. Once we recognize or sense this unpredictable consciousness that is a whole part of us we are able to draw from this vast bank of unpredictable actions and identify the ones that are significant to us. The result of that private significance is what seem to be predictable actions.

Propensity then is a selection of significance or the inclination to form a selected experience. The harder we work to create an official accepted idea of the self the more we block our innate unpredictability, which means we allow our ego consciousness to choose from a predictable set of patterns that are comfortable as well as familiar. But the element of unpredictability creeps into our physical consciousness and creates contrast in order to expand the whole and from this action we expand our awareness of self.

As the awareness of self expands we develop a greater identity of the multiplicity of the self and our reality changes. As Suzuki mentions Zen or consciousness is a greater identity that is aware of its probable existences and expresses impulses that suit its own unpredictable nature.

Something Flashes Upon My Reason

I become aware of something in me which flashes upon my reason. I perceive of it that it is something, but what it is I cannot perceive. Only meseems that, could I conceive it, I should comprehend all truth.

Meister Eckhart the 14th century German theologian, mystic, and philosopher had his share of physical and mental challenges Eckhart continued to express his thoughts about the nature of consciousness even though they were completely foreign to religious beliefs at that time, and in a sense, are still very esoteric thoughts for those who have limited their awareness. Eckhart’s statement shows that he recognized other aspects of the self that he explained as a perception that he could not fully perceive using rational thoughts.

Everything that materializes in this reality independently exists in another reality. Imagination is the vehicle that allows us to tap into those other realities and we manifest them on this plane. Consciousness forms its own mental interactions and physical organizations at all levels. Consciousness tries to express itself through probabilities and does in some form. The all that is complete its own being is experienced through these probabilities, but is interpreted through familiar significance. Probabilities grow like petals of a flower and each one follows its own reality using some aspect of the self.

Eckhart is expressing the truth of multiply probabilities and selves six centuries ago. We like to deal with things in a predictable way so we perceive a small amount of data in a very limited way. We don’t see the unpredictability of the molecule, atom, or wave that is apparent but not in focus. Our true order of multiple selves can only be perceived by granting ourselves the freedom to express our own unpredictable nature. Just like the wave, particle, and atom the self is free-wheeling, unpredictable, and undetermined. The result of an unpredictable group of selves adds to the structure of this reality even when we are unable to perceive or conceive them through our limited awareness.

Seeing Into Our Multiple Self Nature

The essence of Zen consists in acquiring a new viewpoint of looking at life and things generally. By this I mean that if we want to get into the inner most life of Zen, we must forgo all our ordinary habits of thinking which control our everyday life, we must try to see if there is any other way of judging things, or rather if our ordinary way is always sufficient to give us the ultimate satisfaction of our spiritual needs.

D. T. Suzuki is explaining the essence of Zen Buddhism in his essay On Satori, but his statement applies not only to Zen, but to understanding the self or the various aspect of the self that move in and out of choices and probabilities to create experiences.

The self is not controlled by the ego consciousness. alone. We look at the self as a singular, but it is actually a gestalt nucleus that contains a plethora of selves that are constantly in motion. The psyche is a conglomeration of highly charged particles of energy that follow properties and rules that are simply unknown to us consciously. The intensity of the nucleus attracts certain masses of the entire energy available to a particular identity or self. In other words each self vibrates at a particular frequency and they blink in and out of various realities in order to experience beliefs and choices.

At birth our identity is composed of a variety of selves which are attached to a self nucleus and from that bank of selves the ego has the freedom to draw and create a personality. The other selves become trace selves which help form a particular personality. The abilities and interests of these trace selves become subsidiary or they remain latent, but on occasions these highly charged selves exert as much energy as the focused self and they may actually interact and experience things in another reality which we call unreal. At certain points in life the sportsman self is not as active as the writing self or the business self, but they still are present and can be energized in this reality by the focus self by forgoing our ordinary habits of thinking.

Zen is not about the separation. It's units of consciousness that express themselves by “doing without doing” or “seeing without eyes.” Intent is stabilizing and no system is closed so becoming aware of the unification of self or the impetus of Zen is the act of seeing into our multiple self-nature.

Non-Theological Exploration

Those who are esteemed umpires of taste, are often persons who have acquired some knowledge of admired pictures or sculptures, and have an inclination for whatever is elegant; but if you inquire whether they are beautiful souls, and whether their own acts are like fair pictures, you learn that they are selfish and sensual. Their cultivation is local, as if you should rub a log of dry wood in one spot to produce fire, all the rest remaining cold. Their knowledge of the fine arts is some study of rules and particulars, or some limited judgment of color or form, which is exercised for amusement or for show. It is proof of the shallowness of the doctrine of beauty, as it lies in the minds of our amateurs, that men seem to have lost the perception of the instant dependence of form upon soul.

There is no doctrine of forms in our philosophy. We were put into our bodies, as fire is put into a pan, to be carried about; but there is no accurate adjustment between spirit and organ, much less is the latter the germination of the former. So in regards to other forms, the intellectual men do not believe in any essential dependence of the material world on thought and volition. Theologians think it a pretty air-castle to talk of the spiritual meaning of a ship or a cloud, of a city or a contract, but they prefer to come again to the solid ground of historical evidence. But the highest minds of the world have never ceased to explore the double meaning, or, shall I say, the quadruple, or, the centuple, or much more manifold meaning of every sensuous fact.

Ralph Waldo Emerson in his 1844 essay, The Poet is explaining an interesting belief we have about the separation that exists within the self or the nucleus of the self. We believe in fragments and act out those fragments in order to experience them physically. Consciousness is unpredictable and within every action there is a conglomerate of energy units that surface as needed in order to express the essence within all consciousness. That essence is expressed in the energy of awareness and experienced by all aspects of the consciousness or the soul (in religious terms) of each fragment.

Hence different selves choose unpredictable probabilities differently so the consciousness within can experience every aspect of itself and sense the artistic creativity of being a whole fragment of another whole. The world of the self is more than historical facts that produce an erasable path of meaning. It is a world of vibrational harmony that resonates with the desires of each unit flowing through individual consciousness.

Art in present time is not material creations alone; it is the unpredictable energy that manifests from those energy units which then become another experience of consciousness. We choose a separate shell of being in order to sense the inner beauty of self that sends truth through vibrational impulses where all aspects of consciousness merge into a flowing stream of non-theological exploration.

The Meaning of Understanding

An appeal to the analytical understanding is never sufficient to comprehend thoroughly the inwardness of a truth, especially when it is a religious one, nor is mere compulsion an external force adequate for bringing about a spiritual transformation in us. We must experience in our innermost consciousness all that is implied in a doctrine, when we are able not only to understand it but to put it in practice.

D.T. Suzuki in his 1926 essay, Doctrine of Enlightenment explains the separation we experience within the self. Our analytical understanding gets in the way when we explore the nature of the inner self. Religious truths are filled with rational concepts as well as limitations. We innately assume it is impossible to experience something that we believe is impossible within the boundaries of our reality. The intellect is designed to assess the practicality of an action, but spiritual transformation is an individual expansion of the inner self that we physically put in practice without effort. We are taught that all expansion is the result of effort or hard work, but consciousness does not conform to our limited beliefs about the self.

Thoughts, like cells, have their own sort of structure and they pursue their own fulfillment. Thoughts move towards familiar thoughts and as a species we have a mass body of thought that we draw from and as we experience those thoughts cells change and our personal environment is altered in some way. We experience a constant give and take of thoughts and our bodies respond as we believe it should. We accept one specific consciousness as real and ignore others which makes effortless expansion difficult to understand. It also makes the concept of communicating with our inner self a hit and miss experience.

The process of experiencing one aspect of our consciousness and ignoring other aspects automatically causes a breakthrough into other areas of consciousness. Solutions for a wide variety of limited beliefs expand in some way. As Suzuki points out we should allow our innermost consciousness to express itself without effort. We allow our cells to operate without effort and they form a brotherhood even though we ignore the individuality of each cell. We are the same spiritual brotherhood as our cells and when that brotherhood is expressed physically without analytical understanding we put in practice the limitless probabilities and choices that change the meaning of understanding.

An Unpredictable Fashion

Ignorance is departure from home and Enlightenment is returning. While wandering, we lead a life full of pain and suffering, and the world wherein we find ourselves is not a very desirable habitat. This is, however, put a stop to by Enlightenment, as thus we are enabled once more to get settled at home where reign freedom and peace. The will negates itself in its attempt to get an insight into its own life, and dualism follows. Consciousness cannot transcend its own principle. The will struggles and grows despondent over its work. ‘Why?’ the intellect asks, but it is the question no human intellect can ever hope to solve; for it is the mystery deeply inherent in the will.

D.T. Suzuki in his 1927 essay, Enlightenment and Ignorance explains how we create while we are in a state of ignorance or self-inflicted limited awareness. Our creations are manifestations of the self. The self is connected to the awareness that exists within the whole of consciousness, but our focus restricts total awareness from seeping through all the cracks of thought until we release ourselves from the illusion of separation.

The consciousness wants to experience dualism physically and expand from the contrast created by the process of energy moving through varying aspects of its own consciousness. In the act of expressing the inner self we transcend the principle of an unpredictable consciousness.

Fragments of enlightenment occur when a focused self changes in a predictable fashion, but the unpredictable mystery of multiplicity is still hidden in the sludge of self-created limitations. Claiming unity through enlightenment is an attempt to know our own multiplicity even though our beliefs about multiplicity are limited by the self-created fear of what we already know.

The struggles we deal with are chisels that gradually break through self-constructed limits. Enlightenment of the self is the ongoing action of energy moving through a chosen dimension. In each dimension the self expands using this energy. The intellect is restricted by beliefs, but the desire to expands through awareness still occurs. Self expansion affects all consciousness in an unpredictable fashion.

Truth of the Cosmos

The faces of all the snowflakes that have fallen on the earth for millions of years have all been different; water crystals emerge for twenty to thirty seconds as the temperature rises and the ice starts to melt and the truth of the cosmos become visible, if only for a few moments.

Masaru Emoto wrote those words in the prologue of his best selling book, The Hidden Messages in Water. At first glance his message seems to be a bit unrealistic, but his findings begin to make some sense when we reign in our thoughts, and listen to our conscious mind. The truth of the cosmos lies where we fail to look; it rests quietly in the conscious mind that expresses itself physically as well as non-physically. How then do we describe the conscious mind in a manner that makes rational sense? The answer of course is the conscious mind can not be understood completely using external senses and preconceived beliefs. The conscious mind seeps through the cracks of rationality, and permeates the essence of all energy.

Trying to draw a mental picture of our complete conscious mind, and how it acts has certainly been a life quest for all humans. We try to make some sort of sense of physical life. We use our beliefs structure to confirm the myths we create. All these actions are energetic expressions of the conscious mind functioning within the stream of consciousness.

We can think of consciousness as an ocean. Within an ocean there are individual water molecules that function as a unit, but they are actually independent qualities of the whole consciousness. The molecules act as a group, but they also can act on their own. Water molecules can change their form and express their reality in different ways. Water crystals express emotions, but we don't believe water has emotions. We are over seventy percent water as adults so water does display emotions. The conscious mind exists within a belief structure, but it also exists as an ocean.

The unknown realms of the ocean are known to the molecules in the ocean just like the unknown aspects of the self are known and expressed by different energy within the conscious mind.

The Constant Flow of Impulses

In the prologue of his best selling book, The Hidden Messages in Water, Dr. Masaru Emoto writes:

Water has the ability to copy and memorize information. We may also say that the water of the oceans has memories of the creatures that live in the ocean. The earth’s glaciers may well contain millions of years of the planet’s history.

Water circulates around the globe, flowing through our bodies and spreads to the rest of the world. If we were capable of reading this information contained in the memory of water, we would read a story of epic proportions.

Emoto’s words stimulate questions about how we perceive ourselves as well as how we perceive the other qualities of consciousness that surround us. The idea of water having a memory and the ability to copy information is certainly not part of our conscious education about the nature of water.

Water is essential for physical survival. We are ninety nine percent water as fetuses and ninety percent water when we’re born. We contain seventy percent water as we mature, and at death we contain about fifty percent water. Most of us don’t give it much thought, but since water is a form of energy it’s capable of creating vibrational impulses.

Where do thoughts like this one come from? Some thoughts come from physical awareness, but what creates that awareness? We all have impulses and imagination, but how do we define and experience impulses and imagination? Are they the same thing as thought? The common belief about impulses is they are thoughtless actions created by emotions. In a sense that’s true; emotions are signals from our inner consciousness and a form of communication.

The nature of thoughts, impulses, and imagination has been the catalyst for the philosophical debates that have raged for centuries. Religion and science define consciousness and thought in different ways and those definition become beliefs. Any thoughts that conflict with those beliefs are usually trivialized or ignored. Emoto’s ideas about the consciousness of water certainly don’t conform to mainstream beliefs.

Perhaps water thinks in a different way using vibrating impulses rooted in another region of consciousness. The concept of ocean’s thinking in some way is not part of our belief system, but our beliefs structure is always expanding. Thoughts are actually manifested energy that develops from impulses and imagination. Inner consciousness communicates with the ego self through impulses which stimulate emotions and we communicate in different ways. Other aspects of consciousness also manifest energy but our belief system blocks our acceptance of this energy until awareness seeps through the cracks of our body consciousness and expands our beliefs.

Impulses from our inner self send signals to our physical or ego self and thoughts develop from those impulses. Imagination is a series of impulses that create mental pictures or thoughts about future expectations or past experiences which then become reality in one form or another.

We are constantly receiving impulses from our inner world of consciousness. The world of consciousness is connected to a spring of consciousness. Every quality of consciousness communicates using impulses of some type. All consciousness may not create thoughts from those communications, but they do vibrate using impulses from the inner spring of consciousness.

Humans are a unique quality of consciousness. We have the ability to create using impulse received from their inner world as well as from the impulses received from the inner world of other forms of consciousness.

We constantly communicate with each other using impulses as well as imagination, and we send those impulses to others. We don’t believe we can communicate without words so the impulses of others are often ignored. Words are expressions of emotions attached to beliefs and associations that are familiar. We ignore unfamiliar messages from inner consciousness, but those messages are always received and remembered somewhere in our body consciousness.

All impulses are energy that manifest in some way. Thoughts develop perceptions or they expand beliefs or initiate fears that prolong separation. The acceptance as well as the ignorance associated with the constant flow of impulses we receive is rooted in the awareness of self and the inner world of consciousness.

When we begin to listen to our own impulses as well as the impulses received from other forms of consciousness our beliefs expand and our experiences change. We can then turn those impulses into physical energy that changes our lives into a story of epic proportions.

Mental Storms

Zen is a matter of character and not of intellect which means that Zen grows out of the will as the first principle of life. A brilliant intellect may fail to unravel all the mysteries of Zen, but a strong soul will drink deep of the inexhaustible fountain. I do not know if the intellect is superficial and touches only the fringe of one’s personality, but the fact is that the will is the man himself and Zen appeals to it.

D. T Suzuki in his essay Satori explains Zen in terms we all can understand. Zen expresses life or the experiences within a focused physical reality. Will or consciousness is a deep well of knowing and Zen is the river that originates from the well and wets the awareness as we allow our intellect to rest. Intellect is an expression of ego so there is a chasm between the intellect and the will even though both function in this stream of consciousness.

The will vibrates with impulses that are rooted in innate desires that expand the essence of consciousness. The intellect dissects these impulses and chooses how to interpret them based on the beliefs established by the ego. The truth of Zen is covered by a separated personality that accepts the limitation of rationalism, so truth becomes a personal belief filled with associations and alterations. The character of consciousness expands from this separation and eventually merges in the river as the awareness of Zen is accepted rationally even though there are no rational concepts in the enzymes of Zen.

We create mental storms, emotional earthquakes and self consuming floods that bring the intellect into the river where it is baptized by Zen and then becomes it. This experience is not measured in time; in fact it’s not measured at all. It is what we already are as we express it without thought.

Zen Awareness

This body of ours is something like an electric battery in which a mysterious power latently lies. When this power is not properly brought into operation, it either grows moldy and withers away or is deformed and expresses itself abnormally. It is the object of Zen, therefore, to save us from going crazy or being crippled. This is what I mean by freedom, giving free play to all creative and benevolent impulses inherently lying in our hearts.

D.T. Suzuki wrote those thoughts in 1926. Suzuki’s work is still considered the best explanation and description of what we call Zen. Zen is doing without doing; being without being. It is expressing innate impulses without reflection or emotional ownership. It is one of the ghost chemicals that powers the energy within the human psyche. Ghost chemicals have been called a plethora of names in order to make some rational sense of their senselessness./p>

Our bodies are electomagnetically charged by mental enzymes from the inner self. These enzymes create individual thoughts. We constantly think and create beliefs. Beliefs produce our expereinces.There is meaning in every thought, but not all thoughts reach physical fruition. Zen thought flows through the part of the conscious mind that is no attached to the brain. Zen shows itself physically using vibrational forces from the inner self. The brain has a difficult time processing Zen since the part of the conscious mind that is attached to the brain is focus objectively rather than subjectively.

We sense a freedom within the awareness of Zen, and that freedom is an aspect of the inner self's unity. The Zen awareness that flows from the inner self is translated according to our beliefs. Some of us may call it the hand of God, others use different names that reflect the nature of their belief structure. Whatever the name, our consciousness is telling us something about our subjective self. Our subjective self is innately free; our objective connection to that freedom is enlightenment. Enlightenment is the objective awareness of the multiplicity of self.

Energy Drips

Theologians have by this time stretched their minds so as to embrace the Darwinian fact’s and yet to interpret them as still showing divine purpose. It used to be a question of purpose against mechanism, of one or the other. It was as if one should say “My shoes are evidently designed to fit my feet, hence it is impossible that they should have been produced by machinery.” We know that they are both: they are made by machinery itself designed to fit the feet with shoes. Theology need only stretch similarly the design of God. As the aim of a football-team is not merely to get the ball to a certain goal {if that were so, they would simply get up some dark night and place it there), but to get it there by a fixed machinery of conditions: the game’s rules and the opposing players; so the aim of God is not merely, let us say, to make men and to save them, but rather to get this done through the sole agency of nature’s vast machinery. Without nature’s stupendous laws and counterforces, man’s creation and perfection, we might suppose, would be too insipid achievements for God to have designed them.

William James wrote those thoughts in his 1906 essay Some Metaphysical Problems Pragmatically Considered. He makes a good case for creating stupendous laws and experiencing diversity in a myriad of forms in order to sense the Godness of being physical. Godness is just a word for a collection of different qualities of consciousness experiencing a particular manifestation in order to expand in the mental enzyme called awareness.

Awareness is the rudimentary force of being in one state of consciousness and flowing to another in a stream of energy. Awareness can be called divine for it is rooted in the soil of complete consciousness. Complete means whole in rational and pragmatic terms, but complete may be the moving force of energy that separates in order to sense aspects of the whole. Whole may mean a certain focus in awareness that presents itself to experience various senses. Whole knows the self through its own awareness, but it is flowing through a complex set of grids and connections that produce dimensional planes of awareness where consciousness expands.

We are one aspect of consciousness experiencing the complete whole in a subjective as well as objective way. Awareness drips through energy grids into the conscious mind and creates. God as we define the term is the culmination of these energy drips as well as the force that sense them. We are connected in the action of consciousness. We are a manifestation of aware energy remembering other qualities of the self in an image called God.

Natural Zenliness

Zen is a matter of character and not of intellect which means that Zen grows out of the will as the first principle of life. A brilliant intellect may fail to unravel all the mysteries of Zen, but a strong soul will drink deep of the inexhaustible fountain. I do not know if the intellect is superficial and touches only the fringe of one’s personality, but the fact is that the will is the man himself and Zen appeals to it.

D. T Suzuki in his essay Satori explains Zen in terms we all can understand. Zen is not a religion. It is energy. Some religions may teach the denial of the flesh, but Zen embraces it. The soul is wrapped around our muscles and bones; it wants to experience physical reality not object to it. Philosophies that teach denial of the flesh are really teaching denial of the self, and that fuels guilt.

The soul vibrates to the energy of Zen. The body is not a thing. It is the living expression of our conscious mind. The unconscious level of the very conscious mind expresses itself through the evolution of consciousness. The expanding universe theory applies to the world we see around us, but it also applies to the conscious mind. When we try to limit the conscious mind, we create beliefs that restrict the flow of our own natural Zenliness.

We have a tendency to deny the power we have within us. We gave our power to others and we experience a distorted version of Zen. Our Zen is constantly growing. It is our responsibility to water it with acceptance and fertilize it with understanding.

Bridge Beliefs

Let man; then, learn the revelation of all nature and all thought to his heart; this, namely; that the highest dwells with him; that the sources of nature are in his own mind, if the sentiment of duty is there.

Ralph Waldo Emerson in his 1841 essay, The Over-soul points out a simple fact that has been mixed into the vat of religion and the end product is completely different than the ingredients. The highest as Emerson explains dwells within the consciousness of all things, but this aspect of consciousness is not higher than the consciousness we experience physically; it is another quality or region of the same consciousness.

Religion calls this quality of consciousness God. The word and the symbol of God is shaped into a form that all humans can understand. Beliefs about God change in one way or another as our core beliefs expand. We are taught to worship and fear this region of consciousness, but there is nothing to worship or fear. The rituals and traditions as well as superstitions and half-truths about God are created by us to feel God physically in some way.

The sentiment of duty that Emerson recognizes is our ability duty to allow the conscious mind to naturally sense the unity that flows through all consciousness. Our beliefs are like planets. Our ideas and thoughts orbit around our core beliefs, but just like planets some of our beliefs are hidden from our conscious mind. At some point, these invisible beliefs attached themselves to our core beliefs and help create our experiences.

When we examine our thpughts and ideas, we discover that some of energy within them can be used to bridge the gaps between beliefs. We stamp these ideas with certain characteristics that are familiar. These ideas become bridge beliefs.

Bridge beliefs contain powerful energy. We use them to alter our beliefs and create new ones. The core belief in God is one of those beliefs that is being reshaped by several bridge beliefs.

Consciousness Shines

Thus in all ways does the soul concentrate and reproduce its treasures for each pupil. He, too, shall pass through the whole cycle of experience. He shall collect into a focus the rays of nature. History no longer shall be a dull book. It shall walk incarnate in every just and wise man. You shall not tell me by languages and titles a catalogue of the volumes you have read. You shall make me feel what periods you have lived. A man shall be the Temple of fame. He shall walk, as the poets have described that goddess, in a robe painted all over with wonderful events and experiences; his own form and features by their exalted intelligence shall be that variegated vest.

I shall find in him the Foreworld; in his childhood the Age of Gold; the Apples of Knowledge; the Argonautic Expedition; the Calling of Abraham; the building of the Temple; the Advent of Christ; Dark Ages; the Revival of Letters; the reformation; the discovery of new lands; the opening of new sciences, and new regions in man. He shall be the priest of Pan, and bring with him into humble cottages the blessings of the morning stars and all the recorded benefits of heaven and earth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote those words in his 1841 essay, History. Emerson understood the power that lies within the inner self. He called that self the soul. He knew that history is an experience lived by each conscious mind. Within each self is genius; a mighty creator that thinks thoughts from ideas received from other portions of the conscious mind. Each individual consciousness contrives a life to experience and lives it to feel thoughts physically.

The age of awareness is lifting us from the chasm of separation. The genius within all life is expressing itself in the colorful vibrations. Each moment is a chapter in the flowing book of consciousness where imagination and emotions become a reality. Each reality is filled with ancient stories and forgotten sciences that surface when individual desires become an intense focus. The power of our mental enzymes can move rationalism into the corridors of metaphysics. The history of life rests in the humble appreciation of our multiplicity. Our consciousness shines through the eyes of the conscious mind.

Invisible Walls Of Consciousness

Rat and Women
What’s master of the body?
Not mind or spirit.
It’s somewhere in the mind’s depths,
Pervading the universe.

To herd a flock of sheep
Is beyond the power of dogs.
No, it’s the shepherd─God─
Swinging a rat’s tail.

There’s snow on the ground
And, on the hillock, a naked women.
Now I’m free to do anything
On sure ground.

Nothing gives offense:
My every deed,
Free as the mind itself,
Leaves not a trace.

The 20th century master poet Shinkicki Takahashi’s work can be read on a number of levels. His work is considered Zen thought so trying to grasp the meaning of each word is a challenging adventure. Each word is a symbol for vibrations that bounce off the invisible walls of consciousness. These vibrations find a home in each individual psyche. His poem Rat and Women is a good example of how difficult it is to put a fence around consciousness, and then brand it in the comfort of rational thought.

Takahashi had no intention of branding his expressions. His expressions quickly find a place of remembrance within the corridors of mental awareness. The master of the body as well as the mind is somewhere within the depth of the self, but that is unchartered territory for educated complacency. The laws of unification break down, and then rearrange themselves as the mind dangles from the nerve endings of separation.

Freedom on sure ground is not a place filled with matter; it is a hillock in motion. It is where the speed of the topography is universally stable in its own mythology. Nothing gives offense as Zen moves towards the center of a spec of mindfulness and blooms with tracelessness.

And so it is. We find ourselves swinging a rat’s tail, and wondering how to free the mind from the chasm of separation. Suddenly we discover that the rat’s tail is the mind, and it frees itself. Our every deed leaves no trace, but the imprint of consciousness on our conscious mind.

Challenges Create Motivation

A kind of naturalism is almost universally recommended by religion, even by Christianity, which lays so much stress on the moral life as distinct from the life of the instincts. It is no wonder that its history is littered with ideas and even practices reflecting those of the Free Spirit. By virtue of its strong ethical idealism, Christianity has stood against the occasional attacks of antinomianism and spiritual lawlessness, but the fact remains that the feeling of absolute dependence, or letting God take entire possession of your will and thought inevitably leads to the libertinism of natural impulses, which is ‘the freedom of the spirit.’

D.T. Suzuki, the 20th century Japanese scholar, is considered an authority on Buddhist philosophy. He dedicated his life to teaching as well as learning about Zen or the quality of consciousness that dances in and out of everyday living. Suzuki dwelled in a state of awareness that transcended intellectual symbols. His conscious mind was connected to a particular aspect of consciousness, and that connection enabled him to express impulses that originated in the corridors of the universal mind. Buddhism was the vehicle he rode to travel through different qualities of consciousness, and Zen was the driver.

Suzuki’s thoughts about self separation are not unique; historical evidence of self separation is identified in every known philosophy. Living in two worlds, but only remembering one is the fundamental principle behind most Western religions. Religion presents itself as the connector between those worlds, but the laws and structure within those beliefs restrict the ability to experience and sense the freedom of the spirit that is a whole part of physical being.

In order to recognize our innate Free Spirit that blends impulses into thoughts, one must be aware that the open system of being or an Zen experience can manifest in every moment. That knowing is rooted in the aspect of self that is buried under the rubble of rationalism. Using a shovel of awareness, we can gradually remove the mental debris created by beliefs. Those beliefs bury part of self in religious mystery. We realize that modern duality and ritualistic beliefs have been a poor substitution for unity.

The fact remains that dualistic ritualism is the method of discovery in physical form even when the awareness of other aspects of consciousness are recognized. Our challenges are our motivation. Linear awareness and our freedom of the spirit are challenges that create our perception of reality. Without them we would not expand in this pot of time and space.

Beliefs Are Building Blocks

Metaphysics has usually followed a very primitive kind of quest. You know how men have always hankered after unlawful magic, and you know what a great part, in magic, words have always played. If you have his name or the formula of incantation that binds him, you can control the spirit, genie, afrite, or whatever the power may be. Solomon knew the names of all the spirits, and having their names, he held them subject to his will.

So the universe has always appeared to the natural mind as a kind of enigma, of which the key must be sought in the shape of some illuminating or power-bringing word or name. That word names the universe’s principle, and to possess it is, after a fashion, to possess the universe itself. ‘God,’ ‘Matter,’ ‘Reason,’ ‘the Absolute,’ ‘Energy,’ are so many solving names. You can rest when you have them. You are at the end of your metaphysical quest.

William James expressed those thoughts in his 1906 essay, What Pragmatism Means. The quest to find an answer to unknown aspects of the self rests in giving them a name based on our systematic value system. Once a spiritual belief is acknowledged by name, and then incorporated into physical life in some way, part of the riddle of life is solved.

Names give things character. Nothing important in human terms is unnamed; it must have a moniker to be respected and understood. The name may be filled with gray matter and fabricated truths, but name associations are accepted as fact. We create new beliefs and they conform to accepted names and then we experience them through our ideas and feelings. Feelings are a natural part of our reality. They are an extremely powerful form energy. Feelings have an impact on every phase of our reality, and that includes the weather.

A mind boggling as well as mind stimulating element of the self dances through linear time and dresses itself in the costume of the age. This aspect of the self opens cracks in our belief structure thorough physical experiences, and we expand our consciousness. Our beliefs are building blocks. We create them through metaphysical as well as objective stimulation.