Our Dancing Consciousness

In song and dance man expresses himself as a member of a higher community; he has forgotten how to walk and speak and is on the way toward flying, dancing into the air. His very gestures are of enchantment... He feels himself to be a god, going about in ecstasy, exalted, like the gods beheld in his dreams... He is no longer an artist; he has become a work of art. In a paroxysm of intoxication the creative power of all nature has come to light in him at the highest rapture of the one that is All. Nature, with its true voice undissembled cries out to us: "Be as I am! I, the primordial ever-creating mother amidst the ceaseless flux of appearances, ever impelling into existence, externally finding in these transformations satisfaction.

Friedrick Nietzsche, the 19th century German philosopher, gives us his thoughts about the nature of our conscious mind. Dancing is art in motion. Dancing is the paint, brush, and canvas for the music within us. Dancing gives us a means to release the emotions that fester in the ego. It gives us the opportunity to be as we are, and move through one dimension of time into another. We find comfort and freedom without restrains in each movement of our physical dance.

The ego dances with the conscious mind as we perceive reality, and we learn new steps in our expanding physical experience. The ego moves the lens of the conscious mind in tandem with our dance steps, and we sense the richness as well as the folly of our self-created tango of beliefs. When we swing the ego lens through our dimension of time, we suddenly realize of the instinctive knowledge and inner freedom we possess.

Looking through this lens we see another part of the conscious mind twisting with the music of creativity.

Where All Things Exist

Zen is the ultimate fact of all philosophy and religion. Every intellectual effort must culminate in it, or rather must start from it, if it is to bear any practical fruits. Every religious faith must spring from it if it has to prove at all efficiently and livingly workable in our active life. Therefore Zen is not necessarily the fountain of Buddhism thought and life alone; it is very much alive also in Christianity, Mohommedanism in Taoism and even in positivistic Confucianism. What makes all these religious and philosophies vital and inspiring, keeping up their usefulness and efficiency, is due to the presence in them of what I may designate as the Zen element.

D.T Suzuki explained the life force, which permeates all consciousness in his 1949 book Essays In Zen Buddhism. Zen is a region of consciousness. Zen is not a product of Buddhism; it is the source of Buddhism and every other religious belief. Western religious groups call this life force by other names, but the energy captured within those names comes from the same region of consciousness that Suzuki identifies. Our beliefs about the nature of this region creates the mystery that surrounds its existence.

When we examine our belief structure, and consciously change the beliefs that don’t give us the experiences we want, we discover the power of Zen. Zen is the region where all things exist. In that region, energy manifest very quickly. Our imagination illuminates the light of Zen, and our emotions signal the physical presence of Zen. Our imagination, beliefs, and emotions create our world. These psychic elements constantly change our reality even when we are unaware of the power within them.

Information Is In A Constant State Of Change

Facts do not carry labels indicating the appropriate level at which they ought to be considered. Nor does the choice of an inadequate level lead the intelligence into factual error or logical contradictions. When the level of the knower is not adequate to the level of the object of knowledge, the result is not factual error but something much more serious: an inadequate and impoverished view of reality.

E.F. Schumacher, the Buddhist economist, may be considered a bit judgmental by some readers. In the view of our essence, all realities and levels of awareness are acceptable to the conscious mind experiencing them. We attract awareness like a magnet. Awareness always moves toward the consciousness that is attracting it in the form of information. Information is never dead; it is connected to all those who originate, perceive, accept and understand it. Information is in a constant state of change.

The inner portion of the conscious mind is filled with unique information. That information has already been used by some form of consciousness. When the conscious mind stimulates the brain in the direction of that information it becomes new information. That information creates awareness in a psychic channel in the conscious mind. Ideas and imagination are psyche material. They can dislodge unsuitable beliefs as well as create new beliefs. In order to get rid of unsuitable beliefs, the imagination must repeatedly move information in and out of the conscious mind.

When we become aware of the power of our imagination, it can propel new information in the direction of our desires. The brain analyzes new information, and the experiences that result from this process are in line with our current belief structure.

Layers Of Beliefs

The exploration of the highest reaches of human nature and of its ultimate possibilities has involved for me the continuous destruction of cherished axioms, the perpetual coping with seeming paradoxes, contradictions and vagueness and the occasional collapse around my ears of long established, firmly believed in and seemingly unassailable laws of psychology.

Abraham Maslow, the 20th century American psychologist, is considered the founder of humanistic psychology. Maslow identified a hierarchy of four layers of basic needs. The four basic needs are: physiological esteem, love, friendship and security. Beyond those levels higher levels of needs exist. Those needs include understanding, esthetic appreciation and spiritual needs. When all of those needs are satisfied the need for self-actualization is activated, which means a person becomes the person they think they were born to be.

We live in a body filled with beliefs. Maslow identifies needs, but in essence he is talking about our belief structure. Our ideas and thoughts are not shadow images. They are electromagnetic realities that have substance. Thoughts and ideas impact our nervous system and the body responds accordingly.

Our conscious mind is designed to evaluate and assess our physical reality so we can chart a course in our corporeal universe. The energy within the inner self is concentrated to initiate the results asked for by the conscious mind. Our power of action follows the concentrated thoughts and ideas that we turn into beliefs. If we believe we are weak we deny our power of action. Similar beliefs attract each other. We like to be consistent in our experiences as well as our behavior.

Learning to deal with beliefs directly instead of indirectly will change the way we look at the self. If we combine our beliefs with imagination and emotions and form a mental picture of the desired results we can initiate action that will manifest physically. In other words, the inner self creates what we want and the conscious mind responds, but the responses may be tainted with certain beliefs that restrict rather than expand our desires.