Conscious Resonance: The Real "Law of Attraction" (Part 1)

There has been a lot of material published in recent years about the Law of Attraction. Films like the Secret brought it further into the mainstream and there has been a lot of buzz about the notion that we can attract the realities we want if we only learn to manipulate the way in which we think about them. The vast majority of this positive thinking propoganda is focused around generating wealth, good health, success, power, influence, fame and romance. It isn't difficult to see why it has garnered such a wide audience, especially in the Western hemisphere. In these times we live in, where the mechanisms of society continue gearing up the pace at which the social treadmill we are all standing on moves, any promise of reprieve or respite from the quiet desperation that is the new bottomline standard of our human existence, is something that might seduce even the most rational of people.

That is not to say that the Law of Attraction is bogus. But just as with any ancient tradition or philosophy that falls prey to our insatiable need for novelty, this wisdom too has had the meat and soul stripped out of it and has been dressed in a frilly digestible package ready for mass consumption. The end product promises a far too simplistic and unrealistic approach to life and circumstances, one which offers no insight into why and how it works. But regardless, of how it has been approached and marketed within our contemporary culture the Law of Attraction points to an aspect of reality that functions within each and everyone of our lives. Everyday we are moved by it, influenced by it, informed by it. In order to truly get a feel for this, it is necessary to cultivate an approach of inquiry into ourselves and our own experience of life. What the Law of Attraction is really pointing to is a phenomenon that occurs within Consciousness: the phenomenon of Energetic Resonance.

What is Energetic Resonance?  

When you strike a tuning fork against the side of a table, it resonates with a certain frequency. This frequency of resonance generates a sound with a specific pitch. If you hold a second tuning fork up without making contact with the first, but in close proximity to it, soon the second tuning fork will begin to vibrate at the exact same frequency as the first fork. The resonance of one tuning fork induces the resonance in the other without contact. Now imagine, you were unable to see or hear the first tuning fork and all you had access to was the second fork. If the same process were repeated, it would seem to you as if the second fork had begun vibrating of its own accord and this would perplex you. However, your knowledge of the simple physics of sound resonance would lead you to make an educated guess that your tuning fork was most likely influenced by a resonance effect whose cause you couldn't perceive.

Your Conscious Mind is much like a tuning fork. And just like a tuning fork it has the capacity to resonate through a wide range of energetic frequencies. What do I mean by an 'energetic' frequency? When you perceive the tuning fork vibrating what gives you the feedback that it is in fact vibrating at all? The most obvious one is the sound it emits. The second is that it visually appears to vibrate and the third is the physical feel of it vibrating. All these three means of experiencing this phenomenon are only side-effects. The actual cause is not something we cannot detect directly. What is really happening is that the resonance causes the space around the tuning fork to begin expanding and compressing in a sort of ripple effect. As the space ripples outwards these ripples make contact with the second tuning fork in a very particular way which makes it reciprocate the same ripple pattern, thereby genrating sound. What has happened as a result is that the energy that the first tuning fork was expressing has influenced the second tuning fork to express the same energy.

Similarly, you only experience your own Conscious Minds through certain side-effects that you are able to witness. But you may not be aware of the energy dynamics that cause these side-effects to happen. These side-effects appear in the form of your thoughts, your emotions and your sensations. Each of your minds is a tuning fork with the capacity to resonate not only to the energetic vibrations that occur within it, but more importantly is constantly in interaction with the energy vibrations that are present in other minds you come in contact with as well as with your environment itself. To begin to see how these dynamics works gives a whole new perspective on how connected everything really is.

Everything has a Resonance

Everything is the Universe resonates energetically. From the subatomic level of electrons to molecules to cells. From the inanimate mediums of rock, water and air to the simplest of life-forms to the most complex. Everything that exists, only exists because it has an energetic resonance. The look, feel, sound, taste etc. are all the side-effects so to speak that allow us to experience their existence. But the cause that even allows these side-effects to exist is the dynamics of energies resonating within Consciousness.

In the Universe Out of Nothing I discussed how recent findings in Quantumn Physics point to the possibility that even electrons possess Consciousness. Science is slowly coming to terms with the realization that what we thought we knew about Life is becoming grayer and grayer. The boundaries between what we consider "living" organisms and "non-living" things is gradually evaporating. Even the most skeptical among the scientific community would reluctantly admit that reality is not as easily definable as we previously thought.

If you think of the Universe as one giant Energetic symphony, then each of the instruments involved in this symphony represents an individual life-form, resonating within this symphony. Each instrument is unique and performs its harmonies with varying degrees of complexity. While a human being might represent a complex instrument, like say a Grand piano, capable of experiencing and expressing a wide array of energy frequencies - a bacteria may represent a much simpler instrument like a triangle which is capable of only a limited range of energetic expression. But regardless, of how simple or complex the life form, it is the larger movement of the symphony that influences the harmonies of the individual instruments performing.

The Conscious Spectrum

There is a spectrum of energetic frequencies that form the entire experience of reality. This spectrum can be broadly subdivided into three sub-spectrums: the Physical, the Mental and the Emotional. If the Spectrum represents the entire range of possible musical sounds, you can think of each sub-spectrum as being something similar to a musical scale. Each scale contains a hierarchy of notes which form the individual frequencies that exist within that scale. While some musical instruments are limited in the number of scales they can express, more complex instruments can exhibit a variety of scales.

A simple organism such as a bacteria is only able to access and express itself in the Physical subspectrum but may have little access to the Emotional and Mental subspectrums. A more complex organism such as a dog has the capacity to express fully within the Physical, to a great extent within the Emotional, but to a far more limited extent within the Mental. A human being, the most complex life-form that we are currently aware of represents the broadest range of access and expression on all three scales.

Still, the same basic frequencies (notes) repeat themselves in each scale and  in this way the three sub-spectrums are connected. How we experience events in our lives is a function of the different scales through which we are able to express. For example, when a cockaroach bumps his head it triggers a single energetic wave in Consciousness. Because the cockaroach's Mind can mostly only access the Physical sub-spectrum, the physical sensation of pain encapsulates its entire experience of this energetic event.

However, when you bump your head that same single Energetic wave in Consciousness triggers a pain sensation within the Material sub-spectrum, an emotion of frustration or anger perhaps within the Emotional sub-spectrum and a thought of "What's that damn thing doing there" within the Mental spectrum. One sound experienced simultaneously in three different scales - what in music would be refered to as a chord.

And this is in fact how we experience life. Every experience we have is a physical, mental and emotional trifecta of sensation, emotion and thought.

 The Musicality of Experience    

All this creates an image of a Universe that runs quite contrary to the one we have accepted by general consensus. The world we believe we live in is one in which we are mostly separate entities who interact almost exclusively through physical action. In other words, we believe that what we think and feel has no impact on others and our environment unless we physically express ourselves through words or some action. However, understanding how Conscious Resonance works reveals that our minds are influencing and affecting others and the environement constantly (and vice versa being influenced and affected by them). Every thought, emotion and action is only the side-effect of an energy ripple that is already in movement. So when you have a thought, your consciousness is already interacting with the Consciosness of others without you even knowing it. And similarly with emotions.

To illustrate this further consider this example. You are sitting in a living room having a light-hearted conversation with a friend when a stranger enters it. They seem moody and quiet and immediately you feel the entire energy and dynamic of the conversation switch. You sense the "tension in the air" and it sets you on edge. Your thoughts begin to take on a more defensive and serious flavor and your lighter emotions are replaced by darker more guarded emotions. Nothing has physically happened per se, yet an entire mental-emotional event has been energetically induced in you. Your demeanour towards your friend and the subject of your conversation changes and your friend too responds alike.

Now, consider a second example. You are at a boring family event. The same relatives, the same conversations. You are standing quietly in a corner nursing your egg-nog, occassionally glancing up at the clock. Your mood is restless and your thoughts complaining about how you wish you didn't have to be here.  At this point someone new enters the room. This is someone new who brings with them a certain air of positivity and a cheerful disposition. They immediately "light up the room". Many in the room begin to respond with enthusiasm and laughter and you feel the air lighten and your body language begins to shift. Your own enthusiasm is sparked and your attiude towards the situation transforms.

In both cases, Energetic resonances this person introduced within the environment caused a shift in the energetic resonances in all the individuals in the environment. This is experienced Physically as a tension and stiffness in the first case, relaxation and ease in the second. It is experienced Mentally as thoughts of suspicion in the first case, and those of curiosity in the next. It is experienced Emotionally as fear in the first case and enthusiasm in the next.

Now, realistically it would take a very magnetic individual with a powerful resonance to influence the energy of an entire room. The strength in numbers rule does tend to hold true more often than not. However, we have witnessed time and again in history how single individuals have held power and influence over millions for the sake of good or evil. What sets these men apart from the rest is not so much their words or actions, but rather the clarity of their purpose which is experienced as an amplification of their resonance fields. A single musical note expressed at a high enough volume has the capacity to arrest an entire musical movement.

At the end of the day it is not just a case of the frequency of energy resonance that influences these Conscious dynamics, but also the amplitude at which the energy is emitted. And this is where the philosophy of the Law of Attraction comes in.

(to be continued...)









     

The Art of Being Fearless

Fear, most fundamentally, is a programmed biological response to a perceived threat or danger. It is part of our animalistic brain, the simple fight or flight mechanism that ensures the survival response in every being. Fear is felt as an immediate and arresting surge of adrenaline like an internal siren that snaps the focus into the present moment and the circumstances at hand. Fear also has the powerful potential to catalyze immediate and spontaneous response, whether the response is to act, to flee or to freeze. The perception of threat, the surge of adrenalin and the spontaneous response all happen almost instantaneously, so well is the fear response programmed into the animal brain. In the ability to feel fear, all beings are equal, there is no hierarchy. A human feels fear no differently than an animal, a child feels fear no differently than an adult. Only the responses may differ based on experience and instinct. 

There is another kind of fear that is unique to humans alone. And this kind of fear is a state of mind rather than a momentary biological impulse. It is a state perpetuated by the Mind and its thought processes. It is a state that is simulated rather than real, since it does not need a real and present danger in order for it to perpetuate. Instead, it uses thought to construct an artificial image of threat which it then uses to mimic the biological fear response. 

Everyone experiences this kind of fear (which I will moving forward refer to as 'Fearfulness' to distinguish ir from the natural animalistic fear all creatures are programmed to feel). All of us have experienced Fearfulness. It exists in varying degrees in most people ranging from mild dissatisfaction and unease to anxiety and panic to paranoia and terror. In fact, all human beings fall somewhere within the spectrum and will experience a range of degrees in their lifetimes. In a nutshell this forms the very foundations of the human experience and what we are here to learn from.

The Mechanism of Fearfulness

The mechanism of Fearfulness is a simple one. The human mind is a powerful tool and can be used to simulate any kind of perception, artificially. Just as it is possible to induce in yourself a temporary state of happiness and excitement by focusing on positive thoughts, it is equally easy for the mind induce an artificial state of unrest and unease by focusing excessively on negative thoughts. In the second case, all the mind is really doing is inducing the perception of a threat or of danger where one does not necessarily exist. The body which operates at a lower degree of intelligence than the mind is not programmed to be able to tell the difference. As long as the perception is one of fear, real or artificial, the body reacts the same to generate a Fear response and corresponding surge of adrenalin.

This is why you may find yourself terrified at a horror movie. You know its fake, but your mind will allow you to suspend that knowledge just long enough for it to be believable in the moment. Your body may even respond by cringing or in extreme cases send you screaming out of the theater. The threat may be artificial but the Fear response is real.

There are a large number of people, especially today, who suffer from a variety of anxiety disorders ranging from mild anxiety to full blown panic attacks. There is research that shows that some of these symptoms could be triggered by chemical imbalances in the brain. A defective sort of triggering process where the Fear response misfires periodically catalyzed by some sort of external stimulus or the other. And while this may be the trigger for some people, what perpetuates the anxiety or panic is often a negative thinking pattern that then sets into place and feeds the momentum of Fearfulness.

In fact, the negative thought pattern is the primary and predominant cause for the escalation of anxiety or panic. People who suffer from anxiety often complain of a particularly negative thought or set of thoughts that repeat themselves constantly. This may be thoughts of some impending doom, or thoughts of low self-esteem, thoughts of unworthiness, thoughts of failure, thoughts of suspicion and mistrust of others, thoughts of death or injury, thoughts of doing violent or terrible acts, thoughts of sabotage just to name a few. And each time this sort of thought occurs, it triggers the biological fear response and corresponding chemical surges.

The Addiction to Negative Thinking

So why do we indulge in these negative thought patterns? Most of will agree, that the vast majority of people unwittingly accept their own thoughts to be true to a high degree. After all, most of what we know and experience of our lives is filtered through our thoughts. And so there is this blurry boundary between reality and the mind-induced simulated reality that is difficult to separate. When watching a horror movie it is easy to separate the true reality from the fictional one. But when living in our own "mind movies" as most of us do, it becomes increasingly difficult, the older and more complex we get, to distinguish between what is real and what has been generated by our thoughts.

In fact, most people live almost entirely within the artificial overlay created by their own minds, with only brief moments of clarity when the mind becomes stilled or dormant for some reason. A scenery that takes your breath away, a moment of quiet meditation, being in-the-zone during some sport or focussed activity - at these times the artificial reality fades into the background. But for the majority of our day, we are caught in our own heads thinking about this that and the other.

When a negative thought pattern begins to predominate within our mental experience, we are naturally geared to believe in whatever the thought process is proposing. If the thought repeats, "you are fat, you are fat," after listening to it long enough it will actually skew our perception enough to actually see ourselves as fat. This results in disorders like anorexia or bulimia. If the thought repeats, "you are no good" we might begin to develop issues of low self-esteem. It doesn't matter what the catalyst was, whether we were abandoned by our parents or dumped by our lovers. The catalyst was a single momentary event in the past. What perpetuates the feelings however, is the thought process that makes us relive that moment again and again and again. 

These negative thought patterns are highly addictive for two reasons. The first is biological. Just as the body can become used to (even addicted to) any drug and after a while that drug experience becomes its 'normal state', so too can the body get used to a hormonal/neurochemical experience. It’s all the same really if seen from a biology perspective. Whether you take a hit of a drug externally or internally, it causes a distorting effect in the brain and its processes. Adrenalin, for example, is a highly addictive chemical. It’s the reason why extreme sport enthusiasts are so obsessive about what they do. They "need" the hit of adrenalin. Similarly, every negatively induced state of Fearfulness has an associated chemically/hormonally induced state associated with it. Each time the negative pattern arises a hormonal imbalance (low or high) occurs. After some time the body begins to believe that this is its natural resting state. It feels "normal".

The second reason is that believing in a negative thought pattern gives some continuity to reality. Most people would rather believe themselves to be something negative than to be unsure about who or what they are. It’s insane but is actually very common. We live in a society in which we tend to define who we are by the roles we play. Each one of us is a mother, father, brother or sister, a boss, an employee, an artist, a scientist, a jock, a nerd, a misfit, a rebel, a conformist, a socialist, a capitalist, an anarchist, a doctor, a lawyer, a truck driver, a drunk, a devotee, an atheist or whatever set of labels you have chosen to define yourself using. Its all made up. Even our social realities are mind-made artificial realities at the end of the day. Our political boundaries are nothing more that imaginary lines drawn out on a piece of paper, our laws no more than invented rules for relating to one another. Even the value we attribute to things is all made up. That land in the city costs ten times as much as land in the country is an arbitrary value that we have all agreed to set upon. Land existed long before we showed up on the planet and to believe it has an inherent monetary value is absurd. Still we have all agreed to participate in this consensus artificial reality, and it works to some degree from a practical perspective.

Our Mind-made Realities

The problem begins to come in when the artificial replaces the real in our frame of experience and we begin to derive our sense of who we are from the very roles we have conceded to play within this invented drama. For most people, who accept the consensus reality to be real, to suggest that it is all made up is blasphemous. No matter how obvious or rational an argument, the sense of Self is a fragile thing and to threaten its existence or reality is huge. Let's take high school for example. For most adults who are well past high school, looking back in hindsight will reveal how silly it all was with its cliquey social circles and labels, the jocks and popular kids, the nerds and the misfits, the rebels etc. It all seems like a fantasy even, yet the experience of actually being there at that age is something entirely different. Similarly the high school student looks back at kindergarten or elementary as a time of silliness and naiveté.

Even though we are able to look back and laugh at the unreality of it all, it doesn't mean the reality we are living in at the moment is any more real. It is only a different one yet just as artificial. To the high school student, elementary school was silly and childish. To the adult, high school and its drama was naive. But what about adult life, work life, life in society? Isn't wealth, social status, work politics and all the social drama that we engage in everyday just as naive and childish? And yet, the human mind is defiant when its reality is threatened. Trying to convince an adult that wealth, fame and social status doesn't matter is like trying to convince a high school kid that tests, popularity and acceptance into cliques don't really matter. The stage becomes grander but the drama remains the same. When governments and countries go to war we all shudder at the seriousness of it all and the devastation and the mayhem it propagates. Yet, from a different viewpoint it is no different than a bunch of high school hooligans getting into it with their rival school. Different scale, different degrees, same stupidity, same naiveté.

For people who experience regular anxiety and Fearfulness, the negative-thought pattern even though traumatic is actually validating. It reaffirms their belief in the artificial reality they live in and even assigns them a role within it. That role may be "loser", "low-life", "whore", "mooch", "fatty", "worthless", "evil", "selfish", "anti-social", "weirdo" or whatever. And yet, even those labels are better than not having one - of "N/A". 

The mechanism of Fearfulness may be obvious within people who show overt signs of anxiety and low self-esteem but it is also and especially operating within others who don't. In fact, the majority of self-referential thinking that we all do has a component of Fearfulness embedded within it. It may not be so easy to identify but you'll see it if you observe it closely.

Fearfulness is built into our social psyches and the way we operate. The choices we make day to day, the paths we take in our lives are predominated by this Fearfulness. Our economic systems and justice systems are fashioned from this experience of Fearfulness.  The way we relate to one another at work, the way we measure our words, the way we mistrust strangers, the way we worry for our security, the way we worry we will be lonely, the way we worry we will be abandoned, the way we worry we will become redundant or unemployed, the way we worry we will be perceived by others, the way we need to control how others perceive us, the way we need to control our circumstances - all this is rooted in and perpetuated by the state of Fearfulness. Nobody is immune - no matter how well they seem to have it all together. Some of the most "with it" people, the ones who exude the most confidence and control over their circumstances are also often people who are extremely dominated by the mechanism of Fearfulness. One of the most primary indications is any form of rigidity, aggression or exertion of power within the personality. Some of the greatest leaders of our times were also some of the greatest control freaks. Corporations, governments, banks and nations are nothing more than magnified super-structures constructed and fed by this same need for control, perpetuation and securtiy - in other words, Fearfulness. This is the world we live in, because it is the one we create for ourselves, in agreement with one another, day after day, because it is how we operate within ourselves.

Arriving at a Tipping Point

Like any addiction, habit or pattern that pushes the mind to a tipping point, so too can this experience of Fearfulness reach a critical mass within the human psyche. This tipping point can be experienced in a variety of ways. It can be instantaneous, sudden and dramatic. In my own case it felt like a fuse had blown within my mind. For months my brain and its thinking patterns were completely silenced. In others, it can be a more gradual process that happens periodically and in waves. But regardless of how this tipping point is experienced the purpose it serves is the same.

This tipping point is nothing more than a reality check. It is a momentary experience of the true reality that exists independently of our Minds and its perceptions. Whether the experience lasts a minute or a month, the effect is that it dislodges (even if temporarily) the faith we place in our own artificial realities. There are a number of mystical and spiritual traditions that sensationalize such an experience as something divine, but robbed of all its trappings it is nothing more than a simple and clear view into the reality underlying the one we compulsively project through our thoughts. 

This experience can also be one of great relief both mentally and emotionally. It can feel like a huge burden has been lifted off you, and the response is often one of causeless joy and feelings of deep love and connection with the environment and others. Yet even this is only a reaction.  Imagine having in a drunken stupor for most of your life to the point where you have no memory of what it was like to be sober. Imagine living in a haze and then suddenly one day sobering up and seeing what the sober reality is like. It can feel tremendously liberating.

Yet addiction works the same no matter what the drug, whether the drug is alcohol or the drug is thought. And just because you get sober once doesn't mean you will never relapse. In fact, most addicts do, because even though they have glimpsed what it feels like to be sober, there is a momentum of Fearfulness that continues to operate and propel them towards the drug. And so we do relapse again and again. But the only difference this time around is that we now KNOW what it means to be sober. And that is the knowledge that eventually comes through in the end.

The more you become aware of the existence of a reality beneath the mind-simulated one, the more unreal the mind-simulated reality becomes. But it is a process. The momentum of the mind uses not just thought but emotion as well to reinforce itself. It is one thing to believe something mentally, but to feel it reinforced in your body as an emotional response makes it all the more real. Its one thing to think you are fat, but to see yourself and feel yourself as fat gives a whole new dimension of realness to it. And so even though the thought is the disguise, the emotion and feeling it generates is the energetic component that completes the illusion. And it is this energetic component that fuels the momentum. It is literally like a car running on gas. As long as you continue to fuel the car it will keep running until it eventually breaks down. Rather than waiting for a breakdown, it is possible to recognize the mechanism at work and respond in a manner that doesn't continue to fuel the momentum.

Releasing the Mind’s Momentum

Until, you are willing to see that the reality your mind projects is nothing more than an invention, none of this will really apply. Because Fearfulness will continue to be the experience you actually desire in order to keep the charade going. But once you have had a taste of the sober reality underlying it all, you can make the conscious choice to stop feeding it. In a number of traditions, people respond to this rather extremely by taking severe measures and austerities in order to deny their minds. They meditate until they are blue in the face, attempting to use their will to supress their thoughts but all of it falls flat in the end. Because the very premise of wanting to suppress something is because you think that thing is undesirable or harmful. Believing thought to be undesirable or harmful immediately serves to reinforce its reality. And so whether we are believing the thought, or suppressing/denying it, we only reinforce it. 

What is thought at the end of the day? Is it not just a random bunch of words strung together in some sort of sentence that passes through your mind? The thought "I am a loser" and the thought "a green bear has wings" are both equally meaningless. The only difference is that one triggers an emotional/bodily response and the other doesn't. But the thought in itself has no reality other than the language and alphabets it represents. So, thought itself is really harmless. What can be potentially harmful (and even this is only a relative perspective) is the emotion and energy that it triggers. A simple thought like, "he's an idiot" can trigger a flash of anger. Repeating that thought again and again can feed and inflate that feeling, building the momentum into rage. This when the internal experience can potentially transform into some sort of violent action.

If we see thoughts as harmless, then the energetic/emotional experience is ultimately what we are really dealing with. Without a thought to justify it, an emotion is simply an emotion. Anger is just anger. It is not "good anger" or "bad anger", "righteous anger" or "evil anger". That's where the thought label attached to it rationalizes the emotion as necessary. For example, if you get angry at your boss and start yelling at him this sort of anger is considered inappropriate. But if you get angry at a criminal this is considered acceptable. It’s only the way the Mind justifies it. If you see thought as unreal, your justifications, criticisms and judgments of how you feel will simply not seem all that relevant anymore.

Then whether you are happy, sad, personable or anti-social, the experience of the emotion in the moment is allowed to be experienced simply because that is what is happening at the moment. Even if there is a "should", "shouldn't", "this is good", "this is bad" thought trying to validate and feed that emotion, you cannot believe the thought for long. As a result, the emotion/energy isn't fed and perpetuated as before.

We all have a reservoir of unreleased emotions within our systems that have accumulated through our entire lifetimes. These relate back as far as our infancy, our feelings of fear and inadequacy, our upbringing and feelings of abandonment. Every thought that we ever believed became paired to an emotion and locked into our psyches. And there it continues to remain until it is released. There is a saying that goes, "if you believe yourself to be enlightened, go spend a weekend with your family." Some of our deepest fears are also some of our most earliest.

Perceiving the mind-made overlay reality as unreal is not enough. The only way to stop fueling its momentum and its believability is to allow an energetic release ie to spend the fuel. The momentum will keep going until the fuel is spent. This is where it becomes important to develop the Art of Being Fearless.

The State of Fearlessness

Fearlessness is simply the practice of acceptance. It is the practice of being rooted in your being. When thought is seen as unreality, then the emotion and energy momentum within the psyche is what is left to deal with. This practice is only centered in the present. Because the only emotions/energies you have to deal with are the ones you are experiencing right now. It doesn't matter what you experienced yesterday, nor the ones you are afraid will come tomorrow. The past and future experiences of emotion need thought to perpetuate it. In other words, you have to "think" about them to experience them. 

Fearlessness is a complete acceptance of yourself in this moment, exactly as you are. Not as you wish you could be. Not as you know you can be. Not as you are afraid you will be. Just as you are. Because what you are doesn't need you to think about it, the rest of them do. When you accept yourself in the moment, then you accept whatever energetic expression is happening within your being. Whether that is a feeling of rage, feelings of guilt, feelings of unworthiness or restlessness or boredom, or anxiety. They will come up and your acceptance will allow them to be experienced and released.

You may find a thought creeping in here and there trying to validate, suppress or deny the feeling. These are only old patterns and habits at work. If you have seen thoughts as harmless, you realize there is no reason to respond to them. In fact, when you do respond to them that can be your indicator that at some level somewhere you still believe that thought to be true.

Practicing this acceptance allows a slow and gradual rewiring and reconditioning of the Mind. As the momentum begins to dissipate your perspective becomes more and more clear, balanced and rooted in sobriety.

Fear, the momentary impulse of the animal brain, continues to operate of course as it does in all creatures. There is a practical benefit to this sort of impulse. It is what causes you to jump out of the way of an oncoming truck. Yet this kind of fear lasts only as long as the threat exists. Once the threat is gone, you return to your natural state of ease. Wouldn't it be strange if animals walked around constantly paranoid about predators. They continue to revisit and share the same waterholes because their fear response is only activated if there is an actual threat. They don't have the ability to think and so don't experience Fearfulness.

By glimpsing the sobering reality that lies beneath the drama we call our life, by seeing our thoughts as harmless mental phenomena with no reality and by cultivating an attitude of acceptance towards ourselves and all our emotional/energetic experiences in each moment, the momentum of Fearfulness gradually subsides. What is left in its place is a spacious, present and deeply rooted state of Fearlessness. In this state, everything is allowed, good and bad, enjoyable or painful and even fearful.

Fearlessness is not the opposite of fearfulness. It is not courage. Courage is nothing more than the desire to control fear. And in this sense, even Courage is just another face of Fearfulness. Because to want to combat or control fear, is to be fearful of it.

Fearlessness is the space in which you are allowed to be whoever you are and whatever you are in this moment. Whether you are a loser or a winner, a coward or a hero, a sinner or a saint. You are allowed to be whatever expression you take in that moment, because who you really are is much deeper than that, and for that there are no words.   

Expression is the Purpose

As an infant, you are not entirely a clean slate to begin with. Every infant already contains, encoded within its DNA, a unique personality and karmic blueprint. No two infants are alike, even from the get go. Ask any new parent and they will testify to this. As a society, we tend to perceive infants from a very limited perspective. We see the infant as a brand new instance of life with no real history of its own. This is a fallacy. Encoded within the DNA of each child is the history of the entire Universe. This is not meant figuratively. It is literally true. 

From the primary elements, metals and minerals that were formed in the first explosion that created the Universe, to the primitive cells that represented the earliest life forms, to the animal and reptilian instincts for survival that propagated life, to the primitive man who first discovered fire, to the early agrarian peoples that formed the roots of civilizations, to the ancient plunderers and barbarian hordes that swept across continents, to the civilizations that created mathematics, art and culture, to the medieval kingdoms and their struggles for power, to the imperial powers and colonization, to the industrialization and explosion of the human intellect - all this history of chaos, bloodlust, power and enslavement, of cooperation, creativity, symbiosis and progression is encoded within a single microscopic strand of every infant's DNA. In other words, rather than being a clean slate without a history, an infant is the cumulative expression of the entire Universe seen from a single unique perspective. Every newborn contains the same primordial soup of elements, influences and events. Just like all snowflakes are essentially comprised of the very same elements, yet each flake is unique in the patterns in which it crystallizes, so too is every infant absolutely unique in the crystallization of its expression - its karmic blueprint.

The Purpose of Unique Expression

As human beings and as members of society, we all have some purpose to fulfill and this purpose is defined  according to the various functions and uses we serve. It is the purpose to survive, to provide for ourselves and our families, to contribute to society, to collaborate with one another, to compete against each other, to find our partners, to create families and propagate our bloodlines, to maintain order and harmony, to find and develop an art, skill or trade, to be law-abiding and moral members of society, to work for the benefit of society, to aspire to personal and professional success, to contribute to progress and innovation, just to mention a few. 

For most of us, this becomes the overarching purpose of our lives. We inherit our sense of who we are based on the values we derive from society. Even though, we pride ourselves on own individuality and believe that we are unique in our thoughts, opinions and actions, we are subconsciously programmed to perceive and value ourselves through the eyes of society. As a result, in searching for our own unique purpose we inadvertently end up searching for just another function or use that we might serve. 

As an adolescent or young adult, you may have asked yourself the question: what is the purpose of my life? And in an effort to answer this question, you may have found yourself thinking about what career will fulfill you, what kind of mate might fulfill you, what greater ambition or path of altruism might fulfill you, what cause or belief system might fulfill you, what philosophy or spiritual path might fulfill you, what amount of wealth, power and influence might fulfill you, what journey of exploration and adventure might fulfill you. The only answers you can come up with are those that arise from the perspective of function and use. The only solutions your mind can think of are just versions of the statements: "how can I enhance my own value, how can I be perceived by others and what use can I be to society." This is how the human brain has been conditioned to think, to value itself and others.         

Why is every snowflake unique? What is the purpose of this unique design? After all snow is snow and if snowflakes were identical to each other it would hardly make any difference. And yet, no two snowflakes are alike. This leads to another question: what is the individual snowflake's purpose? After all if it can be identified to be so unique it must have an equally unique purpose attached to it. And yet, the only apparent purpose of a snowflake is to be born, to descend to the ground and to eventually dissolve. This is a perspective that associates purpose with function or use. And from this perspective, since the individual snow flake seems to lack any unique function or use it cannot found to have a unique purpose that is separate from the purpose of snow in general. However, there is a deeper perspective that goes beyond the notions of function and use, which reveals an entirely different reality. And from this perspective:  The expression is the purpose.

The Influence of Outer Authority

The dictionary defines authority as: "the power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior". From a very young age we are encouraged to recognize and to obey authority. This authority comes in many forms as we evolve as individuals. In the beginning our own parents are the primary voices of authority in our lives. They lead us, inform us, influence and command us. They instill upon us their own sense of values, morals and beliefs. They project upon us their own perspectives of reality, of what is beneficial and what is harmful, of what is important and what is trivial, of what is worthy and of what is useless.

As we grow older, the range of authority figures increases to encompass our teachers, our friends, our peers, our superiors, our bosses, our law enforcers, our governments, our courts, our leaders and our state. Yet none of these figures of authority offers anything unique or original. They, just like us, have inherited all their value and ideals from the authority figures in their own lives, who in turn have inherited it from those in their lives and so on endlessly to the beginning of humanity. And while the values we live by evolve and transform from generation to generation, the process of how we derive our own sense of personal value stays the same. As a result, we become nothing more than derivatives of the times and circumstances in which we live. And though, there may be slight variations in how we express ourselves, it all fits in very nicely within the paradigm of function and use which is how society perceives the individual.

In the system in which we live, we are accustomed to attributing value to individuals based on their functions and contributions. As a result, someone like Einstein or Gandhi is perceived as being of greater value than your tax accountant or the postman, who in turn is of greater value than a homeless man or an unemployed bum. A beautiful model or talented celebrity is of greater value than a plain housewife or lowly insurance salesman, in turn of greater value than a prostitute or a drug addict. It always ties back to function and use. The greater the function and use the greater the value of the individual. And this is the approach we inadvertently take when attempting to discover our own unique purpose. We begin with the mistaken assumption that value is something you earn, rather than something that is inherent. The voice in our own heads is really the cumulative voice of all the authority figures in our lives, the voice of outer authority. We adopt this voice and make it our own, moving forwards with our lives believing that we are expressing our own unique purpose. Yet, as long as we continue to evaluate who we are based on what we do, we will not have begun to even scratch the surface.

Return to the case of the human infant, the newborn, once again. From the perspective of function and use, an infant is the most useless form of human on the planet. It literally is incapable of anything other than breathing, wailing and flailing its arms about. And yet it takes a very cynical perspective to look into the eyes of a newborn and to see anything less than a miracle of nature. One might argue that an infant represents a future potential for function and use within society, and this is where its value comes in. But this is a limited viewpoint. Look into the eyes of an infant and you will find yourself hypnotized by something only infants possess: The ability to be complete in their own uniqueness.

No infant has any concept of value or purpose. Yet it is expresses itself with utter uniqueness, effortlessly. The infant is not confused. When it is hungry it will let you know. Without regard of what anyone thinks about it, without a care of how it will be values by others, without concern about what purpose it must serve within society. When it is hungry it will let you know, when it is tired it will let you know, when it is happy it will let you know. Its expression is entirely unimpeded by any derived sense of value. And still, it displays an authority. The authority that demands to be fed, to be held to be recognized and attended to, to feel joy, to feel indignation, to feel love. What is this authority and where does it come from? What is the infant's purpose if it has no concept of function and use? 

The expression is the purpose. And the authority that ensures the expression is an Inner Authority.     

The Voice of Inner Authority

The voice of Inner Authority is a silent one. It is silent in the sense that it does not make itself heard through any mental activity. It does not express itself through the intellectual or emotional mind. It is only sensed as Intuition. As we progress from infancy, our intellectual and emotional minds begin to dominate. We are sponges, soaking up everything from the environment; from the basics of how to walk and chew to how we come to perceive and value ourselves. Everything is soaked in, filtered and distilled to form our sense of self identity. And the primary tool we use to perpetuate this self-identity is our intellectual and emotional mind. 

The mind expresses itself predominantly through thought and emotion. It perpetuates an incessant internal monologue (the voice in our heads) that is an amalgamation and derivative of the voices of Outer Authority. Early in our childhood, we are still tuned in somewhat to our deeper intuition, our unique expression, to the silent voice of Inner authority. This is why young kids still appear so unique, creative and unabashed in their expression of life. But slowly, over time the balance between the Inner Authority and Outer Authority begins to shift. More and more we find ourselves trapped in our own heads trying to sort right from wrong, trying to project future outcomes, trying to grasp for fulfilment. 

Does a three year old worry about creating a secure future? Or about being of value to others? Or about finding happiness? Or about expressing itself more uniquely? Some might say the two year old is too stupid or ignorant to grasp such concepts, but this again is a limited and cynical view. The two year old expresses itself constantly and effortlessly because it is still grounded in its own nature, in its own Inner Authority.

And yet, its "fall from grace" is an inevitable one, because that is the nature of the process. The voice of Inner Authority never enforces, never commands, never explains, never cajoles or convinces. This is unlike the voice in our heads, which is forever explaining, rationalizing, comparing, evaluating, defending or blaming. The voice in our heads is nothing more than a power struggle, a hunger game between competing voices of authority - the voices of our spiritual beliefs, religious doctrines, political parties, moral police, justice system, family values, parental influences - all in flux all competing to control and dominate who we believe ourselves to be, how we will survive and how we will be of use. 

Inner Authority does not control, it accepts. It does not command, it whispers. It does not condemn, it permits. It does not dominate, it acquiesces. Even as the balance shifts within our beings to an externally derived sense of self, it does nothing to obstruct the purpose. Because experience and expression is the purpose.   

Reconnecting with Inner Authority

As long as you continue to determine the value of individual existence based on function and use you will remain estranged from your own Inner Authority. Because Inner Authority does not place any value on these attributes. Rather the existence of Life itself is the only value there can ever be. That you exist in this moment (your being) rather than the functions you satisfy (your doing) is what is of primary value. From the perspective of Inner Authority all individuals that exist are of equal value by simple virtue of the fact that they exist. Their own existence is the only thing of value, everything else is contrived.

This is difficult for the intellectual-emotional mind to wrestle with because it is accustomed to differentiating between people and things based on their perceived value. After all if everything is of equal value how can there be anything unique about it? And so it is confronted with the same paradox of the snowflake and its purpose. As long as you turn to your own thought processes to provide you your sense of value you will inadvertently be misled, because your thought processes are not unique to you, they are derived from the voices of Outer authority.

Turn your attention inwards instead and catch a glimpse of the world that is inside. It is just as real, just as vital and just as ancient as the one outside. A single strand of your DNA contains the entire history of the Universe and still it is completely unique from any other. Contemplate this mystery. Meditate on yourself and try to delve deeper. Use your intuition to try and get a feel, a sense of your own unique reality, your own karmic blueprint. Your inner world needs and requires as much attention as does the outer. And in exploring this world you will fall prey to the same tendencies that you do in your outer reality. The voices of Outer Authority will influence you here as well. Your intellectual-emotional Mind will attempt to dominate this process too.

But you can and will revisit again and again to that place of Inner Authority, that waits patiently and unperturbed for your return. As you develop a deeper, more intuitive sense of yourself, one that does not rely on your thought processes and rationalizations to perpetuate it, you will begin to exhibit it more and more in your outer world as well. The balance begins to shift again and the pendulum begins its return journey.

As you grow in recognition of your own true nature and inherent self-worth, so will you perceive the same in others around you. It happens simultaneously in tandem. The one cannot happen without the other and if it does it is only another indication that you have been misled by your thought processes. Because the outer world and inner world are only reflections of each other. The voices of authority, of power, of aggression, of obedience, of morality and righteousness, of control and fear that you perceive in the world outside are none other than the thoughts and emotions fleeting through your Mind. And yet, in moments of great clarity, when the silent yet deeply grounded sense of your own Inner Authority becomes so very palpable, what you are simultaneously sensing is the beauty and infallibility of the spirit of Creation.

Your own unique existence is the only thing of value in this world. And to be here, exactly as you are in this moment, is the greatest purpose you can ever serve.

Rediscovering Love

From the moment we emerge into the world our experience of life becomes a desperate search to fulfill our needs. The experience of being in the womb is one of unconditional love. It is a place of warmth, comfort, silence and deep fulfilment. All our needs are met without question and we evolve and grow unimpeded by any lack of nourishment or fear. Yet the moment of birth, is the first and most traumatic moment of our lives. As we emerge from the quiet unconditional protection of the womb into a cold, vast and confusing world we experience that first gut-wrenching feeling of primal fear that will set the stage for the experience of the rest of our lives.

In our infancy we soon begin to realize that the reality of this world is very different from the one from which we have just emerged. In this world, lack is a reality we must all experience. Needs cannot always be met. As we cry for our mothers to feed us, to clean us, to soothe us we realize more and more that we must rely on another being to take care of our needs. It doesn't just happen on its own. More importantly we become aware of the distance both physical and emotional between ourselves and those around us. How the love and affection of others is not always and easily available. A deep sense of isolation and disconnect slowly begins to creep into the fabric of our self-identities and we begin to crave more and more what we find we cannot have.

An Existence based on Need

And so it continues into childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Some of us experience family lives full of laughter, love and acceptance. Some of us experience childhoods filled with drama, heartbreak and confusion. Still others have experiences of violence, hatred and abuse. While the upbringing we've had holds a strong bearing on how we evolve as individuals and with regards to our future relationships, our family experience is only a single slice of the pie. As we grow older our relationships within school, high school, college and further into society play a large part in influencing how we evolve in our self-perception, our perceptions of others and how we come to perceive Love.

Each one of you will have experienced rejection, chastisement, humiliation, alienation, aggression, hatred and even violence. If you didn't experience it at home, you have at school or at camp or college or work or in a number of other societal interactions. And every one of those experiences is a harsh reminder of that singular moment of intense trauma you once experienced, that moment of birth when your entire world was taken away from you and you were delivered into the desolation that is this reality. And although those memories are locked away deep within your subconscious, you experience that trauma over and over again every day.

And still we find ourselves motivated by a strange, even irrational drive. It is the hope that somewhere and somehow we will find completion; that we can become whole again. This drive also emerges from the subconscious need to return to that state of perfect contentment we once experienced while within the womb. After all if we had never experienced such wholeness before, how would we even know to look for it? We may not be completely conscious of it but that is the overarching need that drives us.

This need is evident everywhere you look around you. It shows itself in the drive of the young salesman, in the ambition of the athlete, in the aspirations of the school girl, in the greed of the businessman, in the lust of the adulterer, in the practice of the disciple, in the actions of a thief, in the loneliness of the unwed 30-something yr. old, in the quiet desperation of the unhappy stay at home mom, in the perversion of the sex offender. Different degrees, different flavors, with different impacts and different consequences, some more destructive than others. Yet they all stem from the same one need - the deep subconscious need to be whole again. After all each one of these people started the same way as an infant that emerged from the womb. Not one of these individuals sat up all night plotting away within the placenta on how they were going to grow up to become a salesperson, an athlete, a drama queen or a mass murderer. Every life begins in pure innocence. Yet with the first shocking breath of oxygen and exposure to the elements, something fractures within the psyche. For some that fracture remains relatively small and more manageable, for a few it is severe and can become further aggravated by circumstance.

Yet, regardless of how large the fracture, it happens to all of us. And in that no one is unique.   

The Quest for Completion

The search for wholeness, to become complete, is really a search for the conditions we once experienced within the womb. It is the search for unconditional Love. What we perceive as love in our society today is that elusive image that is perpetuated by our driving need and feelings of lack. It doesn't help that this is constantly reiterated, revalidated and reflected back to us in the media. We as a species have misunderstood what Love is all about.

Think for a moment on what your first experience of Love was. It was when you, as an infant, turned to your mother or father to feed you, to keep you warm, to protect you, to give you security. Love became immediately synonymous with Need at that point. You came to associate loving those whom you perceived as being attentive to what you needed. And even though those needs couldn’t be met a hundred per cent of the time, through perfecting the sophisticated art of crying, cooing and tantrums you learned how to sufficiently manipulate your environment and your caregivers into maximizing their attention, both physical and emotional.

Fast-forward to adulthood and our perceptions of Love as a society are not very different. When searching for a mate or companion we have a tendency to approach people we meet with a preconceived list in mind of what we would want our perfect mate to look like: their physical appearance, their personality traits, their sense of humour, the sexual chemistry, the financial security, the potential for variety and adventure, the emotional maturity, the willingness to communicate or whatever criteria that we believe will fulfil us. And while we may be able to skillfully rationalize to ourselves that we are looking for an experience to "share" our lives with someone, what we are really looking for is someone who will take care of our needs. And in return we may even be willing to take care of some of theirs if necessary.

In effect, what we are subconsciously striving for is that mate who will make us whole again, complete again - our soul mate, our white knight or princess who will give us that elusive ‘happily ever after’ that they always talk about in fairy tales. That happily ever after was what we experienced in the womb and even that didn’t last. It never does. Because there is no such thing as an "ever after", there is only ever this present moment and the reality that it brings with it.

In actuality, that entire journey of Life is really one of a personal deconstruction followed by a reintegration. That initial fracture that occurred in our psyches at childbirth forms more cracks and fissures as we grow and evolve through childhood, adolescence and into adulthood. Yet there comes a point in our lives, when the collective weight of all these cumulative traumas begins to weigh unbearably on us. We come to see little by little, how every hope, every dream, every fantasy we have ever had about Life, Love and Peace was just our mind's way of coping with the unbearable trauma that was too difficult to see, too difficult to expose to the light of day.

Hiding our wounds behind protective armor doesn't help them to heal rather it causes them to fester. And yet, we are convinced that we must walk about in each other's company wearing our masks and armors of protection hoping that no one else will ever perceive how vulnerable and naked we really are beneath it all. All of this posing and posturing, role playing and power games we play with ourselves and others are nothing more than coping mechanisms to distract us from taking a closer look at ourselves, at those primal wounds that still exist unhealed and deeply painful. 

Reintegrating Our Selves

Our quest to find Love in truth is nothing more than the quest to heal, to become whole again. That can only begin when we are willing to turn our attention away from the world and from other people and take a deep, penetrating look within ourselves at all the ways we feel hurt, unfairly treated, unloved and unworthy. That is where the healing begins - with sincerity. Only by exposing your wounds to the sun can the wounds being to heal in its unconditional warmth. Judging your wounds through blame or guilt only aggravates them and prevents healing. The only way you can begin to experience the joy of unconditional Love again is to realize that the capacity for it lies deep within you. You are your own first candidate.  No one else can give you what you crave because they do not have it to give it. They are all, just like you, craving the same experience. One starving man cannot satisfy the hunger of another starving man.  Don’t be afraid to show your wounds to the world. It may be unnerving, frightening even but it is the most courageous choice you can ever make. It is your choice to be authentically you, without a costume and without your armour. Rest assured no matter how invincible or powerful those around you look, they are hurting and suffering underneath just the same as you.  Learn to look beneath the surface.

As this process of reintegration begins, you slowly begin to come together, piece by piece, healing one psychological fracture after the other. And as each fracture heals, simultaneously another lack is fulfilled. In its place instead is a feeling of abundance, of uncaused fulfillment. Yet in other areas, the lack persists and can and will disconcert you. You will experience fear many times as you go through this process and will relapse into old ways of thinking repeatedly. At times you will feel content and lacking nothing and at others you will feel desolate and needy. Each fissure must be sealed, each wound must be healed. But once the integration begins it cannot be stopped. It is a process that is beyond your control that will shape the very way you view yourself.

This is a journey back to Love.  Not the love of the fractured mind, the need based, conditional, contextual love that is here one day and gone the next when circumstances become less favorable. This is not the love that can be broken up, divorced, betrayed or forgotten. This is the Love that is whole and intact in and of itself because it emerges from a vast and infinite wellspring that is no one person’s property yet all of us are extensions of it. This is the Love of your own true Nature and it is unconditional and unsurpassable.

As you heal layer by layer, from the more surface wounds to those deep and dark almost undetectable primal wounds within your being you will feel more and more connected to and moved by a sense of this place of Love. Slowly you will witness a transformation in your attitudes, your thoughts, your words, your actions and your relationships. As you being to experience this Love that lies in the core of your being, so will you begin to express it and bring it into your Life.  There comes a point when the warmth of the love becomes so palpable and so present that it begins to dominate the experience of your Life. Then Love, not need, becomes the new backdrop of your story.

Your relationship with others: family, friends, children and your mate will transform because this is not a Love that seeks anything outside itself. It is abundant and already fulfilled. This is a Love that gives to any and all that need. It is the Love of unconditional acceptance - of yourself and of others.   The journey back to wholeness is complete. We have found once again what we have craved from the moment of birth, what we experienced within the womb. And yet what has taken the place of that simple innocence of being is a deep wisdom. It is the wisdom that recognizes that the contentment we felt in the womb always lay within us.

Conscious Creators of Reality

By observing a mundane phenomenon such as an apple falling from a tree, Newton discovered gravity, a fundamental property within the Universe that became the catalyst for a new era of scientific inquiry. Similarly, some of the greatest scientific discoveries were made by individuals whose keen powers of observation, of the trivial and the ordinary, allowed them to draw back the veil of reality and peek behind the curtains into the inner workings of the Universe. Just as an apple falling towards the Earth is representative of the same fundamental principles that guide the entire material Universe, it is similarly possible, by observing the mundane phenomena at work within your own conscious mind, to intuit some of the deeper principles that operate within Consiousness as a whole.

In the Universe out of Nothing, I discussed how the scientific approach has reached its limits in its understanding of Reality. The Big Bang theory is able to trace the history of the Universe all the way back to a time when the entire Universe and its contents were compacted into a single infinitely dense object about the size of an atom. Yet, how this single point of material reality came into existence out of Nothing , is something that continues to baffle scientists. This is because Science, in its quest to discover and define reality, made an erroneous assumption which limits it from providing a more holistic understanding of the nature of reality. The assumption Science makes is that reality is fundamentally objective. In other words, regardless of whether there is a conscious subject to observe it, the material Universe continues to exist. And so there seems to be a great divide between scientific reality and the personal realities we find ourselves living in. Because the personal realities we experience are primarily subjective.

The Dual Nature of Reality

The universe thus appears a paradox. Reality itself seems dual in Nature. There is Material Reality which appears in the form of our Universe, galaxies and planets, the Earth, living organisms, elements and compounds, molecules, atoms and electrons. Our own bodies are part of this material reality, our bones, muscles, organs, tissues, cells and DNA. The brain itself is an organ made up of a highly complex network of synapses that fire electrical impulses that further trigger chemical reactions within it. But that is as far as our objective experience of reality goes.

There is another face of reality that is purely subjective and this is Conscious Reality. It is the reality of our minds, the one we find ourselves predominantly living in . This is the version of reality that feels intimate, real and extremely personal. It is the reality within which we exist as individuals rather than organisms and within which we create relationships that are guided by emotion rather than physical laws.

Science, in its attempts to understand Consciousness, divided Material existence into two categories: the living and the non-living. Living organisms fall within a spectrum ranging from the simplest bacteria to vastly more complex human beings. Living things are objects in the material world which are subject to all the physical laws of the Universe and yet have the capacity to display 'intelligence', to create new organisms of their kind, adapt within their own environments and evolve in design. Non-living objects however, are objects that display none of these capacities and are basically simple and elemental.

What this approach implies is that, Consciousness is the product of the biological structure of living organisms and intelligent life. Non-living things, because of the very fact that they do not demonstrate any intelligent qualities cannot possibly produce Consciousness. The second implication of this approach, is that if Consciousness is a product of only a subset of objects within material reality, it cannot possibly have any bearing on the laws and principles that guide material reality itself;  instead, it should be subject to material laws and must obey them. Its a case of the chicken and the egg. Because the current scientific understanding is that reality is material and that this material Universe is what produced both non-living and living organisms, and that biology is responsible for consciousness, it follows that material reality is the source of all consciousness.

While this is the accepted assumption, ask any scientist how this "consciousness" suddenly came to be in a Universe that was unanimously non-living, billions of years ago, and very few may even attempt an answer. The fact is no one knows. And so whether you ask: how that single point of matter that caused the Big Bang appeared out of Nothing, or whether you ask: how Life and Consciousness suddenly appeared in a purely material and inanimate Universe, you will receive the same blank stare. But perhaps, this blank stare means something.

The Properties of Thought

When observing your own consciousness and the various conscious phenomena that occur within your own mind, something becomes very obvious. The first is that thought has no material properties. It has no mass of its own and occupies no space whatsoever. It is capable of traveling at inifinite speeds (instantaneously) and is not restricted by distance. You can experience a thought of the street you live on and of the hotel you stayed at in the Dominican in the same amount of time, equally effortlessly. Your physical distance from each location is irrelevant to your ability to experience a thought about either of them. So, thoughts are not limited by the speed of light.

Thought is also unrestricted by time. You can experience a thought of the past and of the future, you can travel anywhere within time using thought. Thought is also unaffected by gravity or any material force. Whether you are standing on the Earth or on the moon, are sitting in a chair or on a roller coaster, thought occurs and can be experienced unimpeded by any of the forces at play. Therefore, Thought is not subject to any of the laws of the Material Universe. Now, you may argue that if someone were to take a sledgehammer to your skull, the blunt force may impede your ability to think. But what I am talking about right now is not the biological abilities of the human brain and how it ties into Consciousness. Yes, such a force may end your particular experience of thought, but the Thought itself remains unaffected.

Let me pause briefly to first define Thought and how I intend to use the word in this context. Thought is any event within Consciousness. Therefore, Thought events may come in various forms such as - Intention, Imagination, Abstraction, Perception, Emotion, Intuition and Reason. I will investigate each Thought form in greater detail in future articles. But for now, it will suffice to say, that any way in which we can experience ourselves consciously (as well as sub-consciously eg. dreams) would consitute Thought.

So in returning to the discussion on the properties of Thought, it becomes evident that it has no material reality and is not subject to any material laws. The reason why we can even imagine such concepts as time travel, unicorns, alternate dimensions and God is because Thought is not restricted by the physical laws of the Universe. But if the scientific perception of reality were true ie the physical Universe is all that exists, how can Thought operate independently of this reality?

Before the Bang

This very simple observation is immediately accessible to anyone who considers it. And this simple observation points to a Reality that is much greater than the existence of our physical Universe. Whereas, science assumes that Consciousness emerged somewhere along the way from the physical Universe, the truth is in fact the opposite: Our entire physical Universe was born as a result of a single event within Consciousness - from a single Thought.

That vast abyss of Nothing before the Big Bang was Consciousness itself. What created that single infinitely dense point of matter that exploded to create our physical Universe, was the Thought of a single infinitely dense point of matter.

Viewing Consciousness in this way revolutionizes the way in which we see ourselves and our thoughts. No longer are we simply forms of intelligent matter experiencing a finite existence, at the whims of an inanimate Universe. Rather each one is an expression of Consciousness creating realities from moment to moment. Every Thought event we experience has the capacity to create and shape our Universe and our circumstances. Every one of us is a conscious Creator of reality.

A Meditation

Settling down into my office chair...there's no one here. I gaze through the window at the silent winter storm brewing outside... trees alone stand like lonely sentries, their branches dusted white by the frivolous wind. A flock of birds breaks formation. It’s every bird for himself. Disoriented ... they search blindly for a spot of refuge, their instincts numbed by the blistering cold. All this happens noiselessly. My eyes absorbed, my mind rendered dormant and uncomprehending, I slip into deep oblivion... 

In the distance, I hear a temple bell. The sound of water running over stones. A crow caws into the emptiness. And then another. And another. The temple bell rings again. It reverberates with a deeper tone and my feet tremble beneath me. My eyes open to a dark room bathed in the warm glow of a fireplace. Shadows dance across the stone walls of this small, cozy hut. I rise from my wooden chair, gathering my robes around me, my feet caressed by the warm rush mats as I walk towards the entrance of my home.

A crisp morning breeze greets me. Dawn has just broken over the horizon. It is time for prayer. My hut sits atop a hill. From here I can see the entire expanse of this Monastery in the mountains. In the center, a great stone courtyard houses the main temple. On either side, two smaller temples and the temple building. An old monk, bare-shouldered, in maroon robes, ambles towards the temple. Weeping cherry trees in bloom rustle their swooping branches. The wind strews blossoms across the stone floor as an offering.

Something feels different. My body - it feels changed; somehow leaner, somehow lighter, more flexible, more at ease. My mind too is silent. My attention is relaxed, open and invites in experience without favor, without judgment, without expectation.  My age is unknown to me, but I sense I have lived a while. I am a simple monk, a peaceful man, an entirely different man. And yet I feel I am the same - The same as I have always been and the same as I will always be.

My feet dressed in wooden slippers carefully descend the steep stone steps roughly hewn into the hill side. The sharp click-clack echoes eternally through the morning air. The temple bell rings again, rising me from my reverie...

My eyes open to the snow squalls outside the office window. The monk is no more.  I reflect on him fondly and his life that I lived. Now, here I am again, in the life of this man. I reflect on him fondly too.

Now falling still again, my gaze returns to the silent world outside, my heart brimming with the emptiness of it all...    

Dreaming Up Reality

The great sage Chuang Chou said, "Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man."  

This apparent paradox of realities is one we all have experienced. But because most of our dreams lack any real lucidity and fade soon after we awake, we often dismiss the realities they present us as fictitious or imaginary. Every once in a while you may have a powerfully vivid dream that even after waking lingers both in detail and emotional impact for a considerable amount of time. You may narrate the dream to others, commenting "how real" it felt and search for some hidden meaning or symbolism. This felt real-ness of the dream coupled with the clear lingering memories in your mind are what attribute the sense of reality to the dream. 

Three Anomalies

Patients under the influence of painkillers such as Morphine, regularly experience dreams and hallucinations of a highly detailed and logical nature. They sometimes report not being able to differentiate between reality and their dream states precisely because the two resemble each other so closely. In these cases, they often struggle to establish which reality is the real one, by attempting to identify which reality has more inconsistencies. In particularly traumatic events, the hallucinating or dreaming mind may create a reality which is more consistent than the reality that person actually lives in. An example is of a person I know who was in a car accident in which some of her family members perished and she alone survived. In the hospital for weeks under the influence of Morphine she lived in an alternate reality where her family was still alive and in fact were attempting to convince her that the accident had never happened and that she had made it all up in some paranoid hallucination. Oscillating between the two realities, it took a considerable amount of effort of will for her to finally stabilize within the reality in which the car crash did happen, her family did perish and she lay in a hospital bed recovering. But what of the other reality?

On the other hand consider a person who having suffered some form of injury has suffered a severe memory loss. You have often seen films in which this is the case. For this person the reality of the life that existed prior to the accident simply does not exist. Even if the events of the person's life are narrated back to them, even if they are shown photos or videos of their past, it seems to lack any feeling of real-ness and since there are no lingering memories of the events there is no sense of reality. So did that past reality exist?

The third example is that of an individual that may be diagnosed as schizophrenic. This person may experience sights, sounds, smells, objects, events and people that, within our consensus reality, simply don't exist. Our lack of understanding around the subject leads us to categorize such individuals as mentally insane and we medicate them. Yet that individual's experience of their own reality is that it feels just as real as yours. Even the memories they create are of people and events that have never actually occurred in your reality. What often accompanies the experience of schizophrenia is an attached sense of paranoia. It is this paranoia that the individual and those around them (family members, doctors) react to the most. The paranoia is often simply a reaction to the realization that the reality you are living in is out-of-synch with the one others are experiencing. There is an overwhelming feeling of panic that ensues followed by a sense of deep and utter isolation that very few can imagine. No matter how alone you feel in your life, the sense of sharing this same one reality with all those you know and love, provides a foundation of security and balance that we take for granted. Imagine waking up one day and finding out that the reality you live in is entirely your own and you cannot share this with anyone. You cannot experience a greater isolation than this. It is often thought that a schizophrenic mind is an irrational mind, yet some schizophrenics are highly rational people. A popular example is the one of John Nash, genius mathematician and Nobel prize laureate. He was portrayed by Russel Crowe in the film "A Beautiful Mind". For years, Nash had and maintained relationships that never existed in the consensus reality. And eventually his means of coping was the acceptance that the second reality was only his hallucination. The inconsistency that allowed him to anchor himself was that the people he "imagined" never aged. Similarly, many individuals diagnosed as schizophrenic regularly experience overlapping realities. So which reality is real?

Defining Reality

In order to answer any of the questions posed above, it is first necessary to identify how we define reality. Is reality this disconnected and separate entity which exists independently of a person? That has been the general answer that we have, as a species, accepted as true. We have come to accept that reality is a steady state system in which the individual is only a part. This part can only interact with the whole in a very limited manner, through word and action. Yet, discoveries in quantum physics have revealed that reality is not as easy definable or identifiable as we previously thought. Rather than a fixed state, reality is more like a wave of potentiality. In fact, there is no such thing as a reality, only potentiality. What we call reality is a characteristic that is contributed by the observer. In other words, when an observer (a point of Consciousness) interacts with waves of Potentiality, they collapse into fixed particles - what we would refer to as Reality. (Read A Universe Out Of Nothing for an elaboration).

And so in this version, Reality is no longer some static state that is independent of the individual, but instead is wholly dependant on the individual to create it. An analogy that may help to illustrate this further is to imagine a blank canvas. This canvas is Reality. It is completely blank. What this canvas contains is the potential for a line to appear here, a curve to appear there, an angle to appear somewhere else. There are an infinite number of dots, lines or pattern combinations that can be created on this canvas. And yet the canvas also presents certain limitations. No line can appear outside the canvas, no line can go through the canvas. The canvas presents the limitations yet does not actually create anything. It is the individual who must choose which potentiality to give Reality to, what wave to collapse into a particle - in other words what line to draw. You can think you are creating something new, but in fact you are only choosing which invisible path on the paper you want to make visible, using ink. The paths already potentially exist. Every line you can possibly draw already exists in potential form. Michelangelo is quoted to have said, "Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it." This is in effect how Reality works.

This perspective on Reality is a game changer. Because what this says is that each and every individual is creating and interacting with a completely unique and separate reality. Because in every moment no two peoples' Consciousness are the same. 

Now imagine a group of artists in an art class painting their own picture. There is a nude model in the center of the room and each artist is attempting to paint as exact a rendition of the model as they possibly can. Once the paintings are complete, they all get together and compare. Because all their paintings are so nearly identical to each other (varying only in perspective but in 100% agreement of the details) they all agree that their paintings represent reality. This is what we mean by "consensus reality"- (a reality in which is perspective is unique but the details are uniform). It is the reality everyone 'agrees' exists. But then sitting alone in a corner of the room is an artist who seems unusually quiet. And so the rest of the group shuffles over to see what he has drawn and instead of a nude model they see the painting of a vase. When questioned on it, the artist claims that this is what is sitting in the center of the room. The group labels him insane and attempts to correct him. Or perhaps, the artist's canvas is blank and this is what he perceives in the center of the room. Or perhaps, the artist's canvas is the picture of a nude model standing with her dog. In each case, because the lone artist's view of reality is so completely out of synch with the consensus reality, the rest of the group labels the artist: in the first case as hallucinating/dreaming, in the second as an amnesiac, in the third as a schizophrenic. So what is really in the center of the room? Can this question even be answered? Given the information I have provided you, if you were to answer in accordance with the larger group, perhaps you also believe in reality being a consensus reality. However, if you were to allow that all the possibilities exist then what you are allowing is that reality itself has no real-ness to it. The real-ness is what the individual feels.

And so the only answer we can attempt to the above question is: none of them and all of them.

The Source of Reality

In working with this paradigm, we find that Reality is in fact the creation of an individual's consciousness. It then becomes evident that each person's reality is entirely their own and is completely disconnected from another person's reality. In fact, this Universe you live in and experience daily is not the Universe. It is your Universe. You are the sole creator of this entire infinite expanse of galaxies and solar systems, the Sun and the Earth, the Oceans and Continents, the Plants and Animals, all the people on the planet, your family and friends, all of it. Everything that exists is the creation of your own individual Consciousness. This may be too absurd to fathom but think of this instead:

Imagine you have a dream and in this dream you live an entire lifetime. In this lifetime you are a particular person, you grow and you age, you meet people, you have a family, some die, you experience joy and illness and eventually you perish. Waking up from this dream you realize that it was all a dream. But within the dream it all felt real. So what was it that felt real? What was that quality of real-ness and where did it come from?

Now, you will agree that you created the entire dream world. Each character and their story, each event, the details, the places and things you saw, it was all your creation. Yet simultaneously, you identified yourself as only one character in the dream, the main protagonist. You imagined yourself as one single person interacting with the environment and the other characters you experienced. But on waking you can see that it was all you. You were not that single character in a Universe of others, rather were the entire Universe, even though the real you doesn't exist in that Universe. The real-ness of the dream Universe that you felt was really your own sense of existence which you then projected into your dream world. What felt so real, what lent the whole experience of real-ness was your Consciousness. Real-ness (what we may also refer to as Existence or Presence) is a quality of Consciousness.  

(the Buddhists have a term for this that they call "suchness". It is the quality of the existence of everything. We often separate this sense of existence by separating this "suchness" from the experience of "am-ness" which is the sense of your own personal existence. However, this sense of am-ness and suchness are really one and the same. In fact, your sense of being is what imparts the sense of existence to the entire Universe)

Everything that Consciousness creates is experienced as real, just like everything water encounters is experienced as wet. Wetness is a quality that identifies the interaction of water, similarly Presence or Real-ness is a quality that identifies the interaction of Consciousness. In other words, everything that exists only exists because Consciousness that has created and permitted its existence. You literally create the Universe in each moment. By "you" in this case I am not referring to the "person" you identify yourself to be, but the Consciousness that is creating the whole experience, just like in the dream analogy above. While your point of view may for the moment be fixated in the reality of being this one person, your true identity is more linked to the Consciousness that is feeding that reality.

Chuang Chou was both the man dreaming of the butterfly and the butterfly dreaming of the man, and yet he was neither the butterfly nor the man.

Creating a 'Science' of Consciousness

Up until now, all conversation on the topic of Consciousness has been limited to the metaphysical, spiritual or philosophical realms of our lives. Science has focused its energy and efforts, instead, in the direction of the material Universe. The discovery of the Laws of Gravity, of Thermodynamics, of electromagnetism and of Relativity may have changed the context in which we live our lives, but the actual experience of living, of our experience of ourselves, our thoughts and emotions, how we relate to one another, how we relate to society, our happiness and peace of mind has been relatively less influenced by the discovery of these laws. Realizing that the Earth revolves around the Sun as opposed to the other way round has very little personal relevance to our experience of Life. And it is this impersonal nature of Science that keeps it cold, detached and disconnected from the inner realities we live in.

If asked who we believe ourselves to be, we might try and use scientific jargon to define ourselves. From a physics perspectives, we are physical masses subject to the laws Inertia, Momentum, Electromagnetism, gravitation etc. like everything else. From a chemistry perspective, we are complex compositions of organic compounds, elements and minerals. From a biological perspective we are highly complex Organisms composed of trillions of cells with highly specialized functions. From a Neuroscience perspective we are body-mind systems powered by a highly complex processor called the brain which comprises a network of synapses that conduct information through the transfer of electrical charge. From a psychoanalytical perspective we may be a Myers -Briggs Personality type. But no matter what scientific explanation you use to define who you are, no matter how comprehensive or sophisticated, you are left with a sense that the real essence of You has been completely missed. And it is precisely because we have such limited means of defining ourselves that we end up experiencing our own lives as finite, incomprehensible and grossly limited. The Science of Life and the Experience of Life are felt to be two completely different things. 

What is necessary then is to develop a new language, one that sheds light on the behind-the-scenes dynamics within the realm of Consciousness - a "Science of Consciousness". In the blog post: A Universe Out of Nothing Consciousness was discovered to be the Nothing from which Everything emerges, it is the foundation of all material experience. Without Consciousness, the Material Universe has no reality. Now, having developed this basic premise, we can begin an exploration into the Nature of Consciousness itself and the principles that govern it. In exploring in this way, we will begin to discover how Consciousness is the foundation of Reality from which we ourselves emerge and to which we remain connected through our entire experience of Life. What you are is more than just a biological organism, a chemical compound, a physical matter, a network of synapses, a Myers-Briggs personality type. In fact these are only a few logic models in which you can choose to perceive yourself but they do not, by any means, contain the totality of the experience of who you are. Rather, who you are is not limited by any one perception or point-of-view but is the very foundation of all perceptions and points-of view. You are the Consciousness which is prior to perception. In exploring the Nature of Consciousness what we are really exploring is the Nature of who you are.  

You might question how such an endeavor can be anything more than speculative. After all, how can we explore something as esoteric as Consciousness much less develop a Science of it?! Until now all talk of Consciousness had been the domain of poets, philosophers, seers, mystics, psychics and gurus. And most of the conversation surrounding Consciousness had been prescriptive rather than investigative. Most gurus and self-help teachers focus their ideas and teachings on how to become aware of your consciousness, how to work with your consciousness, how to shift your perspectives within consciousness. But few have ventured into the study of Consciousness itself other than the specific relevance it has to a particular person. As a result, the larger questions in Life about "Who we are", "Where we come from", "Where anything comes from", "What happens to us after we die",  "How was the Universe Created" - the so called Big Questions of Life, the questions that every kid asks their parents, the questions that make every parent squirm when asked by their kids, still fall within the domain of ancient metaphysical texts and neo-spiritual jargon. This is not a knock against the ancients or contemporary spiritual teachers by any means. In fact, these two groups have provided a wealth of wisdom that must not be ignored. Where they have fallen short, however, is in developing a language that makes these deeper truths of life accessible to the modern intellectual mind; one that is naturally rational and fiercely skeptical. Criticizing the structured and highly organized Logic of the modern human's intellect, is something that many spiritual teachers tend to do, often seeing our intellects as an obstacle to a truer and fuller understanding of Consciousness. The effect that approach has is that it creates a further rift between the Analytical Mind and the Intuitive Mind, the Left Brain and the Right Brain, the Rational and the Esoteric. In society as well, this creates opposing intellectual factions, the scientific community and the metaphysical/philosophical/religious community, that are increasingly critical and mistrustful of each other's viewpoints. The problem is that they just don't speak the same language.

In developing a "Science of Consciousness" I propose to take a different approach. The Logics of Metaphysics have had a relatively slow evolution compared to that of Science whose evolution has been exponential. As a result the language that Science uses is current and relevant while that of Metaphysics/Spirituality is stale and outdated. Through my own spiritual journey and process of Inquiry, I have come to realize that these two aspects of Logic are really one and the same. In fact, each one is incomplete without the inclusion of the other and it is precisely because they exclude each other that each is unable to bridge the gap towards providing a more complete and holistic understanding of Reality.

In my exploration of Consciousness, I will attempt to demonstrate and further justify how Consciousness and Matter are inextricably linked; that in fact, matter is the "image in the mirror" and Consciousness is the reality projecting it. Just as you can witness the movements and dynamics of your body by looking in a mirror, it is possible to use Physical  Reality as the Mirror in which to glimpse and study the dynamics of Consciousness. This is a highly personal study, because unlike matter which can be separated and studied in isolation under a microscope in an impersonal manner, Consciousness can only be studied through meditation (experientially) and through contemplation (introspecting or reflecting). Each person's own experience of Consciousness is their one and only portal to the study of Consciousness itself. The two are not separate but are essentially one and the same, just like the light that is emitted from a lamp is exactly the same and reveals the same properties as the light emitted from the Sun. 

In this exploration I will investigate how the Laws of the physical Universe are reflections of corresponding Laws within Consciousness. How matter, force, space, time, energy are manifestations and counterparts of corresponding 'principles' within Consciousness. I will explore different States of Consciousness that correspond to various hierarchies of life-forms from elemental to microscopic to plant to animal to human and further to more refined levels of consciousness. I will investigate the nature and purpose of Birth, Death and provide a different perspective on Reincarnation. These investigations to name a few are just the preliminary ventures in a larger attempt to develop a whole new paradigm; one that presents a more holistic and integrated model of reality; one that places the most distant galaxies and your own personal emotions within the same single context; one in which unification (of understanding and experience) and not separation is the heart that powers the journey.

Stay tuned.