Consciousness is the state of awaked-ness.
Most of us imagine we’re awake most of the day, but in fact we’re really in a heightened state of sleep, the level of sleep at which we can still carry out a varied range of ordinary yet automatic processes.
These range from getting up and going to the toilet in the morning, through having that first cigarette or coffee, listening to the radio, travelling to work, undertaking a ‘hard day’s toil’, reading the paper, shopping, asking others how they are (and even responding to their answers) – all the way through to travelling safely home, making dinner, having that evening drink, sitting down and eventually staring at the TV until ‘something inside’ tells you it’s time to have a shower and go to bed….. often exhausted from everything you’ve done.
Almost the entire day can be spent in this ‘half-life’ automatic state.
For some of us, much of our lives are lived like this, never quite asleep but never quite awake, either. In such a state many of our actions are undertaken without real thought – we simply operate via a regular routine. Many of us even complain about ‘being in a rut’.
When we need to deal with an issue or combat a problem we do so by utilising a vast compendium of pre-chosen responses, habitual reactions that are triggered so fast that, by the time we’re aware of them, they’re already functioning.
This is unthinking behaviour: unthinking in that we don’t plan it or objectively choose it so much as simply observe it during or after the event (and then, incorrectly, called our ‘thinking’).
There is another process – consciousness.
In consciousness we are fully awake.
Indeed, we are so awake that we are able to objectively review all our options before undertaking any activity – and then able to observe our body, our feelings or our brain utilising our chosen response as if our real or inner self were something different from our bodies, feelings, brains or outcomes.
That difference is consciousness; and consciousness is accessed through the Mind.
Mind, a dimensionless non-physical space is the portal to the real.
Nobel prize winning scientist Sir John Eccles said: “The brain is nothing more than a complex computer to serve the mind. The mind is superior to and independent of the brain.
….it could be said that the Mind wanders over the brain caressing it into activity”.
You and I have never been just our bodies or our thoughts, rather we are the eternally real that exists beyond our bodies, our emotions and our everyday ideas.
The quality of our existence has never relied on the physical outcomes we achieve but rather on the degree to which we are able to realise the limitless dimensions of our being.
We are the spirit of Oneness, clothed in understanding and empowered as love.
The unawakened look to the sky and see only the clouds: the awakened look to the sky and see the endless blue beyond the clouds.
The unawakened attempt to control the ever-changing clouds and turn them into creations of their own making, thus causing themselves stress, frustration, disappointment and belief in failure.
The awakened see the clouds and simply let them be what they will be: their focus happily remains on the eternal blue.
The unawakened allow the uncontrollable clouds to be the determinant of their happiness or sadness, in effect to allow them to control their perceived successes or failures in life.
The awakened marvel at their clever brain’s attempts to manipulate the clouds – but restrain such activity and are content to be at one with the infinity of blue….
The unawakened see themselves as miserable sinners, random groups of dysfunctional molecules, bobbing along on the sea of misfortune.
The awakened are at one with the very sea of Consciousness itself.
Such people know that their very essence is the Divine Seer, the Eternal Watcher, the Infinite Lover, the Perfect Creator, the Impeccable Companion and the Infallible Truth.
Consciousness is the Ocean of Reality existing always in the Now with Love.
Come, swim awhile!
An Affirmation: I am a child of the Divine! In my being all is contained; and when I pour myself into the Ocean of All I am most joyfully nothing and everything at once!
More in a fortnight!
Blessings and Love,
Les