and from how it is intended to be read)
In Part 1 of this series, I stated that everything begins and ends with consciousness, that it is the ground of being, that the purpose of the Universe is expansion of consciousness, and that our ultimate purpose as humans, the most sentient beings on the planet, is to consciously participate in the expansion of consciousness (though we have subsidiary purposes related to that ultimate purpose, more of which later). In this part, I want to focus in a bit more closely on what is meant by the word “consciousness”. That is important to a full understanding of the rest of this series.
One meaning of the word that appears in some form or another in dictionaries is “the part of the human mind that is aware of the feelings, thoughts, and surroundings of the individual”. It also includes the idea of being able to reflect upon one’s own thoughts. Much beyond that, consciousness is still mostly a mystery.
Trying to clear up the mystery, extensive research into consciousness has been on going for a good number of years now; but as yet, science still has not been able to provide us a truly satisfactory accounting of consciousness. For the scientist, this is an area fraught with numerous puzzling questions and a fair amount of controversy. Questions such as: Where is consciousness located within the brain? Can it even be said to be in the brain? Is it even of a material nature like brain matter? How doe it work?
There are different schools of thought within the consciousness debate, but primarily, there is a divide between those who think the answers to all questions can be found in the examination of matter (the materialist school), and those who believe that there is something more fundamental than matter, in deed, from which matter itself manifests.
The materialist view rests upon the belief that everything is made up of matter and that you can understand things by breaking them down into smaller and smaller parts of matter. So in the pursuit of unraveling the mysteries of consciousness, the materialist seeks to find the answers in the examination of neurons and synapses and brain chemistry. At first glance, it would seem only logical to assume that consciousness would be located within the brain. After all, the brain is associated with the activities of thinking and perceptual awareness. Yet, despite the great advances in mapping the brain – discovering what areas light up with virtually every form of stimulation and cognitive activity – consciousness still remains a huge mystery. No center or area within the brain has been isolated that can conclusively be said to be the center of consciousness. Brain research in fact seems to be raising more questions about consciousness than it answers.
Meanwhile, the proponents of the other school, by virtue of their belief that consciousness is the function of a deeper reality beyond substance, and that, combined with the fact that the scientific method is limited to examination of the tangible, this school, by definition, looks beyond mere science. Theirs is a different paradigm, where transcendence is also included in the possibilities. Transcendence -- meaning apart from and beyond the material world -- is not a realm that science is designed to explore. So it is that the materialist might dismiss this school of thought as wandering off into the mystical. Yet, when we look, as we will, at the remarkable correlation between the insights of the mystics and observations and insights from the realm of quantum physics, we come to the realization that the materialist’s dismissals may be just a bit too flippant.
The dictionary definition that we began with seems to apply to individuals. What we mean for the purposes of this series however is far more than that. If consciousness is the ground of being – the position we are advancing here -- consciousness certainly cannot be limited to physical brains. Consciousness, if immaterial, must extend beyond individuals. So when we speak of consciousness here, it includes the self-awareness of the Universe as a whole entity. Everything, including humans, is a part of this whole and consciousness pervades all of it, and all is immersed in a sea, or field of consciousness. What I am depicting here represents a metaphysical meaning of consciousness as opposed to the scientific one that the materialist seeks.
In the study of physics, the word “field” is used to describe an area of influence, where a force has a cascading effect throughout the field. This concept is perfectly applicable to consciousness. In this case the field is infinite and includes all that is. As we will see, because the whole of consciousness is contained within the parts, just as the parts make up the whole, every force or bit of activity within consciousness has an effect upon the whole of consciousness.
Spectrum of Consciousness
Fine so far; but we have not yet gotten to an essential part of our meaning that entails a spectrum of consciousness. Think of it as light. On our physical plane of reality, we perceive light in a spectrum of color as exemplified in a rainbow. Just as light is perceived as multifaceted, so too is consciousness. In fact, this is more than an analogy. Light and consciousness are often thought of as the same. You may have heard the phrase, “light of consciousness”.
The spectrum as applied to consciousness manifests itself in terms of perspectives of reality, which is to say that different perspectives of reality are correlated to different positions with the spectrum of consciousness. So, on this physical plane of reality, any individual consciousness can be said to be at some position within the larger spectrum of consciousness at any particular moment in time. Thus, it is common to hear phrases such as “level of consciousness”, higher consciousness”, “lower consciousness”, “limited consciousness”, “expanded consciousness”. It is also common to hear levels of consciousness described as correlating to vibrational rates of energy, i.e., “higher energy” corresponding to higher level of consciousness, and the converse for “lower energy”. You can expect to find these phrases used throughout this series, especially as we will talk about how different points of consciousness manifest.
In Part 1 we also spoke of the purpose of the individualized expressions of Infinite Mind being to contribute to the expansion of consciousness. We humans, having free will are in no way prohibited from free engagement in expanding consciousness -- in terms of outside barriers to participation, that is. However, we do have self imposed barriers. Free will means that we are free to mange our own consciousness. And specifically, what we are managing is the degree of openness / closedness of our own consciousness.
The way that this is related to positions within the spectrum of consciousness is that our freely chosen degree of openness / closedness places us at a particular position within the spectrum of consciousness. In other words, there is an interplay whereby the level of consciousness of the entity determines position within the spectrum, which correlates to one's choices in terms of degree of openess / closedness; and then going the other way, the degree of openness one chooses can move, i.e., effect, position within the spectrum. When we speak of evolving consciousness, we are referring to the evolutionary (upward) trend of this movement in consciousness.
Position within the spectrum is in no way like social status within the world. But for purposes of analogy, let me use that idea for a moment to further enhance my point. Unlike with social status, it is impossible to try to force or manipulate one’s way into a position within consciousness. A position within the spectrum is determined by only one thing -- the degree of openness one chooses to be. Likewise, “claiming” a position also will not do it. That is why we so often see those claiming a “righteous” consciousness, acting and behaving contrary to what they are claiming. There is a discrepancy because their claim does not correlate with their state of openness.
Management of consciousness then is an activity that individual sentient beings engage in, and is how they contribute to the expansion or contraction of consciousness. To further clarify terms here, openness is associated with and contributes to expansion; closed consciousness is associated with and contributes to contraction. I hope you are seeing this. The parameter of openness / closedness is applicable to the individual consciousness. The parameter of expansion / contraction is applicable to effect upon Universal Consciousness.
In Part 1, I also mentioned an evolutionary aspect to individualized consciousness. So let’s put this into context with what we have so far. Expansion of consciousness occurs by way of, and at a pace consistent with the willingness and eagerness of the masses to be open; and evolution of the individual consciousness occurs by way of, and at a pace consistent with the willingness and eagerness of the individual to be open. Thus, man has a choice regarding the pace of his individual evolution in consciousness; but also as a species, by virtue of the degree of openness of mass consciousness, mankind affects the evolution of overall consciousness.
Now, the premise stated in the opening sentences of The Preface should be coming into sharper focus. To wit: “It is said that a major shift in the consciousness of the planet will occur when a critical mass of higher consciousness is achieved. The idea is that the overall consciousness of the planet is raised individual by individual as their consciousness is raised.”
The question that arises next might be: how are we to know open consciousness from closed? What are the characteristics of each that we might recognize them, and thereby better manage our own consciousness? That is to be the subject of Part 3 in this series, The Way of Open Consciousness.
Copyright ©, 2007, William Gunderson
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