~ ღ ~ Living Consciousness ~ ((( ॐ ))) ~ Vibrant Interconnected Reality ~ ღ ~

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As an extension of the previous chapters, this chapter expands upon the information on consciousness and its relation to awareness. In this chapter, we will take a dive into the deeper waters of consciousness – it goes in tandem with another chapter titled “Living Awareness – The Heart of Living Life,” which comes up in the next section.

The terms Living Consciousness and Living Awareness arise from personal experience that best describe the aliveness of the experience of being alive, of being fully awake and aware whilst exploring the physical reality, the world around us, and the possibilities of human life by occupying the vehicle better known as the human body.

Living Awareness is all about experiencing our core essence, experiencing life directly, experiencing reality directly, experiencing humanness in the most direct way possible; and Living Consciousness is all those experiences put together – from cosmic to galactic, to human, animal, plant, and so on.

In short, Living Consciousness builds upon the idea of Interconnectedness of Everything through shared consciousness – it shows that we live in an Interconnected Reality. More broadly, if described using humanly intelligible words, terms, shapes and forms, one would describe Interconnected Reality as follows: it is made up of Interconnected Nested Multiverses within the Innerverse – these beautiful tree-like structures resemble Apollonian Gasket Fractals in multitude of dimensions.

This type of Interconnected Reality is Vibrant, Flowy & Malleable – everything and everyone is connected to each other and nothing is separate from the whole; each of us is part of this bigger whole – like water drops in the ocean; individualized but interconnected, independent but also interdependent of the whole.

~ Interconnected Nested Multiverses within the Innerverse - Beautiful tree-like structures resemble Apollonian Gasket Fractals in Multitudes of Dimensions ~

When we take the previous into consideration and delve deeper into the idea of Interconnected Living Consciousness, we can find that someone who is on a path toward self-knowledge, will eventually come to the realization that the highest endeavour of the mind is the investigation of its own nature. Thereby, as one delves into their own nature through self-inquiry – turning their attention and curiosity inwards towards oneself and towards the truth of one’s nature, one can understand how everything else connects to the whole.

You see, just in the same way as we are part of the whole, so in the same way the whole is part of us. It is through self-inquiry – the constant attention to the inner awareness of “I,” that it is possible to see the parts as well as the whole; as one delves into this, one realizes that Self is Awareness, that everything is ultimately One Interconnected Whole. It is by self-inquiry, through which, and by which, one can better understand themselves, and in turn grow, ripe and mature.

As one grows in understanding of oneself, the Mystery of Life unfolds itself like a lotus of countless petals. The deeper investigation and understanding happens through the processes of Self-Realization & Self-Actualization – realizing one’s deepest desires and capacities, fulfilling the possibilities of one’s potential; expressing one’s creativity, quest for spiritual enlightenment, pursuit of knowledge, and desire to give to society.

On that note, the highest possible desire is to know thyself – in other words, Self-Realization and its natural progression, Self-Actualization. Eventually this inward focus can lead to an experience of one’s ultimate true nature – such as Kensho and Satori; and even beyond experience itself to a dimension that is empty of any experience or sense of self, such as Samadhi and Enlightenment. And so you see, when one becomes realized and actualized, one does not simply know life – one is life, one is existence, one is awareness, one is knowledge, one is wisdom – without any sense of separation.

Furthermore, in terms of consciousness, at the deepest level, there is but Oneself – One undivided Self; hence Oneself. There is but One all pervading Spirit; there is but one First Cause that has its Being of itself, and on which all other beings depend; there is but one Infinite Being, so there is but One Awareness – see?

This is where Living Awareness comes in, for you see, both the individuation – the experience of being an individuated human being – a person, as well as Oneness of Life, Oneness of Reality, are experienced through Omnipresent Awareness. In this respect, Living Awareness knows itself by itself, in itself, as itself, through itself. It is this very recognition and acknowledgment through many different facets of the same that can be called Living Consciousness.

And because both Living Consciousness and Living Awareness are closely related to Self-Realization and its natural progression, Self-Actualization, let us add a little more perspective and context.

Advaita Vedanta (Ancient Non-Duality Tradition) defines Self-Realization as the knowledge of the True Self – beyond both delusion and identification with material phenomena, defining the manifest material world to be temporal – an eternal play of shakti or energy; the immutable principle or the Ultimate Reality is beyond space, time, and form – therefore, it cannot be described, quantified, reasoned, or explained – all that exists on a differentiated basis can only be directly experienced as itself.

Hence, the “outside” world that we perceive with our senses as being solid, and believe to be made out of a dense material – is actually existing in consciousness, which goes on to say that everything is happening within consciousness where the mind appears. In other words, the mind is a localization of consciousness – believed to be located in the brain and situated in the head, which in turn is a part of the human body. The body itself is an image in the mind, and everything in the mind is happening inside consciousness.

Therefore, the individuated, solid, dense, located entity called “I” – is the manifestation of an idea – created by the mind as a form of an image; this, in turn, takes place inside the mind – residing in consciousness, inside which a flame of Living Awareness infinitely flickers, you see?

And if one pursues to find the ultimate nature of the mind, they would end up realizing that the ultimate nature of mind is that aspect of the mind which remains constantly present in its experience – this is the Eternal Essence that cannot be removed or excluded in any circumstances; in other words, it is pure presence – Infinite Living Awareness.

Living Awareness is too close to itself to know itself as Infinite Living Awareness, and therefore the only way to know itself is through individuation and the creation of the finite mind. The finite mind isn’t an entity as such, but rather an activity through which the Infinite is able to know the world.

Therefore, the finite mind is the activity of Infinite Living Awareness, which has the ability to vibrate within itself – creating the form of the finite mind. This activity then makes it possible for the Infinite to know the objective experience – enabling the Infinite to know itself through the finite mind. This knowing is Living Consciousness, you see?

To summarize, Living Consciousness is that which is present and aware – Infinite Consciousness knowing its own being; the knowing of our own being is Infinite Living Awareness. In other words, Living Consciousness is the tool for Living Awareness to know itself – the container of all experience. Living Consciousness is that in which all experience appears, with which all experience is known, and out of which all experience is made.

All that IS, or could ever be known – is experience; all experience is mind – thinking, imagining, feeling, sensing, perceiving. Therefore, it can be said that the mind’s knowledge of whatever it knows or perceives is only ever as good as its knowledge of itself.

– Living Consciousness is that which is present and aware.
– Living Consciousness is that in which all experience appears.
– Living Consciousness never knows anything other than its own being.
– Living Consciousness is the being of every cell and every particle.
– Living Consciousness is the Living Awareness of All That Is.
– Living Consciousness is the real you, or the one to experience the wondrous and wonderful presence within the human body.

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~ ॐ ~ Sambodhi Padmasamadhi ~ ∞ ~

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~ ∞ ~ Panpsychism – An Easy Escape From the Dilemma of Consciousness ~ ∞ ~

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To further our discussion about consciousness, it is imperative to briefly dip our toes into something that may or may not shed some light on the complexity of understanding consciousness, and why consciousness is so difficult subject matter, especially to Western people.

As a way of introduction, let us call this something “an easy escape from the dilemma of consciousness.” It concerns a revival of an old philosophical theory known as panpsychism – emphasis on the revival aspect of it. You see, in recent years, we have seen science leaning towards the idea of panpsychism, which entails that everything has a degree of consciousness.

The view of panpsychism has recently been making a comeback in the philosophy of mind, because it is seen as one possible solution to the so-called “hard problem of consciousness.” But the catch is, that this “new wave” of panpsychism lacks the mystical connotations of previous forms of the view. In a nutshell, it is a sugarcoated, cherry-picked and watered-down version of the original.

Panpsychism, in philosophy of mind, is the view that mind or a mind-like aspect is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality. In this revival, there is only matter; and there is mind, in the sense that mind is matter.

Hence, there is nothing spiritual, supernatural, or mystical about it. It’s like the advocates of this “new wave” of panpsychism are cherry-picking only those things that best fit the standard scientific paradigm with its materialist foundation for the purposes of finding an easy escape from the dilemma of consciousness.

The ultimate goal of Western science is nothing more or less than the “theory of everything,” which is a hypothetical single, all-encompassing, coherent theoretical framework that fully explains and links together all physical aspects of the universe. But alas, without solving the “hard problem of consciousness,” such theory is unattainable.

The undeniable truth is that science alone cannot solve the ultimate mystery of life, because we ourselves are an intrinsic part of the mystery we are trying to solve – unless we add ourselves to the equation, we will never solve any of the major problems, nor will we solve the mysteries of life, either.

It goes without saying that we should not be surprised that our standard scientific method struggles to deal with consciousness. You see, it seems as though, modern science was explicitly designed to exclude consciousness. It seems that there is – still, at the beginning of the third decade of the 21st century, a great taboo against querying the mysterious inner world of consciousness. For some reason, it is not considered to be a fitting topic for “serious science.”

As such, some have convinced themselves that the only practical solution would be the revival of panpsychism; that this cherry-picked “new wave” of panpsychism would be the magic bullet that would solve all the problems regarding consciousness. But alas, the problem of consciousness, however, is radically unlike any other scientific problem.

Even though panpsychism is one of the oldest philosophical theories concerning mind, reaching far back into pre-Socratic times, it is paramount to highlight the fact that this “new wave” specifically deals with the mental aspect of it all – covering only a tiny fraction of the spectrum of consciousness. Therefore, it is unfortunate that with the rise in interest in the “hard problem of consciousness” in Western science, it has misleadingly become synonymous with consciousness, resulting in a lot of ensuing confusion and misunderstanding.

You see, the claim is that “I – the body am conscious,” and because “I am composed of physical matter,” therefore also the physical universe (matter) must be conscious. Panpsychism is often considered to be equivalent to the Non-Dual understanding of consciousness, which entails that consciousness pervades everything; and herein lies both the problem and misunderstanding. You see, the core of this misunderstanding lies at the very beginning of the statement – the mistake is: “I – the body am conscious.” And so you see, when you build on this ground, every other step also contains this initial misunderstanding.

Even though there is similarity to Non-Dual understanding of consciousness, there is also a profound and distinct difference: from the panpsychist’s perspective – mind exists in matter. In contrast, from the Non-Dual perspective – material world exists in mind. Panpsychism, therefore – is a form of materialism, in which the world is seen as separate from our core essence – that of awareness. A key problem with materialism is that it has been unable to explain how arrangements of matter can possibly generate subjective experience.

This problem is so incomprehensible that some materialist philosophers even try to deny the very existence of consciousness altogether, and find an easy escape from the dilemma of consciousness. As such, panpsychism provides an easy escape route for the materialist – it magically “solves” the hard problem of consciousness, simply by declaring consciousness to be either an irreducible property or the intrinsic nature of matter.

All that panpsychism does – is that it maintains the current belief that matter is either in substance or in structure the primary aspect of reality, which goes on to say that panpsychism gives us the sugarcoated version of materialism which doesn’t actually solve anything.

In panpsychism, consciousness is fundamentally fragmented in the same way as matter appears to be; consciousness is just one more irreducible property of matter at a subatomic level – just like mass, charge, spin and momentum. In other words, all matter is thought to have consciousness at a fundamental level – matter, however – remains the broader and more primary aspect of reality.

And so you see, to the panpsychist, “the real world” consists of matter and energy fields – which are, allegedly, outside, and independent of, consciousness. The presumption that the physical body has consciousness comes from the observation that because we are able to experience and to perceive the world, therefore we must also have consciousness – making us conscious; identifying ourselves with the physical body.

And yet, in all actuality, we don’t have consciousness – we are consciousness made manifest by Living Awareness; there is a fundamental difference between the two – see? In our observations of the world, we have also noticed that animals seem to express certain level of consciousness, and hence we have applied this same presumption to animals as well.

By virtue of the aforementioned with regard to levels of consciousness, one can pose the following questions: Where do we draw the line and say that something is conscious and something is not? When does matter become conscious, or can it ever become conscious at all?

If we really tune into this idea, we can find that in all actuality, only consciousness is conscious, and only awareness is aware; and that our ability to be aware, enables us to express consciousness through which we experience the world. We also find that there is a precursor to consciousness – that of sentience; which means “capable of feeling.” This is what makes the distinction between humans and other sentient beings like animals – it is quite different to be conscious than only capable of feeling.

When we’re talking about sentience, it is noteworthy that the meaning of sentience in Buddhism is far more sophisticated than in Western thought – it is described as the state of having senses, not limited to physical ones, but also including the subjective experience of the mind; sentience in Buddhism is awareness prior to the arising of Skandha*1 – thus, an animal, plants, trees, and even water qualifies as a sentient being.

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*1 Skandha in Buddhism, refers to the concept of five aggregates, which asserts five elements that constitute and explain a living being’s mental and physical existence: 1.) form or matter (rupa), 2.) sensation or feeling (vedana), 3.) perception (samjna), 4.) mental formations (sankhara), 5.) consciousness (vijnana).

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~ ॐ ~ Sambodhi Padmasamadhi ~ ∞ ~

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~ ∞ ~ The Mystery of Consciousness 2/2 - Awaken the Living Awareness Within ~ ∞ ~

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By virtue of the aforementioned with regard to the nature of consciousness, one can pose a question: Do animals have consciousness? Do plants? To which the answer can be given: as the nature of consciousness is very much subjective, it can truly be known only through the aforementioned methods, you see?

In so doing, one can arrive at the following conclusion: all living things have consciousness, and are inseparably linked to all other living things in this Great Cosmic Web of Life; even plants have consciousness – plant’s knowing of where to grow and how to turn to the light is evidence of this.

Every living thing lives within the continuous cycle of birth and death where the remains of one become the nutrients for the other – nothing is ever wasted, everything just transforms into different forms at various times; everything shifts between different levels of existence or consciousness according to its vibrational frequency or awareness, you see?

Furthermore, upon deeper examination, one ultimately finds that inanimate objects are energy – like anything else, and contain trace amounts of consciousness, as all energy comes from a source of consciousness, you see? This understanding not only unites everything that happens in the visible outer world, but it also links the inner subjective world to the outer world.

All things – both seen and unseen, are bound together by cause and effect, which goes on to say that nothing can exist in absolute independence of other things or arise of its own accord; everything in the world comes into existence in response to causes and conditions – meaning that all beings and phenomena exist or occur only because of their relationship with other things. Therefore, one can say that all things – both seen and unseen, share consciousness. You see, in a completely interconnected universe, consciousness anywhere means consciousness everywhere.

As the whole of humanity is a single being, having a collective consciousness – the sum total of all human life, each life being a link in a chain of lives, bound together by cause and effect, different, yet the same – it would mean that we are part of, and intimately connected to, absolutely everything in the universe.

Now, if one sees the interconnected universe as a medium through which consciousness and information is communicated, shared and exchanged, they can also picture the universe as one enormously big, gigantic cell of consciousness containing all the information life needs to expand, develop and unfold.

In this respect, life, therefore, in and of itself, is one gigantic process of passing down consciousness and information. From this perspective, all of life is essentially one gigantic ocean of life, one gigantic ocean of consciousness.

Underlying this consciousness, there is awareness – through which, and by which, we become aware of consciousness. In other words, there is the content of consciousness as well as the awareness of it. In this respect, consciousness does not shine by itself – it shines by a light beyond it; this light is awareness, you see?

This is why the Buddhist likens consciousness to a lamp, which lights itself at the same time it lights up the objects around it. And so you see, awareness is like a light switch that turns on the lamp. From this, we can draw the conclusion that not only does all life have consciousness, but all life has awareness in varying degrees. More precisely, all Life is Awareness, and so it goes that to understand consciousness, one has to become more aware, you see?

Now, let us circle back to the problem with the “scientific attitude,” whose materialist approach and attempts to conceptualize consciousness is precisely what gives rise to confusion and keeps the vicious cycle alive, deepening the scientific dogma, and feeding scientism (the claim that science is the only source of knowledge; that science is the absolute and only justifiable access to the truth), which blinds us from seeing beyond self-imposed limits and illusion, preventing us from understanding consciousness.

When it comes to consciousness – our innate ability to experience or to feel – it remains a mystery to science, although many so-called “experts” have attempted to study, define and explain it. In our attempt to understand consciousness, we have chosen a stance of denial: if we cannot locate, measure, or see consciousness; if we cannot quantify or break down consciousness – it must be impossible; or at the very least – it must reside in the brain.

It is, after all, our firm belief that the mind is in the brain – so therefore also consciousness must reside in the brain, as well. Yet, ironically enough, we cannot prove it to be so. We tend to think that what we see is all there is – that there is nothing we cannot see. Even though we know this is not true, we like to pretend otherwise.

The investigation of our existence, and therefore of our sentience, of our consciousness, always seem to start with the presumption of things – the basic presumption of our being is based on the material reality. From this, the question arises: How could we ever possibly break down consciousness when it is the most concrete and fundamental of all things?

All current Western approaches for consciousness (at least all mainstream ones) are based on materialism – a philosophical stance which holds that the only thing that exists – is matter; that all things are composed of material, and all phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions. Therefore, the basic question has always been: How does something come out of nothing, and furthermore: How does consciousness arise from matter?

Scientifically oriented people often think that consciousness is an emergent biological phenomena – making no difference to physical systems; also psychologists often speak of the mind and the body as two separate entities for convenience – while many still acknowledge that they are intimately entwined.

Both have largely ignored how consciousness manifests in our existence; this has been done by assuming that brain produces consciousness – although it has never been verified. The only verifiable thing is that consciousness in human form is something that conceives, governs, constructs, and eventually becomes the activity of the body.

Some materialist scientists even believe that consciousness is nothing more than a side effect of our brain moving towards a state of entropy; this must be one of the most preposterous ideas put forward because consciousness in and of itself is concentration of awareness – which is totally opposite of what is being suggested by those materialist scientists.

When we really “tune in” to our own consciousness by using different mindfulness practices – one comes to realize that consciousness always arise from awareness – it doesn’t exist in itself; it is always relative to awareness. This is the main reason why science – as we know it today, cannot properly understand consciousness. You see, as things stand now, the so called “hard problem of consciousness” is deeply rooted in scientific materialism, which is based on the reductionist assumptions of various kinds.

This means that modern science and medicine are essentially based on the reductionist view of the material world. Therefore, it also reduces human existence to our physical existence, in much the same way it reduces reality to what can be detected through sensory experience or can be analyzed with reason – leaving no room for intuition, insight and Inner Knowing.

Due to scientific materialism, we believe and assume that all phenomena in the universe, including time and consciousness, are governed by “eternal laws,” and that all phenomena are subject to the same physical laws, which can be discovered by the means of systematic observation and experimentation. Here we should ask ourselves: Are these so called “eternal laws” of nature really set, or could it be possible that they are still evolving? Who are we to say that the laws of nature are fixed?

It doesn’t take a genius to understand that if the universe is expanding and evolving, then also the laws of nature may be evolving as well. The problem is that we are always looking for a physical explanation. Hence, it goes without saying that the known laws of physics are not only incomplete, but they are inadequate to explain the phenomenon of consciousness.

According to science, the universe is made of nothing, and we have no idea how we experience it; on top of that, we don’t exactly know where is the experience happening. Clearly, it is not happening in our brains, because the brain itself is experience in our consciousness, and our body is no different in that regard. And the amazing part is that we cannot find consciousness anywhere – we cannot touch it, taste it, smell it, hear it, find it or localize it – but we can experience it. Intriguing, isn’t it?

The ancient wisdom traditions have a simple answer to this problem: we are asking completely the wrong question. You see, “where” implies a location in space, and existence in time, and our consciousness is not in space-time. So, clearly, we would have to consider that it could be the other way around – that consciousness is fundamental, and what we experience as the mental and perceptual experience of the world is actually a modified form of consciousness.

In other words, there is only consciousness, and therefore the physical world and our mental experiences are simply modified aspects of consciousness. To stretch this even further, the entire universe is also an experience in our consciousness. This leads us to a staggering conclusion: all experience and phenomena happens in consciousness, and hence there is nowhere to go but in.

In a broader sense, this means that in regard to space and time, matter and form – there really is no space “out there,” and no universal clock “anywhere” to keep time – rather, there is but an appearance of space and time, matter and form; and thus, it is all here – within the Innerverse, residing within each and every one of us. The mind creates the appearance of separation, you see?

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~ ॐ ~ Sambodhi Padmasamadhi ~ ∞ ~

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~ ∞ ~ The Mystery of Consciousness 1/2 - Awaken the Living Awareness Within ~ ∞ ~

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In this section, we dive deeper into the topic of consciousness and its relation to awareness (which has its own dedicated section following this one). A good way to start would be to say that as we begin to shed the layers of the human condition that blinds our perception of our Infinite Being, we come across the idea of consciousness. It is something that underlies everything we know and everything we do, it is present in our daily life, and yet we know so little about it.

And so it can be said that consciousness is one of the biggest mysteries there is. Indeed, if one takes a moment to investigate, one arrives at the conclusion that consciousness has been one of the most profound mysteries of our existence from the very beginning. We talk about it all the time, and we know about it through our experiences – and yet, nobody agrees on what consciousness is – be it science, philosophy, mysticism, or religion; there are as many answers as there are people, you see?

In the previous sections, through many chapters, we have already discussed a fair amount about this topic. As such, the purpose of this section is to crystallize some of the main aspects of it, and pose questions more than give answers. Among some of the deep questions we ask in this section are: What is consciousness? Is it dependent on, independent of, or interdependent with physical reality?

Why do non-Western wisdom traditions and Western scientific perspectives disagree so completely in their ideas about it? Do animals have consciousness? Do plants? What do experiences such as dreams, intuition, creativity, spiritual and near-death events tell us about the malleability and the range of consciousness, its elusiveness and transcendental nature? How does one study consciousness? How does one better understand consciousness?

When we ask the question: What is consciousness, we arrive at the conclusion that there is no definitive, all-encompassing definition or description about consciousness, although the emerging field of consciousness studies seeks to arrive at one.

One such definition, favored by Western science, relies on materialist theories which argue that consciousness is constituted by the physiological structure of the brain, and hence it can be reduced to its neural activity, or that it is an emergent product of complex neural networks. Mainstream scientists like to say, argue – and even insist, that the brain creates consciousness and that consciousness cannot survive without the brain.

But if one looks deeper, utilizing the very tools provided by the science itself, namely Quantum Mechanics, it is just as plausible to argue that consciousness exists before the formation of the brain, and therefore consciousness can exist after the death of the brain. What an astonishing dichotomy, isn’t it? By contrast, non-Western traditions see consciousness as ontologically primary to physical matter, an idea that underlies most of the world’s wisdom traditions, including Zen, Taoism, Buddhism, Vedanta, and Yoga.

From the previous, we can see that the idea of consciousness has been used in many ways throughout the history of humanity. The Western approach with its materialist ideas, definitions and descriptions being the youngest, and hence the most partial and incomplete. Considering how far we have come as a species, with all the discoveries in science, engineering and technology – including astronomy, biology, chemistry, medicine, psychology, sociology, and philosophy, among many other fields, it is simply astonishing how little we have discovered about consciousness.

Although we don’t understand what consciousness is, we have some thoughts on what it might be, and hence there are a plethora of theories and hypothesis around it. Interestingly, none of these theories really answers to the primary question of what consciousness is, but rather, most, if not all, focus explaining what consciousness does.

Consciousness is generally described to be a state or quality of awareness; besides being an aspect or quality of awareness, sometimes it has been defined also as qualia, sentience, subjectivity, or the ability to experience or to feel. Other descriptions of consciousness include wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind; some go even so far as to say that consciousness is the same as life; ancient wisdom traditions all over the world has called it simply Spirit.

All the above-mentioned descriptions mean that consciousness in human form is something that conceives, governs, constructs, and eventually becomes the activity of the body. When we investigate consciousness more deeply by utilizing our innate ability of being aware of our own consciousness, we can find that consciousness is also something bigger than us – something much more than just the quality of our awareness, and the ability of being aware of our individuated self.

Isn’t it intriguing that everyone seems to have their opinions about consciousness, but so little true understanding about it; isn’t it intriguing that we sure do like to speculate, but we put very little, if any, effort in understanding consciousness better. It goes without saying that understanding both consciousness and awareness – defining characteristics of sentience, should be our primary goal above all else, or at the very least, considered as being of great importance as they are playing a key role in determining the course of human happiness and suffering.

These varying opinions about consciousness comes from the individual perspective of one’s own subjective experience of life, and yet we have no agreement on what consciousness truly and really is. As such, it can be said that understanding consciousness appears to be more difficult than anything we have ever encountered to this day.

The biggest problems in answering the many questions about consciousness, its nature and its extent arises out of the fact that humans have always started their explorations from the external world, rather than within the inner world, you see?

One of these problems is deeply rooted in the way in which we acquire information – the importance is often placed on the mind and the linear, rational, and logical thinking; this type of information gathering and processing is valued over the heart-based wisdom (science vs. intuition). For some reason, it is difficult for us to appreciate anything that goes against the norm, that is, logic and reason as we know and practice them today.

This brings us face to face with the difficulty on studying consciousness – our modern contemporary methods of studying consciousness are linear, whereas consciousness is very much a non-linear phenomenon. Also the modern science has its very own core problems (assumptions of and about the world) in their scientific methods – the biggest being the way of seeing the world: as if everything would be separate from ourselves.

As such, understanding the nature of consciousness is one of the grand outstanding scientific challenges. The fundamental methodological problem is how phenomenal first person experience can be accounted for in a third person verifiable form, while the conceptual challenge is to both define its function and physical realization.

Consciousness is something that cannot be observed in the way that material objects can – it cannot be weighed, measured, or otherwise pinned down. From this, it becomes clear that science can only go so far – or at least the science we know today, which means that the only viable way to study consciousness is through direct experience, exploring and sharing these experiences by discussing about them, and in so doing learning about them – see?

Many ancient wisdom traditions explore consciousness through direct experience, which is achieved through contemplative practices such as Qi-gong, Zen meditation, and Yoga; these practices teach the practitioner to achieve a state of mental quiescence or stillness in order to comprehend reality in its non-physical manifestations, and in so doing, achieve a state of unity with the ultimate ground of being.

There are three classical paths that lead towards being more aware, towards higher consciousness, towards better understanding of consciousness: meditation, concentration, and contemplation. Even though each path is different, each of them can help one to better understand consciousness; when followed and practiced consistently, they all lead to the same final goal or destination – absorption of Self into the Ultimate Reality.

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~ ॐ ~ Sambodhi Padmasamadhi ~ ∞ ~

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~ ∞ ~ Masters of Storytelling – Awaken the Living Awareness Within ~ ∞ ~

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Now, let us expand this a little. From the above-mentioned, it becomes obvious that human life is clearly a story. More specifically, human life can be seen as a repeated story, or as a series of stories that are more or less related, intertwined and interconnected. If one takes a moment to reflect on their life, they could reasonably see it in terms of various story lines, whether parallel or intersecting or distinct.

As it turns out, there is a term for this type of understanding: “samsara,” as it is called in Sanskrit. It refers precisely to the idea that human life is a repeated story; the one we all have been caught up – a dream from which we are unable to wake up. Samsara is the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth – see?

This brings us to something called a “Hero’s Journey,” or short, a monomyth. In the following few paragraphs, we will briefly look at this, but just before we do that, let me ask you this: Is it not indeed the case that we are all heroes of our lives? Is it not, indeed so, that we are all on a journey – some more invested and committed than others?

Joseph Campbell’s theory of the Monomyth (Hero’s Journey), asserts that various myths, legends, and fairy tales throughout human history share a common story structure involving a hero who departs from known reality in order to confront a series of trials and tribulations before returning home as an initiated master of both realms.

In his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell studies many hundreds of fairy tales, folk tales and legends in order to unearth a common “pattern” in the structure of stories. Campbell defines this as the “monomyth” or “hero’s journey” – the typical trajectory of a story, across all cultures and religions. Comprising three stages – separation, initiation, and return – the hero’s journey offers a narrative framework for understanding the progression of a character, namely the protagonist.

The journey, according to Campbell, usually includes a symbolic death and re-birth of the character. The religious idea of “cleansing” is also important, giving a sense of the character transforming from old to new – the character arc. The journey undertaken sees the character undergo both physical and emotional battles, which work together to bring them to a better understanding of their life and their place in the world. As such, the journey is full of duality – symbol and spirit; body and soul; manifest and myth; plot and story. In other words, as the character does (action), he or she becomes (character arc).

If there is anything to take away from this, it is this: stories we tell reflect who we are, what we believe, and the futures we envision. This is why powerful stories resonate within us. In a similar way, archetypes of the characters resonate within us – some more, some less. We identify with certain characters more than others, be it heroes or the villains or something in between, because we share those tendencies inside of us.

Powerful stories show the light and the dark, point to a greater cause, teach, and leave room for interpretation. The interesting part is that not only do stories share common elements and structure, but so does human life as well – our individual paths may be different, but they share many common elements.

Even though each path is different, they all lead to the same final goal or destination – eventually. Some paths are more difficult than others, having many obstacles to overcome; some are full of hardships and suffering, while others may provide moments of joy only to be followed by extended periods of distress. Even though each path is different, on constant remains: like a river flowing into the sea, the Soul returns to its Source, becoming one with the Ultimate Truth, eventually experiencing absorption of Self into the Ultimate Reality – this is the Hero’s Journey, you see?

The journey becomes much more easy when one realizes that life has its own order, its own discipline, if you will. Hence, you simply move with it, you float with it – you don’t try to push the river, you become one with it and the river takes you to the ocean. Indeed, we are all on a journey – some more invested and committed than others; the path we tread is full of ups and downs – and some of them are very steep.

Sometimes we may feel that we have lost our way on the river of life; with its many twists and turns we might find ourselves wondering which direction to take. But all is not lost, for you see, if we choose to use our free will to find the strength that dwells within, we find hope – a compass directing us in life. With patience and persistence, we continue to move forward, overcoming any obstacles we may face, and eventually we will prevail, you see? And this is where the wisdom lies – sometimes the obstacle is the path, for every obstacle presents an opportunity to grow and become better – see?

If we take into consideration all the above-mentioned, we can arrive at the conclusion that everything seems to be cyclical – not only the stories we tell, but also our lives and everything in it, including our thoughts and ideas; everything in life seems to be rediscovered, reinvented, recycled, reused and repurposed time and time again – intriguing, isn’t it?

And so you see, as it has been before, so it shall be again, and what has been done will be done again; life is a full circle; coming back around, again and again, in hopes of meeting ourselves; in hopes of seeing and really knowing ourselves; around and around and around we go, in this thing we call life – see?

And with this, we arrive at another aspect of the same. Earlier in the section titled PROLOGUE, we briefly discussed the idea of “Original Thought,” and reached the conclusion that this thought preceded any other, and hence everything springs from this singular source. Therefore, everything arises in dependence upon this thought. This is also the main reason why we don’t actually have any original thoughts, even though we might think we do. Everything that can be written and everything that can be said, has already been written and said before using different flavors of words.

Indeed, there is no such thing as “original ideas,” for you see, everything is derived from the one and only Original Idea there ever was, is, and ever will be. All we have are merely new creative expressions of what has already been said, written, or otherwise expressed – see? And now you may ask: Why? Well, to answer that question we would need to start with the following truth: the very words we use to express our thoughts are coming from outside of ourselves, and therefore it is extremely difficult to think freely and independently.

The words we use in our language comes from the community we live in and were brought-up. Words themselves are symbols representing things and ideas known to us; language is created out of these words and used by masses of people to express things and ideas experienced by their senses and mind. So when we think in a language that our community gave us – it means that eventually we are not thinking our own thoughts. Intriguing, isn’t it?

And when it comes to originality: at first glance, it might seem that everything that is presented as being “new, fresh, and original,” is actually a variation of what has been done before. We see this clearly in our world today – every story we tell each other is in some way or another a recycled version of previous stories we have told. For instance, the movies and TV-shows of today are just retelling of the same stories that have been told for thousands of years.

In much the same way as traditional stories are recycled versions of previous stories we have told, science is also a story, a narrative, and scientists are storytellers who keep circling the same ideas and theories time and time again.

Science, therefore, is a work in progress, a construction that emerges at a very specific juncture in the hi(story) of humanity; it is a story about ideas – often abstract, often technical, often complex – and all the energy and profundity and drama of science comes from the interactions between these ideas. All this drama that comes from the battle of ideas might be our downfall in science, and its salvation in spirituality – intriguing, isn’t it?

We can conclude this chapter with the following: considering all the aforementioned, one should be inclined to ask the following question: Is it not, indeed so, what has been said long ago, in the Bible (Ecclesiastes 1:9-10), and is it not, indeed, that it holds true even today?

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, ‘Look! This is something new?’ It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.”

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~ ॐ ~ Sambodhi Padmasamadhi ~ ∞ ~

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Extra Material: Video: You're It - Alan Watts. Video description: "An inspiring and profound speech from the late Alan Watts. Speech extract from 'Zen Bones and Tales' by Alan Watts"

~ ∞ ~ Masters of Storytelling – Awaken the Living Awareness Within ~ ∞ ~

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In the previous chapter, we touched upon the truth that the stories we tell build up our world. The context in which this was brought up involved something called the human condition, from which the false sense of self originates and springs. You see, the human condition is basically a collective story, an unstructured narrative we buy into and believe in.

This collective condition, or story, if you will – has shaped not only the individuals themselves, but also our culture. This is because stories are the foundation of our lives and character, and because our lives are influenced by the stories we tell, they have the power to create our reality.

This brings us to an important point: if there’s anything we humans excel at, it is most definitely storytelling. We make stories for everything, and this is why stories are how we learn and remember – they provide a way of understanding our place in the scheme of things by structuring our understanding of events. Stories are how we make sense of life because they root us in an on-going stream of history by providing us with a sense of belonging and helping establish our identities.

For thousands of years, we have used the art of storytelling to enlighten, to inform, to provoke, and to entertain. And so it can be said that at the very core, our shared reality is based on stories – the stories we tell build up our world. Indeed, every culture is built upon stories and beliefs passed on by its leaders, family members and elders.

All cultures have stories about the beginnings of the universe, and thus all religions have stories at their heart explaining our existence and purpose here on Earth. Stories are our interpretation of reality – they describe to us how we believe the world is. Indeed, our entire worldview and memories are created out of our stories.

Stories are clearly a double-edged sword. You see, at best, stories can encourage, inspire, and inform; they can also be healing and cathartic for both the teller and the listener alike. At worst, stories can be harmful in several different ways: they can express falsehoods, half-truths, attitudes and dispositions that can lead people feeling and behaving differently than they would otherwise.

This, in turn, can have much greater consequences and impact than most realize, even long-lasting, civilization-wide consequences. You see, unfortunately, often times, we adopt our stories as truth, and because we believe in them, stories become our reality – they create the world we perceive and inhabit.

This leads to the creation of an agreed-upon concepts of reality – more specifically, a social construct*1 called “consensus reality.” It refers to an agreed-upon concepts of reality which people in the world, or a culture or group believe are real (or treat as real), usually based upon their common experiences as they believe them to be.

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*1 A social construct is something that exists as a result of human interaction – it exists because humans agree that it exists; some examples of social constructs are countries and money.

In this type of consensus view of reality, we are often involved not only with our representations of the world, but with our representations of those representations. This is why we humans believe that there is a real world “out there,” but in all actuality, the “real world” is always interpreted by our mind and filtered through our senses, which goes on to say that what we see and hear are merely interpretations of reality through our minds and bodies. In other words, based on our beliefs we create representations of what might be out there in the world — see?

It is against this backdrop that we can understand the following: each moment everything is happening on the canvas of Life, which is being painted with non-material things like awareness, consciousness, feelings, emotions, experiences, memories, thoughts, and will, but also with material things such as particles, cells, neurons, and endless other interconnected pieces that come together like the colors of the spectrum. It is precisely through our stories how we make sense of it all, you see?

Although storytelling has evolved along with our language, communication and technology — the basic premise remains intact — stories (narratives) communicate ideas, and thus we teach and learn through story. In so doing, we learn to perceive the world around us through the stories we tell each other. And because the stories we tell create our future, it is paramount that we learn to tell better stories.

To begin to break away from the old, outdated and outmoded, limited narrow view of the world, which is colored by the human condition — we need a new collective story, that of empowerment, equality, compassion, and unity — see?

Hence, it is reasonable to ask ourselves: What would our life be like if we would include the storyteller into our stories? Not as some external unspecified entity narrating the story, but as an intrinsic part of the story — the listener, the story and the storyteller becoming one intertwined symbiosis of Living Life; we humans ourselves being active storytellers of our collective human story, you see?

Now, let me ask you this: What could we accomplish if we truly cared about each other and each others’ well-being? What could we accomplish if we really took care of the whole world — allowing people to think clearly and express themselves in creative ways instead of suppressing every non-conventional creative endeavour?

Because stories are the foundation of our lives and character, they have the power to create our reality, and this is precisely why the stories we tell ourselves can make or break our future. This realization has many implications that have not been fully recognized. You see, without awareness, we give our personal power to the story, and in so doing, the story writes itself. But with awareness, we recover the control of our story, and in so doing, we can choose what stories we believe, and in turn we can change the old story to better fit our needs and values.

Should we choose to reclaim our personal power and recover the control of our story is entirely up to us, is it not? Should we choose to learn from one another and help each other along the way, is once again, up to us — both individually and collectively. Now, take a moment and imagine the endless possibilities we could achieve, dream, envision, and create together.

What will our future hold and what will it look like is but anyone’s guess, what matters most is the truth that our future is ours to envision, discover and co-create together. We are the ones who write our own destiny, with how we choose to live our lives, with what we choose to learn, unlearn, and relearn, with what we choose to let go and leave behind, with what we choose to envision and create, and what we choose to cherish and value — see?

Should we choose to use our free will to rewrite our story and redefine how we do things — is entirely up to each and every one of us. Is it not, indeed, up to us to choose our path? The decision is ours, and ours alone, and has been so from day one. Should we choose to acknowledge it, is once again, up to us. Whichever path we choose, it will surely determine the fate of our species for a long time to come.

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~ ॐ ~ Sambodhi Padmasamadhi ~ ∞ ~

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Extra Material: Video: You're It - Alan Watts. Video description: "An inspiring and profound speech from the late Alan Watts. Speech extract from 'Zen Bones and Tales' by Alan Watts"

~ ∞ ~ Metaphysical Paradigm Shift 3/3 - Awaken the Living Awareness Within ~ ∞ ~

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Like mentioned earlier, we are blinded by our hubris and denial of things obvious, so much so that we often think that we have discovered some of the great truths of life; some even believe that they have cracked the mystery of life through some sort of equation or formula. But alas, the honest truth is that science alone cannot solve the ultimate mystery of life, simply because we ourselves are an intrinsic part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.

Therefore, it is obvious that we need to better understand ourselves to understand the universe, nature, and life itself, you see? We need to better understand how we relate to the world and to one another – how we are in the world, how we relate to where we are, and how we act towards other people. Other such explorations would include such considerations as why we are the way we are, and what it all means for who we as individuals and as a species want to become.

By virtue of the aforementioned, it is paramount to highlight the following truth: it is evident that in the coming decades science is poised to explore the mystery of consciousness – a new and ancient world of Souls and Eternal Spirit – the Inner Universe of the Mind (Innerverse).

And so you see, just as we are now discovering that consciousness is distributed through every cell of the body, soon we may discover that it is distributed in every photon or particle of light throughout the universe and beyond. The realization is indeed dawning on us that the universe may actually be conscious in every part of itself. This new understanding may help to modify the deeply entrenched belief that spirit and nature are separate and distinct.

Against this backdrop, we can see that science and philosophy would need to ask different kinds of questions and explore other ways of knowing beyond the limits of reason and the limited spectrum of the senses, which goes on to say that there are other ways of knowing – such as feeling, intuition and direct knowing – direct experience of non-sensory realities; these types of knowing are equally valid and need to be encouraged, honored and developed, would you agree?

It follows, then, that if we cultivate these types of knowing, we can begin to see Existential Intelligence become more prominent in the population, you see? Existential Intelligence can be seen as the ability to be sensitive to, or have the capacity for, conceptualizing or tackling deeper or larger questions about human existence – the proclivity to pose and ponder questions about life, death, and ultimate realities.

This type of intelligence is needed and welcomed as we move toward a new era of awareness. As such, it can be said that it is an essential prerequisite to possess this kind of intelligence in a larger population for us to make a population-wide shift in paradigm. And so you see, if this were to happen, it in itself would be, precisely, the said metaphysical paradigm shift.

This kind of metaphysical paradigm shift may eventually restore our lost sense of connection with the Sacred Earth and a Conscious Universe. This is because, on a deeper level, Existential Intelligence includes the capacity to transcend the physical and material aspects of life, and hence the ability to experience heightened states of consciousness, by which the ability of utilizing spiritual resources to solve problems comes to fruition.

As indicated earlier in this section, it requires new ways of going about things to take us from mechanical to natural, from machines to ecosystems, from straight lines to curves, from hierarchies to networks; to see not just the parts but to see the whole, not just analyze but to synthesize. This change of paradigms means not only shifting our thinking from the parts to the whole, but also from structure to process.

In this new paradigm, we consciously recognize and acknowledge that we are an inseparable part of a Living Universe, which means that we are aware that process is primary and every structure we observe is a manifestation of an underlying process, which makes them living structures – and these together form a living system – see?

Ultimately, the understanding of living structures is inextricably linked to understanding renewal, change and transformation. Therefore, the shift of perspective from the parts to the whole can also be seen as a shift from objects to relationships.

Let us go deeper. A simple observation shows that all living systems are non-linear in nature – their basic pattern of organization are networks; all non-linear networks have emerging and flexible structures. At each level, the living system is an integrated whole with smaller components, while at the same time being a part of a larger whole.

Living systems are integrated wholes whose properties cannot be reduced to those of smaller parts. Their essential or “systemic” properties are properties of the whole which none of the parts have – they arise from patterns of organization that are characteristic of a particular class of systems. Ultimately, as Quantum Physics has shown – there are no parts at all, for you see, what we call a part is merely a pattern in an inseparable web of relationships.

Throughout the living world, we find living systems nesting within other living systems, which means that nature has learned how to create organisms that grow and self-organize without planning – still working in unison. To give an example: cells combine to form tissues, tissues to form organs, and organs to form organisms.

Material world, therefore – ultimately, is a network of inseparable patterns of relationships. This means that also the Earth as a whole is an Intelligent Living System. In other words, an autopoietic system – self-producing, self-perpetuating, self-organizing, self-maintaining and self-regulating intelligent system.

Understanding the pattern of self-organization is the key to understanding the essential nature of life. So therefore, to understand these types of non-linear living systems, we need to use a new kind of thinking. Instead of limited, linear, serial processing – we should be using unlimited, non-linear, parallel mental processing.

This upgraded version of operating includes a new way of thinking that would be more in the lines of a direct acknowledgement and instant knowing – the type that is demonstrated to a large degree in this book. If we shift our perception from linear to non-linear, we can see possibilities emerge that were once invisible.

In this way, we are changing our behaviors and attitudes from self-assertive to integrative, from rational to intuitive, from reductionist to holistic, and from separation to connectedness. For the sake of analogy, rather than seeing water as merely a physical element necessary for life, we should acknowledge it as a transformational agent that can lead us into new fresh ways of innovative thinking and action – see?

Let us end this chapter and section with the following words. Non-linear way of operating is based on the universal behavioral patterns of non-linear living networks – it provides a hopeful, creative, peaceful, and ecologically harmonic framework to experience the world around and within us. Non-linear way of operating demonstrates Unconditional Love (Agape – Universal Love, Loving-Kindness and Compassion) as its ethical value and guiding principle, which is the core of Spiritual Intelligence.

This new way of looking at the world has its roots on the wisdom of the ancients, on the already established “Systems Thinking,” and “Systems Intelligence,” but also on the emerging new type of intelligence that we don’t currently have words for – resembling the aforementioned Existential Intelligence and Spiritual Intelligence; it involves thinking not only in terms of process, relationships, patterns, and context, but also in terms of energy, frequency, vibration, consciousness, and awareness.

This new way of thinking and seeing the world and ourselves can be seen as a form of intelligence that celebrates the Miracle of Life in many different ways on many different levels. Although not always immediately obvious, this new type of intelligence is a big part of the discussion throughout this book.

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~ ॐ ~ Sambodhi Padmasamadhi ~ ∞ ~

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Get the Book: Awaken the Living Awareness Within – Discover the Keys to Happiness, Inner Peace & Harmony

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Extra Material: Video: You're It - Alan Watts. Video description: "An inspiring and profound speech from the late Alan Watts. Speech extract from 'Zen Bones and Tales' by Alan Watts"