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Back to the Forum Archives In this essay, I want to discuss my current practice in consciousness raising and some of the results of my efforts. One of the important things in my practice is that I must keep remembering my goal which is God Awareness. I want to acquire an understanding of the basic forces and concepts of the universe. This, of course, is somewhat contrary to the cultural thrust of most peoples efforts who are just trying to make it in the world. I have spent a lot of my earthly allotment of time just trying to make it, to survive and have a decent life. I think most of us spend most of our lives trying to get doors to open to a better temporal life by pushing on them. It is only later, if at all, when some of us realize the only really important door opens inward. Most of us never get to that one and many of those who do think it opens outward. We think we are separate. We think we must reach out for enlightenment. We are not separate and God ain't out there. Nothing is out there and no angels can dance on the head of a pin either. The door to the soul-self opens inward. I must constantly remind myself to get clear on that. I do not mean to say that pushing doors open in our temporal world is wrong, not at all. What is wrong is when we push the temporal doors open to get ahead we tend to forget the door to the soul-self. One of my most strenuous efforts comes from my attempts to get out of this either-or mindset where I can only have it one way. I am convinced we can be ego-conscious and still pursue a spiritual life. What we cannot do is become egocentric to the exclusion of spirituality or spiritual to the exclusion of the temporal life. It is important to find the balance. We must honor what and where we are without ignoring our spiritual potential. At the same time we should honor our spiritual life without getting lost in it. As temporal beings we find ourselves in a Newtonian Euclidean world. If we forget that, we could get hurt real bad. It is important to remember our pin number and our zip code. However, I insist we can honor the ego-self and still open to the soul-self. Now, let us not confuse the soul-self with this psychological notion of the subconscious. The soul-self is only unconscious to our ego-self because we keep it that way. The soul-self is there and it is always conscious. In my practice, I am not reaching out to some external force or consciousness. In my practice I look inward to the soul-self which is my spiritual center. This is where I can come to some understanding and open to that super-conscious which includes all of us. I once thought this soul-self was external to me. I knew it was there and I knew it had information that I could sometimes access, but I thought it was separate. I even had a name for it. I visualized it as feminine and I called her Minerva. Now I know it is really my center, the spiritual part of me. I am also convinced this soul-self is capable of opening me to super-consciousness. I hope my meditations and other practices will someday take me to a level of consciousness where I will understand the relationship between the life force, the universal energy field, and the super-consciousness. This is that consciousness that Jung called the collective unconscious. Let me offer some of my thoughts on all of these ideas consciousness. We are all born into the ego state of consciousness. Most of us remain there until we die. We are I and the I is separate from everything else and everything else is separate from everything else. I believe it is not necessary to remain in that state. We can relax, open our hearts, let go, and fall upward into super consciousness, that which Jung called collective unconscious, I call God awareness, and Easterners call Brahman or Nirvana. It is difficult, but necessary to think of these things as states of mind and consciousness, not as places or things. God Awareness and Nirvana are not like the Christian Heaven or the Christian God. We don't need to go anywhere to reach this level of consciousness. We can do it in our parlor. If we are advanced enough we might even do it in the city dump. For sure, I don't do it in the dump yet. I try to do it in my greenhouse. What do I do? I just sit in my greenhouse for thirty minutes and attempt to open to the inner or soul-self. Yes, I use a timer, not because I am afraid of disappearing into the void. I use a timer because I am busy and have many other things to do. Still, I allow 30 minutes for my practice because it is the most important thing I am doing. In practice I sit on a comfortable task chair where I can keep my spine straight and my legs in reasonable positions. For me, that means my spine is erect and my head sits squarely on my neck. My hips and knees are at 90 degrees or slightly more and my hands lie comfortably in my lap. My body is never uncomfortable ore cramped in any way. This has nothing to do with energy flow or some kind of kooky Kundalini. I sit this way so I can be reasonably comfortable while sitting still for half an hour. Since this is my greenhouse and my home, I am also able to be naked when I meditate. The point is not to be titillated, but to be comfortable, to remove all distractions. I want to focus all of my mental effort on practice, not on a crotch jammed with bunched up clothing or on leg cramps. These things can become distracting noises so I eliminate them. All bodily stress is eliminated where possible. In this meditation the idea is to shut down the noise with whatever techniques I find suitable. I do this in order to let the reality in. Some of the noise is in my head and it will keep going forever. There are always words and ideas flowing through my ego-conscious. I do not try to control them. If I did, I would be going with them. The thing is, to let the noise go without going with it. I just let it be. It should have no more significance than a breeze rustling the leaves of a tree outside. It is only annoying if I allow it. In this way, I quietly open to my sou-self and let whatever comes come. Sitting quietly is only one way to come to this point of openness. I believe there is a way for each person and each level. There will be similarities, but there is no one fixed way. There is no one-fits-all path. However you travel the path, the goal is to become one with the super-conscious, to become of it so there is only one. In that union, everything becomes possible. In this, it is important to let go of the body. This body I occupy is a vehicle. It is not me. At this time it is essential to my temporal existence, but it is not me. So, when I open inward it is not into the body, but inward to the soul-consciousness. I close my eyes, sit quietly, and let the field around me become me and flow through me. The idea is to understand it, come to one with it, be at one with it, and finally know, I am one with the universe. At that point, my power is limitless. My vision is limitless. My presence is limitless. I can be anywhere, see anything, and do anything. This is the true state of God Awareness. Now, have I ever gotten to that point? No way, but I have had some unique experiences of it. I have only touched on the edges of the super-conscious state,
once in a while, for extremely short intervals in my meditations.
All I can tell you is it is somewhat like an orgasm, but even
shorter lived. But, this thrill is not what I am after anyway.
Super-consciousness or God Awareness is what I want, wherein
I will have true understanding of how this universe is. I have
a long ways to go, but, so far as I know, it's the only game
in town. I may as well play. I am not finished with these concepts
yet. I will offer more thoughts and get to some of the unexpected
results of this in the essay I will call, "Getting There
4."
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