Modern Science and Dreamtime

Modern Science and Dreamtime

Dreams have all the characteristics of reality: convincing sights, smells, sound, touch; powerful emotional content; even the ability to create effects in the “real” world. There may be different rules in particular dreams, such as being able to fly or perform other unusual feats. Nevertheless, the dream world has a consistent structure, just as the waking world does. The differences between dreams and waking are difficult to pinpoint, yet we generally feel that dream objects are “made up,” while in daily life we accept “real” objects made of “solid matter.”

Research reveals matter to be empty space with a few tiny particles in it. The particles are energy phenomena. There is no “stuff” in the universe; it is all made out of energy.

As quantum physics explores the nature of energy, some fascinating qualities come to light. For example, in observing a “particle,” it is impossible to determine both its momentum and its location at the same time because the very act of observing a characteristic causes it to leap out of the probable state and become actual. All other characteristics are still merely probabilities at that moment. To put this another way, energy has certain tendencies. The moment we look for one of those tendencies, it manifests itself, while all other tendencies remain latent…One might say that energy knows when it is being watched and it behaves to fulfill our expectations. Energy responds to us. It is conscious.

 

According to modern physics, although our world appears real and solid, it is actually an insubstantial realm whose features shift according to the psyche of the person who is observing it. A few paragraphs ago we described dream worlds the same way.

The dream of waking life appears to be longer lived, or at least more repetitive than our night-time dreams. In actuality, though, all dreams are timeless.

Plant Spirit Medicine

Eliot Cowan

In other words, everything is a dream that creates its own world onto itself. This includes not only your night-time dreams but also your very life as well. Everything that exists be it a plant, a stone, an animal…or a human being is living within their own dream…or if you will their own thoughtform.

Matter is the Intelligent Organization of Energy

Matter is the Intelligent Organization of Energy

Many religions and many scientists believe that the physical universe, especially matter, is a light-show illusion. Physicists have appreciated from the beginning of the 20^th century that matter is not at all what it appears to be. Atoms are 99.9999 percent empty space. Further, the orbiting electrons that define empty space of the atom and tiny subatomic particles that make up the nucleus of the atom are, themselves, restless energy. Matter is not the fixed immutable substance that it appears to the senses. Matter is intelligently organized invisible energy moving in infinitesimally small patterns at the speed of light…

The visible world is the invisible organization of energy…

Heinz Pagels, former executive director,

New York Academy of Sciences

Many religions have long considered the physical world an illusion made of light, in Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Buddhism we find the concept of Maya: the world is a magic show, an illusion of cosmic light, in which things appear to be present but are not what they seem. “Let there be light,” in the Judeo-Christian origin tradition strongly suggests that light is the foundation of matter. Before light, creation was “without form and void”; then God “breathed upon the face of the waters” (created vibrating waves of energy) that became light (electromagnetic energy).

The Ocean Energy-Verse

According to M-theory, the most accepted version of string theory, most of the cosmos is a high-frequency energy realm – what I’ve been calling the energy-verse. The entire physical universe exists as a relatively tiny, three-dimensional space-time-and-matter bubble immersed in an effectively infinite ocean of energy. The ocean of energy is two-dimensional and nonlocal: without time space, and matter.

What I call the “energy-verse” is referred to in M-theory as the “bulk,” as in the “bulk of reality.” The bulk is made up of layers or branes: separate, bounded energy-zones whose energies vibrate at different frequencies from those of other branes. It is not difficult mentally to correlate the differently vibrating energy branes that make up the bulk with the different vibrating energy realms (heavens and hells) to which we go at death according to our own “vibration” or state of consciouness. All religious traditions describe multilayered realms – realms ranging from the highest heaven to the lowest hell – where souls go to at death according to their behaviour, their “vibration” achieved in this life.

The Physics of God

Joseph Selbie

“Ye are Gods”

“Ye are Gods”

The physics of God has enormous significance for us as individuals.

We inhabit simultaneously our local three-dimensional physical bodies and our interpenetrating, two-dimensional energy bodies. When we feel our life force, our vitality, we are feeling the subtle energies of our interpenetrating, nonlocal two-dimensional energy bodies.

Most of what we are exists beyond the physical universe

Our local, three-dimensional physical bodies are the holographic projections of our nonlocal, two-dimensional holographic energy bodies. Our two-dimensional energy bodies are the source of most of what we experience as ourselves – our awareness, feelings, motivations, memories, and life-energy.

We cannot truly die

Our three-dimensional physical body allows us to exist in the three-dimensional physical world of space, time, and matter – like a deep-sea diver wearing a suit that allows him to survive deep underwater. When we die, our space, time, and matter suit ceases to function, and we are no longer able to operate in space, time, matter. When we die our awareness shifts to our nonlocal, two-dimensional energy body in the energy-verse.

What we think – we become.

Our nonlocal, intelligent consciousness shapes our nonlocal, two-dimensional holographic energy template. Our nonlocal, two-dimensional holographic energy template in turn, shapes our physical body. Our local, three-dimensional physical body is continuously sustained and controlled by our nonlocal, shaped-by-thought two-dimensional energy body via the bridge of quantum entanglement.

Our deeply held thoughts are powerful.

We see this power in the placebo effect; it is even more dramatically demonstrated in the nearly instantaneous physiological changes of MPD sufferers. Every moment of every day, the holographic projection we experience as our physical bodies manifests exactly what our deeply held thoughts dictate. The moment we change such deeply held thoughts is the moment our physical body changes.

We are even more amazing: We make the world.

Without intelligent observers – us – the cosmic movie, the light-show illusion of matter, will not play. The intelligent-observer effect has been has been painstakingly and exactly measured, and confirmed, in thousands of double-slit experiments. One might be tempted to dismiss the double-slit experiments as parlor tricks that affect only a few miniscule photons or atoms, but the implication of the intelligent-observer effect is profound: without intelligent observers, there can be no world.

The universe and the observer exist as a pair…

Andrei Linde, Stanford University physicst

 

This is a participatory universe…

John Archibald Wheeler, prize-winning physicst

There is no object in space-time without a conscious subject looking at it,,,

Amit Goswami, quantum physicst

We are what we think, all that we are arises with our thoughts, with our thoughts we make the world…

Buddha

The Physics of God

Joseph Selbie

Poverty of Spirit

Poverty of Spirit

Do you remember those moments when you were most in touch with your own spirit? It might have happened anytime: while you were looking into the eyes of a loved one, watching a beautiful sunset, facing danger, even just washing the dishes. Suddenly, you were filled with peace and energy. Life was full of deep meaning. You were, for awhile , fully alive.

Chances are that when you were very young, you lived in the fullness of spirit most of the time…If you are an adult, chances are that nowadays these experiences are rare enough to be memorable. What happened to you? Somehow your heart was broken, or you became insecure, or your self-esteem was shattered, or you were smitten by fear or anger. These terrible events, whatever they were, wounded your spirit.

If you recognise this and admit it to yourself, then you are exceptionally honest. Most of us start lying to ourselves as soon the spirit starts to suffer. We lie to ourselves about our spiritual wounds because they hurt so much. Physical and mental pain cannot compare to the pain of losing the thing that makes life worth living. This pain is unbearable, so we cover it with anything we can, such as work, food, power, possessions, sex, romance, religion, or alcohol and drugs. The high we get from these things feeds the lie that we are okay and masks our spiritual pain. We further bolster the lie by lavishing attention on our bodies and minds.

We have all the luxuries of food, shelter, medical care, and recreation, and we can receive every conceivable form of education and therapy. But amid this affluence, no one confronts the appalling, dangerous poverty of spirit. It takes hold as we move toward adulthood. A leading cause if middle-class teenage death in the United States is suicide. Adults are not as direct as children – we choose more complicated forms of suicide. Cancer, heart disease, and drug addiction are minor concerns compared to the problem of spiritual illness. This is all the more true since these symptoms, and most others, are usually disguised forms of spiritual pain.

Technological advances in medicine have not reduced human suffering. On the contrary, wealth and technology have impoverished our spiritual life. We desperately, urgently, need medicine for the spirit, and this kind of medicine does not depend on anything money can buy…

Plant Spirit Medicine

Eliot Cowan

A Complicated Dream, Three

A Complicated Dream, Three

In the Dreamer’s dream of nature there is no duality, no separation into self and other, no conflict, aggression, or destruction. In the dream of nature, when a predator kills and eats an animal, it is not “us” against “them.” In nature, all is “us.’ A slow, sick, or injured animal is provided to predators for the benefit of all. The health of the herd is maintained as the predator feeds its family. The dream of nature is a complex web of mutuality in which each part supports the other.

This is the most important difference between the dream of man and the dream of nature: nature dreams of unity and bliss, while man dreams of isolation and violence. Humans need unity and bliss to maintain their health of spirit. The dualistic dream starves the spirit and gives rise to the gamut of illnesses of body and soul. The job of medicine, then, is to nourish the spirit by bringing people into the source of wellbeing – the dream of nature.

Nature is dreamed by the gods. The gods are dreamed by God. To commune with nature is to commune with the Devine, so healing is truly a religious rite with healer as priest.

Let’s say a patient consults me with a concern about a respiratory infection. I do not try to kill microorganisms in her lungs. In fact, I ignore her symptoms entirely, because I know there is no “them” to fight against. It’s all “us” trying to work through something for the benefit of this woman.

So what is trying to be worked through here? I speak with the woman and find she has stifled her grief over the death of her sister. What should have been discharged through weeping has lodged in her lungs and made her susceptible to infection. Why has she stifled her grief? She suffers under the illusion that she is weak and worthless. She secretly fears that if she allowed her grief to surface, she would dissolve in the tide of her tears.

Just as the stones are dreamed into existence by the stone god and the rain by the rain god, so each plant is dreamed into being by the god or spirit of the species. I have entered the dreams of many plants, and now I select one who dreams of inner strength. I ask the spirit of this plant to include my patient in its dreaming. Immediately the woman notices a feeling peace, accompanied by ineffable sadness. Without knowing why, she bursts into tears.

By the time she reaches home after our appointment, she is weeping uncontrollably. This continues for two days, interrupted only by spasms of coughing that produce thick, old mucus. By the time the weeping stops, her respiratory infection has cleared. More important, she now enters a rich new experience of herself and her life.

Plant Spirit Medicine

Eliot Cowan

A Complicated Dream, Two

A Complicated Dream, Two

By contrast, Australian aborigines traditionally live not by clock time, but by what is called the dreamtime. The dreamtime is a timeless realm in which the Ancestors sing into existence every feature of the natural world. For those who live by the dreamtime, the world is sacred and inviolable. Not a single pebble must be disturbed from its place. The people of dreamtime will never produce a laptop computer, but they will never produce ecological crisis either.

The western dream of time, is dualistic in that it divides the web of existence into two irreconcilable parts: the present, which is real (God?), and the non-present, which is not real. According to this scheme, the aboriginal tracker’s feat is impossible and absurd because an event cannot occur simultaneously in the past and the present…

Dualism is the proto – dream underlying clock time and all modern dreaming. Dualism might be defined as the illusion that there are two discreet principles in the universe: self and other. Dualism implies isolation, conflict, and a continuous struggle of opposing forces. For this reason, actions based on dualistic vision are simplistic, aggressive, and destructive.

For example, a farmer dreams that his livestock is part of  “self” and predators are “other.” Immediately there is conflict, and the conflict suggests a simple, aggressive solution: destroy the predators. This is precisely the solution humanity has adopted over the past few thousand years. Since dualism is blind to complexity, we have failed to notice that in destroying predators we have disrupted the ecosystem in such a way as to impoverish productive lands and turn them into deserts. The dualistic dream engenders an endless procession of conflict, aggression, and destruction as each “solution” creates new problems to be attacked. One who lives in the dream of dualism lives in a battlefield, as a walk through any city will attest.

Plant Spirit Medicine

Eliot Cowan

A Complicated Dream

A Complicated Dream

I am convinced that the universe is a very complicated dream. In order to create it and keep it going, God the Dreamer dreams a multitude of lesser dreamers. Each of these lesser dreamers, or gods, is in charge of dreaming up one part of the world. For example, the stone god has a long dream that brings the stones into being, and when the rain god dreams of showers, the rains fall. Their dreams overlap, and the stones get wet.

Human beings are like gods – we ourselves are dreamers. As time goes on, we live more and more within our own dreams and less and less within the dream of nature. This is hard to see. The fish does not see the water, and the Los Angeleno does not see the smog. Nevertheless, it is very important that we come to know the difference between the human dream and the dream of nature, or else we will never understand medicine.

One of the foundations of modern life is the dream of time as a mechanical procession of discreet, uniform units. In the dream, seconds click by in single file from an unknowable future through a fleeting present into the jaws of an irretrievable past. Virtually all humankind has agreed on this view (consensus), making possible a regimentation of human effort that was unthinkable before hours, minutes, and seconds were dreamed up. Clock time makes factories possible.

Plant Spirit Medicine

Elliot Cowan

The Control of Thought

The Control of Thought

Matter responds, far more than people realise, to the power of thought.

Paramhansa Yogananda

The man who can control his thought can have and do what he wishes to have and to do; everything is his for the asking. He must remember that whatever he gets is his to use but not his to hold. Creation is always flowing by and we have as much of it as we can take and use; more would cause stagnation.

We are relieved of all thought of clinging to anybody or anything. Cannot the Great Principle of Life create for us faster than we can spend or use? The universe is inexhaustible; it is limitless; it knows no bounds and has no confines. We are not depending on a reed shaken by the wind, but on the principle of life itself, for all that we want, have or ever shall have. It is not some power, or a great power, we affirm again; it is ALL POWER. All that we have to do is to believe this and act as though it were so, never wavering, not even once, no matter what happens. As we do this we shall find that things are steadily coming our way, and that they are coming without that awful effort that destroys the peace of the majority of the race. We know that there can be no failure in the Divine Mind, and this Mind is the Power on which we are depending.

Now just because we are depending upon the Divine Mind we must not think that we do not have to do our share. God will work through us if we let Him, but we must act in the outer as though we were sure of ourselves. Our part is to believe, and then act with faith.

Jesus went to the tomb of Lazarus believing and knowing that God was working through Him. Often we may have to go somewhere or do something and we must know with deep conviction that there will be a power going with us that none can gainsay. When we feel this secure place in our thought, all that we will have to do is to act. There is no doubt but that the creative power of the universe will answer; it always does. And so we need not take the worry upon ourselves, but rather we will “Make known our requests with thanksgiving.” (gratitude)

Creative Mind and Success

Ernest Holmes

Why Belief is Necessary

Why Belief is Necessary

Man is the outcome of the desire of the Spirit to make something which expresses the same life that it feels

Ernest Holmes

Always when we pray we must believe. Our idea of prayer is not so much asking God for things as it is believing that we already have the things that we need. As we have said before, this already-believing is necessary because all is mind, and until we have provided that full acceptance we have not made a mold into which mind could pour itself and through which it could manifest. This positive belief is absolutely essential to real creative work; and if we do not at present have it, then we must develop it.

All is law, and cause and effect obtain through all life. Mind is cause, and what we term matter, or the visible, is effect. As water will freeze into the form that it is poured, so mind will solidify only into the forms that our thought takes. Thought is form. The individual provides the form; he never creates or even manifests, - that is, of himself; there is something that does all this for him. His sole activity is the use of this power. This power is always at hand ready to be spoken into and at once ready to form the words into visible expression. But the mold that most of us provide is a very poor one, and we change it so quickly that it is more like a motion picture than anything else.

Already we have the power; it is the gift of the Most High in its Finite Expression. But our ignorance of its use has caused us to create the wrong form, which in its turn has caused mind to produce the form which we have thought into it. From this law of cause and effect we may never hope to escape; and while we may think of it as a hard thing, at first, yet when we understand, we shall see it as absolute justice without which there could be no real self-acting, individual life at all. Because of our divine individuality, even God may have to wait our recognition of Him and His laws.

Creative Mind and Success

Ernest Holmes

Path to Illumination

Path to Illumination

While it is true that perception of the indwelling Secret Self ordinarily comes to harassed mortals only after much suffering and disillusionment, nevertheless there is a path by which such suffering may be avoided in the main, provided that first the soul is dedicated and sincere in its desire to make the discovery. The Secret Self is never discovered alone within, but at the same time is discovered in all places, in all beings, and is found to be the same in all. Different forms of life are merely disguises donned for the moment by the single self that underlies all, that truly is all, a play in which for the moment the Divine is hidden, in which for that moment it actually has become in entirety each of the things it has become. All the power and effectiveness of the Supreme is within you, is yours to use, and is also in everyone and everything else, existing there behind the curtain of ego-consciousness, waiting to be discovered. Therefore there is a tremendous underlying equality to all things under the sun. Each is sprung from the same substance and has inherent within it the same omnipotent being, and we are not each of us different and individual and separate except insofar as we are incomplete. To be complete is to be the Secret Self, whole and entire, without reservation or error.

The most painless path to illumination, to perception of the Secret Self, is thus to arrive at a desire to know the truth that lies behind the surface facade of the senses and to seek this truth not only within but without, in every person you meet as well as in yourself. Once this sense of absolute equality of things and people begins to make itself known to you, then you will detect a presence in each stone and clod, in each tree and plant, in each animal and person you meet, locked in a prison dictated by its form to be sure, but a presence pure and simple of the Secret Self, which has chosen the masquerade for its own purposes and is not truly locked away from consciousness of its real self but even now is developing it as we brush at the veil that separates us from our heritage.

Once a man senses the presence of the Divine in all things he is able to arrive at a sense of equality that makes him in some secret and inviolable corner of his being untouched by victory or defeat, pleasure or pain, position or prestige. He becomes so intent on doing the work of the Secret Self that he abandons almost altogether the uses of the ego and so achieves a kind of selflessness in his appearance to the world. Equality is a perfect psychic position, but is impossible to the ego which seeks forever to be better than all the egos around it, and if it is not better it is convinced it is worse and so either becomes blown-up and blind or wounded and fearful and thus provides the worst of all psychic bases for dealing with life, love, and accomplishment. To be equal is to be unafraid. To know that there inhabits in all others the same being that inhabits you is to achieve a psychic confidence that enables you to place your life and hopes and energies in the hands of this being without a qualm, with absolute certainty that you will be guided to perform that work that you must do, in the best of all possible ways, at the best of all possible times. 

The Magic in Your Mind
U.S. Andersen

Righteousness

Righteousness

IN THE preceding chapter righteousness was defined as the consciousness of already being what you want to be. This is the true psychological meaning and obviously does not refer to adherence to moral codes, civil law, or religious precepts. You cannot attach too much importance to being righteous In fact, the entire Bible is permeated with admonition and exhortations on this subject.

Break off thy sins by righteousness.

 Dan. 4:27

My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.

Job 27 .6

My righteousness shall answer for me in time to come.

 Genesis 30:33

Very often the words sin and righteousness are used m the same quotation. This is a logical contrast of opposites and becomes enormously significant in the light of the psychological meaning of righteousness and the psychological meaning of sin. Sin means to miss the mark. Not to attain your desire, not to be the person you want to be, is sinning. Righteousness is the consciousness of already being what you want to be. It is a changeless educative law that effects must follow causes. Only by righteousness can you be saved from sinning

There is a widespread misunderstanding as to what It means to be "saved from sin." The following example will suffice to demonstrate this misunderstanding and to establish the truth. A person living in abject poverty may believe that by means of some religious or philosophical activity he can be saved from sin" and his life improved as a result If however, he continues to live in the same state of poverty, it is obvious that what he believed was not the truth, and, in fact, he was not "saved " On the other hand, he can be saved by righteousness. The successful use of the law of assumption would have the inevitable result of an actual change in his life. He would no longer live in poverty. He would no longer miss the mark. He would be saved from sin.

Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Matt. 5:20

Scribes and Pharisees means those who are influenced and governed by the outer appearances the rules and customs of the society in which they live, the vain desire to be thought well of by other men. Unless this state of mind is exceeded, your life will be one of limitation of failure to attain your desires of missing the mark of sin. This righteousness is exceeded by true righteousness, which is always the consciousness of already being that which you want to be.

One of the greatest pitfalls in attempting to use the law of assumption is focusing your attention on things, on a new home, a better job, a bigger bank balance. This is not the righteousness without which you "die in your sins." Righteousness is not the thing itself; it is the consciousness, the feeling of already being the person you want to be, of already having the thing you desire.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Matthew 6

The kingdom (entire creation) of God (your I AM) IS within you. Righteousness is the awareness that you already possess it all. 

The Power of Awareness

Neville Goddard

Essentials

Essentials

THE essential points in the successful use of the law of assumption are these: First, and above all, yearning; longing; intense, burning desire. With all your heart you must want to be different from what you are. Intense, burning desire [combined with intention to make good] is the mainspring of action, the beginning of all successful ventures. In every great passion [which achieves its objective] desire is concentrated [and intentioned. You must first desire and then intend to succeed].

As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God.

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.

Here the soul is interpreted as the sum total of all you believe, think, feel, and accept as true; In other words, your present level of awareness, God, * I AM, (is the power of awareness), the source and fulfilment of all desire [understood psychologically. I am an infinite series of levels of awareness and I am what I am according to where I am in the series.] This quotation describes how your present level of awareness longs to transcend itself. Righteousness is the consciousness of already being what you want to be.

Second, cultivate physical immobility, a physical incapacity not unlike the state described by Keats in his “Ode to a Nightingale.”

A drowsy numbness pains my senses, as though of hemlock I had drunk .

It is a state akin to sleep, but one which you are still in control of the direction of attention. You must learn to induce this state at will, but experience has taught that it is more easily induced after a substantial meal, or when you wake in the morning feeling very loath to arise. Then, you are naturally disposed to enter this state. The value of physical immobility shows itself in the accumulation of mental force which absolute stillness brings with it. It increases your power of concentration.

Be still and know that I am God.

In fact, the greater energies of the mind seldom break forth save when the body is stilled and the door of the senses closed to the objective world.

The third and last thing to do is to experience in your imagination what you would experience in reality had you achieved your goal. [ You must gain it in imagination first, for imagination is the very door to the reality of that which you seek. But use imagination masterfully and not as an onlooker thinking of the end, but as a partaker thinking from the end.] Imagine that you possess a quality or something you desire which hitherto has not been yours. Surrender yourself completely to this feeling until your whole being is possessed by it. This state differs from reverie in this respect: it is the result of a controlled imagination and a steadied, concentrated attention, whereas reverie is the result of an uncontrolled imagination usually just a daydream. In the controlled state, a minimum of effort suffices to keep your consciousness filled with the feeling of the wish fulfilled. The physical and mental immobility of this state is a powerful aid to voluntary attention and a major factor of minimum effort.

The application of these three points:

1. Desire

2. Physical immobility

3. The assumption of the wish already fulfilled

is the way to at-one-ment or union with your objective. [The first point is thinking of the end, with intention to realize it. The third point is thinking from the end with the feeling of accomplishment. The secret of thinking from the end is to enjoy being it. The minute you make it pleasurable and imagine that you are it, you start thinking from the end.]

One of the most prevalent misunderstandings is that this law works only for those having a devout or a religious objective. This is a fallacy. It works just as impersonally as the law of electricity works. It can be used for greedy, selfish purposes as well as noble ones. But it should always be borne in mind that ignoble thoughts and actions inevitably result in unhappy consequences. 

The Power of Awareness 

Neville Goddard

Points to remember

Points to remember

You are an immortal being. You may have come to believe that you are a physical body; however, this is an illusion. This is the result of the birth process. Each lifetime you need to train your mind to see beyond the illusion of being only physical.

Your physical body is mortal. Remember to take good care of your body. You are immortal, but your physical body is not. If you damage your body beyond repair, you just have come back and do it all over again.

Your thoughts create your reality. This pretty much sums it up. Reality is relative, though. Be aware that one person’s perception of reality may be different from your own.

If you don’t like your reality, change your thoughts. Please be aware that changing your thoughts may take significant effort. It is not that creating is difficult. It is more based on whether or not you have developed a belief that it is.

If you don’t know how you created a situation, look at it from a new perspective. Please note, plans or agreements may have been made at a higher level of consciousness than you are currently experiencing. If this is the case, raise your consciousness.

No matter how bad a situation seems, relax. Remember that you and all those whom you care for are immortal beings. In the end, this physical life experience will pass quickly and you will soon be on to new adventures.

Owners Manual for the Mind

Patrick Andries

Attention and the Media

Attention and the Media

Your awareness is of the essence; otherwise, you will become a pawn in someone else's version of the game.

Barbara Marciniak

If you don't control your own thinking, someone else will control it for you.

Neville Goddard

You encounter life with your attention, and you probably recall being told countless times to “pay attention” to one thing or another. Attention is awareness, mindfulness, and watchful consciousness. Your attention is energy. You have the freedom to place your attention anywhere you choose, the freedom to develop or ignore your attention – it is all up to you. To know yourself, you must have command of your attention, you must learn to treasure and value it, and most importantly, you must figure out how to properly use it. For many decades a very controlled and corrupt media has been directing the attention of the masses by uniformly reporting on a state of managed chaos, which is scripted and staged to produce mental confusion and fatigue. The relentless reporting and rehashing of catastrophic and traumatic events, with images of despair and destruction repeatedly planted into the minds of the viewers, create supreme states of anxiety and are, in reality, a form of psychological warfare. Authorities play with truths, half-truths, deceptions, and lies to render you hopeless, feeling it is pointless to do anything – this now passes as “the” news, and it can rule your life.

When millions of people focus their attention upon listening to the same words, seeing the same pictures, and hearing the same descriptions, tremendous energy is generated and a massive thought-form is created. Thought-forms are vibrational blueprints that hold instructions for manifesting reality. The media captures your attention and then programs your imagination, essentially cancelling out your unique creative drive to manifest your own reality as well as your desire to know yourself. You have been conditioned to believe that all you need to know can now be found in the wonderful world of electronic boxes and the information and entertainment they hold. When “the news” is slanted toward a message of continuous war, a state of despair and a sense of hopelessness are created. A paralysis of power takes hold because you become convinced that the only reality is what is described and prescribed by the authorities in the box. Reality is created and produced by each and every one of you, and those seeking to control the world have kept this knowledge a well-guarded secret.

Path of Empowerment

Barbra Marciniak

Gathering the Fragmented Self 3

Gathering the Fragmented Self 3

Gathering

The experience of being gathered and coherent seems to come from outside the parade of temporal events. It penetrates our conditioned world as the momentary experiences of wholeness. It shows itself to be composed of our mental, emotional, and physical energies operating in a unified way in the present moment. When we are gathered there is a congruence in our behaviour – in our body language, our speech, and our emotional tone. We are not projecting incongruity or sending multiple messages. The will is not fragmented.

We learn that awareness of our breath and physical presence can greatly assist this gathering. And we learn that to be identified with any single function, such as thinking or feeling is to lose that comprehensive self-awareness we call “presence.” It is to be without that “I am” or I-ness that stems from our deeper being, from beyond the superficial mind. 

The essential matter here is that the human being is made up of many functions: sensory, behavioural, emotional, intellectual, psychic, and intuitive. When we live at the energy level of functioning automations, which our highly technologized societies seem to encourage, we function in mechanical and habitual ways. When we function at the higher level of sensitive energy, which means that our attention is drawn strongly to noticing something, then most of our attention is absorbed in just one of our many functions. We may be aware of thinking, or feeling, or sensing, but there is no overall awareness.

The secret to developing an integrated self is to intentionally extend awareness to more than one function at a time…If, for instance, we are fully occupied with an emotion and become aware of our breathing or our physical sensations, we have gathered more presence. If those of us who live mostly in our heads, in repetitive and limited thinking, both add an awareness of something physical such as our breathing and come into touch with our feelings, we have extended our presence greatly. 

Living presence
Kabir Helminski

Gathering the Fragmented Self 2

Gathering the Fragmented Self 2

Fragmentation

We are forever in parts and yet wish to be whole. We are distracted and yet wish to concentrate; we are scattered and yet wish to be focused.

We are scattered to the extent that we yield our “I” to every impulse. We say “my” likes or dislikes, “my” feelings, and “my” pain, and we diminish that “I” to the proportions of our momentary personal reactions. This “I” becomes enfeebled and is absorbed in all these passing states. At one time it is absorbed in a compulsive, unconscious act; at another, in a vague anxiety. From one moment to the next, it moves through likes and dislikes, through various motives and preoccupations. Its attention quickly shifts from being occupied with what is in front of it to entering a daydream. Some sense of “I” is identified with each of these events, but there is little abiding presence.

We are fragmented when we wander from our own center. When our attention is merely reacting to outer events, or when it is being dominated by something, it loses contact with its own source. Attention is a sacred faculty, but when it is drawn to whatever pulls strongest, it has no force of its own; it is a mere passive reaction. If attention is not connected to will, a human is not fully a human being.

If we lose contact with our sense of purpose, we lose our own coherence; our thoughts, feelings, and actions become incoherent, even self-contradictory. Feelings or motivations that once supported our goals abandon us, leaving us helpless and irresolute. Life seems a continuous struggle, requiring a certain amount of effort just to keep up. The struggle of life is largely a struggle to get organized, to gather a coherence within ourselves.

The distractions and demands of outer life can diminish our presence. All transient pleasures come to their inevitable end, and all good intentions face continual assaults. If we are constantly reacting to outside influences, we have little strength left for the inner life. Because we have been fragmented, we need to become whole, to collect ourselves and thereby let our light be stronger. No one can transform the ego before it has become integrated.

The ritual prayer – which integrates a series of postures, a mental invocation, an emotional disposition, and a transcendent awareness – can be a magnificent example of the gathering of attention. The congruence on many levels, which is the fruit of gathering and recollection, leads to peace within. When this peace has gathered sufficient strength it can face the world in a new way.

Living Presence 

Kabir Helminski

Gathering the Fragmented Self

Gathering the Fragmented Self

The experience of one’s own identity, or “I,” is a source of wonder from the first self-awareness of childhood through the whole of one’s life. Each “I” seems unique and has its own personal history. The greatest variable in human nature is the characteristic quality of this “I” feeling. For some feeling is one of alienation; for others it is communion with life. For some the feeling is one of self-deprecation; for others it may be one of profound self-worth. The “I” is a prison bounded by habitual thoughts and feelings for some; for others it is a hidden treasure.

Spiritual attainment is a fundamental transformation of the “I” from a separate, limited, and contracted identity into a rich and infinite one. It is a movement from separation to union.

One of the first steps in this process is to observe and understand the chaotic and fragmented nature of the ordinary self and to understand that a very practical integration and harmony can be achieved. This integrated self is the drop that contains the ocean. At the dimensionless center of our identity is the creative potential of Universal Intelligence.

Living Presence

Kabir Helminski

The Essential Self

The Essential Self

We can have no sense of the essential Self unless we arrive at our core – that which is deeper than thoughts and emotions, likes and dislikes, opinions and ambitions. It is possible to listen within while following the rising of the breath, to listen for a silence behind thoughts and emotions. This silence is the background of what we normally pay attention to. Once this state is somewhat established, we might direct our mind to our birth, to the mystery of our coming into the world. We can feel love for this being entering life. We might then focus on a funeral, our own. We might bring the beginning and the end of our life into the present moment, viewing this present moment with the eyes of eternity, from the viewpoint of our loving Creator. With this viewpoint, which is that of the essential Self, many wounds can be healed, many mistakes forgiven, and many losses accepted. 

Living Presence
Kabir Helminski

The Game of Existence 2

The Game of Existence 2

People everywhere are becoming much more sensitive to the effects of the increase in energy from the cosmic radiation. At this time, living on Earth involves learning how to manage energy from the perspective of the physical body. Accepting the ever-growing mass realization that thought creates reality is the bedrock foundation for the transformation of consciousness and spiritual awakening of humanity. Even though other forms of Cosmic Intelligence are offering their higher wisdom to assist you in navigating these times, it is incumbent on you to rise above the ever-pervasive tyranny of fear by applying the power of your conscious mind to create your reality.

You are a cosmic force producing your own form of radiation through your thoughts and feelings. Just as others offer assistance to your world, whatever you learn and accomplish here in physical reality ripples as a frequency of inspiration into the field of existence; and some realities eagerly await your contributions. Your personal and collective achievements make significant contributions to all realities; your victories are gifts that provide frequencies of humanities version of spiritual transformation. The steady influx of intense cosmic energy will activate new degrees of emotional awareness and expression that will further the development of your psychic sensitivities; these energies stimulate you to reach for a new understanding of yourself with respect to your power to create whatever you direct your energy and attention toward. It is also important to remember that to anchor the codes for expanded awareness into physical reality, not only must you maintain balance in all aspects of life, you must also be aware of how you conduct yourself.

Path of Empowerment

Barbra Marciniak

The Game of Existence

The Game of Existence

Rotating on its tilted axis, Earth is like a rare, priceless gem radiating its luster into the depths of space and time. From your vantage point on Earth, the sun and moon appear to be of the same size; yet in actuality, if the sun were a beach ball, the moon would be a grain of sand. The precise positioning of the Earth, moon, and sun allows for the periodicity of the lunar and solar eclipse cycles to occur, which have a penetrating and powerful impact on the entire system of nature. Eclipses follow distinct cycles that methodically disrupt the normal rhythm of the well-established relationship patterns between daylight and darkness. Eclipses initiate change by stimulating new levels of intense interrelatedness; essentially, they stir the pot of awareness. The tilting of the axis in relationship to the solar orbital plane creates the changing seasons; as you move farther away from the equatorial zones, variations in temperature and ratios of light and dark increase dramatically.

The vernal and autumn equinoxes are recognized for providing an ancient code of balance for Earth and all of her creatures. Twice a year, the sun appears directly overhead in the equatorial zones, creating an equal distribution of daylight and darkness in both Northern and Southern Hemispheres. This apparent balance between the hours of daylight and darkness is like a cosmic reset button that realigns and updates both the system of nature and that of humanity. Your body thrives on sunlight; actually, the entire system of nature functions on pulsed light vibration. Information is distributed on light frequencies, so as the daylight hours diminish or increase, your consciousness is deeply affected. With less light in autumn and winter, you naturally journey farther inward to reflect upon and reassess your place in the game of existence – which is about managing energy in every aspect of the cosmos. When the light increases, you are naturally more attracted to your external environment as the place to play, create, and initiate action.

Each year, springtime brings the fulfillment of nature’s promise of renewal. As the land awakens from winter’s slumber, you awaken as well. The cells of your body sense the quickening of light and respond by nudging your consciousness to stretch and reach outward into reality, to take action on the ideas you have been reflecting upon during the quieter winter moons. Your cells know that an increase in light is an opportunity for growth and expanded awareness. Each spring your body is stimulated to become entrained with the new light frequencies, to meet and match the strongest ones and to integrate them into your personal cellular storehouse of knowledge. 

Path of Empowerment

Barbra Marciniak

We are Culture 3

We are Culture 3

Even various subcultures, regardless of their differences, are founded on the same basic assumptions. It may sound as though these assumptions are somehow force-fed into our thoughts and perceptions, but our indoctrination comes about quite naturally in the process of growing up within our culture. These background beliefs are reinforced at every turn and simply fall into place like basic “truths” that dictate the nature of our experience by shaping our interpretation of whatever’s perceived. Since these assumptions are shared by everyone around us, we don’t recognise their considerable influence.

Since the birth of humanity, people have created many phantom worlds in which to live. In fact, our most powerful inventions are not technological at all: they are conceptual. Every culture needs structure and values in order to function as a cooperative effort, and commonly held beliefs and assumptions provide a central unifying force. In response to the question of existence, such as “Who are we, and why are we here?” a staggering number of belief systems, values, religions, cosmologies, and worldviews have been invented, lived, and taken very, very, seriously. For the most part these “inventions” occurred organically or collectively over a period of time, but despite their unpremeditated beginnings, they are inventions nevertheless.

By design, the modern human mind craves knowledge, especially in places where we can find none. When faced with an absence of information, we’ll make something up – we will believe and assume. This tendency appears to be universal – in every culture, some form of beliefs arises to fill in for the lack of absolute “knowledge.” Every subculture with a set of beliefs clamours to have the last word on the subject, claiming themselves guardians of the Truth. Many of the different factions are willing to war over their inventions, but no one is willing to confess that they simply don’t know what truth is.

The Book of Not Knowing

Peter Ralston

We are Culture 2

We are Culture 2

We tend to overlook the fact that a culture exists only within the people who make it up. Instead, we live as though individuals and cultures are separate events, as though somehow we exist apart from our culture. This is a bit like thinking a forest exists independently from the trees. When we look at it impartially, it’s plain that culture is purely conceptual – there is no culture outside the minds of the people who comprise one. Our culture is made up of our collective temperament and values, our assumptions and beliefs, our methods of thinking and our cosmologies. Our culture is found in every building, every word, every idea, every routine, every ritual, every method, every book, every mind, every emotion, every value, every action, every bias – in short, it’s made of up of everything we do and are.

Since we’re born into a culture, we can no more avoid being shaped by it and passing it along to our children than we can avoid being the product of a gene pool. The assumptions of our culture exist in our minds and perception, in our feelings and beliefs. Although they are “merely” conceptual, they live within each of us, as a very basic part of our experience, and they manifest in every activity we undertake and in every place we live. Our culture, our community, our society is you and I – and everyone else. Culture exists in us. It is one of the most basic factors in the framework from which we perceive the world around us.

Cultural assumptions are part of the foundation for our perceptions. We can’t help but take them for granted. We look out from them, which makes it difficult to look at them. No matter what we encounter, much of our interpretation of the event or object or person is predetermined by the assumptions that unconsciously shape our perceptions. One obvious example is gender stereotype. The bias, beliefs, and programming that exist in a given culture will be superimposed on an individual’s perception of every male and female. Core cultural assumptions bind us all and are as common and natural to us as the air we breathe. These assumptions are shared beliefs adopted not from personal choice but simply as a result of being part of a community.

The Book of Not Knowing

Peter Ralston

We are Culture

We are Culture

On some deep level almost everyone feels insecure, afraid, separate, isolated, and unsure of his or her own authenticity and value. We rarely openly confess and share these feelings with each other without attributing it to some specific cause or incident. Sometimes our anguish shows up in works of art or drama, or when it has built up to a point of crisis that can no longer be kept hidden. But about this personal suffering as a constant background condition, we generally keep our mouths shut and our gaze elsewhere.

To cover up this raw state, we obtain knowledge and adopt beliefs. From these, we fabricate a particular sense of self from which we deal with life. We might feel more “valuable” in the eyes of our community, but this does nothing to change our base condition. The only difference is that we’ve added yet another layer to our sense of “self.” It’s here that we step into an unending struggle with life. We suffer a nagging sense of fragmentation and dissatisfaction, and we lose our sense of real being – the source of our genuineness and innocence. Seeking relief, and unaware of any alternatives, we obtain new goals and possessions or adopt new character traits to bolster our self-identity. With each new attribute or acquisition, we further lose touch with the source of our own power, creativity, and inner peace – the very qualities we desire most, and also the only means to repair our situation.

How did we end up in such a pickle? The main source of this buried condition is the profound effect that our culture has on our entire frame of mind. Our culture is, in fact, what constructs are frame of mind. We all operate from a set of shared taken-for-granted beliefs – the matrix of our culture. This “consensus reality” may unite us in a shared domain of thought and perception, but many of the inherited assumptions behind it actually foster a sense of uncertainty and isolation. Various perspectives of our culture seem to offer solutions to our individual doubts and insecurities, but since these remedies arise from the same assumptions that cause the difficulty, they do not and cannot resolve our deep sense of personal inauthenticity and disquiet.

Peter Ralston

The Book of Not Knowing