Becoming an Enlightened Human Being

If you have been on a journey of spiritual growth, you will enjoy the following webcast on  enlightenment:

Go to the Co-creator Network, locate host Paul Goldman and access his archives. Look for my 60-minute June 6th interview with him. It is illuminating.

Evolving Consciousness and Civil Rights

As American society moves inexorably toward the full inclusion of all of its members in the rights that have been denied to some, there has been a backlash that many find disturbing and even frightening.

Keep in mind that we are witnessing the process of the evolution of social consciousness, which is a facet of general evolution, whose time frame is billions of years. 

No structure or species or philosophy ever arrived fully-formed. Progression of an evolutionary sort is always forward and backward, forward and backward. This is how consciousness does its “test runs,” a vital part of any development program from rockets to artificial limbs to make sure that what is finally introduced has staying power. 

Everything in the universe is balanced by everything else. It is no coincidence, therefore, that in political and social movements we see conservative and liberal positions. The conservative function in nature is to hold onto what currently exists while the liberal side of things experiments with change. If one dominated completely we would either see no progress at all or no stability. The status quo is needed to provide a steady platform for the launch of real change.

What this nation has been witnessing with a black president and the emergence of gay rights is nothing short of astounding to someone who was born 70  years ago. 

Remember, right after the Civil War, freed slaves enjoyed the rights of other Americans, including participation in the political process as representatives, only to lose all of their gains to a social backlash, particularly in the southern states. It took many years, World War II, Black Americans slowly entering professional sports, and the Civil Rights Movement, among other things, to make the headway that has led to the social disturbance that we currently observe.

Full civil rights is the logical outcome of the unique program this democracy represents. As we experience the natural push-pull of the process let us remain mindful that in evolutionary terms things are just as they are supposed to be. 

  

Interview with Krystalya

http://podroom.a2zen.fm/media/live-like-a-window-work-like-a-mirror-with-dr-mark

Eternity Consciousness

Eternity consciousness is a perspective that promotes serenity in everyday living. It involves simply being mindful of where we and all of the rest of creation came from, which is the formless, limitless, unchanging, perfectly serene condition that was all there was prior to the Big Bang, and allowing that serenity to filter into the here and now.

One of the easiest ways of doing this is in quiet meditation. So, get comfortable, close your eyes, and breathe diaphragmatically so that your abdomen expands each time you inhale. When you exhale, let your whole body relax like a rag doll.

Do this for a few minutes, and when well-settled, mentally collapse time all the way back to the moment before the first bloom of creation. Imagine the complete and utter darkness and soundlessness and stillness of that place. Stay in that vast emptiness for as long as you like and when you open your eyes, keep the serenity you experienced there with you as you slowly look around and re-connect with the world.

The idea with this exercise is to learn to apply the largest perspective imaginable to any circumstance that confronts you in your daily life. It is the difference between dropping a pebble into a small child’s wading pool and noting the disturbance in the water, and then dropping that same pebble into the middle of the ocean, where the resulting disturbance would be nearly an abstraction. Eternity is unimaginably larger than that. 

What allows us to accomplish this in the here and now is that the essential human mind and eternity are identical. Evolving consciousness brought the eternal realm through time and space the way a glacier carries material with it and deposits it at the farthest end of its progression. For human beings, this end is the highly evolved brain with its ability to think abstractly and to imagine, and to be aware in a way nothing else in creation can.

Eternity consciousness, that is, our awareness of our connection with the eternal realm, will absorb even the greatest concerns. Its practice is the heart of living in an enlightened way. 

Abundance Consciousness

Abundance consciousness involves the sense that we will be provided with what we need to sustain a path of healing and growth. For persons on spiritual journeys this concept envelops every aspect of life, and is a centering thought against frustration and fear when we do not get what we think we should have or when we are afraid that what we have will not last.

The opposite of abundance consciousness is scarcity consciousness, which is the fear that what we need is in limited supply. A belief in scarcity is the foundation of our feelings of insecurity, the root of competition and aggression, and a source of great personal unhappiness. It is also the predominant consciousness on earth.

Because life can be hard, achieving abundance consciousness can be a challenge. We have all witnessed suffering and death, and without it being specifically discussed, we have been encouraged to consider faith in abundance naive and dangerous. The problem with this reaction is that true security is a state that emanates from within. This means that to be at peace we have to go to our inner world and transform fear into trust that our paths will provide us with what we need and not over-invest in trying to control the outer world to insure a constant supply of what we want.

To accomplish this we have to do two basic things. One is to accept suffering and death as facts that cannot be overcome. We may endeavor to reduce suffering and premature death, of course, but all hope of substantial change in this regard starts with personal change, including the faith that by altering our personal perspective, the world might eventually change, too. If we refuse to accept our personal destiny, or we wait for the world to change before we do, we will never feel secure. 

The second is to learn that there is a difference between what we actually need and what we think we need. This is not easy to do. Habit, desire, dependency and willfulness can make us think that what we crave, grasp at, or are attempting to hold onto is correct for us when it may in fact be the opposite.

By simply looking back, most of us can see that we have received what we have needed to get where we are; that what we thought was best and what life offered were not always the same; that much of our suffering resulted from our insisting on having our way when our paths insisted that we go in another direction; and that In the end, when we compare what we wanted with what we have, we find reason to be humble.  

Victim Consciousness

Anytime we believe that we have been put upon, inconvenienced or are pessimistic we may be under the influence of victim consciousness. It is a way of looking at life negatively if it does not work obviously or immediately to our advantage according to our expectations. It is a predisposition to look first to what is wrong and to continue to feel that way even if things later turn out to be beneficial. The most prominent emotions associated with it are self-righteousness, self-pity and depression.

Victim consciousness is an outgrowth both of the survival instinct and social conditioning. It is more than a habit; it is a perceptual filter that reviews information about the world in terms of scarcity, threat, competitiveness and potential loss, and sharpens the bad and dulls the good before letting it through to our conscious minds. It subtly influences us to look for peril at the gate, the wolf at the door, and danger around the corner. It involves feeling trapped and alienated by our experiences; it says that life is not to be completely trusted; it hints that we do not really belong here; and it warns that we will be exploited if we are not careful.

It is important to realize that victim consciousness is more prevalent than we know: it pervades what we read, see, hear, talk and think about. It is in a child’s claim that his sibling’s cookie is bigger than his own, a neighbor’s accusation that the government does not give a damn about the common citizen, and in many other charges we make of advantage-taking, betrayal, or abandonment.

Most of our expressions of victim consciousness, such as complaints about the weather or a long line at the checkout, are relatively innocuous. The problem is that because they habitually make up part of our everyday thought and conversation, without our knowing it they help maintain a negative frame of reference toward life. In this way a victim-perspective can become a self-fulfilling, self-reinforcing cycle, making real peace hard to find. 

Every time we complain or make a negative comment or support this in someone else, we might want to look closely to see what our expressions represent. We may be innocently and unwittingly supporting the view of victim consciousness.

Taking Responsibility

Personal growth requires that we take responsibility for our feelings

and actions. 

This is not simply a matter of being conventionally moral or virtuous, 

and it has nothing to do with the concepts of taking blame, being 

honest with others about what we have done, or being willing to 

accept our punishment. It is a high level learning that liberates us 

from much of the limitation of unconscious living by recognizing a 

fundamental truth, which is that our feelings and actions are 

centered within, and that we are the only ones who really have

control over them.

What is so important about this is that it is only when we locate

the center of our reactions within us that we have any hope of healing

them and moving beyond them. Once we realize that no one else can 

really make us do or feel anything, we can begin to take charge

of ourselves in a new way, and to manage our energy consciously

rather than have it at the mercy of untold influences. 

This takes commitment and mindfulness, because our inclination is 

to place the responsibility for what we do not like in ourselves outside 

of us. But this is our energy and we want to have as much of that 

available to us as possible. Therefore, we need to transform it, not 

dismiss it.

Looking inside as the source of our feelings and actions is also a

path to peace and happiness. This is for two reasons. One is that we

have such little practical control over what goes on around us. It is

hard to predict what others might do, or what the environmental

conditions are going to be, so by not relying on them for our 

happiness, we are less likely to be disappointed and frustrated when 

they prove naturally changeable.

Even good people will do things that we do not like, and they

can thereby easily let us down if they do not meet our 

expectations. The economy and the weather are essentially 

unpredictable, so that if our happiness depends on how our 

investments are doing, or if the ball game gets played, we have 

a problem. The fact is that most of the universe functions 

outside of our awareness, direction and control, which is reason 

enough to go inside rather than outside for satisfaction.

The other reason is that peace and happiness have to do more

with how we personally interpret and regard what happens than

with what actually happens. This is why two people can ostensibly

experience the same event and have such different reactions. For

example, one of us might feel liberated by winning a fortune

because we believe it will simplify life, while another may see it as

complicating rather than simplifying life, and therefore never even

play a lottery game.

Peace and happiness are lived from the inside out, which means

that if they do not begin within, they do not occur at all. The occasional

sense of them that happens when interpersonal and environmental

conditions meet our desires is not the real thing, regardless of what we 

have been led to believe. 

Once we have gone within and found them, we forever know the difference, 

and we add to them by no longer hoping people or conditions will meet our 

needs, or trying to manipulate them to do so. We prefer inner control to that 

of controlling others or the conditions around us. It is the only way to feel 

that we are free of external forces.

A New Look at Anniversaries

    Buddha did not want his followers to celebrate his birthday after he was gone. This was ostensibly because he was not going to be reborn again, and because finishing life for good was more valued than any birth. He wanted people to think in terms of ending the serial birth and death cycle altogether. So, the admonition not to celebrate his birth makes sense.

   But, there is another way to think about Buddha’s admonition. With attachment, and restricted movement in mind, we might generalize from birthdays to all cyclical celebrations if they harbor static thoughts and images and re-kindle old emotional reactions.

   It may seem excessive to examine annual celebrations as potential targets of change. We are quite fond of them, after all, and they provide both structure to the year and a format of sorts for interacting with loved ones, friends and others. The major ones give us a sense of connectedness with people worldwide. And, they have been part of our cultural experience forever, which gives them a sacred or hallowed aura.

   However, in the spirit of releasing the flow of consciousness at every opportunity, which means identifying all instances where there are strictures in it, we will want to assess how much emotional energy is invested in religious and national holidays, Mother’s and Father’s days, Valentine’s Day, and all similar anniversaries.

   Each one of these celebrations has the potential of focusing consciousness inefficiently, sometimes well in advance of the actual day. Many people prepare for Christmas for months, puzzle over just the right card or gift for Valentine’s and Mother’s Day, and feel a sense of dread if they have no one to celebrate these annual days with and imagine themselves being alone on them. Each of the celebrations tends to carry a pool of images and emotions with them. Sometimes these are manifest in clear memories. Sometimes they are represented by un-identifiable emotions. Regardless, their content is static rather than flowing, and that is the only point.

     Even though we realize that the evolution of consciousness is not entirely linear, we want it to be as uninhibited in its progression as possible. Becoming as aware as we are able to be of our attachments is our way of contributing to the smooth flow of the process. Being true to the process of always moving forward requires that we not encourage the continuation of any forms of behavior that might get in the way.

    Keep in mind that, although we may yearn for the good old days, there really was no such thing as a golden age. That yearning and all nostalgia is our conservative nature at work maintaining the sense of an existing self. Everything Ego hints that we will find there we soon can recognize for its illusory quality once we observe it without reacting in the old ways and decide to bid all of it easy passage.

    Because allowing all energy to flow is in concert with our highest development, no longer being captivated by an anniversary or holiday is more rewarding than any feeling that full engagement in those celebrations can provide. We have been in the practice of looking forward to going backward, after all, which cannot be in the interest of real progress. The feeling of liberation that follows consciously reducing involvement in or exiting old cycles is better than what any celebration can offer.

    Satisfaction in re-cycling through old places is always temporary: the cycle always has to be repeated to keep the feeling of satisfaction fresh. Investing, or more accurately, re-investing energy in these “boosters” or “fixes” that keep that feeling of fulfillment current is inefficient and ultimately a drag on progress. Temporary satisfactions need temporal-based, static consciousness. They are part of what maintains the status quo.

    In the end it is not that we have to obsessively ignore or avoid such things as birth dates and solstice celebrations. Aversion, after all, can be just as energy-wasting as any other form of attachment. We can join in the fun if we do it with the same aim as we have for everything else in our conscious lives, which is to quietly pay attention to any emotional reactions we might have and to gently let them pass.

    If the idea of letting holidays and other anniversary-oriented activities pass without involvement makes you queasy, you may not be ready for that particular piece of work. People do wonder about how they will fill that time if not in celebration. They also feel odd at not joining in with others in what everyone has become used to thinking of as natural and necessary if we are to feel like we belong and to be happy.


    All temporal things pass, and if they are attachments in your consciousness, even though they may provide some feeling of well-being for a while, that will change. It has to, as time is going to pass and they will end. Taking a gently proactive, conscious approach to de-investing emotionally in them will, in the long run, be more likely to provide what you hope to find in the celebratory activities themselves. 

Learning and Enlightened Living

           Cycling has a prominent role in human social adaptation. It is the fundamental tool employed to assure the attachment of information that each culture provides its children though formal and informal education. When important things like customary points of view do not stick in a child’s mind the first time they are heard, they almost certainly will with enough exposures. 

            For example, think about how children learn the alphabet or multiplication tables. Repetition is the most reliable avenue to the rote learning these require. The alphabet is taught as a song that is performed for proud parents and adoring grandparents. Cards with multiplication data are “flashed” by teachers, tutors and parents until the information they hold is ensconced in the brain. 

What attaches is rewarded and additionally affixed by favorable adult reactions, the feeling of competence that results from performing well on quizzes and tests and competing successfully with peers, and the very natural sense of personal satisfaction that comes with attaining and possessing new knowledge, all of which bolster one’s identity. This basic accumulation then facilitates the attachment of similar cycling material, resulting over time in the masses we know as language and mathematics specifically, and a pool of knowledge more generally. 

This same process helps instill our attitudes, preconceptions and biases. As impressionable youngsters we hear adults making comments while watching the news or at the supper table and unconsciously take note. When similar comments are repeated by influential others, they begin to take on a conceptual structure that gets caught in the net of all of our other social learning. We then repeat these ourselves in conversations with our age mates, thereby strengthening their hold on our thinking. 

Being part of a group that shares similar ideas provides the sense of belonging that we as social beings all require. In order to gain affirmation and acceptance, we may even agree with things that do not resonate with the rest of our experience. This new learning, together with all attendant emotions, becomes the filter through which is unconsciously decided what is allowed in afterwards and what is rejected. It helps inform our perspectives on others and the world and becomes the bedrock of our cultural identities. Having become entrenched, it is often impossible to erase. 

It is the cycling of family, community, social, sub-cultural and cultural perspectives that results in beliefs and attitudes that persons outside of any of these social structures find hard to imagine because of their own programming. People might accuse others of having been “brainwashed” only because of their own contrary indoctrination. 

Once having adopted a point of view, it is hard to test if it is realistic, valid or accurate. This is because we measure it against what we know, which in a particular setting has been influenced in a circular way by what most others have agreed is realistic, valid or accurate. 

Knowing this, we do not have to first examine our knowledge stores for ideas that may or may not be true. In terms of the kind of progress we wish to make, shaking off old beliefs and notions and replacing them with new ones is not primarily what we are out to do. 

Remembering that enlightenment means subtraction, not addition, our work is to allow all of these things their place, but more as if they are historical artifacts or documents in a traveling museum, and not what we reference ever again as part of our conscious awareness. 

Just sit quietly and watch all thoughts and their attendant emotional reactions as they cycle through awareness again and again without trying to change anything. This is enlightened learning.

The "Real" Self

Self is the sense we all have of being separate and unique among all other human beings, and is what causes us to see all of the rest of the universe as background.

You are you and I am me, and we experience everything around us as simply the backdrop that helps us stand out. 

One of the really interesting things about the self is that we experience it as real; but, where is it? There is nothing solid to point to or hold on to, and yet we have as much certainty about its existence as we do about anything material in this world.

To add to the confusion, there is a tradition in Eastern philosophy that talks about the self as an illusion; a point of view that says that the self does not exist and that it is useless to spend any time attending to it.

However, in the West, we pay lots of attention to the self, talking in terms of self-esteem, self-worth, self-image, self-love, healing the self, the higher self, and finally, personal growth, which implies the forward movement of the self.

One of the more caring things we can say when parting is, “take care of yourself.”

The self exists. It is not just a concept or an idea; it is an actual structure. Only it is a mental rather than a physical structure. But we sense it to be substantial in the same way that we think of anything physical as substantial. 

What makes perceiving this non-material self the same as any physical structure is that the self has all of physical evolution behind it. All physical developments are the platform of mental evolution.

The self followed billions of years of the universe generating matter and then coalescing matter into form, and all of the time it took the earth to become capable of sustaining life. 

The human brain took many millions of years after that to become what resides in our head today and gives us our ability to experience separateness and existence.

(Nothing else has our ability to see our separateness from everything else, which is the requirement for perceiving existence.) 

After evolution generated the material world, which culminated in the development of the human brain, a second creation occurred to generate the new mental world.

With the development of this world of abstract thought and imagination, a fundamental shift occurred in the relative importance of the physical and mental realms in determining what was “real.”

While the physical manifestations of consciousness remained intact as a base, the mental expressions of consciousness began to dominate awareness.

An easy way to see this, for example, is in the fact that the brain and central nervous system have evolved to react in just the same ways to threats that are imagined as to real physical danger. We are capable of being traumatized from fear and worry without actually having to have an experience to set off.

The mental world trumps the physical world in terms of our perception of what is real. And, in evolutionary terms, that is entirely appropriate.

Remember, the end point of evolution is our ability to be aware. In order to be aware and to be able to trust what we are aware of as real, we have to have the same sense of “substance” about our awareness as we do everything material that came before it.

And we do. 

More on Karma

A karmic perspective can help with a more peaceful adaptation in the world through its effect on how we view the attitudes, behavior and experiences of others. When we consider life experiences in terms of contexts for learning, we are less likely to be judgmental, to compare other people with ourselves, or to intervene in their lives prematurely and inappropriately. 

In truth, regardless of what we might believe or what values we might hold, we really have no idea what contexts other people require for their development. This includes our own children and other loved ones. 

The very idea that we all are here to grow should help us leave everyone alone to do what has to be done. Of course, our own experiences in the very same developmental process should season our observations with compassion, and guide us as to when an intervention is warranted. Too much protectiveness, bailing people out of the troubles they have caused and need to learn from, and thinking that we can walk another’s rightful path might only enable repetitive growth-inhibiting behavior  and encourage another cycle of suffering. 

Living life fully is necessary to get the full benefit of the contexts that we are in, and this includes the difficult experiences as well. Thus, if we ever question why we are going through all that we do, or looking back, why we behaved as we did, karma provides the answer. All of it is for our later use; all of it is meant to moves us along.  

On this basis, we may want to reconsider any negative connotations the law of karma might have in our minds. Many of us are used to thinking in terms of sin and punishment for behavior that does not meet certain standards. Plus, we have an inclination to superstition in our make-up and easily slip into false conclusions about unpleasant consequences to our choices of behavior. 

The fact of the matter is that contexts are learning devices, not punishments. When we misuse one, or misidentify it as something other than it is, we get to revisit it with the possibility that this time we will be ready to absorb its benefits. Like remedial classes or summer school, the developmental urge of consciousness provides us with the chance to learn the material and earn the credits for it that we had passed on before. 

Once we catch on to the karmic process by way of our growing conscious awareness, we will use the possibility of consequences and of having to go through another round of the same “stuff” in the future to motivate us to get things right this time. After all, if we did not enjoy it the first time around, we are not going to like it any better in lives to come. 

Besides, having already tasted the light-ness of higher consciousness, we will want to avoid any future slowing of our further progress in that direction. The bottom line in karma is to work efficiently now so no energy will have to be expended on remediation. 

So, recognizing karma as a matter of missed or misused opportunities is conducive to lightening the future load. From this point of view, we are able to become quickly aware of what we have done or not done and see how approaching it differently at this juncture could keep that particular karmic cycle from happening again, or at least minimize its later effect. And as a sort of bonus, when we recognize that we have done it better now than we might have in the past we find that we are more at one with life than ever.

Living Like a Window

     There are several ways of describing and prescribing escaping the pull of Ego and the self that have been popular over the years. One that we use to epitomize gracefully letting life take its course is “going with the flow.” To go with the flow means not fighting the inevitable and always attempting to be at peace with the way things happen to be. 

     Thus, when you encounter someone who seems to be just living life without overly planning it or trying to control the outcome of a lot of it, you might describe him or her as “going with the flow.” 

     A somewhat more religious version of this attitude is “let go and let God.” This phrase suggests eliminating any attempts at controlling circumstances by allowing a more powerful being to take over. Since you cannot literally hand your cares to anyone, this phrase mainly requires just what the previous one does, which is to relax your conscious grip on things that seem beyond you and trust that you will be cared for. 

     A comparable popular Asian expression of the letting-go sentiment that is fairly unfamiliar to westerners is “wei wu wei,” which translates as “doing not-doing.” This phrase refers to the practice of being so elegantly at-one with whatever it is you are involved with that it seems as effortless as just laying back and being still. As with going with the flow or turning things over to a higher power, the serenity implied in such a way of being is compelling.  

     One more way of describing mentally stepping away from trying to be in control that may sum up what the effect of all such efforts might look like is the reflection “deeds are done, yet no doer can be found.”  With this, the actor disappears in the action so that the outcome appears to have achieved itself. Such an experience is one that a participant may be aware of afterward as if coming out of a trance to discover that a certain feat has been accomplished and asking, “Was that me doing that?”  

     In a sense, even if none of them actually recognize it, each of these phrases represents a prescription for disconnecting with Ego and suspending the self so that the evolutionary progression of awareness is unhindered. As all of them have great appeal to anyone who seeks a more peaceful way to go, any of them would make a great bumper sticker or would rate a place on the refrigerator door as a daily reminder of changing one’s approach to life. 

     But, in truth, even with the best of intentions, for most of us a concept such as really letting go or doing not-doing represents an elusive ideal. There are two important reasons for this. One is that, like sound bites, they all contain an important truth in a compressed and manageable form which makes it seem familiar and eminently accessible. 

     However, regardless of being able to handily bounce them around in our minds or in conversations about becoming mellower, they are not so readily transferred into action. As with most popular prescriptions, there are no instructions included. While it may seem as natural as falling asleep, if you really stop to consider it, there is nothing easy about visualizing the merger of deed and doer much less really turning our lives over to another being to sort out. 

     The second reason is that an instruction such as “just let go” is basically at odds with Ego, and is therefore the target of all manner of resistance. Ego’s job is affirming and perpetuating the existence of the self. Therefore, it is only comfortable when it is running the whole show. If it had a slogan it would certainly be “let go and let Ego,” which means that, until we are really conscious of its workings, we are more likely to be in its control while thinking that we have control. 

     There is something called the “wing-walkers’ axiom” that cautions: do not let go of what you are holding onto until you are holding onto something else. This is how Ego normally works.  It just seems naturally unwise for us to not try to have control. So, when we do try to just give things over our minds fill with distracting thoughts and fears and what-ifs, and we find that as soon as we try to back away from one concern, we seem to latch onto another. 

     Therefore, we find it hard not to watch the news, or check the weather. We keep praying that we receive help and release. We light candles and say incantations. We feel eerily superstitious about maintaining rituals and routines. We check and recheck, plan and go over the plans again. We resist delegating even when it would be more efficient. 

     In the end, the basic functioning of the self makes truly letting go the most demanding of tasks. And there is a hidden irony, which is that the act of letting go keeps control where it has always been: we are the ones who control giving up control. 

     We are in charge of the “letting” in the letting go. Even doing not-doing suggests the action of engaging in a process. And as we have seen, any supernatural being that we imagine who might take charge is also a function of Ego. We are trying to make something happen that really needs to just happen all on its own. 

     The instruction to “live like a window” is a step up from all of these approaches. A window is simply an opening through which things flow. With glass in place, light, color, and all other visual phenomena pass. With glass removed, potentially anything can pass. Whatever might be present will just go by on its own. 

     Living like a window is perfectly attuned to the evolution of consciousness. It allows the practitioner to separate from the grip of Ego in a manner that does not set off its alarms or cause it to automatically institute countermeasures. This is because there is no direct assault on Ego; in fact, there is no potentially disturbing activity of any kind at all. 

     Being window-like allows the self to continue completely unchanged. It uses the self and Ego as contextual elements to play off of as a means to further growth. 

     Window-ness suggests continuous, unimpeded movement; what happens to come our way is free to transit through. To live like a window means allowing the “flow” to pass through you. No having to let go; no turning things over to anyone; no doing anything. You are just an opening through which all things stream.

     The practitioner is free to participate fully in life while his or her conscious awareness remains independent of all activity. 

     (Adapted from “Live Like a Window, Work Like a MIrror: Enlightenment and the Practice of Eternity Consciousness”)

About Shadow

Most of us lack clarity of vision of the whole self. This occurs when various family and cultural biases, values and concepts are at odds with the full expression of the individual we naturally are. 

Any such impediment to clear seeing amounts to something clinging to glass and inhibiting the ready transmission of light. In the case of the natural self, this effectively filters our perception of who we are and what is real.

Another way of thinking about this is that what does not pass attaches to the glass and becomes a darkening influence, that is, the “shadow” side of consciousness. The shading caused by preconceptions will occlude sight, affecting our ability and willingness to effectively and accurately examine the self. 

To illustrate this, imagine yourself walking into an old barn. Near the large windows all of the implements and lubricants and bags of fertilizer are in clear view. As you wander farther into the interior you become less clear about what you see and less certain of your step. You begin to slow your movement to prevent bumping into a rusty spade or rake or stepping into a shaft. 

The deeper you go the more this careful approach affects your pace. The light begins to yellow and dust motes fill its beams. Soon you have to stop to let your eyes adjust. If you continue without doing so you sense that you really might get hurt. Even if you were told before going in that the space ahead is actually clear, there is no way to know it for sure from your own experience, and your imaginings of the mere possibility of harm are enough to evoke caution and concern.

The worst spaces are the dark corners where no light penetrates at all. There anything might hide, including a nesting owl or a raccoon. This is the place of eerie sensations and anxiety. This is the boundary of your self-assuredness. If you are like most of us you will back-peddle to an area where things are identifiable and familiar from your earlier encounter with them. 

Interestingly, as you turn from viewing the darkness, the area you just came through that did not seem so light before seems brighter now. You might wonder: is it the contrast that makes the difference, or is it that having adjusted to darkness, any light seems brighter? Is it an illusion? Does it even matter since you associate it with a feeling of safety and relief, and you are just happy to be moving on? 

But, might you also feel like you have missed something? Might you also be just a bit ashamed at your timidity and lack of adventurousness? Or will you applaud yourself for being wise and mature for not having taken too great a risk, deciding to leave the exploration of the darkness for another day? 

Of course, you may never go back at all, choosing to stay with what you have already seen and can feel like you know. There are a lot of other, less complicated experiences to pique your interest and fill your time.

Consider, then, what the lack of transparency does to complicate life. None of us wants to look into our shadows. We all are afraid of what is there. We conjure imaginary scenes of harm; we develop avoidant patterns; we stay mired in the familiar; we feel weak and ashamed; we slow our movement and hinder our growth. 

We need transparency; it is what allows all that has accumulated in our attics, closets or cellars to be revealed and allowed to pass. 

Buddha and Ego

Asceticism as a way to purity of consciousness had long been a tradition before Buddha came to be, and has remained part of the philosophy of individuals seeking deliverance from the pull of human nature ever since. The central idea in such self denial is that fear and desire have to be dominated by the force of willpower or they will forever pull a person back into the tainted consciousness of normal human existence and the suffering everyone at that level experiences. 

As products of Ego in perpetuating the sense of self, fear and desire brought the spotlight inevitably and directly to Ego, making it a villain to those who sought relief from the travails of being human. People needed a target, something to be able to address with a feeling of real confrontation so that they could accomplish a sense of personal control in the war over who or what would have charge of their experience. 

The notion for many students of human nature was that the annihilation of Ego was absolutely necessary if the cessation of suffering and the entry into an enlightened state were to be possible. For the more fervent of these, the oft-heard battle cry became “kill Ego.” 

Buddha came to view Ego wholly differently. He began to observe its productions rather than target them for destruction. His approach was one of student-teacher in which he took the position of learning all he could from the classroom of Ego, realizing that a broad and flexible perspective provided him with a much better handle on its nature and its influence. He became an empiricist. He was the general on the distant hill watching the drama of the battlefield below.  

As he quietly watched the productions of his mind come and go, and felt his attention being drawn in by them, Buddha realized how easy it was to become entrapped in their cyclical movements.  He recognized that any position he took by way of identifying with or attacking his thoughts and feelings represented a fixedness of consciousness that monopolized his energy and inhibited his awareness. He realized that for however long his attention had been thus co-opted, he had been in a trance. He knew then he had lived life in a trance-like way without having any idea that this was so. 

Buddha was determined to escape the cycling that dominated his consciousness. With the greatest of self discipline each time he sensed that his attention was drifting with a thought or a feeling, he consciously re-positioned his awareness to a neutral place. 

With practice Buddha became completely aware of Ego in all of its guises as the yearnings, fears, biases, preconceptions and the like that cluttered his mind. By letting each pass as it arose, he learned that none of them represented who he really was. For as attractive or compelling as they could sometimes be, and as natural a facet of him that they might have often seemed, his awareness of them had demonstrated with complete certainty that they were in fact separate from his consciousness. 

A Quiet Mind

Equanimity is the most serene state of mind we can experience. It means that all thoughts and emotions have the same impact on awareness, which is essentially no impact at all: no discontent, no feelings of emptiness, no distraction, no need or desire or sense of missing something, and no longing. It is the essence of a quiet mind.

We do not actually create equanimity: it is a condition that just “is.” But we can contribute to and encourage its likelihood as a more-or-less frequent occurrence in our conscious lives.

We contribute to the possibility of experiencing equanimity not by making it a goal, but by recognizing that all mental states that cycle through consciousness are transient. Most of the time, this includes the state of equanimity, too.

Transience is not always a pleasant truth to accept as even the most pleasurable states, the ones we might like keeping around for a while, never seem to linger. But that is a good arrangement. Any recovering addict will tell you that trying to hold on to any of them, or to replicate the best of them, is at the center of a pattern of enslaving compulsive cycling behavior that leads only to suffering. From an equanimity point of view, we are better off letting all states naturally pass.

We certainly do not mind that the painful ones pass. Usually, the sooner they leave the better. The problem is that even without prompting they all tend to come again, the enjoyable and the painful; the ones we again have to let go of before we want to and the ones we wish would not come at all.

What is most important is that we develop a perspective that we can readily employ in the here and now that fosters a quiet mind. An example about various points of view in life and their impact on the disruption of consciousness should help.

If you toss a pebble into a small child’s wading pool, the result will be a relatively significant disturbance in the placidity of the water. The smaller the pool, the greater the disturbance will be.
If you tossed that pebble into a pond, the result would be a disturbance that you would notice if you happen to be very close to it. But overall, especially compared to the wading pool, the disturbance would be minor.

If you took the same pebble out over a large lake and dropped it in, the result would hardly register as a disturbance at all. And the larger the lake, the less an impact would register until with the largest bodies of water the impact would be nearly an abstraction.

The obvious point is that the larger the point of view about who we are and where we come from, the smaller the impact that any thought or emotion can have on a quiescent mind. If we view this life as just one of many we have and will live, then even its most potentially disturbing events are reduced in impact.

Although most of us cannot avoid contexts where current local, national and international concerns can easily monopolize our attention, where past events such as wars and genocide are regularly replayed, and where a scary future is the one most often predicted, we can choose to view ourselves in terms of a broader swath of time.

Think again about that small wading pool. Once the pebble starts the concentric waves in motion, they not only spread outward, they hit the sides of the pool and start cycling back inward, crossing the still expanding waves to create a pattern of disturbance that affects every square inch of the surface. Even going with the flow insures an uncomfortable ride.

Higher Consciousness and Our Fear of Death

Envision stepping back from a nose-to-the-wall view of a mural. Just before beginning to move away you may have no idea that there is even a painting in front of you. With each inch of movement the painting is revealed for what it is and what it contains. This is what higher consciousness allows, a broader and broader perspective on the nature of what we have accepted as the limits of reality.

In the example of the mural, the broadening perspective not only reveals the painting in its fullness, it also eventually allows us to see ourselves in relation to all of the other selves in the gallery who are doing things similar to what we are doing, and with the gallery itself. From the broadest perspective, there is nothing unique going on: every self is having an experience in the gallery, and it is only the individuals with the narrowest view who would perceive their own experiences as distinctive. 

This broadening of perspective is enlightenment at work. With it we begin to recognize our thoroughgoing connection with all of the rest of our fellow human beings and ultimately with the rest of creation. The empathy that results has an impact on our views of suffering and death. From this higher-consciousness perspective we observe that all creatures suffer in life and that every living thing eventually deteriorates and dies. There is nothing unique in it for any of us; no life form is singled out; we are all in the same boat. It is just Nature at work. No other creature can reach out for protection or exemption. Why would we?

When we see transience in life and separation at death as just the way of a world of which we are part, our identification with the body and with the self that we associate with it begins to lose relevance. It is through our lessening association with the physical realm that the basic fear that motivates Ego is seen for what it is, an extremely powerful biological force that has physical survival as its end. 

Now, regardless of this new perspective, because higher awareness is an evolutionary continuation of the physical plane, that powerful fear will remain in service. It is part of the program of the material platform that non-material awareness is built on and will continue to play its supporting role. But understanding fear as nothing more than a function of the body’s survival system gives us a chance to deal differently with it when it arises in our consciousness and not reflexively begin to look for a supernatural intervention.

(from “Live Like a Window, Work Like a Mirror: Enlightenment and the Practice of Eternity Consciousness”)

Karma and Reincarnation

A simple way of thinking about the law of karma is: “If this, then that.” 

For us today it might mean, “If I lift weights my muscles will grow. If I eat bad food I will get sick.”

But this principle of natural consequences has contributed to the evolution of consciousness from the un-awareness of pre- and early creation to the higher consciousness of which human beings have become capable. It predicts that consciousness will adapt to all of the circumstances it encounters - eventually - as a way of moving forward.   

When we expand our perception to recognize serial rebirth as natural and likely, we fortuitously cultivate the preconditions of serenity. This occurs because in seeing that we have been around before, we add to the breadth of our sense of rootedness in the very long past. The larger the perspective we have about who we are and where we come from, the less any particular experience will bother us.

By allowing that we have been around before, we also present ourselves with an opportunity to gain a useful, helpful and reassuring perspective on the less-than-happy experiences that all of us encounter at some time in our lives. This occurs because serial lives introduce the possibility of the action of karma into the human drama.

Karma is an integral part of the cyclical nature of our experiences and their effect on the progression of conscious awareness. Taking a karmic point of view involves seeing the experiences that confront us as opportunities for growth. Congruent with the evolutionary characteristic of consciousness, karma connects what we experience in the present directly with things we experienced in past lives that we might not have recognized as the opportunities for growth they in fact were. 

According to the law of karma, it does not really matter whether we were completely unaware of past experiences as opportunities and just passed them by, or if we sense what they were and know that we did not handle them as well as we could have and wish we had done something other than we did.  

The intent of karma is that, because consciousness is meant to progress, if we missed viewing an experience as an opportunity for growth, the cycling action of creation will bring it or something that contains the essence of it around again, presenting us with another chance to adapt in a more beneficial manner. This re-occurs until forward movement makes another repetition unnecessary.

Examples of the law of karma in action are easy to find. One might have to do with our treatment of animals. If in this life we have not yet found our true relationship with them so that we treat them as chattel, in another we may watch a loved pet suffer and not be in a position to assuage its pain. 

Within this suffering on our part is the possibility that our conscious awareness will expand so that we will begin to think about the suffering of other animals, too, and eventually all other living things. Again, while other creatures may benefit by not suffering because of our ignorance, from a developmental perspective, our sense of connectedness has expanded and our awareness has moved farther along the continuum. 

A karmic perspective also helps with a more peaceful adaptation in the world through its effect on how we view the attitudes, behavior and experiences of others. When we consider life experiences in terms of contexts for learning, we are less likely to be judgmental, to compare other people with ourselves, or to intervene in their lives prematurely and inappropriately. 

In truth, regardless of what we might believe or what values we might hold, we really have no idea what contexts other people require for their development. This includes our own children and other loved ones. 

The very idea that we all are here to grow should help us leave everyone alone to do what has to be done. Of course, our own experiences in the very same developmental process should season our observations with compassion, and guide us as to when an intervention is warranted. Too much protectiveness, bailing people out of the troubles they have caused and need to learn from, and thinking that we can walk another’s rightful path might only enable repetitive growth-inhibiting behavior  and encourage another cycle of suffering. 

(adapted from “Live Like a Window, Work Like a Mirror: Enlightenment and the Practice of Eternity Consciousness”)

The Whirlwind "Us"

If you have watched the shows on cable where people “chase” tornadoes, you might have noticed that the chasers will be pointing out a tornado in the distance that initially does not appear to be anything. Then, as the rotating but invisible air either sucks down clouds or begins to pick up dirt and debris, it seems to take form right before your eyes. 

This invisible-force-to-visible-vortex is a useful model for getting a handle on the self. Just think of consciousness as the unseen energy that moves about waiting to (inevitably) pick up what it encounters in the environment that will reveal its existence and provide it with form. 

In itself it is invisible. It is no-thing. But, once filled with what is there to be taken in and carried along, no one would say that it did not exist. If you want to say it is an illusion, fine; just don’t stand in its path.

There are two points to be made here. One is that the self is made up of the energy of consciousness and the identity elements and other cultural cues that “we” are born into. It might be a revelation to a conservative Christian that if he or she had been born in Saudi Arabia, the conservative nature would be the same, but the religious beliefs would be quite different. We have an innate potential to take on an existence, but we need our environment to provide the material that defines that existence.

The second is that, in a sense, the self is illusory, just as the Buddhists have claimed. It is just this mass of “stuff” swirling around again and again that promotes a sense of solidity. However, this cycling motion is in fact the basis of creation and everything in it. We may want to doubt the self because it is relative (born here, one self; born there, a different self). What we do not want to dismiss is the swirl. This is who or what we basically are. But, like the tornado, we could not know of its existence without the debris. This “knowing” is awareness, which is what creation was all about in the first place.

So, doubt the self if that is your inclination, but perhaps consider giving it its due as the the only means by which we can know of consciousness.       

"Life Lessons" BlogTalk Radio Interview

markcbrownphd Mark C. Brown 

Listening to "Mark Brown shares the science of serenity" by Lessons Learned on #BlogTalkRadioblogtalkradio.com/lifelessonsnet…

Buddha and the Middle Way

          Buddha is not known because of his scholarship or philosophy. He is cherished for his serenity and clarity of vision, which combined to allow him a kind of equanimity that most of us can only admire.

        This does not mean that he found a way to elevate himself above the rest of us. All contrary beliefs notwithstanding, Buddha never escaped his human nature. In fact, it was his ongoing awareness of all things human as they manifested in his daily life that provided the invaluable grist for his enlightenment practice.

         Regardless of how deeply he was able to enter a meditative state, and in spite of all the release from suffering and strife he experienced while in those states, he always cycled out of the states and found life to be essentially the same as when he went in. Over time, entering a deep state, returning to fear and desire, and re-entering a deep state formed just another of the cycles everyday people unconsciously existed in, making the monks who practiced that way equally caught in unconscious living, though they may have thought differently about it. 

          Buddha’s brutal honesty would not allow him to believe that he had reached the state that he and his colleagues were seeking. Instead of floating in any relief he might temporarily feel, he used his quiescence to dispassionately observe everything that passed in his mental field. When he began to feel any investment in a particular thought or feeling, he repositioned his awareness so that again the material was separate and transient as if it wafted in the space in front of his eyes. This practice of continuously repositioning his awareness in relationship to what was produced by his mind is referred to as the Middle Way.

           There are a couple of ways of envisioning this practice that might help grasping how it works. One is to imagine moving on a mechanical walkway such as is often found in an airport. Once you get to the middle of the area you are crossing, you begin to step backward so that your relative position in the room never changes regardless of everything and everyone on the conveyor continuing onward. 

With this repetitive practice of re-positioning you get to look at all of the components of the space around you without having more than a passing relationship with them. There is no felt connection and no observable association. All of life is merely the action of passage. Nothing can grab onto you and take you with it. And you have no sense of having a destination. You just stay in the relative middle.

Another way to envision the Middle Way is to imagine looking at your image in a mirror that is centered in a hall of mirrors, so that you can always reposition your vision and see the image you had been looking at from yet another degree of separation. Every time you sense that you are locking on, you move your view. The letting go in such a place is endless and all you have to do is reposition your focus.

What this kind of practice requires is mindfulness of what we are trying to accomplish and a heightened ability to not become caught up in what is going on. There is no body of knowledge involved, no philosophical musing about life or the nature of reality. There is just seeing and letting go, seeing and letting go. 

The Middle Way is, then, a process that has no end. It recognizes transience as the key feature of everything and every experience in creation, and like a good martial arts technique, it fairly effortlessly uses the momentum of any thought or emotion to move it away and keep it from landing a blow.

(from “Live Like a Window, Work Like a Mirror: Enlightenment and the Practice of Eternity Consciousness”)