WHISPERS FROM WITHIN
April 2003
Consciousness Is What "It" is All About
Do
we not see that Joel and all the other mystics have, in an infinite
number of ways, been telling us that the only Spirit there is, the only
God there is, the only I there is, the only Christ there is, is
CONSCIOUSNESS? And not just CONSCIOUSNESS, but individual
CONSCIOUSNESS, yours and mine. For do we not also see that
CONSCIOUSNESS is ONE? To see one is to see the other for in reality
both are one and the same.
In
our present state of consciousness, we do not deliberately think about
what we are aware of. This is the defining characteristic revealing we
are in that very state, one which reflects the nature of our awareness.
If we are in gross humanhood, then we are aware of only forms and
separateness. Here we are enmeshed in the belief in two-ness. We do not
have to think we are. Rarely does it even occur to us to think about
it. We just are! The proof of it is that all we see or are aware of is
the physical features of the world in which we live. That is, we see
colors, some we like others we do not and shapes, and behaviors, and
conditions, and people, but, all filtered through our belief that some
are this way (good, perhaps) while others are that way (not so good, or
even evil, perhaps). In other words, we see only physicality and react
to it based upon our individual personal preferences that are formed
according to our understanding of whether each is either beneficial or
detrimental to us. We do not have to consciously think about this
though. Our awareness normally functions along these lines without our
having to take thought about it. It is only when we want to change our
awareness to something different that we find ourselves taking thought
about the matter. And quite a lot of thought taking will be needed to
release ourselves from the habitual way of perceiving things. We will
need to deliberately think along different lines for as long as it
takes for the new vision to take hold and become a part of our
awareness. This period will be different for each individual.
A
huge part of the difficulty on this spiritual path is the effort of
thinking differently - that is, keeping truth active in our
consciousness - sufficiently long enough for the thoughts to leave our
mind and sink into our fiber (consciousness) where it becomes bone of
our bone and flesh of our flesh. It is the persistent knowing and
practicing the truth in our daily life that eventually causes it to
take root. Taking root means to become a permanent part of our
consciousness. When TRUTH is autonomously active in us IT functions on
ITS own without our having to think it so. As we do find ourselves
having to think it so, we can know from this that we are still in that
stage of being a gardener to fertile seeds that have yet to form roots.
Just
like now, in our present state of consciousness, we do not have to
think about our perceptions of the separateness afoot in our world, when
TRUTH has finally penetrated and renovated our consciousness we will be
seeing the fruitage of this development without giving it conscious
thought. And what is this fruitage that we will see? Quite basically,
it is ONENESS. This does not mean we will lose all sense of the way we
used to see things. We will still be aware of the forms and how we used
to be limited to seeing only these, but now our vision or awareness
will not stop there. Instead it will instantaneously reveal the
singular reality constituting all that we see. Our awareness will cause
us to marvel at the old limited perceptions. We will find ourselves
amazed at how we responded and reacted to life from the standpoint of
our limited awareness. The deeper view of the essence of life will
correct our reactions and responses even as we still witness the outer
world continuing to live and behave from our old viewpoint (awareness).
There
will be no judgment of the world for the way it is living as we realize
we would be harming no one but ourselves since our judgment goes
nowhere. There is nowhere for it to go! Remember, ALL is ONE, and each
of us is that ONE whether we know it or not. It is as if I was spread
out AS this entire universe, and any other universes that might exist
which at the moment I am unaware of and, therefore, I am seeing my SELF
in ITS infinite nature as I look upon everything. So to see something -
to judge something - other than my SELF is to effectively, at least in
my own perception, separate my SELF into other selves. I have
ignorantly judged my SELF thereby rupturing in my own awareness only my
true nature as ONE. But this is only in my thinking or beliefs, not in
reality. There I am forever ONE, whole! But I can come to be convinced
of my separateness, as we all have in great measure, and therefore live
my life as if this (separateness) was my true nature.
However,
CONSCIOUSNESS is self-acting. We can think thoughts of truth and this
will greatly help us to get on the road to an established state of
consciousness. As we continue to think and act in accord with what we
are thinking, the time comes when these blend into a state of
consciousness in us. This established state will develop gradually, and
call forth its own requirements of us. Basic here will be our ability
to trust. As we invite this established state of consciousness (GOD)
into our awareness, we will be called upon to demonstrate our reliance
on IT. It requires more than our mere thinking of IT. IT commands us to
Leave Your Nets,
leave our old conscious reliances and cast all our hope on IT. Are you
and I willing to do this? If we indeed get this far on the path, we
will be ready for there will not be anything left for us to return to.
Let
this therefore be crystal clear: we are on this journey within
ourselves to affect a change in our consciousness. The last mile of our
journey is making the change a permanent state of affairs in us, a
state wherein we are living from this standpoint and not merely
standing around thinking about it so as to make it so. For once we are
living as states of spiritual, rather than human, consciousness, SPIRIT
will be the determining factor that activates our reactions and
responses to daily life. Since we will never be able to totally rid
ourselves of humanhood, we will always have minor human reactions to
the happenings in our individual lives. But when SPIRIT predominates in
us, never will these be the burden they once were when we only thought
of ourselves as earthbound, human, physical beings. We will be raised
up from that low level of awareness into a true discernment of our real
nature as the ONE SPIRIT, the ONE CONSCIOUSNESS.
After all, our individual life is unfolding as the outer reflection of what we are inwardly conscious of.
There
is but one CONSCIOUSNESS and THIS is what we are. However, due to our
coming into this world, a world that is in spiritual ignorance, and
being totally influenced by the five physical senses, we come to think
of and eventually believe ourselves to be states of consciousness quite
unlike what we truly are. We come to believe that we are physical
beings/bodies and in so doing quite unknowingly we develop a state of
consciousness which we call humanhood, all the while we are that one
perfect SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS, that one CONSCIOUSNESS which is whole.
The destination of our journey on the spiritual path is getting back to
that essential spiritual state of consciousness that we came into this
world AS. It is much as if we were indeed prodigal sons, that is,
states of consciousness who have lost our way and have gone off on our
own and developed a puffed up sense of our self separate and apart from
that which we really are. We have made of ourselves prodigals. We have
walked off from the Fathers house out in the world on our own. The
spiritual journey is the inner experience of reuniting (returning)
ourselves with our true spiritual nature, with our true spiritual
being, that one CONSCIOUSNESS (our Father) which we all are.
In
the false or unreal state of consciousness, I call myself I, I refer to
myself as I. But since it is a false state of consciousness, I identify
myself as a person separate from you and separate from everyone else.
It is a personal sense of self. However, when we through our inner
development attain a measure of spiritual consciousness, we will know
the difference between our personal sense of self and the spiritual
SELF. We will know this because instead of us now voicing the
word I, we will hear a voice say,I AM within us. And we will know that this is the spiritual state of consciousness
that we
are trying to reunite with. And I say re-unite with, for we never were
in truth separated from IT in reality. We were separated from IT only
in our belief and in our understanding.
It
is oh so important for us to realize that we do not have any power; we
do not develop our own spiritual state of consciousness. This is
something that we already are. What we do, as far as our
responsibility, is to bring ourselves, bring this personal sense of
self, to accept the fact that omniscience, infinite intelligence is
within us and that IT knows what needs to be done to effectively
reunite us with ITSELF. Therefore, we can only meditate. We can only
bring ourselves to a state of inner Silence and LET this one POWER,
this one WISDOM do whatever is necessary to bring us home.
