NOTE: as you proceed, I have provided you opportunities to take technical and other digressions from the development of OT/MP.  Except for the parables and allegories, these are not required to develop your basic understanding of the Principles of the MP.  They are included for those Pilgrims who find they are already interested in that level of detail.  However, if you take these side trips, take care to not lose the continuity of the developing Mystical Paradigm. Use your back button to return to OT/MP from any visits external to OT/MP.

Table 1: Quick Links to Consciousness Topics in Dialogue 1

Quick Links: Origins and Basic Concepts of Consciousness Main Ideas Concepts of the Mystical Paradigm (MP) The Necker Cube Demonstration of Consciousness The Sacred Concept of ONE The Art of Meditation C/consciousness Levels and Social Complexity

Three Levels of Functional C/consciousness Three Eras of Manifest Consciousness Invisible Constraints of Non Consciousness Facilitated Communication: example of Ego Control Three Stories of the Benefits of Consciousness Summary of C/consciousness

Mystical Protagonist:   Yes. Consciousness is at the core of the MP.  In this session I will define for you the fundamental nature of C/consciousness as relevant for your understanding and use of the MP.  Then you can learn the "why" as well as the "how" to implement the Principles behind the MP. I will define three levels of C/consciousness: the biological level, the intellectual or mental level, and the Spiritual Level.   Then I will provide you an interesting demonstration that makes visible an alteration of your consciousness. This is a mini-experience identical in Principle with the massive changes of C/consciousness required to resolve our human problems at every level of social complexity, personal through international.  Then I will share with you with a mind game that will help your rational intellect accept the incredible assertion that:  we, humanity, are all literally ONE Cosmic Organism.

These foundation demonstrations are intended for you to understand the validity of many of the practical examples we will examine in the MP. It will open your intellect to better comprehend the diverse manifestations of the roots of conflict, beginning within yourself, within your family, among your peers or groups, in organizations and in societies everywhere in the world.

Finally I will  suggest why our lives must become devoted to changing our C/consciousness to move further from the overpowering control of our ego, and its slave, the intellect. These create an intellectually impoverished and bounded scope of reality. By such improved awareness we move closer and closer to embracing an illuminated Spiritual Consciousness. Then we can function within the larger, embracing dimensions of Reality, the home of Wisdom.  

In general, the public has no working concept of the human ego, and its centrality to the quality of their lives and the promise for their future.  They understand even less the Spiritual nature of the Cosmos and their place in it.  The rewards for achieving an improved state of awareness (functional C/consciousness) are enormous.  Along the way, I will direct you to some contemporary allegories, parables, and metaphor to facilitate your ability to comprehend and use these concepts.   These are important to enrich the concepts introduced in our Dialogues.

Q:  Go for it!

P:  To begin the process, I offer you the following two Master Allegories that combine to suggest the True nature of who we are and our present Spiritual status in the Cosmos.  For you, they may be mind blowing.  If so, that is what I intend.  The shock of their novelty springs opens the gate for the rational mind to become aware that there is an invisible foundation of Spiritual Truth as proposed by the Mystical Paradigm.  But this is only useful provided you have eyes to see and ears to hear. I offer these as challenges to help you open those eyes and ears.  I shall then emphasize the Spiritual Principles behind these allegories as we make progress.

Although you may find some of their implications "outrageous" right now, I'm trusting you to defer final judgment until all parts of OT/MP can be revealed. 

To understand any given part of the MP requires that you understand all other parts of the MP.
[I call this paradox the curse of Holistic/Systems thinking] 

Now, here is your first intellectual challenge. Here is your first glimpse into the realms of Spiritual Truth, from which the structure and dynamics of C/consciousness can be defined and interpreted, The House of Three Rooms.

To fully understand the developing information in OT/MP,  please do read all the allegories and parables, AND their interpretations that follow them.  The practical perspective they are designed to show on the abstract concepts of the MP is essential.

Study Point 1-1  [To understand the significance of the "Study Points", go here.]
Master Parable--The House with Three Rooms
(Please always read the Interpretation that follows each story throughout all the dialogues in the MP.)
THEN USE THE LINK PROVIDED AT THE END OF EACH INTERPRETATION TO RETURN TO THE JUMP POINT IN THE DIALOGUE.
[NOTE: A slightly different sequence is used in following the stories from the seven dialogues than a sequential reading of the stories from the allegory & parable Index page.  If you have already read this or any subsequent story and its explanation, you may chose to revisit and review them, or skip them and continue below.]

Q: Now that is fairy tale! A charming story to be sure. I'm amazed. You're actually serious, actually managing a straight face when you speak of this ethereal fairy world of spiritual energy and intelligence?  I'm out'a this house! Where's the door? Come on. How do you know that its true even as a metaphor?  If I believe that this story has substance, then I have to believe that I am a dweller in the first room, maybe the second, but certainly not the third room.

P: As noted in the interpretation, whether we know it or not, or believe it or not, metaphorically speaking, each of us have these three rooms, and we live in all of them.  But most of us focus our priorities on the two lower rooms.  I observe that you have been putting your priorities in the second room, and indeed, up to now, you have denied even the existence, let alone the relevance of the third room, the most important room.

Q: Well I'm going to have to think about that.

P: As a key point that you must quickly learn and accept and practice as a new way of life for you, is that it is better not to think, but instead, to Meditate on that.

Q: So, what is the difference between thinking and meditation?

P: In "Thinking" you use the front part of your brain to sort and process data and information already in your intellectual consciousness.  But when you Meditate properly, you disconnect the front part of your brain to allow the information and Wisdom in the larger Spiritual SuperConsciousness (in which we are all embedded and interconnected) to nourish all parts of your body's total neural structure with Wisdom Information located only in those Spiritual Realms. Wisdom Information determines the quality, and scope of your intellectual assessment and decision making.  This is a crucial distinction you must soon learn.  I will say more about that skill shortly.

Q: So why is this so called "third room" so important.  I've certainly got along pretty well so far without even knowing about it.  Maybe its like the body's appendix, unimportant until it acts up and has to be removed.
...
P: But the Spiritual part of yourself never "acts up," and it certainly can't be removed.  It remains a passive resource until its intentionally called upon by one whose Consciousness has unfolded sufficiently to recognize and claim it. You are in the same position as the poet Coleridge's ancient mariner who was oblivious to his Spiritual Truth until his extended and punishing incident with the albatross.   [See NOTE: Coleridge]   Only when you risk to open your Spiritual eyes to see, and ears to hear, can you begin to interpret conditions for what they actually are.  

Then you can find relief from your stressors and act with Wisdom.  Only then will you have the means to penetrate the ego limits of your sense blinded reality that you revel in now like a dumb animal.  For now, you must suspend your doubt about this alternative third room and the Reality of your innate Spiritual Truth.  What you are about to engage will help overcome the blocking elements in your present intellectual consciousness. While I can help you build your intellectual platform, for that is why you are here, you will have to discover the Spiritual Realms yourself.  You can only experience the Third Room of Consciousness by yourself.

Q: A real do-it-yourself project, huh?

P: Wisdom cannot be given to you as a present by me, a priest, any clergy, the pope, a Mystic, a guru, a professor, nor by anyone on earth. [Suzuki, 1969]  Then you need not take my word for it. But for now, you are trapped in your second room, the room dominated by your intellect which is a blind servant that is entirely driven by your ego.  You have been oblivious of this link. You have never been prepared to think of your ego in this way.  It is out of consciousness for you.  Remember the simple demonstrations I gave you in the first part of our introductory dialogue. [revisit]

Your convincing but limited mental definition of reality has been created by the pattern of persistent, distorted mental illusions you now embrace like a drowning person clings to a wooden plank.  But these intellectual ideas and concepts are only a facade that masks the larger and deeper True Reality of the You that you Really are. I will show how and why this occurs.

To continue,  I offer you a huge challenge as I now confront you directly with who and what you really are.  Consider the following to be a description of the only True Reality that you are:

[Back from Allegory]

Q: Now there is a fairy tale indeed!  Truly incredible!  Mind boggling! Outrageous! Raw fantasy! Psychotic if you actually believe it. Too much! A children's tale indeed. Even the interpretation is off the wall.  Am I wasting my time here or what? I can't believe you're really serious?   Surely your putting me on. Dare you claim that is what happened to me when I was born? Crap!  Never! I certainly don't remember.

P:  Please note and mark your reaction. The emotional release of outrage you are now experiencing is typical when the ego and its slave the intellect are confronted with evidence from blunt Spiritual Truth, especially when the ego is highly inflated and the Truth threatens the ego's dominance and control.  The ego cannot tolerate any challenge to its dominance over the mind's interpretations of the status quo.  Because of the nature of our educational systems, your ego has had a free ride in directing your path to keep it trapped in the material world it loves and serves, until now.

Q: So now you're going to tell me more?  So what does the parable mean to me, personally, beyond the interpretation I just read.?

P: First, continue to feel within your body the reverberating emotion of threat, anxiety, the need to ridicule and discount, to justify your need to deny, or to fight or flee the implications of the message you just confronted.  Note that this is your reaction in the face of what actually is only an abstract intellectual suggestion, not a hands on threat to your life.  Notice the protective feelings of contempt that encourage you to dismiss even the possibility that this story may actually reflect who and what you Really are, your True You, the core of your Reality.

Q: But it just seems so silly, being confronted with such a tale.  Here I am, a summa cum laude graduate of a pre law MBA and I am being asked to take this story seriously?

P: Yes. These feelings are typically associated when the ego owned intellect is profoundly challenged by any uncertainty.  The ego automatically defines any uncertainty as a threat.  The threat here is from being confronted with an implied non ego controlled altered consciousness of your convenient intellectual reality. The threat lies in my assertion that there is larger Spiritual Reality over which your ego has no control. But that's all it takes to jangle the ego.

The threat is created because its source is from a Paradigm that is alien to you right now.  This is the typical human reaction, one that many experienced by those who first dare to encounter the message behind the MP.  As we progress through this and the following dialogues, you will discover how these dynamics are at work in everyone, and what you must do to overcome their negative effects on your life. No positive or stable social healing can occur before this healing awareness is first established in a critical mass of the public.

Q: But what about this silly story of the Primal Dream of the Infant?  Could it even possibly be a True account?

P:  To address your question directly, yes.  That birth experience happens to each of us in some form! Most never remember until our life review as we die from our physical body. But that too is for later in our dialogues.  The parable speaks Holistically, to images of all-at-oneness. Great minds have spoken to its Truth even in our time. The well known physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking, echoing Einstein, affirms that the cutting edge of modern physics must accept an ultimate Reality which is absent of time.  Time is an illusion of life with our beating hearts and regular breathing, and this creates our convincing mental illusion of time.  The reunion of science and Spirit is opening a treasure chest of insights into our Real nature, and how to translate that nature into social good.  That is what we are about for you.  [source of science-spirit ideas]   [See also Bernard Haisch, 2006, for a deistic concept of a purely rational GOD that is compatible with the cutting edge of modern physics and astronomy]

Study  Point 1-2
P: Consider this figure.  [left]  This figure attempts to show the relationship between the all embracing Spiritual Realm of the SupraConsciousness [top half, Realm of Spiritual Energy and Information,] which is projected into and forms the material world.  The energy and information of Spirit becomes the structure of the material realm as material substance and life [bottom half.]  The Spiritual Truth of the infant [I Am] has been projected into the material realm to form its physical body where its Soul becomes lodged and trapped in its five senses, with their feelings and intellect. The newly born infant, having surrendered its direct Conscious awareness of its Spiritual Source in the realms of pure Spirit, immediately feels trapped in the tissues and issues of the senses. The tripartite structure of the human body was proposed to science as early as the turn into the 20th century. [Gurdjeiff, 1973, Ouspensky, 1920]

The recovery of that memory during earth life is only made possible through willfully nurturing each maturing child's continuing  awareness of their own Spiritual Consciousness.   Religion typically fails to do this because most religions are devoted to preserving and advancing the secular agendas of power and control due to its intrinsically irrational nature. .  Our schools certainly do not.  The children are left to wander into the distracting mine fields of a typical high tech adolescence.

Q: You mean that we must actually act in ways that restore the memory if you will?

P: Yes, but alas, this seldom happens by chance. Inevitably, something happens of a traumatic or distracting nature to stop the continuance of a child's Spiritual memory. The retention of its Spiritual Truth becomes lost to its Consciousness.  The first block is wanting access to the constant pleasurable effects of positive sensual distractions. On the negative side, benign child neglect, or overt abuse drive the child permanently into the limited reality of intense ego activity. It obsessively acts to neutralize and defend against its incipient fear that appears to exist in the world, but is actually within.

Q: Well, I can tell you that I'm a long way from that recovery.  I reject this idea.  I need to get on with what I can understand. Besides, isn't that the "Star of David" in the middle, there?  And that top triangle looks suspicious. Isn't that the "Christian Trinity?"  I thought you promised we were not going to deal with religion.  Looks to me like you have loaded a double whammy for me there.

Yes, the integration of the triangle of the Spiritual realm with the triangle of earthly realm of the senses creates the five pointed star.  This Mystical relationship at the core of Christianity is first found in the ancient (4000 BCE) far eastern concepts of the Hindu's Rig Veda, and the Mystical texts of Judaism, The Kabbalah (or Qabalah) [reference].

And yes, Christians have adopted the idea of the Trinity, or father, son, and Holy Spirit from the same ancient sources [evidence].  However, I do not present them to advocate this relationship as a particular religious model.   Apart from the symbolism, the interpretations can be varied, i.e., positive or perverse, and this relational Truth has found expression many millennia prior to the emergence of Judaism and Christianity [source].   My interest in presenting this representation is to raise your C/consciousness to accept that, any specific religious perspective notwithstanding, we originate in, are created from, a Spiritual Cosmos, or rather, we create our physical selves from within that Cosmic Universe.

Q: Look.  I don't think I'm ready for all of this.

Q:  So what happens to an abused infant? What are the parents supposed to do? What happens if they don't do what they are supposed to do? And what is the nature and differences between consciousness (mental) and Consciousness (Spiritual)? Was I abused, messed up? Not by my parents!  If so, by who? What do I do now?

Really, I don't think I should have come here. I already knew what I was about, and I was confident. My path was clear. Now I think I'm about to be ruined by all this fantastic abstraction.

P:  Well let me take a minute and give you some of the specifics for which you thirst.  I offer a summary outline of the main ideas and concepts that we will be exploring in the MP.

"Looked at, but can not be seen- That is called the invisible (yi). Listened to but can not be heard- That is called the inaudible (hsi). Grasped at but can not be touched, That is called the intangible (wei). All three elude our inquiries And Hence blend and become One. Not by its rising is there light, Not by its sinking is there darkness. Unceasing, continuous, It can not be defined, And reverts again to the realm of nothingness.

That is why it is called the Form of the Formless, The Image of Nothingness. That is why it is called the Elusive: Meet it and you do not see its face; Follow it and you do not see its back.  He who holds fast to the Tao of old, In order to manage the affairs of the Now Is able to know the Primeval Beginnings Which are the continuity of Tao." [from 450 BCE;  Lao Tse, Lin Yutang]
_________________________________

"Spirit (or Consciousness) and Matter are, however, to be regarded, not as independent realities, but as the two facets or aspects of the Absolute (Parabrahm), which constitute the basis of conditioned Being whether subjective or objective.... just as pre-Cosmic Ideation is the root of all individual consciousness, so pre-Cosmic Substance is the substratum of matter in the various grades of its differentiation." . [Blavatsky, 1888, Vol 1, page 15]  Note the anticipation of Einstein's Theories of Relativity.  Einstein kept a copy of Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine on his desk.

"Moreover, the Secret Doctrine teaches: [not proposes]  ...The fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal Over Soul, the latter being itself an aspect of the Unknown Root; and the obligatory pilgrimage for every Soul - a spark of the former - through the Cycle of Incarnation (of "Necessity") in accordance with Cyclic and Karmic law, during the whole term."  [Blavatsky, 1888, Vol 1, page 17]
_____________________________

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.  But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." [John 1:1-14 ]


---

Q: Wow! It did! It shifted! It seemed like the front and back flipped. They reversed.

P: Your intellectual consciousness was initially limited to seeing only the front as first presented to you. It did not and could not know there are two possible "front" sides to the cube. To see both sides of the necker cube Reality, your hidden larger Consciousness had to empower your limited mental consciousness to perceive both. Notice that you had to relax your gaze for the flip to occur. Then your Spiritual Consciousness could act to expand your mental consciousness to grasp the second possibility.

Your latent Spiritual Consciousness expanded the DF (Degrees of Freedom) for your intelligence to function! You have been empowered to experience and relate to a larger portion of the ONE REALITY.

Once triggered, your altered mental definition of the necker cube reality has changed forever.

You can never look at the familiar display in quite the same way again.  Likewise, when you grasp a larger C/consciousness of any part of the Reality that affects your life, you must always remain aware of it, even when it may not be convenient for your personal fears or ambitions. Even so, the new consciousness may be temporarily surrendered to waves of confusion.  The more threatening the "flip" of any crucial dimension of reality to your ego, the greater the induced confusion and reactive fear. But once glimpsed, the alternative view will forever remain accessible when it was not before. This Necker Cube demonstration suggests the metaphysical meaning behind Jesus' words about his new order when he said:

"‘These things says He who is holy, He who is true, “He who has the key of David, He who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens.” “I know your works.  See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it..." [Rev 3:7-8  NKJV]

Q:  Let me see.  I understand that when I find myself in conflict with others, or observe their conflict, I can look for their versions of the Necker Cube in their consciousness to understand what is happening. I can interpret their stated conflict as coming from different perspectives of their "Necker Cube" reality.

P: Yes, and yours as well.  As observer, your interpretation of their conflict may not be within their "Necker Cube" block.  The Necker Cube represents a simplistic model of a major dynamic inherent in our REALITY.  There will always be accessible realities (open door) to the intellect.  Then there is that comprehensive Reality to which we "see through the glass darkly," or are blind (closed door.) But all potentially attainable attainable realities exist in the "C" realm of MASTER CONSCIOUSNESS.

In the largest TRUTH in which we all exist, in which we live and move and have our being, we are a single basic element, a living Spiritual subsystem in the ultimate REALITY of GOD. We exist as ONE within a hierarchy of multidimensional Spiritual Realms. But though there are innumerable higher forces affecting us in the Real World, these forces are not easily accessible to our intellectual consciousness. Therefore they must remain "out of mind."  We can not consciously relate to them directly, even though they comprise and define a larger more complete interpretation than the scope of Reality that is actually affecting our lives.

Q: That must be what Shakespeare meant when he wrote something about there being more to what we are about than men can can know or dream.  ["There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. " (In: Hamlet, I, v, 123) ]

P:  For sure, and by the way, Shakespeare was a Mystic, as was Francis Bacon.  Some scholarly persons, [e.g. Manly P. Hall,] make a compelling case for their argument that Bacon was actually the writer behind Shakespeare who acted as a front.  But the Whole of each of us (both conscious and unconscious) is embedded in this larger Realm of Spiritual energy and Intelligence. Even through mental human Consciousness admits only a tiny portion of that REALITY into our physical or mental consciousness, the remaining Spiritual part can become accessible and potentially Known by us to our enormous benefit.  So let us continue to examine the consciousness phenomenon demonstrated by the Necker Cube.

Q: I'm listening.

P: Suppose this Necker Cube were a "reality," say an actual room that you lived in with someone. Suppose you were both unaware that what you call the front and back of that room might be reversed for your friend's experience of that reality [re left figure.] Both of you might peacefully co-exist for a long time with this unknown discrepancy. But if you were then asked by your friend to hang pictures on the "front" wall of this "room" (the one you interpret as label "A") you "know" immediately which wall that would be for you. Its the "A" wall.

Q: Of course. What else?

P: Think of the arguments that would suddenly develop with your friend who means, in his/her mind, a reality or consciousness which defines that the other wall, the "B" wall, is "front."

Now let us pretend that this relationship of the parts of the cube defines your total "reality," i.e. all that you are mentally and Spiritually Conscious of. You could live out your whole life relating to this limited "A" reality. Of course there is, always was, and will ever be only ONE reality that contains both "A" and "B." That inclusive Reality is labeled "C" in this simple demonstration. But awareness of that Reality that can only be identified from the realms of the SuperConscious.   That  Realm is not accessible to the ego owned intellect.

But, suddenly, once the hidden part is revealed (i.e. the flip) by a relaxation of the ego's reality defining grip, from then on, without further effort, you are conscious of also having access to the "B" reality. Now you have increased your conceptual degrees of freedom. You are more empowered.  Once you become conscious of the contextual world of "C" you cannot relate to the familiar compartmentalized "A" reality in the same way ever again. Your mind forever must account for the newly discovered "B" component of the total "C" Reality.  In our trivial example of the picture hanging, you will get along more easily with your friend.  It is this condition I speak of in our Real world when I say that enough persons must acquire the "C" equivalent of the total Reality now affecting our nation, our world, and all of its peoples.

Q:  Wait!  Is that the source of the problem that President George Bush and his right wing "stay the course" neocons have in coping with Iraq?

P:  Yes, up to a point.  Bush and his supporters live in, say, the "A" reality (which includes his own secret goals and agenda,) while the majority of those educated and informed about the middle east live in the "B" reality.   But the reality that Bush lives in prioritizes oil and military bases to control the middle east, and thus is not actually focused on any priority concern for democracy for the middle east.  That is a concept found only in and defines the "B" reality.  

As we briefly explored in our introductory dialogue, the corporate right wing wants control of Iraqi oil for their war and industrial machinery, and they want military bases for control of the middle east and as a shield against encroachment by China.   Further, and more important, Bush envisions an international global hegemony that requires the removal of all international nation states. This required by his "A" reality.  Fulfillment of this "A" reality requires the replacement of the US and all other national governments by his corporate controllers for which Iraq is the key nation to dominate the middle east and its oil.

Q: So, to remain consistent with your model here, the majority pubic and their representatives cannot perceive this "A" reality from which Bush is operating, and so they dismiss him as a fool and a knave.  Instead they are trying to cope from within their limiting world view as a "B" reality.  WOW!!

P:  That is why, as a humanity, we can no longer live in our comfortable "A" or "B" realities as though they are the whole of Truth while we try to seduce, manipulate or force others to conform to our view.  That is why, in today's politics, we do not hear the mantra, "ITS THE CORPORATIONS STUPID."

Here is an advance look at a table of examples of "A" and "B" polarities.  You will recognize many from your experience in the world.  But now you will understand them in a new light.  We will revisit this Table when we enter our fourth Dialogue that presents the third ego trap of Spiritual Consciousness, HIP (Human Information Processing) where the terms "abstract" and "concrete" are developed:

Study Point 1-5:

Q:  I better understand the the Necker Cube concept of polarities really defines how people in the same Reality cannot see past the boundaries they have created within their own limited reality.  You make it more clear to me how this concept of C/consciousness can be especially relevant in understanding and coping with the manifest problems in the world today.  I can already begin to relate more effectively to the conditions you described in our Introductory Dialogue.

P: There is one more dimension to the Necker Cube phenomenon I want to introduce at this point, the concept of metaphor.  I will further develop this in Dialogue 4, Communication, the Second ego overlay on Spiritual Consciousness.   While the Necker Cube is a trivial demonstration of a profound concept, the concept of metaphor is enormously complex, but profound in its influence on how each of us live and move and have our being in the limited and limiting reality we have created.

Q: You mean a metaphor is a complex equivalent to one view of the Necker Cube?

P: Yes.  The concept is so powerful it can be used to understand the dynamics of contemporary politics.  That is, metaphor has already been used to explain why the Democrats lost the 2004 election to the religious and political right wing, and remain vulnerable to political losses in the future in spite of their victory in the 2006 midterms. [See Lakoff, 1995]

Q: You mean that the liberals and conservatives come at each other from a consciousness grounded in a different metaphor.  So its like they live in a different dimension of the Necker  Cube, but much more complex.  So I gather you want me to understand how concepts of consciousness can be applied to transcend that barrier?

P: Correct. The Mystical Paradigm I am sharing with you is a set of concepts, techniques and strategies for avoiding those mental traps that are blocking our access to this larger liberating and empowering C/consciousness.  They inhibit our gaining access and applying the empowering connections to the Spiritual Realm, the Realm of the SuperConsciousness. Our society, every world society, must teach itself to transcend its various limited realities of their unique culture and relate to each other from the Whole, the all encompassing "C" Reality.  This insight empowers one to transcend the limiting dominance of a consciousness defined by an incomplete or inaccurate metaphor of the operable Reality. The Principle is reflected by the statement in contemporary organizational team building practice that says, "All of us is smarter than any one of us."  It is grounded in the principles revealed by the Necker Cube demonstration.

Q:  But the ego's in such an organizational group must give way to those other possibilities   But it is so hard to accept this larger Spirit world because it is unseen, unheard and unfelt.  Its like a grade C Hollywood movie.  When do the monsters leap out?  Perhaps one can find this larger Realm by luck.

[see more elaborate demonstration of the Necker Cube phenomenon
(Use back button to return to this site)]

 Study Point 1-6
INVISIBLE CONSTRAINTS OF NON CONSCIOUSNESS
P: To trust in luck is to trust in death.  Luck won't cut it.  I assure you that:

Q: I don't think I fully grasp that idea. I guess my ego is threatened and is resisting.  Can you give some examples?

P: Examine this table, and understand the difference in realities for the minimal consciousness example and the expanded Consciousness example:

Study Point 1-7:
Examples illustrative of ego generated pathologies introduced by its slave, the intellect:

Q: Well I must admit that your list is thought provoking.  I admit That I did not know how to detect or evaluate such a pattern.  I just didn't know.

P:  Yet this pattern was always present as part of your Reality and affecting you, even when not admitted to your sensate experience of your reality. What you don't know you don't know can hurt you.

Q: For instance?

P: There are numerous practical examples.  The disputants to a conflict act from inner guidance of which they may be unaware at the conscious level. This guidance can include subtle cultural constraints that are invisible to them. For example, consider the concepts of "win" versus "surrender."  Does a disputant approach a position aggressively, i.e., define their approach as a "Master" of Reality expecting to "win?"  Or do they passively surrender to the dispute, and accept their place as victim to a "Slave" Reality? What nurtures a disputant toward one of these two extremes?  We will discuses the role of language in this matter in our dialogue on the second ego overlay on Consciousness, the dialogue on communication. [Techniques for mediating a dispute under these conditions is fully developed in the Mediation Training Section of this site.]  There are many ways in which a disputant may be passionately devoted to the truth of an "A" or "B" aspect of their "Reality" that they perceive affects them.

Q: So I am to understand that regardless whether I am invested in an "A" or "B" reality, that my consciousness will always be less than an embracing "C" Reality?  And you insist that I am not likely to "Know" about that discrepancy, as you say.  Since I am not aware of the discrepancy, I can't detect it, and then of course I cannot then cope with it because I can't first understand it, or discuss it intellectually.

P:  Correct, because each individual's consciousness of "reality" is less than the whole of it.  In mediating the causal factors creating a dispute, the mediator cannot know the inner realities of the disputants, let alone the larger Reality in Truth. Then the skilled mediator, applies Spiritual Principles to raise in the consciousness of the disputants so they recognize and accept that there is a larger "C" Reality which eludes both of them and creates the issues of the dispute.

The mediator does this by following the disputant's evident feelings around the defined surface issues which are expressed as values. When offered by the disputants as elements of the dispute, these values serve to reveal to the mediator, and to the disputants, the underlying threatened Spiritual Needs that energize the surface issues of the conflict. When these Needs are met, the issues vanish.

Q: You mean I have to use their dialogue to enter the reality of both "A" and "B" disputants?

P: Actually, you must through your own Spiritual Consciousness, enter the "C" reality that transcends both the "A" and "B" realities of the disputants, then nurture them to recognize and accept the operating elements in the pertinent Reality. To accomplish this you must skillfully use the techniques of active listening and others techniques to help them get there. [NOTE: the details and applications of  these ideas are developed in the prototype mediation section of OT/MP]

P: It is just hard to accept that I can be so misled by the same senses and intellect that have created my history of achievements.

Facilitated Communication, an Example of Ego Control
P:  Allow me to show you an example of how powerful the ego driven intelligence is when constrained within the reality that it creates in order to control the owner's intellect. A classic and dramatic example in the strength and persistence of the consciousness boundaries demonstrated by the Necker Cube phenomenon is found in the short lived furor over a training exercise called, "Facilitated Communication" (FC.)   FC is a technique that was developed to allegedly permit communication with autistic children who are sealed within their inner worlds, impervious to emotional contact with others.  This approach was brought to the United States in 1989 from Australia by Dr. Douglas Biklin a competent and credible sociologist at Syracuse University. He became a principal advocate for this technique in the United States during the early 1990s.  The following is portion of a scientific abstract that describes the FC process:

"Facilitated communication (FC) is a method of assisting people with severe developmental disabilities to communicate. Before its adoption as a teaching-treatment technique, the only research evidence in support of its validity consisted of a small number of descriptive reports in the professional literature and anecdotal reports in the popular press and disability media. In use, this technique, which involves providing physical support to people with disabilities as they type out messages on a keyboard or letterboard, appears to result in unexpected literacy and to disclose normative or superior intellectual skills among people with lifelong histories of severe developmental delay"  [Reference, Jacobson, et al, 1955]

Q: So what happened?  I think I remember something about that on television.

P: On October 29, 1993, a PBS documentary presented the debate by airing a series of demonstrations of FC conducted by its advocates. [reference]  Even untrained observers could see in the documentary, that the facilitators holding the children's hands as they typed messages on the key boards were reflecting their own thoughts as facilitators, and not the thoughts of the children.  Yet the parents and advocates for FC, in spite of their professional commitment to intellectual honesty and track record of excellence, still desperately insisted on defending the process even in the face of such visible evidence to the contrary as was captured on videotape. The scientific abstract concludes:

"Controlled research using single and double blind procedures in laboratory and natural settings with a range of clinical populations with which FC is used have determined that, not only are the people with disabilities unable to respond accurately to label or describe stimuli unseen by their assistants, but that the responses are controlled by the assistants."  [Jacobson, et al, op cit.]

Q: But I still resist how this example relates to me and others who have superior intelligence and are not autistic. Can't you demonstrate how so called Spiritual Consciences might have made a difference for them to benefit from the "Reality" as you label it and not be misled.

P:  Yes! Yes!  But my first task is to show you why the nature of your conscious intellectual mind in which you have such desperate trust, and regardless of its superior intelligence, and in which you have already invested so much, is unreliable.  Intelligence and Consciousness are not the same.  Worse, intellectual brilliance can be in fact a trap, as my example just showed, and become an enemy of your ultimate good.  Your ability to understand the definition and dynamics of C/consciousness as used in the MP will empower you to understand why the three traps of mind (the ego overlays on Spiritual Consciousness) function as they do.

You will come to understand why your intellect is made slave to your ego through these three traps of mind.  You will be guided to what must be done to overcome these traps.  These concepts will become your passport to applied C/consciousness as developed throughout our remaining Dialogues. Once mastered they will serve you for the rest of your life be it long or short. I promise you, they will yield much desirable and surprising fruit.

Q: I already have the disturbing feeling that this may not be easy for me.

P: Your right. But also remember, you were guided here by a higher Power than you Know or accept right now, and I have accepted you because I believe you can do it.  So, believe in yourself, which is the first clue to the secrets of the MP. You will have to learn to discard your ego intellect and trust your emergent Intuitive Spiritual feelings, something you now resist and deny.  Then having acknowledge them, follow them to their Source. You'll catch on.  It won't be easy.  But it will be truly rewarding.

Q: Are you serious?  Your looking at it.  Its my skin which, fortunately, is mostly covered by clothing.

P:  Wrong!  Clothing or not, there is no boundary.  Your body has no boundary.  Neither does mine.  Neither does any living system, or non living system for that matter. The relationship that we all share is seamless in REALITY.  This Principle is reflected in the figure [left] which shows how levels of C/consciousness empower or limit one's perception of R/reality.  There is no discontinuity in the UNIVERSE. There is no Real boundary of any kind between us, or between any living system and any other living system, or for that matter, any other matter-energy system.  There is no boundary between any set of material objects. Scholars have conceived of a holographic universe of nested and intersecting information-energy fields. [Talbot, 1991; Pribram, 1971] [Reference]

We are all actually connected as ONE in the Energy-Information Intelligence hierarchies of the Spiritual SuperConsciousness.  It is only our ego driven, compartmentalized senses that creates the illusion of boundaries and barriers. We have, and will continue to die to defend this illusion in the pursuit of fear driven needs for protective or aggressive power and control.  We are slave to the ego's definition of the personal, social, and political implications that follow from that illusion.

Q: Off the wall!  Get off!  Now that's bullshit for sure.  Come on.  I really do have better uses of my time.

P:  Let's finish the game, but I must depend on your brilliant academic successes to make the point.  You admit we are standing here on the earth, in this place, together. Yes?

Q: [sigh] Yes.

P: Now can your mind conceive of a camera looking down on us and taking a picture that frames us with a 10 meter boundary, i.e. we are in the middle of a 10 meter square?

Q: Of course.

P: Then can you also imagine the camera moving back to photograph a second picture at 10 times the distance that includes 10 times as much surface space as the first picture?

Q:  Yes.

P: Then your mind can also imagine the camera moving pack in a sequence of intervals each of which yields 10 times the space accommodated in the prior picture?

Q:  Yes, but the camera would actually be quickly moving way back. Way, way, way back and would soon include the entire earth, and then the solar system and then the galaxy and then, eventually, the entire universe.  Correct?

P: Correct.  We say the camera is moving back by powers of 10.  Your mind cannot conceive of the details of this maneuver of course, but it can grasp the principle.  Am I right?

Q:  Yes, but so what?  Where are your going with this?

P:  Lets come back to that first picture.  Suppose the center of that picture is your hand holding that cup of coffee.  Now the camera changes again, but this time it moves in to encompass a frame one tenth the size of the original.

Q: A close up of my hand of course.

P:  But then it moves in again by another factor of 10 times closer.  Then what would it be looking at?

Q;  Well, it would begin to be looking at the details of my skin. So what?

P:  Well lets follow this progression as the camera focuses on a sequence of smaller and smaller arenas. Each change becoming closer by a factor of 10.  Do you remember your science well enough to describe what the camera might be looking at in decreasing increments, each by a factor of 10?

Q:  Let me think.  First there would be the components of the skin. Then the cells of the skin.  Then down into the cells, to the molecules, then into the atomic structure of the molecules.  So?
 

P: We keep going.  We follow a shrinking series of frames such that each frame is smaller by one tenth than the preceding frame.  What would it be looking at in this sequence? Let me refresh your memory.

From the DNA structure of one of the skin's cells, to one of its basic components, a carbon atom. However, our eyes cannot detect any entity smaller that the shortest wavelength of light our visual system can process.  Therefore, the atom and all concepts of smaller entities are inventions of the human mind, built according to a logical, rational, and coherent system of thought. Thus the concept of the atom has to be constructed by the human mind.  It is constructed from principles such that the atom and smaller entities must exist to explain the phenomenon they create for our eager minds. Nobody has even seen, nor will we ever see a actual thing called an "atom."

Then we follow the invented atomic structure of the atom, to the nucleus of the atom, and to the energy components that define only the evidence of atomic activity captured in bubble chamber photography.  This is a level so small it cannot be revealed by the smallest wavelength of light, not even by an electron microscope.  Finally we "see" only the pulsing energy, quarks, and smaller entities invented as theory by our minds. Finally we experience only the vibrations and wavelengths of pure energy.

Q: OK!  Fine. But what does this have to do with the boundaries of our bodies?

P: There are no boundaries in the Universe. The point here is that the entire structure of your body is defined by an enormously complex array of coherent energy-information.  As you see in this figure [above left] the levels of energy that are managed by the Superordinate Intelligence begins by Holistically forming the sub elements leading to what we call atoms, and then the organization progresses up to the higher Etheric energy levels of the human body. Mastery of these energy levels through Spiritual discipline are the keys to the universe. [Figure below left]

This array expresses and is defined by, and is betrayed by, the sensate illusions created by our intellect. It is the complex structure and processes of our senses that give us the limited and bounded appearance we accept and call our body, and every other object we perceive.  Our minds have created the illusion of boundaries and barriers that we call reality.  These boundaries exit only in our minds.  All that we can detect, interpret and conceive we call our "reality."  We have become slavishly devoted to the defense of this illusion. That is, the "you" only appears, convincingly so I might add, to be contained in what you triumphantly claimed was your skin.   Likewise for me, and for everybody on earth.

We and our sensate bodies are a teeny weeny portion of the Cosmos perceiving a teeny weeny portion of itself.  Our senses are an enormous filter that only admit this itty bitty discrete portion of the entirety of this Holistic Cosmic pattern of Energy Information we confidently label "reality."  Our nervous system can detect and construct from this information, only the appearance of structure and processes we call "reality."  Because each of us is constructed by the same principles, what we perceive shares much in common, thus further contributing to the illusion of ourselves as separated and independent structures and boundaries.  But this a grossly distorted, finite, and minuscule part of the Holistic REALITY in which we are actually embedded, and with which we are ONE. [For a detailed discussion of this sequence of powers of 10, see Morrison, et al, 1982.  For a web demonstration, see:  The Office of the Eames Bros., 1982]

Q:  Awesome!  But then, what is the "it," or "me," or "you" that defines and constrains all of this energy to keep stable the processes and forms we experience going on, the ones that we constantly experience as each other, as our predictable experience, as unique persons, individuals?

P:  Congratulations!!  A real break through!!  You have asked the definitive question, and that is precisely my point.

That Soul is the You that does not, cannot, perish.  In accordance with Spiritual Principle, that It is what conspires to maintain the apparent stability of your earthly body from conception through its terminus in the physical death of the material body. That It is inextricably linked as One within the ONE, the COSMIC TRUTH, the I Am (you) within the I AM (GOD.)  The Spiritual part of your "Self" has been called your "Individuality," while that which we recognize and relate to through our ego directed senses is called the "personality." [in Fillmore, 1959]

Q: This is almost too much for me, like trying to hold on to quicksilver.  So this applies to all living things I guess, that we are ONE?   I guess the Buddhists love of and compassion for all living things is inspired by this insight? 

P: Yes.  All "things," living and non living.  A consciousness jolting series of studies were done about mid 20th century which demonstrated that even plants have a Spiritual dimension that is visibly affected in remarkable ways by the presence of human Spiritual energy, and the intentionality of human will, and likewise for any living entity.   [Tompkins & Bird, 1972]  The Mystical insight of the Buddha into this Truth almost 2500 years ago created a faith in which the sanctity of all forms of life must be respected and served.  To be a Buddhist, therefore, it  is not sufficient to study Buddhism. You must live it by daily practice.  [Click here for an emergent film, The Shift, that expresses the concept of ONE that reflects  a world wide trend of diverse societies recognizing that they are a part of the Holistic ecosystem of earth as ONE with it and with each other.]

Further, scholars with impeccable scientific credentials are doing extensive research in the area of what is called "distance healing", a scientific label for focused prayer and meditation.  There is abundant evidence that by means of the condition called "non local intelligence," [Dossey, 2001] intercessory prayer and other forms of human intentionally can have a positive effect over distance. [reference]  [reference] There are other references to which we will return at subsequent points in our dialogues. [Ref a draft research proposal presented in the MP for credentialed academic scholars.]  [Felder, 1999; Quantum mechanical proof of non-locality] 

          Figure is Institute of Heart Math Drawing
Researchers at the Institute of Heart Math have been building a body of research demonstrating how the mind-brain-heart interactions can be modified by human consciousness to create beneficial conditions within the body.  They have illustrated how the energy fields of the body are all integrated, both within and outside the body we perceive as separate. [reference]  In OT/MP, the Soul is the integrating mechanism that manages the well being of the body during the time it possesses it.

Thus, memory, is not located in the brain and nervous system, which instead act as a transducer [translates Spiritual data into mental consciousness,] to regenerate (derive) intellectual consciousness from that information which exists in or has been stored in the Supra Consciousness. Consistent with this idea of non-local intelligence, the 20th Century Mystic, Charles Fillmore [co-founder of the Unity School of Christianity] gave evidence of his own power to be informed by the SuperConsciousness himself when he affirmed this concept in principle, decades before the activities of hard science finally caught up:

"The subconscious exists for the benefit of the conscious mind, but unless regenerated [Spiritually awakened or illuminated,] it thwarts the efforts of the conscious at every step so that "ye may not do the things that ye would." [Gal 5:17, KJV]  The subconscious is sometimes called memory. One whose subconscious mind has not been systematically trained, or awakened, is often heard to say that he has "a poor memory."

...The subconscious mind is also known as the heart, and the many references to it in the Bible show that its nature and office were well understood by the writers of Scripture. "Keep thy heart with all diligence; For out of it are the issues of life," [Prov 4-23, KJV] indicates the importance of the proper development of the subconscious mind.   Man cannot, however, keep his heart or control the expressions from his subconscious mind without the aid of Spirit.  The Supraconsciousness reaches to the depths of the subconscious and sets free the energies bound in error thought; that having been done, man can easily reach and mold the subconscious, in harmony with divine ideas.  The regeneration of the subconscious is not the work of the conscious, but of the Super conscious mind acting in harmony with the conscious."

...God says, " A new heart, also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you," [Ezk 36:26, KJV]  thus signifying that the whole mind must be embraced in the regeneration.  There must be perfect co-operation of the three phases of mind [conscious, subconscious, and superconscious] in order to produce the perfect man... "I Jehovah, search the mind, I try the heart, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings."  [Jer 17:10; NKJV;  recall this citation in Dialogue 6, Karma and Reincarnation]
[brackets added; Fillmore, 1953, pp 89-92]

Q: Then what happens to the Soul after the death of the body?

P: The MP argues that at death, the Soul is released from its fleshy prison to continue its Spiritual journey. But alas, that discussion far transcends the limited purpose of this visit. But we will return to that later, in our sixth dialogue, when we speak of Karma and Reincarnation.  So, with what points do I think we now agree upon?

Q:  Well, the body, my body, yours, everyone's bodies can be understood to be a mass of energy organized by, ah, uh, Spirit, uh, I can't believe I actually said that. But anyhow, a Spirit that has taken on the familiar form that my ego intellect interprets as the visible matter and meaning of my experience. This experience that I confidently believe in is my reality. Yes?

P: Correct.  That is what Chopra meant when he said, "The body is a 'print out' of C/consciousness." [bold added, 1990]

Q: And I guess I should concede your point, that because of the nature of energy, I must accept that there are no boundaries, except those that are constructed by our observing minds.  Awesome!!  Still, I really find this very difficult to accept.

P: Give yourself time.  That is because right now, you are afflicted by low HIP competence, the third of the three traps of mind.  We will discuss the dynamics of HIP in our fourth dialogue.  You will overcome it.  Low HIP, low Human Information Processing competence defines one's capacity or lack of capacity to conceptually grasp the Whole of a complex problem, concept, or set of apparently disconnected conditions.  What we call a "miracle" is an example of that phenomenon.  Your current status of low HIP  is a major reason why your friends sent you to me, to help you recover from its significant burden on your confident, but naive ego driven intellect.  And we just took a major step.

A person can always be trusted to eventually respond to the Truth.  Only the length of time and the attendant costs before accepting that Truth are factors. So it may take you longer than your current patience quotient requires to get used to it.

The key to expanding your consciousness capacity is rooted in the art of meditation.  We will develop you understanding of that art as we progress through the MP.

Introduction to Meditation

I will mostly use the word meditation rather than prayer.  Now,  Jesus, and all those Adepts, were master of prayer and meditation as I have listed in the Table of Mystical Succession   Remember, I gave you this resource at the outset to examine in your free time.

Let me restate where we now are re our conceptual frame of reference, the challenging system of Holistic concepts called the MP.

Throughout OT/MP, C/consciousness will be defined at three levels of attainment--at the level of:

Sensate (biological) consciousness: that which exists at the biological level where data and information are admitted to our awareness through our senses of sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. It is the home of the ego. This the most limited and limiting consciousness we routinely experience.  It is the tool shop from which the intellect creates, defines and constructs its meanings.  This is the first room in the allegory of the "house of three rooms". [revisit]

In this figure [left] you find illustrated how we have created our technology to extend the capacity of our basic senses and effecting capacity, to detect, select and effect (DSE.) I note that the more we depend upon the basic biological senses and their technological extensions, because their focus is on the external world,  the less evolved we our likely to be in our Holistic Spiritual Consciousness. 

Q: You mean that to focus on the sense ego is a trap?

P: Yes. Note how the material extensions of our senses can be filtered through technical prosthesis evolve from the initial material level [bottom of figure,] simple, crude, and rough through forms of increasing subtlety, elegance, and sophistication.  Technology begins with the simplest means to fashion our world with our hands.
Mental consciousness: that aspect of consciousness at the intermediate level of awakening which our mind defines and labels our experiences that we relate to as our "reality." As mental consciousness expands, notice how our technological extensions become more complex, subtle and elegant.  The sophistication and elegance of our language labels likewise increases.  The complexity with which we must deal (HIP) likewise increases.  But this constantly evolving consciousness is limited to working only with sensate data, even when constructing mental abstractions and implications of this information under the controlling and protective guidance of the ego.   This is the second room in the allegory of the "house of three rooms."

As we further evolve, we depend upon the intellect to extend our mental consciousness to empower us in manipulating the material world.  Notice that the prosthetic extensions of our sensate capacities first become more refined, complex and elegant at the more accessible and visible detecting and effecting dimension of our activities. But this intellectual consciousness alone is devoid of Wisdom to guide our use of the technology we fashion. Hence, we use our skill to create the prosthetic extension of our senses as machinery of war, pollution, and as tools for economic gain and conquest.

Initially (at low consciousness capacity) we use technology without Wisdom, and with only minimal compassion and conscience.  In this ego driven process, as we create and use these technological extensions to increase our power and control over our perceived "reality," we also despoil the biological and social ecology upon which our literal survival depends.  We are reaching the nadir of this abuse where we either quickly recognize and accept what we are doing and stop it, or we receive the full brunt of the consequences after it is too late to respond.
Spiritual Consciousness that intuition, insight, awareness, and Wisdom which acknowledges that we are embedded in and ONE subservient to a Power greater than ourselves, and through which we seek to approach a higher Consciousness than our intellect permits. For example, wide spread success in the "12 Step" approach to overcoming addictions begins with the recognition that one must first surrender to "a power higher than ourselves." One need not call IT God, or by any earthly name.   This is the Third Room in the allegory of the "House of Three Rooms."

Arrival at this level of Consciousness, empowers us with the Wisdom we need to build and apply our technology only for compassionate and beneficial uses. We discover that we need not compete to validate ourselves, our work, or our worth. We create and apply our creativity in ways that are compatible with the Holistic systems in which our human and biological ecologies are resident. This Spiritual Consciousness inspires us to acquire the urgent need for discipline in birth control to steadily reduce the burgeoning populations in all the nations of the world, without which reduction, there can be no international or interpersonal harmony or peace.  Spiritual Consciousness is free of the demands of ego, and enjoys the absence of ego generated fear. A critical mass of humanity must soon arrive at this level  of Consciousness if humanity is to survive.  But as a nation, as a humanity, we are far from it, and little is being done now to effectively call this enormous fatal deficit to the public or our leadership's attention.

Q: I think that you telling me me that this Spiritual Consciousness empowers our capacity to transcend our physical and mental limits.

P: Yes, Spiritual Consciousness promotes wholeness over division, forgiveness over vengeance, healing over pathology, trust over fear, compassion over resentment, and giving to others over exploitation of others. It is always in giving, more than in receiving, that we are Spiritually blessed [re Prayer of St. Francis].

Spiritual Consciousness reaches for the larger frame of Intelligence which informs us with Wisdom, and which demands integrity over deceit. It requires directness over manipulation in decision making.  And Spiritual Consciousness demands harmlessness rather than an aggressive use of harmful force to achieve our ends.  However, do you now better understand that:

GROUP AND ORGANIZATION LEVELS
P:  At this level, individuals form coalitions to serve common needs.  Their relationship can be defined as casual and informal at one end of a continuum.  At the other end, individuals become members of self serving coalitions that are fiercely goal directed and enlisted in a common cause.  The larger and more formal its structure and processes, then the more it behaves as an organization.  The "consciousness " of a group or organization takes on the characteristics defined by the controlling groups or coalitions.  These subsystems in turn are then influenced by the organization as transmitted by the ongoing collective consciousness of its dominant individuals.

SOCIETY LEVEL AND INTERNATIONAL LEVELS:
P:  At the complexity level of the society, our consciousness of the cosmos unfolds in response to the individual contributions of scientists, writers, musicians, and artists. The most significant expansion of consciousness that is easily understandable is the limited presumption that the cosmos is a mechanical system, a vast and complex machine, made up of discrete elements and sub elements. But the emergent Consciousness rejects the mechanical model. Contemporary models offer for us to develop an awareness that the Cosmos is a relative integration of vast interacting networks of energy-information fields whose appearance and understanding is defined and limited by the nature of the observing system as defined by its filters.

"The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books; a mysterious order it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects." Albert Einstein
...

Q: As you just said, it is this experience we share right now.  It's my thoughts, what I'm aware of, like now. It is the "me" that I experience as myself.

P: You see, you already know what mental consciousness is.  It is the "you" that wakes you up in the morning, takes you through the day, offers you your thoughts and feelings about everything, takes you home, "explains" things to you, arranges (correctly or incorrectly) for you to cope with what is confusing for you, takes you to food, guides you how to prepare it, stimulates you with "understandings" (correct or incorrect,) leads you to or cheats you of love, torments you with doubt, desire, confusion, joy, and emotional reactions to everything.  It puts you to bed, and then occasionally from time to time offers dreams, which may only be feedback from your waking thoughts, to entertain or torture you.

Insight into the dynamics of human consciousness is very helpful to understanding one's own needs, one's relationships with others, and for assessing complex events in our society and in the world.  This understanding is essential to effectively and reliably manage the resolution of conflict among all types of disputants. We can ask, how does "C/consciousness" operate for you and me? Lets begin with some familiar experiences:

Have you ever been disappointed in a new friend when they didn't turn out to be the kind of person you had hoped for or thought they were? or vice versa?
Have you ever been unable to complete a task or solve a problem because you didn't know how? Then did you suddenly have the answer?
Did you ever fail to operate or fix something and it wouldn't work, but when you let it alone for a while and went back to it, suddenly you could make it work?
Ever get lost, confused, and frightened, and unable to ask anybody or get help and just gave up, then suddenly were you able to find your way back to a familiar signpost or landmark?

P: All of these are examples of a change in your mental consciousness.  Nothing else changed. The Holistic Presence of the large Spiritual Reality that defines your Spiritual Consciousness was always present.  Your intellect was temporarily denied access to it, hence the feelings of confusion, loss, and anxiety.  Your friend was always the same person, the problem always had a solution, you were always in reach of your destination. By understanding how your mental and Spiritual C/consciousness work and interact in such dilemmas, you can more effectively develop this Intuition to solve problems, identify reliable friends, and make the right decisions for you.

Q: So why make a big deal over consciousness, of whatever kind--so what? As I said, here I am.  I'm conscious. So what?

P: Because my task is is to first approach your intellect, which is the level of consciousness in which you operate.  From that platform, I intend to empower you to first accept the existence of the higher levels of Spiritual Consciousness before you can begin to approach them.  Examine this figure. [left]  Notice how C/Consciousness unfolds upward from the primal level of "Gross Matter" [energy-information] to transcendent levels even beyond the capacity of our Consciousness.

The greater humanity, including our American society, range across the scale, but the norm or average lies somewhere in the middle.  We mostly operate from so called pragmatic self interest.  Our intellectual consciousness is well advanced, but limited to mostly manipulate the material things of the world.  Of course there are great individual differences within our population.   But notice on the left side of the figure, that corresponds with "indifference and apathy" as the dominant capacity of our current national Spiritual Consciousness.  Therefore, my first task in reaching your specific Spiritual Consciousness, is to raise within you a tangible belief and hope that there is a better way than our current way.  Our current ego dominated, impoverished Spiritual Consciousness with its priority devotion to material values is destroying us.

This higher Consciousness level you now doubt exists is because of the chronic defensive assaults from your ego mind. To overcome that powerful defense requires that you be given a sufficient challenges of the right kind to jolt your intellect to accept that there must be a dimension beyond that which your ego now desperately attempts to deny you access.  It needs to control, limit, and deceive you in order to protect itself.

But the ego cannot succeed, provided you have sufficient trust to allow the surviving innate intuitive part of yourself to take charge and not allow these threatening ego directed ideas to dominate. Only a quickened Spiritual Consciousness can empower you to transcend the block of your ego controlled intellectual consciousness.

Q: I am certainly suffering from that blocking action. So that transcendent capacity, you say, is only found at the Spiritual Level of Consciousness?

P: Yes.  And we will develop some of the terms used in this figure in later dialogues, like Agape, [ah gah' pay] which is unconditional Spiritual Love, not lust or erotic love.  But let me continue now by focusing on Spiritual Consciousness itself.

Also, for that reason, the Buddhists are fond of experiential training [direct learning from especially contrived experiences]:

The impatient student was forever pestering his Master about enlightenment, the goal of Buddhist practice and way of life. After one such incident where the student plaintively asks yet again, "Truly, how long is it before I can even hope for enlightenment?"  The gentle Master suddenly grabbed the student, plunged his head into an adjacent bucket of water, and held it there for a long time.

Then he jerked the student's head out of the bucket where the shocked and distraught student gasped deeply and frantically for breath.

"There!."  Said the master quietly.  "Only when you yearn for and are determined to accept the discipline required to reach for enlightenment as earnestly and deeply as you wanted that last breath, only then we can begin  to make some progress."

P: Well, that depends how persistently you challenge me.   But there are also more gentile ways the Buddhists normally approach the path to Enlightenment.  The Buddhists are fond of paradoxes, for example:

The student, after understanding the extent of the discipline and determination required to reach Illumination (Enlightenment,) he again inquired of his Master:

"After illumination, then what?"

The Master said quietly, "After Illumination, the laundry."

P:  This universe of Spiritual Consciousness is at the opposite end of the crass, cost-benefit, materialist, and high energy life style of current western societies in which you now revel.  Each student must learn that the goal of meditative discipline, is not "Enlightenment," "Illumination" or "Awakening," or any other such destination or condition.  Those conditions are not goals, but are byproducts of the meditative and loving lifestyle of a Spiritual Adept.

This is why I refer you to classical eastern writings, e.g., as found in The Book of Tao, by Laotse. As you immerse yourself in such thoughts, you will begin to discover that your frantic way of life is an exception and not the norm when all the world's civilizations are considered. Sadly, it's a way of life that can, in the extreme, lead to one's own Spiritual death even is it now destroys our society that nurtures you toward this fate.

Q: You mean the horrors that you described in our introductory dialogue?

P: Yes. The Spiritual way of life is the only path to empower our problems to be solved in time to save humanity and the earth from onrushing humanity induced destruction.  I know you are resisting that message, but let us move on nevertheless.

Q: I feel confused.

P: Good!  Confusion is the doorway to enlightenment.  Therefore, there is no point to any further intellectual discussion about the nature of Spiritual Consciousness right now.  That will not be productive. Let us instead continue our odyssey via the circuitous route that must be accomplished in order for you defeat your devious and determined ego intellect. Then you can attain a workable understanding of Spiritual Consciousness in order to begin to benefit from it.  Remember the "Curse of Holistic/Systems thinking?" Now is the time for patience.

Mechanistic:  The initial scientific consciousness of the cosmos and our place in it was mechanistic in nature. The universe was a giant machine. The human being was a bio-mechanical machine that was given a soul and learned to think. The adjacent Figure shows how this "Newtonian" era can be represented. The world of human consciousness was divided up into convenient compartments of concepts, each existing independently.

Relativistic: But then came the next quantum leap of consciousness. This may be described as a "Relativity" paradigm introduced by Einstein at the beginning of the 20th Century. In Einstein's paradigm, all parts had relative and dynamic relationships with each other, not fixed and stable relationships. This lead to the more relativistic psychosomatic theories of consciousness.  Yet in the last decade, an even more expansive vision of our cosmos has begun to unfold in human consciousness, the era of non-local holographic energy-information intelligence. Even ethics became relative rather than absolute (e.g., situational ethics.)

Q:  It looks like Spiritually and science are beginning to evolve together, hand in hand.

P: Indeed.  In fact there are thoughtful books already devoted to describing that reunion. [White, 1990]  But now, the relativity model is beginning to yield to an emergent holographic or wave form model.  By integrating eastern philosophies with western science, Deepak Chopra, M.D., argues that we have the wrong model of the human body when we think of it as a biological "machine" that has learned to think when in fact it may be the other way around.

As described in "Primal Dream," the physical infant is a projection of Spiritual Intelligence into physical matter or flesh. Chopra quotes the great sages of the Ayru-Veda (Eastern Holistic Healing) who have described the human body as "a great river of intelligent energy." He also cites the intellectual history of the west. Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher, also spoke of the "mystery of the river" which is a flow of unfolding Intelligence within which each of us is a mere eddy.

Emergent:  This view is expressed in OT/MP because it is consistent with cutting edge science in both state of art physics and astronomy. These developments have begun to define the cosmos as networks of energy-information fields, within fields, within fields of "intelligence," and the now rapidly emerging psycho physiological science of consciousness. [one source of C/consciousness studies]  Any theological implications are not presumed by OT/MP.  They are left to the reader to decide if or how this Paradigm is relevant to the religious faith group they follow.

Q: Tell me more about this link of your Spiritual Paradigm to science.

P: Deepak Chopra expresses ideas very consistent with those of Theosophy [Blatvatsky, 1888/1998] and Fillmore, [1949] when he affirms that the body is not a machine that learns to think, but that the body is a Spiritual "thought" that reflects itself into form. It is one level in a hierarchy of coherent or intelligent energy states:

"Is the void made up of nothing, or is it a fullness of non material intelligence? And the Vedic scripture will tell us that in fact this is a fullness of non-material intelligence which interacts with its own self and creates both mind and matter, that we are not physical machines that have learned how to think, we are in fact impulses of intelligent thoughts that have learned how to create the physical machine, that consciousness interacts with its own self and ultimately creates both mind and matter. Matter is the epiphenomenon and consciousness is the phenomenon. It is consciousness that conceives, governs and constructs and actually becomes the physical body and ultimately, the whole universe. In other words, to think is literally to create."  [Chopra, 1990]

"10 to the 22nd atoms are inhaled in a single breath and become a part of the body. Exhaled are 10 to the 22nd atoms per breath that were once part of the body. These well defined edges to the body are merely artifacts of sensory perception. We are part of a cosmic body that's constantly in exchange with its own self.  Each person contains at least 1,000,000 atoms that were in the body of Jesus, Buddha, Tomas Torqemada, Ghangus Kahn... every being of a distant historical period..... We acquire a new liver every six weeks at the atomic level, a new skin once a month, a new stomach lining every five days, even the brain cells that you think with are physical atoms of carbon, nitrogen hydrogen and oxygen that weren't there last year In less than one year 98% of all the atoms of the body are replaced.  DNA which holds the memory of millions of years of evolutionary time, the raw material of it is replaced every six weeks. In four years we will replace entire body, 98% of it is replaced in one year."  [Chopra op cit.]

Q: When you describe Spiritual dynamics in that way, I can almost relate to it from my background in science.  Tell me more.

P:  One must then ask, what is the "IT" that holds all of this dynamic energy exchange in the stable appearance of form and behavior that is our daily experience in-the-world?  Recall the conclusions derived from our scientific mind game we played. [above] The evolution of human consciousness has moved from thinking of the living body as a static structure, the Newtonian Model [shown above,] to one which is embedded in a relativistic and constantly moving structure. This is the psychosomatic or Wave Theory model [also above].

Now there is an emergent holographic model that states that in fact we are beings constructed as wave forms of coherent energy. [Pribram, 1971]  In this model, [left] our "intelligence" is not localized somewhere in our brain, but instead, the brain serves as a kind of neuro-biological "transducer" that integrates and defines our experience in relationship to the higher energy and information forms in which we are embedded beyond our normal consciousness capability. This emergent model is consistent with findings in state of art quantum physics.  It is consistent with the models found in Theosophy [Blatvatsky, 1988/1998] and in the resurgence of New Thought (Gnostic) Christianity [Fillmore, 1949].  Larry Dossey, M.D., argues that our basic intelligence and intuitive potential are in fact derived from a SupraSystem of Intelligence (Energy-Information) in which we are embedded. He refers to this source of our intellect as a non-local intelligence. [See: Dossey, 2001, 1995]  [see also Barrett, James, 2000]

We exist in our relationship with GOD (the ultimate embracing and integrating energy intelligence field if you prefer) in the same relative position that the organ (e.g. heart) exists as an intermediate system between the chambers and cells of which it is composed and the living human body of which it is a part. To survive, we ourselves, and our families, groups and institutional extensions, must remain a faithful mirror of the higher Laws that unfold from the higher fields of Spiritual Intelligence. We cannot "Know" (i.e., admit to full Consciousness) the ultimate GOD. ["No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him."  John 1:18, NKJV]

We are fortunate to not need to Know in the absolute. But without the Spiritual discipline to enter into the Mystical state that can connect us with this higher Spiritual Intelligence, we must still cope effectively within the limited portion of the cosmos revealed to us by our senses and "explained" to us by our intellect.

Conflict mediators who use the Principles of the MP, in order to heal a dispute, begin by first understanding the consciousness factors energized by the needs of the disputants. By that route, they can more effectively enter into the implications of the underlying Needs of each disputant's personal position on the rationalized issues. They use that awareness to manage the interactive dialogue with the disputants, to build rapport (trust) which releases information such that the disputants can guide themselves to unfold a healing accommodation.

I will address the "It" that holds our body together shortly.  But first I want to empower you to think about consciousness in terms of levels.

Study Point 12:
Let us continue with a Parable. Please read this story and the interpretation that follows it:
...
The Tree that Forgot its Roots.  Then tell me what you think the story says about you.

[Return from Parable]

Q: Well, I have to admit that I am probably the acorn.

P: Why?

Q: Because I have my sights set on an unclear ambition, distant goals that I must admit are not specifically defined.  It's like I'll know it when I get there.

P: But look what happened to the acorn.  The father of programmed instruction [creating a step by step hierarchy of intermediate objectives leading to the desired learning goal] in the United States has said, "If you don't know where you are going, you may end up some place else." [Mager, 1962]  You can see that my objective is to try to spare you from the swamp.  Of course, as the next story will tell us, even from entrapment in the swamp, Spiritual Consciousness can awaken.

Q: But why suffer more than necessary?  That's the point?

P: Yes.  Suffering arises as the consequence of making decisions with an impoverished consciousness, or suffering is imposed after intellectual error to jerk you into awareness of this higher potential. What is not in your consciousness cannot be reacted to corrected or exploited.

Have you noticed?  Even those persons who have written and read books defining social problems and understood their intellectual implications have not been able to make a significant or permanent difference in healing the great mass of public currently in personal, economic, and social distress. An established scientific writer on Mysticism and consciousness states as follows:

"Awakening to the need to touch something more, to touch one's own spiritual energy system, is now a well worn path that includes the experience of becoming physically powerless...In other words, the awakening of the personality to the potential of the soul has come to require the loss of a mate, or the death of a child, or the collapse of a business, or some situation that renders the individual powerless. It requires the failure of external power.  That, to the five sense personality, is crisis." (Zukav, 1990, p 203)

[Return from Parable]

Q: Great.  So I have to experience some kind of personal disaster to awaken Spiritually?  That is a real incentive to keep me coming back here.

P: You are at risk to such a fate whether you come here or not.  True, an illuminated Consciousness can arise from the disasters that befall us.  But one of the hoped for outcomes of our sessions together is for you to acquire Spiritual Consciousness by means other than a personal disaster.  One of the benefits of our journey together is that an awakened, Spiritually directed Consciousness empowers you to avoid many of these disasters in the first place.

Now lets examine an allegory that was provided by Plato about 2,500 years ago.  Notice what happens in this dialogue he has with his friend Meno:
...
Plato's Dialogue with Meno

[Return from Allegory]

Q: According to that dialogue, all of the information we need is already within us waiting to be awakened.  Really?

P: Yes.  And it can be awakened by disaster, by the fallout from investing in false trails, or by systematic dialogue with a Guru ("old age" or "new age",) one who is already awakened to some point of Consciousness well beyond their students.  But in every case, it must depend only on the "You" that you are to be the active agent.

But now you are ready to explore the full dynamics of C/consciousness itself.  So let us continue with a demonstration of how the dynamics of C/consciousness can more easily be understood. 

Right now let me try to shed some light on why you, or anybody like you, will initially have trouble digesting the Spiritual substance of the opening  allegories we discussed at the beginning of this dialogue. [The House of Three Rooms; The Primal Dream of the Infant]  Let us examine whether you can grasp the context of this next story from your present limited, but expanding intellectual frame of reference.
...
The Hidden Treasure

[Return from Allegory]

Q: Am I to understand from that story that your goal is to reveal to me this hidden treasure?

P:  The problem we both face is that no one can reveal the Treasure for you.  You and only you must reveal it for yourself.  That is why the evolution of human C/consciousness is so slow, and why so many tribulations persist in the world.   But what I can do, and am attempting to do, is to give you sufficient intellectual insight, to build an intellectual platform upon which to stand, and to motivate you, hopefully to inspire you, to undertake the required Spiritual Discipline and work to reveal those treasures for yourself.

Q: A daunting task I admit.  And what is "Spiritual work?"

P:  Simply put, it involves exercises for the mind in building the intellectual platform for your leap into Spiritual awakening.  It is focused mental concentration, Meditation, whose goal is to allow your consciousness to transcend its ego mind's imposed limits, and accept and welcome pure influences from the Spiritual Planes of Reality. It requires the release and suppression of all inhibiting or distracting thought and emotion, once an intellectual problem or challenge is posed.  In effect, you place the problem or challenge on the alter of your mind. Then you release it into an exercise of  profound meditative discipline.   But that process is too premature for me to say more about at this time.

Well then, let us begin with the foundation concept for all of our dialogues, the dynamic nature and importance of C/consciousness.

Q: But how does all this scriptural writing relate to being "born of the flesh" as you say, and being alive as a person?

P:  Relax. One thing at a time. Born of the flesh (or born of water) means being born to biological life with its sensate human ego, its five limited and limiting senses, its intellect, and its dominating worldly influences.

Q: You means as described in the dream of the infant?   So to born to Spirit is to be released from that bondage?

P: Yes. Our goal is to transcend those limiting forces. The core concern now is to demonstrate to you the nature of C/consciousness and its relation to Spiritual awakening.  Always remember the purpose of all this is to empower you and your dearest loved ones to a happier and more fulfilled life, to empower you to accurately diagnose the growing array of social problems we are finding in our institutions and society, to identify and evaluate workable solutions and ultimately, to take effective action to head off encroaching disaster.

We are not concerned about the limits of mental consciousness and its "facts" that we know about and experience every day.  We seek the awakening of Spiritual Consciousness, that special capacity to Know, and acquire Wisdom or Spiritually relevant information  from beyond the confining limits of mental consciousness.  The facts are transformed into deeper more useful meanings (a Wisdom context.)  We shall return to the Metaphysics that validates both the meaning behind primal dream and the house of three rooms.  But first, let me challenge you with this parable:
...
The Man Who Stomped His Shadow

Q: So is that man supposed to be me?  Do I look like I'm crashing around and stomping my "shadow."  Am I supposed to be a some kind of groundhog and interpret my future if I see my shadow?  This is, well, silly.

P: For a person who is supposed to be so bright and "have a promising future" you certainly keep your creativity locked up tighter than a drum.  As you will learn, but may not accept right now, your "shadow" followed you in here.  Your shadow is what your mind tells you is true, it hides the doorway to Spiritual awakening.. Your shadow lies. What you can see through it is not the True Reality.  You have been relating to your shadow as you resist my influences as if it were Truth.  It is not. It was what you related to from time of your birth as you achieved all your current "success" in playing the games of the world.

But unknown to you, because it is erased from you earthly consciousness, the Reality is that, you are not seeking worldly success no matter how persuaded you are by your ego that worldly success is what you want. You are really seeking to reconnect with your Spiritual Truth.

Q: What on earth for?

P: Not "on earth." Because your Soul, your Spiritual Truth, yearns to recall your True Spiritual link to the higher realms of Spirit, not to the shadow self of the intellect that defines your limited world.  This is true of every human being. That explanation is behind your worldly quest for "success" now matter how success is defined by you or by each individual.  This is why many people remain unhappy, restless, depressed, even after they find what they call "success."

Your understanding of that dynamic is what we will develop and share together in the coming days, provided you don't "stomp" out of here and not come back.  Time after time, person after person who achieves worldly success finds that after the euphoria dies down, they are still mysteriously empty. This dynamic is acknowledged by the metaphysical Truth behind the dismal, but nevertheless hit song of that unhappy song bird, Peggy Lee, Is that All There Is? [1990]

Q: But I'm already feeling trapped and I don't understand why.  I really should just "stomp" out'a here.

P:  You're ego is feeling really threatened.  Good.  Next, I want to encourage you to respect the danger you and I and all of us are in.

Q: You mean the dangers you described in our introductory dialogues?

P: I mean the root danger, the one that lies in becoming overwhelmed by a commitment to our respective versions of our shadow.  This danger exists whether we know it or not, believe it or not, care or not.

Q: Because "Life is RAW?"

P: You've got it!  RAW experiences and conditions require RAW solutions.  But be patient, I will address those details in time.  But now we must continue to prepare you to understand why we are undertaking an important journey, and why you ought to accept the importance of this investment for you, for your future.  Consciousness may be found to operate at different levels of human complexity.

Q: How so?

P: Read this final story for this dialogue, and contemplate how the actors involved in this story might relate to each other with different levels of C/consciousness unfoldment.

[Return from Parable]

Q: So how can I avoid remaining blind to the "Treasure Chests" of the world?  How can I cope with my fear that I am not understanding this MP in any important way?

P: Relax, it's premature to hope for that understanding right now.  Persevere. Do your homework, use every mental device available, push your mind to its limit.  Accept the reality of being blocked for now and then let it go, because you are not as blocked as you think you are. Americans are good at all but the last two parts of that guidance.

Q: Good. Then I can jump right on it.

P:  Spoken like a true male!  But wait! You can do it. Yes! That's the good news. But the bad news is that the skill falls into the same category of becoming a virtuoso in playing a musical instrument. If you want to be a virtuoso, the discipline will take years of practice, dedication, persistence, and commitment. Worse, the practice must initially focus on sensually boring scales and exercises.  Accepting the constraints of disciplined practice is a foundation requirement to fully benefit by having earned the freedom of creativity.  It is always toughest at first.

Q: So how do I know I am Spiritually ready for this kind of challenge?

P:  Because only those who are qualified will be able to gather the required patience, discipline, and courage to move forward into the realm of meditative practices. I observe that you have those qualities if you choose to use them. That is the point underlying the following scripture:

“But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ “For many are called, but few are chosen.” [Mat 22: 11-14  NKJV]

P:  Your confusion arises from your lack of Metaphysical preparation.  We are correcting that lack. "Wedding garments" are symbolic of being prepared to celebrate the wedding, i.e., the Unity of Spiritual awakening by means of joining Spiritual Consciousness with (marriage to) the intellectual consciousness.  Many who pretend to be Spiritually devout may believe that they actually are.  But few are actually qualified by the Real state of their C/consciousness.  Therefore, the pretenders stumble in darkness (intellectual confusion) and suffer the torments of their ignorance. They come to the wedding without the proper preparation. We will discuss this dynamic in detail in our dialogue on Karma and Reincarnation. There I will present to you a story of the Buddhist saint, Milarepa, and his earthly trials to qualify the receive the Spiritual Truths.

Thus many will fail simply because they do not have the prerequisite consciousness of the coming benefits that justifies patience and persistence. They cannot accept that there is an achievable goal for them to develop these preconditions for success in the first place.  Their potential for success is "killed" by their ego demands for immediate gratification before it is even tested.  Fortunately, you do not need to become a virtuoso to benefit from developing an expanded Spiritual Consciousness.  But you must become disciplined in basic meditation and prayer.  We will further develop the details of prayer or meditation. later.
**************

Q: So can you summarize the difference between the intellect and what you keep referring to as C/consciousness.

P: Until our next visit examine this table of differences.  These should help clarify the concept.  However, do not follow your usual practice of studying it, memorizing it, or analyzing it. Instead, meditate on it. Capture it in your mind. Then release it into The Silence of Meditation.

Q:  How is that different?  I mean, how can I examine it or meditate on it without "studying" it?

P: The difference is subtle but profound.  Study requires a mental agenda, a goal.  Meditation demands no agenda, no goal. Allow yourself to look at each row of the table, and just hold the difference there in your awareness. Place it on the alter of your mind and surrender it to your C/consciousness.  Allow it to be there. Do not be judgmental.  Do not spin intellectual theories, debates, or conclusions. It takes practice, especially with your present biases and intellectual strength.  But keep at it.  Let each difference simply rest in your mind without distractions of any kind.  Let come whatever comes to mind.  What comes may not be immediate.  Try not to be judgmental about what comes up as your intellect will demand, usually in some form of reactive defense or ambition.  With practice you will be amazed and pleased at what is revealed.

Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness
ASSC promotes research within cognitive science, neuroscience, philosophy, and other relevant disciplines in the sciences and humanities, directed toward understanding the nature, function, and underlying mechanisms of consciousness.
PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal on Consciousness
PSYCHE (ISSN: 1039-723X) is a refereed electronic journal dedicated to supporting the interdisciplinary exploration of the nature of consciousness and its relation to the brain. PSYCHE publishes material relevant to that exploration from the perspectives afforded by the disciplines of cognitive science, philosophy, psychology, physics, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. Interdisciplinary discussions are particularly encouraged.
Epistemology, Consciousness, and the Mind
This is a page entirely dedicated to linking to a variety of consciousness, mind-brain and related pages
Michael Nielsen, Ph.D.:  Psychology of Religion Pages, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Georgia.  This is a guide to some of the best religious studies resources on the Internet.  Many religious expression are examined from various psychological perspectives. This Nielsen page is embedded in an even more comprehensive page of psychological resources developed by Russell A. Dewey, Ph.D. It can be reached by means of this link.
Unfolding the Enfolded:  Cosmos, Mind, & Soul; a project by Thomas Nielsen, Ed.D.  
Nielsen describes the purpose of his site as follows:

"Here at this website I hope to provide you with opportunities to discover and explore some of these current developments: new concepts, findings, theories, explanations and linkages which make this, despite the turmoil of our present days, a most fascinating, exciting and insightful age."

Resource Links:  Links to pages featuring New Thought and Gnostic Christian resurgence.

---

...

P: You will find that, throughout our dialogues, I will use the figure of a cone to show that, regardless of the dimension of C/consciousness being discussed, they all have in common that they begin at a narrow and restrictive "alpha" point, and expand to omega, the highest and broadest level that the individual is capable of achieving over their lifetimes. [see Teilhard de Chardin, 1959;  Ring, 1984]

The Spiritual goal of every human life (unknown to most) is to reach for the maximum expansion of these cones of C/consciousness during each earth episode of the path of our Soul. Alas, there are few who understand this and they remain fixed at a level lower than their capabilities would permit, if they only knew.  We will examine some of these cones of C/consciousness when as finish this dialogue during our next visit.

Q: How long should I spend on this exercise you just gave me?

P: As long as it takes?

Q: How long is that?

P: (sigh) Eight hours, twenty-two minutes, and thirty five seconds. 

Q: What!?

P: See you next time.

Table 1: Quick Links to Consciousness Topics in Dialogue 1

Quick Links: Origins and Basic Concepts of Consciousness Main Ideas Concepts of the Mystical Paradigm (MP) The Necker Cube Demonstration of Consciousness The Sacred Concept of ONE The Art of Meditation C/consciousness Levels and Social Complexity

Three Levels of Functional C/consciousness Three Eras of Manifest Consciousness Invisible Constraints of Non Consciousness Facilitated Communication: example of Ego Control Three Stories of the Benefits of Consciousness Summary of C/consciousness

     

 

Cones of Consciousness. The geometric cone will be used to show relationships among various states of C/consciousness in our world today.

Forum (Blog) on the MP's Paradigm of C/consciousness (Planned)

Your jump point from the Mediation Main Page to continue the Mediation track if you are following the Mediation Training:

Degrees of Freedom (DF):  NOTE: this link is only for return students for their review purposes. A proper understanding of DF will be developed in sequence as a part of dialogue 4, the HIP (Human Information Processing), the third mental "overlay" on consciousness. First time visitors are encouraged to allow for the logical development of this topic before checking out the details of DF.

Master Index