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Outrageous Truth (OT): A Mystical Paradigm (MP)
Dialogue 1 of 7:

THE CONSCIOUSNESS PARADIGM,

Spiritual versus Intellectual Consciousness
What is not first held in Consciousness
cannot be processed by the mind,
no matter how brilliant the intellect!

Copyright © 1995-2008 by Thomas E. Harries, Ph.D.
All Rights Reserved

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Conscience
[a dimension of C/consciousness]

 Worldly fortune is not always a blessing to man.

In fact under present customs it is apt to be just the reverse.
As long as questionable methods are successful in bringing results,
conscience has but a small chance for a hearing.  It  is only when failure
follows the efforts of the misguided that conscience get his ear.  Then
the field is surveyed with the eye of a general defeated in an unjust cause.
The heat of battle blinded him and he gave no thought to the lives he was uselessly sacrificing.
Charles Fillmore, 1953, pages 44-45

Incompetent leadership is mostly a function of inadequate consciousness.
Incompetent voting is also a function of inadequate consciousness.
Religious pathologies are a function of inadequate consciousness.
Greed, avarice, and a lust for power are also a function of inadequate consciousness.
Compassion, generosity, benevolence, non-violence, good judgment and Wisdom
require an especially advanced and active Spiritual Consciousness.


The ideas that gives power and substance to these claims begin with this Dialogue.
Whoever understands these ideas and concepts, will begin to understand the dilemmas
and tragedies of our times, and the true nature, depth and scope of the political disaster that has befallen the
United States since 2001.  They will gain a sense of what can and must be done to correct and heal our current peril.



......
GUIDEPOST 1-1: METAPHYSICAL NATURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
A Summary Guidepost will precede every topical subsection of the MP.

The introductory dialogues just concluded presented a summary of the array and depth of problems that our society must soon resolve if social stability is going to continue for very long into the future.  The resolution of those problems first depends upon an awakened and vital Spiritual Consciousness among those who offer to be the problem solvers or support their cause.  This dialogue begins to develop the definitions of C/consciousness, its relationship to the intellect and intelligence, and how it affects your life.

Concepts of C/consciousness undergird both the intellectual and Spiritual foundation of the Mystical Paradigm (MP.) You will acquire a useful understanding of the nature of C/consciousness (Spiritual Consciousness compared with biological and mental consciousness) as used in the MP. The nature of "how" to do a task is lodged in the intellect (consciousness), but full access to the Wisdom for knowing the optimum "how" and "why" is only lodged within and through an awakened Spiritual Consciousness. 

The awareness of the nature of ego consciousness and its slave the intellect with its limited and limiting versions of truth, must first be placed in the context of an embracing Spiritual Truth. Only then can the problems of humanity be accurately and completely assessed, opportunities recognized, trust generated, and cooperation and collaboration among diverse groups be assured.  Only then can workable interventions can be designed, implemented and validated.


Implications for Mediation
A major application of the MP is for the empowerment of those who are mediators or managers of facilitatory group dynamics.   The interactive techniques used in such applications can be greatly improved by a working knowledge of the nature and dynamics of C/consciousness, and the three intellectual ego overlays on Spiritual C/consciousness.  Properly managed, mediation is a Spiritual exercise. These ego overlays on Spiritual Consciousness are the agendas (Dialogue 2), communication (Dialogue 3) and HIP (Human Information Processing competence, in Dialogue 4.)  Your capacity to engage in mediation, negotiation, and/or facilitative group management can be greatly empowered by this body of knowledge and associated skills,  and is thus well worth your time.  Then you can then go to the dedicated mediation section to more effectively explore, develop, and apply the technical dynamics of managing mediation.

THE PERSON WHO KNOWS HOW CAN ALWAYS DO THE TASK,
BUT THE PERSON WHO KNOWS WHY WILL BE IN CHARGE.



NOTE to first time visitors: you will be better prepared for what follows if you first read Part One of the three part Introductory Dialogue (same as the Home Page) so as to first Meet the Mystical Protagonist and Inquiring Mind.    That first part of the three part Introductory  Dialogue sets the basic context for for the MP.  Then Parts two and three of the Introductory Dialogue address some of the political implications of Outrageous Truth: A Mystical Paradigm.,   Parts 2 & 3 need not be read to prepare you for the conceptual (scientific and metaphysical) substance of the MP that begins here.

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
fcFacilitated Communication: example of Ego Control
Three Stories of the Benefits of Consciousness
Summary of C/consciousness

Review the capitalization and color conventions used to clarify selected metaphysical terms



Hermes:
Behold an infant's soul, my son, that is not yet cut off,

because its body is still small and not as yet come unto its full bulk.
Tat [Hermes' son]: How?
Hermes: A thing of beauty altogether is [such a soul] to see,
not yet befouled by body's passions, still all but hanging from the Cosmic Soul!
The Corpus Hermeticum (Section X: The Key)
Hermes Trismegistus  (Compiled by Anonymous Authors)
Translated by  G.R.S. Mead

.
The Dialogue continues from the Home Page,
Part 1 of the Three Part Introductory Dialogue..

(or if you read them, from Part 2 or Part 3 of  the three part Introductory Dialogue)
.

Origins and Basic Concepts of Consciousness

 InQuiring Mind:  As I recall you are about to inform me as to the nature of this "consciousness" that seems to be so important.  Correct?

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.]
sMaster 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.]



[Return from Parable]

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:


...
vThe Primal Dream of the Infant
(Please  review the interpretation that follows each allegory or parable)

[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]


Integration of the Spiritual with the physicalStudy  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.


...
P: All stable religions originating in Mystical Truth have a common link in their Mystical roots.  These aspects of these roots vanish into the earliest manifestations of human C/consciousness.  Today, modern people ridicule the thesis of Bishop Usher who proclaimed (in the 15th century) that the universe was then just over 4004 years old, which the literalist fundamentalists  still believe is true.  Of course, the modern scientifically informed intellect rejects and even mocks his thesis.  However, the MP can possibly reconcile that apparently absurd idea with the most arcane concepts in modern day respectable science. [Note But we must move on.

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.

P:  You are ready.  You are already on that path at the moment of your birth. The feelings of doubt, even the contempt you now have, do not determine your readiness.  These defensive intellectual expressions commanded by your ego can only interfere and put off the moment of opportunity, the moment of initial reawakening. The Spiritual reunion is entirely determined by the readiness of each child's/adult's Soul for the reawakening or quickening of its Spiritual potential.

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.


***************** Because search engines often bring visitors directly to this page, to facilitate their foundation understanding of Dialogue 1 material, the following segment is repeated from the Home Page (Part 1 of the three part Introductory Dialogue.)

Main Ideas of the MP
Study Point 1-3
P:  Now let me introduce you to the main ideas and concepts that we will be exploring over the course of our seven Dialogues after this three part introductory dialogue.

Spiritual Consciousness Model with three ego overlays


Look at this figure [above].  This figure captures the central ideas of the Mystical Paradigm (MP) in one diagram.  At the center is our Spiritual Truth. Then when the Soul constructs its body in the material world, there are three ego owned and operated overlays that are anchored in that material world.  The first is our biological body with its five physical senses.  From this is derived our material agendas that serve our basic needs as explained in the Maslow hierarchy. [Dialogue 2: Agendas  Second, is the communication ego overlay on our Spiritual Consciousness. [Dialogue 3, Communication]  This is our capacity for language and symbolic communication that is built upon those needs and values as anchored in our agendas.  Third, our Human Information Processing (HIP) [Dialogue 4: HIP] competence (concrete to abstract. )   HIP is the means by which we are empowered to process the complexity and subtlety of our material experiences.  

These three overlays on our Spiritual core act to create our ego owned and operated intellect.  The interaction among these overlays comprise the means by which we establish HIP rules for penetrating and processing information complexity and transform sense data into useful information and communication potential.  Then these three ego overlays interact on the foundation of our Spiritual Consciousness to determine our capacity to handle the dynamics of power and control.  When not controlled by our Spiritual Truth, this dynamic can act to create the power and greed mongers in their pathological expression. [Dialogue 5: Power and Control]

You will learn in our sixth dialogue, on Karma and Reincarnation  [Dialogue 6: K&R], how the potential for either a healthy or pathological expression of your Spiritual Truth is derived from your Karmic legacy at the time of your reincarnation and the earthly context in which you are placed.  K&R are the perfect mechanisms for a perfectly patient, perfect Cosmic Justice. Then our final dialogue, [Dialogue 7: The Healing Power of Love] concludes our seven major dialogues.  

But as you undertake your journey, this natural reawakening is vulnerable to being compromised by the normal vicissitudes of life, even if there is not overt child abuse.  I know that you cannot even grasp the possibility of this right now, but that is why you must devote yourself to the disciplined unfolding of the MP, step by step and concept by concept.  Remember the "Curse of Holistic/Systems thinking?   Those who are not yet Spiritually worthy will not be able to find the discipline or motivation to accomplish this.  This is how the Spiritual realms are protected against material corruption from those not yet fit to receive and apply these Sacred Truths.   You will study a classic story of one person's incredible struggle to master his ego needs in order to gain the Sacred Truths. [In, The Allegory of the Buddhist Monk, Milarepa]



Q: Karma and Reincarnation are off the wall!  But I'll restrain my objections about that for now, especially that reference to Karma or whatever it is.  But I still don't relate to the idea that I'm on some kind of Spiritual journey. So I came here. So what? I don't consider that a "journey." What journey?

P: As in the journey of Odysseus.  A Spiritual journey is a sacred requirement that is placed upon each incarnate Soul. The requirement that "it," the Soul, of itself, as a living being, by itself, through courage, discipline, emotional neutrality, willingness to work and risk, acceptance of data (evident facts), open to reason, and empowered only by the motives of Love, Trust,  and Compassion, will rediscover and reenter the Enchanted Path. [Nalimov, 1982] By such virtues and attributes each Pilgrim can transcend their Personality to rediscover their Real Source , their Individualized Soul. I know you are not yet relating to any of this in a meaningful way, but you will as you become ready. [See also J. R. R. Tolkien's, trilogy, The Lord of the Rings; this link is to a non Spiritual interpretation, but you can have fun applying the MP to recast the interpretation as you learn more about the Principles of the MP]

********************** End of segment repeated from Introductory Dialogue, Part 1of 3.

Q:  Your ideas suggest that my first and major challenge will be to separate ideas and concepts that are intellectual, and therefore limited to the material world, and those that are,as you say, Spiritual and not subject to the conditions in the material world.

P:  Well, Pilgrim, the differences between intellectual and Spiritual C/consciousness are profound. Lets take an additional risk and examine the following literary and metaphysical descriptions of who you actually are. The answer to finding the key has already been provided for in the world's sacred literature hundreds (thousands) of years before the common era. But this Truth is shaped by the many cultural and symbolic disguises of language and symbolic communication that we will pursue in our third dialogue

Ancient Origins

In The Book of Hermes, (< 3000 BCE) Pimander, the Divine Thought (GOD) says...

"The Light is in me... I am the Nous or intelligence, and I am thy god, and I am far older than the human principle which escapes the shadow. I am the the germ of thought the resplendent WORD the SON OF GOD. Think that what thus sees and hears in thee, is the Verbum of the Master, it is the Thought which is God the father... The celestial ocean, the AEther, which flows from east to west, is the Breath of the father, the life giving Principle, the HOLY GHOST... for they are not at all separated and their union is life." (Capitals added, Blavatsky, 1888, Vol 2, p 50) 

___________________________

The Beginning of the Common Era


Q: Religion again. What do those scriptures have to do with the incredible allegories you just gave me? You're so smart? You must know something of history. Just look how religion has screwed up the world. Look at what the religious right has already done to this country through their unwise support of George Bush.  If history and its Christian outrages are not enough to make one vomit, just look at the "contributions" of militant Islam today.  And I should accept this crap? Come on!

P: Patience!!!  If you listen carefully, you will hear that we are not speaking of religion, but of the essence of our Spirituality.  It is the understanding of our Spirituality that we purse, not religion, which has mostly been destructive of our capacity to understand and benefit from our Spiritual Truth which is only resident in Consciousness.  Let us move on.

...
Necker Cube Demonstration of Consciousness
...Study Point 1-4
GUIDEPOST 1-2: NECKER CUBE CONSCIOUSNESS DEMONSTRATION

At this point, the nature of challenges to consciousness which are evident in the allegorical stories can be emulated and demonstrated through the use of the "Necker Cube" phenomenon." What follows as a strictly visual experience is a total alteration of perceptual and mental consciousness.  This demonstration is central to understanding all that follows in the MP.

Then the same principle will be applied to comprehend alterations of mental and Spiritual C/consciousness involving complex ideas, values, and beliefs.  This kind of alteration of C/consciousness is required to penetrate information and social complexity and reveal the hidden Wisdom dimensions. Wisdom is required for adequate understanding and problem solving. You should also be able to intuitively understand how life changing transcendental experiences, those that must occur at the Spiritual levels of Consciousness are analogous in Principle to the simple mental alteration of consciousness experienced in contemplating the Necker Cube. 
 

...
"In trying to understand a disagreement,
I might imagine myself standing on the bank of a stream.
Behind me is a forest.  Across the water I see the other person
standing on the far bank.  Behind that person is a meadow.
I perceive a stream in a meadow.
The other person sees a stream in a forest.
We are both correct of course."
The Daily Word, May 10, 2004
Unity School of Christianity.

Consciousness Demonstration

Necker cube demonstration: 1Necker Cube Demonstration:
P:  Now look at the Necker Cube. [Left]  If you relax your eyes, and quietly just look at it, you will suddenly experience an altered state of consciousness as the front and back appear to flip. [Try this exercise now.]

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]
Once a doorway to your consciousness has been opened, no one can shut it.  I hope you will remember this demonstration when we play our little mental game about a changing camera frame to grasp that we are all literally ONE mass of coherent, intelligent energy, guided by the individuated Spiritual "I Am," (you,) within the Master Cosmic "I AM," or the all embracing Cosmic "GOD."  After this little exercise, you will never see your relationship with other humans in the same detached way.


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.

Necker Cube demonstration: 2P: 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 lightWe 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:

TABLE 1: Examples of "Necker Cube" Polarities
Where concrete or abstract [see definitions] status is specified, the specified degrees of HIP competence are
present to the extent stated.
Context
POLARITY
(Level of Energy)
Initial "A" Reality
Consciousness
Initial "B" Reality
Consciousness
a streamHighstream in a foreststream in a meadow
 world viewHighlow consciousness
George Bush view and agenda (concrete)
High Consciousness
populist progressive view and agenda (abstract)
political realityHighPaternalistic
Right Wing (Conservative)
Maternalistic,
Left Wing (Liberal)
Northern Ireland
High
Protestants
Catholic
Middle East
Extreme
Palestinians
Hezbollah
(concrete)
Israelis
(concrete)
US Society
Low
Pro war
Anti war
Family
High
Hatfields
McCoys
Bible Texthighliteral meaning
(concrete)
metaphorical meaning
(abstract)
Left vs Right Political Position
Medium
Fox Cable News
(concrete)
PBS
(abstract)
National Politics
Medium
Conservatives
(concrete)
Liberals
(abstract)
Social Class
Medium
Romeo's Class
Juliet's Class
Social Class
Medium
Management
Union
Religion
High
Fundamentalists
(concrete)
"Gnostic Christian"
(abstract)
US Social Values
Low
Urban Ghetto
Rural Poverty
Cultural Values
Medium
Occidental
(concrete)
Oriental
(abstract)
Management Style
Medium
Autocratic Managers
(concrete)
Consensus Managers
(abstract)
Corporate Abuse
High
Corporate Decision Makers
(concrete)
Exploited Staff and/or Public
Societal Abuse
Extreme
Power Mongers
(concrete)
Victim Society


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)]


...
Invisible Constraints of Non Consciousness

 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:

what is not in consciousness
cannot be processed by the intellect,
no matter how great the intellect!

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:

Table 2: characteristics of Expanded Consciousness compared to minimal consciousness.
EXAMPLE
EXPANDED CONSCIOUSNESS
MINIMAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Concept of Santa Clause
A parent's understanding of Santa Claus
A child's understanding of Santa Claus
Foundation Metaphor of Political Consciousness
Maternal Parent: accommodation, negotiation compassion, and forgiveness
Paternal Parent: power, control, and coercion, and vengeance (punishment)
Foundation of a political reality
Left wing political advocacy
Right wing political advocacy
Value of education
Holder of a professional degree (MD, Ph.D., etc)
A teenager's concept
Personal responsibility
Proactive, other oriented, unlimited
defensive, self oriented, limited
Nature of religion
Buddhism, Taoism, Gnostic Christianity (as  demonstrated by the life and teachings of Jesus)
fundamentalist
(regardless of sect)
Nature of Work
Devoted to support for the common needs of the community, will contain a Spiritual Dimension
Devoted to material gain and/or predatory exploitation of those vulnerable
Purpose of rules, laws
Relative, based on need, flexible, tolerant, based on the interests of all
Absolute, inflexible, ruthlessly enforced, biased toward self interest
Evaluation of political candidates
Criteria based on demonstrated Spirituality, knowledge, compassion, and competence
Criteria based on personality and the possibility of personal gain
War as an instrument of national policy
Last resort in the presence of credible threat, directed solely to permanently remove the threat, without significant benefit from material gain
Preemptive regardless of threat, directed to exploit material and self serving gain
L/love
Agapic (Spiritual,) other directed, unconditional
erotic, ego centered and materialistic


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]
Wide and enthusiastic support for FC rapidly developed, energized by desperate parents who yearned to at last be able to communicate with their severely autistic children.  But there was almost immediate opposition from the scientific community that FC did not achieve its proclaimed objective.  In fact, the critics noted that it appeared to be the other way around, i.e., that the facilitators were imposing their own thoughts through the key board, not the children's thoughts.

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.]
Thus one could see in this demonstration, the enormous power of mind to validate a reality created by that human mind.  The professionals who were of strong personal ethics and commitment to truth, nevertheless succumbed to the overriding and compelling forces of their ego needs to be right in their assessment of FC.  The victim's desires and wants within the confines of an ego controlled perception, does not, and cannot, without Spiritual assistance, conform to the actual Truth of a situation as can be found only in the larger Reality.

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.

Study Point 1-8
The Concept of "ONE"
...
GUIDEPOST 1-3: THE CONCEPT OF ONE

The Inquiring Mind is directed by the Mystical Protagonist to play a scientifically valid mind game. This game has as its goal to awaken the intellect to an awareness that every living thing is literally linked with every other living thing in the "INVARIANCE" [from science] or MIND OF GOD [from Metaphysics.] Upon completion of the game, selected evidence in support of the demonstration and assertion that we are all ONE is provided.  The organization of universal structure and processes create a nested hierarchy of interacting energy-information fields leading to their highest known biological manifestation as human life. Each human being is a portion of the COSMOS perceiving a portion of ITSELF. The Inquiring Mind is then shown how unfolding human C/consciousness has manifested itself as a progression of prosthetic extensions of its material senses and body (e.g., microscopes, other technology.)  This progression increases in both subtlety, complexity, and elegance until we achieve the sophisticated technology of today.

Then this information is shown to be mirrored in the intellectual unfolding of concepts that require language labels of matching subtlety and sophistication.  They persist and are passed on to others.   By labeling any concept, from simple to complex, these labels or symbols limit the concept even as they help to define and describe these realms of unfolding matter-energy and information we experience as intellectual consciousness.

...
P: OK!  Lets take a minute and have you play a mind game with me.  Tell me.  Where does your body end?

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

Figure: Spiritual energy levels of consciousness transcendenceP:  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?
 
demonstration of the atom

Overlapping human energy fields of two personsoverlapping energy fields of humanity

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?


nested levels of energy-information fieldsP: 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]

The hierarchy of seven levels of energy fields linked by the seven chakrasThis 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]


   
SOURCE: http://www.hermes-press.com/spiritual-body.jpg


http://www.hermes-press.com/spiritual-body.jpg

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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.

The "It" is that which defines the Spiritual Essence or Individuality (as opposed to personality) of each individual human that which we call the Soul.

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, 1972The 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

[End of "mind game,"
for those who jumped here from another part of OT/MP
use your "back" button to return to jump point]

          Figure is Institute of Heart Math Drawing
Institue of Heart Math drawing of human energy fieldsResearchers 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]

Therefore, it is the Soul which is not only the agent of human life, but also the agent of all positive processes associated