Written by Allan Beveridge | Print

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Awareness and Consciousness

 

Over the course of my journey, I have spoken to thousands of people about awareness and examined it from various angles in a number of essays. While most had some exposure to ideas about these concepts, it remained confusing, to varying degrees, to many. What most have are vague, uncertain and often conflicting notions about it. In this piece, I hope to remove some more of that vagueness and uncertainty. Awareness and consciousness is a topic that is neither easy to understand nor explain in any detail; however, we do not need precise details to gain a better understanding. I will start this process with a basic conceptual model of what we are.

We can consider ourselves as having four aspects. They are our “soul” (the lower aspect rather than the higher aspect), another is our physical body and the last two are our mind(s) and our energy field. Do not see them as separate in the common sense for they are interconnected. Further, all of them are energy fields so the differences are the type or nature of their energy.

 

 

Our vehicle when incarnate contains matter of all seven sub-planes of plane on which we exist. Our physical vehicle is the densest and our “soul” is the least dense. There is a wealth of resources on the nature of the planes available so you can research this in more detail if you feel inclined. We will not get into the four aspects I mentioned, as the focus of this essay is the last. Also, note that while the above model is an oversimplification, it will suffice for the purposes of this essay.

We will start with the last aspect I listed, our energy field. This energy field is not our mind, or our soul, think of it as you would the collection of cells that make up the whole we call our bodies. For instance, our etheric web is part of this field. It is the mechanism around which our physical vehicles are “constructed”. It is also how we the vital energies that flow around and through us and is the link between our higher aspects and the body. We are not our energy field anymore than we are the cell; see it as the framework for our consciousness.

Now, our consciousness does not reside in a place, nor is it like an arm or a leg. Our “souls” are consciousness; however, in order for us to function as humans, our consciousness wraps itself in the matter of the densest sub-planes of energy (physical, emotional and mental, which are all non-permanent) and in a sense works through them. Part of this wrapping is our auric field. Imagine it as a field of energy rather than discrete “packets” of energy such as a thought or emotion.

The “simple” definitions of awareness and consciousness are awareness is reaction to a stimuli and consciousness is reaction plus memory. A corollary to this would be that we are not conscious because we have thoughts; our thoughts are how we remember.

You are reading this essay using your conscious mind. It is our primary vehicle for learning when incarnate. You can see your mind as having two aspects: one is the Rational Mind (RM) and the other is our Non-Rational Mind. Our Rational Mind is that aspect of us our consciousness builds that has thoughts be they concrete ones about objects or abstract ones such as beliefs, ideas about things and so on. The Non-Rational Mind (NRM) is that aspect of our awareness that is independent of thoughts, including our ego, and emotions as well as our physical senses.

It is our NRM awareness that gives us the ability to work with energy, empathy, telepathy, clairvoyance and so on. While many have ideas and thoughts about these abilities, they run into some difficulty in connecting the words to anything they can “identify”. This is, unlike physical objects, which they can see clearly perceive and assign labels or names to. They can always tell a chair when they see one; however, they cannot always say - “that was an intuition”.

We all are aware of more than thoughts, feelings and physical objects though most of us tend to lump all our awareness’s together. This means we recognize we are aware of physical objects through our senses and that we have thoughts and feelings. Our thoughts and feelings exist on different energy levels or sub-planes of matter. We are not generally aware of sub-plane of energy of a thought or feeling. As a result, while we may be occasionally aware of “things” other than thoughts or feelings, we just do not have words for or understanding of them. Further, people do not separate intuitive thoughts, or “psychic” thoughts from their thoughts and feelings.

 

 

Another factor that makes it challenging to notice non-rational awareness from our thoughts and feelings is that our rational minds take most of our attention. While there are moments when we may recognize an intuitive thought, we could not do so on a regular basis. This is why I have explored how to have a more active awareness and how to be more in the moment in so many different essays.

All of the NRM skills I referred to (empathy, telepathy etc.) are awareness’s of our consciousness. We have the capability to react to energy of all the planes of energy that we have in our vehicle. We all use them, at least a little, during the course of our lives. A good salesperson uses empathy to read a customer and get a feel for what would get them to buy a particular product. Musicians use a form of empathic telepathy when they play; it allows them to perform as a group rather than a collection of individuals. In addition, there are times when we get a thought about something external, such as an intuition about a friend in need. The question is, how does all this work? To understand this we need to look at the mind in more detail.

Earlier I said that our mind is part of our souls clothing. From the moment we are born, we have experiences. We react to every experience, an experience being a stimulus. The stimulus is what we receive as input; however, the moment we perceive something we react to it. This is our awareness of the stimulus, for we cannot be aware of it without reacting. We are conscious because we retain the memory of the reaction.

We react based on what we have experienced and reacted to before. Our reaction is what manifests thoughts, which in turn manifest emotions. All our thoughts are, collectively, our RM and both our thoughts and emotions become part of our energy field, or our souls clothing. We tend to focus our attention on our thoughts or our reactions to experiences. That is, we live in our thoughts. The result is we associate ourselves with our thoughts rather than that of us that is not comprised of thoughts. We are not consciously aware that we interact with the Cosmos around us all the time for instead of wearing the clothes, we tend become them.

The energies we interact with are those manifested by other consciousnesses and those of the Cosmos itself. I must note here that the energy of the Cosmos is also emanations from other consciousnesses (though this topic is beyond the scope of this essay). These other energies interact with like energies in our field and we react, though imagine it as more a form of an impression of one vibration onto another versus a chemical reaction.

It is not just a piece of our field, which includes our RM, that reacts, all aspects of us that is of the same plane to the stimulus or perception, are affected by it. Further, we react to each of these reactions until we have incorporated the experience fully. This is how we integrate experiences. I spoke about this in essay, “The Webs We Weave”.

Each step in the integration process takes us a little further from the original stimulus. That does not mean the original impression is lost, for as I mentioned, the initial reaction becomes part of every new thought we create in the integration process. Our integration takes the form of thoughts that we can be conscious of our awareness of them if we have trained ourselves to or we have the “gift” to do so. We do so by not continuing to react to each experience. An impulse would be an example of ongoing integration. If the mind is uncertain (and we train this uncertainly into it), it keeps reacting to the stimulus.

 

 

One of the best examples of this is the difference between an impulse and an intuition. When we get an impression, an intuitive thought, we can either allow it to be as it is or we can continue to react to it. The mind that is uncertain or continues to question also continues to integrate. This ongoing integration creates layers of thoughts around the original impression or reaction making it hard for the mind to determine the actual root impression.

Impulses tend to waver back and forth, for instance in the case of simple yes and no situation it will not be able to settle on one or the other. Each time it cannot settle on one we add another layer. At the same time, the mind is aware that it has received an intuition, those with the gift simply get the “raw intuition” or impression unfettered by additional reactionary thoughts. Their mind then translates this and they become consciously aware of it. What varies from person to person is the way we are aware of this impression or any other impression, not the mechanism itself.

Each of the awareness’s mentioned earlier either utilizes a different aspect of the reaction mechanism or the same mechanism applied to different planes of energy involved. Empathy is awareness of others the emotions of others, just as telepathy is awareness of others thoughts. In both cases, the observer is “decoding” the impression of either the emotion or thought, what varies is the plane of the energy of the impression. This holds true even at the physical level where our bodies sense things, of which we can also be conscious.

All non-time based energies we become aware of utilize the same mechanism, that being we interact with energy that makes an impression on energy of like kind within our field. By this, I mean events in “real time”. Certain types of clairvoyance have a time component relative to the observer in that an impression received now may be that of an event that in a chronological sequence of time has not yet occurred. We are aware of such things through a different aspect of the mechanism.

When we have a thought, our RM decodes it so that we are consciously aware of it. We all do this our own way. If we encounter someone else’s thoughts, our RM will decode it too. We are not likely consciously aware that the source thought was not one of ours, though one can learn recognize this. We can do so because while the thought itself as a whole “unit” is just like any other thought we have, the root thoughts that we integrated to create the thought will contain vibrations that are native to us, a energy signature” if you will. Thoughts that are not ours will not have this energy signature.

Clairvoyance related to past events utilizes the fact that every influence on a thought leaves an impression on it. One can then peel away the layers of all these influences and perceive the individual influences themselves. This can aid one in looking back through their energy or that of others. We can also do using the energy imbedded in objects as all that is manifest has at least some form of consciousness associated with it, as consciousness implies memory (though it appears quite simplistic or rudimentary by human standards of consciousness).

 

 

It is exceedingly difficult to go back through the past without some connection to the events or without assistance or impressions from the higher planes or some other source. Clairvoyance related to future events is far more mysterious and for many the concept is problematic. I say this because few of us are prepared to accept that we have less influence over events in our lives than we think.

We believe we have free will, and while we do, we rarely exercise it. We live our lives mostly reacting to the influences upon us rather than acting from our soul, if you will. The more clothes our soul has, that is the more programmed our minds are, the less we are able to act. We do certain things because they are habits or because the influences affect us particular ways and so forth. We tend not to notice this because we are reacting to influences rather than noticing the influences themselves. People who see events in the future are getting a translation of the influences that will occur if things progress as they are now.

In his book titled “Clairvoyance”, C.W. Leadbeater eludes to this in relation to perceiving future events:

There is no doubt whatever that, just as what is happening now is the result of causes set in motion in the past, so what will happen in the future will be the result of causes already in operation. Even down here we can calculate that if certain actions are performed certain results will follow, but our reckoning is constantly liable to be disturbed by the interference of factors which we have not been able to take into account. But if we raise our consciousness to the mental plane we can see very much farther into the results of our actions.

 

We can trace, for example, the effect of a casual word, not only upon the person to whom it was addressed, but through him on many others as it is passed on in widening circles, until it seems to have affected the whole country; and one glimpse of such a vision is far more efficient than any number of moral precepts in pressing upon us the necessity of extreme circumspection in thought, word, and deed. Not only can we [Page 122] from that plane see thus fully the result of every action, but we can also see where and in what way the results of other actions apparently quite unconnected with it will interfere with and modify it. In fact, it may be said that the results of all causes at present in action are clearly visible - that the future, as it would be if no entirely new causes should arise, lies open before our gaze.

 

New causes of course do arise, because man's will is free; but in the case of all ordinary people the use which they will make of their freedom can be calculated beforehand with considerable accuracy. The average man has so little real will that he is very much the creature of circumstances; his action im previous lives places him amid certain surroundings, and their influence upon him is so very much the most important factor in his life-story that his future course may be predicted with almost mathematical certainty. With the developed man the case is different; for him also the main events of life are arranged by his past actions, but the way in which he will allow them to affect him, the methods by which he will deal with them and perhaps triumph over them - these are all his own, and they cannot be foreseen even on the mental [devachanic] plane except as probabilities.”

 

The way we are able to use the skills of our NRM that I have mentioned is due to the mechanics of how energy interacts. We summarize these as follows:

Sensing energy or thoughts in the present: We are able to sense energies for which we have a corresponding aspect within ourselves. We translate the impression of the energy just as we translate our own thoughts, for example, into words or images. There is a correlation between our power of perception and how much of the corresponding aspect we have developed within ourselves.

Decoding thoughts or emotions: If we are able to sense the energy, we can also translate what we receive. This is the basis of empathy and telepathy. We do this with our own energy all the time as we must do so to be consciously aware. Our ability to translate an impression from a thought relies on our having the language to express it. For example, one who has not developed a high level of awareness regarding mathematics is unlikely to be consciously aware of perceptions received from without of very complex mathematical thoughts.

An additional factor in being able to sense other vibrations is how clear ones RM is. Someone who has a clearer mind may be consciously aware of a perception and may be able to express it figuratively or in other terms even when lacking the language to express it.

Reading the past: When energies interact, aspects of these energies become part of any new thought or vibration manifested. If we manifest a new thought, the new thought is an integration of the other thoughts. The result is the new thought contains the new vibration as well as the original vibrations of the thoughts that were involved in the integration process. Our minds are capable of reading the past by unravelling the various energies that are part of a thought or vibration of any kind.

The challenge in doing so accurately is one would need to either know or be able to deduce the past influences on the vibration. However, it is not necessary that we be conscious of the deduction process only how to engage and guide it it.

Foretelling the future: As explained above, foretelling the future is exceedingly difficult and never a 100% sure thing. The mechanism for telling the future is similar to the past; however, rather than decoding the influences a vibration has been subject to, one must be able to sense the vibrations someone or something WILL BE. This requires the ability to suspend ones thoughts about the future to allow our powerful consciousness to do so for us. It can correlate immensely complex interactions to “deduce” where things are headed. Again, one must have the language to be able to express it and enough clarity to allow the thoughts to come through unhindered.

Note: There are other ways one can aquire a knowing about the future, these being impressions for without or "above". Time is a relationship. How it operates and where it does not remains a great mystery and I am still exploring this area. Perhaps I will write about it ... in the future.

 

 

We all have these capabilities; they are part of our consciousness. Our ability to be consciously aware of them depends on how transparent or clear our minds are, how noisy and reactive they are, and how much time we spend thinking and considering things that may happen to us or that have happened already. If we are constantly reacting to our feelings and thoughts then we are not paying attention to the moment as such thoughts add to the clothing our soul wears and inhibit the free flow of information.

As you work on your own awareness, you will find that what I have communicated here will be of value to you. My intent is less to inform your mind and more to train it. If the intent to develop these skills is clear and unambiguous then you have already told your mind that you want to explore these areas. These words will then give your sub-conscious and non-conscious minds ideas they can use. It will work behind the scenes to aid you on your journey. It only hope that I have explained the concepts to a sufficient degree and with enough clarity that this will be the result.

 

© 2011 Allan Beveridge

 

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