Heroes Not Zombies

Consciousness – the awareness of existence.

We can alter our consciousness by changing both the level of our awareness, and the boundaries of our existence. Does that sound strange? Let’s consider each dimension in turn.

Firstly, what are the levels of awareness?

Deep sleep, dreaming sleep, drowsy waking, awake, high alert and awareness of awareness.

In deep sleep, we lose any awareness of our existence. We can’t describe our experience of deep sleep because we have no awareness of being there as it happens. Dreaming sleep is different. It can be difficult to remember our dreams, but with practice and intention our recall can improve. Just before you fall asleep, try repeating to yourself “tonight I will remember my dreams”. Sounds too easy? Actually, it’s easy to repeat this affirmation every night, but not so easy to make it come true. You may have many nights where you repeat this phrase before sleeping before you start to remember more dreams. In addition to this affirmation, it is helpful to keep a notebook beside your bed, and to try to cultivate the habit of writing whatever it was you were dreaming about before you do anything else. I’m sure you will have had the experience of waking up with a sense that you remember last night’s dream, then someone talks to you, or the radio alarm comes on, or some noise distracts you, and, in a flash, your dream has gone.

Different people wake up in different ways. For some people it’s like a switch being flicked on. For others, they need time to “come round”. Waking for them is a slow process. If you are in this latter group, then a daylight alarm might help you raise your conscious level more slowly, and so wake up more effectively each morning.

Awake, is our average level of awareness, but many people who are awake go through the day on some kind of auto-pilot. The truth is that being awake is not the same as being aware.

There is an automatic state of hyper-alertness which occurs naturally in situations of sudden or acute stress. At such times we can become particularly sensitive to the stimuli from our environment – noises, lights, smells etc.

Finally, we have the conscious state of being aware of our awareness. Meditation practice is the best way of developing your ability to be aware of your awareness. In particular, mindfulness meditation is a well developed way to become skilled at this.

From deep sleep, through to awareness, you can think of this as an increasing intensity or strength of consciousness. There’s no doubt that energy flow significantly influences conscious level.

The merging of the rivers of energy and consciousness produce a dynamic experience of awareness. But there’s another dimension to consciousness too. You can think of it as being how wide the river is. We have the experience of personal consciousness which creates our sense of a self. But there are times when we experience such an “in tune” connection with another, that we have a few moments of shared consciousness with them. In fact, when together in a large group, for example, at a concert, or a sports event with other fans, we gain a feeling of group consciousness. In other words, the existence we become aware of expands out beyond our personal existence to a shared existence with others.

How can we expand our consciousness to include more and more of existence, more of what is?

Love is the driving force and the key to this movement. With loving intent, we can connect, we can make the river wider and we can experience our consciousness dissolving its boundaries so we become aware of all that is.

BE THE FLOW