Becoming a master of consciousness

INTERFAITH

a Thresholds Editorial

Only a Master….

By working with white whales, trainers at SeaWorld learned the best schedule for the animals was a mix of five basic periods each day: play, work, free time, rest, and learning time.

Upon first hearing this it might sound like something you’d like in your own life. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Afterall, you need plenty of play, rest, and of course free time to balance out all your hard work and the rigorous demands of learning. You might even think you’d be a lot healthier if your boss or teacher knew about this insightful study and was willing to adjust to it.

You might think this idea of five periods a day is a fair assessment of what a human being’s balanced life should be. It probably is for a novice reasoner.

Throughout history, man has sought to understand himself through his relationship with animals. From the intricate imagery of Greek mythology to the more recent Darwinian theories of evolution by natural selection, it is commonplace for man to seek meaning by giving meaning. This is true because Man’s essence is a creative spirit constantly perfecting maturation.

A beginning reasoner is one who is just beginnning to consider he or she can direct the life. Such a one is beginning to separate consciousness from the outer, body shell. The greater the separation, the less he or she is subject to physical influences. The elements. The tides. Animal instincts. When the concept of how to spend time, what is important enough to spend time doing daily, dawns in the consciousness, that is the beginning of sentience. The beginning of self evaluation that leads to self awareness.

Part of the current millennium changes, a large part of them, are influences upon the consciousness of humanity. No longer are we at this beginning of sentience, this initation time of reasoning. In fact that happened tens of thousands of year ago, during the early stages of what is known as Atlantis.

“Does this mean we are in the adolescence of reasoning development?” one familiar with the four stages of Man might ask. And well, we might wonder, for evidence of experimentation are rappant in our world from the scientific use of animal body parts to replace damaged human ones to the psychological use of animals to elucidate, describe, and predict human behavior. Adolescence is the stage of development which births ideas like this “perfect” quintuplet schedule – where man is compared, contrasted, and subsequently reduced to an animal. Animals give man a valuable resource for reasoning and learning. It is also true that each time an animal is used to define Man, Man is diminished. Held back. His spiritual progress retarded. This is why so many are leaving behind the conflict of science versus religion, finding progress by blending the best both have to offer. This is most outstanding in the maturing of our ideas and practices in the area of health.

As we reach the millennium, it is time for Man to graduate to adulthood. To become accountable. This means adding to the memory built in animal man, the imagination apparent in reasoning man. Now more than ever before man is willing to embrace his own authority by moving out of the denial produced by identifying with the animal part of self and into the awareness that his thoughts are real. They have substance and energy and they determine his reality.

The reality we are now becoming aware of as we near the end of this adolescence phase is a mature sense of what we have believed all along – Man is more than a physical being. He is spirit. First. Last. Always.

The future of man does not rest in the past, in what has been, in even what is. The future of man is revealed in the imagination of the thinker. It has yet to be created. Imagination has caused every genetic change – from man’s adpatability to elements to the creation of faculties for everything from fine motor skills to the tendency toward genius. In the animal kingdom survival of the fittest reigns. For man that measure of fitness is no longer strength rooted in the physical and ruled by instinctual cunning. Now, strength is determined by will power, the capacity to make and fulfill choices that transform animal instinct into a direct grasp of Truth known as intuition. Intuitive knowledge and skill is our future. The goal is no longer survival, it is wisdom. For this reason we will increasingly find Man’s fittest is also the wisest among us.

So how do we make this transition? When was the last time you heard, read, or expressed the sentiment “life is for learning.” An intelligent response to a youngster who just lost a big game, perhaps not so smart to say to your best friend who just lost his job, and it would be viewed as callous to say to a relative who receives a diagnosis of terminal illness. The truth of “life is for learning” remains in each instance independent of the leaner’s acceptance or denial.

Like a child trusting a parent, in the infancy stage Man believes “only God (the wind, the Spirit, the sun, etc.) knows the reason.” During adolescence man grapples with this because reasoning, often through science and technology, has allowed him to discover some of the answers. Sometimes he knows the reason, sometimes God does. What we do not have a reason for we had yet to discover hence the idea life is for learning. Thus we add the idea of working hard to our belief in God. This becomes the way to learn, to know, to evolve through adolescence. Adulthood becomes an aligning of these two ideas. Simply stated it is doing God’s will with awareness. This is the true key to a balanced life. From that wise vantage point, options become clearer. Choices easier. Fulfillment forthcoming. Health assured.

The balance we seek in our lives is not a separation of our time into various activities. The balance we seek is the capacity to respond at will. The freedom to know our lives are fulfilling a greater purpose than just using time, passing time, dividing time, spending time. The balance we seek is a command of motion, sustained and perpetually directed toward spiritual destiny. This understanding of balance is the result of living in the moment. Completely, fully, wisely. Wholistically.

To realize that play, work, free time, rest, and learning are all the same is to graduate from adolescence into adulthood. The adult knows what escapes the adolescent. These are only separate until we discover how to unite them.

As the Buddha told the crazy murderer Anguilamala, “You can kill but you cannot join, what wisdom is there in that? Even a child can destroy. Only a master can create.”

That is the secret of healing. A secret we are in the process of mastering.

I send you my Circle of Love,

Dr. Barbara Condron