Community Consciousness

Whenever something happens, look within yourself to find out how you created it. Everything is created within your own consciousness. There is nothing that would appear in your physical reality unless it had already existed in your thoughts or feelings. You might think that it is some external action that produced the result, and so you go about trying to change it. But your external action would not have taken place if it wasn't created by your mentality and emotions. If your consciousness was different, you would receive a different set of results even if you had taken the same actions.

If you first have the right consciousness for your desired results, it would cause you to take the right external actions which would lead to your desire results. You should always be aware and in charge of your consciousness at all times rather than your actions. When you focus on your consciousness in everything you do, you will find that the doing becomes more effortless and faster. Always look at what is within your own consciousness, because that is what creates everything else.

If one believes in fate he must be healed of this thought, for there is no such thing as fate. If one believes that planetary forces have anything to do with life he must be healed of this thought. Break down everything except the recognition of the One Perfect Power, which is not contingent upon any place, person, condition, time of year, or anything but Itself. Everything is created by your own consciousness and not by external forces. External forces are the effect of consciousness itself.

If someone comes to you and says that business is bad because there is no activity, how are you going to treat him? Are you going to treat business, activity, customers, conditions or what? There is only one thing to treat as far as you are concerned, and that is yourself. You treat yourself because your mind and the person's mind are in the One Mind. You have to neutralize the belief in inactivity within your own consciousness. Suppose you have a store and wish to attract customers and activity in your business. Every day make a mental picture of it by seeing the place filled with people.

If one could take a picture of his objective circumstances and his subjective mentality, he would find that they would be identical. For one is the cause of the other. One is the image and the other is the reflection of that image. Cause and effect are parts of a complete whole. One is the inside and the other is the outside of the same thing. Cause and effect are but two sides of thought. Spirit is both cause and effect. God makes things through the direct act of becoming the things which He creates. This is what we do, for our thought becomes the thing thought of. The thought and the thing are one, in reality.

Prayer is its own answer. If you only pray with partial belief then you will set your intention in partial motion. But if the next day you fully doubt, your intention will be fully cancelled. You erase a thought from consciousness by putting in an opposite thought. This opposite thought meets the other and neutralizes it. When you neutralize something in your mind, you neutralize it in your reality. Belief, as soon as it is complete, is the formation of reality. The formation takes place within and not without. You have to know that your reality is already created the moment you visualize and emotionalize it in your mind. If you change your mind, you change your reality. But if you secure your mind, you secure your reality.

Never look for results while you are intending, for if you do you will not find them. Because if you're trying to look for something, it means that it is missing. Your action of looking will only reinforce the reality of it not being there. Get clear about your desire and then pass the whole thing over to your mind, and let it operate. Just know that the desire is already a fact, and quietly say to yourself, as often as the thought comes into mind: "It is done." The lighter the thought is, the less care or worry over it, the better. The best work is done when the element of struggle is entirely left out. Put out all negative thought and hold only positive thought in your consciousness.

Look only at what you want. Never look at that which you do not wish to experience. No matter what the false condition may be, it must be refuted. Say to yourself that the thing you do not desire does not exist. Ignore it and remove your attention from it while you give your undivided attention to the things that you do want. Focus on what you have rather than what you don't have. When you focus on what you have, you will find that it will increase in quality or quantity. If you focus on what you don't have, even that which you have will be taken away from you.

The proper kind of a denial is based upon the recognition that, in reality, there is no limitation, for mind can make a planet as easily as anything else. The Infinite knows no difference between a million dollars and a penny. It only knows that it is. It would be just as easy to manifest a million dollars as it would be to manifest ten cents, if the mind fully accepts the idea of a million dollars. There really is no million dollars or penny because all is consciousness. You create what you are conscious about.

If one appears to have failed he should realize that there are no failures in the universe. We should completely erase the idea of failure by stating that there are no failures. If one believes that he failed last year he will be likely to fail again this year, unless the false thought is erased. It looks as though one were lying to himself, but he is not. For he is declaring the truth about the Spirit within him and Spirit never fails. You must pretend that you never failed and act as if you succeeded so that you will emanate the vibrations of success.

Regarding mistakes, declare that there are none. There never was and never will be any. There are no mistakes in the Divine Plan for you. When you declare that there are no mistakes, everything that happens whether desirable or undesirable will lead you to the perfect reality. Something that was supposedly a mistake becomes not a mistake after all. A curse becomes a blessing in disguise. The truth is there is no curses, only blessings. There are no mistakes, only perfect operation. Anything that comes to you in the form of evil initially is turned into good.

To receive what you desire, you have to put yourself in a state of gratitude and acceptance. The reason why you don't accept something you would like to have is because you don't think it can be a possibility right now and are resisting it. But to be in vibrational harmony with it, you have to accept it as part of your life right now. If you are wishing and hoping for it to come, it is not in the now but it will always remain in the future. You have to feel as if you already have it now to the point that you do not need it anymore. When you accept your desire as a present reality in your mind, it will come into your physical reality much faster.

There is what we seem to be and what we really are. The former is our apparent self and the later is our higher self. Our higher self is the part of us that is one with God, which is perfect and complete, needing nothing, wanting nothing, knowing everything, being happy and satisfied. The more we acknowledge our true Self in God, the more we manifest it as reality. You should declare the Truth about yourself daily, realizing that your are reflecting your statements into Consciousness, and that they will be operated upon by It. Each attracts to himself, out of the Universal Good, that which he is able to comprehend.

You must deny in your mind whatever you do not desire and accept in your mind whatever you desire. Nothing is real to you unless you make it real. Nothing can touch you unless you let it touch you. Refuse to have the feelings hurt. Refuse to receive any one's condemnation. In the independence of your own mentality, believe and feel that you are wonderful. This is not deceit, it is the Truth. We must assert the Truth in spirit and deny the symptom in apparent reality.

The body's consciousness operates as a unified whole, allowing the brain, central nervous system, and higher intuition to register what is going on in all the various parts. Without consciousness, the body would not be able to maintain itself. And yet in treating the various illnesses and disorders that the body manifests, we do not often speak of the body's consciousness or the messages that it may have for us.

To begin with, let us for the moment consider the body as a hologram of our greater consciousness via the DNA which is its formative structure and which emanates from the soul level of awareness. To be a hologram means that what exists at a lower level of functioning incorporates within itself all the features of the higher level of who we are, but within a translated form. To view the body as a hologram of consciousness allows us to see in symptoms of dysfunction or limitation, a message reflected in the very patterning of the symptom itself.

This is true in all areas of functioning, though it does not represent a one-to-one correlation between what we are conscious of and what manifests physically. Manifestation is more complex, often having to do with unconscious issues more than conscious ones. These, our DNA structure weaves into the creation of maximum and minimum levels of functioning of the body at the time of conception. In the digestive/eliminative area, physical predispositions are created via the DNA for areas of limited functioning or for specific localized problems that may arise. With respect to the digestive/eliminative system, problems with 'taking in/receiving' of nourishment, and 'releasing/giving' in the dual sense of releasing what needs to be let go of, and offering nourishment to others, are often manifested as physical symptoms. These indicate a limitation in the free-flow of life-energy through the entire embodied self.

While no two persons are alike in the precise state of their body-consciousness or in their DNA, there are generalities of function that relate, in the case of digestive/eliminative disorders, to being able to receive and being able to release or to give. Often, a constriction in the bowel or intestine which creates a blockage that food cannot easily get by, is a hologram for another kind of blockage at a different level. It is useful, as participants in our own healing process, to look at these parallels, and to ask for guidance and greater insight into their meaning. Similarly, when elimination is constricted or impaired, it is well to look at what is being given or withheld in terms of generosity and the sharing of ourselves with life.

The ability to process life-force or the vital energy of the body that lies within the cells and that operates within every organ and tissue, is a necessary function of each and every organ and cell. The energy must be metabolized within the cells so that they can maintain a continuity of functioning. What we call vitality is dependent upon this, as is healthy functioning.

In relation to the digestive process, the smooth processing of organic matter that must be converted into life-giving energy and sustenance takes places along a series of steps that are in sequence, each of which relates to every other. If anything is out of place in the sequence or if any function is disrupted, it is as if a switch breaker or lever were activated, closing down the process at that point and making it difficult for the entire flow to continue smoothly. This is necessary in the economy of body maintenance so that it can be known to the conscious self that something is not operating properly. However, it can also be difficult to determine what that 'something' is, since it requires only one lever to shut off in order for the whole process to be affected.

The body's economy of means for digesting organic matter is a gift of Divine intelligence, with the body a miracle of organization and interrelated functioning that has a complexity even greater than what is presently known. Just as the digestive system has 'levers' within it that interrupt the process to let the conscious self know that something is wrong and needs attention, the digestive process as a whole IS a lever itself, letting us know that something is amiss on the level of consciousness for which it is a hologram.

The way of determining what this 'something' is must be individually pursued, for it is in the nature of the symptom itself that the answer lies. Symptoms such as contraction of function, sluggishness of movement, conversion of solid material into gas, retention of solid waste, painful absorption of food, and many others, must all be reflected upon in a meditative way to see what they might point to on the level of consciousness. This would be difficult if not impossible, if the body did not have a consciousness of its own. However, the body's consciousness can let us know, if we attune to it, what its messages might be. Along this route lies the maximum amount of healing that is possible, for a healing of the body is a healing of consciousness and visa versa.

No other concept defines your spiritual growth more vividly than consciousness. This is spirituality information that lets you know where you lie on the ascending scale of consciousness.

Who you really are is consciousness and consciousness is only aware of itself when it is conscious of itself. There are four levels of consciousness and they range from subconscious to conscious to superconscious to supraconscious. You operate within these four levels of consciousness at all times but you are not aware of all these levels of consciousness until you move up the hierarchy of consciousness through understanding and awareness.

Each level of consciousness taps into the part of our three-part being that we call our mind. Our individual mind is totally connected to the universal mind and allows us to bring forth anything that we desire from the unmanifest to the manifest. So it would seem to “serve us” to have a rudimentary understanding of where we stand on the scale of consciousness.

The subconscious mind is that part of our existence that handles those tasks of the body that are automatic, such as breathing and creating new cells and beating the heart. It also serves as a memory station for all the people, events and experiences that the physical body has been privy to.

The conscious mind is the workhorse that collects every piece of data from each and every moment of the now of your existence. This conscious mind also analyses your past, projects your future, comprehends, with limited awareness, your present moment decision making and provides you with your physical sensory feedback.

Through this process the conscious mind is how you interpret your present moment experiences. The analysis you are going through right now, while reading these words, is filtered through your conscious mind. You are seeing whatever you are seeing from your current perspective of your conscious mind and you can actually change that perspective at any given moment by merely moving your perspective to a higher level of consciousness. One of the reasons you are reading this article is so that you can move to a higher level of consciousness. Did you know that? Does that serve you?

One of those higher levels of consciousness is the superconscious mind. This is where you truly understand the concept of the mind-body- spirit connectivity. By understanding and acknowledging this definition of who you really are you take on aspects of being totally aware of your true nature.

Total awareness and understanding of the true nature of how things work allows you to create in a spontaneous manner in alignment with the manifesting impulse of the spirit side of your being. You are able to live with greater visionary insight and intuition.

The other level of higher consciousness is the supraconscious mind. This level of consciousness encompasses all of the above tasks combined while taking you to the most critical aspect of your being, and that is to know that the individual self that you know of as yourself is, in fact, one with all that is. It is total Life consciousness or, in other words, total God consciousness. At this level of consciousness you are able to identify yourself as a manifestation of God while still understanding that you are an individual life form.

Isn't this fun? It is not necessary for you to fully understand all of the implications of what state of consciousness you are now choosing to experience. As the life process evolves you will keep asking yourself this question, “Does this serve me?” Does it serve you to live your life at the lower levels of consciousness that essentially keep you entrenched in a mentality that says you are a separate individual who has no idea of their relationship to life and God and all that exists? Or does it serve you to explore the concept that by moving to a higher level of consciousness you can be more in the flow of universal forces that will bring into your life your every intention and desire effortlessly?

Which of these concepts serves you? Only you can answer that question.

The momentum towards a new planetary consciousness has clearly begun in 2007. The many events that have transpired both for individuals, and for humanity as a whole this year, have left a mark of truth imprinted upon the collective consciousness. It is now clear to all who have eyes to see, that our individual actions as well as our collective actions are needed in order to avert the current planetary crises.

Humanity's consciousness is beginning to transform, and you may be experiencing shifts in your own awareness as well. These individual and planetary movements forward are happening at an accelerated rate, and you may find yourself at times feeling overwhelmed by the new sensations, experiences and changes that are occurring. At the same time, you may also be feeling an upsurge of old emotional, physical or mental patterns from the past that may have appeared seemingly out of nowhere, causing great distress and discomfort.

These difficulties are the result of greater spiritual light which has been infusing the Earth and accelerating her development. The light acts in two distinct ways, opening and revealing the presence of God's love and illuminating our innate divine connection with Spirit ... and also by bringing to the surface our inner pain and illuminating the parts of us that have become separated from God's love.

This action of God's light creates healing, but in the process of this healing, there can be much pain and suffering that is brought to the surface of consciousness. We are seeing this on a planetary scale as well as an individual one. The many ways that humanity has become separated from love and goodness are being revealed, in sometimes shocking and traumatic ways.

Throughout this process, God's love continues to be present, and is beginning to awaken individuals to their divine spiritual purpose. Many individuals now are moving in the direction of finding solutions to the many crises the Earth faces.

"How can I make a difference" you may ask. It might seem that you as one individual can have little effect on the larger course of humanity's evolution, but this is not true. Each single soul that awakens to a larger understanding of the sacredness of life, and who understands the effect that their consciousness, thoughts and actions have on the environment, creates a center of God's light within themselves.

This divine center of light begins to infuse your physical body, your living space, the Earth that you live upon, and your neighbors and those in your community. The light also has an impact on those that you love who are not nearby, but that you hold in your consciousness and communicate with from a distance. The light acts to bless, heal and support others. Like ripples in a pond, the light radiates out and interacts with others whose centers of light begin to expand from the contact with light.

As more and more ripples flow outward from the centers of light, they become intertwined, interconnected, and begin to resonate at a more conscious frequency. Soon even those who are not conscious of the light begin to be affected by it, and their lives begin to transform. The Earth herself benefits greatly from this expansion of consciousness, which helps her own divine spiritual evolution.

And so dearest ones, what appears to be a small, humble choice on your part to follow a spiritual life, to seek harmony, peace and goodness, and to help in whatever way you can to make the world a better place ... this choice has a massive impact on you, your loved ones, your community and your world.

Each soul is created with a divine spiritual blueprint. and unique gifts which are given both to further the expansion of the soul and to bless other. Seek this divine blueprint within your own being, and follow your hearts call which will lead you to the fulfillment of your highest purpose.

This sacred process is not simply for your own healing, but for the healing of all. Your consciousness is one with the larger collective consciousness of the Earth and all embodied beings. Seek to follow your own inner guidance and in doing so, you will bless all of life.

“Out beyond ideas of wrong doling and right doing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.” Rumi

Did you know that the collective consciousness of the human race can be calibrated, both for current events and for past eras? And that it can be determined scientifically just how low or high a consciousness any individual is now, or has been in the past? Humanity lives in and is part of a vast field of intelligent energy that some call Divine Love. As with all things in existence, evolution first occurs as a movement of energy, around which a physical form is usually condensed. Gradually consciousness (awareness) emerges and continues to evolve. On an arbitrary scale of 1-1000, the level of consciousness can be calibrated for various species, animals, plants and rocks included—just about anything.

Thanks to the enormous work of Dr. David R. Hawkins and thousands of tests, we know without doubt that the body can verify truth, something that is quite impossible for the mind, or ego, since matter must respond to its local energy field. Thanks also goes to John Diamond’s work with muscle testing (Touch for Health), and others who are continually validating this spiritual science. Through clinical testing we know without doubt that bodies never lie.

The truth is a clear path to peace and integrity. If experienced without judgment, warring conflicts within the individual as well as between nations can be resolved. This is a science of truth. We can use the Map of Consciousness devised by Dr. David R. Hawkins and his multitude of researchers as a tool for self-discovery through the levels of consciousness.

Since ego controls our lives when we are not actually present in the moment of now, our thinking mind cannot tell truth from falsehood. However, our bodies can, with 100% accuracy when tested using Hawkins’ prescribed method of kinesiology, or “Touch for Health” (muscle testing.) (See Hawkins, Power vs. Force, or his other books.) This is because the physical realm must reproduce the amount of energy in the energy field in which it resides, bypassing ego’s perceptions, wants and logical interpretations. It’s that simple.

It is the belief of the primacy of the material world. When we fully understand the world of space, time and matter, we will, it is held, be able to account for everything in the cosmos. Being the paradigm behind all our scientific paradigms, this worldview has the status of a "superparadigm". Eminently successful as this model has been at explaining the world around us, it has very little to say about the non-material world of mind.
Nothing in the physical sciences predicts the phenomenon of consciousness. Yet its reality is apparent to each and every one of us. As far as the current superparadigm is concerned consciousness is a great anomaly.
When paradigm anomalies first arise they are usually overlooked or rejected. Or, if they cannot be so easily discarded, they are incorporated in some way, often clumsily, into the existing model. Witness the attempts of mediaeval astronomers, wedded to Plato's belief in the perfection of circular motion, trying to explain irregularities in planetary motion with theories of epicycles (circles rolling along circles).
Western science has followed a similar pattern in its approach to consciousness. For the most part it ignored consciousness completely. More recently, as developments across a range of disciplines have shown that consciousness cannot be so easily sidelined, science has made various attempts to account for it. Some have looked to quantum physics, some to information theory, others to neuropsychology. But the failure of these approaches to make any appreciable headway into the problem of consciousness suggests that they may be on the wrong track.
All these approaches assume that consciousness somehow arises from, or is dependent upon, the world of space-time-matter. In one way or another they are trying to accommodate the anomaly of consciousness within the materialist superparadigm. The underlying beliefs are seldom, if ever, questioned.
When Newton proposed his laws of motion, he turned the problem of what made things move into the foundation stone of his new paradigm; objects continued to move unless acted upon by some external force. When Einstein formulated his Specialy theory of Relativity, he took the problem of the constancy of the speed of light and made it an axiom of the new model. I believe we need to do the same with the problem of consciousness. Instead of trying to explain consciousness within the current superparadigm, we need to accept that consciousness is as fundamental as matter—in some ways, more fundamental. When we do we find that the key ingredients for a new superparadigm are already in place; all we need to do is put them together.

Perception and Reality

The key to this new model of reality is an understanding of how we perceive reality. Advances in physics, psychology, and philosophy have shown that reality is not what it seems. Take vision, for example. When I look at a tree, light reflected from its leaves is focused onto cells in the retina of my eye, where it triggers a cascading chemical reaction releasing a flow of electrons. Neurons connected to the cells convey these electrical impulses to the brain’s visual cortex, where the raw data is processed and integrated. Then—in ways that are still a complete mystery—an image of the tree appears in my consciousness. It may seem that I am directly perceiving the tree in the physical world, but what I am actually experiencing is an image generated in my mind.
The same is true of every other experience. All that I see, hear, taste, touch, smell and feel has been created from the data received by my sensory organs. All I ever know of the world around are the mental images constructed from that data. However real and external they may seem, they are all phenomena within my mind.
This simple fact is very hard to grasp; it goes against all our experience. If there is anything about which we feel sure, it is that the world we experience is real. We can see, touch and hear it. We can lift heavy and solid objects; hurt ourselves, if we're not careful, against their unyielding immobility. It seems undeniable that out there, around us, independent and apart from us, stands a physical world, utterly real, solid and tangible.
But the world of our experience is no more "out there" than are our dreams. When we dream we create a reality in which events happen around us, and in which we perceive other people as individuals separate from us. In the dream it all seems very real. But when we awaken we realize that everything in the dream was actually a creation of our own mind. The difference is that now the reality that is created is based on sensory data and bears a closer relationship to what is taking place in the real world. Nevertheless, however real it may seem, it is not actually "the real world". It is still an image of that world created in the mind.

The Two Realities

It is important to distinguish between two ways in which we use the word "reality". There is the reality we experience, our image of reality; and there is the underlying reality that has given rise to this experience. The underlying reality is the same for all observers. It is an absolute reality. The reality I experience, the reality generated in my mind, is a relative reality. It is relative to my point of view, my past experience, my human senses and my human brain.
The fact that we create our image of reality does not mean, as some people misconstrue, that we are creating the underlying reality. Whatever that reality is, it exists apart from our perception of it. When I see a tree there is something that has given rise to my perception. But I can never directly perceive this something. All I can ever know of it is the image appearing in my mind.
When, two centuries ago, Bishop Berkeley proposed that we know only what we perceive, his contemporaries debated whether or not a tree falling in a forest made a sound if no one was there to hear it. From what we now know of the psychophysiology of perception, we can say the answer is "No". Sound is not a quality of the underlying reality. There may be movements in the air, but the interpretation of those movements as sound is something that happens in the mind—whether it be the mind of a human being, a dog or a woodpecker.
Similarly with light. Whatever the tree is in physical reality, it is not green. Light of various frequencies is reflected from the tree to the retina of the eye, where cells respond to the amount of light in three frequency ranges (the three primary colors). But all that is passed back to the brain are electro-chemical impulses; there is no color here. The green I see is a quality created in consciousness. It exists only in the mind.
The same is true of our perception of distance. The pattern of light that falls on the retina creates a two-dimensional image of the world. The brain estimates distance by detecting slight differences between data from the left and right eyes, the focus of the eyes, relative movement, and past experience as to the likely size of a tree. From this data it calculates that the tree is fifty feet away. A three-dimensional image of the world is then created with the tree placed "out there" in that world, fifty feet away. Yet, however real it may seem, the quality of space and distance that we experience is created in the mind.

The Kantian Revolution

Long before modern science knew anything about the processes of perception or the structure of matter, the eighteenth-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant had drawn a clear distinction between our perception of reality and the actual object of perception. He argued that all we ever know is how reality appears to us—what he referred to as the phenomenon of our experience, "that which appears to be". The underlying reality he called the noumenon, meaning "that which is apprehended", the thing perceived.
At the time, Kant's arguments were a watershed in Western thinking. They were, as Kant himself saw, the equivalent of a Copernican Revolution in philosophy. Whereas Copernicus had effectively turned the physical universe inside out, showing that the movements of the stars are determined by the movement of the earth, Kant had turned the epistemological world inside out, putting the self firmly back at the center of things. We are not passive experiencers of the world; we are the creators of the world we experience.
Because all we ever know is the product of the mind operating on the raw sensory data, Kant reasoned that our experience is as much a reflection of the nature of the mind as it is of the physical world. This led him to one of his boldest and, at the time, most astonishing, conclusions of all. Time and space, he argued, are not inherent qualities of the physical world; they are a reflection of the way the mind operates. They are part of the perceptual framework within which our experience of the world is constructed.
It seems absolutely obvious to us that time and space are real and fundamental qualities of the physical world, entirely independent of my or your consciousness—as obvious as it seemed to people five hundred years ago that the sun moves round the earth. This, said Kant, is only because we cannot see the world any other way. The human mind is so constituted that it is forced to impose the framework of space and time on the raw sensory data in order to make any sense of it all.
Strange as Kant’s proposal may have seemed then, and strange as it may still seem to many of us today, contemporary science is proving him right.

Spacetime

The first significant scientific challenge to the assumption that space and time are absolutes came in 1905 with Einstein`s Specialy Theory of Relativity. He showed that what we observe as space and what we observe as time are but two aspects of a more fundamental reality, which he called "the spacetime continuum". How much of this continuum manifests as space, and how much manifests as time varies from one observer to another, depending on their motion. Space and time may appear to us to be fixed qualities, but that is because we are not traveling at speeds close to that of light. If we did, things would look very different.
Just what the spacetime continuum itself is like we never know. Einstein agreed with Kant; all we ever know of the underlying reality are the ways in which it appears as the two very different qualities of space and time.
Although observers moving at different speeds may disagree on the amounts of time and space separating two events, they do agree, no matter how fast they may be moving, on the amount of spacetime separating them—what Einstein called the "interval". It is a little like cutting a string in two; cutting it in different places will give pieces of differing lengths, but the total length of string will always be the same. Similarly, any observation divides the spacetime interval into a certain amount of time and a corresponding amount of space, the exact proportions depending on the motion of the observer. (With the difference that the mathematical formula for the combination of space and time is not simple addition; it is more like "space squared minus time squared.")

The "Speed" of Light

In proposing his theory Einstein postulated that the speed of light was a universal constant. However fast you may be traveling, you will always measure the speed of light relative to you to be the same—186,000 miles per second. You can never catch up with light. Even if you were traveling at 185,990 miles per second, light would still pass you by at 186,000 miles per second.
Why should this be so? It seems totally counter-intuitive that the speed of light never varies. But this perplexing behavior takes on a rather different character when we distinguish our image of reality from the underlying reality. Space and time, and hence speed, are aspects of the phenomenal world; they have no meaning, it turns out, for light itself.
According to the equations of Special Relativity, as an observer's speed increases, time slows down, and length (in the direction of motion) contracts. At the speed of light, time has slowed to a standstill and length contracted to zero. Although no object with mass can ever attain the speed of light (the equations predict that it would then have an infinite mass), light itself does (by definition) travel at the speed of light. From light's point of view—and this after all must be the most appropriate perspective from which to consider the nature of light, not our matter-bound mode of experience—it travels no distance and takes no time to do so.
This reflects a unique property of light. In the spacetime continuum, the interval between the two ends of a light ray is always zero. How can we interpret this? We probably should not even try to interpret it. Any attempt to do so would make the mistake of applying concepts derived from our image of reality to the underlying reality. All we need to recognize is that, from light's perspective, this zero interval manifests as zero space and a corresponding amount of zero time.
However, when we in the world of sub-light speeds perceive light, we see a different manifestation of the zero interval. We observe a finite amount of space along with an "equal" amount of time. In our world, the light does travel through space and time. Since the total interval must be zero, the distance covered must exactly balance the time taken—that is, we must always observe 186,000 miles of space for every second of time. This we interpret as the speed of light. But this "speed" is not an intrinsic property of light itself; traveling no distance in no time, light has no need of speed. What we interpret as the speed of light is actually the ratio in which space and time manifest in our perception of reality. It is this ratio that is constant. And this is why all our measurements of the apparent speed of light are constant.

Wave-Particle Duality

The fact that light itself knows no space or time resolves another difficult conundrum. In our image of reality we observe light traveling across space and time and so observe energy traveling from the point of emission of the light ray to its point of absorption. Naturally, we ask how the energy travels. Is it a wave, or is it a particle?
The answer, it seems, is both. In some situations light behaves as a continuous wave spreading out in space—but, curiously, a wave without a medium. In other situations it behaves as a particle traveling through space—but, equally curiously, a particle without mass. Physicists have accommodated these two strange and seemingly paradoxical conclusions by deciding that light is a "wave-particle." In certain circumstances it appears as a wave; in others as a particle.
But if we look at things from light’s point of view, the reality is very different. Since it did not travel through space and time, it needed no vehicle or mechanism of travel. Light itself has no need to be either a wave or a particle. From its own frame of reference—which is probably the most appropriate frame of reference from which to consider light—there is no duality, and no paradox.
The physicist’s conundrum appears only when we mistake our image of reality with the "thing in itself", and try to visualize light in concepts and terms appropriate to our image of reality—that is, waves and particles.

No matter

A photon is a single quantum of action. We are all familiar with quantities such as mass, velocity, acceleration, momentum and energy. Action is just another member of this family, but not one that we come across much in ordinary life. It is defined as the product of momentum and distance traveled, or, equivalently, energy and time. Thus the amount of action of speeding bullet is higher than the same bullet traveling more slowly across the same distance. Double the bullet's mass, and you get twice the action—which accords with our intuitive concepts of action.
To speak of light as pure action is both appropriate and strange, depending upon one’s point of view. In the world we experience, the world in which space and time exist, and light travels great distances at unmatchable speed, light seems to be nothing but action. It never rests; it never slows. From this frame of reference, action seems a most appropriate quality.
From its own frame of reference, however, light never goes anywhere. A photon covers no distance, and knows no time. Nor does it have any mass. Strange then, that something without mass, space or time should be the fundamental unit of action. Strange it may be; nevertheless, that is the nature of the underlying reality. Once again, nothing like what we expected. Nothing like the phenomenon generated in the mind.
Kant argued that space and time are characteristics not of the noumenon, the underlying reality, but of the mind. Quantum theory reveals that the same is true of matter. Matter is not to be found in the underlying reality; atoms turn out to be 99.99999999% empty space, and sub-atomic "particles" dissolve into fuzzy waves. Matter and substance seem, like space and time, to be characteristics of the phenomenon of experience. They are the way in which the mind makes sense of the no-thing-ness of the noumenon.

The Fabric of Reality

When we speak of "the material world", we think we are referring to the underlying reality, the object of our perception. In fact we are only describing our image of reality. The materiality we observe, the solidness we feel, the whole of the "real world" that we know, are, like color, sound, smell, and all the other qualities we experience, qualities manifesting in the mind. This is the startling conclusion we are forced to acknowledge; the "stuff" of our world—the world we know and appear to live within—is not matter, but mind.
The current superparadigm assumes that space, time and matter constitute the basic framework of reality, and consciousness somehow arises from this reality. The truth, it now appears, is the very opposite. As far as the reality we experience is concerned — and this remember is the only reality we ever know — consciousness is primary. Time, space and matter are secondary; they are aspects of the image of reality manifesting in the mind. They exist within consciousness; not the other way around.
Similar claims have often been made in spiritual teachings, particularly Indian philosophy. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra’s, for example, speak of the entire world as chitta vritti, "the modifications of mind-stuff". When physicists hear statements such as this, and take them to be referring to the physical world, they or are understandably perplexed and perhaps dismissive. But when we understand this to be a statement about the manifestation of our experienced world, it begins to make more sense.
If we consider the reality we experience, then we have to accept that in the final analysis they are correct: It is the medium from which every aspect of our experience manifests. Every form and quality we ever experience in the world is an appearance within consciousness.

The Hard Question

As mentioned at the outset, the very existence of consciousness is an insurmountable anomaly for the current superparadigm. How can something as seemingly unconscious as matter ever lead to something as immaterial as consciousness. The two could not be more radically different. The philosopher David Chalmers has dubbed this the "hard question" facing any science of consciousness. Even if we were to fully understand the workings of the brain, down to the tiniest detail, it would still leave unanswered the question as to why any of it should result in a conscious experience? Why doesn't it all go on in the dark, without any subjective aspect?
The question that is apparently being asked is: How does the underlying reality ever gives rise to consciousness? But never being able to know the underlying reality directly, we are not really in any position to even ask this question, let alone answer it. Indeed, for all we know, consciousness may be an intrinsic quality of the underlying reality In which case there is no hard question to answer.
The question that is actually being asked is: How does the material world—the world of space, time and matter—give rise to consciousness? But this is trying to account for consciousness in terms that are themselves manifestations of consciousness. Space, time, matter, and all the forms and structures we observe in the world, are aspects of the phenomenon arising in the mind; they are aspects of the image of reality appearing in consciousness.
The question we should be asking is the exact opposite. How is that consciousness, which seems so non-material, can take on the material forms that we experience? How do space, time, color, sound, texture, substance, and the many other qualities that we associate with the material world, emerge in consciousness? What is the process of manifestation within the mind?
But this is not a question that science may ever be able to answer. It is more in the domain of the mystic, and others in the more contemplative traditions, who have chosen to explore the nature of consciousness first hand.

Selfhood

Earlier I said that it was probably impossible not to see the world of our experience as "out there" around us. But it may be that some of those who have devoted themselves to meditation and observation of the arising of experience in the mind have developed sufficient inner clarity to see past appearances. Judging from various spiritual texts, they may have recognized, as a personal experience rather than an intellectual insight, that the entire phenomenal world is creation in the mind, and that consciousness is the primary stuff of their universe.
Such people—enlightened ones, we usually call them—are those who have experienced the new superparadigm. For them "I am That, Thou art That, and all this is That", as it is put in the Upanishads, or more simply "All is Brahman" (the Sanskrit word which might be translated as the One, or Essence).
In Western traditions, the same sentiments occur in the statement "I am God". To the lay person, the words "I am God" smack of extreme arrogance—particularly if there is the implication that "I", this particular individual human being, is God. To the more religious person, it sounds heretical, if not blasphemous, and some have burned at the stake for it. While to many scientists, such statements are meaningless, the symptoms of some delusion or pathology.
Science has looked out into deep space, back in "deep time" to the beginning of creation, and down into the "deep structure" of the cosmos, the very essence of matter, and is proud to tell us that it finds no need nor place for God—the Universe seems to work perfectly well without his assistance. But whoever said God is to be found "out there", in the realm of space, time and matter? This is a very naive and old-fashioned interpretation of God. When spiritual teachings refer to God they are, more often than not, pointing towards the realm of inner experience, not some thing in the physical realm. If we want to find God, we have to look within, into the realm of "deep mind"—a realm that science has yet to explore.
If we look more closely at the statements of those who have explored deep mind, they seem to be saying that the "I", that innermost essence of ourselves is a universal essence. Whatever we may be conscious of, the faculty of consciousness is something we all share. This consciousness is the one truth we cannot deny. It is the absolute certainty of our existence. It is eternal in that it is always there whatever the contents of our experience. It is the essence of everything we know. And, since every aspect of our experience is a manifestation in the mind, it is the creator of the world we know.
These qualities—truth, absolute, eternal, essence, creator—are amongst those traditionally associated with God. From this perspective, the statement "I am God" is not so puzzling or deluded after all. Although it might be more accurate to say that "I am" is God, or possibly, "God is consciousness".

The Key

The foundation stone of the Copernican Revolution was the realization that the Earth was not still, as had hitherto been supposed, and as daily experience seemed to confirm, but was spinning about its own axis. From this shift in perception was born a radically new model of the cosmos. The foundation stone of this discussion has been the distinction between the reality generated in the mind, and the underlying reality. Most of the time we are not aware of this distinction. We tacitly assume that things are as they appear, and that we are experiencing the world as it is. We think that the tree we see is the tree in itself.
When we realize that they are not the same thing at all, but are very different indeed, a revolutionary new model of reality emerges. Space, time and matter fall from their absolute status, to be replaced by light in the physical realm, and by consciousness (the inner light) in the world of experience. Instead of matter being primary, and the source of everything we know, including mind; consciousness becomes primary, and the source of everything, including matter as we know it. For a second time, the universe has been turned inside out.
This shift in superparadigm has not happened yet. The existing model runs even deeper than did the geocentric view of the cosmos, and will probably meet even more obstacles than did the Copernican Revolution, (although now, somewhat ironically, it is science not the church that is the establishment, and will be the source of the greatest resistance). Nevertheless, I believe all the pieces are in place, they have only to be put together into a coherent model. New paradigms stand or fall according to their ability to account for persistent anomalies, and incorporate new findings. The emerging new superparadigm accounts for consciousness—an intractable anomaly for the old model, remember. It offers radically new perspectives on some of the most perplexing problems in contemporary physics. And, most significantly, points towards a resolution of one of the oldest challenges of all—the reconciliation of the scientific worldview with the spiritual.

A popular idea now-a-days is the notion of the ghost in the machine. From scientific articles to entertainment, this reference is to the idea of consciousness. Once again, the study of consciousness is occupying the minds of science and science fiction.

Just after the turn of the century, science basically abandoned the study of consciousness per se' on the grounds that it was too ambiguous and non-quantifiable. However, the development of artificial intelligence, so-called thinking computers, interactive virtual reality environments and non-local action, or action at a distance, has placed the study of consciousness in the fore front of many minds.

What is consciousness? This issue is devoted to some of the intrigue involved in efforts to create "thinking machines" modeled after man, minus of course, his limitations.

EARLY TALK

Language is often thought to be the tool of consciousness and evidence for the kind of consciousness that makes man different from monkeys. Indeed, language has often been referred to as the "jewel of cognition." Some scientists have argued that Neanderthal man possessed advanced talking ability. This assertion is largely based upon a neck bone found in 1988 (SN: 4/24/93, p.262). Other scientists argue for a more recent origin to speech. Recent in this sense is between 50 and 100 thousand years ago. By contrast, early origin theorists date the beginning of language at over 2 million years ago.

The evolution and history of language has a bearing on certain philosophical issues where consciousness is concerned. For example, take any date for the first appearance of language. Let's for fun just assume some hairy bi-pedal creature that has never spoken. Is this creature conscious? Conscious in the sense of man? Now one day the creature utters some meaningful form of speech. Not a grunt or guttural sound like all animals, but some form, beginning, of speech. Is the animal now conscious?

What is the difference between the consciousness of animals and man? What is intended by distinguishing between the two conscious forms as different and why? If a primate species shows the ability to learn, remember and associate learnings, some insist this is evidence for reason. Most flatly refuse to recognize it as such. Is it possible that by recognizing the field of consciousness as one worthy and ripe for study, that mans' consciousness will lose its unique elevated status? What precisely is it that one means by consciousness anyway?

Certainly reason preceded language. It would be rather odd if it were the other way around. Still, that's an interesting thought.

Some seem to reason only with the tools of their language. In other words, their reason is limited by the rules and definitions of their language. Plus, there is some argument in favor of certain language structure as having greater or lesser faculties for developing logical thinking. Literal languages, for example, such as German, tend to encourage the development of logical thinkers. However intriguing all this may be, it still stands to reason that reason preceded the conceptualization and development of speech. As such, one is hard pressed to limit the consciousness of a species on the basis of sound patterns called speech.

Oh, and it gets still tougher. For there are sound patterns that resemble speech uttered by so-called non-conscious animals such as whales and dolphins. So, what is consciousness?

Is consciousness a matter of wakefulness? No, it can't be just that for one can be a conscious being and still be asleep. Is consciousness memory? Well, according to the experiments of Cleve Baxter, plants exhibit memory. Where science abandoned the study of consciousness years ago, the problems inherent to describing consciousness have proliferated during the absence. The advent of animal studies, plant studies and synthetic or artificial intelligence have greatly complicated the matters of consciousness. Or perhaps, in the alternative, simplified them.

LANGUAGE AND THE BRAIN

For most people, parts of the left brain handle the affairs of language. Brain hemispheric studies including the now popular Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans show that the right ear sends acoustic information to the left hemisphere. Well, according to Marc Hauser of Harvard University and Karin Andersson of Radcliff College in Cambridge, rhesus monkeys "display a similar cerebral setup, with the left half of the brain often taking responsibility for vocalizations intended to signal aggression" (SN: 5/21/94, p333). If this is true, does this mean that the anatomical evidence for language processing is evidence for consciousness in the sense that we normally think of mankind's consciousness. If not, what are the differences?

CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE BRAIN

For many, mind equals brain. Mind is a more general terms that refers to the processes handled by brain. Therefore, mind is often an interchangeable term with consciousness. Is mind equal to brain? The chief area of enquiry offering evidence one way or another to this question is a discipline often held in poor regard. Still, literally thousands of laboratory experiments in scientific parapsychology demonstrate that there are many aspects of mind that can not be reduced to anatomical or material brain.

For example, data clearly supports the "reality" of telepathy, clairvoyance and psychokinesis. This seems obvious to this commentator, but then the biographies of some of the world's most respected people provide a richer picture than that found in science. However, the point is simple. Whether it is from the genius of Einstein or the laboratory of a modern parapsychologist, mind is not equal to brain! What does this mean with respect to consciousness?

A wonderful Star Trek adventure that I can remember had the Enterprise actually forming its own consciousness and then creating a new life form. Somehow, as Mr. Data explained, the activity of the starship's computers and records began to take on a "more than the sum of the parts" activity, form its own neural network and so forth. Will machines ever become conscious?

SIMULATED CREATURES EVOLVE AND LEARN

This was the headline in a recent Science News publication: Simulated Creatures Evolve and Learn. The article by Richard Lipkin went on to cite the work of Karl Sims of Thinking Machines in Cambridge, Mass., who "devised a simulated evolutionary system in which virtual creatures compete for resources in a three-dimensional arena...The creatures, resembling toy-block robots, enter one-on-one contests in which they vie for control of a desired object---an extra cube. Winners---deemed more fit---reproduce, while losers bear no offspring. Sims endows the virtual environment with physical parameters, such as gravity and friction, and restricts behaviors to plausible physical actions" (SN: 7/23/94, p63). Sims believes that it may be easier to evolve virtual entities with intelligent behavior than to create them from scratch. Artificial intelligence researchers have long sought to develop the so-called thinking machine. Unlike Sims, most begin by attempting to model the computer after the patterns of man. For some, this is the neural model of the brain while for others it is the deductive/inductive model of reason. Perhaps Sims' method is more man-like than the other two. Mankind is thought to have evolved. Does this help us understand consciousness? Oh, and what about the collective of consciousness? Will machines soon be contributing to this field of consciousness? Will a machine ever dream?

DREAMS, INTUITION AND CONSCIOUSNESS

The "Genius Hypothesis" advanced by Ervin Laszlo and reported in the Journal of Scientific Exploration (Vol.8, No.2, pp257-267, 1994), asserts that the minds "of unusually creative people are in spontaneous, direct, though usually not conscious, interaction with other minds in the creative process itself." Laszlo's paper sheds light on the "archetypal experience" described by Carl Jung while using history, physics, psychology, artistic production and cultural development to clearly suggest the strong possibility (in this commentators opinion, the only real possibility) that not only do minds communicate, but they do so at a distance as well!

Is the collective, or the shared