 |
 |
| |
| Departments |
Home
Columns, Special
Topics & Features:
The Columns:
Angels, Guides, &
Loving Spirits:
Angel Blessings:
with Dr. Doreen Virtue
Ask Valerie Morrison,
Internationally
Acclaimed Psychic
Trust Your Vibes
By Dr. Sonia Choquette, PhD.
Internationally Acclaimed Psychic Healer & Author
Love Letters
by Erika Morrell,
Soul Mate Medium™
Astrologer's Notes:
Carin Martin,
Astrologer
Donna Cunningham, MSW, Astrologer
Basil Fearrington,
Astrologer
Diana Stone,
Astrologer &
Huna Shaman
Jeff Jawer
Astrologer
Ray Merriman,
Financial Astrology:
MMA Market Week
Noel Tyl,
Astrologer
Daily Aspect Calendar
by Care
MoonWatching with Dana Gerhardt and Friends
Starlight Musings
by Nancy Sommers,
Mundane Astrologer
Creating Bridges:
The Spiritual &
Philosophical
Act of Power
Discovering the Key to Living Your Sacred Dream
by Lynn Andrews
Avant-Gardening:
Insights
by Frank &
Vicky Giannangelo
From The Heart:
Alan Cohen
Teachings from the Western Mystery Traditions: The Esoteric "Paths of Return"
by Jacquelyn Small, Eupsychia
Spirituality in Daily Life: by Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron
The Conscious Column
by David Ault
Spiritual Mastery
for the 21st Century
Dr. Gwen MacGregor
Encounters on the
Shaman's Path with
Dr. Hank Wesselman, PhD.
Anthropologist, Zoologist, Author, Shamanic Healer & Teacher
The Divine Human
by Ornesha De Paoli
Awakenings
by Karen Johnson
Worshipping by Wondering with
Sankara Saranam, MA Founder of the Pranayama Institute
Wisdom Walks in Circles
by Margaret Lewis
Author & Shamanic Practitioner:
Water For The Dry Sponge: Chronicles and Essays
by Shaun Brown,
Be Well Publications
“I of my own knowledge…”
by Frank DeMarco,
Author, Editor, & Psychic Explorer
Crystals, Minerals
& Gemstones
Light and Love with Crystals, Minerals & Gemstones
by Raven,
Raven Crystals
Furry & Feathered Family Members:
Dr. Carson's Holistic Animal Care
by Dr. Kathleen Carson, D.V.M.
Animal Insights
by Charlene Boyd, Animal Communicator,
talk-to-animals.com
Healing & Alternative
Health:
"Spirit and Practice
of the Wise Woman
Tradition"
By Susun Weed
The Holistic Mystic,
by Lonny Brown
Medical Intuition: Tune
in to Your Body and Improve Your Health
by Caroline Sutherland, Sutherland Communications
Transformational Healing through the Violet Flame!
by Eva Kettles
Herbs for Health
with Kami McBride
Cure Your Cravings
...For Life
Rena Greenberg,
Practitioner of Neuro Linguistic Programming & Hypnotherapist
Humor:
Wake Up Laughing.Com:
Swami Beyondananda
Interviews:
Watch for Upcoming Announcements
Kabbalah:
Kabbalah Revealed:
Rav Michael Laitman, PhD, Kabbalalist
Numberscope Forecast
by Vincent J. Barra
Oracle & Divination Systems:
Be Your Own Oracle
by James Wanless, Ph.D. Creator of the Voyager Tarot Deck
Resources:
Archives
Blessings & Messages
The Book Nook
The Directory
Event Calendar
Historical Notes & Data
The MetaPersonals
S.O.L.A.R.®:
S.O.L.A.R ®
Beyond Materiality. Beyond Spirituality. Toward the Complete Human Being...
by Martin Lass, Emissary
Tarot:
Moment to Moment
by Gigi Miner
Author, Tarot Consultant, & Teacher
Reviews:
Tarot, Cartomancy,
Oracle Decks,
Books, & Software.
by Bonnie Cehovet,
Tarot Educator
Tidbits:
Almanac of the Ancients
by TripleMoonGoddess
News Briefs
Op-Ed
Pearls of Wisdom
by Astro Aeon
& Astro Care
Symbols, Seals,
Amulets & Talismans
The What in the
World Department
Trivia & Life's Other
Novel Moments
Publisher's Corner
General Information:
Advertising Information & Opportunities:
The Directory Advertising Rates
Premium Pages:
Groups 1, 2 & Display
Advertising Rates
The BookNook
Advertising Rates
About
The Meta Arts Magazine
Editorial Submission
Information:
Contact Us
Legal Notices
|
|
|
|
|
|
Martin Lass: S.O.L.A.R.®
Beyond Materiality. Beyond Spirituality.
Toward the Complete Human Being…
The Limitations of the Senses
Part One
|
|
|
by Martin Lass |
|
|
Introduction
This month and next, we’ll be exploring what we’re up against if we wish to live a more conscious and intentional life. Specifically, we’ll be exploring the nature and functioning of our brains and nervous systems and how and why they tend to keep us trapped in the dualistic illusion, in our illusions of waking consciousness and free will, in conditioned perceptions and responses to life, and in the consensus reality.
Once we have a better understanding of what we are up against, we can then have a better change of breaking through the limitations of the senses and into a larger reality—a more awake, real, and alive state of consciousness, corresponding to Presence, as described in previous months’ columns.
Alice’s Looking-Glass
We live in a world where everything has two sides—two complementary opposite sides. For example, if you break a plate into two roughly equal halves (assuming it doesn’t shatter into a zillion pieces!), the jagged edges will fit perfectly together when glued. A piece of a second broken plate will not fit together with either of the first two halves. The broken edges won’t match. The first two halves are made for each other, so to speak, like Soul-mates. They’re said to be complementary opposites—like yin and yang, rain and shine, night and day, heads and tails, or like the two mirror sides of Alice in Wonderland’s looking-glass. Our entire lives are made up of innumerable complementary opposites—the world of Duality.
However, like Alice, we can’t be on both sides of the looking-glass at once. At least not while we’re seeing through Material Nature’s dualistic eyes. We’re either on one side of the looking-glass or on the other. In other words, we tend to express and experience one side of things while repressing and not experiencing the other, more or less. We suffer from a sort of selective “seeing.” It’s this selective seeing that concerns us, because it forms the basis of the dualistic world experienced by our Material Nature.
For example, if you break your leg, you’re in pain. At that moment, you’re not consciously feeling the pleasure of being able to take time off work. If you get married, you’re happy. At that moment, you’re not consciously feeling the sadness of losing your independence. If you witness a crime, you may become incensed and indignant that somebody could do such a thing. At that moment, you’re not consciously thinking about how such a crime may be a blessing in disguise, acting as a wake-up call to the victims, shaking them out of complacency and stagnation and inspiring them to take positive actions in their life. If you have an argument with your intimate partner, you’re upset, and you can’t understand how this person could possibly act, think, and feel they way they do in this moment. In this moment, you’re not seeing or interested in the hard truths that your partner might be presenting to you; nor do you see or want to see how inflexible, bullish, and unreasonable you may be being. This is the dualistic world of Material Nature.
Each side of life—the positives and the negatives, the pleasures and the pains—plays a part in the journey of our lives; each side drives us in a different way, but toward the same goal, the same centerpoint: enlightenment, Healing, and wholeness and, ultimately, the experience of unconditional Love.
At any given moment, we tend to express and experience things like pain as opposed to pleasure, happiness as opposed to sadness, agreement as opposed to disagreement, “good” as opposed to “bad,” and so on (or vice versa). These are all a part of Alice’s ordinary world “outside” the looking-glass. It’s a world where everything appears to make sense, where everything has its place, where sugar tastes good and bumping your head hurts, where the good-looking guy gets the good-looking girl and where Austin Powers defeats Dr. Evil. We generally see things as either this and not that or as that and not this, rather than seeing both sides at the same time.
Wouldn’t the world appear upside down if we were suddenly to experience things exactly opposite to the way we normally do? Like if sugar suddenly tasted disgusting, we really liked bumping our heads, and the prettiest girl at school suddenly loved all the ugliest boys. It would be like stepping through Alice’s looking-glass into a kind of upside-down, mirror-reversed, antimatter world.
Now, here’s an interesting question: what would we experience if we were suddenly able to bring the two worlds together—experience both sides of the looking-glass simultaneously, so to speak? Perhaps surprisingly, this would be the experience of our higher Spiritual Nature—the experience of greater Truth, Light, Love, and Oneness.
We can’t take this step, though, until we really see and believe that we mostly see only one side of things. Seeing why we mostly see only one side of things is equally important. The key to this lies in understanding how our physical senses work. After this, we might not be so sure which side of the looking-glass we live on! Or even which side is real!
The View from the Senses
We are born into the dualistic world of Material Nature inasmuch as all our physical senses initially see the world in dualities (pairs of complementary opposites)—pain/pleasure, like/dislike, hot/cold, comfort/discomfort, attraction/repulsion, and so on. As we grow up, these evolve into increasingly complex dualities—nice/mean, ugly/beautiful, happy/sad, hopeful/dejected, good/bad, right/wrong, and so on. The reason our senses see the world in dualities is because of the way our brains are constructed and because of the way they work. (By “brain,” we mean the brain itself, the senses, and the central nervous system.)
The brain consists of three types of cells: receptors, neurons, and effectors. (Broadly speaking, all three types of cells are neurons, but each type with a specialized role.) Put in the simplest way, receptors take note of a kick in the pants, neurons “decide” what to do about it, and effectors carry out the “decisions” of the neurons, making us kick back or run away, for example. If our brains were an office, the receptors would be the secretary or the receiving department, the neurons would be the boss, and the effectors would be the employees or the dispatch department who then carry out the boss’s instructions.
Based on our pre-programmed instinct and on our previous life experiences, our receptors will initially judge each new experience in only one of two possible ways: the experience is painful or pleasureful—dangerous to survival or not dangerous to survival. At this primitive level of the brain, it’s all or nothing. Here’s the physical basis for the dualistic way in which our Material Nature sees the world.
If this were the end of the story, there would be no point talking about evolution or the possibility of enlightenment, Healing, and wholeness. However, it’s not the end of the story. As we grow up, each new experience is passed from our receptors (“secretary”) to our neurons (the “decision” makers).
However, our receptors are like forgetful secretaries who need to be reminded many times before remembering to pass on a message to the boss (neurons). Receptors need multiple inputs before registering the stimulus. Otherwise, the mass of incoming stimuli would overwhelm the brain’s capacity to sort it all out. Not only this, but whoever yells the loudest (in terms of input into the receptors) gets attended to first!
As we grow and collect fresh experiences, our neurons (“decision maker” cells) and their interconnections become increasingly complex. As a result, our reactions to our life experiences also become increasingly complex and potentially more conscious.
Once an experience has been registered (receptor) and passed on to our decision-making brain cells (neurons), it’s then passed on to our effector cells. In other words, if we get pricked with a pin, we react. Effector cells are like office gofers… they simply carry out the tasks assigned to them by the management (the neurons).
So, the key to how black-and-white our reactions to our life experiences are lies in our neurons (the “decision maker” cells). More importantly, the possibility of acting consciously, rather than simply reacting to our life experiences also lies in our neurons. If our collection of neurons and their interconnections (let’s call this our neural network) is simple, as when we are children, then our reactions are limited; they’re more polarized, black or white, fundamentalist, and possibly extreme. If somebody shouts at us, we cringe. If our neural network is more complex (as we grow into adulthood, experience more, and self-reflect more), then our reactions are more complex and varied. If somebody shouts at us, perhaps we come back with a cutting remark. In short, the more complex our neural network is, the more choices we have about our reactions (and, potentially, about our conscious actions).
As an example, let’s say you accidentally put your hand on a hot stove. When your receptors get the message, they register: Danger! Pain! The reaction is black or white. There’s no hesitation or negotiation (or need for these in this survival situation). The message passes directly to your neurons, which, in turn, pass it on to your effectors. So, you react: your hand reflexively recoils from the hot stove. (In actual fact, the receptors’ messages can also be passed directly to the effectors, bypassing the intermediary neurons.)
Because of this experience, a new neural pathway is laid down (myelinated), programming you to react more quickly in the future to similar experiences. Each time you experience the same incident (or an incident interpreted by your neural network as the same—an important point that we’ll address in a moment), it reinforces the new pathway, making it increasingly likely that you’ll react the same way each time (a habituated response).
Now, your neural network believes that hot stoves are dangerous (and nothing else). You see only pain (not pleasure), only bad (not good) and only negative (not positive). However, let’s suppose you then see your mother cooking food on the hot stove (visual sensory input) and let’s suppose she’s a decent cook (!) and the food tastes good (labial sensory input). This new experience travels from your receptors to your neurons, where it meets your previous experiences concerning hot stoves. You now have more information about hot stoves: hot stoves are painful/bad/negative when you put your hand on them, but are pleasureful/good/positive when your Mommy makes you food on them.
Each of these viewpoints is a persona, as we’ve already explored. As your experiences accumulate, so your collection of personas grows. However, this growing collection of personas is not completely disorganized or random. It grows in a more-or-less structured way, mirrored in the growing structure of your neural network.
However, after your two initial experiences with hot stoves, your viewpoints are still biased (polarized) according to the conditions under which you first experienced them. That is, you believe touching a hot stove is only bad, and your Mommy cooking food on the same stove is only good. In your immaturity, you can’t yet imagine that touching a hot stove could also be good/pleasureful/positive (like when you touch it lightly and quickly to test if it’s hot or not). Nor can you imagine that your Mommy cooking food on a hot stove could also be bad/painful/negative (like when you develop a taste for your Mommy’s fattening cooking and your health deteriorates in your middle age).
Not only this, but it might take many new and different experiences of hot stoves to convince you otherwise, particularly in regard to touching a hot stove (because, for survival reasons, our brains are wired to react to pain more than pleasure). In any case, whether painful or pleasureful, first experiences remain and will always remain the most powerful.
Don’t we all still remember our first love? On the other hand, aren’t some of the intervening flames just a blur? This one fact explains a lot about our core Voids and Values (discussed previously): our core Voids and Values are based on our first experiences and on how our brains judged these—how we perceived them.
Without conscious efforts to balance our viewpoints, all our subsequent experiences will only marginally temper, moderate, and modify these core Voids and Values. There are still other neurological reasons for this that we’ll explore in a moment.
The following diagram sums up what we’ve explored so far in relation to the senses.
The Sensory Mechanism
(Extracted, modified, and adapted from a diagram
in Dr. John Demartini’s Sacred Healing© seminar.)
If seeing things as they truly are were simply at matter of gaining more experiences, knowledge, and understanding, then we would surely continue to grow in consciousness at every moment. However, there are seven other factors to consider:
1.The brain has seven layers, each layer corresponding to a different level of consciousness.
2.The brain tends to favor older, more established neural pathways over the newer ones. (First experiences are the most powerful and long-lasting.)
3.When put under stress, the brain tends to revert to more primitive reactions.
(More primitive reactions correspond to lower brain layers and to lower levels of consciousness.)
4.The brain tends to pay increasingly less attention to repeated messages (desensitization). (The nagging wife syndrome!)
5.The brain tends to fill in the missing gaps in our new experiences (i.e. to interpolate when it doesn’t have enough information to decide about things).
6.The left half of the brain (the left hemisphere) tends to jump to conclusions, to make snap judgments and to create false memories.
7.The brain creates our subjective experiences of time and space.
Let’s explore each of these in turn, the first four this month and the last three next month…
How the Brain Holds Back our Conscious Quest
“Certainly our “natural” view of the world—a place made of solid, discrete objects in separate spatial and temporal dimensions—is, quite simply, wrong. The classic, mechanistic model collapsed a century ago when Einstein showed that time and space, and matter and energy, are merely different manifestations of a more fundamental reality… These discoveries force us to recognize that what we think is reality is in fact only one aspect of the universe. And . . . even that part is distorted by the neurological prisms built into our bodies and brains.”
—Rita Carter, science and medical writer for the New York Times,
Washington Post, New Scientist, Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph.
(Carter, Rita. Exploring Consciousness.
University of California Press,
Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2002,
pp. 274-275.)
The seven following factors help explain how our brains preserve the world of Duality and hold us back on our Quest for enlightenment, Healing, and wholeness.
1) Levels of Consciousness
Your brain has evolved in seven main layers. The layers, starting with the most primitive, are single cells, the spine (corresponding to multi-celled organisms), the brain stem (corresponding to amphibians), the basal ganglia (corresponding to reptiles), the limbic system (corresponding to mammals), the cerebral cortex (corresponding to humans), and the corpus callosum (corresponding to self-actualized humans). We literally have the entire evolution of the species inside us.
Most importantly, each next/higher brain layer corresponds to a higher level of consciousness. In addition, each next/higher layer has the possibility of increased neural connections and, as a result, the possibility of more choices of reaction (or action).
What’s interesting is that, in your growth from babyhood to adulthood, you literally retrace the evolution of the species. In other words, you develop your lower brain layers first, only developing the higher layers as you gain more experiences and as you reflect on those experiences. So, your first reactions are the most primitive; they’re black or white, yes or no, pain or pleasure, fight or flight, and so on. And these primitive reactions are the basis of your Material Nature.
Not only this, but, because you have all brain layers in you, you also have each level of consciousness in you.
Put simply, you are extremely charged about some of your issues (low consciousness—Material Nature): if I slap you, you cringe or run; you have a more balanced perspective about other issues (higher consciousness—Material Nature on the way to Caretaker Nature): if I slap you, you may slap me back, standing up for yourself; and you have attained the highest level of consciousness about a few issues (the consciousness of Caretaker and Spiritual Natures): if I slap you, you immediately connect this with issues where you were beating yourself up already, work through these issues, and thank me for pointing them out to you. (We’ll talk a lot more about such higher perspectives, the psychology behind them, and how to achieve them.)
Here’s an updated diagram of the sensory mechanism, including all the brain layers:
The Sensory Mechanism – Updated
(Extracted, modified, and adapted from a diagram
in Dr. John Demartini’s Sacred Healing© seminar.)
2) The Beaten Track
We’ve seen how the development of your consciousness from birth is mirrored in the step-by-step development of your brain, layer by layer. (This doesn’t mean that your consciousness is only in the physical brain; as we’ll see later, as you gain increasing enlightenment, Healing, and wholeness, your consciousness expands outside the limitations of the body.) In this way, the lower layers are developed first, as we’ve described. Not only this, but repeated experiences create “beaten tracks” in the neural network. These two factors mean that the neural pathways of the lower layers of the brain will generally be favored over the higher layers, as they are generally faster and more convenient.
This means that, in the beginning, unconscious and low-consciousness reactions will generally “win” against higher consciousness reactions and actions. You can only move beyond these more primitive lower layers of the brain by working through your issues and by healing your Wounds. When you do, the development of higher consciousness is mirrored in the development of the higher layers of your brain.
3) Going Primitive
When you get stressed, your brain reverts to primitive reactions. In a sense, it goes into survival mode. This happens in life-threatening circumstances.
However, it can also happen when you’re unable to quickly resolve the stressful events and circumstances of your life—even when the events and circumstances are not life-threatening. In both cases, your reactions become more extreme, polarized, dogmatic, black-and-white, and fundamentalist. It’s all or nothing. Psychologically speaking, when you’re stressed, your normally repressed and hidden personas become expressed and visible—they’re reactivated.
When you’re stressed and your brain “goes primitive,” it’s reflected in your body. If stress continues, illness, disorder, and disease will eventually appear. Not only this, but your states of consciousness—whether stressed or relaxed—determine which layers of the brain rule you at any given moment. In short, the lower your consciousness, the lower the level and layer of your brain function.
The lower the level and layer of your brain function, the more disorganized and chaotic your body functions become and the more your body tends to break down. In this lies the connection between consciousness and health and disease.
Your physiology—your body in health and disease—is a perfect mirror of your consciousness.
In this lies the surprising and unexpected Gift of disease: disease perfectly mirrors your issues, Wounds, judgments, biases, lies, half-truths, and illusions, allowing you to see these more clearly and impelling you to deal with them.
4) Shutting Out Reality
When there’s a clock ticking in the background, after a time, you tend to stop hearing it—your brain “tunes” it out (unless you deliberately focus on it). This illustrates another peculiarity of your brain. It illustrates that repeated activation of the receptors (as single cells) leads to desensitization of the brain. Similarly, when, over time, we shut out our badgering mother-in-law, it illustrates that repeated activation of the neural pathways (as complex interconnections of cells) also leads to desensitization.
The upshot of the ticking clock scenario is less dramatic than that of the badgering mother-in-law scenario. For example, let’s say you jump into a cold swimming pool. At first, it’s a shock to the system, but gradually you adjust and the water doesn’t seem so cold. If you jump into a cold pool every day, the shock of the cold water is less each time as you effectively retrain your brain to realize that there is no danger in doing this. In this way, your brain is constantly filtering out things it thinks pose no threat to your existence, security, safety, or comfort.
The brain only notices new sensations (touch, sight, sound, smell and taste) until it has identified them, measured them against what it already knows, and has determined whether there’s a threat or not. After this, if there’s no perceived threat, these same sensations are automatically put on the back burner of your consciousness, so to speak.
This frees up your consciousness to be on alert for new sensations.
However, what this also means is that, over time, you become less sensitive to what’s going on around you. In fact, you might miss things that are important to your future enlightenment, Healing, and wholeness. The lower layers of your brain are not interested in higher consciousness; they are only interested in survival, safety, security, and comfort. However, you can override the automatic process of the brain by making conscious efforts to “work” on your attention and awareness.
Unlike the ticking clock scenario, the upshot of the badgering mother-in-law scenario is quite dramatic. Repeated activations of the complex neural pathways of your brain lead to desensitization of these pathways. For example, say your mother-in-law continually badgers you about getting a decent job. The first time you hear it, perhaps you take notice and think about what she’s saying. The second time, you probably take less notice, giving it only a passing thought. The third time, you’ve heard it all before and begin to shut off after the first sentence. The fourth time, you don’t even listen after the first few words; you “already know” what she’s going to say.
This example might seem funny, but we actually live like this more than we would care to acknowledge. They say familiarity breeds contempt, but actually, familiarity breeds inattention: the more familiar things are, the less we pay attention. The less we pay attention, the more our programmed and habitual responses, reactions, attitudes, and postures run our lives. Presumably, this leaves our so-called waking consciousness free to be on alert for new and fresh experiences.
The conservation of waking consciousness serves your Material Nature—your existence, security, safety, and comfort. It could serve your higher Natures, too, except that your Material Nature has no vested interest in new experiences or higher consciousness. Your Material Nature is more concerned with maintaining the status quo: survival, safety, and security. If these things are taken care of, then your consciousness “sleeps” more or less comfortably. In fact, if these things are taken care of, your Material Nature will even fight against higher consciousness.
From Nature’s perspective, higher consciousness is unnecessary—at least at this point in the cosmogonic cycle of the Earth’s evolution—so even having the wish for higher consciousness is not guaranteed. Even if you have a wish for higher consciousness, you will find yourself fighting against your Material Nature’s desire to “sleep.” Higher consciousness (Healing) takes effort.
What can impel us to make the required efforts? The benefits, blessings, lessons, Gifts, and Service of challenge, confrontation, opposition, and conflict begin to become apparent. These things give us the proverbial kick in the pants to motivate us to make the kinds of efforts required for our higher Quest. The tools to combat inattention—the “sleep” of our so-called waking consciousness—are attention and intention.
Consider all the aforementioned tendencies of Material Nature multiplied by a lifetime. It becomes apparent that we spend most of our lives on “auto-pilot”—daydreaming, “sleeping,” and loosing ourselves in anything that hijacks our attention. We don’t really know what real consciousness is. Real consciousness means being in the Here and Now. It means being aware of ourselves—”remembering” ourselves, being “mindful,” being Present—in all that we do. It means being simultaneously aware of the Seer, the Seeing, and Seen and, to a certain extent, realizing that these are One.
Maybe you object to, or are insulted by, the idea that you’re not fully conscious during most of your supposedly waking life. However, consider what happens when you regularly drive a car along the same route, maybe to and from work each day; as the route becomes more familiar, you can drive along, thinking or daydreaming about things entirely unrelated to driving and later have no conscious memory of the details of the trip itself.
The same is true of any task that has become familiar, routine, and automatic. Only when learning new things do we necessarily become a little more “awake.” And only when somebody (like me, in these paragraphs!) draws attention to our inattention, do we “wake up” for a moment. In this waking moment, our dominant personas insist that we’re awake, fully conscious, and have been so all along. Moments later, without our knowing it, our consciousness is hijacked once more by the automatic processes of our Material Nature.
Still don’t buy it? Then try the following exercise: attempt to remain continuously aware of whatever you’re doing without losing the sense of yourself doing it. See how long it is before your attention either tires of the exercise or is taken away by some rogue thought, feeling, sensation, outside distraction, or daydream. (The average attention span for this exercise is less than a few minutes.) Don’t be surprised if you forget the exercise in the middle of it and suddenly “wake up” hours later with the realization that your conscious awareness of yourself doing whatever you were doing lasted only minutes. And don’t be surprised if you (your personas, actually) find yourself making all kinds of excuses, rationalizations, and justifications to explain away why and how your attention was taken from the exercise.
Aside from everything we’ve explored so far, desensitization of the brain also explains short-term memory loss and forgetfulness. Put simply, we don’t pay enough attention to things that we might be required to remember later. The key to memory—in fact, the key to enlightenment, Healing, and wholeness—is conscious attention.
You can defeat the tendencies of your Material Nature by making efforts to be mindful, to be Present, to “remember yourself” in all that you do.
We’ll continue next month with the next three factors that help explain how our brains preserve the world of Duality and hold us back on our Quest for enlightenment, Healing, and wholeness.
We’ll also draw some conclusions from all of this. And we’ll explore the saving grace that gives us the blessed possibility of transcending these factors—transcending the limitations of the senses—and achieving an expanded state of consciousness, fulfilling our Destiny as potentially complete, conscious, and intentional human beings.
Love and Light,
Martin Lass
|
|
|
|
|
|
Martin Lass,
The first S.O.L.A.R.® Emissary, Astrologer, Author
& Musician
|
 |
The first S.O.L.A.R.® Emissary is Martin Lass. His background includes over twenty years spent studying in two separate mystery schools, each with a direct lineage extending back into antiquity—one school coming through Egyptian traditions and the other from a hidden Central Asian tradition combined with the Sufi Way.
He is also a professional astrologer, astrological/spiritual counselor, accredited practitioner of various healing modalities, musician, composer, and published author.)
S.O.L.A.R.®
Beyond Materiality. Beyond Spirituality.
Toward the Complete Human Being…
www.solarjourney.org
info@solarjourney.org
|
 |
You'll find it in
The
Directory! |
|
|
|
|
