The Complexity of Understanding Consciousness

When talking  about consciousness for the purpose of understanding its concept,  there are lots of different ideas and explanations from countless of minds available that sometimes may lead into confusion and ambiguity. There are some ideas that may appear to be very hard to comprehend the way it has presented particularly on those who are new to the subject of consciousness.

To better understand what is consciousness, there are some relevant subject matters required to be understood before getting into the knowing of the whole spectrum of consciousness.  This involves how human mind works, how the universe works and  how our reality occurred to us.

One of the Universal principles that was said to be hidden from the face of humanity, which governs the whole creation on earth as popularized by the book called "Kybalion" is the Principle of Mentalism. This principle claims that the whole universe is all in the mind and all the things that appears in our physical reality are affected or created by mental activity.

This could be associated with the claim that consciousness which begins with the mind, drives the universe and also affects everything within it. Therefore, as being mentioned on my previous posts, thought which is a significant element of   human consciousness is always the creator of the reality.

The idea that consciousness drives the whole universe is based on the claim that  all that are present in our material world which we believed to be physical objects of our reality also known as matter originates from non physical stuff. 

Everything is energy that vibrates in a different levels of speed and frequency. That, stuff vibrating  in the same frequency attracts each other thus taking a form of matter. This is also clearly emphasized in the study of atoms in relation to thermodynamics, where heat movement affects the molecular composition of any given substance. 

In this discussion, heat  is energy that can alter the vibrational frequency of any matter that occurs in physical realm. In  non-physical realm, heat is represented by consciousness and they work in completely the same way.

Gregg Braden of Power of Human Emotion

Consciousness revolves around human thought and emotion which are both forms of energy. It affects not only the actions of individual human being as a source of consciousness but also the vibrations of energy beyond physicality that attracts events and circumstances.

The book of Gregg Braden called "Language of the Divine Matrix" explains how  human emotion, a significant element of consciousness alters physical reality, and changes the events  in our life.  In his presentation, he showed  the medicineless hospital in China where patients are healed via uttered words or prayers.

Cancer tumor dissolved in 3 minutes

In his presentation, a tumor in woman's bladder was  dissolved as shown live via sonogram as it slowly disappears, while the three practitioners are chanting words of prayer. According to Braden's claim,  the force that dissolves the  tumor which is physical stuff is the "feeling" or emotion created by the three practitioners.

How this story relates to consciousness? As mentioned earlier, human emotion is and integral part of human consciousness. It is the energy that communicates the universe and all its stuff whether physical or non-physical beyond human awareness.

In other definition, consciousness was said to be the observer of the reality, according the study conducted by quantum physics pertaining to how matter behaves. They concluded that if the observer is present, matter behaves differently from having no observer during that experiment. This means to say that human consciousness as the observer of the reality affects the behavior  of matter in its minutes and tiniest particle.

The most significant truth behind this understanding is that, if consciousness affects the physical and non-physical universe, we as a human beings as a source of consciousness can really dictate whatever life that we  desire, or whatever reality we may want to  have, by controlling our thoughts and emotion. This truth can  strongly support to that claim that consciousness is the one and only reality.

Consciousness as the One and Only Reality

Consciousness has been said to be the one and only reality. This was popularized by the book of Neville Godard called  " The Power of Awareness" which became the foundation of understanding humanity and all phenomena of life.

Neville Goddard is one of the fathers of metaphysical theory about God, consciousness and spirituality. In  1960's to 70's he popularized the  " Law of Assumption"  which  has been very effective strategy in achieving whatever you desire in life.

Neville's concept about consciousness and spirituality is biblical, and all of his teachings were taken from the  Christian Bible with his deep elaboration of every thought that makes  it little bit heavy on the minds of ordinary person who are stranger on subjects with regards to consciousness.

The meaning of the claim the consciousness is the one and only reality is that, our life  events, circumstances and everything that we are going to experience in life is totally based on the idea that we have in our mind on the subject of who we are as a person.

Whatever we perceived, believed and accepted as true about ourselves and about the things that surrounds us,  will be the determining factor of all our actions and emotions that affects our behavior and attitude.

In short, what we think controls our way of doing things and eventually the result that we are going to have. Therefore, the most critical part of creating our reality or should I say the condition of life that we are going to experience is nothing but only the thought that we have in our mind.

The relationship between thought and consciousness might not be very apparent. To make it clear,  thoughts are ideas that are formed in our conscious mind as a response by our mind to the raw information captured by our physical senses sent to our our brain.

Every thought that are being formed in the conscious mind will be accepted and impressed in the subconscious, thus affecting our emotions and actions. In other words,  in order for every person's consciousness  to come into play, a thought, as a response to our environmental influences must exist that would alter emotion in the subconscious and it always occurs while we are awake.

Thought is always the key player of how our reality is being derived from. Our conscious mind that produces thought is the foundation of our consciousness, therefore how we think, what we know, what we believed to be true is the  expression of our final thoughts about who we are and  as a result, it determines our reality based on how we do things in our life.

The idea that consciousness is the one and only reality is nothing different from what the  concept popularized in the teaching of the said law of attraction that says " we as a persons are like living magnets that attracts all the events and circumstances into our life according to the dominant thought that we have" or, whatever we always have in our mind, will most likely become our reality.

If we always think, abhor and dislike poverty and we want to know more of it to get rid of it and become rich, what we feed into our conscious mind were all information about poverty, as a result we become poor in the future, as our mind will be creating more thoughts of poverty.

The idea behind is the distinction between positive thought and negative thought that must be consciously feed into the conscious mind to create positive emotion in the subconscious. If the subconscious is filled with positivity such as excitement, enthusiasm and eagerness, all actions will always bear a positive outcome.

Poverty is obviously a negative information and has nothing to do with positivity.  It can never induce positive emotion  and therefore, it is purely destructive kind of information to the subconscious.

Consciousness is vulnerable to negative thought. If negative thought is dominant in our conscious mind, it creates a negative self image in the subconscious which will become the total control of our self in creating our reality.  This is the fact why it has been said that consciousness is the one and only reality.

Self Consciousness Vs Self Awareness What is the Difference

When talking about consciousness, many people would surely think that consciousness is a state of being alive. For unconscious being is no different from lifeless object in this universe. But consciousness does not revolve only around the argument of being lifeless or being alive, for it encompasses a much complex realm of human existence.

The world's occurrences were all  result of man's collective consciousness, whatever we perceived today as part of our reality is a total product of how we create our world as a result of  our individual perception  about who we are in relation to our environment.

On individual level, man's self consciousness is his total emotional and mental awareness about himself and everything that surrounds him. Self awareness is the state of being aware which may directly related to mental level of knowing things, also termed as "knowledge about himself.

When we say knowledge about himself, it is far different from saying "concept of himself," because knowledge could be a belief system based on learned probable facts whether physical or non-physical, that can be altered when supporting proofs is no longer relevant to what it claims for some reason. While concept is already an accepted reality about himself which has been believed to be true and is no longer questionable in nature.

This is the main idea of saying that self consciousness, which is the only governing factor that affects how human being creates reality, is his total concept of himself with regards to anything in his environment.

In a bit shallow view about self consciousness, it could be considered as an act of being wary about himself or herself. How a person may look, act, and appear which might always be subjected to other people's judgment or criticism. That is how self consciousness is defined by many as commonly accepted belief of the majority. 

However, self consciousness in a much deeper sense refers to a persons knowing of his or herself according to his or her self image which is the foundation of  person's thoughts, behavior and attitude. It was designed by a person's experiences, upbringing, and all environmental and social influences.

Therefore, self consciousness  is unique on every persons view, while consciousness itself in general encompasses the whole thing that is occurring in a person's life being  alive.  Self awareness on the other hand is limited to what and who aspect of personality that a person is being aware of about himself.

To better understand this, we need to pay attention on the two divisions of human mind which is the basic rule of understanding consciousness and related subjects. It has been said that humans are having the conscious mind or the thinking and reasoning mind, and the other one is the subconscious which is the unconscious part of ourself.

Everything that we know mentally is occurring within the premise of our conscious mind which is in the level of awareness, while emotional responses regardless of the "what, who and why" matters occurs beyond the realm of our conscious mind.

It occurs from the realm of our subconscious,as we all know that emotion emanates from the heart not from the head. If awareness is only in the conscious mind, consciousness covers the whole thing from the thought that happens in the conscious mind, as well as the emotion that occurs in the subconscious mind.

What is Consciousness in Modern Way of Understanding

Consciousness is a terminology that  may refer to mans' complexity and mystery of life. But then its detail has not been clearly discussed to come up into single, clear, conceivable and solid meaning. Figuring out consciousness is a challenging approach towards the quest of getting through into the study and understanding  about humanity.

According to Wikipedia, consciousness is the quality of recognizing outer phenomena of life as well as those within your own self. From medical opinion, consciousness primarily signifies the level of perception becoming alive. Assuming that a person is unconscious, he or she can never figure out the occurrences in his or her environment, just like an ordinary dead object. From psychological viewpoint, consciousness points to something connected with the way human mind works that changes individual reality and circumstances.

As emphasized by several sources linked with science and metaphysics, consciousness has something to do with the energy that influences the whole structure of human physiology from its cellular composition as minute part of the human body, that is also linked to human thoughts and emotions. On faith based viewpoint together with spirituality, consciousness has something to deal with our spirit that provides life to our physical body, the foremost substance of our being.

According to Dr. Deepak Chopra, prominent Indian writer, consciousness is the speculator of the world as subject to human perception. It means to say, consciousness itself is the humanity who responds and reacts with this material world, being alive and receptive to everything within this universe.

The book of Neville Goddard “The Power of Awareness” professed the best gripping idea which could be the building block of mans comprehension regarding consciousness. It tells people that “consciousness is the one and only reality.” This signifies that whatever we believed, recognized or considered to be valid in relation to our very selves, is going to be the dominant factor of what we will undergo in life. “Man is actually the arbiter of his own fate, and that it is his concept of himself that determines the world in which he lives” – Neville.

For the purpose of clarifying what Neville wants to convey to humanity, let me put it this way; consciousness is the union of our body and spirit that makes us alive. It determines who we are as we know ourselves with regards to our world. Consciousness is absolute in every creation, which is based upon every man’s recognition and acceptance of himself.  It is the next to the word “I am”  to define your self according to your own consciousness, and "I am" is the definition of the absolute. consciousness with varying degrees.

When you speak the word “ I am” it could be anything according to your own knowing of who you are. If you are poor, you would say “I am poor,” if you are rich, you would say “ I am rich.”  It does not limit on the level of awareness being rich or poor.  It refers to the whole essence of being a human, recognizing and accepting himself as rich or poor.

In other words, consciousness is our own self concept about who we are, in relation to our spiritual and material world. It controls all our thoughts, emotions and actions. It determines all the things that we are capable of and the things that we can’t do.  We cannot define things beyond our own consciousness for it is not part of us, therefore as human being, our whole life is created and affected by our own consciousness of who we are, and that creates our reality.

To understand more about consciousness the following video may also help from different perspective.