[music]
What we experience as reality is totally dependent on our state of consciousness. Consciousness
conceives, governs, constructs, and becomes the world you experience. Consciousness makes
experience possible. This experience could be mental such as thoughts, feelings, emotions,
images, and imagination or it could be perceptual as in experiencing in the world and our relationships.
On a fundamental level, the mechanisms of mental and perceptual experience are identical
in consciousness. You only experience that which you are aware of and you are aware of
only that which you pay attention to.
To create reality as an experience, we use our brain. And the biology is different in
different states of consciousness. Lets take the three levels of consciousness familiar
to all of us: deep sleep, dreams, and waking state.
When we are fast asleep, even though we may not be consciously aware, awareness remains.
If someone pinches you or makes a loud noise, or screams that your house is burning, you
respond. A mother can remain aware of her babies needs even when she's fast asleep.
Deep sleep creates its own biology and its own reality.
Similarly the dream state creates its own reality. If I dreamt last night that I was
playing golf at pebble beach with Clint Eastwood, that state was real to me when I was dreaming.
Only after waking up did I realize that it was just a dream and pebble peach or Clint
Eastwood were projections of my own consciousness.
Now as you sit in front of your computer and watch this, I presume you are in the waking
state of consciousness and I presume that you assume that this is the real reality.
However, I will say to you that it seems real because you are in it, just like the dream
was real when you were in the dream.
The 4th state of consciousness is known in wisdom traditions as soul consciousness. When
in the midst of the observation, you become aware of yourself as the observer.
Right now as you are listening and observing me on your screen, turn your attention to
observing. Who is listening? Who is watching? And as you do that right now you will become
aware of a presence or silent witness which is your core consciousness, referred to in
spiritual traditions as your soul. As you cultivate awareness of awareness, reality
will shift for you through the opening of the doors of intuition, insight, creativity,
and synchronicity.
The fifth state of consciousness is known as cosmic consciousness. In spiritual traditions,
this is to be in the world, but not of it. The silent witnessing awareness that you previously
knew as your soul wakes up in waking, dreaming, and sleeping. So even as your body and mind
are in the dream and sleep state, you observe them as a silent witness from a non-local
perspective and there is the deep insight that your body and mind are roles you play,
but you are not your body-mind. You are the alert witness whose destiny it is to play
an infinity of roles.
The sixth state of consciousness is divine consciousness in which you observe the universal
in the particular. There is the story of Buddha's disciple Ananda who was looking at a rose
and he smiled at the Buddha and the Buddha smiled back. And that was the end of the sermon
and all of the disciples went to Ananda and said "We saw a rose, what did you see?" And
Ananda said "I saw a rose, but I also saw sunshine and water and earth and rainbows
and stars and galaxies and the infinite void. I saw the whole universe, stopping along the
way pretending to be a flower." This is universal consciousness in a local object of perception.
And finally there is the state of consciousness referred to as unity consciousness where there
is a merging of the personal witness with the universal witness. When you see the whole
universe including all of nature, stars and galaxies as your own extended body. You realize
then that you have a personal body and a universal body and they both are equally yours.
This is the state of enlightenment where your inner being radiates passion, love, and ecstasy.
Would you like to go there with me?