Consciousness Eternally Experiencing Itself? Why?
CONSCIOUSNESS
Consciousness. What does it mean exactly? There are a lot of new age thinkers presenting consciousness as the nature of our reality, as who we really are, as the field of awareness that comprises everything within the universe. A very simple understanding of consciousness is being aware of one’s own internal and external environment, or better yet, being aware of something else. There is a subject and an object in the realm of consciousness. If consciousness is essentially made up of atoms, the tiniest building blocks of matter, then everything of form is a composition of particles in motion. The body, the earth, the solid environment around us, everything traces back to this fundamental aspect of this physical reality.
Scientists and philosophers have been working and questioning the nature of existence probably since the dawn of time itself. Where did we come from? How did we get here? What are we exactly? Where are we going? Is there life after death? These questions will continue in our existence as long as we perceive this reality. Great minds may be able to discover what we are in this world, however, does that prove what we really are outside of this reality? Do we exist outside of this reality at all? Science is always asking questions and searching for answers, even looking for the God gene. It desperately wants to know. However, will we ever really know while we are living in this world? If this is the dual word, a world presented with opposites, a world where there is always a subject and object, how can we find a God, or a creator, that might be considered the ONE true essence, or the all-encompassing omniscient God? Is that even possible?
Science can prove the atom, the basic building block of life, makes up the entire universe. This they can prove. They can define the world around us, but can they define it accurately? Everyone has a different perspective, or vantage point in which he or she is seeing from. The five senses dictate much of our experience while we are here. Because we all have profoundly different experiences, each person defines this world in their own unique way given the experiences they have had. With so many different interpretations, how can there be definitive truth here? If this world were absolutely true, if it were absolutely real, wouldn’t we all see it the same exact way? But, we all know this is not the case. We all view this world very differently. It’s a constantly changing evolutionary world. There is no constant here. The only constant is the invisible field in which all things seem to stem from. The physical world is always changing.
THE FIELD EXPERIENCING ITSELF, WHY?
Many scientists and new age thinkers express that the field of consciousness is simply experiencing itself in a variety of ways. It experiences itself through human beings, both animal and plant kingdoms, through all inanimate and animate objects, and through our own ability to feel emotions, create thought, and interpret the world how we choose. They explain that when consciousness has become aware of itself enough, the physical fades away through the process of death and it returns back to the vastness of the field. This reinventing itself, over and over and over again, seems to be the answer to the nature of this worldly reality. There is no real definite answer, but it is plausible and discussed at great length.
A question to ask is, why does an intelligence field such as consciousness, need to continue to experience itself. In fact, how can something that already IS, forget itself, and then know itself again? What is the point of all of that? Why is this happening at all? Is this some kind of sick twisted joke, a universal comedy act, and the joke is on us? It seems like some sort of game where we all get up in the morning and ask, “What act do I want to play now? How do I want to experience myself today?” Except, the strange thing is, we are unaware that we are doing this.
When you start asking questions, you can arrive at a place where the entire thing seems absurd. Why the need for an experience at all? Why would the greatest intelligence need to have anything other than what it already has? Why would it need to jump into a physical world of complete and total chaos, a world of survival on every level? Why would an intelligence field want to experience such things? Why would it need anything at all? Why would it want to feel deprived, lack, or fragmented off into trillions of different directions just to find wholeness again? It just doesn’t make any sense. It also seems never-ending, like it’s one experience after another with no escaping the complication of this matrix. Do we really need to come back into world having a different type of experience all the time? This leads directly to the concept of karma and reincarnation.
KARMA AND REINCARNATION
This idea that consciousness continues to experience itself in form fits the bill of reincarnation. There are many people who believe that we incarnate into this world repeatedly until we get it right, we recognize our true essence, or we reach enlightenment. After so many experiences, the layers of falsehood are stripped away and who we really are appears to us revealing our true self. When we are ready to release the world, and our identification with a self, we will return to the oneness of God.
It also begs the question concerning Karma. Is there such a thing? Are we locked into a system of karmic cycles trying to figure it out? When we behave badly, does it really come back in the universe to punish us? Is there truth to what you do in this lifetime that will affect you in the next one, or the people you have wronged? Do you ever feel like you are stuck in a cycle in a personal relationship? Do you innately feel like you are working something out together on a much deeper level? Or what about meeting someone for the first time yet you feel like you’ve known them forever? There is a very strong sense of familiarity with certain people you meet. You can’t explain why you feel connected with someone you barely know, but you have an intuition that this is not your first encounter. What about small children who blatantly tell you about their past lives? It seems as we get older we are more conditioned by the world around us and forget all about any past life or previous encounter.
Do you ever experience the same situations in life and you just can’t seem to get out of them? Maybe you are always struggling financially, or you have the same recurring work or relationship dramas that seem never-ending. Are these areas that we can control? Can we exit these experiences by choosing to see them differently? Can we stop attracting the same old thing into our life when we shift our perception of reality? There is strong evidence that suggests this is possible. If we simply alter our viewpoint of the experience we are having, the experience we have changes. If you use this concept, is it then possible to escape the entire death and re-birth cycle of reincarnation and karma? Is consciousness really who and what we are? Or is consciousness itself stuck in this repetitive cycle, doing the same things over and over again, never freeing itself?
A COURSE IN MIRACLES SPEAKS ABOUT CONSCIOUSNESS
A Course in Miracles makes a profound statement about consciousness. It builds off its fundamental teaching about the world we perceive as real, is simply not real. It is merely a dream within the mind. Our home is reality in God, which is not part of this world. This is a very different interpretation than religious perspectives, as well as most spiritual and new age beliefs. Almost all teachings believe this world to be real, and that God created it. The Course is saying a vastly different thing. This world is not real, and the only thing that is real is God, which has nothing to do with this world. We only seemingly appear to be part of it. The following verse says this,
“Consciousness, the level of perception, was the first split introduced into the mind after the separation,
making the mind a perceiver rather than a creator. Consciousness is correctly identified as the domain of the ego.
The ego is a wrong-minded attempt to perceive yourself as you wish to be, rather than as you are.
Yet you can know yourself only as you are, because that is all you can be sure of. Everything else is open to question.”
(ACIM, Text, Ch. 3, IV, 2:1-5.)
The Course is saying consciousness itself, the subjective field of awareness, the split conflicted mind, was the original split from God. Therefore, this entire realm, including the field of consciousness itself, is also part of the ego’s thought system. It has nothing to do with our reality in God. This description of the true nature of reality, which from this perspective, is only in God, has nothing to do with consciousness. Consciousness is nothing more than the ego’s creation. However, clearly stated in the above verse, the ego cannot create, it merely perceives. God is the only creator. The questioning nature of the mind is the ego trying to make sense of this unreality. It will continue to ask questions because the truth is not here. Science will continue to search for God and never find it because it is not part of the ego’s dream. All science can currently grasp is the particles of the invisible realm, where all of the physical manifestations are born. However, that in and of itself, does not answer how the field of consciousness came to be.
Whether you agree with A Course in Miracles or not, it certainly answers the questions about consciousness experiencing itself, karma, and reincarnation. If karma and reincarnation are birthed from consciousness, and this is consciousness’s attempt to experience itself, it is doing so outside of true creation, or outside of God. It is the ego playing games perceiving an unreal world and playing God. Plain and simple. This explains why consciousness needs to keep experiencing and dreaming something else, whether it is a nice dream, a happy dream, or a horrific dream, it is all the same to the ego. It is wishing to become it’s own separate paradise, just like the above verse proclaims. Keep acting out a world separate from God so the ego never returns, it never dies, it keeps all of us baited, distracted, and lured into a false playground that has no end in site. Not only is there no end, experiencing form comes with a chaotic roller coaster of worldly events that will continue as long as we believe it to be.
According to the Course, there is no experience other than God. There is no reality other than God. Wishing and dreaming in this world of duality doesn’t change anything in reality. We only think it has. Turning to the spirit within, our reminder of this true reality in God, is our ticket to liberation and freedom from a perceived world. We can continue to experience ourselves for as long as we choose, however, at what point does that become a circus act? At what point do we get tired of survival and separation and yearn to be whole? Eventually, we all return home. We all will see beyond the game of consciousness and remember the truth of who we are. It’s only a matter of time.