25/02/2024
Consciousness part three
The delay in continuing this discussion is partly because I have been pondering about what is Consciousness.
On the face of it, consciousness could be described as being Aware. I understand this from personal experience. About 2 weeks ago I felt unwell and went to bed. That was sometime on a Thursday late afternoon. Saturday morning, I was struggling to wake up, get out of bed and answer the phone – the landline in the next room and my mobile in my bedroom. I thought it was Friday. Apparently, I was making no sense, to the extent that my daughter who was trying to get me to answer the phone, as my son and daughter in law were, said, “Mum you’re frightening me. I’m coming up” Bless her.
It was then I realised I had no recollection of anything that had occurred since late Thursday afternoon. I had ‘lost consciousness’ for 36 hours. I was definitely not aware of anything in that time. That is obvious, isn’t it?
However, there are other times when we aren’t consciously aware but walking around and apparently getting on with life. Have you ever set off on a journey only to realise 10 minutes later that you are on the wrong road, going the wrong way?
The truth is, in whatever way it manifests, we spend a lot of time only semi-conscious.
Perhaps you are out walking the dog in the spring in a beautiful beech forest. The leaves are a delicate translucent yellow/lime, the birds are singing. This is passing you by. Why? Because you are thinking; thinking about that incident yesterday that really upset you or feeling anxious that something similar could happen to you next week. Conscious thought occurs in the front of one’s brain, behind the forehead. Remembering, which is what was happening when you walked unseeing through the wood, happens in the back of your brain - or not even in one’s physical brain at all! (Something for another time!)
Dr. Bruce Lipton has some interesting things to say about this. He calls these memories ‘Programme’. They are influenced and originate from the last 3 months of one’s life in the womb right through till one is about 6 or 7 years’ old. During this time, we experience life without any filters. What we see, hear, feel experience goes straight into our hind brain, the so-called unconscious. All this information affects our responses and behaviours for the rest of our lives. It goes a long way to explain why, after having therapy, going on self-development courses, learning all kinds of new, interesting things one can end up like one’s father or mother – but not realise it. Your spouse or your friends will see it.
When we are lost in our thoughts, we are back in the Programme. We are not fully conscious.
How to stay conscious all the time? Stay in Present Moment. Be here, now! This is where positive change lies. As Eckart Tolle has written in “The Power of Now”, the present is where we need to live.
How difficult can that be? What do you think?
Next time, if you are still interested I’ll examine what it means to ‘raise our consciousness’ – the secret to our next evolutionary leap ?
