Consciousness
“Consciousness
is the highest and deepest word you will ever utter. There is nothing
higher or deeper than consciousness. Consciousness is pure
awareness.”
Michael A.
Singer (The Untethered Soul)
In his book, The
Untethered Soul, Michael Singer gives this scenario: You are
among a group of people standing in a room that contains a piano. If
you take the piano away, you are still there with the other people.
Take the other people away, and you are still there, only now, you're
alone. Take your awareness away. Now you don't exist.
He tells this story to
demonstrate that we are our awareness—that awareness is the pure
essence of that which we identify as “me.” It is not our physical
body, not our emotions, not the roles we play, simply because all of
those things change. My body is not the same now as when I was
twenty, and my emotions are not as chaotic as they were twenty years
ago. I am no longer counselor, or teacher, or wife. My awareness is
still the same, though it has expanded with time, and with life
experience and understanding.
At this moment in time,
there is much in the headlines about Civil Rights—Black Lives
Matter, Gay Rights, Women's Rights; we are experiencing a backlash
regarding Muslims, Jews, and undocumented emigrants that has equality
and right-action much in our awareness. When I was a child, and even
as a young adult, I had little consciousness of such things. I was
ignorant because they didn't impact me. It was not until the
difficulties of the 1960's, the shooting of JFK, the war in Vietnam,
the protests and violence on college campuses, the killing of Bobby
Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. that questions of right and wrong
began to rise up in my consciousness. Now, I look at the world with
different eyes, though it is still the same me who sees.
Consciousness expands and grows, but it is always individual and
indelible. It is who we are.
I hope today, you will
give some attention to your own awareness. Take a few moments to
experience the pure state of consciousness that is you. What are you
aware of now that was not there before? How are you responding to the
events of our time? Is your consciousness expanding?
In the Spirit,
Jane
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