Part 2 - Consciousness

The basics of consciousness revolve around subjectivity, which is one’s own perceptions of one’s existence. The self-awareness of humans is greatly more complex than the average animal. We have the sophisticated ability to ponder and understand one’s own unique characteristics and personality profile. Sentience is the capacity of having perceptions and feelings, while sapience is the through the process of wisdom.

One could say that the entire Universe is a unified consciousness that is expressing itself in different forms and states of self-awareness. In order for physical matter to exist, first consciousness needs to exist. It is consciousness that creates the observable effects that we perceive in the world around us.

Consciousness is the ability of a being to recognize patterns and meaning with respect to events taking place, both within oneself and in the realm in which the self exists and operates.

The key phrase here is Pattern Recognition.

When interacting with the world from simply a survival standpoint, our ability to recognize patterns around us is the determining factor of our overall health. When we are in tune with the seasonal changes and all the challenges and factors involved with them, we can properly prepare for the changes. Depending on how well our choices affect our overall quality of health, we can modify our actions so we can be better prepared to handle similar challenges in the future. To not do so will only create more suffering and keep us in a state of evolutionary stasis.

Within your personal journey, you will surely notice how making mistakes and errors (big or small) causes you suffering. By exercising consciousness, we can alleviate our personal suffering by learning from our mistakes and endeavoring to make better choices in the future. We can even use our experiences and what wisdom we draw from them to help educate and inspire others to make better decisions to help alleviate their suffering.

As a society, our collective consciousness is an aggregate of inter-connected energy systems. We all are inseparably linked, and therefore, our history should give us direction as to what works and what does not work. In order to alleviate more global suffering, as a collective we need to recognize the patterns that give rise to conditions that are undesirable, and make a shift in our consciousness to create that which we desire.

As human beings we experience and express consciousness through three distinct ways. Various spiritual, mystical, religious, and philosophical traditions refer to this threefold nature of consciousness in different ways. While some refer to it as the Mind-Body-Spirit, it has also been explained through the lens of the Holy Trinity: the Divine Father, the Divine Mother, and the Divine Child. All three of these aspects are defined as unique expressions of an individual being, all necessary to complete the whole.

The first aspect of our consciousness is expressed through our thoughts. Our thoughts make up the Mind of the Mind-Body-Spirit model. With the Holy Trinity, our thoughts correlate with the Divine Father, or the Creator of the Universe. Before anything was created in the Universe, there first had to exist a thought. Because we are reflections of the Creator, we also are endowed with the capability of producing thoughts to create our reality. Our thoughts are non-physical and do not exist in form in the material plane, they do not arise from any pre-existing material things.

Following our thoughts, the second aspect of our consciousness is expressed through our emotions. When we express a thought, the next thing that we do is process it internally with our feelings. This aspect correlates to the Divine Mother of the Holy Trinity, and to the Spirit aspect of the Mind-Body-Spirit model. By nature it is the manifestation of the Sacred Feminine, which gives us a process of feeling our experiences to help us determine what the next proper course of action will be.

This leads us into the third expression of consciousness: our actions. Because our actions are the “offspring” of our thoughts and emotions, the term “Divine Child” is appropriate here. We express our consciousness externally in the material plane through our actions. Our actions represent the Body aspect of the Mind-Body-Spirit model because our body is the vehicle in which we conduct an action to make change in the world. By nature our actions are the manifestation of the Sacred Masculine, because it is an energy that is active, rather than passive.

When our thoughts, emotions, and actions are in harmony with one another and do not contradict each other, then we are exercising a high state of consciousness that can be said is one with the Divine. As we think, so we feel, and so we act. The goal of any being should be to work on aligning this Trinity, which ultimately gives us the power to take control of our lives. When this Trinity is properly aligned within ourselves, we open ourselves up to powerful creative and healing energies. We are thereby reducing suffering in our own lives and giving ourselves the maximum potential to use our unique gifts and talents for the betterment of all humanity.

The Universe has a magnificent way of working through the power of the number three.

While it is commonly understood that the brain is the central command center of our consciousness, scientific advancement has finally caught up with the ancient wisdom that both our heart and gut are also involved with our consciousness. Our consciousness as a whole emerges from the brain and body working in cohesion.

The heart, in fact, is made up of an extensive neural communication network that receives and processes information independent of the brain. It can learn, remember, and send signals to the brain to influence the brain’s functions concerning cognition, perception, and emotional processing. The heart also possesses an electromagnetic field that penetrates every cell of the body at an amplitude far exceeding that which the brain produces. Various studies have found that the heart’s rhythm changes depending on our positive or negative thinking, which in turn affects our physical health. It has also been found to be more active than the brain in intuitive responses, which gives deeper meaning to the phrase, “follow your heart.”

Have you ever heard the phrase, “trust your gut instinct”? There is a reason that such phrases have been imbued within our languages…because they reflect a Truth that we are remembering after thousands of years of knowledge being hidden from us. Just like the heart, the gut is also involved in our consciousness make-up, which is called the enteric nervous system. Being free and separate from the brain and heart’s processes such as language, fears, ambitions, and reasoning, the gut’s mode of consciousness is naturally much more direct and instinctual.

Our gut possesses an “inner knowing” that can be considered our “sixth sense.” Our gut, in fact, encompasses a sophisticated neural network independent of the brain and heart that is also involved in learning and memory. The gut is known as a major center for our energy centers which people who engage in yoga, meditation, and martial arts take very seriously in regards to performing at their best. Additionally, our gut is home to a rich biome of micro-organisms that assist in our digestion, all of which feed information back to the brain.

With this holistic understanding, we should be very careful in what food we feed to our gut, what emotions we choose to feed to our heart, and what information we choose to feed to our brain. Healthy organic food, positive and uplifting emotions, and empowering information based upon Truth are a well-balanced recipe for a healthy consciousness.

Our brain itself is made up of three main components, all of which govern specific realms of thought processes necessary for our survival, our social bonding, and our advanced philosophical discourse. These three components, together known as the Triune Brain, work together as one cohesive unit.

The first brain complex that developed in our evolution is what is called the R-Complex, which comprises the brain stem and the cerebellum. It is commonly called the Reptile Brain because of the behavioral traits associated with its function, and indicative of our evolutionary past. Its functions include survival instincts, fight-or-flight response, competition, aggression, direct stimulus-response, domination, repetition, ritual, territoriality, and the desire to hoard resources. While it is responsible for our “base” functions of consciousness, it is still an important part of our brain that we would simply not be able to survive without. When this part of the brain is not properly “tamed” by the individual, however, it can lead to many animalistic, instinctual, male-dominator behaviors.

The Limbic System is the second complex of the Triune Brain that developed much later in our biological evolution than the R-Complex. It is composed of the hippocampus, the hypothalamus, and the amygdala, and it regulates the flow of chemicals that are responsible for our emotions. It is commonly called the Mammal Brain because emotions are a mammalian trait for social bonding. In this regard, it is more socially involved than the Reptile Brain because it responds beyond the seeming “coldness” often exhibited with reptiles and makes us aware of the impact our emotions have upon others. Without the Limbic System, we would not have the capacity to feel empathy and sympathy for others or even ourselves.

The third and most advanced brain complex is known as the Neocortex, or the Cerebral Cortex. In terms of biological evolution it is the most recently developed and accounts for the largest area and mass of the whole brain. It is commonly called the Human Brain because its structure is unique to human beings and makes our higher-order thinking possible. It gives us the capability to produce logic, reason, art, music, science, creativity, language, and all other aspects that lead to advanced civilization. When working properly, the Neocortex acts as the executive control center of the brain and regulates the activities of the other two brain complexes.

The Neocortex itself comprises two equal-sized hemispheres that correspond to different brain activities. The left brain hemisphere is responsible for our capacity to experience analytical thought, verbal and written communication, logic, reason, mathematics, and science. The right hemisphere is responsible for traits such as intuition, empathy, creative expression, art, music, and holistic thought.

A well-balanced person—both man AND woman—should contain a well-rounded mix of ALL of these aspects of consciousness. In the above image, the three symbols hold an incredible amount of meaning when it comes to the nature of consciousness. Going back throughout human history, the upward-pointing triangle is known as the Blade and the downward-pointing triangle is known as the Chalice. The upward-pointing triangle is a rudimentary phallic symbol denoting Masculine energy, while the downward-pointing triangle indicative of the Feminine womb.

These two symbols represent expressions of universal energy, which will be further explained as we go along. The reader will surely notice that within the average human male and female there is a big difference in how we think and process information even though we have the same brain structure. This is because although we have the same brain structure, males and females have different neural networks that are stronger and weaker in different parts of the brain hemispheres. While women tend to have more neural pathways routed to holistic thinking with the right hemisphere, men tend to have more neural pathways that are routed to the left hemisphere for logical and focused thinking.

Even though men and women have different neural pathways, we all have the natural balance of both Masculine and Feminine energies within us. In other words, the person who works in the field of computer science uses their left hemisphere to logically process data, but they still have the capability of using their right hemisphere to see the “Big Picture” of the data and use creativity and compassion to communicate to others.

When these two aspects of consciousness are united in balanced proportion, a third symbol emerges to represent this harmonization. This is through the symbol of the six-pointed star, also known as the Seal of Solomon, Star of David, and the Blazing Star. In order for us to exist in harmony with our natural environment and natural evolution, these two aspects of consciousness need to be working in harmony with one another within our own minds and within humanity as a whole.

The reader will surely notice that in the present world we live in, there are many people who do not exhibit a healthy balance of consciousness through their left-hemisphere and right-hemisphere. This imbalance is not a product of Mother Nature, but rather Mother Culture. In other words, all human beings are born in a pure state with a healthy balance. Depending on our culture, our parental care, our education system, and even the food we eat and chemicals we put into our bodies…all are involved in causing people to be too left-brain dominant or too right-brain dominant.

At a basic understanding, this imbalance derives out of the Neocortex as a whole ceasing to be the executive command center of the brain, and instead, the control falling to either the R-Complex or the Limbic System. When this happens, somebody’s consciousness can be said to be “downgraded.” Seeing how we are human, with a sentience that far exceeds that of the average animal, our Neocortex should be our executive command center. As a general rule: the left-hemisphere has greater connectivity to our R-Complex, while our right-hemisphere has greater connectivity to our Limbic System. These brain imbalances vary in extremity between every person depending on their experiences and their choices.

The first brain imbalance that can occur within a human is left-brain dominance. When somebody exhibits left-brain dominance in their everyday lives, at a basic level what happens is their Neocortex gives up its executive functions and their R-Complex instead takes up the position as the executive command center. Because this type of individual is not fully using their right-hemisphere to process information, their Limbic System in turn ceases to provide an emotional balance between our thoughts and actions. This causes them to operate with a form of beast-like Reptilian Consciousness that desires to control and dominate people around them. A being suffering from this type of brain dysfunction would exhibit behavioral traits such as domination, obsession, greed, hoarding, incessant desire to control, compulsive tendencies, total lack of concern for others, aggression, sadism, and unprovoked violence.

The second type of brain imbalance favors the right-hemisphere. When people become right-brain dominant in their behavior, their ability to utilize their left-brain for logic and reason becomes severely diminished. This results in the Limbic System becoming the executive command center of the brain, which often leads to states of Victim Consciousness where somebody allows their emotions to rule over their lives. Such traits they may exhibit include: nervousness, paranoia, lack of self-worth, submission, guilt, fear, masochism, depression, and even suicidal tendencies.

Drawing from the understanding of what happens with a mental schism within the individual’s thought processes, now we must illustrate what worldviews emerge out of such individuals. When in a state of imbalance, our thought processes formulate certain perceptions that we have of the world. Remember…perceptions are NOT Truth.

When somebody exhibits a left-brain imbalance, their thought processes are entirely based upon strict intellectualism without the balancing factor of intuitive thinking. People who exhibit this dynamic tend to project their behavior into the world based upon a strictly material existence. Shunning away all thoughts concerning deterministic aspects of the Universe, such individuals often champion their own mental prowess without understanding that there is an underlying intelligence within nature that is much bigger than we are capable of fully comprehending. This is what modern “science” has become.

Conversely, when somebody exhibits right-brain imbalance, their overall mentality leads them to cling to their perceptions based upon strict emotional attachment without adding in logical and reasoning processes. In other words, what feels good to them must be true, because anything that makes them uncomfortable must not be good for them and their overall health. People who subscribe to organized religions often fall into this mindset, failing to fully understand the nature of Free Will choices in our lives. This often leads them to remain passive in regards to performing actions to manifest real-world change, seeing how their perception of a Creator lacks the understanding that we are co-creators along with this universal intelligence. This is what modern “religion” has become.

This dialectic has caused a huge divide within humanity: science vs. religion. People who cling to their religious worldviews often shun away any scientific progress in understanding the nature of our reality, while people who cling to purely scientific worldviews shun away any notion of subjective connectivity to universal intelligence in regards to our evolution.

The reality is…true spirituality is the answer. A healthy balance of logic and intuition is what allows us to properly navigate our reality in accordance to Natural Law. Such spiritual understanding comes from engaging in personal experiences rather than simply being told what to think and feel by external authority figures.

To better understand the nature of brain imbalance, there is perhaps no better allegory than the character of Gollum in J.R.R. Tolkien’s books The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. This is in no way meant to belittle any human being who happens to suffer from a brain schism, but rather to bring to light the effects so they can begin the process of healing.

In Tolkien’s works, the character Gollum was once a Hobbit named Sméagol, but after falling into destructive and aggressive tendencies, the trauma he incurred caused a split within his consciousness. This resulted in the formation of two split personalities, Gollum and Sméagol, who would constantly switch back and forth throughout the whole series.

The personality of Gollum was created through trauma. Gollum represents the left-brain dominant mentality that is ultimately controlled by the Reptile Brain rather than the higher-functioning, Neocortex. One need only to look at his language to see the Reptilian behavior: “My precioussssss.” This results in a personality that is ruled by selfishness and base-desires, whose behaviors are dominating and controlling. Seeing how the Reptile Brain is responsible for our survival and fight-or-flight responses, Gollum justifies his behavior as the personality who is responsible for Sméagol surviving throughout the traumatic ordeal. Continuing to feed this personality, Sméagol becomes lonesome, violent, and hateful of all living things, inclding himself. He becomes so bitter that he even shies away from both the sun and the moon, which are reflections of both the Masculine and Feminine aspects of our psyche in union.

The personality of Sméagol is a shell of the “Sméagol” that he once was. Even though this personality aspect calls himself Sméagol, the trauma he incurred was so heavy that this aspect struggled to become whole again. He represents the right-brain dominant mentality that is controlled by the Limbic System rather than the Human Brain (Neocortex). This causes his personality to be ruled by emotions such as self-pity, submissiveness, and naiveté. This aspect is devoid of the basic survival and defensive instincts, and when this personality is dominant he struggles to regain control of his sovereignty and his freedom from abuse.

Gollum/Sméagol is an allegory of what literally happens with human consciousness after traumatic experiences. The word Gollum is derived from the “golem” of Jewish folklore. A golem is an animated character that is created out of clay. Gollum/Sméagol represents the rift between an individual’s own consciousness as well as the rift within humanity’s collective consciousness. There are individuals who have a Dominator Mentality (Gollum) and those who exhibit a Victim Mentality (Sméagol). There are even individuals who constantly fluctuate between both types of mentalities (think: Split-personality Disorder).

This is overall an indicator of what people can be molded into by the activities of society. The society we live in is not healthy and conducive for proper integration of consciousness. Trauma is a serious issue that needs to be understood and properly managed through healing processes. Most people go through traumatic experiences in their lifetime, some more extreme than others. Whether it is the ending of a relationship or job, abuse from parents as a child, suffering PTSD from going off to war, bullying at school, or a downward spiral into clinical depression, trauma has an impact on the human psyche that is readily apparent.

People who suffer trauma, no matter how extreme, need to engage in the process of healing. People who suffer from an imbalance in consciousness need to be given love, compassion, understanding, forgiveness, patience, and all the tools and resources available. But ultimately, it is up to the individual to work on the process of self-healing, which is absolutely possible for everybody.