This article will explore the puzzle of human transformation and, in particular, the possible reasons for the current mass awakening of human consciousness on our planet. As we do this, we will discover that neither science nor spirituality alone is sufficient to provide us with a complete understanding of what we call truth.
At best, science and religion offer us only pieces to the puzzle. To see more we must look to the paradoxes that the pieces present. The process demands that we push beyond what we consider to be the limits of our perception. We must be willing to enter the doorway of consciousness itself.
The Doorway of Perception
William Blake wrote, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” But what are the limits of perception, and how do they prevent us from knowing what it is we know?
When we really consider how we know something to be true or not true, we are bound to confront the limits to our own perception.
The only thing we can truly say we know is that which we are consciously experiencing. For example, at this moment, what we know is that we are consciously experiencing ourselves thinking about the question of how it is we know.
The seventeenth century philosopher René Descartes equated knowing with existing when he declared, “I think, therefore I am.” While Descartes was demonstrating how it is we know we exist, implicit in his statement was something equally profound: How do we know we are conscious beings? I am conscious of my thoughts; therefore, I am a conscious being.
While the significance of knowing something through our awareness of it may seem inconsequential, it strikes at the very nature of what we know as individual consciousness—what mystics have called spirit or soul.
The Puzzle of Individual Consciousness
Scientists are now learning that consciousness is far more fundamental to our existence then anyone previously thought. To illustrate this, consider for a moment that whatever you focus your conscious attention on outside of you, you also, to one degree or another, experience inside of you.
This inner experience is something all of us take for granted, but actually it represents something quite extraordinary: it illuminates the fundamental relationship between the observer and the observed. Let me explain…
Consider what you experience when you attend a sporting event such as a basketball game. As an observer of the game, you focus your conscious attention on what you are observing—the actions of the players. If you concentrate deeply on what you are observing, you are said to be absorbed in the game. This word is closer to the truth than you might realize.
For example, you can feel and experience the thump of the ball against the wooden floor; you can feel and experience the long stretch of the shooter’s arm as he follows through; and you can feel and experience the swish of the net as the ball enters and exits the basket.
The power of your own conscious attention to focus on what appears to be outside of you allows you to feel and experience the playing of the game inside of you—without ever setting foot on the court!
When you focus your conscious attention on a beautiful piece of music, you can feel and experience the music as if it were inside you; sometimes you can become so absorbed in it that it feels as if you have become the music. Has the music also become part of you? And in the previous example, has the basketball player become a part of you?
The power of consciousness to experience the subject of its attention is not limited to things that we enjoy; it can also include the things that disturb you or cause you pain—if you choose to focus on them. For instance, when you focus your conscious attention on someone who is hurting, you can feel the experience of hurt inside you. What you might call compassion or empathy is really your innate ability to experience internally the external reality on which you have placed your conscious attention. Conversely, you tend not to experience realities on which you do not place your conscious attention. The choice is yours.
When you choose to focus your conscious attention on something, you are collapsing the distinction between the observer and the observed. Within your mind, body, and soul, you can experience and feel what you have usually considered separate and distinct from you. In this way, through your own consciousness, what you know as the observer and the observed become, at least temporarily, one and the same. Outrageous, you say? Not to quantum physicists.
According to quantum physicists, there is a profound connection between the observer and the observed. At the quantum level, the observer and the observed—the subject and the object—join as a single and simultaneous happening.
From the book Henry’s Puzzle – Awakening to Infinity (2011) All Rights Reserved.
