(Healingtalks) It appears that pain is the number one health complaint on the planet.

It is the number one Google searched term on the topic of health. Everyone, at one time or another experiences pain. It is important to know what pain is to best deal with pain.  Upon that simple answer of what is pain  hinges how we approach and best treat pain.

Prelude to exploring what is pain, understanding painlessness

Before delving directly into what is pain, let’s explore the nature of painlessness. It has two manifestations.

• The first is a state of complete health and wholeness.

• The second is a state of extreme illness where there is no longer any consciousness of pain.

Consciousness is at the core of life and in states of extreme illnesses, it leaves the body. So a diabetic patient may step onto a nail and feel nothing, no pain. For type-II diabetes, it takes generally 20 years to develop due to poor eating and lifestyle habits, and as an advanced chronic illness. There is a gradual waning of pain. With metastatic cancer, there is a spreading of toxicity and no feeling of pain. With Alzheimer’s disease there is a loss of consciousness and no constant pain.

What is pain?

Again since pain is an in between state of consciousness, it thus

• Does not exist when we are feeling whole
• It is no longer there also in the later stages of being chronically/systemically ill
• Pain arises when we are hurt.

This means it is at first unwelcome. It tells us something is wrong. Pain is the consciousness of a hurt, injury, harmful/toxic invasion, or something that is making us feel and know that we are suddenly unwhole. But it is also a sign of having our life force there to fight for us and to counter that hurt.

Thus what is hurting us is what is unwelcome, and not the pain

This is critically important to know. Pain is not the enemy. It is our part of our life force or consciousness defenses.

It behooves us to first know, in this context, what is this consciousness that produces pain.

What is consciousness?

We at healingtalks have developed an immensely powerful and revolutionary view of what is consciousness. With that we can better understand what is any consciousness of pain – and derivatively how best to treat pain naturally or have a posture toward pain.

With this in mind, it is vital to present our definition of consciousness as the “universal relationship of connection, the principle of connection itself.”

Imagine it to be both the principle of connection in nature cosmically outside of us, and inside – in and for every cell, tissue, muscle, fiber, bone and organ structure or again universally.

How painless consciousness and the consciousness of pain interact

When a rock falls on our toe we suddenly cry out “Outch, Oh my God, it hurts!

Consciousness rushes instantaneously, and again to any point of the body that is injured, cut, or made unwhole. But this is provided we have ample consciousness in our body to experience pain and are not on any painkilling drugs or subject to anesthesia.

Why does pain rush to the site of a hurt?

This is because the role of that consciousness is to reconnect or heal us.

The presence of consciousness is a) the foundation of all healing and b) something to welcome and rejoice about.

Lowered states of consciousness are marked by the absence of awareness, the absence of pain when hurt.

This means the hurt at the root of the pain is what needs to be eliminated, and not the consciousness of pain (the latter being a healing agent).

Acute and chronic pain

There are essentially two types of pain, acute and chronic.

• Acute pain is an intense one that lasts for just a short while until we are healed. A perfect example is a finger cut which hurts intensely for a little while then subsides, and then goes away as the skin reconnects or heals.
• Chronic pain results when something remains unwhole or not healed inside and we have enough vitality and life for there to continue to be pain – to continue to try to heal the condition – but it is insufficient, It persists and nature thus tells us thereby that we need further help or medical attention from a professional who knows how to help us heal.

Acute pain, in rare occasions may require a drug to suppress it. It may be so intense as to trigger a heart attack, for example. Or we might have some other emergency to attend to, and need to temporarily suppress the pain because something more important than a minor cut needs attending to.

NEVER suppress the consciousness of chronic pain

Yes we want to get rid of pains and there causes, but not the consciousness of pain, the healing agent. The consciousness of chronic pain should thus NEVER be suppressed with toxic drugs. That is the absolute worst thing we can do in a long-term health situation or chronic disease. This kills the healing messenger, to suppress the consciousness of pain – and further toxify what has already been a toxic and chronically ill body.  Doctors generally are not taught this philosophy. This is because, to be blunt, they are trained to become pharmaceutical salespersons and adherants to a mechanical/dead and not consciousness-centered view of our bodies. They are trained to believe in the mechanical/math-based vision of nature, opposite to the consciousness-based vision we are sharing.

Making such a mind shift, and swimming against the conventional tide creates a challenge for the chronic pain sufferer.

He or she has to deal with pain and the courage to do something other than what the doctor might recommend.

New skills need to be learned to not suppress the pain  but rather embrace, welcome, enhance and increase the healing messenger’s gifts, to actually pray and gather the inner forces to increase not the pain (the awareness of which may be dwindling over time) but the consciousness of pain. Boy is that a mind shift! In latter states of illness that consciousness has died and needs to be brought back to life,

Instructive example

Last year I had an ugly red, inflammable and slightly painful pimple on the side of my cheek. It  was about an inch wide in its circular diameter. Two doctors pleaded with me to have it cut out, and I said no way. The growth was nature’s welcoming message that I had some toxicity in my body it was trying to get rid of. Instead of killing the messenger, going against nature, and leaving me in a chronically ill state….instead I went on a three week detox. Thereupon the growth went away as soon as I was clean inside. Had I gone the allopathic route and cut it out, it would have probably left a life-long scar as a reminder of my having gone against nature! Worse, if I had had an autopsy that showed it was cancerous and then had chemo or radiation, I would have further polluted why body to deepen my chronic toxicity and illness – evermore then untended to!

The same as above applies to any encounter with pain. At first and immediate or superficial sight it appears “unwelcome.” But on deeper reflection pain is a most welcome messenger of healing.

What triggers the experience of pain?

Pain happens when a body part is:

• Squashed by a rock
• Cut by a knife
• Burnt by fire.
• Some chemical toxin enters our body
• Toxic forces are brought into our body by microbes
• a resulting inflammation, fever

In all these situations, something make us feel unwhole.Consciousness then rushes to the scene as the healer, which is how we experience pain.

Why avoid using drugs 

Chronic pain is a sign that we need a major lifestyle change to become healthy again. The illness is deep and not bending to the healing force of re-connective consciousness that re-turns us to health. We have grown short of vitality, of life force. The cure thus is not drugs but finding how to get that life forced enhanced.

If we have a new leaf growing on a plant, notice how shinny it is. If we have a newborn child, notice how a similar shine radiates in their eyes along with a bouncing vitality. As we age, we may lose gradually a little of that vitality, that life, that light, and that consciousness. The skill to know how to retain as much as possible of that life force is critically important. The use of drugs does not accomplish this. Drugs work suppress symptoms, which is of value only in emergencies (the surface of time). On a deeper level and with prolonged use they harm life. Why? Drugs are math-designed. Mathematics abstracts universal separation. At the core of life is consciousness, universal connection. The two oppose each other. This is why drugs can so readily become the messengers of both approaching death and unconsciousness. We see this with nursing home patients given multiple drugs and who walk the halls like zombies.

This is why it is vitally important to avoid drugs whenever you are in chronic pain.  Do not kill the healing messenger.

The truth about Big Pharma and Big Chem

These economic groups have created an industry, including via the funding of modern medical education, that is based on a false ideology of nature. We do not get “better living through chemistry. We get a failed understanding of what keeps us and all of living nature connected together as well as what heals living organisms.

Compost heap test

Drug companies spend billions for lab studies to try to convince us, with the stamp of government approval, that some isolated symptom, isolated or separated out in a lab experiment is improved using a patented drugs.

But the scientifically objective way (the non-fooling) to test chemical drugs is to test their impact as a whole. And what better place to do that than in a compost heap where all plants decay to form the building materials of all other plants, in an unbroken circle of Unity. It is where the Oneness of nature is displayed. But drugs can be shown to break, not enhance that order of unity. This why when we take any random and large mix of drugs, to test the chemical/mathematical order as such, and thrown these chemicals into a compost heap, what happens?

We find it kills all of life and therefore makes the heap into a super-toxic dump.

The same happens through out nature as we pollute and threaten life as well as inside our bodies when we apply this very false philosophy to a falsely grounded system of medical care. These same drugs are used as pain killers to kill the consciousness inside of us.

On multiple levels the chemical approach…. fails abysmally

On multiple levels, taking pharmaceutical drugs will lead us ever more downhill states until indeed we feel no more pain and are dead. It kills not only the messenger, but the message of a hurt that needs attending – and what nature gives us to heal with.

Because that system of medicine fails, we have unchecked chronic health epidemics. Our medical care system is little more than a disease care system in shambles. It misleads people who have lost the light inside to lose it even further, to go downhill until they reach full painlessness and death.

Ten major sites of pain

The major sites of pain in our body tend to be:

• leg and foot pain
• shoulder pain
• neck pain
• knee pain
• back pain
• abdominal pain
• hip pain
• side pain
• joint pain
• arm and hand pain

But actually pain can occur in any and all parts of our body – in any cell, tissue, muscle, fiber, bone, or organ system.  We also have headaches, eye pain, ear pain, and the like. This is because pain is a state of consciousness, and consciousness is the universal relationship of connection inside of us.

Acute pain treatment

Acute pains are fairly easy to treat. At the skin level, if you have a cut, you put a bandage on. If you have a fiery pain or stinging pain, you can put on a soothing and cooling natural balm.

With acute emotional pain, you need to calm down and find a quick solution – a loving, sharing resolution for what emotionally irks one.

One can, likewise have acute mental pain or a headache and the answer is to solve the problem that plagues the mind.

As one can see, acute pain bridges mind, body and spirit – being a state of consciousness.

Chronic pain treatment

The chronic pain exists as an intermediate state. There is vitality and consciousness present otherwise one would feel no pain. But the degree of consciousness is not enough to overcome the ill state. So the solution is to ramp up the vital healing forces in the body. One then needs to make lifestyle changes, deeper changes – and not just popping a pill for immediate relief. Among the advice we give is:

• Steer away from what allopatic medicine. Thus avoid chemical drugs (synthetic or math-designed, except in emergencies), surgery (cutting the body apart, again except in emergencies), and radiation (based on a decay, falling apart, not healing process).
• Steer towards the four pillars of natural healing.

Meditations

No one wants to welcome any new pain, which is the sign of a hurt until we learn to distinguish the source of the hurt and the pain. The consciousness of pain, itself, is a sign of healing. We welcome with love, joy and further consciousness that pain.

Consider saying  “thank you God that I feel pain, that I have the life force to be conscious of this pain.”

It may seem stranger yet to say “Let me feel it and be present to this pain yet more intensely.”

But this counter-cultural, counter allopathic approach. It is again one of embracing and loving rather than killing and destroying the pain that is the messenger of healing and the teacher o what needs to be done.

Actually this approach works miracles. The opposite approach of suppressing the messenger leave one chronically ill with the root cause of the hurt unattended to.

Four pillars of naturopathy

Instead we turn to the following four pillars of natural healing:

• Nutrition – getting the best vital forces into our body
• Detoxification – getting the worst, most toxic forces out of our body, including traces of pharmaceutical drugs
• Exercise/Circulation – enhancing the movement of both the above processes
• Mind/Body – keeping the mind on the path to follow the above three natural approaches, and using meditation or intentionally altered states of consciousness as an added means to directly raise consciousness and heal

I – Nutrition

Here the ideal diet is plant-based because plants carry the strongest life force and one that is at least 80% composed of living, uncooked, raw, fresh, whole organic foods. See our many postings on this diet. In addition it is important to add fresh juices to the diet, freshly made and drunk within 20 minutes of making because otherwise they oxidize and lose their vitality.

• Green juices

Juices are the most powerful medium to transfer life-force and consciousness back into the body to overcome and overwhelm pain. Among juices, the green juices have an advantage or edge.

Furthermore among green juices, grasses produce the most powerful of all forms of healing. They oxidize our bloodstream – and oxygen is the connective bridge between the chemical and the life and consciousness-based vision of nature. We thus need that oxygen (if you want to refer to the chemical model) or we need consciousness (if you refer to the alternative model) and it is one and the same to heal.

• Green is the middle color of the rainbow

The seven colors of the rainbow are actually formed out of three primary colors in radiant life – the red at one end of the rainboew, green in the middle, and violet-blue at the other end. When these three colors are pointed together as one, and only these three, they make white or color-separationless-light. Green pulls together the extreme opposites. Green is the ultimate healing color.

• Using grasses and green baby shoots

Being the simplest of plants, green grasses are the most connected within, the most “consciousness-carrying” or health-delivering. The use of wheatgrass to heal was pioneered by Ann Wigmore and the Hippocrates Health Institute. They also use green baby shoots, such as pea sprouts and sunflower sprouts, juicing them and adding them to a base of cucumber and/or celery juice. This is given to their guests twice a day, along with 2 ounce shots of wheatgrass twice a day. The Gerson Institute similarly uses green juices and throughout the day to heal what otherwise might seem incurable diseases. These institutions, and their offshoots, have treated millions of people from around the world to reverse chronic ills and befuddle and startle allopathic or conventional practitioners.

They represent a paradigm shift toward natural healing.

II – Detoxification

There are many great ways to detoxify. Among them we can use skin brushing, juice fasting, water fasting (under supervision), enemas, colonics, intravenous chelation, oral chelation, mineral-bath bathing and saunas. They all have the same effect of helping to remove what is most toxic, what is most life depleting and helping to take such elements out of the body. This happens to include traces of pharmaceuticals, especially chemotherapy.

III – Exercise and enhanced circulation

There are many ways to aide both improved nutrition and detoxification and by combining these two with a regular program of weekly exercise and/or circulation enhancement. The latter can include massages, other forms of body work and the use of whirlpool baths. Strength exercises help to not only improve bone density but to help the body open up channels of consciousness. Aerobic exercises strengthen the heart to oxidize or raise the consciousness of every cell in the body. Gentle exercises such as tai chi and qui gong work to direct consciousness in the moving process and as a means to heal.

IV – Mind body work

This is necessary in the final and crowning effort to heal. Mind/body work comes both first and last, and everywhere in between.

Related articles

• Four Master Keys to Natural Healing
• A New Consciousness-Centered Vision of Nature
• What is Consciousness in Nature
• Almost Half of Americans Take At Least One Prescription Drug
• Keeping a Healthy Circulation
• Holistic Healing Targets Mind Body and Soul
• Daily Nutrition Guidelines
  

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Resources

Heal Pain Naturally – by Jenny Manion

Keywords

What is consciousness, pain management, pain symptoms, nerve pain, painful, treating pain

What really

is consciousness

When I tell people I really know the transpersonal nature of consciousness, one reaction I can anticipate, especially from philosophers and scientists, is skepticism. And there is nothing wrong with having such healthy skepticism. One should generally never believe what we can’t see or verify.

Still I make this claim about something that has escaped some of the greatest minds of all times. So what makes me so self-assured that I truly and really know the solution to this most ultimate and difficult of all puzzles?

There are a couple major reasons.

One of these is that my model actually works in practice and helps explain some inscrutibl phenomenon. For example, why does money so powerfully corrupt consciousness. We cannot know the answer to that important question without first knowing what consciousness is. Similarly, we can’t help reverse consciousness diseases without intimately knowing the nature of consciousness. A second reason is how I came to this understanding, as explained below.

Now having a hypothesis about the nature consciousness that really works in practice and also helps explain things that otherwise can’t be explained….all of this is not minor event.

It ladens me personally with a responsibility to explain or to share this message no matter how difficult that task may be.

For this understanding has radical, revolutionary and powerful implications and thus applications.

How I came  to an intimate first sense of what consciousness is

But the simple fact is that I was the beneficiary of some unique circumstances and experiences.

In my youth I was a math prodigy who, like Jill Bolte Taylor, had a left-brain shut.

This changed my life as it had changed her life indelibly. But my take on that traumatic experience was very different. Just as I had once mastered certain math skills to a high degree and quickly, I now was drawn to an accelerated mastering or gaining the commanding knowledge of something very special – the transcendent, transpersonal nature of our right/left brain divide and derivatively of the interconnecting nature of consciousness itself.

What I discovered is invaluable knowledge.

It also and absolutely cannot be understood immediately.

It took me decades to pinpoint and find just the right words to express that nature, working on an accelerated schedule.

The reach of this knowledge of consciousness

When the mathematical philosophy of Sir Isaac Newton was first introduced in the 17th century, his Principia naturalis mathematica,  no one really knew where this whole Newtonian/Cartesian/Galilean cosmic vision would ultimately lead us to know or master. There was just an exciting sense that nature’s truest truths had been tapped into and that would push forward the evolution of all of human life.

Yes and of course they knew it could give us a commanding knowledge of mechanical motion, but otherwise little else concrete.

It took at least 400 years for all of us nowadays to experience more of the fullness and depth and breadth of their vision’s implications and applications. This includes the rise of the modern Industrial Revolution and its supporting commercial society. It includes all the inventions that have come about thereby – manufacturing equipment, cars, trains, jet planes, TVs, radios, computers, cell phones, a host of chemicals, genetic engineering, atomic weapons and so on.

Similarly knowing what consciousness is, and the vast implications and applications of that knowledge, cannot quickly be fathomed. It takes time to apply a universal vision universally, but this makes the task all of the more exciting.

Secondly this knowledge materializes in an essentially different domain (different than that of building ever better machines or mechanical moving things) – which also opens the door to surprise us.

If I tell you, the reader, now immediately “what is consciousness,” and in a single sentence, the knowledge then may appear cheapened.

“Oh that is what you think it is.  Sure..hmm”

Then it goes potentially, so to speak, in one ear and out the other. It takes an open mind – consciously and subconsciously open, to grasp a vast idea with revolutionary implications and expectations.

What I can answer to this smirking reaction is…. “No, it is not really and truly what I  think it is at all, but rather….”

So let me explain this further.

Consciousness “in the raw”

When I had a left-brain shutdown, I didn’t just think verbally or in words about “what is consciousness.” In fact, I couldn’t.

For a while I was distinctly aphasic, unable to even speak in any whole sentences.

But I continued to experience consciousness without words or “in the raw”  (why I later called this the pathway of raw-wisdom).

Consciousness translation

The right brain “silently speaks” actually very different language than that of the left.

In fact the connective syntax or grammar of each  language has an opposite nature. It thus became a huge task, as a translator, to find a language that would best tell the verbal brain what the non-verbal one “thinks” or experiences.

I had to create a Rosetta Stone to bridge the gap, and rather than the reverse. What I mean by “rather than the reverse” is as follows. The right brain can explain its language to the left, providing a right-over-left dominant view. This is rather than the left-brain, which tends to be normally dominant, to aggressive, telling the quiet shy right brain how to bridge the gap and see reality.

To compound the problem, we really have these two fundamental kinds of consciousness. There are these two opposite forms of consciousness (with a common ground) which, when separately tuned into, really create a right/left brain split.

Is then consciousness brain-centered or derived?

One of those two fundamental forms of consciousness requires our left-brain to function and to project consciousness outward from itself. This can give the powerful appearance that consciousness originates from the brain.

Seen from a left-brain point of view, there is some truth to that appearance.

But ultimately consciousness has a more transcendent and trans-personal and trans-human foundation. This is innately difficult to see because we are bound in our human consciousness, and proud of and in love with our rare human brain skills. We can, with our brains, make a million and one language distinctions while cats can only meow or hiss and dogs growl and wine. So with our brains we have an edge. And what gives us that edge makes it appear that our consciousness comes from our brain. Yet it really isn’t so.

With that said, I have to ultimately conclude this introduction and then “spill the beans” or tell the reader finally what is my understanding of consciousness. This is at the risk of saying this prematurely, whereby it is minimally understood or misunderstood.  But ultimately I have to unveil my definition of “what is consciousness” and open myself to challenges.

This view embraces, by the way, no mysticism or religious view to explain consciousness based on a belief system.

What I discovered rather by observation, as if from outside, is that….

Consciousness is simply the universal relationship of connection in nature.

Said in a simpler way, consciousness is nature’s principle of connection itself.

The average person can read this explanation and thereby know what this string of words is saying conceptually. We can understand it with our left-brain.

Or we can alternatively look at some Asiatic paintings/mandala of meditative postures and which show a yogic radiation of consciousness in every direction. We can intuitively have a visual, pre-verbal or right brain sense.

But for a still more whole-brain and depth understanding, what do we need to know? That really comes about with a more depth application to one’s life, and thus knowing the links from the one-to-the-many,  or the far-reaching, cosmic, cultural and personal  implications of a revolutionary re-understanding of our whole world.

If accepted, processed and applied universally, these implications are more than powerful than anything we can imagine.

This refers to vision reconstruction of all of consciousness in every direction.

All civilizations somehow intuitively strive to have an integrally integrated or healthy and whole core view of nature. It is what binds everything together without flaws or contradictions- and such views tend to be dominantly monopolistic. You really cannot have two competing views that tie everything together as One.

We are rather left with an unreconciled duality.

Visually you cannot have two centers of a flower unifying all of its pedals together as one.

This is why the early 17th century attempted at a marriage or coalition government between science and the Church that soon fell apart as it had to.

Initially the former studied the outer world. The latter ruled the inner.

But within a hundred years the science of psychology developed to really evolve one central paradigm view of the whole to dominate. As a result, the spiritual power of the Church further declined. Architecturally and symbolically, modern municipal and later commercial structures soon dwarfed medieval church steeples – which previously were the highest architectural structures built at the center of cities and pointing to God.

Thus a new core vision, if it really universally reintegrates all of consciousness, must also supplant and surpass the dominance of any prior or existing view of a similar sort! It cannot be otherwise

In this case, if our vision of consciousness is true to itself, it must then supplant the taproot inner foundation for western civilization as introduced in the 17th century – the vision that supplanted the medieval.

This would trigger a second major global mind change.

The original global mind change of the 17th century catapulted us straight out of the medieval world (with its aim for humanity to come ever closer to the will of God)  and into the new modern world (with the aim of  ever more commercial, industrial and technological progress).

Again another replacement core vision changes the latter.

It offers not just a re-understanding of our cosmos and its quintessence, but derivatively of the essential aim of life, our own and that of all others coming together to form a civilization.

It changes the vision of what life really is all about.

Nathan Batalion CTN

Higher Consciousness

Enlightened Consciousness
When we study spiritual arts, or begin studying meditation, we may tend to look up to our teaching yogis who’ve spent a lifetime engaged in such meditation and other spiritual arts. We naturally assume they have reached a “higher state of consciousness or awakened consciousness or whatever transcendental level – along with maybe bliss or perhaps a state of nirvana.  We want to emulate them to awaken our own consciousness. Christ had to have had Christ consciousness, right? But let’s face it, do we really know what “higher consciousness” refers to or what truly entails a rising path to enlightenment? Perhaps with enlightened consciousness there is a glow or sense of inner peace . There may be some confidence because assured higher conscious steps have been taken.  But is any of this a sure sign of enlightenment consciousness? Maybe the yogi or saint appears as a “together person,” not out-of-control, not agitated or stressed. We also may note their surrounding environment is orderly, and as a reflection of the “togetherness” within. But beyond that or demythologized,  is there actually such an animal as purely higher consciousness or higher states of conscious awareness?

In answering that question, let us assume our answer depends, in part, on how we see and define what consciousness is. What are we really pointing to with such words?

A Guiding Definition of  “Consciousness”
In this blog, we tend to define principle of consciousness as the principle of connection itself in nature. If we apply that unique definition consistently, there may not be such a thing as a purely “higher” state of consciousness. This is because that principle of connection refers to something far too universal – such as connecting to whatever is higher and lower. So a guide to consciousness has to involve a practically guiding definition of consciousness and to transcend consciousness in the ordinary modes.

Another Meaning of “Higher”
There is still another keen way of looking at the term “higher” in relation to consciousness.  It can mean the experience of what is higher consciousness or what are higher conscious states in a way akin to being on top of a mountain and seeing from a “zenith”  panoramic perspective. To see an entire landscape as one is a way of making vision connectively whole. Or this means one has a more connective/conscious posture to literally everything in daily life experience – namely towards consciousness itself, one’s mind, emotions, body movements, social environment and nature as a whole.

Monastic View of Higher Consciousness
If we then separate ourselves from the world in a monastic lifestyle and go deeper and deeper into a mucho-relaxed, mega-alpha wave state, we arrive then at a different view of presumably higher consciousness or some high consciousness states.  To awaken that kind of consciousness, we need not be involved in the world at large. Creating a deeply relaxed and at peace state allows us to become  more connected and whole within – whether or not one can use that state or its insights outwardly to help others heal with compassion. Thus a heightened inner connectedness that is monastic, via life in a cloistered monastery, steps away from worldly concerns or involves emptying the mind as a whole. This is not the same as a lifestyle that dares otherwise. I’ve traveled to Israel and have seen where the Essenes lived in desert caves removed from the rest. Other such traditions support  living in seclusion via different means.

Divergent Terms for Awake and Conscious
As a result, we have divergent terms for what it is to achieve a higher level of consciousness or awake states such as spiritual consciousness, awakened state, sudden enlightenment, cosmic consciousness, transcendental consciousness, alpha wave mind state, buddha consciousness, christ consciousness,  brahman consciousness, shiva consciousness, yogic trance consciousness or samadhi, and the state of bliss and nirvana , spiritual consciousness and so on. Maybe the laughing Buddha, God bless him, has reach a state of comic consciousness. Higher consciousness, treated lightly or seriously, may often be something quite different in various cultures.

The positive is that there is no one guide to higher consciousness. One can choose to pursue different spiritual consciousness paths, or living in the world while not being of it. You choose the level of consciousness to be on, and perhaps some run in parallel loops rather than ever higher spirals of transcendent conscious awareness.

Definition of Consciousness

We can diligently and carefully search the web to find many of what l call “standard definitions of consciousness.”  Here are a few examples of such definitions of consciousness, with critiques.

SOME  STANDARD DEFINITIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

An cognitive state
This makes the assumption that consciousness is tied to cognitive functions and thus much of what plants and animals experience would be considered unconscious.

A feature or force of life
Some Vedanta traditions see consciousness this way. Certainly some form of consciousness is a universal feature of life, but what does that really tells us? If bubble gum sticks to a wall, does that define the stuck-to wall?

The state of being aware
This is a very redundant definition. Awareness can be called consciousness and consciousness can be called awareness. It doesn’t really tell us very much. It offers no deep insight into what is the nature of consciousness.

Alert perceptions
To be alert is to be in a state of feisty awareness, which again doesn’t tell us very much.

Awake and self-aware
A living organism can be sentient, or present to its surrounding, and grounded in a time and space framework/reference without necessarily being self-aware. Does self-awareness really define the full spectrum of what is consciousness or in its absence, unconsciousness?

Higher order awareness
This is tied to a mix of cognition, self-awareness, and being awake or in advanced levels of consciousness – including having greater inner peace and heightened, clear and brilliant perceptions. But what give us the hubris or vain authority to be so selective in this  elite view of consciousness?

By-product of neuron firing
This reduces consciousness to various physical mechanisms. This implies certain organisms which do not have such neurons then do not have consciousness. Nevertheless they are sentient and aware, unlike rocks.

HOW TO GO  BEYOND THIS STANDARD LIST
We could go on with this standard list and related critiques. Keep in mind that with a valid definition we must ask:

a) Does it give us an objective, trans-personal, outside-ourselves point of view of consciousness itself?

b) Does the definition of consciousness have practical, proving and valuable applications?

None of the above seem to meet these tests for me.

MOVING TO AN ALTERNATIVE
Thus I’ve evolved an alternative definition of consciousness. This came to me after an inner experience as a teenager when, subsequent to a high fever, my left-brain shut down and I was thrown, outside of my mind, into a wordless and oceanic, connected and whole experience of consciousness. What I learned from that experience is the following definition of consciousness. It is one that yields revolutionary implications and also vast practical applications – mainly for the healing ourselves (as when we fall prey to consciousness illnesses such as Alzheimer’s, cancer, and diabetes) and the healing our planet. Such applications are  really the acid test of definition, understanding or theory of consciousness.

Alternative Definition
The alternative as well as extended definition is as follows:

Consciousness forms a potentially universal relationship of connection in nature.

This includes our own human nature and the nature of the world around us. Imagine consciousness underlies the thin surface appearance, the illusion of a world  fundamentally composed  of hard, separate, mechanically-acting, math-defined physical forms or “matter.”

Imagine thus that the underlying oceanic consciousness is at the real depth core of nature, of everything existing in the cosmos. We really never experience anything outside our consciousness so anyone who tells you this is far-fetched are themselves out of touch with their own inner consciousness. They are locked into the surface appearance. In my experience,  consciousness really forms nature’s ultimate and primordial essence and quintessence. Because “laws” are what “connect” events (as in the laws of cause and effect or the laws of action and reaction – including billiard balls bouncing off each other) then consciousness so defined as above suddenly underlies the taproot foundation of all connections in nature an thus of nature’s laws. This means that consciousness forms the authentic and abiding “principia” of nature, contrary to Newtons core thesis in his Principia Naturalis Mathematica or his “laws of nature as mathematical.”  Math symbols do expertly abstract separation and therefore cannot truly point to what connects nature in its essence – namely consciousness. Newton very abysmally and foolishly lost sight of this simple common sense. He was self-engrossed, bedazzled by his own newly invented calculus.  This critique of Newton’s vision may seem harsh, but I must beg to differ. We do need to revisit his old, stale, moldy premises, the ideology of his that took root to form our modern world. It is a vision that is now failing to work and falling apart. We do need, quite urgently, to make some vast and revolutionary inner shifts in our visions. Then we can uncover or bring out more fully out (as when we water seeds), nurture and discover the underlying laws of consciousness, life, and connection – rather than of the mechanical, death-delivering, math-defined, separative patterns that now almost totally predominate our prevailing industrial/commercial/material worldview. We need to re-structure our collective consciousness from the ground up or from its 17th century crumbling foundations. Why? Because those foundation stones has mislead a building process of the Industrial Revolution. That metaphysics has yielded a failing medical system, helpless in the face of pandemics, and focused on surface symptoms plus  misdirecting us towards a disintegrating, dying parade of living ecologies. These are not minor problems or crises. We need to thus face the root inner cause of global pollution, global warming and a more massive destruction of life and consciousness on our earth than ever before, and which is proceeding at ever faster and faster paces.

Going Past Current Definitions
Lame definitions of consciousness will not help us on this score or to extricate us from the larger, self-created problems of our modern world. They fall short in giving us the simple needed insight to  turn around our major looming planetary trends, derivative of an extraordinarily and extended loss of wisdom.

For more information on such a philosophy and definition of consciousness – and its implications  – visit http://www.raw-wisdom.com

WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS DEMONSTRATED

MORE THAN JUST A THEORY
A theory of “what is consciousness” generally consists of an outline image in our minds that supposedly points to something  real in the world on this subject matter. All our words and symbols are just inner pointing tools to something. Theories are organized ways of orienting or pointing our awareness to things in our world and in relationship to each other. Thus to demonstrate that a particular theory or set of ideas actually points to something systematic, real, valuable and predictable becomes an event.

THE HARDER PROBLEM
Consciousness, however, represents potentially such a vast-touching -upon-all-the-world phenomena that its exploration can take a trillion different confusing directions. Everything we know is something we know in our consciousness.  And sophisticated and intricate theories may only point to some relatively narrow or ivory tower vistas of a part of that whole. These can result in a variety of entanglements of mind which miss the whole point of seeing “what is consciousness” in its full essence. Or one can easily fail to fathom a truly inner-mountain-peak vantage point of this unified and vastest of arenas for knowing.  Adeptly using high abstractions (universal concepts) in a philosophy of consciousness and states of consciousness may thus give but the deceptive appearance of having latched onto this transcendent highest view with some mastery. This is the harder problem in dealing with “consciousness.” However this is easier to be said than attained. An acid test is whether that proposed theory or definition of consciousness can actually help anyone enhance their consciousness or resist the slippages into consciousness diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Otherwise the theory is  just so much  disingenuous jibber-jabber.

TACKLING CONSCIOUSNESS
One highly effective way to get past this “harder problem” is having again an authentically high overview and not a personal or cultural, conceptually-biased orientation. this means looking from above the pointing paths of all concepts because touches everything. This is as if one must look at consciousness from above the entire left/right brain divide which is a superhuman feat.  The left-brain conceptualizes. It forms outline images as pointing tools or the world of ideas as Plato referred to this.  It uses these ideas to separate elements of consciousness and thereby to focus one’s attention. The right brain does the opposite. It helps us unpoint and unfocus. It looks at things as a whole or connectively and non-conceptually or intuitively. Sometimes what is called “right-brain” ends up dominantly functioning in the left-hemisphere of the brain and visa versa because these are two forms of consciousness that are tuning into dominantly by one side or the other, rather than physically bound. One verbalizes and philosophizes with concepts and the other cannot and has no inclination or need.  Here I consider myself to have an advantage in overviewing this study of a trans-split-brain view. This is simply because first I was trained in dominant left-brain skills as a philosopher and math prodigy and experienced the exact opposite, a radical left-brain meltdown causing a brain polarity shift to right-brain or connective consciousness dominance. This was similar to what happened to Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard brain scientists who had a stroke that also shut her left-brain down.  It allowed her, and myself similarly, to  visit the internal highways in unusual ways – and from what I consider again a seeing from a higher vantage point. This didn’t mean that when I later returned to using  familiar words and comfortable sentences – speaking English or German or Chinese or Hebrew – that then I discounted the importance of words. I did not abandon the dominantly verbal/mathematical approaches of the west in favor of a solely non-verbal, intuitive, vague or right-brain dominant mysticism – as with indigenous shamans . On the contrary, I sensed the huge and profound need to bridge these two worlds. It seemed now that I had a gift, and could do so with an impersonal, conscious and intentional approach.

BREAKING GROUND FOR A DEFINITION
Ultimately I came to some unique conclusions about truly what consciousness is, and resulting in  the following definition and theory which I consider of priceless value for the development of a higher consciousness and a conscious mind.  When one enters the raw world of consciousness there is no such thing as a “theory.”  Theories only exist when right and left brain consciousness is severed. When I try thus to state this in so many words – but not really needing those words -  it may make little or no ripples with others at first if my language of expression is not translated.  It is like writing a physics formula on a blackboard and about how to create an atom bomb  – and without first explaining how to apply the formula. The formulas appear meaningless and insignificant – just white marks on a dark blackboard – except to a person who knows the vast implications and pointing paths of those symbols. The responsibility then remains to demonstrate the value of what is created by those symbols (and here for the making of not bombs but  integral healing of life and consciousness within ourselves and throughout nature).

WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS?
With this said, let me now offer a definition of consciousness that shakes the foundations of the western worldview – the matter/energy math-defined vision. Imagine that  consciousness forms a potentially universal relationship of connection in all of nature.

Just as chocolate makes up the permeating “essence” of a chocolate bar,  it is another discussion to show that this consciousness also and thereby forms the penetrating, defining and universal essence of nature  (and not mathematical relationships or the  postulated microscopic atomic/subatomic model as what should be centrally focused upon). This means that at the core of nature there is a dance of consciousness and unconsciousness, of connection and separation, rather than a dance of matter and energy defined mathematically. This one idea, theory or definition thus has the potential to change the whole of our vision of nature.   Or when adopted, it can change the heart and soul of the collective view of what is nature and the functioning of our cosmos.

A third discussion is how this same consciousness can permeate nature to higher and lower degrees. The greater permeation or concentration manifests in  life. This means that living organisms, rather than machines brought into being by math-designs, thereby represent nature’s core essence to be elicited or brought out to dominate natural terrains – rather than machines and what is mechanical.

Some philosophers may not at all be open to this kind of thinking about consciousness.

In their minds, they may think it is far more rational and flattering to view the essence of consciousness as tied to higher-order skills in human beings – include self-cognizance  triggered by human brain neurons.  Everyone can define consciousness as they choose, with resulting limited foci. The defining words I use point to a larger and highly revolutionary vision. Here consciousness is not seen as something small, special and proprietary to  human brain cells but as arising out of a universal cosmic terrain from the core of all of nature.  This may shatter the view of the Renaissance, namely of humans being so special.

This view also came to me via a dissolving of the functions of my left-brain conceptual faculty – leaving behind attachments to such flattering conceptualizations.

The foregoing definition still can for a long time remain meaningless until examples are given of how it applies. The applications are powerful.

Note that we really want to know 1) what best brings out consciousness or maintains, nurtures, supports and raises that consciousness and 2) what does the opposite or takes away, destroys, corrupts or lowers consciousness, and how and with what procedures we follow this divide.

AT THE FOUNDATION OF LIFE
Above we referred to a close link between consciousness and life.  Here we refer to, among other things, the sentience and awareness of all living creatures, not just higher order brain skills. It is this awareness that manifests with life and among millions of species as a common denominator. Let us therefore think for a moment of life as the concentrated expression and presence of consciousness. This means living organisms are expressive containers for what brings out the connective essence of nature (consciousness) and rather than machines (per the math-based vision of nature) reflecting nature’s essential laws. So what is the first sign of this special presence of consciousness coming out of the core of nature? Life per se.

Organic life brings forth also certain distinct common features. In fact when an organism remains alive will it retain its connected wholeness. It will display on the surface or as seen in a silvered mirror what I would  call the “badges of organicity.” These are  thin outer signs of  the more important full depth-inner presence of depth-connectedness.

These outer signs include the solar radiance of a flower’s pedals, the rings of a tree, the organic-in-form branching veins of a leaf, the swirls of sea shell, and so on. Again organic forms show off  these beautifully attractive badges when they are reflective of a more deeply present connected whole via living consciousness.

Consider the possibility that consciousness again lies at the foundation of that depth-connectedness which keeps all living forms alive.  Therefore when an organic life dies, it then predictably loses both  the outer organic badge, the whole appearance on the surface,  and its more important inner-depth consciousness or fuller connectedness with. Trigger this undoing of life with a bullet or surgical knife or sword -  cut a living organism progressively into parts – and again it dies. There are exceptions, as the hard form of shells displays the organic badge longer until time it’s elements dissolves into its surroundings.  Ultimately the body’s flesh separates into parts or “falls apart.” It turns to dust in earthen graves. The inner consciousness once connected it more deeply within, and to the world around it as well. Now it is no longer present. This is but a first step in demonstrating  how this theory, definition and understanding  functions in nature. Next we need to visit what are tell-tale signs of any rising, eliciting and support of the presence of  consciousness – and derivatively life?

MORE EXAMPLES OF HOW AND WHY
Here are a few more genres of examples. We can discuss the details in future blog post.

A) Water elicits life and consciousness
Water’s essence in the mechanical/math-based/atomic worldview is H2O. In a life-centered worldview it establishes the connective relationship to elicits life and consciousness from every seed – and detoxifies, purifies, and helps re-establish life and raise consciousness in ourselves. There are several ways of demonstrating how water so function, and in this context why it brings out the rainbow, forms bubbles, rounds the sharp/oppositional corners of rocks, puts out fire, and so on.

B) Fire destroys life and consciousness
This is works on the same principle in reverse. This is why various states of inflammation are acute harbinger of later chronic illnesses,  when inflammation is not healed. The effect is a lowered state of inner health, wholeness, connectedness and overall awareness. When a person is angry, or their emotions are inflamed, the This is why largely uncooked,

C) Love elicits life and consciousness; hate and fear the  opposite
Love establishes an emotional connective relationship. Hate and fear do the opposite. This is why an angry person is not well aware of their surroundings, another persons feelings, etc. Anger and fear inflame emotions and bring on fiery adrenalin . Love guides us to connective oneness with what is loved. Hate and fear brake us away from that connective oneness in our consciousness.

D) Money corrupts consciousness.
Money mathematizes awareness. The lusting for money makes a marriage with the mechanical worldview.  This lowers consciousness, brings us into deeper states of illusion and corruptions of consciousness – where illusion is the falling apart of the integrity of the essence consciousness, its awareness of connective oneness. A money-centered society thus traps others in countless deceptions. It  puts everyone in competitive opposition to each other. It elicits fiery friction and feeds on fears and addictions to move an economy “forward.” It does not integrally evolve our human consciousness, the essence of our being, and the key to our evolution.

E) Chemicals harm Life; pollute the environment; upset the ecology of the whole planet, cause species to die
Take a random and large mix of chemicals, to test not individual separate chemicals but the underlying math-based order, and the mix will kill and destroy all of life and consciousness in the compost heap. The compost heap is symbolic. It is were a large and random mix, in fact all plant life forms can decay to form the building materials of all other plant life forms in an endless and integral circle of unity. The philosophy of chemistry, the math-based worldview, clashes and thus when widely and deeply applied will destroy life and consciousness in nature. This is why we have an epidemic of species dying.

F) Surgery, radiation and chemical drugs – chief tools of allopathic medicine – fail to truly heal consciousness ailments .
We see this with the health epidemics of cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s. To reverse these ills both in ourselves, and on a culture-wide basis, involves a true and revolutionary global mind change – a moving to a different essential vision of what is the core  of nature, and our innermost being. It sets us on a different course to healing rather than ills. A true global mind change thus first heals our consciousness and its relationship to our mind’s understanding of the world, then emotions, body, and being in this world or to all that surrounds us each day of our lives.

Nature of Consciousness

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Nature of Consciousness

NATURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS – WHAT IS IT?
In a kind of comprehensive overview of approaches, Ken Wilber has a post on the Web taken from his Journal of Consciousness Studies article   (February 1997, pp. 71-92) and which outlines his Integral Theory of Consciousness. It  integrates twelve different approaches to apparently understanding the nature of consciousness. These include  the approaches of cognitive, introspective, neuro-psychological, clinical psychological & psychiatric, social and developmental psychological, psychosomatic, eastern and contemplative traditions, quantum theories, subtle energy studies and adventures into non-ordinary and drug-induced states.  The list is long enough to certainly make the subject matter confusing to some. To make matters worse, we could expand that list profoundly. Where then do we truly understand the core essence of consciousness? Is there a core binding-together essence or a disintegration into so many forms?

SIMPLIFYING THE UNDERSTANDING
In most all other studies of life one can garnish a specialized expertise. But the study consciousness potentially can involve all of life and all of knowledge that we consciously take in ad infinitum. How then again do we arrive at its core essence? An essence is something that universally penetrates and thus is singular and simple – like the essence of a chocolate bar being made of chocolate. We might add an almond to the bar, but what primarily permeates remains simply chocolate. Is there a comparable essence to consciousness, or something that unifies the whole – in and throughout all of the potential categorizations or approaches. In my experience the answer is yes. However, to arrive at the seeing of what that is takes a vastly transcending mental, beyond the right/brain split perspective.  You almost have to step outside and above the human mind/brain and its perpetual constructs to reach such a high perspective.

LITMUS TEST
Supposing you get that far, how do you know that your conclusions are trans-personally or objectively true – true from all sides and past side-views, subjectivity and limited biases? There is really a Litmus Test. Our modern world is presently plagued with a variety of what I call growing consciousness diseases. It can be argued that all diseases are really carriers of a consciousness-depleting element. Some are so more dramatically than others. Thus we can have cancer that silently or without our consciousness spreads to kill us. We can become severely diabetic, and where when we step on a nail we feel nothing as we suffer from neuropathy – a loss of feeling, a loss of consciousness in the extremities primarily. We can fall also into the throws of Alzheimer’s disease where our mental consciousness breaks down. Now if a theory of consciousness can be tested in its applications to help reverse all three of these and similar condition,  then we really and powerfully are onto something. With out such proof, we remain groping in the dark just as the patients with those ailments may be too.

IS THERE SUCH AN ANIMAL?
After nearly half a century of searching for such a viable theory, I can  honestly share my conclusion that there is such an animal. Most philosophers and scientists won’t make this kind of assured statement. I do because my experiences transcended my own personal identity or concern with such an identity. The implications of that “theory” I am referring to are revolutionary. The application are more than immensely powerful. For when one has a far better understanding of consciousness,. it  can truly help those who have let it slip away, unconsciously – which seems a terribly helpless state. When physicians try to help such patients, but they can’t, they too are at a loss to understand what consciousness is, why we need a transcending understanding.

IMPLICATIONS
This “theory” is such an understanding. Its implications are profound. When understood, it has the vast potential to not only help those who are consciousness-ill, but to more so overturn the very taproot foundations of our whole modern worldview or vision of the essence of nature. This may seem a very bloated statement indeed. But, nevertheless, in my experience it happens to be true. The fact is that what we take to be  our very highest truths in physics and chemistry – buttressed by mathematical formulations as the anchoring crutch, actually fail to factor in the existence, identity, or nature of consciousness in nature.

CORE PURPOSE OF BLOG
Once on does factor in that phenomena, everything else changes. As to this “theory” (written in quotation marks because it has ceased to be a theory for me)  it is the core mission of this blog and of our original and related site, namely  raw-wisdom.com
to bring out to the public this understanding.

NATURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
With that said, now let me present the gist of this theory states of consciousness’ defining identity. Through that special identity we can fathom it in a conquering way. I’ve not learned this via any lab studies because a laboratory setting and all the tools of measurement it coalesces are actually the wrong tools with which to understand consciousness’ essence. Rather my “theory” is the  result of other experiences. In my youth I was a math prodigy whose left-brain shut down temporarily forcing me to befriend an opposite brain vista. Later I tried to make peace between the split-brain views. Through that reconciliation, I came up with what I consider a piercing of the veils of consciousness. This requires super normal skills. I don’t state that to bloat my ego but simply because the need for transcendent is a given.

A DEFINITION
With this introduction now let me outline a set of words that for me best point to the quintessence of consciousness.  Consciousness can be seen as the primary potentially universal relationship of connection in and throughout all of nature. It thereby forms nature’s core essence and the basis for nature’s  oneness.

VAST IMPLICATIONS
Our math-based vision of nature no loner holds true if our definition of consciousness is valid. The nature of consciousness supplants what math symbols point to in defining the essence of our world. Just imagine how profound the implications of this simple statement are. Math symbols generally abstract how to separate all elements of consciousness. Given the prior definition of consciousness, however, math symbols then cannot possibly point us to the essence of nature. This violates of central and thought to be bedrock thesis of chemistry and physics – the deep assumption that mathematics offers a universal paradigm for integrating the objective understanding of the oneness of nature. Again the preceding definition denies that.

IS THIS VIEW OBJECTIVELY VALID?  OR A PERSONAL SUBJECTIVE VISTA?
Many think that consciousness is solely the byproduct of  human evolution as animals and plants presumably are not really, truly conscious or at least as cognitive and self-conscious.  To move to a more nature-permeating definition of consciousness, as in pansychism, requires proof or a Litmus test. Again suppose we can use our “theory” to actually reverse the most persistent consciousness illnesses. The details are outlined in this blogs.  Without such proof, the theory would only be a set of empty words promoted by our egos. With such backup evidence, we can advance our understanding of the world we live in – and of ourselves.

This is no small statement.

WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS?
This, first and foremost, happens to be a really vital question, especially when we are trying to help a diabetic person suffering from neuropathy (loss of feeling and awareness in some part of their  body), dementia (as with Alzheimer’s patients) and metastatic cancer (where cancers spread silently, unconsciously to kill).

There is a whole movement to try to answer what is consciousness or to develop a real science  of levels of consciousness that considers this the “hard question” or the hardest of unanswered riddles of science. Some call this the last major frontier of science. A discovery of what is consciousness will likely be the most significant finding of not only this century but the whole millennium.

WHY PHARMACEUTICALS FAIL TO HEAL
The fact that we don’t really understand consciousness or a conscious mind is quite obvious in a typical modern nursing home where over half of the residents over the age of 85 suffer from Alzheimer’s.

Nobel Prize winning physicists have succumbed to Alzheimer’s, indicating the laws of physics don’t necessarily reveal what is consciousness. Also if you give an Alzheimer’s patient a cocktail of the very “best” pharmaceutical or synthetic chemical drugs, they tend not to work, indicating furthermore that the discoveries of chemistry also appear to fail us. Despite extraordinary efforts of modern science, we continue to have dementia patients walking the halls of nursing homes in zombie-like unconscious states. There is too often a dullness rather than brilliance to their eyes.  “No one is at home inside” and to the extent that they may be unable to recognize their children or spouses. But the next miracle discovery in physics, chemistry or genetics  may be  around the corner about a higher consciousness mind!  Without going into details, the current science of what is consciousness is, for me, quite unsatisfying. That emerging science as yet doesn’t help those in greatest need. Therefore if we can regularly effect a turnaround of Alzheimer’s,diabetes and cancer patients’ altered state of consciousness, this becomes an acid test. Personal opinion and ideologies matter less.

TOWARDS  A REAL SCIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
There are several  international organizations working “toward a science of consciousness” and I have presented my ideas about what is consciousness at two of these organization’s conferences  - one in Tuscon, AZ and the other in Taipei Taiwan. The usual academic approach is to define consciousness scientifically or within a conventional lab-generated  understanding, e.g. some reflex reactions numerically expressed or electric and chemical reaction (neurons firing mostly in the brain) or via neuroscience. This tries to define what is consciousness within our most familiar or comforting mechanical models of nature. In my experience, we are going up the wrong alley so that such efforts are doomed to fail.

SINGLE GREATEST DISCOVERY
The single greatest discovery of my own life offers a solution to this most stumping problem. It is an answer which, when applied, breaks through what I consider the deepest illusions (breakdowns in the integrity) of consciousness and can thus truly reverse chronic consciousness-illnesses in ourselves, in others, in our society at large and for the benefit of  life on our planet. This huge discovery led me to make it a major aim of my life to bring out this understanding. The subsequent applications are again the acid test. Can we take someone from a lower to a higher state of consciousness via a real science? The shocking commentary here is: not within the model of science we currently have. Actually that model stands in the way.

WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS?
In my youth I was a math prodigy. Then one day something traumatic happened. No, an apple did not fall on my head! Rather I had a high fever that caused my left-brain to shut down. This was similar to what occurred to Jill Bollte Taylor, a Harvard brain researcher who had a stroke and subsequent left-brain shut-down. For a while I was aphasic or could not talk in whole sentences as the left-brain is both the verbal and the mathematical. For myself from then on, however, I began to study the nature of consciousness as if it was the single greatest urgency of my life. This was because, for a while, I had lost not only typical left-brain skills but all of my inner bearings. I was lost in a new ocean of consciousness without an anchor. Looking fo an anchor I was greatly helped by living in a community called ”The Barn” and which taught me consciousness-observation techniques developed by the Russian philosopher George Ivanovich Gurdjieff. After a decade of pursuing such studies or trying to discover “what is consciousness,” I came to unique and independent conclusions. Among these was my deep conviction that consciousness is not just a human-possessed or elite attribute. I saw human consciousness as an off-shoot of the greater consciousness that belongs to all of life on earth an in our cosmos.

Secondly, and still more profoundly, consciousness expressed for me the “essence of nature” – and whether an element of nature appeared to be living or not. When something permeates through and through it forms an “essence,” like brown chocolate forms the essence of a brown chocolate bar. Thirdly for me,  consciousness also forms nature’s universal relationship of connection. This is why it can assume the status of being an “eco-essence” as it permeates then throughout. Consider this, if two events are connected, might consciousness be the basis  of that connection? Usually we think math-formula-defined or mechanical causality explains phenomena, but math symbols abstract how to separate elements of consciousness. This makes math-defined causality actually illogical, implausible, foolish and even impossible. On a far deeper level, for me it is the phenomenon of consciousness that connects all of nature’s surface appearances, and “together as one” (being a universal relationship of connection). Lastly that same consciousness, when concentrated, brings out the most profound of all natural phenomenon: living organisms or life!

Living organisms then express, display, and bring out nature’s essence, rather than machines displaying, expressing and bringing out mathematical order!

This is a revolutionary and profound shift in visions.

IMPLICATIONS OF THIS REVOLUTIONARY VIEW
There are vastly potent  implications to answering the core question, what is consciousness. Here we express a derivative consciousness-centered view of nature or where consciousness thus again is the essence of nature,  not what is pictured with math-formulas integrated as one. This is a step beyond the philosophy of panpsychism.

Panpsychism sees consciousness as present within all of nature’s matter, but often as a subordinate attribute of matter or with matter and the mechanical orientation of chemistry, physics, and biotechnology remaining primary. The consciousness-centered view, however, creates an entirely different core understanding of  nature. It departs from rather than creates another subsidiary branch of the 17th century-outlined view which was formed via the inspirations of Galileo, Descartes and Newton. It offers again a countering vision  to that of chemistry, physics and biotechnology. It does not, for example, focus on atoms and subatomic particles and their interrelationships expressed mathematically nor on genes at the core of each cell.  It sees all chronic illnesses as surface manifestations of inner lowered consciousness – especially diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer’s.  Thus to reverse such illnesses we re-elicit entirely different natural approaches rather than surgery, radiation and chemotherapy/drugs in order to return us to connectedness, wholeness, and healing.

LIFE-CENTERED
Since living organisms, not machines, are seen as representing nature’s depth-essence, this again forms a evolutionary consciousness and life-centered vision of nature.

MECHANICAL
Machines then and again no longer bring out or express a “discovering” of nature’s quintessence, nor the related mechanical principles via mathematical formulation as supposedly representing the laws of nature (Newton’s Principia Natualis Mathematica that guided the Industrial Revolution). They rather represent a math-constructed, and actually non-objective, culturally-created ideology for the depths of nature.  Because math symbols point us to an exactly opposite essence in a reversal illusionnature simply by being symbols for how to separate all elements of consciousness, it follows then that we can predict unavoidable problems arising, especially with aggressive, self-certain global applications. These problems can be extremely serious. As I see it, they may actually threaten life’s long-term sustainability on Earth. The dilemmas include the development of  atomic weapons plus a level of global chemical pollution that yields ubiquitous toxic residues. These can cause, among other things, the present pandemics of cancer.

UNDERMINING CONSCIOUSNESS
Chemical cocktails bring out and represent this mathematical ideology and generally do not  support consciousness or life in nature and ourselves. Thus drug-based medical care merely can mask surface symptoms (in lieu of depth-healing) while there is a simultaneous undermining of consciousness.

COMPOST HEAP
A compost heap or where all possible plants may be thrown in to disintegrate and later reintegrate  to form new living plants, symbolizes an unbroken circle of unity in nature. However, throw in any large random mix of chemicals to test the whole math-based vision which creates synthetic chemicals and the circle is broken. Life in the heap dies. We see this with super-toxic waste sites. Nature’s premier unity is violated. For example, Monsanto’s Roundup is symbolic of the modern thrust that kills what is green around it.

EXTINCTIONS
Since the 17th century, we have followed a death-delivering or “thanoptic” vision of nature.  The proof is in the pudding. Life extinctions on earth have skyrocketed. It is predicted that half of all species will be dead and gone forever by the end of this century. We are destroying Eden.

HEALTH DECLINING
In regard to the healing arts or where healing connects us to wholeness and awakens consciousness,  the mechanical approach fails.Thus surgery, which cuts the body apart, is not a true depth-healing/connective modality nor is the prescribing of chemical drugs or radiation. Again the proof is in the pudding as health pandemics (cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and other ailments) are on the rise.

COMMERCIAL SOCIETY
A commercial society is one where monetary (math-bound) relationships dominate. It doesn’t matter who owns the means of production, (corporate or socialist rulers), not if they both follow the same essential vision of the 17th century and at the expense of  the earth.  The underlying worldview has not changed an iota. It is not life-centered. It is not concerned or knowledgeable  about what is consciousness to help evolve our lives. At the same time, socio-political relationships have suffered intensely as a result. For example, the single person living alone is now the  largest growing social statistic. At the same time the political arenas are ever more corrupted by monetary influences, in capitalist and socialist societies, that have both consolidated and merged their power and influence internally and externally around the globe.

GLOBAL MIND CHANGE
The GREAT NEWS is that we can turn around all our greatest health, environmental, social and politically trends by making a global mind change. This means changing the deepest soul of our culture. Such a change occurred  in the 17th century or in the shift from the Biblical to the current math-bound view. This was triggered by the discovery of an external reversal illusion by Copernicus (helio rather than geo-centricity) and corroborated  by Galileo. We really need a similar global mind change.This is because our vision actually reverses, in my experience, the universal essence of nature – life and consciousness – and thereby creates a looming “culture of death” This is not something to take lightly. What is consciousness and derivatively what is life are among  the most important if not the most important of all questions to ask in our times. This, therefore, needs to be answered with the greatest of possible knowledge and the deepest of wisdom.