The Beginning The Journey Consciousness

The Beginning: Opening up Our Senses

Everything has a beginning, a starting point. Yet, I speak neither of the beginning of time, nor of the Big Bang. I encourage you to converse attentively, silently from within and in a low voice without, so that we may have a talk about our beginnings, about how the conscious self-began, about you being yourself and I being myself, and about how different it is to exist, to be oneself, to perceive ourselves, you and I, as separate from each other, struggling for and within our boundaries. To that end, let us outline a field, a space outside, and let us gaze at that space/field in which life grants us the opportunity of beginning.

By dint of simple observation, we notice that Life, and everything in it, is in permanent motion. At every instant, Life recreates and renews itself. At times, when it does manifest itself, we find it takes the form of matter; at other times, it remains calm, removed, and latent, like an immense field of possibilities. Life exists as if in a seed, yet it waits to be sown in order to manifest itself in a particular size, form, species, and color – it awaits to expand, grow and convey the information contained in it. Everything exists in space, and everything, in every kingdom and super kingdom in Nature (mineral, plant, and animal; or else archaea, bacteria, protozoa, chromista, fungi, plantae, and animalia), has been magically created by means of the five elements (earth, water, fire, air, aether), as well as of the phases of matter (solid, liquid, gas, and plasma).

The qualities common to all natural kingdoms are motion, learning, and transformation. Individual life, the self, comes into contact with this expression of outward life by means of the five senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch). It is so. If your senses weren't alert, you wouldn't be able to perceive life.

I encourage you to put each one of your senses to the test, to perceive both life and all the elements that constitute our world by means of the organs of expression and motion: the arms, the legs, the heart, and the digestive system ...

Hence, you will realize that even if you are able to see the mountain, you will only experience it if you actually walk on it: you perceive it only by climbing it. Each sense has a different timeframe. Observe a bird in the distance, and you will notice that, when it sings, it'll take you an instant more to hear it than to see it. And it will take you even longer if you reach out your hand to touch it.

Each sense has its own expression in time, distance, and motion. Yet, there they are, each and every one of them taking its own time, coming into contact, in its own way, with what lies outside the self. It is thus that the senses gather and organize in your brain, allowing you to connect with and perceive outward reality, giving you the opportunity to experience life.

The Journey: The Adventure of Life

Dear friend: Life decides to set out on an adventure of feeling and knowledge. To that end, it chooses to inhabit a body (the means) during a historical moment of the species, as well as of Nature (the setting – the scenography). Life brings along with it a certain baggage (the senses, the organs of expression and motion), in addition to a powerful, unconscious, collective memory that, in the course of our conversations, we shall call the hard drive (HD).

The hard drive (HD) is that which contains everything that we, and most likely other beings of different races and conditions, have experienced. It comprises the knowledge of the species. Hence, we live connected to it. There is a part of the hard drive (HD) that is vital, that mustn't change, for it is the result of thousands of years of perfection. It mustn't be tampered with, because basic information, regarding indispensable mechanisms for survival, is stored in it: how to walk, how to breathe, how to shut the eyes, how to digest, how and why the heart beats, etc., as well as other automatic and reflexive conducts, themselves also predetermined programs. This is the vital part of the hard drive (HD) that only manifests itself by means of an operating system.

The operating system (OS) refers to the manner in which I interpret life's events. It is that from which I relate myself to the world, as well as the language that translates both the information and the impulses that come from the hard drive (HD). The operating system (OS), as a mode of interpreting and translating life, can be quite basic, archaic, or else cutting-edge and efficient. The operating system (OS) is a state of consciousness – the capacity to interpret events. Therefore, the state of consciousness in which we manifest ourselves at an the evolutionary level is determined by how we transform ourselves.

Generally speaking, our family, our setting, and the society to which we belong, have installed the operating system (OS) in us. Many programs stored in the hard drive (HD) are only accessible via the operating system (OS), even if these programs are predetermined expressions of the hard drive (HD). For example:

a) The workings of the senses and their connection to the brain.

b) Internal physiological functions.

c) The emotions, which are the relation between both the senses and the self with the outside world.

d) Programs having to do with history, the past, and survival.

Having mapped out how we function, we acknowledge that we are beings that can indeed survive with our original operating system (OS) and its predetermined information. Or else, we may decide to build our own Unity, by choosing to install a new operating system (OS), complete with all the programs of help and support that foster a fluid, efficient, joyful, and creative functioning.

There exist other alternatives:

1) We decide to surrender ourselves to such predetermined programming with regard to our senses, our emotions, our family, the outside, plus whatever has already taken place, therefore choosing a tortuous life that we do not understand, because we lack knowledge. This kind of life is based on what reaches me from the outside, on the opinions and judgments of others who, like me, experience the same situations, emotions, and feelings. As a result of these circumstances, I live a life of pain, barely enduring the kind of life that was allotted to me ...

Or perhaps you opt for:

2) Accepting my invitation to set out on the hero's journey, an inner journey, knowing that there's a world outside teeming with possibilities, with situations of every sort, and that you are neither a victim nor a...