Consciousness And Life
By
The Man Who Saw God Face To Face
Raphael Okechukwu Nweze
Consciousness
The spirit becomes whatever it wants simply by intention and attention. Whatever the spirit persistently focuses its attention on, that it becomes. That is why the evil man looks evil to the sight, and the saint can by easily identified, even when he is not wearing a robe. The spirit is like a photographic film. It becomes one with whatever that is focus on it. This is the great secret. Hence, those who die do so because they make themselves one with death. And those who live on live because they have made themselves one with life. "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free."
Meaning Of Consciousness
Consciousness is the state of knowledge and experience of self. A conscious person knows that he exists, and he experiences himself. He can claim to be an individual, and can defend his rights, privileges and honour. He has the free will and free choice to decide what he wants and what he doe not want. For example, somebody is self-conscious if he knows that he exists, is mindful of what he does and controls what he does. A person who exists, but is not aware of himself or what he does is said to be unconscious of his environment.
Consciousness is also the state of combination self, knowledge and experience. A person is conscious of hunger because he is aware of the following:
- His existence.
- He knows what hunger is.
- He is hungry and knows that he is hungry.
In that case, he knows and experiences himself and hunger. Therefore, he is able to say, “I am hungry.” He knows himself; he knows hunger; and he experiences both himself and hunger at the same time.
The Law Of Consciousness
In other words, a person is whatever he is conscious of. A man becomes whatever he is always thinking about. This is a law of life. That is why mystics advocate God Consciousness - being always aware of God. A person who is always conscious of God becomes like God and eventually one with God. It is as you would have a charcoal inside a fire. The charcoal is not fire and fire is not charcoal. But if you leave one inside the other for a long time, the two merge together and become one. Then the charcoal becomes red hot. It is inside fire and is also fire. It can also do whatever fire does. It can burn, glow, dim or even become a consuming fire.
Why It Is Not Always Good To Be Conscious Of Sin
The above reason explains why it is not always good to be talking of sin or be thinking about sin. The more people place their attention on sin, the more they remain sinful, without knowing it. Jesus healed many simply by telling them that their sins have been forgiven. He knows that they were being tormented by the burden of sin or sense of guilt. By forgiving their sin, he set them free from their burden and torment. He frees their consciousness, just as you clean a slate in order to write a new thing on it.
Spirit becomes whatever it wants by intention, attention and action. It is like you would have a diffused floodlight. Then you focus it on a point. Then the light becomes concentrated, builds up heat and starts to burn.
People Are Aware Of God
People know that God exists, but they have not seen or experienced Him. Therefore, they only believe that He exists. They are not conscious of God because they have not experienced Him.
Whatever a person has not experienced,
That he does not know.
As a consequence, ideas pass from “states of reality” (consciousness) to “states of tendency” (unconsciousness), with the dividing line between the two states being described as the threshold of consciousness.
Consciousness extends beyond sensations and includes intention, attention, movement, feelings, images, memory, and duration.
The Three States of Consciousness
Three states of consciousness are the Subconsciousness, Consciousness and Superconsciousness. Some mystics refer to the three states as the sleep state, the dream state and the wake state.
Majority of the humanity are at sleep state of life, many are at the dream state of life, at the same time as few are really awake. That means that majority are not only spiritually dead, they are also blind, deaf, dumb, lame and paralyzed. The situation is so bad that Jesus said, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead (Leave those who are spiritually ignorant to continue in their preferred state, because however well you try to redirect them, they would not let you do so).”
What Happens At The Subconscious Level
...
What Happens At The Conscious Level
At the conscious level, man is self-knowing and self-directing. He takes decisions, by exercising free will and free choice.
What Happens At The Superconscious Level
At the superconscious level, man becomes one with God. He is no longer himself as a separate individual. God’s will become his own will. One will. Then man experiences God. His thoughts, words and actions are perfect, devoid of error, fault, mistake, sin, defect, defilement or fear. At this state, a man can command a mountain; he can make statements that hold fast; he can know without any person teaching him; he can speak any language, which he has not heard or learnt before (speaking in tongues); he can perform miracles; etc. He is then like Jesus who always said that the Father is in Him.
Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us."
9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me ? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. 11 Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me , or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.” John 14:8-11
Body, Soul And Spirit
Man is like a product in a packet. First, the product is inside a water-proof. Then, both product and water-proof are inside the packet. The product is neither the water-proof nor the packet. The three only co-exist and do not mix. The product is the spirit of man. It is inside the water-proof, which represents the soul. The soul only enables the spirit to interact with the body. It does the work of an adaptor, a facilitator, intermediary or catalyst. It is neither the action nor the doer. It only enables the doer (spirit) to perform action (use the body). The body is the packet.
Looking from the outside, the packet appears to be the main product, the real thing. But from the inside, the product is quite different from the packet. Whatever the product does, the water-proof and packet does as well, because they move together. However, it is only the product that performs the action and knows what is being done. The water-proof and packet do not know what is being done and cannot perform action on their one. They only respond to commands and actions, without knowing what they do. They are unconscious, while the product is conscious.
Sleep And Consciousness
When you sleep, it is only the body that sleeps. That means that it is only the body that rests. The soul and spirit do not sleep because they do not get tired or weak. That is why a sleeping person can make body movements. The spirit continues to be conscious (active) during sleep, while the body rests. According to Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, “Much of the surge in sleep and dream research was directly fueled by a discovery relevant to the nature of consciousness. A physiological indicator of the dream state was found: At roughly 90-minute intervals, the eyes of sleepers were observed to move rapidly, and at the same time the sleepers' brain waves would show a pattern resembling the waking state. When people were awakened during these periods of rapid eye movement, they almost always reported dreams, whereas if awakened at other times they did not. This and other research clearly indicated that sleep, once considered a passive state, was instead an active state of consciousness.” (Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.)
During sleep, the soul which enables the body and spirit to respond to each other is on break. Then, its function is relaxed, absent or disabled. Like a link, it separates the body from the spirit. Their may be occasional link up or disconnection. When there is a connection, the body only responds to whatever the spirit is doing by doing exactly what the spirit is doing. And when there is no connection, the body lies down on the bed like a log of wood. In other words, the body may be at rest (motionless), while the spirit is always awake.
The body and soul are tools, which the spirit uses. The only difference between them and ordinary tools is that an ordinary tool can have any shape, whereas body and soul tend to have the same shape, the same shape as demanded and specified by the spirit. The spirit indwells the soul, and both indwell the body. That is to say that the spirit indwells the two at the same time and can manipulate them – make them do whatever the spirit wants. In other words, the human being is a masked spirit. Man is more or less a masquerade. When man makes a masquerade, he is only making another masquerade of a masquerade.
Change Of Consciousness
People change consciousness by intention, attention and action. A man can decide what he wants to do or think about. He can also decide to place his attention (focus his mind) on a different thing. The result is that the more a man thinks about something, the more becomes conscious and one with that thing. By so doing, a man practices attachment, possessiveness and …
A good change in consciousness is possible by the following:
- Selflessness, which makes a person to think less of himself and more of others.
- Self-knowledge, which enables a man to know what he actually is (spirit), not what he thinks that he is (body, flesh).
- Mediation, the intentional placing of attention on Goodness, Bliss, Heaven and God.
Detachment And Consciousness
You detach yourself from life situations by not thinking about them. This was a major teaching of Jesus Christ.
25 "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
28 "So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31 "Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Matthew 6:25-34
Consciousness And Meditation
Meditation is the self-directed procedure of physical relaxation and focused attention. This is all about Yoga you hear about.
Transcendental Meditation is concerned with the realization – knowledge and experience - of one spirit pervading the entire universe. It explains the spiritual side of life, convincing us that every manifestation has both physical and spiritual dimensions, with the spiritual dimension animating and dominating the physical. The physical seems to dominate the spiritual, whereas it is the spiritual that determine, dominate and control the physical.
Consciousness And Memory
Memory is the intelligent and responsive store of experience. That is exactly what the mind is. The mind only records happenings, reminding us at any point in time of the advantages and disadvantages of everything, which we had earlier experienced in our life. It is also suggestive, in that it can inform us of possible merits and demerits of something, based on past similar experiences.
Justice
For sake of justice, God made it a law that every man should have also individual responsibility. Man is held accountable, benefiting or punishable, of his actions and inactions. No one will commit an offence, and another will suffer for what he does not know about or for what he did not initiate. The person who initiates an action is the person responsible for the action. The action becomes a demand, which must have a supply. The supply goes to the person who demanded for it.
The Nature Of Spirit
Much confusion about life would clear out if people understand the nature of spirit. Spirit is like an invisible essence that is colourless, odourless, tasteless weightless and dimensionless.
Being first invisible, it can also make itself visible.
Being colourless, it can also assume any colour just willing it.
Being odourless, it can also produce aroma of various kinds.
Being tasteless, it cal also experience various tastes.
Being weightless, it can make things have weight by the creative process called evolution.
Being dimensionless, it is not bound o anything, but itself can bind other things as it wishes.
The spirit is photosynthetic because it acts like the photographic film. It is first invisible, then visible, but can become one with something just by placing attention on the thing. It becomes something by intention, exposure (experience or corruption), and action. For example, a child becomes dirty, not because he wants to be dirty but because he involves himself in childish plays. Whatever that is experienced or performed last tend to last for an ‘endless’ time until a different experience is had, in the same way that everything continues in its state of uniform motion or rest until some external forces (or factors) act on it to introduce changes.
Moton At Will
Spirit moves by intention, attention and action. That is motion at will. Decide where you want to be and you are there, immediately. You do not need to worship anything in order to get at that thing. Only God is worthy of worship.
Who Goes To Hell Fire
They are those who refused to take correction by removing or avoiding what is bad, and so they became one with the bad experiences or actions. They have seasoned themselves with evil just as salt is used to seasoned food. After seasoning is oneness. Both the seasoning flavour and the seasoned food become one and the same thing, and inseparable.
More so, they have no other opportunity to correct themselves. Besides, even if you give them more opportunity, they cannot correct themselves. Instead of effecting correction, they will go on doing the same old bad thing without minding the consequences. They have developed a nature to such an extent that they cannot separate themselves again from that nature. By so doing, they exclude themselves from the good ones, for it is a law of the spirit that birds of the same feather flock together – the law of homogeneity. Indeed, the heavens and earths should praise God for His wisdom by separating the good from the bad, so that those who want good shall experience abundance of goodness, while those who want evil shall experience abundance of sin. This is wisdom, indeed. That is why Jesus said that “wisdom is justified by her action.” Hence, God is a righteous judge – perfect and impartial. He gives to everyone whatever the person constantly desires for himself, be it good or bad.
The only way to avoid doom is to stop generating evil. And the only way to reap goodness is by sowing good always. This is a simple and clear judgment, which is both righteous and justified.
The Study
The main method employed by most early philosophers in studying consciousness was introspection, the process of looking within one's own mind to discover the laws of its operation. They overlooked the spiritual dimension of man. Even, Science failed to understand consciousness because it approached the task with the wrong tool. Man failed to develop Spiritual Science, which would have given him a clear and complete knowledge of consciousness. This is true because consciousness is in the domain of the physical world of matter, while the subconscious and superconscious are in the domain of spirit, beyond the ordinary senses.
Consciousness does not depend on the function of the brain. Instead, it uses the brain as a tool. It can as well function with or without the brain. In the physical world, man needs the brain. But in the spirit world, the brain is not necessary, and there the consciousness is far more enhanced.
Correlations between states of consciousness and functions of the brain are possible because the brain is an aid to those trying to develop self-consciousness. In other words, God has always provided a helper along the way of personal evolution to ensure successful development of His children from unconscious state to a conscious state.
The Four Apostles In Demonstration Of Levels Of Consciousness
Among the Apostles, Johm is said to be the one loved most by Jesus. The truth is that John was the one person who was highly developed, spiritually, more than others. He was able to understand spiritual life and statements of Jesus. In spirit, everything behaves according to its nature, and this it cannot hide. Among the Apostles, he was the one who was deeply impressed with the Godliness of Jesus. He concerned himself with life in spirit and in truth. Others eventually came to the same knowledge, wisdom and spirituality. This is God's gift of Himself to all.