This post started as a conversation I had with my then wife while tidying up our kitchen after a late dinner. I was reflecting on my change of perspective since my early years of earnest meditation practice. One of my first encounters with spiritual teachings was with a particular Buddhist tradition that advocated the ability for us to reach "enlightenment" in one life-time. I am not entirely sure what "enlightenment" in that context meant, but I believe it involved a dissolution of the sense of ego in favour of knowing ones true nature as the "Buddha mind". I do know that the notion of getting there in this life time was very appealing as it promised to end the inner struggles that seemed to be my life at the time.
These days I no longer seek enlightenment, nor do I expect an immediate end to my struggle. I have now come to understand that in this life time I am only manifesting a certain percentage of all of my attributes and only deal with a certain amount of all of the stuff that I have to deal with; and when I say stuff I am referring to psychological, emotional, and mental wounds and unresolved or badly resolved character traits. Of course the more I deal with now, the more of the queue I can bring through to deal with next. But I am pretty sure there are several thousand lifetimes worth of things ticking on in the background and so have no doubt it will take me at least a few lives of conscious attention to get ahead!
My former wife offered the lovely analogy of an orchestra - we have a full symphony orchestra within us, but in any one life time are only working on one or maybe two instruments. Like a great musician, a great life requires constant practice and repetition, even if we are already "pretty good".
So here is a thing to ask ourselves. How much of us are we manifesting at this point? And how much more could we bring into this physical dimension in this current life. Are we playing a full violin, or are we only using one string?
Conscientiology offers a more technical way of understanding the idea I am exploring here. It advances a model that proposes that our level of lucidity, or multidimensional maturity, can be measured through a hypothetical measure referred to as "cons". It is an individual measure, so we all have 1000 cons, but your 1000 cons may reflect a different level of lucidity than my 1000 cons. The point is not about comparing ourselves to others, but to measure our own position. We enjoy our full 1000 cons of lucidity when we are "dead" and healthy! What I mean by that is that we are at our most aware when we are not encumbered by a physical body nor suffering from any major emotional or mental disturbances that can afflict people in the extraphysical dimension.
So let's assume before our most recent birth we were at our personal best and enjoying our most expansive and detailed awareness of 1000 cons. Then we re-entered this physical dimension through a new physical body, i.e. we were born, and our awareness was restricted to 1 con. Since then we have gradually being recuperating our awareness. But how many of our cons have we recuperated? If we have regained 50% of our optimum awareness we are doing really well. We are most unlikely to gain 100% here in this dimension; our physical body and the energetic pressure of the environment are simply too restricting. But if we are adults and have only regained 10% or 20%, we can definitely do better.
Wherever we are at right now, the way ahead is always the same. It starts with dealing with what's in front of us right now - if it's anxiety we deal with anxiety, if anger we deal with anger, if repression we deal with repression. And as we take that first step, and undo one of our knots, we create room for more of us to come through and this in turn allows us to deal with the next thing before us in better and fuller ways.
These days I no longer seek enlightenment, nor do I expect an immediate end to my struggle. I have now come to understand that in this life time I am only manifesting a certain percentage of all of my attributes and only deal with a certain amount of all of the stuff that I have to deal with; and when I say stuff I am referring to psychological, emotional, and mental wounds and unresolved or badly resolved character traits. Of course the more I deal with now, the more of the queue I can bring through to deal with next. But I am pretty sure there are several thousand lifetimes worth of things ticking on in the background and so have no doubt it will take me at least a few lives of conscious attention to get ahead!
My former wife offered the lovely analogy of an orchestra - we have a full symphony orchestra within us, but in any one life time are only working on one or maybe two instruments. Like a great musician, a great life requires constant practice and repetition, even if we are already "pretty good".
So here is a thing to ask ourselves. How much of us are we manifesting at this point? And how much more could we bring into this physical dimension in this current life. Are we playing a full violin, or are we only using one string?
Conscientiology offers a more technical way of understanding the idea I am exploring here. It advances a model that proposes that our level of lucidity, or multidimensional maturity, can be measured through a hypothetical measure referred to as "cons". It is an individual measure, so we all have 1000 cons, but your 1000 cons may reflect a different level of lucidity than my 1000 cons. The point is not about comparing ourselves to others, but to measure our own position. We enjoy our full 1000 cons of lucidity when we are "dead" and healthy! What I mean by that is that we are at our most aware when we are not encumbered by a physical body nor suffering from any major emotional or mental disturbances that can afflict people in the extraphysical dimension.
So let's assume before our most recent birth we were at our personal best and enjoying our most expansive and detailed awareness of 1000 cons. Then we re-entered this physical dimension through a new physical body, i.e. we were born, and our awareness was restricted to 1 con. Since then we have gradually being recuperating our awareness. But how many of our cons have we recuperated? If we have regained 50% of our optimum awareness we are doing really well. We are most unlikely to gain 100% here in this dimension; our physical body and the energetic pressure of the environment are simply too restricting. But if we are adults and have only regained 10% or 20%, we can definitely do better.
Wherever we are at right now, the way ahead is always the same. It starts with dealing with what's in front of us right now - if it's anxiety we deal with anxiety, if anger we deal with anger, if repression we deal with repression. And as we take that first step, and undo one of our knots, we create room for more of us to come through and this in turn allows us to deal with the next thing before us in better and fuller ways.