Consciousness, a blessing or a curse?

I’ve been of the old adage, and for a very long time may I say, that I am one of the chosen ones where I have a heightened degree of consciousness. My mind is sharp and acute, I realise many things by using my ability of mental perspective and depth. At first, I found this new level of consciousness, even though it was EXTREMELY disturbing and unsettling to me and my character and interactions with others, to be a wonderful and novel thing. And yet I have now almost come full circle. Where as in the past I crave consciousness and have an innate drive to know what I would be doing and almost see myself either on or off my idealised golden path to perfection and enlightenment. Most certainly, as with EVERY stage in our lives we must self audit, as we become more comfortable with who we are and as we evolve, our mind AND mindset must change too. In fact, it must be our reflection of change and growth. So there are a few things that I feel important to bring in to question then, and yes, as I often do, I will draw some analogies upon the natural world that we live in, as it just lives, as opposed to “consciously lives”.

Firstly I’ll discuss a little about me. At the age of about 13 or 14, or so, I realised that I had a different voice in my head, a new one that I had not known before, it was neither friendly nor harsh, it was neither dominant nor subservient but sure enough it was there, and it was LOUD and CLEAR. It was the voice of observation, the voice that told me that I was present, it saw my move and told me about it. It was a fraction, nay a split second ahead of me before I did or said anything and it made me sharp, intellectually speedy and extremely observant, but yet it came at a price, and that price was HUGE! Imagine just being, being in being, doing and just doing, without consciousness and without reflection, being the epitome of “being in the moment” well that is how things were, absolute purity of moment. I did what I wanted and when I wanted to do it, I just was! And then, all of a sudden, that was snatched away from me, BANG! I was conscious! At was as if somebody had turned on a switch, and that switch had a voice! It start giving me a running commentary of who I was and what I was doing, how I was acting and how I was feeling, it even started to reflect upon the past and project upon the future, it became an entity! I have no idea where this voice came from or why it appeared, but it did and at first it TOTALLY disrupted what was “quite a nice easy life”. Unfortunately for me, and perhaps others, my consciousness took place of my RAW living, just doing, which made it difficult and distressing to live. Why was it confusing and distressing? Because I was thinking about me doing something before I did it, RIGHT BEFORE I did it, I was thinking about me having to be me, I was natural! I had lost that innocence of being in the moment, and just being. I now, instead, had thoughts and a voice going on within my head that was aware of every action, thought and feeling that I had towards myself an others, I was now confused and distressed! Who was this voice, who was the NEW I, and where, for FUCK SAKE was the old me, that I loved, knew and understood? The one that didn’t have a care in the world and just did, good or bad, and in actual fact, a LOT of bad! lol. If I look back, with hind sight, I can see why the consciousness came along, and I can see WHY it had to happen too! I was a fighter, a stealer of things, a liar, a cheat, a swindler and also a womaniser, although considering that I was only 13, perhaps I was more of a GIRLiser…ha None the less, hind sight is a beautiful thing and it is a GREAT yard stick to measure change but certainly, to lose ones SELF, ones KNOWN self and to start on the road of becoming something else at the age of 13 is UNBELIEVABLY distressing, INCREDIBLY distressing indeed! Anyway, this is not a poor me show and never will be, this little story is to let you know that my transition has not been easy either, but yet, a necessary one, as yours is too. Of course, there have been many years in between then and now, much learning, much appreciating, much understanding and still, for sure, much confusion. However; some time ago I wrote a saying, as I have done on many occasions, as I find them quite cathartic, they almost become a snap shot upon my world and how I see my world within that moment of time, and it went a bit like this;

At first, when I heard the voice, I knew not what was going on. My thoughts were so loud and so often it was like SMASHING rocks in my head! Slowly, as I started to listen to the voice and understand its words I realised that it was there to help and a force for good, so then, it was now not rocks that I was smashing, but mere pebbles that I was cracking. As time went by still further and my voice was familiar and actually became a part of me, a sense of trust did I have for thee, it showed me right from wrong and yet often I still made an unfavorable choice it never judged, nor never scolded me. I had faith and hope from this voice within, it showed me the light and led me from the dark and then soon did I realise that It was not pebbles that I was cracking but now I was a sifter of sand! And yet, as the years rolled on, the voice and I became one, I realised that it was really me, talking to me, from within me. I then understood that there was no need to fight or to be afraid, my life was one of the greater consciousness and my mind was my guide. As I reached the point of TRUE acceptance and one of TOTAL trust, I realised that my voice was one of love and neither was I now a sifter of sand, for I am the man that plays with dust!

OK, so that basically says that things get easier with time, space and dedication to belief. Time, because there is no rush for perfection, space; space to make mistakes or as I call them, learning experiences and the dedication to belief part is the resolve to fight for what is right within ones self and within this environment that we call world. There are a few other sayings that are rather relevant right now like; “The walls of the temple must come crashing down before we can build a new palace” and of course, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette, and these again just to emphasise the fact that if we seek, or if indeed mental transmutation has found us, for some reason or another, things can be pretty tough, pretty lonely, quite cruel, VERY distressing and UNBELIEVABLY confusing, however; with time, patience and dignity, things will be OK, have faith within because your within is EXACTLY what is made of without, the creator resides within you, YOU have your courage and YOU have your strength too and NO DOUBT, you are a soldier of the light, and this is alchemy, you are the ALCHEMIST!

Anyway, I have gone on tangent so perhaps it is time to come back on topic, which is one of consciousness and is it possible for us to be too conscious? Well actually, I think that yes we can be, and here’s why; I, much as many that I speak with and share times with believe in the spiritual journey, the journey that turns lead in to gold, the journey that transmute a base element in to the purest of rare, precious, mineral, the refining of soul. I, probably just like many also, have created an ideal in my mind, a way to be and a way to life, almost a mythical being that I want to become. This of course, is a wonderful life project and as they say, life really is the journey of a life time but yet then again, I must ask, are we being too conscious, have we forgotten how to just LIVE? To help me answer this question, I turn to nature and look at how it lives, grows and even dies. Look at a tree for example, sometimes, the seed of the tree shoots straight away and yet, at other times, when things aren’t quite so opulent perhaps, it will lay dormant for many months and for even years maybe until conditions are just right. So once it has shooted it takes in the air, the sunshine and the water, it will grow. Of course, much like us humans I guess, if the conditions are favorable then it shall grow to it’s optimum for that year, post spring, summer and autumn, until in the winter it slows, gathers in and draws all of its nutrients to it’s core or in true fact to its heart which really is its place of nourishment until the cold has past and until the spring bears again. i of course find it quite pointless to tell you the full life cycle of a tree growing as that is actually missing the point because the TRUE point of it is that fact that the tree just grows. It doesn’t necessarily decide which branch to grow next, or how many leaves will be within it’s foliage, that will be representative to how much sunshine and rain it has received throughout the year and how many nutrients it has absorbed from the earth. No, the tree does not will itself to grow in a certain direction or to a particular height and neither to a certain breadth, it just does, it just grows, it JUST lives! However; there must be an innate response or even knowing within its cellular DNA on HOW to grow A BRANCH or HOW to get tall and also how to turn sunlight in to glucose. The tree does not need to determine how to breathe neither, it just DOES, it JUST IS, and it is NATURALLY doing it too! May I now turn to the wind; does the wind have to stop and think; “Hold on a minute, now how the heck do I do this blowing thing” no, it just does it! Sometimes it whispers and yet at other times it howls but yet still, it just does. The same could be said for the water from rain, to stream, to river to ocean or even the sun to shine or for the rock to turn from mountain to stone, to sand to sea bed to mountain again, it JUST DOES! My point then is one of this; perhaps, just perhaps, us humans think too much? Perhaps we get so focused upon or own mentally idealised GOLDEN path of evolving an journey that we forget that it will just happen anyway, just like the rest of nature will too! Our “path”, so say, let’s not forget is in actual fact an “idealised” concept of the mind that is more likely than not an ego driven imagination anyway! People often think that they are being spiritualised to free themselves from their ego when in actual fact it is just the ego wearing another mask, the wolf in sheeps clothing as it were! So yes, consciousness is good but are we being intellectual enough about it? Are we making sure that there is enough time to step out of our minds and just be? Or are we so caught up on the journey that we are preventing life from TRULY flourishing and for the buds to blossom? Perhaps this is so… Yes, it is good to have goals, and when they are set correctly and in harmony with the universe they will materialise but only if the causes lead us to that desired effect. (I will discuss cause and effect and goal achievement in my next post, it is quite interesting!) For now though, let us go back to the tree, let us remember that when the conditions are right it shall grow to its optimum, so then, would that not be the same for us too? ESPECIALLY when considering that we too are nature’s babies! So how about this? How about we don’t necessarily think about our spiritual destiny, after all, that may well have already been PREordained and ASSURED upon the birth of our souls, it literally may be already written within the stars and within the mind of the CREATOR! No, let us not focus on that, but perhaps let us maybe focus upon our environmental conditions instead? For it is only THEY that will allow us to grow strong, physically, mentally, emotionally and ultimately SPIRITUALLY! I know my conditions, and you know yours, it is not necessarily up to me to spell them out to you but of course we again talk about nutrients and minerals, sunshine, exercise and air and now we also bring in mental understanding and emotional balance too.

So then, yes, consciousness is good, in fact it is ESSENTIAL to claiming our own lives, but, we really do need to start using it wisely, perhaps we see the goal, aim to grow in that direction and just feed ourselves the right nutrients and bask in the sunshine? Then perhaps we should just go with the TAO, when it is spring we flower, when it is autumn we harvest and when it is winter we gather in, RE-collect ourselves and nourish from within. Of course, I am talking about the physical seasons but how about the emotional and mental ones too. Let’s ease up on ourselves, perhaps do less and achieve more, flow like the river through life, be like the wind with a whisper and then blow when we need to, be the TAO…