LAYERS OF ENERGY & AWARENESS

Our only reality is our here/now experience of a thing, person or event;
If something isn't in your experience, it isn't real --
It doesn't exist -- to you.
It you believe something exists,
Then your experience is of the belief, not of the thing itself.

But even the experiences we do actually have
Are abstract, unpredictable, not-measurable, and cannot be agreed upon;
In fact, the very opposite of what we assume reality to be
(i.e. concrete, predictable, measurable, and something we can agree on)
Moreover, experiences that we consider to be "real"
Vary in intensity from strong to weak,
In length from moments to decades,
And can come up and/or evaporate over a lifetime or in an instant.
In short, Experience -- our only reality -- is highly ephemeral and exclusively personal
Even while it's happening.
If two people are present at the same event,
There are two very discrete experiences of that event happening.
So-called Agreement is, at best, limited and highly unreliable
Because, given the fact that our actual-feeling-experiences differ,
We don't really know 100% what it is we're actually agreeing on.....
We can't agree about that.

And "sharing an experience" is just not possible --
I cannot have your experience, nor can you have mine.
"Sharing experience" is a cosy superstition,
Beloved of romantics and sentimentalists,
But nothing more.
The best that being human allows us to do
Is for you to have your experience
And me to have mine --
Together.
We can always compare notes
And gain some depth from the binocular synergy.
That ain't so bad, is it?

What we experience is very largely determined
By the level of Awareness and Energy we're in at the time of the experience.
Things that are obvious at one level of awareness
May appear very different,
Or even be completely invisible at another.
When someone sincerely declares "I have no option",
It may be absolutely pointless arguing that point;
The other, if willing, must be taken on a journey to another level of awareness
Where he/she can see other possibilities for themselves.
This is why really effective communicators spend a good deal of time and energy corralling their audience into some kind of unifying Context before they even attempt to evoke any major insights or experience.

There are differing ways of viewing things
That emanate from differing points on a sliding scale
Of Awareness.
This scale ranges from -- at one end -- an almost universal, "in-here"/"me", separating perspective
That usually blankets our thinking and feeling,
To the other end of the perspective spectrum --
A much less-common, wider and more unifying, "out-here"/"us" standpoint.
An event witnessed while we're parked at the lower end of this Awareness/Energy scale
Is going to be a very different experience from the same event
If it's experienced from the higher end.
In other words, the quality and content of what you're experiencing will depend a lot
On what you're wallowing in or floating on, and the mood you're in, at the time.

I want to make the point very strongly
That the words "lower" and "higher", when applied to levels of awareness,
Indicate the vibrational frequency of the experience,
And not to any moral evaluation of "right" or "wrong''.
I am not inferring that one end of the scale is "good",
And the other, "bad".
On the contrary,
My suggestion is that, no matter where we think we are on the Enheavyment/lightenment Scale,
We would benefit as human-beings
From broadening our willingness
To experience more of the spectrum than we currently allow.

At the moment when we get out of our heads,
When something happens that provokes us
To see something differently,
When perception clicks from a narrower "me" to a wider "us" perspective,
Or vice versa,
There lies a moment of insight and awakening --
An "A-hah!"
The more often we're willing to change our mind,
The more "A-Haha's"" we're bound to get......
"A-hah, a-hah, a-hah, hah, hah, hah............."

Pschoanalytic science and practice does its work at the crude "Me" end of the scale;
Spiritual awareness lies at the more refined, "Us" end of the axis.
Spirituality underpins the whole shebang

It's heartening to contemplate the possibility that
The more obvious motivations, attitudes, think-ings, fee-lings and do-ings
Originating from that unawakened "Me/My" viewpoint
Are relatively automatic reactions
To our being penetrated or perturbed
By higher energies that are emanating from an unperceived, subtler level of our being.
The urge to Evolve is knocking at the door.
Rather than complain about the interruption,
We may do well to answer the call.
But that requires a conscious effort to reach out
For something we've lost touch with......

Sometimes life feels as it we're living at the centre of a cocoon,
Surrounded, insulated and isolated
By layers of screens and filters to perception
Which open and close according to the overall level of awareness
We're in at the moment.
These filters and screens are energised selectively
By the differing levels of energy animating our awareness at the time.
Low-level "Me" awareness activates screening that allows in only self-reinforcing, low-level feelings, thoughts, and perceptions.
Higher-level stuff is there, but it just doesn't get through to us. We're not tuned into it.
For example, as I write this, my radio is tuned in to the ABC. I'm aware that other radio stations exist, and may well be broadcasting, but I can't hear them because I'm not tuned in to them.
Anything we're not tuned into, we don't experience, therefore we don't see or hear it -- it's "not-here",
Until something happens to change our point of view and re-tune us..........

It was mid-afternoon on a suburban commuter train. Much to the annoyance of some of the passengers, three children were running amok in one of the carriages, scuffling with each other, running up an down the aisle, calling to each other and squealing at the top of their lungs. Their father sat staring blankly at the floor, seemingly unaware of the antagonism being caused by his offspring's inappropriate behaviour. Suddenly, one of the children crashed into an elderly lady, hurting her leg. The lady's partner lost his patience. He called to the father -- "Hey! Get your children under control! Where do you think you are?!" Everyone froze. The father startled, looked up and focussed, then motioned for his children to sit down with him. He then spoke quietly to the other passengers -- "I'm sorry. I apologise for them. We've just come from the hospital. Their mother died this morning. I guess they just don't know how to deal with it. To be honest, neither do I. I'm sorry."
Something shifted. The pall of annoyance dissipated in an instant, to be replaced by something quite different.

The good news is that we don't have to wait upon chance circumstances
To knock us off a fixed position --
We can re-tune ourselves at will,
And the more willing we are to re-configure our selves
The more opportunities life dishes up for us to do just that.
When we shift our perception and tune ourselves in to finer energies,
The more sensitively aware we become
Of the fuller spectrum of what's available to us.

We are also capable of crossing several layers of awareness,
Either at once,
Or at least by shuttling very rapidly back and forth
(I'm not absolutely certain which....and it doesn't matter).
What does matter is that this ability to cover several layers of awareness
Exposes us to the challenging phenomena of Contradiction and Paradox.
It's very possible that something seen at a one level of awareness
Will be contradicted by another level awareness of the same thing.
(e.g. "Many hands make light work" -v- "Too many cooks spoil the broth". Both are true, but which truth you adopt will depend on your position at the time.)
At higher levels of awareness
We become more aware of, and capable of accommodating and balancing
Contradictory, rationally incompatible, or paradoxical perceptions
All at once.

It may be that this is why, when we feel spiritually, emotionally and intellectually depleted,
We stick to low-level stuff --
Life is simpler for us in that place.
We can believe what comforts us,
And don't have to face the added challenge
Of actually thinking and feeling outside the square for ourselves.

The downside of this protective shut-down is that,
At lower levels of energy
Our perceptions and awareness of options and choices are severely limited,
Not by the circumstances,
But by our inability to feel the finer stuff.
At lower levels of awareness, a greater intensity of energy is needed
In order for any thing to be felt --
The sledgehammer has to replace the feather.
At lower levels of awareness
We get addicted to Intensity --
A junk substitute for Aliveness.

We weren't born this way, by the way.
This numbing is self-inflicted.
We've responded to life's challenges by de-sensitising ourselves.
That process can be reversed,
But it requires conscious commitment.

In the meantime, remember this --

Regardless of the level of being we are in at any given moment,
Our experience is entirely cohesive, complete and compelling
While we are in it.
There's nothing else.
It's only when we change levels of awareness,
Consciously and often,
Across as many different layers as possible,
That we ever get to know and more fully appreciate
The totality of what we are.

An added bonus to changing levels of awareness is
We begin to drop our addictions to intensity;
We become ever more attuned to the qualities of experience available at each level,
And discover the pure, energetic Aliveness that remains
When we remove the emotional labels from an experience we're having.
For example, "fear" and "excitement" are identical experiences,
But with different labels attached.
We react to the assumptive labels
And miss the gift of the energy.
Tags like excitement, anger, sadness, grief, anxiety..... and so on
That we attach to energy,
Dis-guise and blind us to the abundance and real nature of the intrinsic Aliveness
That could invigorate us,
If only we'd retire the negative judgments
We put on some of the forms in which energy comes.