Consciousness, Breath and the Perceptions of Experience

It takes great restraint to contain oneself to the boundaries of just this present moment.  The mind rebels and fights to reach backwards and forwards in time.  It’s so funny how that works.  It takes some understanding of the mind to know that it prefers to be anywhere else but here in the present.  It also takes a great deal of awareness to understand when the mind is leaving the present and weaving its way back and forth into former and potentially alternative future realities.  We are just wired for safety and security seeking.  In a world as crazy as ours with humans at a full spectrum of development and also, lets be realistic, seeming lack of development who seem to plunge helplessly into the darker parts of existence, it is difficult not to worry or move ahead, compare to the experience and see where we are and if we can feel safe.

But what is feeling safe?  How do we know if that is real?  How do we know that not being safe is real?  One could argue that whatever is perceived is the only reality there is but is that sufficient enough an argument to make it true in terms of the totality of reality?  I don’t think we can say that with certainty and yet at the same time, I fully understand how it is that we just cannot ignore the perceptions of our experience.  It just seems so very real.  But then, I cannot help but ask, “Why are we wired like this?”  You see, I believe that we are perfectly designed to our tasks and that it is quite possible that we misunderstand just how big of a game we are participating in.  How do we know what is real, what is perception, what has been horribly skewed through the filters of our own psychology and what stands independent with 100 percent certainty?

The theories are abundant, vastly different and some so very similar.  I’ve read them, taken them in, tried them on to see how they feel and every time the only thing I can say with 100 percent certainty is “that may be possible.”  I’m not so naïve as to proclaim that the reality I see is real because I perceive it because I know that is not necessarily true.  And, I know that isn’t necessarily true because I understand the unreliability of perception.  One tiny example from among a million might be the application of something very cold to the skin that gives the perception of burning.  But burning in our common understanding requires heat.  There is no heat in icy cold. There is, however, sensation and there are certain hot and cold sensations that occur at such a degree that they seem similar but in reality they are not.  You can take two individuals and put them on a city street.  One person may thrive in the moment feeling the exciting energy of city life, the hustle and bustle of their present surrounds exclaiming they love the city and its splendor.  Another soul may take in the very same scene and proclaim it horrendously noisy, dirty, crowded and energy draining.  Who would be right?  If perception can be considered the truth then one must deal with the idea that one person’s perception over anothers is correct and the rest of us are faulty and wrong incapable of the right perception.  How many arguments would we put to rest of everyone understood that perception was unique to the perceiver and to argue over it with another who perceives is a ridiculous waste of energy?

There seems to be an interesting challenge when we try to label a thing with certainty.  Is a table a table?  What if someone experiences it as something else?  Is an experience invalidated by a different experience?  We can contemplate these inquiries and come up with all sorts of answers that we might term plausible or implausible but I don’t think we can come to certainty for everyone equally.  So, to me that means our experience, our perception and everything we take in is very unique to the make up of our person or being.  Maybe we are like a computer processor that merely takes in information and processes based only upon that data we are able or willing to recognize but not necessarily with the ability to fully contextualize reality.  So, how do we feel safe and secure in that?

If you can close your eyes and calm your thoughts by merely focusing upon the breath as it comes in and then out, over and over again, you begin to move into something not dependent upon labels to exist.  There is a void at the top and bottom of each breath.  That space is not dependent upon experience and everyone has this space whether long or short equally – that pause between breathing in and breathing out.  That is one thing that is definitively consistent across living humanity in that it exists independent of our thought about it or not.  That tiny little span between the in breath and the out breath or the out breath and the in breath is something spectacular.  In that tiny little moment, I think that we can free ourselves from the concerns or worry about any perception or experience we consider ourselves to have taken into our processing systems for the seeming span of our lives.  In that tiny little pause lies the totality of our existence not jaded by experience or tainted by sketchy perception.  It exists until we no longer are physically existing and then, seemingly, we move into the space of that pause.  From there, I cannot say what happens as I’m only there fleetingly with every breath.  In between my last breath when my heart stopped many years ago and the first breath when they brought me back, I was in a place I cannot define, or label or even fully describe other than it was eerily similar to that pause between breaths with eyes closed.  Words are meaningless to define what was more of a feeling.

It made me more curious about life and less afraid of death and I suppose in that, there was a bit of safety and security because it meant no matter what happened in my life, through my perceptions and my experience I judged only to determine safety and security.  I will wonder about that some more as these thoughts develop more into understanding.  I share them now only as more food for thought.  So, can we attain safety and security?  I think yes in fleeting moments and the rest of our lives will likely be wavering between other moments and challenges that compel us to continue seeking that safety and security.  I guess, that is the way we learn.  Fear and complacency or boredom creates in us the need for change to get to a place where fear, complacency or boredom no longer need to exist but these sensations or observations are so different for all.  So, we have this wealth of life on planet Earth with so very many different situations to create experiences to get us to move into a space of safety and security or even for some, the opposite.  I’ll stop before I dive into another tangent about psychology and drivers. 

Consider spending some time noticing those moments in between the breath.  What do you observe?  How do you feel about it?  What is different about it compared to your daily existence?  What you notice is something truly shared by all physical beings, how does that make you feel?  There are many things we can explore and the beauty of life is that we are given that.  I seek to bring understanding to life so that we can live better no matter what we perceive, so that we might understand each other better no matter what our experience.  So, we breathe. The safety and security will be left to what we allow ourselves to perceive.

Rev. J.L. Harter, Ph.D. (Editor/Contributor)  See Bio section for more information.

Shift in Consciousness

Abstract

Consciousness seemingly carries so many layers that it is difficult to understand fully with any certainty.  We have Freudian definitions; Jungian thoughts on consciousness as well as a slew of philosophical thoughts and papers on what it is and how it is.  This article looks not directly at consciousness but the operation of observation and awareness within and perhaps beyond or before it and the impact of awareness and observation on the perception of time through a first-hand experience of a few moments in time some time ago.

 

Key Words  

Awareness, Consciousness, Mind, Observation, Perception, Consciousness, Time

 

Always in the quiet and cool stillness of the wee morning hours do I find myself the happiest. The peace seems palpable, as if you could hold it in the palms of your hands. I treasure such moments as I do many others. When the world gets chaotic, emotional and seemingly out of control, I learned a little trick while walking along my up and down path in life. It’s simple gratitude and appreciation. For example, earlier in the week I was feeling a bit chaotic juggling all of the seemingly important things in my world when all at once I was struck by the depth of a cerulean blue sky. Not to stop there, as it seemed my perception was rapidly expanding, in the span of seconds I lost all concept of time. My consciousness expanded in an indescribable way and my senses came so very alive. It was so warm out and the grass had just been cut.

That smell of fresh cut grass on a warm day always reminds me of the summer time of my childhood...days spent in a little suburban neighborhood in Southern  California. I was always up so early just waiting for the sun, choking down breakfast quickly so I could go outside and play. I stopped in the moment in my present reality and all of those memories and scenes played in my mind's eye and I was filled with the joy and laughter of childhood memories of play and friends. But the moment was still expanding and I caught sight of the poppy flowers in a bed near my building at work from the parking lot. The colors of those flowers in the distance  seemed electric and alive...the brightest alive orange I’ve ever seen, the deepest soft pink in contrast with the deep green grass along with bright and vibrant yellow. I stood transfixed for what seemed like an hour. But the moment of expanding consciousness wasn’t yet done with me. My sight was pulled upward to a hawk hovering above the trees hunting for something small and delicious to eat. She looked magical floating on a warm up-draft of a gentle wind current. She circled effortlessly and I just watched in awe as if I could feel the wind beneath her wings.

But the moment still was not yet complete. Suddenly my consciousness was pulled to the scores of people walking around the campus. I saw them moving so quickly and noticed they hadn’t noticed their surroundings at all, too caught up in the drudgery as well as the superficiality of work-a-day existence by the looks on their faces. I could feel their thoughts and the cacophony seemed deafening. I observed only pulling back from my own thoughts and just observing a feeling of what was happening around me. A cool breeze kicked up out of no where and blew my hair into my face. I looked at my phone and realized all of this awareness, sensation, perception and observation occurred in a span of 3 minutes as I stood in the shade of a very large tree by my car in the parking lot. I smiled with an ear to ear grin. It’s like life is a simple joke sometimes. The things we think are so serious mean nothing and the things we miss, the things we don’t see mean everything. You might think it’s a cruel joke but to feel it you clearly know it’s not. A simple shift in your conscious observation can bring joy and love or infinite serenity spilling into your inner sight, your heart and your mind and the trivial things shift their phase out of the focus of your being for as long as you remain open and refrain from control. It’s an amazing space to exist in if even only for 3 minutes.

I find I slip into such much moments more frequently. Perhaps I’ve been through so much raw emotion these past couple of years that I’ve really lost my mind and those moments I am transfixed in observation may just be moments in which my sanity is lost or maybe it’s that I’m insane all the other times but those short 3 minute escapes I encounter or simply allow at times. I’m really not sure and I’ll probably question that forever. The one thing I do know is the effects are a bit intoxicating in a rather interesting way.  Maybe it is the true essence of that "high on life" feeling evidenced in John Denver’s Rocky Mountain High song? Such moments remind me that there is so much more to life than we allow ourselves to see, hear and experience. You have to shift your focus a bit or become acutely aware when the shift occurs on its own; remember what that feels like so you can go back to that space any time you want to.  It is an allowing, increasing observation of detail and feeling or seeing all that is happening within and around you and your consciousness.

Conclusion

From an experiential perspective in this moment, I observed a shift in time.  What seemed to be an hour of awareness of everything in crisp detail and allowing consciousness to unfold in an ever-expanding way outside of my elf and personal concerns, time had no meaning for a few moments.  What was once linear and limited by ticking seconds and sequential order disappeared and was no longer entirely sequential at all in terms of the perception while observing life in a very open state.  I question whether consciousness, time and perception are things much more in our control than we realize and that such descriptions are themselves so very limited.  Time may seem to be consistent with a clock that seemingly measures each moment and we experience that sometimes as quick and fleeting with shallow perception or, we observe it and truly feel it as expansive, with great depth, infinite detail and moving much more slowly to not at all.  We have much yet to understand and explore concerning how these perspectives of our minds work to influence time.  Perhaps it is just another facet of the quantum whole of existence seeming to move but really just an aspect of our awareness pre-consciousness slipping through the veil of what we commonly understand as the conscious and physical mind. 

 Dr. J.L. Harter, Founding Editor - See bio section for detail.

The Deception of Perception

Abstract

Perception is often considered to be fact or truth by the individual who is perceiving.  But, what if we truly understood the nature of perception and the illusion it really is?  Might it bring us greater understanding?  In this article, the author explores perspectives of consciousness and the impact it has on the acts of daily living.  Further, the article points out that this understanding can liberate limited thinking allowing one to explore every greater adventures in living life.

Keywords:  Perception, Assumption, Provisional Truth, Definitive Truth, Knowledge, Understanding.

Introduction

Were you to ask me if I were an optimist or a pessimist or whether the glass is either half full or half empty, I’d get very quiet, very thoughtful, smile and tell you, “Yes.”  To this, you’d probably say, “Well which is it?”  I’d smile again and say that my views on such things may seem to represent an irreconcilable dichotomy or even a paradox.  

I see myself sometimes as a realistic optimist who is also an idealist. So, I might say what glass is there to be half full or half empty? Why would you limit me to a glass when I have the entire universe to fill? Are you sure there is even a glass? Suppose there is a glass, its contents could be limitless because you have not confined me to size. Were you to confine me to size, I’d rebel with some philosophical concept that we are all living in a dream and your concept of optimism and pessimism is based on a false premise of your own belief on what represents a glass or it’s potential contents let alone its precise volume.

Yes, I have perspectives on all sorts of things and I can take a stand on a position as my heart moves me to. However, I also understand that a perspective is based on what I tell myself about what I experience and so my perspective on anything I see must be fluid. As I learn and grow in this realm, I have learned that the moment you think you’ve nailed down a definitive truth, you learn something new destroying a former belief and replacing it with what seems like knowledge.

Not being finished with this line of thought I’d push it further into Marianna’s Trench. I’d look around and point out how the buildings, the sky, the flowers and even the breeze seem so very real but these are just the labels of our consciousness because my experience in this life has shown me that my life as I perceive it is a projection that is turned off the moment my heart stops beating. And when my heart stopped beating that is precisely what happened. The movie was over, the dream was momentarily interrupted and I was elsewhere in this infinite space of the stuff that our dreams are made of and to the perception that was nothing to label, nothing yet manifest, and nothing concrete just consciousness existed.

I question my perceptions daily as I contemplate life and my own existence within it. Every day and every moment that goes by I question more of what I’ve come to consider fact and find it merely a projection from some belief created during my formative years in the expected beginnings of the projection within this dream. Walking between worlds is what it feels like I do and much does not translate so easily as glasses and contents. I don’t care about glasses and contents or labels and beliefs. What I care about is the perception and projection of every facet of consciousness that is represented as a splintered whole that we call you and me or us and them.

Every philosophical theory there is tries to grab hold of my mind and I find I cannot even begin to hold or fully align with any of them completely because it is too easy to poke holes in everything here. The conclusion I come to is the certainty in the uncertainty of our perception of our own existence. We expect a thing to behave a certain way and then we align all of our thoughts to that expectation and then it magically happens or doesn’t and then we react with thoughts or emotions that take us further away from the one thing we really want and that is the truth. That truth is not something known by labels, words, stories, histories or experiments alone. It is known only by feeling in a way that does not translate as I said.

Some days I remember thinking, “How can I learn the truth about everything?” Know with all of the things that have come to me I’ll tell you it would be easier to know nothing and play along with the dream. But that’s a little hard to do when you know you are dreaming, the monsters aren’t real and truly you represent the tiniest portion of your much grander existence in consciousness here seemingly in form. Returning from the moment of formlessness and the questions that arose and later were answered I find sometimes it’s hard to play along, it’s hard to do this – living in this work-a-day world. It is what we have collectively agreed to do and so I do it. But I am often optimistic and idealistic in nature with a twist of realism in the feelings deep within me that I trust more than anything.

Conclusion

Humanity is amazing and one day you will understand how and why. That is, if you want to know. You don’t have to ask the questions and you do not have to become aware or awaken. I’ll tell you it is easier if you do not (realistic). But if you do want to know, you must realize that even to categorize yourself with the labels as I have for the sake of argument is by far too limiting. We are everything just reflecting and mirroring ourselves to each other. We learn as we do this. We grow as we do this. So, if you’re still holding that glass, just fill it with the contents of your choice and drink up. Set down the glass and go for a walk under the stars and contemplate the nature of reality and your existence within it. Stop thinking after a while as you do this and just feel. You might then begin to understand. There is a nebulous something-ness to our existence that has many labels under many schools of thought. Which is right or wrong is really irrelevant. Eckhart Tolle proved it to me in his works in which he described his own ability to observe himself thinking. That thought or concept I could test myself and I could indeed observe myself thinking. So, I am not limited by the I that is me thinking. I’m quite unlimited by the constraints of glasses and contents as I’m trying to point out. I deeply appreciate the study of Noetics, Physics, Philosophy and Psychology as they continue to push the boundaries of our understanding. As our perceptions are replaced by knowledge, we change and grow beyond the monkey-minded graspings of the ego alone and realize there is something much bigger of which we are all an important and intrinsic part.

 

© 2015 Dr. J.L. Harter (Photo/words)

Rev. J.L. Harter, PhD, M.Msc., B.Msc., Author, Blogger, Teacher,  Spiritual Counselor and Founder/Editor of the JMCC.  See Bio section for more information.

Experiential Reality

 

What precisely is the basis of your experiential reality?  Do you know? As I consider my own experiential reality, I have to consider what comprises its component parts:

The 5 Physical Senses:  What I see, hear, smell, touch and taste.

    The 6^th Partially Physical Sense:  What I instinctively know (auto-biological, genetic and intuition).

    The 7^th Sense:  This is really a refined aspect of 1. And 2. Above but it comprises the less tangible but no less important concepts of sensing energy and vibration.

The 8^th Sense:  This is a further refinement of all of the above but can be compartmentalized in alternate states of consciousness and is more dimensionally oriented and not necessarily just in the physical.  I consider this sense more in tune with the level of the Spirit which is closer to the One Consciousness or Cosmic Consciousness (or 9^th Sense and there are more).

So, all of the above “senses” are part of my experiential reality but based on how I perceive what my senses are taking in and then further how I objectively or subjectively label or judge what I perceive what my senses are taking in, I have established my Experiential Reality.  Is everyone’s experiential reality the same, you might wonder?  Well, the way we humans sometimes act, it seems at some level we must believe that everyone’s experiential reality is in fact the same because we are very quick to attack someone who slights us in some way for not acting or behaving as kindly or thoughtfully as we do.  But, as you can begin to see (or will see shortly), the truth is we don’t all perceive everything exactly the same way because we can’t.  We can share some perceptions and observations but part of the way we experience the world comes from our senses and how we filter and store the data.  We sense or open to receiving data and then the mind runs its processes to look throughout our experience here in this lifetime (or even others) to find something similar with which it may come to know what it is sensing.  Based on a person’s very individualized experience, the sensory data that comes in will be compared to data taken in at some point in our past.  Simulations of the mind are then run as a result of the comparison processes in order to determine what something is that we have sensed in our experience.  This means that we can have the same inputs but our resulting findings based on our experience won’t always be the same.

I find this an interesting series of thought particularly in light of the conflict of human interactions.  We assume because hubby didn’t take out the trash that hubby doesn’t think very much of us.  We also might assume based on our mind’s findings post-simulation and analysis of data, memories, etc. that when Suzie doesn’t call us when we want her too, she doesn’t like us any more.  Okay, you get the basic idea here, right?  Not everyone comes to the same conclusion after taking in the same data sets.  What further complicates the comparison process from one human being to another is that our senses are different at various levels.  If you just take the first sense, sight.  Not everyone can see 20/20 or see with color.  So, how do you determine the same data taken in but different outputs in thought results?

You see, the data we take in is first filtered by our senses and then further filtered by our memories, perceptions, judgments and beliefs and then we determine the outcome of the data set, (e.g., because of “x” in my memory banks, this is what “this” is).  Now, to further my point lets take Vera, Chuck and Dave.  Vera’s hearing isn’t perfect  but her vision is 20/20.  Chuck is color blind but has exceptional hearing.  Dave is neither color blind nor hard of hearing.  All 3 are standing on the sidewalk at a parade.  Marching directly in front of them a brightly costumed float followed by a band is playing some kind of song loud enough for the crowd to hear.  Later, all 3 of my imaginary friends get together and compare notes on the marching band and parade.  An argument ensues about how loud the music was, how drab the costumes seemed, etc.  Each asserts his or her perception is right.  But, consider, who is really right and who is wrong?  Each can argue from their perspective just on the first physical sense alone.  But what if each also has another trigger-filter inside.  The last parade Vera attended, the man next to her had a heart-attack and died leaving her her a bit apprehensive of parades.  The last parade Dave was at, he was with his friends having the time of his life.  The last parade Chuck was at, someone launched a bag of popcorn that landed squarely on his head leaving him a bit annoyed.  How might these experiences further shape their perceptions of the parade and marching band?  Again, who would be right and who would be wrong in their experience?

Now, take this concept and look at life.  Through the first 5 senses and the mind’s operating processes, we’ve already run data through multiple filters, first physical and then mental.  We can argue on the labels that result from these filters but who is right and who is wrong?  How can you tell?  Well, the 6^th and 7^th senses can help if you are attuned to them but what if you are not?  How could you tell who is right and who is wrong?  What if the 8^th sense kicks in for one of the three and leaves one of them with a knowing that the whole event, parade, music, costumes, being there together watching it and then arguing it afterwards was just a way in which folks might better learn to understand how we take in information and experience this world? What if the 8^th sense, residing more at the level of the Spirit is very in tune with all that is and sees things not in terms of right and wrong but rather in what is beneficial and what is not to a particular person’s life path?

The more you dig into this and analyze it, the more questions arise for the careful and open observer.  When you dig in you start to realize the common conflicts humanity suffers is all based on the same data taken in but sensed and then filtered differently forming individuals aspects of experiential reality.  But, if our experiential reality is not the whole truth then what is the truth?  THAT is THE Million Dollar question and one worth asking, not others, but of the self and only the self.  For only in the still and quiet moments of reflection and understanding can we ever hope to comprehend that there exists a truth of reality beyond the limits of our Experiential Reality.  Arguing for the rightness of our Experiential Reality and, therefore, negating someone else’s Experiential Reality comes down to a choice of how much energy one is willing to expend on something potentially irrelevant and illusory.  On the other hand, through the sharing of the various Experiential Realities with the understanding of the various filters and perceptions, we could stand to gain much knowledge rather than belief based on perception alone.  This theme is key to awareness of our larger conscious existence.  It takes effort but is by far more worthy of our efforts to seek understanding that to fight to be right.

 

© 2014 J.L. Harter

Rev. J.L. Harter, PhD, M.Msc., B.Msc., Author, Blogger, and Spiritual Counselor, Editor of the JMCC.  See Bio section for more information.