​Higher Consciousness & True Reality


 

 

 

Do you know about your higher levels of consciousness and what they can do for you?

Here you can explore the mystical part of your life. Nothing on earth is more rewarding.

You too can enter many sublime realms of higher knowledge and remarkable functioning.

 

 

 

Reality Versus Imagination and Illusion


The five senses make us feel that the world is real. Seeing the solidity of the objects around us, feeling the impact of the senses, it is hard to deny the validity of what we see. Everything looks real, and therfore, we never stop to question this reality.
The mind is attached to the five senses and accepts everything as real without questioning. When we bump into a table or a wall, and we feel pain, it is difficult to say that we are imagining it. When we see with our eyes, hear sounds, smell, or when we feel heat or coldness, we accept these sense impressions as real.

Some say that the world is an illusion, Maya in Eastern terminology. Can we accept this when everything looks so real? Can we regard the world as imagination?
We need the five senses and the mind to be conscious of the world, which means that the world is dependent on them. Without the senses and the mind, the world does not exist for us.

If we say that a real thing is something that always exists, with no gaps, then the outside world is not real. There are times besides sleep, when we are so busy that we are not conscious of what is going on around us. When there are no sensory sensations, as while being in a floating tank, or when in deep meditation, we are still conscious, but not of the world. This means that sometimes we are conscious of the world, and sometimes we are not.

After we wake up from sleep, or get out of deep meditation and return to ordinary consciousness, we feel that there was a gap in our consciousness of the outside world. There was no world at that time. If we try to pay attention to our consciousness, we will come to the conclusion that the outside world comes and goes, while the awareness of our inner consciousness never wavers.

The world exists for us only when the senses and mind are directed towards it, and ceases to exist for us when we silence the senses and the mind. During deep sleep, we do not experience the world because the senses are not active. Can you prove the reality of the world while you are deeply asleep? After you wake up from sleep, other people might tell you that the world existed, but can you prove that these people existed while you were asleep?

After waking up, we may invent all kinds of theories to prove the realty of the world. However, these are only mental theories. The fact is that during sleep the world was non-existent for us.

During sleep dreams seem very real, but upon awakening, we realize that they were just dreams. So it is with this world we call reality. It is possible to wake from it too. Sri Ramana Maharshi, the great Indian sage, has said that the difference between a dream while sleeping and the dream we call wakefulness is only of duration, one short and the other one long.
Further to the above, each person interprets and relates to other people's behavior, words and attitudes in a different way, according to the contents of his subconscious mind. No one's world is like another. Again, we see the illusion at work. A world is created, based on our interpretation of what we see, hear, and perceive through the five senses.



 

Mind and thoughts create the world
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Thoughts arise in the mind, and we become aware of them. The same thoughts tend to arise time and again. If we let this process continue, it goes on incessantly. These thoughts make us expect, behave, talk and act in a certain personalized way, and thus cause the people we come in contact with, to treat us and relate to us in a certain manner.
We usually continue with the same way of thinking, and live the same kind of life each day, whether we like it or not. These thoughts shape our circumstances and relationships. It is like watching the same movie repeatedly. If we want to watch a different movie, we have to change the reel or cassette. This happens by changing our thoughts. This is how creative visualization works, and there is nothing supernatural about this.
The world we experience and the life we live, are the reflections of our thoughts. The mind creates a world of illusion. By changing our thoughts, we change the illusion and experience a different reality. We do not create a world, only an illusion that looks real. No unusual power is involved here. We are living in Maya and are changing the Maya.
When we are able to still the mind and the senses, our consciousness seems to shift into a new dimension. Actually, it is there all the time, only that the mind makes us think otherwise. When there are no thoughts in the mind, the world we know and believe is real, loses its reality. We become conscious of the world beyond the mind and illusions.
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Waking up from illusion

We can wake up completely, understand, and become conscious of the illusion of Maya, and live, as we really are, as pure, formless, beginning-less and endless consciousness. Due to illusion, it seems as if we are all separated, having individual selves and each living a different life. Even when we wake up from Maya, its play may go on. We continue to see and experience it, yet it is of no concern to us anymore. Outwardly, we may continue to live our life in the same manner, but we are really awake.
It is like a movie show. A person who is watching a movie, often gets so involved with the characters and with what is happenning on the screen. He becomes happy or sad with the heroes, gets depressed, shouts or laughs.

If at a particular moment he decides to stop watching the screen and manages to withdraw his attention from the movie, he gets snapped out of the illusion the movie creates. The projecting machine will go on projecting images on the screen, but he knows that it is only light projected through the film onto the screen. What is seen on the screen is not real, but yet it is there. He may watch the movie, or he may decide to close his eyes and ears and stop looking at the screen.
Have you ever watched a movie, when at some point the reel got stuck or there was a power failure? What happens to you when you watch an interesting, absorbing film on the television and then suddenly there are commercials? You are snapped out of the illusion to the world around you. When you are sleeping and dreaming, and someone wakes you up, you feel thrown out of one world to a different one. It is the same in the life we call reality. It is possible to wake up from it.

One who has managed to still his mind and senses through proper training, may go on living and acting in the world like the person in the cinema hall, who is no longer interested in the movie. He learns how to get out of the illusion and wake up. If he is no more a slave to illusion and dreams, he is free. He sees everything as it really is. Contrary to what you might think, such a person actsions in his daily life in a better way, is stronger, happier, very practical and free from worry.
In the East, metaphors are used in order to demonstrate what illusion is in relation to Reality. A jewel made of gold may be called an earring or a necklace, but actually it is only gold. Before it became a jewel, and after it is melted it is only gold. Clay is shaped into vessels such as plates, cups, or vases, but they are only clay.
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Due to convenience of speech, we call these objects made of gold or clay by many names, but they are really only clay or gold. Everything in existence is "made" from the Original Substance, and is not a "real" thing standing by itself, exactly as in the above examples. Nothing has a reality of its own.
A mirage is not real, but yet we see it. Events taking place while dreaming are not real. However, we experience them during the dream as reality. A hologram looks like 3D, while it is actually flat.
In the East, one of the metaphors of explaining reality and illusion is that of the rope and the snake. In the dark we may see a rope and mistake it for a snake. When there is enough light we realize that it was only a rope, and the snake disappears. It is only due to some kind of illusion that we see a world. Everything is in the mind.

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The following is from the higher consciousness classic,
Handbook to Higher Consciousness by Ken Keyes, Jr.
which explains the Living Love system to higher consciousness. 
       
       
                    T H E   T W E L V E   P A T H W A Y S
                      To the Higher Consciousness Planes
                      of Unconditional Love and Oneness



        FREEING MYSELF



         1. I am freeing myself from security, sensation, and power
            addictions that make me try to forcefully control situations
            in my life, and thus destroy my serenity and keep me from
            loving myself and others.

         2. I am discovering how my consciousness-dominating 
            addictions create my illusory version of the changing world
            of people and situations around me.

         3. I welcome the opportunity (even if painful) that my
            minute-to-minute experience offers me to become aware of the
            addictions I must reprogram to be liberated from my robot-like
            emotional patterns.



        BEING HERE NOW

         4. l always remember that I have everything I need to enioy my
            here and now -- unless I am letting my consciousness be
            dominated by demands and expectations based on the dead past
            or the imagined future.             
         5. I take full responsibility here and now for everything I
            experience, for it is my own programming that creates my
            actions and also influences the reactions of people around
            me.

         6. I accept myself completely here and now and consciously
            experience everything I feel, think, say, and do (including
            my emotion-backed addictions) as a necessary part of my
            growth into higher consciousness.

        INTERACTING WITH OTHERS

         7. I open myself genuinely to all people by being willing to
            fully communicate my deepest feelings, since hiding in any
            degree keeps me stuck in my illusion of separateness from
            other people.        
         8. I feel with loving compassion the problems of others without
            getting caught up emotionally in their predicaments that
            are offering them messages they need ior their growth.        
         9. I act freely when I am tuned in, centered, and loving, but
            if possible I avoid acting when I am emotionally upset and
            depriving myself of the wisdom that flows from love and
            expanded consciousness.



        DISCOVERING MY CONSCIOUS-AWARENESS

        10. I am continually calming the restless scanning of my
            rational mind in order to perceive the finer energies that
            enable me to unitively merge with everything around me.            
        11. I am constantly aware of which of the Seven Centers of
            Consciousness I am using, and I feel my energy,
            perceptiveness, love and inner peace growing as I open all
            of the Centers of Consciousness.

        12. I am perceiving everyone, including myself, as an awakening
            being who is here to claim his or her birthright to the
            higher consciousness planes of unconditional love and oneness.



        ****************************************************************



         The following is from a classic of the higher consciousness
        frontier: The Handbook to Higher Consciousness by Ken Keyes,
        Jr. which explains the Living Love system to higher
        consciousness.

                       THE SEVEN CENTERS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
        
        1. THE SECURITY CENTER. 

        This Center makes you preoccupied with food, shelter, or
        whatever you equate with your personal security.  This
        programming forces your consciousness to be dominated by your
        continuous battle to get "enough" from the world in order to
        feel secure.

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        2. THE SENSATION CENTER. 

        This Center is concerned with finding happiness in life by
        providing yourself with more and better pleasurable sensations
        and activities.  For many people, sex is the most appealing of
        all sensations.  Other addictive sensations may include the
        sound of music, the taste of food, etc.





        3. THE POWER CENTER. 
        When your consciousness is focused on this Center, you are
        concerned with dominating people and situations and increasing
        your prestige, wealth, and pride -- in addition to thousands of
        more subtle forms of hierarchy, manipulation, and control.





        4. THE LOVE CENTER. 

        At this Center you are transcending subject-object relationships
        and are learning to see the world with the feelings and
        harmonies of flowing acceptance.  You see yourself in everyone
        -- and everyone in yourself.  You feel compassion for the
        suffering of those caught in the dramas of security, sensation,
        and power.  You are beginning to love and accept everyone
        unconditionally -- even yourself.





        5. THE CORNUCOPIA CENTER. 
        When your consciousness is illuminated by this Center, you
        experience the friendliness of the world you are creating.  You
        begin to realize that you've always lived in a perfect world.
        To the degree that you still have addictions, the perfection
        lies in giving you the experience you need to get free of your
        emotion-backed demands.  As you reprogram your addictions, the
        perfection will be experienced as a continuous enjoyment of the
        here and now in your life.  As you become more loving and
        accepting, the world becomes a "horn of plenty" that gives you
        more than you need to be happy.





        6. THE CONSClOUS-AWARENESS CENTER. 
        It is liberating to have a Center from which your
        Conscious-awareness watches your body and mind perform on the
        lower five centers.  This is a meta-center from which you
        non-judgmentally witness the drama of your body and mind.  From
        this Center of Centers, you learn to impartially observe your
        social roles and life games from a place that is free from fear
        and vulnerability.



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        7. THE COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS CENTER. 
        When you live fully in the Sixth Center of Consciousness, you
        are ready to transcend self-awareness and become pure awareness.
        At this ultimate level, you are one with everything -- you are
        love, peace, energy, beauty, wisdom, clarity, effectiveness, and
        oneness.
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