[7luminaries]

Originally Posted by Greenslade

Hi 7L


It's all about the beer and popcorn, sitting by the fireside and telling the stories.


It seems the same things appear once in a while and this one kind of brings me back a little. The good thing about this thread is that there isn't much 'we are not.... ' stuff and a little more grass roots.

Hey there GS. It's like I've said elsewhere to God-Like.
Ultimately, like politics, everything is local. Meaning, if it doesn't hold up on the level of individual interaction and individual existence, it's broken or it's not whole, and generally will tend to be dehumanising.

Einstein said that science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind, and pretty much most of the giants of that era were hinting at a supernatural realm in some form or other, even God himself by any other name. In here, it's actually the other way around because few put Spirituality and anything else in the same post except perhaps in the Science and Spirituality thread. What happened to 'As Above, So Below?'

I've never been one to agree much with any false dualism, in either direction.

But our both/and reality is difficult for many to grasp or accept. Eternal consciousness or spirit and temporal matter (such as earthly life) in a what thus far appears to be a finite universe (limitations of energy &/or time re: expansion or w/e)....that's the deal and many struggle to accept the both/and. They may tend to focus more on spirit OR more on the material...doing the latter is actually far more common, as it's at hand day to day. In reality, neither of these will represent the integral reality of our lives.

That's because the same thought patterns occur over and over again, not just in the science vs Spirituality arena but in so many other walks of Life. The same thing's happened in this thread, and with you. There's very little real understanding of what creates our consciousness yet it's held in such great store, when there's so little understanding of the actual process. People want to think there is conscious this, that and the next thing when science says it's not the case at all. There have been scientific terms bandied about that have been badly misunderstood yet expressed as Universal Laws.


But when does Spirituality become a mentality? What happened to 'All That Is' or are simply talking about 'All That Is' beyond the physical so let's just forget some of the fundamentals of Spirituality for.... what exactly?


Spirituality is not far. above and separate from the material world, and what you're talking about is a degree of separation, if not serious relativity in a Universe where everywhere IS. There is no 'up there. down there' as much as there is no time, no 'beyond'. It's only beyond because you define it as beyond.

Spirituality, or consciousness, is eternal and foundational. It has always been and there is no separation. That is the illusion It is the ground of material existence and comprises, yields, and of course thus permeates all that is. We each come to this understanding in our own way and time, but not necessarily in any one lifetime.

What Jewish mystics (and others no doubt) described as emanations of consciousness leading to our material realm is paralleled more recently by physicists as multiple dimensions of reality existing at and above our own.
These would include the 4D (moving all round 2D in 3D space, = point in time (4D)) and 5D (moving all round 3D in 4D linear time = point in time 5D) dimensions in which we are aware of experiencing life day to day, plus others we cannot directly experience (yet?).

On the other hand religious and scientific traditions, beliefs, and paradigms have historically been dogmatic, closed-minded, and heavy-handed in their treatment of free thinkers and nonconformists.
That is very different from the fact of spirit or consciousness as the ground of being.

Which is what Spirituality comprises of - secondary levels of origin if Spirituality itself is to be believed. It is a belief system after all, and if it was is clever it would be a science or a fact. The "hard problem of consciousness" is that people who have read Spiritual literature know more about consciousness than teams of well-educated and experienced researchers in a range of fields - including Spiritual people and philosophers. Sometimes agenda becomes truth, and there so many aspects of Spirituality go out of the window.

What our consciousness is seems to be the 'hard problem' because science has yet to define it in any kind of accuracy never mind come to terms with how it does what it does. How we turn the inputs we have - sight, sound etc. into an experiential existence is still just as large a mystery. What is known is that so many things contribute to your consciousness, including your mental/emotional well-being and therefore will have an impact on how you perceive yourself. Many would say that much of what we call an experiential existence is nothing more than the brain going through it's normal processes.

Similarly the subconscious aspects of who we are that aren't really accessible, often the reason they're not accessible is because the mind 'protects' itself by compartmentalising memories and the like of trauma. Being honest I can't help but wonder if Spirituality is a compartmentalisation and protection tactic to some, by the way some subjects are often talked about. Regardless of what many Spiritual people might say, our normal, everyday and 'mundane' brain functions are as much 'responsible' for our Spirituality as anything else. And while consciousness itself can't be fond in the brain or anywhere else we have scientific access too, nonetheless your brain and how it works, your mind and how it works and everything else that's in your heart and your head all contribute to your consciousness.

The other interesting thing to come through recently is the work Penrose and Hameroff have been doing in the discovery that the brain is quantum-capable, which means it might well have access to the probability field that is the core energy of the Universe itself. That moves the goalposts into orbit. The issue that we have right now is that science has yet to catch up with so many areas - quantum theory included but there are more basic areas than that. We know much about neuroscience and psychology yet there are areas we really we don't have a clue about. It's the areas we don't have a clue about that are the ones that will probably hold most of the secrets.

And if we say we know who and what we are, we're just fooling ourselves.

The really interesting thing to me is how all existence is quantum-capable, and not just the processor of input and stuff. As consciousness does not originate in the material realm, it is ultimately not bound by the quantum paradox of observer/doer, even though physical reality itself may be. This means our experience of life is unbound by quantum paradox, even though entanglement is arguably still quite real even at the classical (medium) scale of our day-to-day existence.

We are heavily impacted by the quantum reality we experience, and yet ultimately we are unbounded by it...and thus, we are still ultimately the masters of our own experience.
Simply put, as self-aware sentient beings, we have the capacity to recognise paradox and limitation, and that in turn paradoxically allows for freedom and meaningful choice.
We can choose to be present and we can choose to take conscious decisions. These simple acts allow us to transcend the seeming paradox with engaged awareness, even though we cannot transcend the entanglement upon which our individuated consciousness comes to be. That is what is...the rest is ours to do with as we will, including gentle acceptance of what is in lovingkindness, versus other more unkind or unloving choices.

The heart has its own neural network and sends more information to the brain than vice versa, energetically it's far more than just a pump - every time it beats it sends out a pulse into the Universe. As carbon-based Life forms everyone in our vicinity has the capability to receive those pulses. As Pascal said; "The heart has reasons which reason knows not of."

The mind is concerned with object consciousness - objects being beliefs. knowledge and the like, anything that's processed by the brain and the electrical signals. That is the consciousness of form. Knowledge can also be egotistical because it's treasured. Space consciousness is a higher 'form' of consciousness in that it creates the space to allow other consciousness than your own to interplay and relate to your own. It comes from the same 'stable' as Gnosis and heart consciousness.

What we need is honesty with ourselves and what we express, because often humility is forgotten about and consciousness is certainly one are of Spirituality that we really need to address with a modicum of humility.

You have raised some good points, 7L. What I always try and look for in subjects such as these is some kind of balance at least between science and Spirituality, between the Spiritual and the 'real world'. Otherwise it just become the one-eyed monster.

The heart is a multidimensional "organ" and cannot be confined strictly to materiality. As gatekeeper of our core, our centre, it demands a measure of grace and respect before allowing us to proceed further.

Peace & blessings GS :huge3:
7L