"The last twenty years or so, spiritual/new age authors have sent this message
to readers: "You have something broken about you and I can fix it."

Now a newer, truer message must be heard: "You are here to deliver a beautiful gift to
the world - and it's a gift that benefits everyone. Remember it, and get on with it."

IT MAY HAVE been thirty years ago when I first read The Source by James A. Michener. I know he's much more famous for Tales of the South Pacific and Hawaii, but it was The Source that opened my eyes to the role the principle of Awareness plays in the lives of humans. More about that later.

First, let's explore the spiritual meaning of Awareness, by looking at what I wrote in my journal about it in the days when this information was formulating itself.

From The Invisible Garment:

Awareness evokes the arousal of consciousness. The first nine spiritual principles exist "beneath" ordinary human consciousness. Their impact on the process of life and the realm of form is pre-conscious for the most part. However, at this turn of the spiral, consciousness reaches a new level. It now becomes not only possible but also imperative for consciousness to understand itself as a participating aspect of evolution. Awareness awakens life to a self-conscious perspective.

In other words, the ninth principle, the last of the ascending principles, bridges the levels of life that exist in the unconscious or involuntary regions, with the levels that can be recognized, witnessed and examined. When Awareness enters the picture, life (through an awake human) can potentially experience itself as a simultaneous multidimensional happening: present here and now, connecting to all that has come before, extending into what will come in the future.

We must ask ourselves, then, what are the boundaries of Awareness? How much can we actually allow ourselves to witness? How wide can the spectrum be that permits us to understand the interconnectedness of everything and yet not diffuse to the point of absolute boundary loss? At what point does Awareness stop and psychosis begin?

Now, let's return to Michener's amazing novel. It's about a group of anthropologists on a dig in Israel. Michener unfolds an intriguing story centered around the 20th Century politics of anthropological organizations, filled with the drama of the personalities of the scientists. Suddenly, in the midst of the contemporary tale a digger will uncover a bone or an artifact and in his classic style, the author leaps backwards in time to tell the story of the person who "owned" that bone. As an aside, although it's a novel, if you want to more fully understand the history of the Middle East and the centuries of Muslim, Jewish and Christian competition for domination in that part of the world, read The Source.

When I read it as an undergraduate, I felt total awe. This author educated me to the history of the Middle East, introduced me to the power a writer has to develop and involve the reader in a multi-layered story, and most importantly, challenged me to think about awareness (long before the angels showed up with their spiritual definition of the word.) "What would it be like," the twenty-year-old me wondered, "to have a mind that is so open to information that when I touch a bone of a skeleton, I could 'remember' the life of that being? How would I live my life if I tried to be awake to all the history behind and all the future that will result from each choice that I make?" Well, of course the twenty-year-old me could neither answer those questions nor contain the thoughts about them for long. They required too much mind-stretching.

The fifty-something year old me can still not answer the questions, but I must admit that my mind finds them too fascinating to ignore.

I live in Los Angeles, the land of the "beautiful people." I often find myself people-watching, wondering whether any of us really recognizes our impact on the world. Here in movie land we create a culture of celebrity. We participate in structuring a society in which the average person knows more about Tom Cruise, Angelina and Brad, or Mel Gibson than they know about the laws our politicians are passing, the truth behind the wars we perpetuate, or the facts of why New Orleans isn't yet reconstructed. We actually encourage non-Awareness, by propagating a world of fantasy and projection.

What would it be like if each of us carried Awareness of who we are? What would it be like if we picked up an item in a store and could see the whole story of its journey to that shelf? What would it be like if we knew the truth about who we support when we spend our money? What would it be like if we consciously supported ONLY ethical businesses? What would it be like if each of us diminished our ecological footprint by being responsible for how we use the earth's resources?

If you have Awareness in your invisible garment, you feel an internal pull to expand your horizons. On some level, you want to know the source behind every thought, every form, every experience. And yet, you may have fear of that inquiry.

Developing Awareness in your daily life means relaxing your boundaries, which may be frightening. Thinking of expanding one's limits often brings concern of being a victim, being invisible, being exploited, being abused. And, of course, in the spiritually and psychologically immature person, those things can happen. They are legitimate fears. In fact, I've noticed in my years of counseling that people who have Awareness in their invisible garments often fear insanity more than most. There's something that may feel unstable about knowing things beyond the obvious.

However, especially if you have Awareness in your invisible garment, I challenge you to begin loosening your boundaries. If you are also deeply rooted in normal reality, you'll find that permitting yourself this kind of intuitional or cellular knowing will make you saner, not crazier. Like a plant that reaches higher toward the light, your roots will also dig deeper to hold you in place.

In the early 1980's I met a Native American grandmother on the Hopi reservation. One day I offered to clean her house for her, and in so doing I uncovered an old piece of poster board that had some faded pictures drawn on it. They were symbols, pictures of insects, and other rather childlike drawings. I asked her about it, and she said she'd been looking for it for years! She was so thrilled to see it that she told me the whole story depicted in these innocent, uncomplicated, two-dimensional drawings.

She showed me the spider in the top corner, and described the prophesy (apparently held in many tribes) that the 'spider people' were building a web that would encircle the earth in order to help people understand how everything is connected to everything else. She said that within my lifetime I'd be able to know "everything" by just asking the right question.

Whenever I sign on to the internet, I think about her. She was right. The pictograph of the prophesy looked like a child's drawing of a spider web, and the internet is sophisticated beyond my ability to comprehend. But the message is the same - we are all interconnected, and if I know how to ask the question, all known information becomes available to me.

The Internet, then, turns out to be one of humanity's contributions to Awareness. We're learning to expand our boundaries. We're learning how to access knowledge. Next, we must learn to allow Awareness to develop wisdom within us. The Internet can only report to us what is "known." Awareness asks to access what is not yet known. Awareness asks us to awaken our "junk" DNA and to turn-on that 90% of our brain that is not in use. Awareness asks us to allow the flow of cosmic wisdom access to human consciousness through our lives.

This month, I encourage you to slow down and pay more attention to the flow of Awareness in your life. Use your wisdom. Listen to the unsaid and look at the unseen as you walk through your daily life. Think about everything that happened before that put that can of tuna on the market shelf. "Remember" all that had to happen in science and industry to allow you to walk into an elevator and push a button and magically ascend. Without losing sense of self, allow your boundaries to expand.

Hint: your dreams are the best resource. They tell you what you "know" that can't be known!

© Connie Kaplan, 2006