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| Before we look at the possible sources of shared knowledge it is important to consider what prevents us from having that knowledge in our present lives. First on this list are our perceptions.
Reliance on Physical Sight As human beings, we experience the existence of the world around us through our sensory organs. For humans, the most acute and advanced physical sense is sight. Of the five senses, the largest brain area is associated with sight. We learn from birth to relate ourselves with our surroundings primarily by what we see. Because we perceive at a macro level in comparison to the subatomic miracle of energy manifesting as matter, we perceive the world around us as a physical universe and not as a system of energy. The sense of the perceived reality of existence as physical is enforced by our other sense organs and we also relate to the world according to how things feel, taste, smell and hear. From birth, we believe what our senses tell us and our thought and our belief systems are built at this level. A filter is a device that allows the passage of certain desired elements and keeps out undesired elements. A basic example is a water filter you may have attached to the spigot in your kitchen sink. This filter keeps chemicals, particles, and organic compounds from passing through the filter element. The filter element allows pure water to pass freely. In audio electronics filters are often used to shape sound. Most of us have some sort of tone control or graphic equalizer on our home and/or car sound systems. By manipulating these controls, some sounds are kept from being heard, while other sounds are passed along to the speakers. We can increase the bass, for example, or decrease the treble to obtain the sound that is pleasing to our ears. These are examples of deliberate actions that result in the filtering out of specific information.
Our sense organs act as filters as well, and not through deliberate
action. Human hearing, for example, can hear vibrations from about 40
cycles per second (Hz) to somewhere around 17,000 Hz.
None of our senses have the capability to perceive the universal underlying
energy vibrations that manifest as matter. We only experience the matter
as matter. Matter takes on a wide variety of forms, Everything in this universe can be reduced to patterns of energy vibrations. The universe, existence, and our experience of existence (reality) is actually a single system of staggering unity. Contrary to what our perceptions and thought system provide for our belief, the whole of existence is a single system of energy vibrating in complex hierarchies. Clearly our perceptions are significant variables to rely on in the pursuit of existential knowledge.
The Image of Reality in our Minds
Everything you have observed and learned since escaping the womb has
built a thought system in your mind that creates reality in your mind.
Nothing exists for you unless there is a thought system there to support
the existence of what your sense organs perceive. Thought at the physical
level is the recollection and pattern matching activity of the brain.
While keeping past experience and stored knowledge separate from present
experience, the intellect can sort, evaluate, merge, mix, and place
values on concepts, perceptions and experience.
The Relationship Between Mind and Body
In practice, the mind communicates with the body in many ways via thought.
Consider, for example, how we move our eyes from looking at one object
to look at another object. The thought occurs to us to look at the other
object. Below the level of our conscious awareness, the mind transmits
this thought to the portion of the brain that controls muscles and the
eyes. As if by magic our eyes rotate in their sockets, the eyes move
so that the second object appears on the most developed part of our
retinas, and additional muscles move to focus the image sharply on the
retina. We are aware of none of these activities. Our conscious awareness
is simply thinking about the second object. Thought is the medium our
mind uses to communicate with the body. Every action made by the body,
whether it be movement, or use of the glandular system to maintain correct
physical chemistry, or digestion - are all functions of thought in the
mind that manifests as actions in the body. Since the separation, we identify primarily with our body and not with our spirit as we did prior to the separation. We perceive ourselves as bodies and not as spiritual beings that exist in this world with a physical body. The difference in perception is crucial. If we consider ourselves a body that houses a mind that resides in the constraints of the brain, then it follows that the demands of the body will dominate our existence. Our lives, in the state of consciousness, tend to be dominated by the hunger for food, by the need for rest and sleep, by the sexual drive, and by physical emotions such as anger, jealousy and loss. This state of consciousness by itself is an aberration that we have come to experience as normal human existence. Our natural existence, as it was prior to the separation, is for the spirit to be in accord with God's will for us. Communication between the spirit and mind via the medium of thought was unimpaired by any sense of ego or separation. Our consciousnesses, instead of dominated by the petty needs of the body, were intent on the joyful interaction and communication with others and the universe around us. In accord with God's will, food, rest, and sensual pleasures were prolific and there were no needs communicated by the body up through the body -> mind -> spirit hierarchy as instinctual and potentially destructive physical drives.
Let's take the example the next logical step. We have seen that the rock is energy. Keep in mind that the physical matter that makes up your body is, just like the rock, a complex hierarchy of energy. Further, the perception of the rock as a rock is a transfer of the awareness of energy from one point in space and time to another. Light is the medium by which we perceive the rock, and light is energy. In order for the perception of the rock to occur, the energy of the rock is transmitted by the energy of the light to the energy of your body. The entire process was a transmission of energy, and only energy is involved in the true reality of the perception. Our perception of reality and existence is a complex exchange of energy that manifests as reality in thought.
It is clear, then, that we are not able to rely on the perceptions by
our body to provide the basis for reality, truth and knowledge. Since our birth we have learned to rely on the perception of our senses to define our existence. We see not that this has limited our experience and created a false image of reality - however limitation is just what has occurred. In order to correct this process we need to relearn how to experience reality. As we discussed earlier, our experience of reality is largely determined by sight and, to a lesser degree, by the input from our other sensory organs. Our existing thought and belief system is based on these limited experiences. Since the separation our species has forgotten the priority of experience. Bodily perceptions were created as learning tools and not to provide the foundation of our experience. The correct priority of existence is to experience thought as the highest and most important medium, and to properly delegate our bodily perception of the world around us as a learning experience. Our collective thinking has become upside down and as a result we as individuals have forgotten how to have conscious contact with the One Mind - the cosmic consciousness. This upside down thinking requires correction if we are to obtain true knowledge of our existence, if we are to evolve as a conscious species, and, most importantly, if we are to return to peaceful and joyful existence by living within the will of God.
The Source Of Meaningful Knowledge While talented and intelligent people working in the field of science pursue knowledge in their labs; and while scholars, philosophers and theologians pursue knowledge through their intellect; the source of meaningful knowledge is not to be found where they are looking. The source of meaningful knowledge is available only to those who choose to live their lives in accord with the will of God. Only through the healing of the great separation will mankind remove the shield of the ego that prevents our experience within the reality where the Akashic Records lie. So far we have seen that existence based on the perceptions from our bodily senses results in an existence that is insane. I have called this type of existence upside down because existence based on the perceptions of the body put those perceptions in charge of defining reality. The result is a reality in which the body becomes the perceived center of existence. This is upside down. We are spiritual beings first and foremost. The spirit is eternal and transcends all individuals and God. We as individuals were created by the one spirit in the image of God. This level of existence is defined by the mind. The mind then inhabits a body. In reality the body is at the bottom of the hierarchy of existence.
We have also seen that the medium of spirit and mind is thought. When
we pray and meditate we open our thoughts to the One Mind - God's mind.
In terms of meaningful existential knowledge we have seen that it cannot
be based on belief, truth or faith alone, Meaningful knowledge can and does only come from one source - the One Mind - God's mind. Edgar Cayce was able to access the Akashic Records, which are an ethereal storehouse of universal truth and knowledge. As long as we exist in the separate realm of the ego, our access to meaningful knowledge is limited to accidental fleeting glimpses. Once we turn our existence right side up and live as spiritual beings temporarily residing in a physical existence we are in a position to receive meaningful knowledge. As I have already said, prayer is the active talking to God. Meditation is the active listening to God. As we dwell in our spirit and meditate, thoughts come in to our minds from the One Mind. With practice and in time we learn to listen more actively and receive meaningful wisdom in all aspects of our lives. © David Williams, 2008 |
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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We perceive matter to be solid at a macro level - the level of our perception.
Phenomena such as light and gravity are direct manifestations of energy
and are perceived as such at the level of our perception. All of existence
is comprised of energy.
Many animals such as dogs can hear sound frequencies over 20,000 Hz.
Without our awareness, our senses filter out information about the world
around us. If a sound of over 17,000 Hz is made, a human will hear nothing
and yet the dog hears the tone quite clearly. Similarly, our eyes are
able to detect wavelengths of light from about 400 nanometers (nm) to
about 700 nm - the visible light spectrum. Any light that exists above
or below these wavelengths are invisible to our sight. Light outside
of our perception exist all around us yet we cannot see it. Special
instruments are required to establish their presence. Infrared and ultraviolet
lights have wavelengths shorter than 400 nm (ultraviolet light) or above
700 nm (infrared light). They are present all around us yet we do not
see them. Our senses do not perceive electromagnetism, or we would 'hear'
radio and television broadcasts without a radio or television. Gravity
is a force that we feel the effects of as weight, but otherwise gravitational
energy is not perceived directly by our senses. It is clear, then, that
the information our brain receives from our sense organs represents
only a small fraction of the reality that actually exists. Our sense
of reality is limited to what we experience through our senses and by
what our brain manifests the sensory information to be. There is a lot
more going on that makes up reality than we perceive!
sizes and locations and the world around us appears to be an extraordinarily
complex assortment of matter. In regards to energy, we are able to perceive
only narrow bands of sound and light. Energy such as electromagnetism,
gravity, and light outside of our ability to perceive all are non existent
to our perceptions. Our Earth appears to be a complex world with abundant
life, vast oceans, and a wide variety of geologic and chemical displays.
Mankind has studied the world around us since we first obtained sentience.
As we look to the skies, we experience a universe with vastness that
cannot be comprehended. At the level of the universe, the Earth is a
tiny grain of dust floating in eternity. But this entire reality is
filtered by what our senses perceive and transmit to our brains. The
image of existence is created in our minds based on the perceptions
of our senses as processed in our minds by our thought and belief systems.
Surely we have considered from time to time the possibility that more
is going on around us then our senses perceive. How right that consideration
is!
Thought is an infinitely complex process that automatically occurs in
our minds. The mind uses its vast storehouse of knowledge and experience
to take input that your mind receives from nerve fibers that deliver
information from the sensory organs and create the commensurate reality
in your mind - be it smell, taste, touch, sight or hearing. The reality
exists in your mind as thought.
An important and frequently overlooked consequence of this mechanism
is that the mind, via thought, also controls the duplication of new
cells and reacts to invasions by viruses and bacteria. All illness,
including cancer, is the direct result of the mind either creating the
illness or allowing the invasion by the virus or bacteria to become
an infection. This is because of the hierarchical structure of our being.
The mind is over the body in the hierarchy, and so therefore cannot
be in control. The body functions at the will of the mind, which functioned,
prior to the separation, at the will of the spirit. All physical phenomena
of the body, including aging, are a function of the mind, which is in
control of the body.
Thought,
then, is the medium of true reality. When we live our lives believing
that reality is based on the information delivered to our minds by our
sense organs, we do not live in true reality. The rock we hold in our
hand appears to be in reality a physical object - a rock. It is actually
a complex hierarchy of energy that vibrates outside the ability of our
senses to detect. We are blind to the information we cannot see and
we perceive the energy hierarchy as a rock in our mind.
Something else must exist upon which we can base our experience of existence
and reality. That something is thought, as thought is the only thing
that reality can be based on. Reality is actually the manifestation
of energy as energy changes in the passage of time. Thought is the medium
that exists to experience the manifestations of energy in time, or reality.