How To Expand Your Consciousness Easily Without Psychedelics
3 important techniques that i apply every day in order to upgrade my consciousness and do things that science says shouldn’t be possible
What is consciousness?
To start off, I think it would be helpful to define what i mean by consciousness:
Consciousness is a property of the universe that embeds itself in living things in order to experience life from a first person perspective, gain experience and grow in power.
I’ve been studying the mystery of consciousness for almost a decade now. As far as i can tell, consciousness potentially exists in everything. It’s most widely accepted description is that it is the phenomenon “responsible” for creating the experience of what it is to be alive.
But there are other people, know as panpsychists that take this further. They postulate that consciousness is an inherent property of the very fabric of space time itself, and that every thing in the universe, down to molecules, atoms and subatomic particles, is conscious to some degree.
Probably not conscious to the same degree as a human, but conscious enough to be aware of themselves, and exhibit the behavior or state associated with what they are known for.
An easy way to visualize this is to ask:
How do certain particles know how to repel or attract each other?
How do objects understand that they are affected by gravity and move in such a way that demonstrates this effect?
Some people postulate that some degree of awareness, or consciousness is necessary in order for these “calculations” to take place and for this behavior to be exhibited.
This is not the level at which we will be talking about consciousness today though, primarily this article is occupied with describing and exploring the role of consciousness as it pertains to the human experience. namely in terms of awareness and willpower.
From the books i have read, i have gathered that the role consciousness plays can be split into two important and distinct phenomena. We use it to observe the world, and we use it to manipulate the world. These are not entirely separate functions however, as it has been shown that observation and interaction are intertwined, as we see in the implications of the famous double slit experiment.
Consciousness isn’t the mind, it isn’t the thoughts, and it isn’t the experiences and sensations that occur. Consciousness is an empty receptacle. It is a vessel. It has no qualities of it’s own, other than that it gives reality to whatever it comes into contact with it.
It’s very much like god in this way, and many profoundly wise spiritual teachers suggest that our own consciousness is in fact, a part of god, and that everything we experience is brought into existence by the all pervasive consciousness of a greater being whom we call God, and which our own consciousness is a small splinter off of.
This is akin to saying that we as individuals are a drop of water that has been extracted from the ocean and placed in it’s own small separate container. I enjoy this perspective because it’s radically empowering and does not externalize, anthropomorphize and deify God, and it doesn’t sublimate the human spirit either, instead it lifts everything in the universe onto the same equal plane. In the words of Bill Hicks: we’re all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively.
To put it simply, consciousness is the prime substance of the universe, it’s the source of all creation, and it’s the base ingredient of everything you have ever experienced or done in your life. It’s what watches the road, it’s what turns the steering wheel, and it’s what presses down on the gas peddle. So understanding it and cultivating it will lead to improvements all across the board of your life, and may even lead you to places that you never could have thought to exist.
Why don’t i hear much about consciousness? And how can i be sure it isn’t just an illusion?
From the many teachers and books i have studied, and from my own personal experience, consciousness is something so mysterious, complicated and subtle that mainstream science currently doesn’t have the tools required in order to study it empirically. On top of this, coming up with a hypothesis with which to study consciousness requires a world view that most scientists simply don’t have.
The Scientists that are in the know about consciousness enough to study it effectively are in the minority and faced with a lack of funding and support by mainstream academic journals and institutions; who understandably take a materialist, reductionist and skeptical approach to grand claims about the frontiers of science.
An approach which proved useful in the past, but that i’d argue has outstayed it’s welcome.
Some scientists, such as Daniel Dennett, go so far as to say that consciousness is an illusion, and doesn’t have any concrete existence of it’s own. I stand at a position antithetical to this. I believe he uses straw-man-like analogies, improper definitions and fallacious logic to explain away consciousness in a way that fails to understand and capture it’s essence.
A perfect example of this would be that he likens qualia (the human, holographic sensory experience of the color red, or the sound of a song, or the feeling of pain associated with stepping on a misplaced lego brick) to what happens on the screen of a TV attached to a DVD player. To me, it seems a little too easy to make some simple observations that dismantle this metaphor:
Say you put the DVD player and screen, with the required power supply, out in the middle of an empty desert, or better yet, on a desolate planet with not even microbial life extant anywhere on it’s surface.
In this situation, yes there would be an image on the screen. But there would be nothing around to observe any of the imagery. If you put a human being there instead of the DVD player setup, there would be this phenomenon of observation occurring, called consciousness, which has no corresponding analogue in the DVD player analogy.
Now there are a lot of arguments for and against consciousness which are outside of the scope of this article, but i thought it would be a good idea to include a skeptical opinion within this article in order to give the reader a fuller understanding of the current landscape within the field of consciousness studies, especially with a view to the resistance and controversy that the subject matter has faced as it has struggled to establish itself as a genuine phenomena worthy of being studied empirically.
How Do I Expand and Strengthen My Consciousness?
There are 3 main ways to Cultivate Consciousness:
1.
Practice Morality
This is by far the most important practice for anyone who wants to explore, expand and empower their consciousness. Yet to a lot of people it seems unrelated. While someone’s level of consciousness can be increased to a certain degree without devotion to this practice, they won’t be able to go all the way, they will miss out on a lot, and potentially get themselves into a lot of trouble.
Consciousness and morality are intertwined because true morality requires a refined and sensitive awareness of the self, of the implications of it’s actions on the environment and others, and of the nature of consciousness itself as an infinite and omnipresent phenomena divided and placed into all things.
To understand consciousness is to understand that you are everything and everything is you.
This knowledge of the oneness of all things naturally precedes a dedication to morality. For it logically follows that immoral action is simply indirect self-harm, an activity intuitively understood to be purposeless, even by those unfortunate souls who are in the grips of the self-destructive impulse.
immoral activities naturally spawn from a limited and lower form of awareness, and thus a lesser consciousness. Expansions in awareness and consciousness will shine light on the insanity of immoral actions. And acceptance of these intuitive truths will lead to further insights which will grow consciousness and awareness exponentially.
2.
Meditate
Meditation helps to expand consciousness for two main reasons. The first is that the act of meditation itself is an art form that requires great determination and will, which are executive functions of consciousness itself.
Spending time in the thoughtless state begins to cultivate a greater connection to the source of all things. Everything comes out of, goes back into, and exists within the void of awareness.
There is great power hidden within and waiting to be harvested from this deceptively silent space.
It seems empty and vacant, but in truth, the silence of deep meditation is like an incredibly fertile soil. Meditation immerses you further into this soil, and allows you to plant conceptual seeds that will grow deep and strong roots.
Since consciousness IS emptiness and awareness. Clearing your mind allows you to become one with this emptiness and awareness. What you focus on expands, and so in this case it will be your consciousness that expands.
3.
self discipline and exercise.
Self discipline expands consciousness because it involves exercising the faculty of consciousness responsible for manipulating the probabilities of the particles inside your brain.
It takes focused and directed energy, sourced from and controlled by your consciousness, in order to bias the behavior of particles in a way that leads to actions which result in a higher state of order in yourself and in your environment.
If you focus on creating order out of the chaos of your life through exercising self-discipline, your consciousness will naturally grow stronger and expand as it is the primary resource you draw upon to make tough but smart decisions and follow through on them.
By extension, it takes great discipline to force yourself to exercise when you are not feeling like it and to push yourself beyond your limits. The same rules as written above apply here. Your consciousness will be the engine driving your behavior. You will be using it to generate and channel energy in a way that creates a desired outcome. This effort exercises your will power, which draws upon the strength of your consciousness. So exercising is great because if you can get through the discomfort, you get many benefits in one. Physical, mental and spiritual.
Conclusion:
The real currency that people should spend their time making is not money, but consciousness.
This isn’t a sacrifice because an expansion in consciousness will rightfully and naturally lead you to living a much more prosperous and abundant life.
As you go about your day, try and be mindful of all of the things you do and try and find any activity that doesn’t require consciousness to some degree! If you find something that complies with this, let me know! As it would be profound news to me! :P
