Blind mountaineer Eric Weihanmeyer Credit: www.summitdaily.com
I wrote a little while ago that I was meditating and became aware that I felt happy and loving. I looked at the space within myself that seemed to be the source of these feelings.
The minute I did, I recognized that space as transformative love. (2) And that same minute, the love blossomed.
Instead of being the observer noticing a space within myself, the space became the whole of me and I found myself immersed in love. My awareness shifted from a loveless Third or Fourth-Dimensional space to a love-drenched Fifth-Dimensional space – for a bit.
I believe this has happened to me before. If I recall correctly, it did the first day I discovered bliss within myself (Sept. 27, 2015). I noticed some very elevated space in my consciousness and my awareness of it had the effect of triggering it to become the whole of my space, the whole of “me.” (2)
This recognition of an already-existing space is the action of awareness. I’d like to distinguish it from the action of the intellect and the action of the will. All three are functions of the soul; all three take place without tangible, visible action needing to occur in what we think of as the material world.
Awareness can reveal an action which may need to be done, but it’s the intellect that discerns what the best course of action is, and it’s the will that chooses and brings about that action.
Of the three, the actions of awareness and will probably need the least explanation. But I’d like to say a word about the intellect, discernment, or reflection.
The various orders and kingdoms are at different stages of evolution. As far as I know, and my knowledge here is limited, plants and animals are sentient beings: they feel pain, feel and respond to urges and instinctual drives, etc.
At some point, whether at the human level of existence or perhaps including animal species like whales, dolphins, dogs, and cats, reflective awareness arises. We find ourseves able to make objects of awareness.
We find that we can even make objects of awareness of ourself. As far as I know, a blade of grass can’t do that not can many of the less-evolved animals.
Most of my time is spent watching or observing my own internal processes. I’m making of myself an object of awareness and following my thoughts, feelings, and actions. Some sage once said we cannot become a knower of God without first becoming a knower of ourselves. (Later we find out that God and self are the same.)
Given that the purpose of life is to realize who we are at the very deepest levels of Reality, this ability to make an object of ourselves is a big forward step in the evolutionary journey.
Not only do we make an object of ourselves, but we “get the idea” of everything else in our world (including “God”) and “pass the message along.” The whole of the body of ideas we create we call our “culture.” Humanity are cultured animals.
Getting back to the three faculties of the soul, awareness is the action of the soul as observer. Reflection and determination are actions of the soul as participant.
All three are actions in consciousness alone, but different phases of it.
In its pristine form, awareness is simple rather than complex, bare rather than cloaked, open rather than closed.
I can’t really say that awareness is passive, inactive, because awareness dissolves knots in consciousness. That to me is an action.
But when I rest in my awareness, allowing my mind to fall silent, in that respect, bare, simple awareness is inactive.
Reflection (the action of the intellect) is consciousness purposefully weighing courses of action.
And will is consciousness in the driver’s seat, making decisions after reflection and operating the material mechanisms to produce action.
As I see it, this then is the mechanism of the soul on the 12 material planes by which it frames, chooses, and resolves to take action. Become aware, reflect, and take action. Become aware, reflect, and take action.
Footnotes
(1) Mike Quinsey, July 8, 2016, at https://goldenageofgaia.com/2016/07/08/mike-quinsey-message-higher-self-18-16/.)
(2) I use the phrase “transformative love” to indicate love that is very much deeper than ordinary love. In ordinary love, if a competing feeling like jealousy or hatred arises, it sweeps ordinary love aside. In transformative love, it’s as if a space is cordoned off, let’s say ten feet out from me in all directions; love occupies that space and repels any attempts by feelings like jealousy and hatred to sweep it aside. Instead they’re swept aside.
It isn’t possible to say what dimension transformative love is, because, like bliss and our natural (sahaja) state, transformative love is something we can go deeper and deeper into. Thus we can have a Fifth-Dimensional experience of it, or a Seventh-Dimensional experience, or a transcendent experience.