The Evolution of Consciousness

Learning of Christ is easy, for to perceive with Him involves no strain at all. His perceptions are your natural awareness, and it is only the distortions you introduce that tire you.
(A Course in Miracles)

What is the conscious "I"? Psychologically, it is a filter.  A filter that has been used to strengthen your identity.  The “I” expresses his opinion to show his preference about everything. Your desires, and with it the fears, in fact define the "I". Awareness is a different thing.  Awareness perceives the external environment and watches everything as it is without any judgment.  They say that we have the ability to consciously process about 40 000 external stimuli per second while our "system" in fact processes millions. So there is certainly a lot more happening under the hood than we are aware of, but the " I " gives us the impression that we are in charge of the most important decisions.

If you talk to a woman with dilated eye pupils, you - if you are a man - will find her automatically more attractive. The reason for that is that women who attracted to someone get dilated eye pupils, and the male subconscious brain picks that up. If you are a female reader and you feel smug about the robot nature of the male sexuality, I would like to remind you of the fact that around the time when you are ovulating you have a sudden preference for high-testosterone men. So who exactly is in charge here? Are we entirely driven by subliminal signals and is our conscious brain later just coming up with a reason for why we did what we did in the first place?

In the olden days we always lived in the divine Now. Whatever had to get done, got done. It was as if there was a voice inside of us that always told us what to do. Deep down inside we were peaceful and we were connected to our environment. From that perspective, which wasn't really a perspective at all given that we weren't aware of the alternative that our thoughts would come up with. At that time, we actually were all one, embedded in the Source.

Then we ate from the Tree of Knowledge and a world of duality opened up.  “ I “ and the mind is introduced.  " I " is separated from the whole.  It is as if a filter got introduced, a way of perceiving the world differently and reflecting on this perception. Your filter is telling you that you are different from the person who sits opposite to you at Starbucks. Your thoughts are telling you that this new colleague who had just joint the company seems nice, but he had a strange facial reaction the other day when you explained the project the team is working on right now. There is something about him that you need to be checking out.

So you see there is in fact a psychological filter in addition to that biological filter. It is a voice that feels it has a choice in every perception, every thought and every action. Who knows, perhaps in the olden days the divine voice would have said, "oh, my friend just had a strange thought while I was talking, but it absolutely has nothing to do with our project, so let me given him a couple of seconds to return to what I am saying." So in fact, you have a completely different experience of interconnectivity when the noisy voice in your head shuts up.

What the Tao is telling you is that you can get back to this divine state of connectedness. We are one. Let the Tao show you that this is not just a good sounding spiritual notion but in fact so. Sure, the subconscious still drives you. Who you are married to or who you are hanging out with, for example, had been decided eons ago and with the help of a little hormones, brain chemicals, scents and smiles and perhaps a sparkling sun on your first date, your "system" encouraged you to go along. You will never be able to change that fact that you are just taken for a ride. But what you can now do is to make your journey a connected one. You can set aside the psychological filter that disconnects you from the Now. As the Course in Miracle states in the quote above, all you really do is to return to the natural state of seeing things. Join our journey, where She treats, love abounds.

By Christian and Su Zhen