Embedded Conditions in Consciousness

Saturday 12 Jul 2014

We take our lives to be so real. Our bodies our thoughts! Personal views and opinions can seem so right, but how did we get fixated with such certainty?  True, ideas can change, there is flexibility, we can empathise, we can know how others feel and think and we can change to suit. Further if we “buy” an idea, we can insert it into our worldview and go on to make it our own. Marketing and Advertising companies understand the process of changing minds and selling ideas.  Their methods can be so insidious that we can purchase a box of cornflakes they advertise and we can think it was our own personal choice. Role models and leaders also influence how we may want to be. This conditioning can be positive or negative depending on our point of view.

There are so many ways that we can be habituated, from families to our cultures and peers. When we take on an idea or opinion we allow it (mostly blindly) to get embedded into our consciousness and it becomes part of who we think we are. Rarely do we stop and think “why do I think that” or “How did I come to believe things are this way” or even more profoundly --- “who am I”? When a belief is embedded into our consciousness it is often very hard to see how the belief got there or even to know that it is there. It’s just me!

It can take some heavy duty self-reflection to start to unravel things. Even the stuff that we see consciously can be difficult, but this pales into insignificance when we start to try understand the stuff that is unconscious. The unconscious mind drives a lot of what we do without us even beginning to know about it.  Like an iceberg, most of it is below the surface with what we can consciously know showing just as the tip. Where did this unconscious conditioning come from?

My belief is that it comes from the past. (Whatever we may think that is!) It is essentially dead stuff that we still carry around with us. Stuff we have not been able to let go of. It is stuff that has been embedded into our consciousness at some time and remains stuck there.

To clarify this, I am suggesting that there is a matrix of pure conscious energy that is the foundation of all existence. This simple conscious energy has been aggregated by conditions and then embedded back into that matrix by a blind conditioning process that shapes the space. This shape is directly observable, as is its relaxation when we let go of it. It is conditioning that for one reason or another, we still hang on to.

Of course some of this is necessary for our wellbeing, it keeps us safe, but when we get to the point of being able to reflect on what is really happening, then everything becomes a question.

The threads of this embedded and personal conditioned consciousness goes back over many lifetimes and will continue to push and pull us around until it is addressed. A lot of our conditioning is common. We are all in personal relationship with our world even if we see it differently. The process of understanding what is happening and then taking our conditioning into a direction towards peace and truth does however remain work for each of us to do individually. We can help each other and look for good guidance, but it is personal work. Importantly though, the work that we do individually does have its effect on the world.   

Buddhist meditation is an ideal vehicle for self-reflection and can help us to see “past lives”. We practice to make the mind very still and use the heightened awareness to bring up hitherto unconscious tensions and troubles, allowing them to be released.

Hypnosis is another vehicle that can help. A skilled hypnotherapist can help us relax and dissociate from ourselves thereby allowing the subconscious to be seen. This method can allow unconscious past troubles to come into view, to be made conscious and ripe for release.

Because the human condition is a mixture of head and heart, intellect and emotion, any strong experience we have, will get imbedded into our consciousness depending on its very complicated karmic impact. Emotion and feeling seems to get anchored and recorded in a more physical way and seems to ask for a more accurate physical and emotional memory for it to be properly recognised.  Intellect, on the other hand, being less grounded can sometimes be satisfied with a more confabulated view of the tensions present in someone’s mind, especially if it is not anchored with too much emotion. Recognition of the tension and the telling of a narrative around it can be enough in some cases for it to be released. I am generalising here as both elements of the human condition are as important as each other, but when there is a strong emotional memory, the story needs to acknowledged and relived more with the original feeling to be accurately recognised before the mind will let it go. A past life memory that is felt and relived can be re-evaluated (with the help of the intellect) from the present new perspective and allowed to be released. Of course if a past life memory has a strong emotional content the person experiencing it will also find it more believable, which will help them form a belief system of past lives, which can be used to good effect.

In my clinical experience and anecdotally speaking, around 8 out of 10 clients coming for past life hypnosis will be able to see and speak about a past life experience. Maybe 5 or 6 out of 10 might fully believe it. There may be 1 in 50 that can identify a checkable fact, and say 1 in 200 that will remember very accurately and be able to give names, dates, times, and experience that will tally with the written history. For example I had one client who could visit his grave and his wife and children’s graves. He gave a very accurate description of this person’s life that checked out remarkably well with the written history. I have also had other clients whose stories check out to a high degree. 

Personally I think it is good to have a belief in past lives. Of all the beliefs one can have a past lives belief is I think responsible. By definition it is recognises the interconnection of the Universe and will make empathy and compassion strong elements in your life. It is also good for the world because we know we are not escaping it with death. It is not deferring to a God to make the world right nor is it coming from the self-righteousness place that atheism can seem to hold. It is a balanced belief that is backed by a lot of proof if one cares to seek it out. 

The Buddha said that being born into a human realm is good for developing wisdom because of our ability to self-reflect and understand the dukka (unsatisfactory nature) of existence. We can see that life will always be trouble for us until we let it go. Having the human condition with its intellect and emotion is the right balance for this insight to arise. We do have the chance to realise peace!

The path of practice towards peace means we need to develop our skills in self-reflection. Using Buddhist Meditation to calibrate our lives, we can eventually isolate and know the energy of pure consciousness, and know that this is the right direction to go. Once we can see what pure conscious is we can forensically observe it and see its nature to finish. Knowing the Unconditioned nature of what is left, is where we will find and know true Beauty, Peace and Truth.    

(See “fungible consciousness” next blog)