Consciousness is Everything

The Secret
First was the Oprah-popularized The Secret. It talked about the Law of Attraction. Positive attracts positive and negative attracts negative. Eg - a positive person attracts the positive things in life (prosperity, health, career growth, well-being, lucky breaks, etc.), a miserable person attracts misery (bad luck, being on the wrong place at the wrong time, debts, etc.). Losers comiserate with fellow losers and usually end up losing even a winning game. It may look like coincidence on the surface, but with what I'm realizing, there's really no such thing as coincidence. How we think and how we feel about things become the precursor of our reality. For better or worse, we create our future by how we unmindfully think in the present. I find this to be true.

What the Bleep Do We Know?
The 2nd movie shown was What the Bleep Do We Know?. This put a science to the concept of our reality being a manifestation of our desires, thoughts and feelings. Of all things, it was explained through Quantum Physics. Science is now validating what the mystics have been claiming for thousands of years. On a sub-atomic level, there is no such thing as solid...only vibrations made by string-like matter that disappear (no one knows where they go) and then reappear. Their reappearance is tentative (not absolute) and influenced to a certain degree by how we think. Our thoughts are unto themselves vibrations we send out. At some point it resonates with like frequencies...through this process, our desires manifest. Ok, let me hold my horses here. I know that was too much to absorb. I know. It took me days of pondering to sink it in. But when I realized what it meant, wow! This is powerful shit!

Play It Again, Sam
On a personal level, I fully subscribe to this - consciousness defines my here-and-now. When I catch myself with my wandering thoughts, it's always about replaying unpleasant episodes in my past where I got the short end of the stick - not having the last word, not having said what I needed to say, being victimized, taken advantage of, etc. And to sum it all, I always do the same predictable thing. In my imagined world, I always say the right thing at the right time, convincing everyone I was right. I also catch myself thinking of how I break kneecaps of people who wronged me...me being the hero at the end of the day. Ultimately, in this reverie, I walk away from a feeling of moral upperhand.

And My Reality Is...
And guess what? In my reality, I'm the lonerider...walking through life alone because I walked away from nearly everyone (don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. I like exactly where I am). Walking away has become easier than fixing the relationship. Yes, my thought patterns dictated what my present lot is. I satisfy my need to feel right by rewriting the script during the playback. And yes, it feels good...the world owes me...I love my drama!

Empath Yoga Legacy
In a nutshell, this is the lesson I got from Empath Yoga (actually, just one of many): if we change our self-image, we change our thought patterns. Consequently, we change our reality. Our thoughts create our reality. We can will it, feel it, visualize it, chant our way to it, meditate to a reality of peace, harmony and contentment. I know, easier said than done - but the possibility is there.

Vipassna Legacy
While still decompressing from my Empath Yoga experience, I drifted into a 10-day silent meditation retreat - Vipassana. This proved to be equally powerful and compelling. Again, consciousness, through purification of the mind, was at the heart of the course. By focusing the mind (taming the monkey mind), it's possible to break down the solid constructs of the mind-matter carapace, penetrating into its subtle layers, reaching down to its deepest level, until what is solid completely disappears. We reach that space where solid no longer exists...only vibration...until we are distilled to pure consciousness. I'll be honest. After meditating 10 hours a day for 10 consecutive days, I only get a sense of all this, but I can't say I fully comprehend it. Let's just say this is how Gautama became a Buddha (The Enlightened One). Getting there is a long arduous path. I do not ambition to get there...just to be in the right direction is enough for now.

Sifu Jen Sam
I was on a roll. Coming from Vipassana, I got an invite to go to Subic (SBMA) for a yogic workshop. I didn't really get the details but it called out. It turns out the speaker was an Australian who spent 20 years as a monk in a Shaolin Temple. Whoa! How cool is that? From a consciousness perspective, he talked about things he witnessed inside the hallowed confines of the temple. Monks are forbidden to show-off what they can do. It has been abused in the past. He was fortunate to have witnessed the following:

• An 80-year old monk did a hand stand...then lifted one of his hand (thus doing a one-hand stand)...then lifted his 4 fingers (thus doing a 1-finger hand stand)! The monk confessed later that what he was doing was levitating as his finger wasn't really that strong.
• Another monk was rumored to have developed the command of fire. After much effort, the fire-monk exhibited his skill. With paper placed on a table and his hand hovering about a foot high, the paper burst into spontaneous combustion. The fire-monk asked Sifu to touch his combustion-effecting hand. It felt cool. He was again asked to touch it. This time, it felt like a searing hot iron.

From 7% to 100%
Maybe this is what Einstein meant when he said the average person only uses 7% of his mind. Use the entire 100% and you can do things that defy the natural laws. Hmmm...could this explain how Christ walked on water? I never bought the son-of-god explanation. Christ to me is a cool dude whose heart is in the right place. Ah...this is really trippy!

Ending Thoughts
Walking on water? Now, it seems within human reach. Empath Yoga provided the ideology. Vipassana provided the methodology. Sifu Jen Sam provided the manifestation. Realizing this concept opens doors to an infinite possibility of what we are capable as a human race. I'm overwhelmed at the sheer potential. Careful what you think about, specially the ones that happen during your unguarded moments...you'll become it!

--- TheLoneRider

Related Links:

• 10-Day Vipassana Silent Meditation Retreat

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