Consciousness and Responsibility

Life – both physical and spiritual – is all about constant change.  As the old saying goes, you’re either busy being born or you’re busy dying (and in a physical sense you’re really doing both at the same time).  This is self-evident in all forms of physical life, and it’s also true when it comes to our spiritual aspect.  If a soul or Higher Self is working with negativity, the soul is considered to be “devolving”, which is the spiritual equivalent of death.  It’s  working away from Source instead of toward it.  Contrarily, a soul that is working with the energy of Light is making its way back to Source – this is considered to be spiritual evolution.  There are stages to this evolution, just as there are stages in our physical life cycle.

Many, if not most, souls incarnated on this planet are in what could be considered an adolescent stage of development.  We call this phase of consciousness “fourth-dimensional” because the fourth dimension of existence is the realm of thoughts and emotions.  People who are operating from the fourth dimensional perspective only “know” what they can perceive in a physical sense or deduce with their mental and emotional abilities.  Depending upon their particular mental/emotional balance, they may be able to be objective about reality and come to logical conclusions based on what they can see…or they may operate strictly on emotion, where everything they experience is colored and influenced by how it “makes” them feel.  Most people operate somewhere in between those extremes.

However, if our fifth dimensional (soul) aspect prompts us to evolve and begin to seek consciousness on a higher level (and if we’re paying attention), our perspective gradually begins to shift.  We become able to see beyond our thoughts and emotions.  It’s like peeking over a garden all; we catch glimpses of what’s on the other side of our thoughts and emotions…just enough so that we know there’s more than what we’ve been operating with.  We’re not sure of exactly what’s over there, but we know it’s there.  This is what’s known as fifth-dimensional awareness.  One interesting thing about this is that once we reach this stage, it’s fairly difficult to go back.  Once we’re aware of our higher dimension, we really can’t deny it.  We can try; we can decide that we were only imagining this place beyond thought and emotion.  But once we attain the awareness, deep down we know it’s there, and it will haunt us for the rest of our lives unless we acknowledge it and do something with it.

Once we’ve made the decision to continue to evolve (and it does need to be a conscious decision, because no real evolution is obtained without learning lessons), the process of realizing fifth-dimensional consciousness and operating from that persective begins.  We begin to look for tools that will help us in that regard.  It’s like we might first drag a nearby rock up to the garden wall and to get a bit of a better view.  Then, perhaps, we find a handy step-stool, climb up a few feet, and find that there’s a lot more to the garden than we thought.  We see flowers and trees of a kind we never knew existed, and this information now becomes a part of our experience and how we perceive and operate in the world.  We might have previously lived in a world where there were only oak trees and grass…but, now that we’ve seen over the wall, we know that we actually live in a world populated with palm trees and mimosas; morning glories and moon flowers.  Our entire way of thinking and feeling is expanded, and with it our ability to conceive of new things.  After all, if there are moon flowers and morning glories where there once were none, what else might be out there that we’ve never experienced?  Thus our fifth-dimensional consciousness takes hold and is self-perpetuating.  The more we know, the more we want to know.

And of course, we can’t “unlearn” this new perspective.  Just as with awareness, consciousness cannot be denied – at least not without consequences.

If we want to continue to evolve (and reap the benefits of that process), we need to put our new awareness and consciousness to use.  Recall that awareness is having “knowledge of knowledge” – but consciousness is internalizing that knowledge and living in the new world that, for us, has been created by our having it.  For example, “knowing” that “we are all One” as a concept is all well and good…but unless we live our lives and act as though we are all One, we’re not really operating from a fifth-dimensional perspective.  We might’ve indeed gotten the concept intuitively from our fifth-dimensional aspect as downloaded wisdom; and if we’ve become able to trust that sort of input, we can say that we intuitively “know” it to be true despite any skepticism from others or “scientific” appearances.  Some of us stop there, feeling that we’re sufficiently connected to be qualified to teach that piece of wisdom.  But intuition not acted upon is meaningless, and we’re not likely to get more because we’ve invalidated it by not actively acknowledging it.  Unless and until we internalize the concept, we’re simply mouthing the words.  We might be perceived as wise…but we’ll never reap the benefits of the information ourselves until we begin to live it.  And the benefits are many: with increased spiritual consciousness comes a greater measure of peace, equanimity, happiness and abundance.  As it is above, so it is below.  There is never change, positive or negative, in one dimension that is not accompanied by corresponding change in every other aspect of our structure.

Not only that, but once we commence movement, we cannot stagnate.  When we move up a step on the staircase of spiritual evolution, we’re responsible for taking the next step…and the next.  If we evolve to consciousness-level “x”, that becomes our new baseline.  And so in order to see improvement in the benefits we’ve received as a result of that previous step, we’re now responsible to move on to “x+1”, and then to begin operating from that level…and in turn receive the benefit now available on that new level.  On and on.  It never stops, and we as individuals will never reach the end (at least, not in this lifetime).  It’s not just a question of movement…it’s also about acceleration.  The rate of change is as important as the change itself.

So, bottom line: study all you want…investigate every avenue of spiritual practice and wisdom that interests you.  When you find something that strikes you as “True” for you, learn it well…and then act on it.  It’s not enough to “know” that you shouldn’t be judgmental; shouldn’t worry; would be better off not gossiping about people; ought to be living a life of gratitude and joy.  Internalize the concept until it becomes a part of your way of living, and I guarantee you’ll see external change.  And once you’ve mastered any given piece of the puzzle, if you want to continue to receive the benefits of conscious living, move on to the next lesson or you may find yourself moving backwards.