Enlightened By Love, Or Darkened By Fear

Continued from yesterday…

Recent scientific studies indicate that many animals also have consciousness even though it’s different from humans. For instance, our little dog, Pumpkin (who, I must note, my family named without my consent), has a different awareness than me. She cannot recognize herself in a mirror, but she is conscious of herself by smelling her own feces (I’m happy that’s not a human quality).

Even the little lizard that runs around my garden in the summertime possesses a form of consciousness. How do I know? Because when I move toward it, it runs away from me. So the dog and the lizard are both conscious, but their type of consciousness differs from ours.

Then, as we have discussed, within the standard twenty-four-hour cycle of a day, we experience uniquely opposing types of consciousness: awake and asleep. But the various types of perception do not end there because some people are subject to an abnormal state of consciousness (such as a personality disorder), and others still may enter an altered awareness where addictions control their thoughts.

So what is consciousness? No words seem adequate to describe the depth of the mystery of consciousness completely. Yet, words such as a presence, awareness, and an inward witness come to mind. Perhaps the best definition is found in what consciousness grants us. What I mean is that being conscious gives us the ability to observe reality and experience life.

And that’s an important distinction because, as we are exploring, our consciousness is either enlightened by love or darkened by fear. We observe reality and experience life either through the egoic mind (with its underlying fear that I am not enough the way I am), or through the spirit that is aware (through the manifestation of love) of its union with everything.

In other words, whatever stage of consciousness we are in shapes our reality and determines what we experience.

To be continued tomorrow…

Adapted from Section 1 of Awakening To I Am Love by David Youngren