Paradox at the Core
Who Am I?
The Paradox at Our Core
At the core of our being lies a fundamental paradox: Who we are is a pair of opposites.
Resolving the Paradox at the Core
The paradox at the core creates a tension: What do we pay attention to?
Consciousness
We are consciousness and a body.
We know a great now about the body.
But what do we know about consciousness?
The Forms of Consciousness
Consciousness is the experience of being alive in this present moment.
For a long time it has been thought that consciousness is a monolithic experience. That is, we have one single consciousness at all times and in all situations. But recent discoveries by science have changed all this. Scientific research into brain activity and its relationship to consciousness has revealed 3 distinct forms of consciousness.
Sentiency is the standard form of consciousness that was once considered the sum total of all consciousness.
Self-Awareness, the sense that I am a separate, autonomous being living at the center of my own world, governs our experience in the personal realm.
Universal Consciousness governs our experience of the Transcendent. The Transcendent is always present and available to be experienced when we open ourselves to experiencing it.
In addition to these, we believe that there is at least one more form of consciousness, and perhaps there could be others.
This fourth form of consciousness, which we call feeling, enables us to experience our life in the inner world. Science pays little attention to the inner world so it is not surprising that they should not have found any evidence of an inner consciousness.
But many of us have had rich inner experiences and there has to be some consciousness which enables us to experience this. We deduce that there has to be at least one more form of consciousness.
Feeling
Feeling is holding oneself in a state of constant readiness to receive from both the outer and inner worlds.
The Essence of Life
Aliveness
Waking Up to the Gift of Aliveness
The goal of life is not happiness, peace or fulfillment. It is aliveness.
The Missing Link
We can consider aliveness as a set of “unusual experiences” that occur occasionally in our otherwise normal, everyday life.
The Head and The Heart
The Heart of the Matter
Our life embraces two worlds.
The body links us to the outer world.
Consciousness links us to an intangible universal reality.
Together they give us the wholistic experience of being alive.
But for most of us, life is not happening in this way.
I and Thou
There is a major aspect of human life we do not understand.
We cannot see it, hear it, or touch it.
We cannot analyze it with our mind.
But we can feel it.
We can feel an invisible reality in and around our body.
It is this dimension of life that we must come to experience.
The attitude of man is twofold
Martin Buber
in accordance with (his) twofold nature.
This is reflected in the primary words he uses.
The one primary word is the combination “I—Thou”.
The other is the combination “I—It”
The “I” of the primary word I—Thou is different
than the “I” of the primary word “I-It.
Our Two Centers
We have two centers: the head and heart.
The head center experiences the outer world,
The heart center experiences an invisible world.
The head thinks; the heart feels.
Life is a process of balancing inner and outer,
thinking and feeling, head and heart.
