Our current picture of reality has been fueled by our fascination with Newtonian Science. Our outer world has been portrayed as like a giant ticking clock which runs in a consistent, predictable way. Our job, as a race of people, is to understand all aspects of this mechanism so that we might live in harmony with the laws of nature.
To that end, we have extensively explored the outer world around us. We have also studied the body and the various systems that make up the body. Now, with the sequencing of the human genome, we are on the precipice of being able to design future bodies. Some people even prophesy overcoming death itself. All of this is focused on the outer world and the body.
Which brings us to consciousness. There has not been a lot of thought given to consciousness until recent work in Neuroscience and the brain. Consciousness was simply a fixed aspect of who we are. But this is changing. We now know there are different forms of consciousness. These different forms expand our understanding of the experience of being alive.
Neuroscience has now differentiated 3 distinct forms of consciousness.
- Sentiency: our experience of an outer world using our 5 senses. Sentiency gives us what we think of as objective reality.
- Self-Awareness: our experience of being a separate, autonomous self. Self-awareness gives us subjectivity and the privacy of what we think of as our “inner world”.
- Universal Consciousness: gives us the experience of an impersonal, transcendent reality.
But these 3 forms of consciousness do not explain all that we experience in life.
Where does creativity come from?
Where do love, awe and wonderment come from?
Where do intuition and instinct fit into this picture?
Our model of consciousness is incomplete. What is missing?
One thing that is not there is the experience of the invisible world.
The invisible world is not a place — it is a range of experiences.
The invisible world does not exist until we experience it. It is the experience itself which brings the invisible world into existence. It is through the consciousness of feeling that our invisible world comes into being.
The invisible world is not a place. The term “invisible world” refers to a range of human experiences. To understand this world, we have to understand the nature of these experiences. The invisible world is not simply inside our body. It is not our personal world. The invisible world is more than just our subjective interpretation of own experience. Our invisible world is unique to us but not necessarily personal to us.
The invisible world is both Inner and Outer.
The invisible world is, in part, a portal through which we move. We are ushered into new spheres which lie beyond the realm of our 5 senses and the physical world. These experiences expand our understanding of reality.
Some kinds of experience that occur in our inner world might be thought of as different domains. Each domain offers its own unique kind of experience of life. Each domain has a particular way that it works with us and helps us. Other experiences take us out beyond the body and even open us to the vastness of the universe.
They expand our understanding of what it is to be human.
