Exploring Who We Are and Why We are Here
by Sharon Janis
Part of the Night Lotus Online Spiritual Retreat
Breakthrough Consciousness brings spiritual, metaphysical, and scientific teachings together with the personal insights from one seeker's journey in a quest to understand and appreciate the nature of life and reality.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CLick on a chapter title to read that chapter
Chapter 1: Humanity as Nature
THIS DANCE OF LIFE is amazing and filled with patterns, and reflections of reflections of patterns. "As above so below," say the ancient Indian scriptures. Similar patterns of organization are repeated on level after level of nature's manifestation. The same force that moves an electron to orbit its nucleus also keeps our planet on its dependable orbit around the nucleus of our solar system, the sun. The earth is spinning, the solar system is spinning, the galaxies are spinning, and perhaps the entire universe is made up of spinning microcosm upon macrocosm, all intertwined perfectly according to nature's brilliant ways...
Chapter 2: Moving Beyond Ego
The description "egotistical person" is often used to describe someone who thinks he is better than others, who always thinks of himself first and foremost. However, when the Indian scriptures and scholars exhort seekers to "Burn up your ego," they are referring to something more complex than just our notion of, "He's got such a big ego; he thinks he's so great." The ego of ancient scriptures refers to the entire gamut of limiting self-consciousness; the notion of individual separateness from the rest of the universe...
Chapter 3: Energetic Vibration
When people talk about "getting more energy," they are usually referring to physical energy. Or we might say we feel mentally energetic or emotionally charged as when we fall in love or are interested and enthusiastic about something in our lives. Beyond these experiences, however, is another view of this entire universe as being completely made up of nothing but energy. Even our scientific procedures lend credence to the view that our entire physical reality is composed of "solidified" vibrations of one energy...
Chapter 4: Mind at Large
Neuroscience has told us that we humans use less than 10% of our brain. Some estimates go as low as 3%, but lets give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. After all, we are including use of the brain not just for thinking, but also for all the sensory, expressive, interpretive and experiential pathways, as well as the voluntary, involuntary, sympathetic, parasympathetic, willful and automatic functions of the body. Still, we use less than 10% of this wondrous three pounds of jelly known as the brain...
Chapter 5: Infinite Personal Expression
The phenomenon of personal expression is one of the most mind-boggling aspects of human existence. Not only do we have the kind of intentional artistic, musical and poetic expression that stirs the soul and transforms lives, but behind even the most seemingly insignificant personal expressions there are levels and layers of deep symbolic meaning, subconscious expressions reverberating throughout the infinite mesh of the one, whole universal expression. It is so damn big...
Chapter 6: True Wealth
We often use the word wealth to denote monetary success, but wealth comes in so many different forms. An Indian prayer, the Lakshmi Stotram, entreats the goddess of abundance to shower blessings on us. Different kinds of wealth are listed in the prayer: intelligence, worldly enjoyment, success, worldly position, prosperity, liberation, and most importantly according to the text, freedom from the great enemy known as ego...
Chapter 7: The Healing Breath
Our breath is much more than just the simple moving of oxygen in and out of the lungs. Breathing is a vehicle for many kinds of energy, from the biological level to more subtle energies referred to by Indian philosophy as prana, the vital life-force...
Chapter 8: Sleep Dreams, Waking Dreams
We don't really know what dreams are. A few theories have been developed, such as: the secret fulfillment of subconscious desires; a random firing to "reboot" the neurophysiological system; a prophetic and symbol-laden state of consciousness which must be revered and obeyed as divine guidance; or simply the brain's way of entertaining itself while we sleep. For so many centuries, human beings experienced the process of dreaming night after night. Yet, with all the knowledge our science has obtained about the world around us, our understanding about the nature of dreams is sorely lacking...
Chapter 9: The Ever Elusive "I"
Who am I? This is one of the most interesting questions we can ask ourselves. This question is primordial. It is the foundation for all of our knowledge and experience. The elusive "I" is so integrally related to our experience of the world that it is impossible to experience reality separate and free from the effects of the observer, the creator, the perceiver, the giver of meaning, the "I"...
Chapter 10: I Am, Therefore I Think
"I am." What does it mean? We use these two words constantly in our lives: How are you? I am fine. I am upset. I am going here or there. I am doing this or that. The "I am" is usually just used as an introduction to what is really important -- the emotion we are feeling, the thing we're doing, or the place we're going. We tend to skim over the I am and put our emphasis on the verb or adjective that follows. However, there is an experience that can be had; a space beyond our egocentric viewpoints and judgments -- a space of just I am. No adjective, no verb, simply I am, an awareness without form. There are levels leading up to this space that can be experienced as "I am getting more detached from my anger," "I am peaceful," "I am free," "I am That " . . . but then, just simply, "I am." It is I am that Descartes reached after his lifetime of brilliant study, research and search for the truth, when he wrote, "I think, therefore, I am." I think, I exist, I am awareness, and therefore, I am...
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