Unity Consciousness

Unity consciousness comes after understanding the nature of oneness.

It comes after making the small (or huge!) and necessary adjustments to our inner perspective, in order to begin to witness our unconscious beliefs in duality, and rise above them.

It comes after doing this consistently, recognizing the illusion in waking and sleeping life.

Unity consciousness expands this knowing into feeling, and experiences of oneness, in ways that would currently be deemed unbelievable! It is when our single, localized point of perspective ceases to exist and we can experience life from the perspective of another, as limitations of time and place are no longer there.

But unity consciousness does mean continuing to exist here, on Earth. I think some people envisage ‘ascending’ into Unity Consciousness as us somehow leaving this planet, but I believe we will all bring this level of existence here.

So it has to begin here, within each one of us

In order to explain further, here is one of the best illustrations that I have come across, from the ‘A Speaks’ series:

Everything that you think is real, right from the stars in the sky to your very own body, is all made up of atoms.  This you probably know. You probably also know that these atoms are made up of subatomic particles.  But what you might not have known is that sub-atomic particles are not really particles.  Not in the way you might imagine a particles to be. They are not very small little balls or building blocks.  No, they are, actually nothing more than patterns in the background energy.  You can imagine, if you like that there is a sea of infinite energy and in that sea, a little eddy forms.  The pattern of that eddy becomes stable and does not simply fade away when it interacts with another eddy that has a complementary pattern.  And so the two patterns dance together for a while.  And there you are with your finest scientific equipment, and you look at this dance and instead of seeing a romance between two patterns of energy, you think you are looking at a particle – perhaps a proton – inside an atom.  But I hope you have noticed the important part of this tale.  This was the fact that those particles – in fact all particles in the whole universe – are all composed of patterns in the same one infinite, universal energy field.  You see: ONE energy field makes up everything in your whole universe.  This means that EVERYTHING that you think is real is actually just patterns and variations in the same one energy”.
It is at the macro and the micro levels – at the infinitely large, and the infinitely small places that this truth of oneness is starting to become visible, as this is where the illusion of duality and separation is breaking down.  Incredibly, we are living through the moments on Earth, when this is now being realized by science, through the study of Birkeland currents (at the macro scale), and through quantum theory (at the micro scale).

In the ordinary scale and activity of everyday life, our state of oneness with infinite consciousness seems largely invisible, instead replaced by separation.  But still, we are each made up of a few ripples in that singular blanket of energy, so our feelings, thoughts and actions continue to create patterns, which affect the whole, whether or not we are aware.

Beginning to get a grasp of the concept of  infinite consciousness, and the origin of creation is one thing, and it does take time and adjustment.  But unity consciousness exists a few steps further on.

Namaste.

Crystals and their Healing Properties

AMETHYST (purple) : Excellent for meditation. Calming peaceful providing clarity and focus. Enhances creativity, intuition, inspiration, motivation, healing, divine love and memory recall. (Take it to exams!) Helps sleep and relieves headaches and balances and soothes an over-active mind. Aids channeling, psychic and spiritual awareness.

Zodiac: Pisces / Sagittarius / Aries / Capricorn
Birthstone: February

CARNELIAN (orange): Energizes blood, aids kidneys, lungs, liver, gall bladder, lower back, reproductive and cleansing organs, depression and helps tissue regeneration. Warming and joyous. Good for people who are absent-minded, confused and unfocused. Aids concentration, motivation, clarity of mind, meditation, memory, self-confidence, peace, harmony. Assists in past life exploration.

Zodiac: Aries / Leo / Virgo / Capricorn
Birthstone: July

CITRINE (yellow) : Excellent for tissue regeneration, strengthening kidneys, colon, liver, back problems, gall bladder, digestive organs and heart. Detoxifies body and enhances healing. Raises self esteem, helps in making decisions and staying positive, mental clarity in communication. Encourages creativity and gives strength and courage. Fulfilling, uplifting, lightheartedness, hope, energizing. Attracts abundance.

Zodiac: Leo / Virgo / Scorpio
Birthstone: November

CLEAR QUARTZ (clear) : Magnifies and increases energy, balances and aligns chakras. Enhances intuition and knowledge. Clarifies thoughts and reinforces positive thinking. Reduces physical pain and enhances healing on all levels. Beneficial to pineal and pituitary glands. Dispels negativity. Excellent for meditation.
A cluster of quartz crystals in a room can transmit healing energies. Helpful in contacting your Higher Self and Spirit Guides.

Zodiac: All signs
Birthstone: April

GARNET (deep red) : Enhances strength (in the face of adversity), self-esteem, imagination, creativity, courage, confidence, patience and compassion. Aids the maintenance of blood circulation and mental depression. Provides a sense of grounding in times of change and upheaval. Promotes balance and a calming effect when everything seems chaotic. Overall body system tonic.

Zodiac: Aquarius / Aries / Leo / Scorpio / Capricorn
Birthstone: January

GOLD SANDSTONE (brown with glitter flecks) : Helps you move forward when you are feeling blocked on life’s path. Encourages exploration of your possibilities in life. Removes feelings of being limited in potential.

Zodiac: Leo
Birthstone: August

HEMATITE (metallic grey) : Balancing, grounding, energizing. Helpful for blood and breathing disorders, circulation, stress, heart, spleen, and backache. Enhances personal magnetism, optimism, will, courage, self-esteem. Excellent all round healer that draws illness from the body. Powerful stone for those attracted to it.

Zodiac: Capricorn / Aquarius
Birthstone: February

LAPIS LAZULI (royal blue) : Strengthens skeletal system. Activates thyroid gland. Releases tension and anxiety. Enhances strength, vitality, virility, creative expression mental clarity, psychic abilities and communication with Higher Self and spirit guides and brings your angels closer. Eases depression. A balancer on all levels. Possibly should not be worn for long periods of time (use you own intuition).

Zodiac: Libra / Taurus / Aquarius / Sagittarius
Birthstone: December

MALACHITE (dark green & light green stripes) : Aids pancreas, spleen, tissue regeneration and sleep. Strengthens heart, circulatory system, pineal and pituitary glands. Enhances expression, patience, physical endurance, inner peace, intuitiveness and emotional clarity. Reduces stress and tension. Reveals subconscious blocks releasing old, limiting patterns. Used to treat asthma, arthritis, tumors and torn muscles.

Zodiac: Capricorn / Scorpio
Birthstone: July

MOONSTONE (white with blue flashes) : Emotional balancer – helps lessen the tendency to over react emotionally aligning emotions with Higher Self. Aids the birthing process, water retention, obesity, female problems (hormonal and menstrual) and relieves anxiety and stress. Unblocks the lymphatic system.

Zodiac: Libra / Cancer / Scorpio / Pisces
Birthstone: June

PERIDOT (transparent olive/lime green) : Enhances patience, mental and emotional clarity, inner joy, happiness, sleep, and confidence. Accelerates personal growth. Opens new doors of opportunity. Aids stress, tissue regeneration, depression, cleansing of organs, heart digestion and jealousy. Overall balancer and tonic for body and mind. Increases intuitive awareness.

Zodiac: Libra / Leo / Capricorn
Birthstone: August

ROSE QUARTZ (pale pink) : Stone of love, peace and contentment. A healer for internal wounds. Aids kidney, migraines and circulatory systems. Increases fertility. Helps clear stored anger, resentment, guilt, fear and jealousy. Reduces stress, tension and cools tempers. Enhances self-confidence and creativity. Promotes love, forgiveness and compassion. Use where there is disharmony and anxiety.

Zodiac: Virgo / Taurus
Birthstone: October

TIGER-EYE (gold,brown and black) : Emotional balancer, grounding, centering. Softens stubbornness. Enhances personal power and will, self-confidence, optimism and communication. A good general tonic for spleen, pancreas, digestive organs and eye diseases.

Zodiac: Capricorn
Birthstone: July

TURQUOISE : Excellent for tissue regeneration, toning and strengthening the physical body. Encourages self-expression, promotes emotional balance and peace of mind. Aids circulatory and respiratory systems. Enhances psychic abilities, communication, balance, friendship, and loyalty. More potent when surrounded by gold. You should always be given this stone and not purchase it yourself.

Zodiac: Libra / Taurus
Birthstone: December

Burning Incense Sticks: 7 Benefits

1. Burning Incense, Big Stick or Small Stick: Let it Go.

The rituals of our life are everywhere. Ritual is an important part of living, even small rituals that may seem inconsequential. Whether you are burning incense with a giant stick or just managing to light a leftover nub from a forgotten incense bowl, the insignificance of offering a stick of incense is key. Burning incense doesn’t move you any closer to stated goals. It doesn’t seem to address your current concerns, whether it’s the relationship with your partner or global warming. Yet, offering—without expectation of something in return for your gesture—is training in generosity, the act of letting go.

2. The Best Incense Sparks Appreciation

It takes time to find incense that appeals to you. Japanese varieties can be delicate and floral. Tibetan incense evokes a warm, earthy quality. There are many subtle differences and endless varieties. In Asia, the right incense is understood to have medicinal benefits. You will burn the best incense for you. What do you like? Do you know? Another way of putting this: what makes you happy, or even better, content? By enjoying incense in the context of practice, you set a positive tone for your session. Sitting practice is about appealing to the part of you that is able to relax, slow down and appreciate. Cultivating appreciation is the discipline of meditation.

3. Burning Incense Connects you to the Elements

It is a small detail, but in order to burn, incense has to be lit. It requires fire to ignite and oxygen to burn. We need oxygen to breath and warmth to be comfortable. It is a truism to say that to survive, we need a relationship to our world, our elemental world, the world of our senses. By striking a match, lighting and enjoying a stick of incense, you have reignited a relationship with the world that sustains you.

4. Meditation Incense Brings you Back

When you sit down to practice, the smoke from your incense joins you. Some practitioners select the length of their incense sticks as a timer for their meditation session. Lost in thought, suddenly, the scent from a plume of incense wafting by brings you back to the moment. In this moment you can recall the intention behind your effort to practice meditation. This intention was expressed when you offered incense at the start of your session. Incense is a gentle reminder to return to your discipline.

5. Incense offers a Healing Truth

The incense stick begins at a full length and then grows shorter as it burns. There is no way to repair or retrieve a stick of incense from the ash left behind. At first, the scent permeates, soon the stick is gone and only a hint of the aroma lingers. Sometimes, before toppling off into the incense bowl, a delicate pillar of ash sits on top of the stick, like a memory of something gone by. When was it over? Recently? Long ago? Does it matter when? It’s hard to say. The smoke itself may rise slowly, like white ink from the stroke of an invisible brush. Or it may disperse quickly, chased by hidden currents of air.  The journey taken by the smoke from burning incense reminds us that all experience is fleeting. Understanding this truth is healing.

6. Incense Needs a Plan

In order to offer incense, you need incense, matches, an incense bowl. You need to gather these materials before your practice session. The same is true for meditation practice. You will need to gather your time, find a place, and set your intention, organizing your life to sustain the discipline of mindfulness. Your time and your space have value. They are the very commodities of existence and essential resources. Always in short supply, they can be squandered or not. Prepare well and your practice will go well.

7. Burning Incense joins Heaven and Earth

Smoke moves in space. And space extends everywhere. When you light incense you invoke space. You can do this by letting the smoke go where it wants. Who would try to tell smoke where to go? Smoke rises, finding its way to the sky. At the same time, the sky is a reminder of earth. Eventually, after enjoying its freedom, incense smoke will settle into dust and land on this earth. We can’t forget to enjoy spaciousness in our practice. Practice takes effort—fire—but it can be lighthearted. Meditation doesn’t have to be so serious. In mindfulness we care for and watch over our mind. But we can also trust ourselves enough to let the mind go where it will. It is natural to enjoy the spaciousness of sky. It is natural to settle on the earth.

Namaste!

What is Higher Consciousness and How we can access it?

Compassion is the signature of Higher Consciousness. Non-violence is the tool to evolve into the Higher Consciousness.
Amit Ray

When we speak of higher consciousness, what we are referring to is the activation of the part of our brain which we typically do not access, at least not for lengthy periods of time. As human beings, we spend most of our lives functioning in states of lower consciousness, where what we are principally concerned with is ourselves, our survival and our own success, narrowly defined.

When you operate from your higher consciousness you are working from outside of lower consciousness, also referred to as the ‘ego’. When we function from the ego, we tend to be more self involved and self focused as individuals. When we are working out of higher consciousness, we access the parts of our brain that make us more self aware, less selfish, and we display more empathy, compassion and kindness. We act from love rather than from fear.

Higher consciousness is a huge triumph over the primitive mind which cannot envisage any such possibilities. Ideally, we would be a little more alive to the advantages of this higher mind and strive to make our oceanic experiences somewhat less random and less clothed in unnecessary mystery.

In a fast paced world which can appear to be driven by ego and fueled by technology, fame, material possessions and status; moments accessing the higher consciousness within us is necessary for balance both individually and collectively.

It is within this type of introspection that we gain insights into ourselves and indeed others that would perhaps have gone long unnoticed. When we actively seek to understand ourselves in this way, we are open to see the thoughts and belief systems that we have running in the background of our minds, which are allowing decisions and choices to be made unconsciously that perhaps don’t serve us.

How can we access Higher Consciousness?

There are two very clear ways to access your higher consciousness- intention and stillness (Meditation).

By setting the intention to access your this part of your brain, you are immediately creating the space for it to happen. Once you have the space and the intention, next you need stillness (Meditation). In the beginning stages of this practice you do not need to sit for hours in meditation, you could try for 5 minutes at a time. Simply sit, breathe deeply and hold that intention of opening up a dialogue with your higher consciousness. Pay attention to what you see in your minds eye. Do not attempt to label anything, just be.

If you practice every day, you will start to notice that your access to your higher consciousness will sharpen more and more. Your instincts will become sharper, you may start to feel happier and more clear in your mind, you may even start to notice that your intuition around certain things is stronger than it was.

All of these things point to an open awareness and a genuine connection to your higher consciousness. A pretty great skill to have don’t you think?

So, Try it today!

Namaste!