QUESTION6.com
We,The People, are not happy
16 - What can we do?
A lot! The problem is where to begin.
The first step is to free us from our attachment to the material world.
We can put our body to good use. Let’s start with something simple, such as chocolate. Is it the body or the soul that is addicted to chocolate? We need a transformation in the soul that will counterbalance the body’s attraction to chocolate. We can move to a cavern in the mountains where there is no temptation. There is no guarantee that we will not succumb to chocolate when we return. Freedom comes from the soul. It does not come from the environment. The same principle applies to smoking and drinking. The battle is inside us.
Freedom will come from our soul,
rather than our environment.
The next step may be to reclaim our time. Who decides how much time we spend watching TV? Is it us or is it the screen? The TV shows movement, color, and sounds. Wood burning in the fireplace also has color, sound, and movement. They are the criteria of life. We are drawn to TV like we are drawn to life. It takes energy to dominate this kind of attraction. It takes a stronger soul.
Here is an idea that could help if we get desperate. Try a TV set with pedals! When it’s not worth pedaling, the TV stops! The goal is to use TV without abusing it.
“Use but don’t abuse” is a law of nature that science has yet to discover. We may enjoy a glass of wine. We cannot rely on wine to have a happy life. It is not easy to refrain from something that both the body and the soul would approve. The battle is inside. The body is the battleground where the soul must prevail.
The body is the battleground where the soul must prevail.
To overcome sadomasochism may be different. History shows that we inherited it from our ancestors. Chances are that it came with the body. Thinking may not be the right tool to fight genes. That would explain our slow progress in this domain. That does not mean that any resistance is vain. We can improve our bodies. We can prolong their life. We can improve our thinking. There is hope. We can find what is influenced by sadomasochism in our everyday life and develop restraint. That takes thinking, consciousness and energy. We have some and we can amplify what we have. There is hope that we can abandon some of our sadomasochism.
We started with the material domain of the body. That was the right place to start but it was a trap. We have to do for the soul what we have done for the body in the last 200 years. Everywhere we turn, we find a need for a higher level of consciousness. We have some. We can try to amplify the little we have like we amplified growing seeds and developed agriculture.
We want to distance ourselves from the material world and break our glass ceiling. Life on earth develops consciousness. It is by seeing, hearing, smelling and touching that we become conscious of our material environment. The teacher who gives mathematics problems to his students does not expect them to discover a new solution. He wants them to become conscious of a solution that already exists. The main purpose of education is to develop consciousness. There is a possibility to get out of our cave by associating consciousness with different elements of our soul.
Consciousness and thinking.
We become conscious of the stars by looking at them. To this observation, we add thinking and energy and make telescopes. The use of telescopes increases our awareness of the stars. We start by observing nature and think about what we see. Consciousness feeds on thinking. Today, the purpose of education has shifted. Through his computer, the student has access to all the knowledge accumulated by humanity. The question for the student is: “What do you want to become conscious of?”
Consciousness feeds on thinking
Consciousness and thinking help each other. Thinking increases our consciousness and a higher level of consciousness triggers more thinking. One question remains: Why did we wait more than 200 000 years to start walking on those two legs?
Our consciousness must change.
Our life starts with a vision of the world limited to a narrow range between red and violet. Thinking and experimentation made us discover the infra-red and the ultra-violet. They expanded our consciousness of the world. That was only the beginning. We also became conscious of electricity, microbes and particles so tiny that we will never be able to see them. Our conception is limited to their mass, their speed and their electrical charge. Our consciousness expands with our knowledge. Someday, a new experiment could reveal the presence of a different ‘thing’. This ‘thing’ sometimes acts like a particle… or two.
Many concepts may have to change. The last development came with the discovery that our material world is only 5% of reality. It was by observing anomalies in the trajectories of distant stars that astronomers became conscious of our limited consciousness.
Human history is a story of consciousness. Two thousand years ago, humans were members of a tribe or a small village in the forest. Later, they became aware of belonging to a country or a religion. Today, they identify with civilizations like “The East” or “The West.” They have not yet reached the point where they see themselves as Homo sapiens. They are moving in the right direction. Instead of focusing on their IQ, they could speed up the development of their level of consciousness.
We are living a time when countries are building fortresses to defend themselves. Let’s keep in mind that we all come from the same Big Bang. The same atoms keep circulating between the trees, the oceans, and our bodies. A higher level of consciousness would help.
We have a ‘need to belong’. We need to be aware of other people. This goes beyond noticing their presence. It involves sharing their feelings, their joys, and their sorrows. This is where you find ideas, freedom, love, harmony and what is important in our lives.
After developing our level of consciousness in the physical world, we must explore the immaterial world. After learning to swim, we should venture to the deep end.
Consciousness in the immaterial world.
Our consciousness is not limited to the objects in our environment. We are also conscious of feelings. A soul may be able to perceive the feelings of another soul. At night, we may be directly conscious of each other’s feelings, love, stress and energy. The souls may be able to see one another like we see each other’s bodies during the day. No need to say, ‘I love you”. It shows with all the details and intensity.
That could explain why our souls do not have sense organs. They may not need them at night.
Consciousness as a filter:
Have you had an oculist check your eyesight? He makes you read letters on the wall. Let’s compare each test with a different consciousness. You can see some of the letters but there is a limit. The oculist is looking for what is best for you. He could also make you glasses that would show only half of the world. Different glasses introduce you to different states of consciousness. You are only conscious of one at a time. Each one has its limits. When wearing one, you cannot imagine wearing another. During the day we see the world through one consciousness. At night we see the same world through another filter.
The oculist knows that the same world can be filtered in many different ways. When people talk about consciousness, they mean their way of seeing the world in their personal state of consciousness.
Every human being could be going through life wearing different glasses. Our view of the world can be limited by different ideologies, different religions, different preconceived ideas.
We are looking at the same world, but only conscious of a limited part of the world. The same consciousness that makes us discover the world could keep us prisoner of its limitations, like our eyesight keeps us limited between red and violet. We are conscious of having a body and conscious of having a soul. That makes consciousness the link between the material and the immaterial worlds.
After consciousness and thinking, we could investigate Consciousness and love – Consciousness and freedom – Consciousness and happiness. As they help one another, the result would be a development of the soul. That could be our answer to the eternal question ‘What is the purpose of our life on Earth?
