Towards a New Consciousness
Our new consciousness holds that all of life is primarily composed of energy. Modern theoretical physics teaches us that only a tiny fraction of life consists of matter in the form of particles. Moreover, quantum physics also teaches us that, as energy bodies, we are entangled with all of life. This means that we are interconnected with all there is, or, as the mystics tell us, we are One. Energy and interconnectedness are the hallmarks of the new consciousness, which makes consciousness itself the foundation and mover of all life. The implications are that our thoughts – invisible energy – create reality, that we are united with nature and other beings, and that what we do, say, or think about others we do, say, or think about ourselves. We are the world, or, in the words of Rumi, we are the ocean in a drop. In short, the new consciousness represents a radical departure from our materialistic paradigm, which manipulates matter to effect outcomes and views us as separate from one another and from the world.
Because it is such a radical new perspective, we humans are challenged to adopt this stance. It is a move from materialism to spiritualism, relinquishing the belief that only what we can perceive through our senses is real in favor of the view that reality is primarily composed of an omnipresent field of energy invisible to us. This new reality thus follows a new consciousness that moves from matter to energy and from separateness to indivisibility.
Such a move represents a complete turnaround from our prevailing view, dominant attitudes, and habits. The difficulty of adopting this new consciousness lies in how we have habitually perceived and experienced our world to date, namely, through materially based causality.
In healthcare, for example, such a view approaches symptoms by materially removing what is believed to cause them. This is called treatment. Although there are now many documented cases in which symptoms have left the body through a shift in the person's consciousness, modern medicine continues to regard these cases as anomalies within its existing treatment approach. These anomalies do not, thus far, lead to a reevaluation of its theoretical base. The role of consciousness in healing the body remains underappreciated, if appreciated at all.
This is understandable given the pervasiveness and entrenchment of the materially based approach in medicine. We, consumers, support this approach through our mindset that looks to medicine for answers, often seeking a quick fix that simply aims to remove symptoms, not to understand their purpose or message.
The idea that symptoms are a form of communication is largely an unknown concept to most of us. Additionally, the belief that symptoms constitute a form of communication raises the question: who is the communicator? Who is the one who decides to talk through a specific symptom? This introduces another concept that normative science does not include in its belief system: the existence of an essential, inner, or higher Self, some spiritual part also called 'soul'. Some refer to this soul as consciousness itself, linked to a higher knowing that transcends the body. From the point of view of the soul, we are not our bodies and minds but souls inhabiting them temporarily. As such, it is our souls that give rise to our material reality, as without a soul, there is no animation. The word 'animated' derives from anima, meaning 'soul' in Latin. Without 'soul,' we are not animated; we do not exist. Religious and wisdom traditions thus speak of the soul's incarnation at conception and its departure from the body at death.
In addition to a communicator who speaks through symptoms, another essential concept in communication is meaning. The very essence of communication is to convey meaning. Here, again, normative science, with its emphasis on objectivity, regards life as intrinsically meaningless. Only human subjectivity ascribes meanings to things. Thus, the idea that a soul conveys meaning to bodily symptoms is inconsistent with a modern scientific belief system interested only in how life appears rather than why. Since normative science holds to objectivity, it cannot embrace what it regards as subjective meaning. And because it cannot consider as real what is unmeasurable and undetectable, normative science cannot speak about soul and consciousness – both escape its horizon. This means that normative or traditional science is limited as to what it can address, study, research, and discuss.
Quantum physics extends beyond the confines of modern sciences to encompass phenomena not previously explainable within its paradigm. As such, Quantum physics posits unmeasurable concepts such as probability and uncertainty, Quantum fields, wave-particle duality, superposition, and quantum entanglement. Quantum physics challenges the constraints of modern science and addresses topics previously addressed primarily by the spiritual sciences.
But the shift from the old paradigm of separation from all there is and from a universe without soul and meaning is difficult. It is one thing to know intellectually about our oneness and the existence of the soul, one's own soul, but it is even more difficult to live according to this truth. More often than not, people on the path to this realization of unity and soul undergo a dark night of the soul, emerging from such hardship with a deep belief in the existence of the divine, a deep experience that they are part of something larger, some beneficial force holding and guiding them. Without personal experience of such a force, it is difficult to accept this truth, given that many of us live in secularized societies that focus primarily on manipulating matter. We are so entrenched in this old approach that a shift requires considerable effort.