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DAY 4 - FILTER THEORY

Conscious awareness can be liberated to a much higher level when freed up from the shackles of the physical brain.

Living in a Mindful Universe

Modern scientific thinking, now sweeping the field of consciousness studies, theorizes that the brain is a reducing valve, or filter, that reduces primordial consciousness down to a trickle— to provide us our very limited human awareness of the apparent “here and now.”

We appear to be conscious in spite of our brains. This opens the door to developing more complete explanations of human experiences, both mundane and exotic. In fact, Psi phenomena such as telepathy have been confirmed repeatedly in a laboratory setting. The scientific study of consciousness will progress through deeper investigation of such empirical observations about human experience, as opposed to the conventional materialist approach of simply denying the evidence.

Consider the fact that you have never witnessed anything other than the inside of your own consciousness. Paramount in any effort to comprehend reality at a deeper level is to understand that all of that stuff “out there” is actually an internal model: a construct within mind that we presume represents something that should be “out there.”

Our perceptions of the world seem to mask the fundamental truth of it. Rising above this Supreme Illusion offers the opportunity to move beyond the here and now. Meditative practices can help us to rise above the illusion of time and space of physical reality.

An excellent metaphor for this situation is that of asking a fish what it’s like to live in the water. “What water?” the fish might easily challenge. It has never known anything but the water, and thus is oblivious to its existence. Likewise for us, swimming in the sea of consciousness—it is the only thing we’ve ever known.

PRACTICE

In your daily practice, notice that when you fully place your focused attention on your breathing, you have entered the “now” moment, where past and future seem no longer to exist. Notice if awareness of your physical body or surroundings seems to lessen.