Standing at the Crossroads of Consciousness

Standing at the Crossroads of Consciousness

By Ken Bartle

Guest Writer for Wake Up World

Countless websites, blogs, and alternative media speak of a spiritual awakening about to happen. What does this mean? Many plead that we raise our vibratory state, or elevate to a higher consciousness, but how? Are we taught about the innate capabilities we’ve had since day one, and how to switch the damn things on, or kept in the dark and called lightworkers? Man is truly at the crossroads of his consciousness.

Soaked with advertisements reading “for the good of all”, a millennium of bloodshed has resulted because no one challenged its base-line premise. Whether man got sucked in, or wanted an easy way out, ‘the good of all’ has tragically failed and continues to fail.

If we are to discover the singular beauty and dynamic of Man’s individual nature, and change the world one at a time, shouldn’t we be looking inwards, instead of to social ethics, the all embracing “collective” that in a thousand guises throughout all history has produced nothing but tyrannical and bloody failures?

Freedom From Within

This questioning voice is now rising, and from the most unlikely sources. Recently a most beautifully succinct expression of Man’s conscious process emerged from an article about ‘economics,’ of all places. Neuroscience offers that only in the last 15 years has it been discovered that the brain has far greater capabilities than ever before recognised. What prompted this discovery? Educators who pleaded, ‘give us a teaching methodology relating to “individuality,” not plurality.’ To whom does one’s brain belong — one individual, or society?

Evidence grows daily that we’re beginning to ask some hard questions, never giving up until they are answered. Its method can be found in one sentence.

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was and never will be.” —Thomas Jefferson

For centuries brave souls have sought to triumph over evil. Now beginning is the triumph of self mastery and personal sovereignty, from which will arise a symbiotic society that cannot co-exist with evil. As Jefferson made so clear, and simple…

To be free, and civilised, depart ignorance.

We are behooved to study the nature of Man, his conscious, subconscious and emotional functions. Discover their processes and the natural laws by which they mutually cooperate in satisfaction of an individual’s life. Then enquire how they manifest in a social context. Do natural laws emanate outwardly from Man, and if so, accepting of restorative justice, are not all laws written by Man in defiance of his nature damnably and criminally arrogant?

Natural Law

I posed that question of myself. It is simply not good enough to point to “natural law” as the remedy of Man’s woes and tragedies on earth, without discovering their solid foundation.

What is Natural law? Six definitions in Google offered little help. Frank Van Dun, [ http://users.ugent.be/~frvandun/Texts/Logica/NaturalLaw.htm ] whose work I’ve quoted on my website [www.absentlimits.net ] offered that since Law applies to Man, Man’s nature should found Natural Law. He describes that from etymology, Law means “order,” (orderliness). Isn’t it true that all of Man’s organs and bodily systems work in complete harmony, backed by an immunity system, including a pleasure/pain alert instrument that notifies well being and alerts danger. That being so, I argued, the source of natural law, will be found in understanding Man’s mental faculties, how they work, what processes they perform, the role of free will and emotions. If valid natural processes, are indeed an orderliness in Man’s mental nature, then surely natural law emanates from Man himself, evoked by his actions in social context.

Personal Revelations

Answers from this enquiry astounded me. Each new finding has reinforced those found prior, altogether revealing the simplicity, beauty and power of Man’s conscious functioning. Each individual is the complete master of his own being, if he so chooses. Should he choose not, nature automatically defaults to a protective modality that ensures continued existence, but that cannot truly be described as fully living. Further, one’s mental processes have an alert and protective mechanism akin to those of his body, and that when one learns to commune with this process, not its mental content, subconscious mind is found to be Man’s mentor, and protector.

Student of Mind — Master of Consciousness

This journey of discovery has proved truly humbling. I’m releasing this treatise chapter by chapter on my website, entitled “ Student of Mind – Master of Consciousness,” [ http://www.absentlimits.net/student-of-mind—master-of/index.html ]

The “foundation” of a building is the ground on which the footing rests — existent reality, product of earth’s creator. The foundations of natural law are also of nature, existent reality, confirmed by the Law of Identity and Law of Causality. Man is attuned to this nature via his senses, and if by free-will he is wise, he will adapt reality to his life and his purpose. Metaphorically speaking, he will rigorously compact the soil of his intellectual foundations by insistent enquiry until it is rock-solid, or he will (mentally) drill through every wish, whim, command and belief to hit bedrock reality. There, as architect of his own future, he will find the foundations of natural law upon which to build his life and his soul, from which natural laws of societal dealings will fall into place.

Spiritual Matters

While the brain is the instrument of intellectual thought, Man’s mind is the soul’s organ of thought. Free will “choice”, being of one’s soul, is independent from the organic (brain) mechanism that facilitates it. Moreover, since the (soul) object of the intellect is truth, there exists, via the brain, extrinsic dependence on Man’s five senses; of real things that can be sensed. In consequence, the proper (spiritual) object of the intellect, is grasping and understanding the essences and nature’s of existential things that can be ‘sensed,’ thence by choice, to process this information in satisfaction of spiritual objectives — one’s life and soul.

About Face

These ideas present a new appraisal of Man’s conscious faculties, and evidence grows in support almost daily. Who would expect to find laws and cooperative processes defined by one’s own conscious functioning, sufficient enough for Man’s societal dealings as to trash every law book ever written? Think about that for a moment. Since “law” means “order,” then without an orderly conscious and subconscious process, every man and woman’s life would be chaos and turmoil, like those we regard as mentally incompetent. Isn’t it logical therefore, that such orderly process within, would seek to express fulfilment of itself without, in the same efficacious manner?

That’s the whole point, isn’t it? Had we studied Man’s mental processes exactly as we study breathing and digestive processes, then we would have known the natural laws of Man’s consciousness for centuries. We’ve not. We’ve persisted instead to study mankind, humanity, religion, race, humanism, politics and sociology; never troubling ourselves to fully grasp the natural beauty of conscious singular beings that make up every ‘collective.’ Dependence has overruled independence for Man’s entire history, rare exceptions being sparks of genius mostly from those who stimulated their consciousness and forged their own integrity of spirit.

Part reason for it not being self evident can be traced to the works of Plato (circa 428 B.C), Rene Descartes (1596-1650), and Emmanuel Kant (1724 – 1804), to name only three philosophers in history, often named as the worlds greatest. Today their philosophical premises are still taught, often couched in fancy new-age vocabulary and emphasised by the phrase, “you can’t make this stuff up.” Very true! Few have challenged a fraudulent philosophy made up from 25 centuries ago.

The crossroads of consciousness are revealed. Either Man learns how his mental and emotional faculties work and attains self mastery, or refuses, whereby his conscious and emotional processes will continued to be mastered by others.

Three Processes

Were you taught that children grow to be adults in the way that red wine matures; that one simply gets wiser with age and becomes a senior, or elder. We’re supposed to submit to societal “progression“ within a paradigm of authority from church and state, that no one can refute. My study shattered that acceptance.

Man has three different intellectual processes, that together work in sequence having the potential to escalate one’s life knowledgeably, mentally and spiritually, all administered by free-will. Thereafter a new cycle may begin at a more advanced level, not of consciousness, but of understanding.

Snap! Man’s nature suddenly made complete sense! Utter simplicity and exquisite empathy, free will leaping off the page in full clarity. Here was an orderliness of nature fully structured to life’s purpose, such that the natural laws of one’s consciousness directly translate to natural laws of societal association.

Sequential process, over and over…

Here are the 3 conscious processes, from left to right in sequence, each expressed vertically in 4 different ways.

Sensori integration Conceptual integration Emotional integration.
Perception Discrimination & Evaluation Value assessments.
Conscious awareness Conscious understanding + action Monitoring and Reporting
Automatic (Subconscious) Free will choice (Conscious) Automatic (Subconscious)

Observe that free will is sandwiched between the left and right columns, both automatic functions of the subconscious mind. Is this the clue we’ve all missed? Free will is not just a yes/no switch. It is a process (centre column), sandwiched by automatic processes on both sides that uphold it. Free will is the will and determination to succeed in one’s endeavours and in life itself. It is commitment, zeal, zest, and passion for one’s goals. Conversely, a flippant, couldn’t-care-less attitude is the choice to switch off one’s zest and passion for life; willfull abandonment of one’s conscious process, to let pot-luck have its way. When consciously chosen values are abandoned, subconscious mind is starved and emotional discord prospers.

Free will is not free license therefore. It too is bound by rules of process; its own natural laws. This confirms that “volitional consciousness” is what separates Man from all other life forms, and that Man’s automatic processes cannot function without free-will.

All three processes, perceptual, conceptual and emotional, are contiguous and interdependent of each other. All use integration as their tool. None can be separated. Thus there is only one “consciousness” administering one individual being, complete in body, mind and soul, fully commanded by free will.

The Spiral Delivery of Consciousness

This process re-circulates from the right column back to the left. The monitoring and reporting (subconscious) faculty that we call feelings (RHS) are delivered to one’s Conscious Awareness (LHS), whereby the (left to right) process can now repeat. One can now examine the cause of one’s feelings, revise past actions that lead to the feeling, learn from past experience and grow in wisdom. One can also refuse this examination, blindly believing that one’s feelings are self explanatory.

Once it is grasped that free will enquiry is the motor of understanding, the conclusion is almost self-evident…

Man’s subconscious/emotional process mentors his conscious mind and free choices, in the most exquisitely beautiful and simple manner that only nature could devise, fully consistent with free-will in all respects.

Man is master of his own destiny and soul, provided he chooses to understand and exercise these precious faculties endowed by nature. Ramifications extend well beyond the scope of this article, best summarised as a whole new understanding of Man’s nature from which natural laws of his societal dealings may emerge. This is all well and good for adults, but…

What About the Little Ones?

How do infants and toddlers handle emotions when they haven’t yet the intellectual abilities of adults? Do they merely grow to become adults, or do they transform, from a state of conscious awareness to conscious understanding?

By analogy, could a change of nature, from one state to another, happen in the mental realm, just as a caterpillar physically transforms into a butterfly? If mental processes are truly of nature herself, why not? Yet, in the table above, conscious awareness is automatic, while conscious understanding arises from exercising free-will. They cannot possibly be the same.

Transforming the Conscious Process

From my study, children change from perceptual dependence to one of conceptual independence. Consider that an infant has no language, no grasp of concepts, no understanding of value judgements, no means of expression save tears or smiles, cannot declare its intentions, yet is able to function in a manner akin to the conscious state of animality, particularly animals of higher conscious order. Blessed with free-will, thus different from that of an animal, their “perceptual level of awareness,” allows conscious understanding to grow and develop.

Nature has provided an experiential window of opportunity, whereby perceptually driven emotions (PDE’s) are replaced by conceptually driven emotions (CDE’s) which is to say a transformation in consciousness takes place. The “perceptual mode of functioning” is replaced by the “conceptual mode of functioning”. As the child progresses in comprehension and language, taking ever greater charge of their free will, so they assume greater responsibility for the “value” content of their emotional database that administers feelings. Primary (perceptual) emotions of joy and suffering are progressively replaced by a vast vocabulary of advanced emotions.

The child transforms cognitively to become adult, and does not simply grow in stature enough to be called adult. This parallels hormonal changes during adolescence.

Did not Jesus say…?

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. [Source]

Subconscious — Involuntary and Voluntary Control

From the stream of constantly changing information arriving from one’s 5 senses, subconscious mind automatically controls all involuntary functions of the body, including pulse rate, breathing rate, body temperature, adrenaline release, hormonal balance and so forth. It does this ceaselessly for the whole of one’s life without sleep.

Subconscious mind also accepts one’s free–will instructions to act, (e.g., talk, climb, walk, drive, dance, etc), whence it controls all muscle functions, simultaneously regulating all internal body functions.

Precision in Action

Picking up an object does not require a succession of conscious instructions to each muscle involved. Instead, subconscious mind absorbs information from your senses, sees the object and later feels it, processes this data at light speed, instantly and precisely adjusting your muscles as the task progresses. Witness, for example, the most sensitive and delicate finger movements of a watch repairer, or heart surgeon. Just one (wrong) twitch of a muscle nerve and his/her most delicate operation fails. Subconscious mind watches over every minuscule muscular movement (via the 5 senses) and so controls it and others with finite precision in satisfaction of one’s (free-will) intentions. Not only bound to administer one’s chosen actions therefore, it is bound by its own nature to monitor every action. Subconscious mind takes your every choice, and powers your body through every minute of every day. Still, you can consciously choose to stop at any time.

Foundations for Emotions

Every action you undertake has a value attached to it. Subconscious mind thrives on values because your life is its only concern; its only value and purpose. You pick up an object for a purposeful reason, one that offers your life a value. Your subconscious mind assimilates other values in addition. E.g. How precious the object is, (an eraser or a crystal glass), where it came from (a gift maybe) a safety value (razor sharp blade, or boiling hot), and so forth. Additionally it controls your muscles and monitors every body system, breath and heartbeat simultaneously. The speed and flawless precision by which your subconscious mind handles such a vast and complex sum of information, for such a simple action, is truly astounding.

Translate that example into split second (hand and feet) driving complexities involved in evading a potential car accident. Simultaneously your subconscious mind is directing your eye movements, cranking up your heart rate, increasing your breathing rate, sets adrenaline coursing through your veins, and amasses a dozen expletives for (emotional release) when the car has stopped. Conscious mind could never handle this complexity with the same speed, precision and dexterity.

Process, Not Content

Subconscious mind’s sole (soul) concern is the preservation of one’s life and spiritual growth. It has no interest in any other matters whatsoever. It has no discriminatory faculties so it cares not what you believe, how many prayers you recite, whether you are a slave or sovereign being, your race, colour, or ethnicity.

This points up a very important distinction. Consciousness is “process,” not the mental content of one’s consciousness. Soul is not organic which is why neuroscience cannot find where in one’s body it nests.

Three Stages of Conscious Integration

The (re-pasted) table shows 3 stages of (consciousness) integration on the top line, while the bottom line shows their process trigger. Sensory integration and emotional integration are both automatic, but are separated by a different mode of integration triggered by free-will.

Sensori integration Conceptual integration Emotional integration.
Perception Discrimination & Evaluation Value assessments.
Conscious awareness Conscious understanding + action Monitoring and Reporting
Automatic (Subconscious) Free will choice (Conscious) Automatic (Subconscious)

Perceptual Integration

Sensory integration presents an object or thing to one’s conscious awareness. It is a “thing,” not lines, colours, planes and textures, which is to say that one senses a “picture” of it, not an explanation of it, even when sound, taste or odour are added in. The “perceptual faculty” automatically integrates a variety of data to present ‘one thing’ for conscious study.

Conceptual Integration

Free will is invoked thereby. Will one understand, or just be aware of it? Understanding requires study of what it is, and what relationship it has to other things. This is the purpose of concepts, and concepts are the foundation of language.

Conceptualisation begins with conscious understanding of several different entities all having like characteristics. To form a concept, one mentally integrates all essential characteristics of these entities into a (single) mentally manageable form, denoted by a word or phrase. The word “book”, for example, is a ‘concept’. It applies to all books, past, present or future, known or unknown. The word embraces, and abstracts information describing that “book” has the essential characteristics of multiple pieces of paper or pages combined into a bound stack.

Now, instead of a multitude of different things, ’one concept’ presents for conscious study.

Emotional Integration

The “emotional faculty” is step three. It automatically integrates a multitude of concepts and presents ‘one feeling’ for conscious study. Emotions are sourced from one’s intention to complete an action, the value one has given that action, and millisecond by millisecond progress of that action. Thus, like the other two integrative processes, increasing information is packed into ever tighter packages. Full integration enables vast amounts of information to be handled at light speed.

Sequential Process

The perceptual faculty integrated multiple data into one thing. The (free-will) conceptual faculty integrates things to make concepts. These are word pictures, in effect, not real things, but anchored to reality nonetheless. From these the emotional faculty makes images. (One image contains a thousand words (concepts) we’re all taught.)

The emotional faculty integrates the concept of intention with the concept of value and compares both to the progress of one’s actions in every present moment environment. How does it evaluate progress? Rather like those (twin) pictures we used to compare to spot the differences. Put a picture of one ’s intent and chosen values, over the top of one’s life and its (soul) value. Hold both up to the light and matches and mismatches will be clear in a flash. Matches offer a feeling of progress. Mismatches offer a feeling of hindrance or denial of one’s goals and/or one’s life.

Feelings as Images and Concepts

That description is very over-simplified, nonetheless each match and/or mismatch, is expressed as a feeling, whose name is a concept, e.g., delight, sorrow, anguish, excitement.

No cognitive explanation of feelings is given by subconscious mind. It cannot because its vocabulary is images that we name as a concept. Feelings are concepts therefore, anchored to reality but not tangible things. We must learn the source of a feeling (image) exactly as conscious mind had to understand the original image of a “thing” presented by the perceptual faculty from the 5 senses. Thus a sequential loop has been completed whereby emotions can be unravelled and understood by one’s (free-will) conscious mind in the same manner as before. Nature has made a complex process  simple, thence repetitive; all shown in diagram form on my website.

The Role of Values

Whereas conscious mind asks ‘what is it’, subconscious asks ‘what value does [xyz] action bring to my life and my soul? Subconscious mind answers to nothing but existent reality, your choices, and the “life-value” you allocate to your choices. Just as every bodily organ is governed by the natural laws of its own nature, subconscious mind is likewise law-bound by its own nature. It cannot work in a vacuum or life would cease. As one’s soul, it must have a life-value for each action, without which it cannot report satisfaction or dissatisfaction as feelings.

Material values, such as a new wardrobe, jet ski, computer, etc, are not life-values, instead means to that end. Life values are from the field of ethics, and morality, as regards oneself, e.g., honesty, integrity, truthfulness, independence, productiveness, creativity etc.

Default Mode

One’s conscience is pinpricked. Ethics, and morality fall under the spotlight. Subconscious mind has no free will and cannot choose. In the absence of a life-value consciously nominated, it will allocate a value from one you have previously given, even though you may be unaware that you have. Subconscious default matches the value best approximating one’s actions in every present moment.

When free choice to fully use conscious mind is short circuited, or abandoned, subconscious may revert back to the perceptual level closely approximating that of animality, akin to that of an infant. Apathy or a careless mentality will drive nature to uphold one’s existence, but this is not living in the full sense. Notwithstanding, the experiential window that allows an infant to grow in conscious wisdom never shuts. It is always open to free choice, to grow wings of independence in place of perceptual dependence.

Programming the Subconscious

So often people speak of their feelings, as though thought itself is their origin or source. Others believe that emotions mould their thoughts. Thought is not what counts, life-value is. Subconscious wants to know your passion for an action, the real nuts and bolts of it in life terms. It wants you should commune with it as if life really matters — because it does! It pleads your affirmation of life and your blessing, because without your choice it knows not. It cannot choose “your values”, not even life, because life is what it is. Life is the soul of its nature; the nature of your soul.

So how does one truly impress values upon subconscious mind with sufficient passion to override the next best thing, or confirm that a present value is best of all? Many will suggest meditation, mantras, positive thinking, law of attraction and so forth, but why add mental load when subconscious monitors every split second of one’s life already? Surely if one wants to impress “integrity” upon one’s subconscious mind as a high ranking value, for example, just act with integrity in all that you do. Listen to understand, speak to convey information clearly, mow the lawn with pride, think with intent, act with integrity— just DO “integrity.” Subconscious mind observes every move and will very quickly grasp what life-value is most prized. Use other methods if you will, but remember that value laden deeds speak louder than value charged intentions.

In practicing what you want to preach to your subconscious mind, avoid negatives. There is no such thing as a negative value or emotion. A feeling of nuisance or distress, for example, is a positive alert that something needs fixing or avoiding. Subconscious refuses negatives, because no negative life-value exists, nor can it. To subconscious mind, I will (not) be poor, means I will be poor.

Deconstructing Emotions

Emotions can be consciously back engineered to profit from them, simply by using all the above principles in reverse. Begin from the supreme concept of “life,” drilling deeper and deeper until the core value of that emotion reveals itself. For example.

  1. Is the emotion affirmative of life (rewarding) or alerting that something is amiss?
  2. Is it attributable to a material goal, or spiritual value? (Both maybe?) Eg., delay in getting a new car for business purposes to raise money for a holiday in pursuit of ‘’
  3. Arising therefrom, is a single value supported / denied; or multiple values?
  4. What is its (their) intensity? To what extent is value challenged or confirmed? E.g., Nuisance, niggled, put out, cranky, annoyed, angry, infuriated, violently angry? Or, smiling, pleasantly surprised, happy, delighted, overjoyed, thrilled beyond measure?
  5. When the trigger is found, what, if anything, needs fixing? Should one’s actions be altered, avoided in future, or continued? Ask the same of its “value”. Accurate identification is crucial.

Those five steps demonstrate the willful choice to consciously “understand,” and not simply be aware of one’s feelings. Every feeling offers something positive. Every emotion serves to mentor one’s life, but without conscious enquiry of their substance, one receives no value confirmation, nor means of their revision. “Perceptual awareness” should never be considered as “conscious understanding?”

Laws Within

Orderliness of process in the physical body is echoed by orderliness of process in the mental, emotional and spiritual realm of each individual. Both service life. Orderliness of process abides with what I’ve called “life values,” else the conscious process is self defeating. To study the mind is to discover the natural laws by which it functions. Truthfulness, for example, must rank near the top, else errors will result. Integrity, purpose, sincerity, patience and the like, are clearly inherent in the conscious process, because all are ethical virtues, without which, conscious and emotional support for one’s life would be prone to errors, misjudgements, falsity and more.

Ethics, Morality, Natural Law and Natural Justice

Morality is a code of values that guides Man’s choices and actions in the course of his life. Discovering and defining such a code, is the science of ethics. Man’s own consciousness can only be observed by the conscious application of itself; by choice. Conscious process is immutable and inviolable, adhered by soul and by nature to support and sustain one’s life, correspondent with free will.

From this study of mind, and mastery of consciousness, morality is shown to emanate from within. One can accept that ethic, or reject it, but whomsoever adopts it will practice natural law in their actions and social dealings, thereby respecting the equal rights of all others.

Natural law is from the heart and soul of every individual man, woman and child. All else is counterproductive. Whomsoever transgresses and steps outside natural law,’ is an “outlaw,” by their own choosing.

My study, “Student of Mind — Master of Consciousness” (available via Absentlimits.net) has indeed confirmed the substance and relevance inherent in the Constitution of Man, most importantly the word “of,” in that title. This upholds need for a Commission of Justice, so as to dispatch government, and facilitate a symbiotic society within the age of spiritual enlightenment Man is now entering.

About the author:

Ken Bartle

Retired from a career designing (solar) houses in Australia, and enjoying photography as a hobby, Ken Bartle now focusses on Mankind’s awakening. Convinced that government could never satisfy, he wrote the Declaration of Individual rights as Articles 1 & 2 in the Constitution of Man, also describing the origins of the “Declaration” and “Constitution” and reason for their existence. His Commission of Justice offers an alternative to government. Further explanations were re-published as “Free by Nature” on his website.

With increasing numbers of people pointing to Natural law, Ken set out to explore Man’s mental faculties as the inherent origins of natural law, based entirely on the nature of Man. This completely new approach, Student of Mind- Master of Consciousness, is being progressively published; its shortest synopsis being the subject of this article.

Learn more at www.absentlimits.net and www.kenslens.net

 


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