Dimensions of Consciousness - Part 1
Whereas matter evolves, Consciousness expands. This occurs through our direct, intimate, and somewhat formidable experience in multiple dimensions of Being.
In our normal range of activities, our physical senses together with the brain perceive and evaluate the material world. At the same time, we are gifted with subtle senses that perceive in non-linear ways, and with spiritual faculties that capture invisible forces at work in assorted strata of Creation.
“Like attracts like.” We tap into each sensory level by vibrating in the same frequency, accessing physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual phenomena. We participate in the processes of matter as well as that of light, and ultimately in the full recognition of a transcendent phenomenon of inherent godliness.
Dimensions form an onion-like matrix with layers or dimensions of activity. Each dimension embraces a range of frequencies that serves a particular function. By modulating its consciousness, humanity is the only specie that can behave in tune with the animal world and also know itself as one with divinity. Habitually, we limit ourselves to matter and form.
The first challenge facing a person who wishes to know the nature of the universe we live in, is to switch from the perception of duality to the awareness of an interpenetrating reality that is must vaster. In this series we will reveal how this implies the modulation of consciousness from mental to holistic and, finally, to a subtle sentience that is wholly experiential and attains to the core of Being. By vibrating in certain frequencies we access the various languages of an inordinately sensible universe.
A dimension serves a certain evolutionary function and holds a vibratory rhythm that connects to others in a scale of growing complexity. The first and second dimensions refer solely to matter and do not involve Human Consciousness, but instead reflect elemental dynamics of gestation, decomposition and recreation of matter. They resonate microcosmically as pressure that gives birth to substance and movement, which is below the threshold of our intelligence. Our body echoes this sub-atomic activity. We are able to sense their textures, colours, sounds and rhythms indirectly through keen observation of our own physical rhythms and pulsation. Certain beats, like that of the drum and other ritualistic tribal instruments, facilitate these perceptions by emitting pulsations that still the brain – setting aside linear function – and tuning into biological and geological consciousness. It is the very stuff of shamanism.
I use a system or map of twelve dimensions. This study consists of three parts that outline our potential skills and help us identify the range of vibrations in which they unfold. In this Part One we deal with the basic human gamma of activity, that of Consciousness in Matter: the Human Dimension. In my work, this ranges from the third to the sixth dimension of Consciousness.
The third dimension is intricately linked to the fourth, fifth, and sixth. These are linear and technological. They employ the ordinary thinking mind as an extended organ of the five physical senses. The emotional, relational and psychological elements that result form part of the texture of these dimensions that pertain to our physical and social needs, and the communications and logistical systems that serve them.
Do you know the story of the blind man in the cave with an elephant? He was asked to identify different parts of the animal’s body through touch. Each part of the anatomy was described according to the blind man’s immediate experience, drawing parallels to his own reality and expectation. When positioned by the tail, the animal was perceived as a tubular or snake-like beast. The leg was likened to the trunk of a tree. The floppy ears appeared to belong to some winged creature. He lacked full sight and therefore an understanding how all the parts work together.
Similarly, when we go up a mountain we gain different perspectives of the surrounding territory. At ground level we perceive individual activity. As we climb higher, we are able to observe interactions with other elements. Our perspective is broader. Only from the summit may we see 360º around ourselves to understand all the simultaneous and disparate events that take place at the different heights and widths of the terrain.
The Human Dimension at this level (3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th) is a creative, exploratory phase in the experience of life, where intelligence functions piece by piece, sequentially. It divides things into parts and puts them back together, offering the possibility of learning to construct, disassemble and reconstruct. At each stage embraces greater complexity as well as intensity.
Coincidentally, in the third dimension we are mastering faculties of perception and empathy, as well as abilities to evoke and execute. We learn about creation by feeling, thinking, doing or simply flowing. It is a laboratory for orientation in the vaster universe, through innumerable trial and error.
The drawback is the fascination that this process generates. Our creations repeat a predictable pattern. Our notions of time and distance place a linear, evolutionary bias that demands continuity and fixity, leaving little space for simultaneity, probability and alternate expressions. The range of human dimensions offers interpretations, but only those humans who rise above it are able to grasp the fullest extent of cause and effect. We are unable to grasp wholly new concepts unless we are ready to shift to a finer, non-linear vantage point.
Surprisingly, the psychic realm, mistakenly understood as a spiritual skill, forms part of this third dimensional range of phenomena and relates very closely to our personal projections. Extrasensory perception echoes the world of cause and effect that feeds our special needs in a psychophysical reality.
Human consciousness at this level calls for awareness and mastery. It is here where we develop the basic mental resilience and set the foundation for supra-mental faculties needed in the higher dimensions. Awareness and mastery of the third dimension constitutes the first initiation in any esoteric tradition.
To the naked eye our body is a unit composed of parts. To the trained eye, our form is structured in layers of finer and finer substance, extending electromagnetically onto an auric field, and beyond into an exquisite aquarelle of softest light particles comprising the rainbow radiance of Spirit. Esoterically, each layer or field is regarded as a body of substance or light.
The physical body has its own language. Emotions give off waves of colour and quality; this is the language of its consciousness, a shimmering undulation of subtle particles. Its nature is sensible and relational. Our minds project directional frequencies through thought and image that appear to function independently and abstractly, but which in fact derive their quality from emotional mobility and physical vitality.
The purpose of third dimensional consciousness is to build a bridge between the instinctive elemental self and the self-consciousness that will eventually lead to Self-Consciousness. Relationships are the training ground. Here, we communicate with one another and send physical, mental and emotional messages that often contradict one another. Our global atmosphere is a frenetic entanglement of waves and wires threading all of humanity and its creations. We imbibe impressions from the media, our families, and the stranger that crosses us on the street. Even if we shut our minds, or distract ourselves, our bodies, minds and emotional fields are constantly absorbing environmental and human pollution.
On another level, every time we think, visualize, imagine or remember, we are expanding our mental abilities at the fourth dimension. The fifth dimensional consciousness oscillates at a slightly faster rate and quality; it is responsible for planning, speculation, association and logical deduction. Together with the fourth, it works with blueprints, capable of perceiving the whole as well as the parts. At this level we access patterns, whether it is a dress we are sewing or a model airplane we are assembling.
Solutions at this level appear as probabilities. This faculty is employed globally in the mechanics of military planning. These are the associative spaces within which we formulate a shopping list, and integrate events from the past. In modern psychology it is the range for introspection and creative flexibility.
The sixth dimension is associative and dynamic, removed from the practicalities of the third dimension while also serving it. The mental ability at this dimension allows us to execute or understand the mechanics of computer technology and modern abstract painting. It reaches a creative level of possibilities. We contact this frequency whenever we let go of the fixed pattern of things and allow the process of disintegration, as well as that of reformulation, to occur.
At the third dimension, the body furnishes us with stability, the emotions with flexibility, and the mind with the conceptual tools to handle ideas. Normally we would learn to master consciousness at this level through the lessons that life offers us, but today’s conditions are different. Humanity is already well advanced in the fourth dimension, as it is also active in a growing number of individuals who live, breathe and give life to technological advances on the fifth and sixth domains of Internet and scientific research. Perception within these adjacent three dimensions unfolds as intellectual, academic, informational, strategic and abstract reasoning.
An unprecedented situation is created. This range of activity is so absorbing that the details of every day life, namely feelings, are completely overshadowed. Given the exaggerated emphasis placed on mental activity at this moment of history, a marked gap between the intellect and the physical body, especially muddled at the emotional level is evident. “Geeks” notoriously avoid emotions. This constitutes a problem, as subtle and more complex life is essentially sentient.
When we learn to consciously occupy our body fully, and there is coherence in our thoughts, feelings and actions, the energies responsible for these functions break through into a wider field of activity. Spontaneously, a luminous sphere of protection emerges around us that allows for the perception of the next series of dimensional activity without ego distortion. The protective wall that arises reflects the way we have refined our mind, emotions, and bodies. This vibratory stability is a pre-requisite for embracing the first principle on the path of mastery: placing personal will at the service of Higher Will.
The next series of dimensions require entirely different abilities and may not be accessed unless the first set has been mastered. They involve emotional as well as mental flexibility.