Realizations on Consciousness & the Future of Consciousness Studies

A Vision for the Society for Consciousness Studies by Imants Baruss

This editorial is based on a presentation given by the author at the inaugural meeting of the Society for Consciousness Studies at The California Institute of Integral Studies on May 31, 2014. The author discusses the hegemony of materialism and some of the deleterious consequences of its entrenchment in the academy. In particular, research into the nature of consciousness is curtailed, those with demonstrated psychic abilities are oppressed, and little gets done to find effective interventions for resolving existential anxiety. The author’s vision for the Society for Consciousness Studies is that: (1) it is a society that values open inquiry into the nature of consciousness; (2) its members can regard themselves as leaders who are guiding the direction of consciousness studies; (3) practical projects can be undertaken to advance the open study of consciousness; (4) the society can cultivate support for the discussion of existential issues, self-transformation, and transcendent states of consciousness; and (5) the founding of the Society for Consciousness Studies can be a turning point in the history of the study of consciousness. See http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/388

The Nature of "Space" & the Source of Consciousness by James Kowall

A purely mathematical-physical argument is made proving the source of consciousness is an empty space of potentiality in the Hindu sense of Brahman: the "ultimate power underlying the universe; the ultimate impersonal reality underlying everything in the universe, from which everything comes and to which it returns". See http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/389

Holographic Perspective of Health and Healing by Tamar Levin & Orit Tomer-Ish Yemini

This paper proposes a novel conceptualization of healing based on the properties of humans as holographic beings. This conceptualization describes the factors affecting the process of healing – energies initiated within the human being including mental, emotional, and spiritual energies as well as earthly and cosmic energies – and the mechanisms underlying healing. The healing process is conceived as a body-mind-soul process that brings a person to a state of balanced synthesis between a variety of energy fields, local and non-local, individual and communal. See http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/387

Light & Shadow by Steven E. Kaufman

Shadows cannot arise within complete darkness. Perception cannot arise in the absence of Consciousness. Shadows are different in nature than the light that is required for them to arise and what is perceived is different in nature than the Consciousness that is required for it to arise. See http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/391

The One Light that Shines through All the Drops Steven E. Kaufman

Know yourself not as just one of the many drops that rests on the leaves after a rain. Know your Self instead as the One Light, the Light of Consciousness, that shines through all the drops, and there will then be no mistake in Identity, since the Light cannot seem to possess That which It already Knows Itself to Be. See http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/392

This Moment by Steven E. Kaufman

When we Know our self as the Formlessness, we also know that this Moment is sufficient unto Itself, and that nothing can be added to It or subtracted from It. When we know our self as form, we see this Moment as either lacking what we want, lacking what we think needs to be added to our form-identity, so that we can be made more, or possessing what we do not want, possessing what we think needs to be subtracted from our form-identity, so that we will not be made less. See http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/393

The Next Moment by Steven E. Kaufman

When you are in the next moment, looking for the Divine, looking for some sort of fulfillment, you are really still in this moment, in the Now, but having shrouded yourself in the form that is the next moment, the Divinity that Is Now is obscured, and so fulfillment eludes you. True fulfillment comes with finding the Divine, and Knowing yourself as That. The illusion of fulfillment comes with acquiring some form, and adding that form to one's form-identity. True fulfillment does not end. The illusion of fulfillment ends almost as soon as it has begun. See http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/394

The Two Relations of Consciousness to Itself Steven E. Kaufman

We are the Creators of form. We are not created by form, nor are we form. We are the Formlessness in which form arises and by which form is apprehended. And what causes form to arise so that we can apprehend it? What causes form to arise is always some relation of Formlessness to Itself. And there are really only two fundamental relations of Formlessness to Itself: Self-alignment or Self-opposition. With Self-alignment comes Self-Knowledge, Knowledge of one's true Nature, as well as the absence of suffering, whereas with Self-opposition comes Self-ignorance, the obscuring of one's true Nature, as well as the presence of suffering. See http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/395

The Flow of Being & the Creation of Suffering by Steven E. Kaufman

By clinging to and resisting the forms, the experiences, that arise within our Consciousness, we unconsciously Flow our Consciousness in opposition to Itself, and in so doing we provide resistance to our own Flow of Consciousness, thereby reducing that Flow of Consciousness, which reduction in Flow of Consciousness is apprehended by the Consciousness that is reducing its own Flow as suffering, as the self-induced constriction and seeming suffocation and of its own Being. The reactive clinging to and resistance of the forms, the experiences, that arise within Consciousness, occurs as a result of formless Consciousness misidentifying Itself with forms that also arise within Itself, causing Consciousness to know itself as what is really nothing more than a collection of forms, which collection of forms is collectively referred to as the ego. Once form-identification is established, i.e., once Consciousness knows itself as an ego, as a me, it then seems that other forms can be added to or subtracted from the collection of forms that Consciousness mistakenly knows as itself, thereby establishing the basis for the reactive movements of attachment and aversion, for our reactive clinging to and resisting of form, by which reactive movements we unconsciously Flow our Consciousness in opposition to Itself and so unconsciously create our own suffering. See http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/396

The Nature of Ultimate Reality & Recipe of Consciousness for Transformation by Pradeep B. Deshpande

Understanding the nature of ultimate reality is the basis for a better World. Adding thoughts, intentions, and emotions to this understanding, we will have the complete recipe of consciousness for transformation. See http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/398