What does your “heaven” look like?

This is a thought I’ve reflected on quite a few times and one that came up in a brief but real conversation with a good friend, Kadeem, yesterday.  A thought worth sharing, I deem.

How do we create our reality?  How do we create our lives?  Let’s look at the statement made in the title: consciousness = reality.  What is consciousness?  To me, consciousness is everything that we hold in our awareness that guides our interaction with the present moment.  When we think of “to be conscious of”, we mean that we hold awareness or attention to the intended object.  So, consciousness is the totality of everything that we hold in awareness or attention in every moment.

In every moment, there is a war on consciousness.  There are forces in the media controlled by the powers that be that try to control your consciousness.  If consciousness can be controlled, then beliefs, thought patterns, habits, and, finally, lives can be as well.

Let’s look at consciousness as the lens through which you see your reality.  Right now, the corrupt powers that be (notice I refuse to call them leaders), are a group of optometrists.  They have a monopoly on optometry.  They are treating every single patient.  The thing is, they are prescribing a lens that only lets their patients see what they want them to see, leaving everything else blurry.  As a patient, everyone is going to these optometrists, so I am going to as well.  But, as a result, there is a whole lot of stuff that I cannot see and, therefore, cannot hold in my awareness.  I cannot be conscious of it.  All that I can be conscious of is what the optometrists want me to see.  Hang on, I don’t know if I want these lenses anymore!

This is exactly what is happening in our western, capitalist world.  A group of people make trillions off of the general population’s continued consumption.  All we are meant to be conscious of is the next dollar, the next new product, the next celebrity story, the next new distraction.

I got a little carried away on that tangent; I’m very passionate about this.

Let’s go back to the statement, consciousness = reality.  I think we now have a deeper understanding of consciousness.  But how does this create our reality?  You might have been able to tell a bit from my definition of consciousness and the optometry example.  Remember, we said that “consciousness is everything that we hold in our awareness that guides our interaction with the present moment”.  The present moment is all we have.  The present moment is when we act.  Who we are today is the sum total of all of our interactions with the present moment.  Now, if consciousness guides our interaction with these moments, then it can be said our consciousness guides the creation our reality.

Another example.  One that I can speak on.  Let’s talk about bacon and cheeseburgers.  Actually, let’s talk about bacon cheeseburgers.  I loved bacon cheeseburgers.  And I mean loved them.  I could mow down three or four of them at a time.  This was something that I did completely unconsciously.  I ate these things for almost twenty years never having thought about how they came to my plate and in to my belly.  Since a young boy, the media pushed this “food” on me and drove me to consume more and more to put dollars in the pockets of greedy and value-less corporations.  Never did I see the same type of media push showing the treatment of the poor cows and pigs I was eating.  This was never talked about.  It was and is not part of collective consciousness (a term we will see again).  There was a war against my consciousness driving me to consume and not think about the morality behind my decisions and so I ran on auto-pilot as a slave to the dollar (and the bacon cheeseburger).  Eventually, alternative news sites and books brought the horrific issues of mass production to my attention, and they are now ever-present in my consciousness.  This informs my food choices every single day.

Let’s do one more.  iPhones.  Apple posted record corporate profits of $18B last quarter.  Eighteen billion dollars.  In four months.  65% of this was from iPhone sales.  The clearest example of complete consumer consciousness there could be.  Let’s think about this logically for a moment.  There are BILLIONS of people hungry on our planet.  Yet, Apple makes a yearly update to their phone and can consistently get millions on millions of people to shell out $700 a year.  Wait, what?

Our consciousness creates our reality.  If I am not holding these starving people in my consciousness, if I am not holding the people working in the factories in my consciousness, if I am not holding our dying planet in my consciousness, then I can spend $700 on a phone that does nothing to solve all of these pressing and most important issues.  If I am holding my status highly in my consciousness, if I am holding money highly in my consciousness, if I am holding materialism in my consciousness, then I cannot wait to spend $700 on a phone that gives me all of these things.  And who really “benefits” (on a completely monetary level)?  The people pushing these ideas into our consciousness.  Who are these people?  See my post “some questions we should all be asking”.

I think I got carried away again.  It happens.

Let’s get back to it.  So,  “consciousness is everything that we hold in our awareness that guides our interaction with the present moment” and it creates our reality because it is a lens through which we think and then act in the present.  Let’s illustrate this two more times.

If my conscious if full of love and compassion for the world and all of its inhabitants, then I will not act in ways that harm the world and all of its inhabitants.  It may begin by being a youth who loves to help others and finds a passion in working with children.  This may lead to a university career in Social Work.  This may lead to work with a not-for-profit.  This may lead me back to school for a masters and PhD in sustainability or international development.  This may lead to noble works.

I think this is closer to what is wanted of us.  Let’s suppose my conscious is one of a consumer and a need for the newest products and material validation.  This may begin as a youth who has all of the newest clothes and gadgets, but struggles focusing on his school work.  This may lead to a university career in Business, but without the instant gratification, it doesn’t last.  Instead, this may lead to a decent paying job, but one that can’t quite get all of the newest and shiniest things.  This may lead to a perpetual state of balancing paying off piling loans and interest while attempting to find fulfillment in all the newest material offerings.

I think consciousness = reality should be hammered home now.

Now, let’s look at this on a grander scale.  Our consciousness creates our reality, as individuals.  Our individual realities collectively create our collective reality.  Collective consciousness creates our collective reality.

When we look at our current reality here on earth, it is a marvel what the human mind can accomplish.  Stunning and brilliant feats of architecture and technology.  However, this was all created from a collective consciousness in disharmony with the ourselves and our planet.  A few of my own words to describe the collective consciousness that has created our current reality would be: ambitious, resourceful, abusive, innovative, greedy, profit-driven, and deceptive.  Because of this collective consciousness, we have created a reality here on Earth that reflects that.  Our buildings and machines show our resourcefulness, ambition, and innovation, but they also deceptively abuse the Earth and its inhabitants because they are driven by greed and profit.  Regardless, as I stated early, one can only marvel at our innovations.

Now, imagine… What if we could alter collective consciousness?  What if we could couple man’s innovation and ambition with his love, compassion, and kindness?  This shift in consciousness would yield Heaven on Earth.  Look at the pictures at the beginning of the post.  It is already here.  All we have to do is change what is in our hearts and in our minds, and we could create something even more breath-takingly beautiful then what already exists.

Much Love.