Spiritual Resonance

The subjective experience of consciousness, as all functionally cognitive people know it, is in a constant state of flux. The person you were yesterday when you experienced your first ride on a roller coaster or jumped out of a perfectly good airplane for the first time is not the same person you are today, having had that experience. Your conscious awareness is enhanced (hopefully) or altered by the new experience. The change may be barely noticeable or not noticeable at all. But, over long periods of time, with the accumulation of experience, our conscious awareness may change, based on our new perspective which was not possible without having had those experiences.

We are, by most cosmic standards, a fledgling species, whose progress from being primarily impulsive creatures with a survival instinct to the more modern self-aware variety has spanned less than a hundred thousand years. Whatever degree of cognitive skill might have been adequate to qualify the earliest version of modern humans as “conscious” or “significantly self-aware,” the earliest evidence of such characteristics being demonstrated seems to fall during the Upper Paleolithic period, which saw the coexistence of the Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon

A generally agreed-upon definition for consciousness has never been produced, and yet, it is one of the most talked-about concepts in the related subject areas of psychology, philosophy, and the cognitive sciences.  A quick check of any group of resources on consciousness will give you a variety of both conflicting and related definitions. Recent achievements in neuroscience have increased our understanding of brain physiology exponentially and given us a much better grasp of how the physiological elements involved in consciousness affect its nature, but we don’t seem much closer to agreement today than we’ve been at any other time in history.  Everything from feelings, images, memory, and a more fully developed self-awareness have also been cited as components of modern consciousness. My own ideas suggest a greater role of more esoteric components to consciousness, but my voice is not the only one. 

According to the Swiss psychiatrist and scholar C.G. Jung:

“In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature, there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals.

This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents. It is man’s task to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious.”   

After several exposures to what Jung described as “unconscious contents” in my early twenties, it became apparent to me that a greater comprehension of my own cognitive processes was necessary if I was ever going to come to terms with the inexplicable nature these extraordinary personal experiences.

The learning process has engaged my own consciousness in ways that have given me great satisfaction. But even with all the effort being put forth by numerous scholars and scientists in the field, we keep running into thresholds where science and philosophy cannot seem to penetrate. 

Spiritual Resonance

There are many different approaches one might choose when investigating the subjective awareness of our universal non-material character or what Jung described as “a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals.” Even after thousands of years of human endeavors to illuminate philosophical or metaphysical ideas, it isn’t clear how we might reconcile the nature of material phenomena as it relates to the immaterial or spiritual realms. Since we are physical beings ourselves, constructed of the same components as all phenomenally existent matter, descriptive terms do not translate well when we try to discuss our ineffable nature.

It seems clear objectively that there are profound differences between our understanding of physical phenomena and our intuitions about our subjective nature as sentient creatures, but even our current understanding of the quantum world of physical matter infers that in spite of all appearances provided by our perceptual capacities, there are aspects or components of physical matter which are not directly accessible or able to be directly perceived by us.

Over the course of the decades of my human experience of life, I have had numerous encounters with what I would describe as inexplicably potent energies or compelling ineffable aspects to my own individual experience of existence, which suggest strongly that I am literally swimming in a river of an indescribable nature which is not likely to yield its secrets by applying the scientific method.

I have an undeniably strong connection to this flow. I continuously experience moments of both inspiration and intuition that often take me by surprise with their intensity. It would be impossible not to notice how my body and my inner awareness both respond so clearly and fully at certain times to what are often momentarily overwhelming physical sensations that alter my subjective awareness of energies that defy explanation in material terms, particularly as they relate to empathetic responses to other like spirits.  Occasionally, I seem to have a keen sense of what is transpiring within others when, for whatever reason, their own inner portal opens and encounters mine. Sometimes they seem to become aware of the same aspect within me, and respond in a commensurately positive way, and at other times, they appear to be unaware that their portal is open and can be taken aback initially.

When, on those rare occasions, the flow runs parallel between two like spirits, the blending can bring a wave of delight, and once this condition is indicated within me, the mingling of pathways along the flow of life, for me, is, practically speaking, impossible to ignore.  As a mature person now, I am better able to manage the exchanges which can result, but the challenge is always how to resolve whatever transpires in a way that is beneficial to both spirits.

Realizing that the previous few paragraphs refer to experiences and perceptions which are not familiar to or equally shared by others, I have attempted to introduce these aspects of my personal experiences over nearly fourteen years of blogging here at John’s Consciousness, and have concluded that there is a kind of “Spiritual Resonance,” that provides those with a natural inclination towards a higher degree of empathy to pursue an avenue, which might bring one into contact with our non-material nature, and the many diverse paths leading to a greater understanding of that nature demonstrate the existence of a much broader path to inclusion than we currently seem to appreciate in the 21^st century.

I use the term “like spirits,” and “avenues to spirituality,” not because I understand more than anyone else does about our universal nature as human beings, but because those terms come as close as we can really get to what is meant by a “non-material aspect,” to life itself.  Some folks like to color this aspect with religious traditions, while others prefer a materialistic approach to explaining it all as brain physiology and psychological conditioning, or any number of alternative methods, but, for me, utilizing terminology which invokes the spirit speaks to the heart of the matter, and that resonance is at the heart of the ineffable.