The Evolution of Consciousness Series explores how our minds evolve & some of the pitfalls along the way
Growing a person is a mysterious process. Most of it happens in the dark, but we have discovered certain patterns that unfold in all people in more or less the same way. Imagine you’re building a house. This is less complicated than growing a person, but it’s a useful metaphor. We’ll leave aside the problem… Continue reading Evolution of Consciousness: How to Grow a Person
Last time we looked at how consciousness evolves through various stages of development. In this post we’ll look at what happens when this process goes wrong. Back to the house building metaphor: as the foundations for your character are being laid problems can arise which lead to difficulties later in life. If the support structures… Continue reading Evolution of Consciousness: Kinks in the Mind
“I only know as much about myself as my mind can work out under its current conditions. And its current conditions are not good.” Zaphod Beeblebrox, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy We don’t know who we are or what we want. This sounds like a drastic overstatement, but most of the time it’s true.… Continue reading Evolution of Consciousness: The Dark Side of the Ego
In the last post we discovered how the ego creates the shadow by rejecting anything we find unacceptable. Now we’ll look at what we can do to heal the wounds that cause us problems along the path to wholeness and awakening. All sorts of things can end up in the shadow – it’s not all… Continue reading Evolution of Consciousness: Embracing the Shadow
Life has an uncanny ability to undermine your sense of self-importance and competence. No matter how hard you try, you’re never going to make sense of it. You’ll never fully know yourself and life will always surprise you. This is good, but we don’t always see it that way. When you identify with your ego… Continue reading Evolution of Consciousness: Spiritual Crisis
We’ve reached a tricky stage in the evolution of consciousness: the ego has discovered there’s a wider reality beyond its high walls and barbed fences. It’s under attack and in no mood to back down without a fight. Let’s have a closer look at this pesky ego and see if we can find its weak… Continue reading Evolution of Consciousness: Army of Me
The stage after Ego is a radical shift in the evolution of consciousness. From this moment on, you’ll never be the same again. Once you’ve tasted the open space and peace of the Witness, the ego feels even more claustrophobic. The ego is a set of ideas and concepts: the idea that you are who… Continue reading Evolution of Consciousness: Witness Self
“We are afraid to approach the fathomless and bottomless groundlessness of everything. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of’. The ultimate reassurance, and the ultimate terror.” – R.D. Laing, The Politics of Experience Absolute Subjectivity, Pure Awareness, Suchness, No-mind, Oneness, Non-duality Consciousness, Brahman, Original Mind, Luminous Emptiness, God. These are some of the words used to name… Continue reading Evolution of Consciousness: True Nature
We’ve already explored how consciousness evolves from birth into a fully mature ego, plus some of the problems encountered on the way. To finish, we’ll look at where we can go next. Assuming all has gone well and we don’t have too many hang-ups or kinks in our development, it should be possible to evolve… Continue reading Evolution of Consciousness: The Growing Edge
Jessica Davidson 