Expanding Consciousness: Likes and Dislikes

Expansion of Consciousness

Part 1:  Overcoming Likes and Dislikes

The central purpose of Heartfulness practices is to allow us to expand our consciousness so that we develop an increasingly broad and deep understanding of ourselves, others and the world around us. Daaji, my spiritual guide, has been talking and writing quite a lot about the importance of expanding consciousness which has prompted me to examine my spiritual journey through that lens. To explain how I understand expansion of consciousness, it is first necessary to consider what consciousness is. 

Daaji describes consciousness as ‘awareness’.  After a lot of reading and thinking, I have come to the conclusion that I can’t assess my consciousness directly, but I can assess it in terms of relationship to myself, my experience and relationship of others and how I view my place in the world around me.  I call this the manifestation of my consciousness. 

Consciousness is a uniquely individual phenomenon. The experience of consciousness comes from perception; perception is intimately influenced by prior and current experiences. Take for example, two people raised in the same country but of different racial or ethnic heritages. Their experiences will be seen through different lenses even if they grew up in the same community. As a consequence, the manifestation of their consciousness may be quite different.  Take, as another example, the experience of a global pandemic.  Almost everyone may have at least some awareness of the impact both personally and globally.  Some people may be proportionately most concerned with the impact on themselves, some with their family and friends, others with their community at large, and some with the global impact. The differences in proportional concern may reflect differences in the expression of overall states of consciousness.

Further complicating an understanding of consciousness is that it is not a fixed quality, but rather one that fluctuates across time and events.  When someone is ill, for example, their awareness may be almost entirely directed toward self and in particular could be focused on pain, discomfort, and perhaps fear. Yet at other times, they may be focused intently on volunteer efforts for the community.  A teenager experiencing love for the first time might be intensely aware of the loved one to the exclusion of almost everything and everyone else, yet at other times they may be deeply focused on their sports and schoolwork.

Can we know what is our state of consciousness?  And can the overall state of consciousness, or awareness evolve, or are we limited to the degree of consciousness that we are born into and with? To begin to think about these questions, it is helpful to consider what happens to expand consciousness. 

Daaji often talks about Heartfulness practices as a means to expand consciousness.  He has explained that there are three components to this expansion:  1) Mind expands from thinking to feeling to being and beyond; 2) Intellect expands from intelligence to intuition to wisdom;  and 3) Ego expands from arrogance to humility and ultimately to love. 

How can this expansion be facilitated?  From my personal experience, Heartfulness provides a practical means for expanding consciousness.  The underlying reason is that the Heartfulness practices gradually but inexorably remove the impressions that come from all of one’s life experiences, both recent and from long ago.  And as these impressions diminish, their effect as filters of our perception also diminish.  This is a gradual process but an exceptionally effective one. Only when the filters that color or cloud perception are gone can one begin to see clearly what truly ‘is’.   

Can I know if my consciousness has expanded? I have thought about this quite a lot recently and have spent time visiting my own journey of expansion over the past 30 years.  By observing my daily life, I can develop some idea of how my awareness is changing over time. Here I look over samples of experiences and changes over the years, considering them in context of Daaji’s description of expanding consciousness.

My first awareness of expanding consciousness came with awareness of changes in how I reacted to situations in my life and my relationship to others.  I found that I took things more in my stride and was calmer when events that occurred previously would have disturbed me. I noticed these changes in relationships with family members, friends, and those at work – I was calmer, less reactive, and more accepting of differences.  As my spiritual journey progressed, I noticed that some things about which I had previously held strong opinions no longer felt important to me.  In part, I attribute this change in attitudes to the gradual removal of the myriad of filters that I had accumulated through life experiences and that had influenced how I perceived things.

This removal of filters is a natural outcome of the Heartfulness cleaning process, a practice through which old impressions are gradually cleared away.  The more these filters are cleared away, the greater is one’s clarity about ‘reality’.  I noticed that over time I became more adept at letting go of ‘thinking’ about how to interpret events as they occurred.  Rather, I began to ‘feel’ what was needed – a step in the direction of ‘moving from thinking to feeling to being and beyond’.

Here are some examples of how this worked in my daily life.  I noticed a lessening of strong likes and dislikes.  I became more able to ask ‘why does [that] bother me?  Is it really important?’  And I began to see that many of my strongly held likes and dislikes were simply habit and perception, without a real underlying moral, ethical, or pragmatic reason for them.  When they feel important, and if I hold onto ‘my way’, they can create discord with others in the household or work environment. Take the simple example of preparing and cleaning up from a meal.  Is there a reason why I want one kind of lentils today and not another?  Or is it just habit?  Why does it matter if I cut the vegetables in small pieces or large?  Is there a perfect way to wash the dishes afterwards, or is my choice just habit? These are simple, trivial examples, but I am amazed at how important the choices can feel.  I can become more flexible in my choices and become more accepting of others’ choices as my consciousness expands.

Flexibility can have a profound impact.  I have noticed that the more accepting I am of the other person, the more I am able to ‘feel’ and respond to their needs. Notably, I have also noticed that the more relaxed I am with others, the more relaxed they are around me – and the more accepting they become.  

From childhood I was taught to ‘analyze’ in order to know what to do, when and how.  I was taught inductive reasoning (this leads to that which leads to something else) and deductive reasoning (if this happened, the most likely reason is that, which probably came from [something else]. 

Over time, I noticed that I was increasingly likely to refer to my heart rather than my thoughts when making major decisions. I can describe this as learning to rely more and more on intuition - a step in the direction of ‘moving from intelligence to intuition to wisdom’. An example of this was the struggle that I had between my ‘head and heart’ a few years ago.  I was living in Denver at the time.  Changes were coming to my neighborhood that made it seem like I should sell my house and move.  I loved living in that house, I didn’t want the disruption, and I resisted for many weeks.  But every once in a while it would be clear to me in my morning meditation that I should sell my house. I finally ‘knuckled under’ and put the house on the market, which precipitated a decision to move to North Carolina as I approached retirement.  I hadn’t considered doing so, it just ‘happened naturally’.  I bought a house in North Carolina while still living in Denver (I was still working) and moved into a rental in my former neighborhood.  About six months later, the proposed changes that had prompted selling my house were rejected by the city planning board and didn’t occur. I realized I could have stayed in my home.  BUT – I also recognized how glad I was to be retiring in North Carolina.  And even more important – just as I was about to move permanently to North Carolina, the pandemic hit – something I could not possibly have predicted.  It turned out North Carolina was the right place for me during the pandemic (and still is).  I couldn’t have known this from intelligence, but fortunately had listened to my intuition.   

Another step in expanding consciousness – and a much harder one for me – is becoming more open to and accepting of other people’s values and opinions.  With time, I have noticed that I am more likely to be empathetic towards others rather than judgmental – another example of expanding consciousness. This in turn leads to easier relationships at work, at home and in the community. In part, these changes are facilitated by the process of cleaning the old impressions so that I am better able to let go of long-held likes and dislikes.  And importantly, in part it is a matter of entertaining the possibility that I don’t always ‘know’.  My beliefs and opinions may not be ‘right’. I recognize this as a gradual diminishing of arrogance – a step in the direction of ‘moving from arrogance to humility to love’.

Now, for another really hard one:  As I continued on my spiritual journey, I began to notice how much I wanted to be recognized, valued and respected.  Not only did I want to excel for my self, but also I wanted to be known, recognized, and valued for being ‘the best’.  There are two problems with this.  First – it leads to arrogance – My way, my thoughts, my efforts are the right ones.  And second, I am disappointed when they aren’t noticed.  To expand from arrogance to humility to love is a huge challenge, but one that it truly worthwhile. 

The examples above provide a small sample of the possible impact of Heartfulness practices on consciousness. The practice has enriched every aspect of my life.  Changes often begin very shortly after beginning Heartfulness.  For example, Robyn Gisbert (my friend and colleague) with a group of scientists offered Heartfulness meditation to health professional students in a 90-day program. Students were randomly assigned to begin meditating immediately or to wait 90 days and then begin.  We compared scores of the meditating students to those who waited to meditate.  Remarkably, at 45 days (one of our data points), participants who meditated had markedly and significantly reduced anxiety scores as compared to their scores prior to beginning the study.  And by day 90 their anxiety scores had improved even more.  One way to think about the reduction in anxiety is that as the students’ consciousness expanded, they interpreted life events differently so that the events were less anxiety producing. 

From my own experience, and from observing many Heartfulness practitioners, it is evident that the early impacts continue to build gradually over time. Initial impacts affect our perception of duality – I like this, but not that;  today I am happy, tomorrow sad;  I might feel anger sometimes and love at other times; and I might feel anxious now, but courageous later.  With enough time, Heartfulness practices can change perception so that duality lessens and a person can move from a focus on ‘I’ to ‘We’ to ‘Oneness’.  But that will be the topic of the next blog.  Stay tuned!