In my youth, from age 9 to about age 15, I had several out of body experiences, where my consciousness remained as a curious presence, not emotionally linked to my body or ego at all. Since then have come experiences of a super-conscious, a presence that was both attached to (what I consider to be) me and very separate, something like a kindly grandfather gently nudging me in certain directions, a presence that from my perspective was (and is) all-knowing, or nearly so. I have long seen this as a version of the guardian angel, and I am still comfortable with that concept.
A new booklet I am reading, however, gives another insight into this presence. Titled Radical Inclusivity, by Jeff Carreira (bought on Kindle for 1.49, a total of about 100 pages), it is perhaps one of the most forthright rendering of expanded consciousness that I have read. For those who no longer remember their own insights - I am convinced that we all have them, but some push them away as anomalies and do their best to forget them - the words can sometimes seem like gibberish, as such phrases as "you are already fully present now" can make you roll your eyes with memories of 1960-era gurus. Stick with it, though, and a truly radical idea begins to come through.
Carreira often employs his own experiences for explanation, offering in one instance a time when he is taken by the disembodied consciousness that was mentioned above. With this, he was able to witness himself awake and active, and then asleep, noticing his own body-consciousness as it slipped in and out of dreams, the non-dream times experienced as blackness, or undifferentiated consciousness. But what was this other consciousness? While I have gone to 'angels' to explain it, or to a deeper self, Carreira offers something more applicable to all: that this is the consciousness of inclusivity. To understand this, he makes use of a typical experience for those who frequently meditate - that of experiencing the world "as is, " perfect and timeless. It runs counter to daily dualistic understanding, and on the face of it is absurd, but when experienced, one immediately understands that THIS is reality and the other, only a gloss. Again, what is this?
It is, Carreira says with unusual clarity, the experience of wholeness that the whole world talks about but cannot understand under normal conditions. What it means is that our consciousness is everywhere at every time. What we believe to be real is only a narrowing of consciousness to a tiny selection of sense and meaning. Were we to "just let it be," we would experience everything - what Buddhists call the void, because as The Whole, there is no differentiation. But it is not empty space. In fact, by its own curious definition, it is never this or that.
While this is nothing new, the perspective is helpful. You and I are everything in actual consciousness, right now. Our limited consciousness is only a trick of focus, for our full consciousness understands what is happening and is always aware of the total.
Thus my OBE's and the Overmind are explained. Being Out of Body is to shift to a different center or perspective. As consciousness is everywhere and forever, it can lead us to any place or time, free of the body or any other constraints that we may have imagined. The Overmind as I call it is an expanded experience of consciousness. It is not the void, or nirvana, but rather a less limited self that seems apart from the everyday self for its greatly enhanced magnitude, much as a grandfather might seem to a young child - or an angel to those with particular religious beliefs.
As I near the end of the book, Carreira is beginning to reveal the potential for this knowledge. It might indeed be far more than just speculative philosophy. I wait to see what the spokesman for Total Consciousness has to say, but already feel the rush of something greater - of a return to the OBE and the Overmind, and beyond. FK
A new booklet I am reading, however, gives another insight into this presence. Titled Radical Inclusivity, by Jeff Carreira (bought on Kindle for 1.49, a total of about 100 pages), it is perhaps one of the most forthright rendering of expanded consciousness that I have read. For those who no longer remember their own insights - I am convinced that we all have them, but some push them away as anomalies and do their best to forget them - the words can sometimes seem like gibberish, as such phrases as "you are already fully present now" can make you roll your eyes with memories of 1960-era gurus. Stick with it, though, and a truly radical idea begins to come through.
Carreira often employs his own experiences for explanation, offering in one instance a time when he is taken by the disembodied consciousness that was mentioned above. With this, he was able to witness himself awake and active, and then asleep, noticing his own body-consciousness as it slipped in and out of dreams, the non-dream times experienced as blackness, or undifferentiated consciousness. But what was this other consciousness? While I have gone to 'angels' to explain it, or to a deeper self, Carreira offers something more applicable to all: that this is the consciousness of inclusivity. To understand this, he makes use of a typical experience for those who frequently meditate - that of experiencing the world "as is, " perfect and timeless. It runs counter to daily dualistic understanding, and on the face of it is absurd, but when experienced, one immediately understands that THIS is reality and the other, only a gloss. Again, what is this?
It is, Carreira says with unusual clarity, the experience of wholeness that the whole world talks about but cannot understand under normal conditions. What it means is that our consciousness is everywhere at every time. What we believe to be real is only a narrowing of consciousness to a tiny selection of sense and meaning. Were we to "just let it be," we would experience everything - what Buddhists call the void, because as The Whole, there is no differentiation. But it is not empty space. In fact, by its own curious definition, it is never this or that.
While this is nothing new, the perspective is helpful. You and I are everything in actual consciousness, right now. Our limited consciousness is only a trick of focus, for our full consciousness understands what is happening and is always aware of the total.
Thus my OBE's and the Overmind are explained. Being Out of Body is to shift to a different center or perspective. As consciousness is everywhere and forever, it can lead us to any place or time, free of the body or any other constraints that we may have imagined. The Overmind as I call it is an expanded experience of consciousness. It is not the void, or nirvana, but rather a less limited self that seems apart from the everyday self for its greatly enhanced magnitude, much as a grandfather might seem to a young child - or an angel to those with particular religious beliefs.
As I near the end of the book, Carreira is beginning to reveal the potential for this knowledge. It might indeed be far more than just speculative philosophy. I wait to see what the spokesman for Total Consciousness has to say, but already feel the rush of something greater - of a return to the OBE and the Overmind, and beyond. FK
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