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: Lawsagna

States of consciousness: Who would you be without your beliefs and positions?

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Who would you be without your beliefs and positions? This is the questions explored in the article "Evolving Consciousness" by Kaisa Puhakka in the current issue of Shift. It discusses how we settle into our beliefs and what it takes to shed them:

Settling into positions and shifting out of them are both intrinsic to our consciousness. When the need to understand is satisfied by an authority we can believe in or by evidence or argument, the mind settles into a position. But our positions can unravel, either suddenly in a spontaneous aha! moment or gradually by painstaking, honest inquiry. Settling and shifting represent opposing tendencies, one inclining toward stasis while the other frees us up for movement. Neither is "good" or "bad"; they each have their value in sustaining human life as we know it. Settling into positions provides anchors for comfort and security. Without such settling, the structures of civilization and culture wouldn?t exist. At the same time, settling freezes positions and makes the capacity to shift more difficult ? especially problematic when a certain kind of shift may be needed. Spontaneous evolutionary movement loosens these frozen positions and allows for shifting to take place.

As we develop fluid thinking that goes beyond the limitations of our perspectives, we become better equipped to find creative solutions to the complex challenges our world faces today. But it cannot be done without awareness:

Awareness is needed to bring light to the shadows in our minds where the opposites of what we affirm lurk?threatening to cast doubts on our certainties. The challenge for awareness is that the modern psyche is complex and multilayered. The play of unconscious and conscious keeps the layers and compartments separate and makes it possible to hold contradictory positions unperturbed. Whenever we affirm a belief, for example, we tend to negate its contrary by banishing it from awareness. The force of the banishment can vary from drastic repression, where the rejected position becomes absolutely inconceivable, to momentary suppression, where the rejected position is set aside but still available for reconsideration and a possible return to awareness.

Click here to access the current issue of Shift and read about the three modes of consciousness that explain how we relate to our beliefs.

Full post as published by Lawsagna on August 10, 2009 (boomark / email).