Unpolarized Perception: a Spiritual Awakening?
Human beliefs and actions (behavior) have become increasingly polarized. It is as if there is an emotional contrast setting on reality that is progressively being turned up such that we are either for or against things with no shades of grey.
As much as this high level of polarization may seem to be undesirable, our journey into duality is not a misstep. It is a part of the intelligent design of reality. Everything in creation is cyclical. This means our dualistic extremes are not some bottomless pit we are falling into. Just as we left the non-polarized state and became polarized, so we will naturally leave our state of duality and return to the state of unity we birthed from.
At the core of human polarization is the idea of ‘them’ differing from ‘us’. It is only an idea because, when you stop thinking dualistically, them differing from us is revealed to be an illusion created by polarized perception — a denial that we are all connected. In seeing through the illusion of duality, you become aware of how everything in existence is the creation of a single, all-encompassing consciousness that is best referred to as Source Consciousness. This is the equivalent of ‘God’ (with the main difference from the common religious understanding being that there is nothing that is not God — so there is no devil or ‘force of darkness’).
The realization of oneness that results from exiting duality is called spiritual awakening or enlightenment. Although these terms are often dressed up in religion and mysticism, what they most essentially describe is seeing through the illusion of dualistic thinking — like labeling of things as good or evil — such that the underlying unity of all things is revealed. Because we tend to express our duality through division, this is to dissolve the illusion of separation and ‘know all as one’.
Awakening is to know wholeness. This is experienced as the perfection, harmony, and balance of all things.
What you witness in this state is a profoundly rewarding, spiritual experience that is impossible to capture in words. However, although this is an ongoing process that will radically alter your life, describing the three steps to experiencing it are surprisingly straightforward:
Learn to recognize the difference between polarized, divisive perceptions and seeing wholeness, unity, and connection.
As this level of recognition evolves, become aware of the subconscious choices you are making in how you perceive and interpret the world. This allows you to interpret your experience from a knowing of wholeness rather than fear and divisiveness.
Make a conscious choice to focus primarily on wholeness and that which connects (instead of division and that which separates). This is not about avoiding, demonizing, or escaping duality. It is about loving wholeness.
Mastering these three steps takes time because we all have to undo a significant amount of socially conditioned beliefs about how reality works. The core of this is shifting to the realization that consciousness creates the experience of physicality (as opposed to physicality / biology creating the experience of consciousness). This not only turns the central tenet of science on its head but explains how the manifestation of consciousness is completely unexplained by science. It is the elephant in the room that scientists are taught to ignore.
The radical shift of perspective to realizing that all realities are the perceptual creation of consciousness becomes a process of unraveling the complexity of your polarized thinking to reveal the simplicity of the design behind it. This process is challenging at times because of how it requires you to embrace change. However, it becomes immensely satisfying when you start to resolve the fears you have been subconsciously carrying. It is to discover that you have been carrying an unnecessary burden through the psychological weight of your fear.
The idea that consciousness precedes the experience of physicality — which essentially means that consciousness creates physicality — is not something you are being asked to believe as a matter of faith. When you approach your life with the recognition of what polarization is, you will — with some practice — be able to take any dualistic polarity and begin to see what connects its two seemingly opposing qualities. This reveals how the separation that the polarity describes is an illusion, e.g. how imperfection is perfect, how the many are the one, how our imaginations are real, and the relationship between right versus wrong, pure versus impure, and light versus dark.
When these continual realizations are taken as a whole, you will clearly see — with perceptual clarity rather than faith — how our experience of reality is better explained through a lens of ‘consciousness creates physicality’ rather than our current scientific perspective of ‘biology creates consciousness’. This then paves the way for seeing how all forms of division / separation are an illusion.
One thing that is good to know in the awakening process is that as wonderful as the experience of oneness may sound to you, there is a way in which the journey to it from our state of duality is more delicious than purely existing within it. This is because the state of unity we are returning to is our eternal state (which could be thought of as our most common state). It is the experience of travelling back to it from a state of duality that is so exciting. Source Consciousness created the human experience in order to explore duality, which includes both traveling into it and back from it (in a circular journey).What this means is that you do not need to fully awaken in order to experience the joy of unity.
This is not about getting to the destination of awakening. It is about enjoying the journey of awakening.
You can engage the joy of awakening here and now. To purposefully focus on the state of oneness that exists within your consciousness is to begin to engage with the state of consciousness that religion calls your spirit. This is an eternal state within you that knows itself to be connected to everything in existence. At the deepest level, the full realization of your spirit is the realization that you are Source Consciousness itself. So savor your awakening. It is not a race. If there must be a winner in your mind, then the winners are those who most savor the unfolding journey of their spirit revealing itself.
To know thyself is to know God.
Religions are dualistic — and thereby hierarchical and decisive — translations of the reality of oneness. To become spiritual, you do not need to become religious. It could even be said that becoming spiritual requires seeing through the controlling, fear-based lies of religion. You can live as a spiritual being who believes we are all the manifestation of a single, eternal, source of consciousness without believing in any religion.
There is no right or wrong way to live a human life. That said, I hope you will consider the grand adventure in consciousness that exists within you called ‘spiritual awakening’. It is not about praying, blind-faith, or ignoring logic or rational thought. It is about exploring the experience of your consciousness such that you become aware of your own wider nature — the reality of your spirit — that exists eternally within you in a state of simplicity / oneness.
Your life is a gift, not a test. To awaken is to learn to love yourself, which is to learn to love life, which is to learn to love this world. We are one.
