The Force of Consciousness

an essay by Michael William Bennett

From the beginning of a discussion on consciousness, it is vital that we establish a mutually understood vocabulary, a model. Without it, we are likely to misunderstand each other. Do you accept the possibility of modeling consciousness? If you reject the possibility of a model, then it seems to me discussion is futile.

Of what use is a model? What use is a map? A map provides direction, guidance to an unfamiliar destination. The map is not equivalent to a destination. The map is not equivalent to the trip itself. This fact is acknowledged from the start. Despite this fact, the map is useful. A map or model of consciousness implies there is a development taking place, a journey. Hence the use of a map or model, to reflect that journey. A model of consciousness implies conscious development. If we were already fully conscious, if we already resided at our destination, a map would be useless.

For my own part, in my life, I experience an unfolding process, a development of consciousness. My experience of consciousness, of who I am, is not a static state but a growing sense of being.

Consciousness is an unfolding process. Where there is growth, where there is development, there is by implication what remains to be developed—in a word, potential. It is my intention, with writing and in conversation, to prove whether or not that unfolding potential can be successfully modeled.

In my writing I have endeavored to establish a vocabulary and a model of conscious development. The model incorporates not only what I have experienced, and what I continuously experience, but also what remains to be experienced, what remains to be developed. It includes what is implied by the sum of what I already know, similar to the way that the missing pieces of a jigsaw puzzle can be recognized from a study of the arrangement of the pieces already in place. I am also guided by what I call insight (inspiration), arising from consciousness itself as it grows.

The verbal and written model is intellectual in construction, but far more than intellectual in application. We can apply the model with our being, the sum of who we are that includes not only thought but feeling and awareness and attention—in fact that includes our very consciousness itself as it unfolds.

A perfect model can only be realized with the full development of consciousness. As long as consciousness remains underdeveloped, the model that springs from it will likewise remain underdeveloped and incomplete. We are dealing with consciousness, after all, in which the terrain is the very traveler of it. Growing consciousness implies broadening comprehension. A lack of consciousness implies not only missing pieces to a puzzle—it implies the absence of a subject.

With that caveat we begin with basic principles. If we try to begin with complex or advanced principles, we will stumble. Beginning with advanced principles we are apt to make assumptions that are unfounded and that lead us in the wrong direction or in circles. For example, if we begin our discussion on the topic of full consciousness without first establishing what the building blocks of full consciousness are, we make assumptions that prove fatal to a clear comprehension of the subject. If we start to talk about identification without first establishing the nature of the thought process from which identification springs, or without first understanding the constituent components of the thought process, we overreach ourselves, we gloss over aspects of ourselves that remain unexplored and unknown—uncharted territory where dragons lie.

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The first and fundamental principle in this model of conscious development is energy. What is energy? Our being, the sum of who we are, consists of energy. The physical body receives impressions, sensations that are essentially forms of energy. The body is like a battery. It gathers energy. Energy can increase or diminish. Energy oscillates at various rates, from gross to subtle. The body serves as a means of organizing energy. Awareness, the next development in the model, is organized energy.

One of the simplest definitions of energy is the capacity for work. Conscious energy is the capacity for the Great Work of building consciousness. We do not begin with consciousness, only awareness. We possess the potential for consciousness. What consciousness really is remains a mystery until further developments take place. Consciousness remains latent in the form of organized energy that is awareness.

Our model begins with the simple elements of our physical experience. Sensations are physical impressions. Through our senses we perceive our environment. Who "we" are remains a mystery in the beginning. I use the reference loosely for now. Who or what "we" are will acquire greater definition through the course of this investigation, through conscious development.

Sensory awareness is a form of organized energy. The organization of the physical body itself, the nervous system and the brain, permits awareness. The sum of our sensory impressions creates what I call bodily awareness, which is the next development in the model. Bodily awareness is a residual sense of being, a rudimentary sense of self.

A gestalt is what is greater than the sum of its parts. Our rudimentary sense of self, of being, is a gestalt that arises from the sum of our sensory impressions. The gestalt is what distinguishes "me" from the chair upon which I am sitting. It distinguishes "me" from the sounds I am hearing, or from the sights I am seeing. Bodily awareness is a sense of self that is a product of sensory impressions. Sensory impressions add up to create this projection of "self." The residual sense of self is not itself an independent entity but a product of the sum of our physical impressions. Without bodily awareness, without the gestalt, there would be no sense of self independent of sensory impressions themselves. Instead of a sense of "me" sitting in a chair there would only be the sensation of the chair. The gestalt of our being is the scaffold for the potential development of genuine individuality, the soul.

Simple sensory awareness and the slightly more developed sense of self that is bodily awareness represent developments or modifications of energy. The process of conscious development is the development of energy into more sophisticated forms, until the pinnacle of development—full consciousness—is realized.

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Beyond our residual sense of self that I call bodily awareness, the next development in our model is memory. A memory is a subtle form of energy. Remembrance is the capacity to reflect sensory impressions. It is a primitive capacity for duplication and retention, which plays a vital role later on in our capacity to form the energetic body of consciousness. Without a capacity for retention, represented in embryonic form by the function of memory, the development of the soul would be impossible.

Memory is the springboard for conceptual thought. A concept is another subtle form of energy, a further development. A concept may be defined as an assumption of identity between different impressions. Concepts draw meaningful relationships between otherwise disparate events. Concepts are the fundamental contradictions upon which the logic of our reasoning is based. The measure of a concept’s value is determined not by a reference to anything absolute but by the relative success of its application.

Concepts do not just happen. They manifest a volitional manipulation of energy. Conceptualization demonstrates another phase in our development, another modification in our energetic being. Conceptualization is an embryonic reconciliation of opposites, whose perfect realization is only achieved much later in our development, beyond concepts, through attention.

Concepts only make sense in relation to each other. Concepts define one another. No concept is independently complete. Thought is the association of concepts, a further development. Thought is a process that consists of reflection and comparison. Thought can reflect the past and predict the future. With thought we possess concepts of Time and Progress. Through the association of concepts, increasingly more complicated concepts arise. As a process, thought is a continuous investment of energy. When energy is continuously vested in thought, to a certain extent at the expense of sensory awareness, the result is the development of what I call chronic thought. When thought becomes chronic it seems involuntary.

What develops from chronic thought is a concept of self that I refer to as the self-reference. The self-reference is merely a concept, not an entity. It is a reference to the developing energetic being who we are. At this stage of development, our being remains incomplete. It consists of the flesh and thought. It consists of sensory awareness and a residual sense of being, but remains little more than a bundle of behaviors, a corporate entity, not a legitimate individual.

The self-reference, reinforced with energy, becomes the center of gravity for our developing being. That center of gravity is our identification with the self-reference. Identification is the reinforcement of the self-reference with energy. Identification creates what I call the paradigm of separation, a further stage in our development.

The paradigm of separation is a form of awareness whose perspective is separate and continuously separative. The notion of ourselves as separate beings is continuously reinforced within this perspective. Our concept of self changes constantly, as concepts do. We possess as many "selves" as thoughts. Each "self" or center of gravity vies with the others for dominance. Power shifts between them, and hierarchies form.

The separate self that is the incomplete being that we are in this stage of development is very mechanical. It is heavily conditioned. Conditioning is mechanical behavior. Mechanical behaviors are determined largely by external circumstances. The separate self does not act. It reacts. It is not free, despite its ability to choose. Choice is a movement from a center of identification, not freedom.

The dilemma of the separate self (or separate selves) has three primary characteristics: fear, desire and antagonism. Fear is the space between the separate self and others. Fear resides in the center of the separate self. Fear is implied in separation. Where there is identification, there is fear. From fear arise desires to be secure, desires to be fulfilled. Endless desires arise. As long as separation remains, desires arise. Desires can be contradictory, as separate selves are contradictory. One "self" desires something that another "self" does not. One "self" desires something at the expense of another "self." Whether these desires occur within one person or between one person and another, the inevitable result is conflict. Antagonism is the ultimate expression of the separate self.

In its struggles, the separate self dissipates energy. This brings us to the next stage in our development. The phenomenon that I call the contraction is a concentration and dissipation of energy. It resembles a wheel or vortex of energy. The contraction exists in various areas of our energetic being. The contraction dims awareness. A temporary loss of awareness, a lapse of sensitivity, is a kind of escape or release for the separate self, albeit a temporary one. The pursuit of pleasure is a means by which we exhaust ourselves, temporarily relieving ourselves of sensitivity to our chronic condition. The release, however, is really only a trap, because it binds energy in the contraction, which itself is a condition of separation, not freedom. The contraction stumps conscious development, and conscious development is the only way to genuine freedom. Through further developments, energy is accelerated and circulated rather than concentrated or dissipated.

We live in an establishment that reinforces the paradigm of separation. The institutions in which we live (political, economic, technological and cultural) reflect the hierarchy of dominance inherent to that paradigm. The values of the establishment are those of pleasure and convenience, entertainment and distraction, not consciousness. The establishment is in fact at odds with conscious development. The establishment is designed to keep us asleep. It has to be sly about it, of course. Otherwise it might awaken us to the truth.

Money, for example, in the guise of an equitable medium, is in fact no more than a symbol of slave labor. Advanced technology, while promising individual empowerment, actually robs the individual of his autonomy, and is a means whereby the few maintain control over the many. Representative Democracy is a sham in which power remains in the hands of those with the most effective constituency (effectiveness is determined by money and power, not anything like the concept of mob rule). The elite maintain power, and the hierarchy beneath them becomes increasingly well defined through the course of history, occasionally broken up by wars but only to be reestablished on a new octave, streamlined through increased technology.

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People are distracted. People remain complacent. Most people "stay tuned." Few pay attention. What does it mean to pay attention? Attention is the next stage in the development of our model, the stage in which consciousness begins to develop in earnest. Attention is the intentional act of vesting awareness with energy. Rather than vesting energy in a center (rather than concentration), attention increases the totality of our awareness. Distraction, on the other hand, removes energy from awareness. Distraction implies a lack of intention.

Attention doesn’t just happen to us. Attention is intentional. It is not involuntary or accidental. Intention is an emerging conscious springboard for action. Intention arises from budding consciousness rather than the separate self. The separate self is capable of willful action, concentration (and distraction), but not attention. Will is the sum of energy possessed by a separate self. Will is fragmented, as separate selves vie for a limited amount of energy.

Attention increases awareness by divesting energy from the separative patterns that harness that energy. Energy is divested from the contraction. Energy is divested from chronic thought. This divestment does not just happen to us like sleep. It does not occur involuntarily. Attention cannot occur willfully, since willful action only reinforces the separate self. The divestment of energy from the separate self, and its investment into awareness with attention, is an intentional act arising from consciousness itself. Consciousness develops, it gains strength, it grows.

The increase of awareness, as the act of attention vests awareness with energy at the expense of the contraction, accelerates the energy of our being and creates a further development in our model, what I call the Force of consciousness. The Force can be experienced throughout the body like an electromagnetic energy. The Force is conscious energy. When the energy of which awareness consists is circulated, accelerated to a certain degree, it becomes conscious.

What is consciousness? It remains a mystery at this stage of development. Consciousness is emerging as something like self-awareness in which there is no conflict, no dilemma. At this stage we only have fleeting moments of consciousness. As we continue to pay attention, however, consciousness grows.

With the development of conscious energy we begin to experience directly what I refer to as the energetic body, which is the body of awareness that interpenetrates the physical body. It is the potential body of consciousness, if the energy of which it consists attains a high enough rate of oscillation (when the sum of the necessary components for that oscillation are in place). The energetic body is the being who we are. At this stage of development it possesses little definition. It is diffuse. It does not yet possess integrity. It is not yet a legitimate individual, a soul. It leaks. It suffers countless internal conflicts. Broken circuits in our energetic body reflect the lapses of continuity in our consciousness.

At this stage in our development we begin to recognize consciousness by its absence. We recognize that we are not fully conscious. Now consciousness ceases to be merely a "mystery" and becomes a "question." A question is the definition of a problem. The problem is we are not fully conscious, we do not really know who we are. But we do know enough to formulate the question, "Who am I?" Holding on to this question further unfolds our conscious potential.

What I call self-enquiry is a process of formulating questions, not to elicit answers but to facilitate conscious development. Self-enquiry is epitomized by the question, "Who am I?" This question resides at the core of every question.

Self-enquiry is an intentional process of formulating questions to provoke insights. An insight is an expansion of consciousness. Insight, or inspiration, does not arise from an external object but from an increase in consciousness, a prolongation of the continuity of consciousness. Consciousness grows, and the separative perspective diminishes. Self-enquiry applies pressure on the separative perspective. Self-enquiry disrupts chronic thought. Insights shock the separate self. As a result, fewer "selves" exist within one’s being. One’s being becomes more unified.

Self-enquiry coincides with or facilitates what I call right conduct. Right conduct occurs when we hold on to the question of consciousness. The conscious energy or Force of our being expands and rises toward a point infinitely above the top of the head. Right conduct shores up the leaks in our energetic body. Right conduct restores the circuit of the Force. This increases our retention of energy and the continuity of our consciousness.

At this point in our development a shift occurs. The separative perspective dissolves. We rediscover who we are, not as thinkers, not as separate selves but as the witness of these. By divesting energy from false identifications, the energy of which we consist is redistributed, reinvested into sensory awareness. This results in heightened bodily awareness, what I refer to as the witness. The witness is not a legitimate individual or even a separate entity but merely heightened bodily awareness. The witness is the process of awareness itself, not consciousness.

Awareness implies a separation between subject and object. Awareness implies an awareness "of" something. The separate self is an identification with a subject who is aware of an object. The witness is essentially the absence of identification with a subject. From the vantage of the witness, both subject and object occur as "objects" within the process of awareness itself. In other words, the center of gravity of one’s being has shifted from identification with a subject to identification with the process of awareness itself. The process of awareness itself, however, does not exist independent of its constituent components, the body/mind.

The witness possesses neither will nor intention. The witness is incapable of action. It is essentially an involuntary phenomenon. From the "perspective" of the witness there is neither need nor ability to divest energy from thought or the contraction. Thought and the contraction are merely appearances, objects within awareness. The witness possesses no continuity of existence. It is subject to sleep, distraction and death. It is not self-evident. What is self-evident is conscious.

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Parallel to the development of the body/mind is the development of consciousness. Consciousness is an energetic process consisting of a sum of components in a specific sequence. The components of consciousness are not conceptual but experiential. Full consciousness is self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is non-conceptual. Self-knowledge is self-evident. Self-knowledge means self-discovery.

Self-knowledge bestows integrity to the energetic body. It is the completed circuit of the Force. This is felt as Love. Consciousness reconciles separation with integration. Consciousness is simultaneously individual and universal, a Microcosm, a perfectly proportioned self-sustaining totality, the soul.

A human being may be aware, even somewhat conscious, but does not necessarily have a soul. The soul is built through conscious development.

The soul is who we really are, or not.

The Force of Consciousness, by Michael William Bennett.

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