^{Leslie Fieger}

^{We, the human species, stand on the threshold of a new era - the Age of Conscious Awareness.}

^{This threshold is, however, also a precipice on which we are poised and from which we cannot turn back. We must make a leap into the future, into the unknown. In order to survive that leap, we need to develop a new vision of who we are and how we fit into the rest of the universe. Humanity must undergo a transformation. We must decide to change the current image of seeing ourselves as creatures of circumstance into a new vision of seeing ourselves as creators. More distinctly, we must learn to become conscious, rather than unconscious, creators.}

^{In order for the human creature to become fully aware of its own nature and creative potential, it must first come to understand the concept of consciousness. It is typical for most people to think of consciousness as something uniquely human—at least that state of mind referred to as self-consciousness. Some even go so far as to say that consciousness is a state that is caused by the human brain, an epiphenomenal result of brain mass, an electrochemical accident of biological evolution. Most people tend to believe that their ability to be aware of their own consciousness is so unique that, in this world and perhaps in the entire universe, only Homo Sapiens is fully conscious or sentient. This is a critical error. The idea that only humans possess consciousness is a delusional deceit. Human consciousness is so enthralled with its own discovery (ability to self-reference) that it interprets its inability to perceive that which lies outside of its own perceptual abilities as evidence that consciousness is a unique activity of the human brain.}

^{The general assumption is that consciousness is a product of mind and mind is a product of brain. Not only is that a critical philosophical error but it is also a spiritual dead end. The belief that consciousness is a product of mind prevents the individual, and our whole culture, from realizing its unity with all that is and from experiencing the state known as cosmic, or transcendent consciousness. Modern humans walk around on this planet, whose biosphere ‘magically’ enables their existence, along with the myriad of other life forms, not sensing and thus not believing in a planetary consciousness. We marvel at the complexity of matter, the behavior of our own cellular structures, and the vastness of the universe; but we decide that it is mechanistic, unconscious stuff simply obeying the laws of nature. We refuse to imagine that each and every part of the entire cosmos is conscious and acting in harmony with a creative pattern emanating from a common source--a universal consciousness.}

^{This universality of consciousness has been experienced by individuals for millennia, but has not been accepted in our modern worldview because it is non-rational. The rational approach says that what can be perceived and then validated through experiment is real and all else is not. If an individual happens to have an experience of transcendence (or a glimpse of the universality of consciousness), it is either ignored by our culture or dismissed as a chemical accident of the brain. It is either ‘not real’ or ‘not really real’; that is to say, it is judged as being ethereal. Other ethereal things are sacredness and spirit. They, too, are not rational. Those who have experienced the transcendent speak, almost poetically, of the spirit of things as being the true reality and assert, irrationally, that everything is sacred. In sum, they aver that the physical arises out of the metaphysical; the real emerges from the ethereal.}

^{This is not a new perspective. Aboriginal cultures around the world held this view long before the ‘age of reason’ became our dominant mythos. Our current attitude is to dismiss this, our own historical wisdom, by labeling those beliefs as primitive, pagan, superstitious and ignorant. Unfortunately, it is our current society’s primitive conceptualization of consciousness that leads us to denigrate our environment by denying the sacredness of all things. It is our present pagan attitude that allows us to sacrifice entire species on the altar of material progress. It is our contemporary superstitious fear of our own natural surroundings that prevents us from recognizing our intimate connection to all things made manifest by this universal consciousness. It is our modern ignorance of this universality of consciousness that keeps us trapped in separation and fear.}

^{In order to learn to live in harmony with the rest of creation, and not leap to our own demise, like lemmings, off this precipice on which we stand, in order to become enlightened creatures, we must learn to re-conceptualize our understanding of consciousness.}

^{We must learn that consciousness is the non-physical source of the physical. It is what creates the tangible from the intangible. Consciousness does not arise from the physical (the brain); the physical universe arises from consciousness (or, if you prefer, Intelligence). Consciousness expresses itself vibrationally, geometrically, mathematically, physically forming patterns out of the potentiality created through the process of self-referencing. Consciousness is the primal source that chooses to become matter by immersing itself in its own imagined creation through the sub-quantum dance patterns of light that spontaneously emerge to form quantum particles; then further complexify to form atoms, then molecules, then cells, then you. Every quark, every muon, every graviton, every electron, every photon and every neuron is consciousness.}

^{We must therefore learn to become consciously aware creators (not just creatures) and then, intentionally, self-evolve or transmutate into becoming co-creators with universal consciousness. We need to learn, as individuals and as a culture, to become meta-rational. That is where our true potential, our purpose lies. That is where our enlightenment lies.}