Altering Consciousness

TUES., SEPT. 3, 1985, 1:22 PM
CAMPUS, LAKESIDE

The focus for your class tomorrow evening will be on this theme that I offer you as Our title for today. You have yet to decide how that should be developed. Luckily, or because I so directed, you “decided” to have this Teaching before you finished the planning task. Hear, o son, as I offer you some insights that shall be useful manana.

The dimensions you have posed for holistic health are useful here. Individual human consciousness has four dimensions – physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. The perceptions that come out of consciousness always have some of each, but in many different proportions. Social consciousness infers a concern for others beyond yourself (which, of course, is influenced by the spirit), and environmental consciousness refers to concern for the earth, its non-human life forms, and for ecological balance.

“Altering” consciousness means a change from some state to something else. It may be from something unpleasant to something pleasant (or vice versa); it may be from the intellectual to the more emotional. As you think about it you can imagine the many different “alterings” there are. I shall not bother listing them here.
1:40 PM / 1:46 PM
The most important altering of consciousness is that toward more spiritual feeling – more comraderie with others, more feeling of at-oneness with Me, with the earth, and with other people, particularly those who are not like you or not loveable in their actions. This allows you to love rather than judge… to feel likeness rather than difference… humility rather than pride. This is a consciousness which is the closest you can get to Me and My consciousness.

The reason you must “alter to” it is that you have “altered away” from it. The conscious, rational mind with its preference for the rational, and the many aspects of your culture which encourage you to think of yourself, be concerned with mundane matters, and make judgments against many people and behaviors… these all “alter you away” from this spiritual consciousness. For many people, at some times, the effects of alcohol, marijuana, and some other drug substances are those that move them toward the spiritual. There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging this. It is the desired alteration that is important, not how it is achieved.

Many of the examples in the book are expressions of heightened or changed feelings as a result of some drug or non-drug experience. For some folks, who do not feel very deeply or diversely in their day-to-day life such alterations are very noticeable and memorable. For others, whose normal life is full of deep and diverse feelings, alteration of consciousness may be difficult, because these just are not noticed. And still others may be wary of changes and may “work hard” to maintain “normal” consciousness.

Some Christians do this in church worship services. Something in the service begins to alter their consciousness, but they’re afraid of how this change could affect their behavior… so they suppress the new feelings and remain placidly rational and “proper” in conduct. At the other extreme are services designed to alter consciousness and behavior, where it becomes normative to shout, wave, or even fall over in an obviously much altered state. Here everyone is subtly encouraged to act as though (their) his mood has been altered, whether it has or not. Each extreme is both funny and sad, as I observe them