Matthew 26.40-41 (CEB):
He came back to the disciples and found them sleeping. He said to Peter, “Couldn’t you stay alert one hour with me? Stay alert and pray so that you won’t give in to temptation. The spirit is eager, but the flesh is weak.”
Albert Einstein:
A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of our consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Although the scientific study of consciousness is a young and somewhat controversial field, neuroscientists mostly agree that brain activity allows us to not only experience reality, but also question why we exist in this, or any other, reality. Humans are not only conscious of their environment; we are also aware we’re conscious.
Because self-awareness is esoteric, it’s challenging to study. Scientists use two approaches. Some examine the so-called “easy problem” concerning the brain’s neural networking system and how the mind “integrates information, focuses attention, and allows us to report on mental states.” [1]
What is the brain doing that allows us to not only taste an Apple but also have a full-on physiological/psychological, sometimes even spiritual experience eating an apple? Which neurons are firing, which biochemicals are interacting? What processes in the brain allow us to experience the pleasure of that first, crisp, juicy, literally mouth-watering bite?
Believe it or not, the authors of the Bible struggled with this same question
When the Bible talks about Spirit, think consciousness. Specifically, the Bible asks whether or not God as consciousness creates our physical world and is part of it. Today, people of faith must wrestle with the chicken-and-egg question of which came first: consciousness or the brain?
The idea that in the beginning was the Word, for example, could be considered a meditation about not just an intelligent creator, but rather, intelligence as creator, creative force, and creative material. Instead of thinking of consciousness as something the brain creates, consider instead that consciousness is the creative engine of physical matter. Consciousness is as natural a force as magnetism and electricity. Consciousness flows throughout the universe and is what brings matter into existence in 4-dimensional spacetimes such as ours.
Consciousness is God and everything that exists is part of the Universal Mind, a conscious, living entity that encompasses the totality of all realities.
And this God exists not outside our own being, but within all beings as the energy that becomes the molecules that form us, our loved ones, our dogs and cats, the trees and their leaves, and the electrons, neutrons, protons, quarks, and leptons that form it all. Everything we can see, taste, touch, hear and smell comes from a single source: Consciousness.
Consciousness is physical
Consciousness is the universe, and so are we. We are not separate from the universe. I know it seems confusing because we can look through telescopes at things in the universe, and indeed at the universe itself, but we are not separate from anything we are observing. That is the false perception of this (necessarily) limited physical reality. When we see beyond—when we pray, meditate, create and experience art and music, or in other ways tune into the conscious mind of God, we more fully experience reality. If only for a few blissful moments, we absolutely understand that the atomic structure forming our four-dimensional being is unalterably connected to, and part of, the Mind of God.
Because we are all wholly part of this Holy Universe, we are capable of awakening to a higher state of conscious awareness, which is what Jesus was really talking about 2000 years ago. Jesus saw through the “optical delusion” of our senses, which keep us focused on the result of consciousness instead of focusing on being conscious.
I think Jesus’ admonition to stay alert in Matthew 26 (and Luke 21.36; Mark 13.33-37; 1 Peter 5.8; Joshua 8.4; Matthew 24.42; Luke 12.37; 21.34-35; Acts 20.31. Ephesians 6.18; etc.) is, like almost everything he says, a profound spiritual lesson about Universal Mind.
Jesus’ is a vision of God both beyond the bounds of physicality and also the core being of all material things. Jesus doesn’t merely want his disciples to stay awake so he’ll have some company before his crucifixion, he wants them to stay alert—Spiritually alert to the conscious being of God within them. Jesus wants his disciples—us—to wake up! Be alert! God is here! God is you! Now, wake up! Get up! Get to work!
I think, a handful of hours before he knew he would die, Jesus was desperate to shock his disciples into a deeper understanding of his message. He hoped that one of them would actually get it, would experience and know God in his own flesh (not merely worship God in Jesus) and be able to carry on the hard work of waking up the rest of the world. But none of the disciples wake up because awakening isn’t something even Jesus can instantly convey. Becoming more conscious of God within all things requires 100% devotion to God through the inherent knowing that all is God. Ironically, to achieve a higher level of conscious awareness, we have to be more mindful of our thoughts and actions.
Most importantly, we need to remember and believe that we are God’s flesh, that every scale on every fish is as much the conscious universe as the entire fish is God. Every oxygen molecule is God. Every leaf and flower, every creature great and small, these aren’t just gifts from God, they are God, emanating from God’s pure, singular consciousness.
We are God’s consciousness embodied. We are pure consciousness become matter. At the most fundamental level, all that exists is consciousness. God consciousness.
Therefore, rather than thinking of one another as individual humans with individual needs, rather than considering the flora, fauna, stars, planets, and galaxies as something beyond our own being, or even as something created outside God’s own being, we must strive to reimagine ourselves as individual parts of a single consciousness, which we typically call God.
And maybe that realization of oneness will finally change the world for all of us.
Amen.
[1] Marlow, Kristian. “What is Consciousness? Philosophy behind the mind.” Psychology Today March 2013. Psychologytoday.com Web. 30 Jan. 2020.
