#80 What Are We? – An Exploration in Self Awareness

Hello, this is Gary Van Wormerdam, and this is the Awareness and Consciousness Podcast from PathwayToHappiness.com. The following is an interview of myself by Daniel Moore. about what are we and what makes up the universe and the complexities of what it is to be human in this world. What are we? What's going on in here? What is reality? What's happening in this place, in this world, and why is it chaos? Why do I have thoughts in my head that are out of control?

they're my thoughts shouldn't i be able to change them and why do i react the way i do and what is this human being and what's our place in the universe kind of like what are we that kind of question yeah i mean forget about the world i think just myself like what i am is the biggest curiosity really okay so first let's talk about the purpose of this conversation

So then I can decide what to share in what way. Why do you want to have this conversation? Well, my idea was... I believe that there's a lot of things that could be shared that maybe you don't share or you're not asked about directly that you could share and would be helpful for me. You, I think, even, and many people. And I think these are things that could provide a window into what the spiritual process looks like.

and what it is in in a sort of maybe a more intimate way than say you just speaking about a topic on your own because i get to ask you things yeah things that may not be clear or you want to go deeper on but okay um so we'll begin with what are we You know, then we get to the other curious questions. Why are we here? How are we here? Yeah, let's start with what are we. How are we here is also an interesting one.

And I just put this in a newsletter. And I think it's, I'm starting to have an idea for another book. And so it's like, well, maybe I'll just start writing it through newsletters. But this is a way to go deeper.

So we're human beings. We're multidimensional beings. And just like our physical body has many organs. Many aspects. You know, we have a heart, we have a brain. We have a stomach and our stomach is connected with our nervous system to our brain and affects how we think.

how we feel and not just when we're hungry you know our just physical body is a multi-dimensional organism made up of co-working parts and when it's healthy it works well together say it has an autoimmune system it fights itself one part of the body is attacking the other part of the body you see it's a multi-dimensional being and when I when I what to say what am i is a human being then i'm a i'm a multi-dimensional being and i have a physical body I have an emotional body. I have a soul.

Am I the soul? Well, soul is part of me. I have a gender energy, we'll call it. Some balance of yin and yang energy. masculine feminine energy okay the way that the we most living beings are divided up um and that masculine, feminine energy, yin-yang energy is not always, is usually congruent with the physical body. Sex, gender, but not always. But I have those kinds of energy and that changes in puberty, right? To activate strongly the direction. And that... is.

kind of the vehicle for for consciousness to reside in so now i i have this consciousness and where exactly is that sometimes we could say it's inside the body and at certain points can have experiences of it outside the body. And that's interacting in the world that is also a field of consciousness. And then that line can cross when your consciousness can merge with other things and feel and experience things inside and outside the body differently.

Consciousness is the vehicle which we use. It's a field of awareness to perceive. And then... All of that is activated by our spirit, which is kind of this ray of light dropped down inside this human.

It's emanating a force of activity for all of this to activate for the life of the human body till it's kind of run its cycle um and so all of that are are the dimensions of us as a human that are doing different things with different agendas and that may or may not be working in harmony with each other, may or may not be integrated. And when they're not integrated, then we suffer. Or we have conflicts with ourselves. And there's another component. Oh, yeah, there's this other thing.

call the mind. That is what we have. I tend to say not what we are, what we have, just like we have a human body. When I talk about what we are, I generally talk about from the point of view of... consciousness but we can also some people might identify more with the body oh i'm you know they feel like when the body dies i'll die some people might be identified with the mind and then

They're like, oh, you know, I am the one thinking these thoughts and I am my mind inside this body. But then a different level of awareness, you can have the perception of consciousness and I see my mind. I see its dreams and stories and thoughts and memories that are all stored in the mind. I see its conversations and the voice in my head is part of the mind. So kind of like as consciousness.

You can move around into the body and feel like you're the body. You can move into yourself. uh gender energy and feel like very identified with that you can move into your soul or your spirit and then that is a perception that that's what i am so the the consciousness is in a way a dreamer And when you say that, that's the localized consciousness. Personal consciousness. Yeah. That's able to move into, you know, the feeling in your heart. And when you're emanating.

and the body love you're like okay i am love i'm creating love and i am is the conscious the same way i've gone into this experience and i'm emanating this love it's like oh i'm I'm the creator of love. And then consciousness can go into one of our stories. Oh, I'm judging myself. Oh.

that person really hurt me. And we've gone into the identity of what I call characters. There's some personalities in my book. I'll talk about characters. We've gone into a victim story and we're playing the role in our mind. This person really hurt my feelings. I'm so sad for what they did to me. Now we're in a story. This emotional story. And we're in this.

storytelling part of the mind and we experience the victim part of the mind telling a story and we feel like oh that's all really what we are until we move into our heart and we go I'm a creator of an expression of love, right? So as consciousness, we can... Just like when we dream and imagine, we can go into and have a dream at night of many different things and was like, oh, that all feels very real. As consciousness.

the dreamer, we can go into many different energies of love, of the spirit, of how the soul perceives, how the body perceives, or different... of the many different stories in the mind and perceive things from there so uh then then as consciousness we can have many different experiences and when we have each one

We feel like, oh, that's what we are. Until we shift it and then we have, well, that's what I am. And so it can be very confusing. to move back and forth, to have many different experiences, each one feels like reality, even just to be in the mind. We can have many different stories that change in a minute. And we think we're all of that. And we experience ourselves as the characters in these stories. Yeah. And it can change from one thought to the other.

uh how we feel emotionally and how we look at things changes and so if you step back you go well what what the heck i'm going and you start to become aware You first start to notice like, oh my God, I'm brokenhearted and sad, but I'm angry at this, that I broke up and I'm angry at the person for breaking me.

breaking up with me and i hate them but i want them back you know so maybe i'm excited about being single and you know it could all be in there and and i'm excited so like when you're in each one of those depending on which day it is, you know, like, oh, it feels really well. Oh, I have to get them back until we talk to a friend and like, you really want that? Oh, no, no, God, it was terrible. Right. And then we don't want it.

But these here were just in different stories, different narrative stories in the mind. Conflicting with each other. And this is just the mind. But that's. And so we have different experiences of what we are because the mind has many different narrative stories or dreams that we're dreaming. That happens during the day, but it's kind of like dreaming at night.

It happens during the day with our stories. Yes. Yes. The way that we dream at night is very similar to the way that the dream is during our thoughts during the day. The difference is that we don't have a physical reality, or reality is another word. We don't have a physical construct for continuity.

And so the dream at night can just change very much the way we... Not many rules. Daydream can change very much. Yeah. There's not all of those Newtonian kind of laws that... seem to exist in our current reality when we're awake yeah so so the dream at night is is to be more wacky or interesting or so let me clarify

and see if i understand tell me where i understand where where i'm way off so we have this you split it off through like we have this personal consciousness and we might want to speak about where that is actually if it is anywhere but that's inseparable from the consciousness the i am that's all of creation we can call god Maybe that's what it means, you know, man was made in the image of God. Let's not relate it to God because then I would have a different. Okay. Okay. Different.

so we'll have to look at that of that concept okay okay there's a universal field of consciousness and then we have a personal one inseparable from that one And we can connect through our personal life. Inseparable. But we can also put ourselves in a dream where we experience separation. Yeah, we believe that we're separated. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We can believe and experience separation even though we're not. Yeah.

And I don't know if this nuance is an important part of what you're reflecting back or you just want to go and... It might be. We'll see. But then we can take our personal consciousness into all these places. where there's different stories in our mind and energies in our emotional body and our soul and our spirit and our yin and yang, feminine masculine energy, and experience each one of those. And each one we go to...

We feel like, oh, that's what I am because that's what I'm experiencing. But then we move into something else and I'm like, oh, that's what I am. You know, it's kind of like I think of, you know, somebody might be really confident.

and self-assured one moment and then really deflated and like i just shameful in myself the other moment i think we all we've all had those experiences or we for ourselves and saw someone move through that and we're like what the heck you're always this confident person what what happened well there's different parts of themselves depending on where they are at each moment and and what's their competency in

You know, if they're competent in writing computer programs, it doesn't mean they're competent in talking to or how they feel around a date, somebody they're seeing in relationship, you know? Yeah.

you know it's like i was confident around engineer but okay intimacy i'm like ah right like okay now i'm moving into into an energy i'm unfamiliar with don't know what to do with it yeah and then you know we might feel yeah comfortable in our job in engineering but not in a date not in an intimate relationship no or you might feel great on a date but five days in this is getting intimate we feel uncomfortable yeah yeah now now we're in a different territory different experiences

So what we are, we can move through all these different experiences. We're not any of them. How would you put it? We could say we're not any of them or we're all of them. depending on the point of view or how would you put that we're not the we are not the experience we are the let's think it's like we're the we're the sum total of all these energies combined working together or sometimes working in conflict with each other that we can use to both experience the world

And here's another component of what we are is to express and create. OK, so this is the way of consciousness. We perceive the world, but we also have this force. of will and creation and faith that we can activate in how we express and therefore create and then we could create new energies and experiences absolutely

And we can also consciously choose which energies we want to focus on. Yeah, or what happens often is the mind, if we're in consciousness and we're entrained in a story, a narrative in the mind. we're creating what is habitual of the mind as opposed to what you might say we want from our soul or our heart. So this is, we could choose if we have the awareness.

the skill to say move into a heart energy a soul energy uh presence consciousness presence and then go okay then we activate our ability because this vehicle is both perceiving in these many different dimensions all at once, and can create in many dimensions at once. So we're a perceiver of the world and a creator in the world.

through many, through all these dimensions. We can create emotions. We can create a physical action with our body. We can create with the kind of intent and action and faith through consciousness. So what we are is knowing that I am, and we kind of like, I am perceiving and I am creating. I'm a perceiver and I'm a creator. Yeah. Yeah. You referred to that as like, I am, I perceive, I create. I wrote that down. You said that once. So there's the I am, then I perceive.

And I create. I guess the challenges for people, including myself, maybe less these days, but can happen is that we are essentially like invisible. You know, like we really get down to it. Would you put it that way? We're used to perceiving forms, you know, even an energy as a form. some some maybe solid form and then we move through all these different experiences and we're i don't know if trained or just that's kind of the human condition when we were born we used to kind of

believing that everything we perceive is us. And all we perceive are forms. But then if we want to look for ourselves. I remember asking you once, you know, many years back, it's like, what am I? Because I see I'm not this voice and I'm not this character and I'm not this. But like, what am I? Because I could see I'm not all of these forms. And so I got to the conclusion I'm formless. Yeah, when you pursue that question,

Talk about the mind is structuring the question. Yeah. And the assumption in the question is that we'll find something that's physical. that has intangible yeah here i am there i am here like oh i see this water bottle like it's real right as as the physical is real yeah but then You know, as you go further and you sit in, have an experience of yourself as perceiver, let's say. Wow, you sit, you breathe, and you're like, what am I that's noticing my breath?

We keep it simple. What am I that's noticing? Oh, I can express this force through my hand to raise it. Like I can, I animate this body. But the force animating this body is not the body. Because I can perceive it and I express it, change it, right? What am I that is activating? the force so now we kind of put the attention closer and closer and we're to like a what am i as perceiver what am i that can activate a force to move this body or speak these words right

And it becomes less physical and invisible, like you said, very much so. And yet, if we hold our attention there, there's something there. and and this is where you kind of go oh it's presence or consciousness it's too good labels for it and we can become aware of our consciousness aspect and go, okay, that's the closest version.

we can identify and then we kind of say well what's what's underneath that what consciousness is being animated by the power of a spirit you see a spirit press it what's the word like Before consciousness? When you say before, I would say... What do you mean? We say what's behind that. At a deeper root, yes. We all begin with spirit, life force. We need to get the labels correct. We're not. Just for clarity's sake. Yeah, we're going to try this again. Do you...

But I don't want to make this theoretical, but like really in a real level is... this we talked about this i think but i see the i am is coming or the consciousness before spirit because but i think you just use different words could be yeah Well, to me, and this is all my current model, right? Yeah, sure. Okay. Subject to revision. This is the best I see it. Because in the last year and a half, I went on a major journey and has some deeper insight.

I would say underneath it, like the spirit or whatever is giving life to life. I have to include what I call the void. Which, if we look at the physics side of it, is probably equivalent to dark energy and dark matter. That makes up 95, 96 or something percent of. creation and mass in the universe so i you know it was an exploration into that energy and go oh that's 20 times whatever we

is form and matter. And when you account for that, you're like, okay, we know nothing about that. And so what is, and this is what's.

And I'll give my version. This is what's animating everything. Everything is coming from the void. You can go back. the old text it's like you know in the beginning was nothing it was formless and from that nothing you know life and creation arose and it's continuing to do so the the universe is you know come out of this big bang where did it come from it could be nothing but nothing is not nothing nothing is something

The void is a something. Dark energy, dark energy is a something that we don't perceive from the physical matter side of perception. Tell me if this fits when you say it's not enough. It's not an object, but it's alive. Yes. Yeah. Just like you don't see the air. Yeah. It's there. Yeah. but even more so because you can feel it's it's like it's it doesn't have any objective qualities but it is aware of itself it's it's doesn't have any physical qualities

I don't know what you mean by objective. It's an abstract word. Yeah, it doesn't have like any physical or energetic or dimensions to it. No, because... you could say it's and it fits into the realm of what's called the unknowable uh and but in my perception i see it it's In the macrocosm, you see, okay, creation of the world comes from the Big Bang and from nothing was produced all the matter to create the galaxies and the planets and the Earth and everything.

you know and escape life and birth creation right and this is 14 billion almost 14 billion years ago and that process is still happening Because the universe is not only expanding, it's accelerating. And because it's accelerating, it's telling me, well, the explosion is still happening.

What do you mean by accelerating? Well, the galaxies and planets are all moving outward away from each other, right? So the universe... is is expanding okay and it's and it's not expanding at constant rate it's speeding up okay it's speeding up its pace of expansion It's speeding up. So it's acceleration if you go back to Newtonian mechanics, right? Force equals ma, right? So get that acceleration. There has to be a force applied to the galaxies and the planets and the stars.

to push it out so it speeds up, right? So what's the force pushing the galaxies around so they are going even faster? Like the force that's going to move a galaxy and speed its movement.

it's a big force yeah okay it's like oh we want to speed up the planet how much energy does that take well now you can multiply the planet by jupiter and by the sun it's like massive force to like oh we're going to make you go faster what is that force to me that's the dark energy dark matter but on the spiritual side that's the physics side but the science side but on the kind of the spiritual side, we would say it's the void still working to create the world. Right. And.

That's happening at the macro level of galaxies in the universe. And that creation is happening at the microcosmic level of quarks. moving into existence and particles moving out of existence because that dark matter void is intertwined with all the matter around us.

The dark matter and energy is everywhere that matter is. So wherever you see anything physical like the earth, there's 20 times dark matter there. dark matter and dark energy so that's all working to create and and the this living being your living being everything we see there's dark matter dark energy, kind of like bringing that into existence in every moment and collapsing out of existence in every moment. And we can actually align our personal consciousness with it and perceive it.

I think so. You know, it's tough to say that, you know, yes, I did it or did I imagine it, right? Yeah, it's tough to say, but when you speak about it, it's almost like I could... feel like i get a glimpse or a sense of it yeah that's my that's my that's my sense of it as i would journey with consciousness into what is uh because it was it was This journey of the last yet half has started with a question. We'd have to speak about it. Speak about what? This journey.

yeah it's interesting so it started started with a question like what's the relationship between the void and intent uh-huh so uh i was like so then then a certain it was in mexico in the mexico retreat i had that question and so one of the meditations we did in the cave then I went with that question. I had that intent on the trip. I would take that question and curiosity into this cave for meditation and then, okay, all the came. And then...

So that was the new understanding for me. Is that the meditation you guided afterwards? Or did that... That I guided afterwards when... In the cave. because I think it was related also to the meditation you um guided us there I don't know I don't remember what I don't remember I don't remember the meditation I did there did I do something at the end of that meditation this is two years ago

Yeah, I have a really good memory. Okay. I probably said, okay, I'm going to share this. Yes. I nudged everybody to perceive. I think you spoke about the beginning and about the void.

and then you mentioned and i think you did this i mean you led this a few times in your group as well and then light coming out of it which i think is what you will call intent yeah which and pushing and creating everything and maybe that's that force that you speak about moving the galaxies that comes from the void yes but the void is not a

It's not an empty hole. It's full. It's a creator. There's not nothing there. It's the most powerful creative force. Because if you think of a black hole, it's like a... very symbolic on a natural level for the void physically. But then, okay, all that mass is going into something. Something's happening there. So you see examples of the void with a black hole. It's like...

things don't end there. It's like, it's just whatever's next. Yeah, and correct my physics, it then transforms at some point, the black hole. It's got to become something else. It becomes a white dwarf or a red dwarf or other things. No, I don't think it becomes that. No, I think those giant things kind of become a black hole.

oh yeah i got it upset we have to check it yeah because because whatever goes in their black hole i'm pretty sure we don't know what what's next that goes that falls into the unknowable which is equivalent to the void so it goes into You know, it may be a case where it goes back into dark matter, dark energy. And so this is where you see dark matter and dark energy and matter going back and forth.

okay but that's i guess that's not that's a physical manifestation of it it's still not it because it's still perceived until it goes into black hole and then it's not perceived okay what's what's what's on the other side right i don't know exactly the unknowable okay

Do you see intent and spirit? Spirit and elundersense, do you see both? Is that two names for the same force? Okay. Okay, so let's go. If you want clarity, let's go to God. Yeah, let's start with the beginning. I think it's easier for me, for people to get clarity if we start at the beginning and we see.

We see how things evolve. So enough of ourselves as what am I, a personal self, but like, okay, what's creation? Well, it has to be connected. If you want to figure out what I am, I think we have to go there. Yeah.

So my current version for the God thing, I had fun with this. I'm going to have to post this. The God thing? Yeah, the God story. He got a really... bad reputation you know there's a really bad narrative about god he's judgmental that he's you know punishing god he's going to send you to hell i think that's just the judge becoming god in people's minds so they call it god

It's very much so, right? That's the story of God. That's a small G God, as you say. Yeah, that's a story of what God is. Yeah. Right? But I want to, as we're going to speak of God, can I just say something? And all these things, see if you can, for clarity's sake, keep every phenomenon we talk about with one label. Or if you use another label for it, we mentioned that it's the same.

because otherwise things may get intermixed because all these things are less you know so so there's there's a story of god You know, the religions are their stories. Their beliefs are stories. Their mythologies are stories. You know, Poseidon was a god. It's just a myth and story. You know, Zeus is just a myth and story. Like these are. these are gods with a small g right apollo and aries and all the gods and then you have you know your current religions were like both those are real

Well, no, those are the current stories that are the group many people believe, right? And in the story, you have idea, right? Where's the idea? The idea is in the mind. And often that idea blinds you from seeing another version of what that is. And in now the stories for many people, the story is, well, the spirit or the spiritual.

and we think because the spirit is god and we say oh what's the what's the spirit and where's the spiritual come from and where's the spirit come from you know that is the beginning of the birth of a human being that has all this dimension And the assumption that's implied in the language is that there's something spiritual and it's separate from something physical or emotional or...

consciousness right or consciousness is the spirit and that's god and the rest is unimportant because it's material no i think in my current version is you know the god But God is the sum of all of it. It's all inclusive. Just like all these aspects of me and consciousness and emotion and mind and body and soul. fire and gender energy is all aspects of me. Everything in the universe is God. The universe is God.

And that means God encompasses, you know, I'm connected with God the way you're connected with God because we're all creations of the universe. Everybody is a creation of God. Everybody is part of the whole of God. Every planet, every galaxy, every black hole, all the dark matter and energy and matter and light is God. one being okay mixing and changing and growing and expanding and we're all just

Various different manifestations of the one being God. Of one universe. And to begin to try to find God in the universe. you're gonna you're gonna miss her because it's like oh is it over here is it over there like well no you need to look bigger right It's like the fish looking for water. The water, yeah. In a way, but the fish would also be the water. Yeah, fish is made of water.

70% water. Water's in us. Part of our being. God is everything that's matter, everything that's light, everything that's empty space. All of it. And everything that's dark and light. That also includes the unmanifested side of the void. Yes, that's where I see everything that's dark and light. Everything that's known and everything that's unknown.

everything that is manifest and everything that's unmanifest yeah yeah i think tell me you think it's it's an important distinction in a way the universe is the manifested side of god And then there's the unmanifest or the void or unknowable. Universe. The source. Okay. Well, if I say universe, I'm including manifest. You're including that. Yes. You have to include dark manner and dark energy in the universe. Okay. You include that.

yeah everything that's known and unknown everything that's seen and unseen uh the universe is god and we're animations As if God had a dream and there was a character or an idea, and here we are, as those things also...

freely with agency to create and express and perceive as I am. Yeah. Okay, we went back to the Bible. That's where... that said that man or woman was made in the image of god is that we have that yeah but which image which well not that oh i see not that image not yeah not the faux god yeah not yeah so it's It's how do you want to interpret that verse, those verses, right? So you can draw something that's a complete distortion. Use it for clarity and say, okay, this is how I see it.

Okay. So yeah, we're going back to the Bible because there are some good things in there. I didn't understand it and I thought it was all malarkey. But then after years and Miguel... My mentor would draw a lot from Christian teachings. And I was like, oh my God, I never interpreted it that way. Oh, now that makes sense. I was like, oh God, I like these teachings now when I interpret it this way without the fear and judgment of being punished forever and the ideas of hell.

being unworthy because I'm a sinner. I was like, well, no, that's not what we're trying to say at all in that stuff. That's kind of nicer. No, you go to confession to clean that stuff out and be free of those stories. I'm like, oh, okay, confession's a good thing. I'm not supposed to feel bad. That's how you get rid of feeling bad is confession. It's a way to liberate yourself from the judgment and guilt and shame.

and and be free and and play again but if you use confession like okay really i sinned and i'm a bad person there it is in the mind so now you suffer some more and that's actually a sin Ouch. I'm using confession to hurt myself, that process of guilting and shaming myself. And now I'm hurting myself with the narrative story in the mind instead of getting free of stories. So yeah, I was using those.

religion all wrong yeah i don't think we have the chance really to have it properly explained because not many really have this understanding So we get a distorted version from people who got a distorted version. Yes. Now, there's one thing I want to go back that I'm curious on. I'm not, I'm curious your thoughts on. I'm not sold. on the idea that dark matter is devoid as of yet because it's still perceivable and i i don't think that

Maybe it is, but I'm not sure on it. How did you come to that perception? Well, why do you say, okay, it's still perceivable? Did I say it was not perceivable? No, you didn't say it was not perceivable. Yeah, I believe the voice perceivable. Okay. Okay. I think I got it now. Okay.

Take a step back again. So God is everything. God is the unmanifested and the creator. But we start from the beginning. And the creation. And the creation. Thank you. we could we could okay keep going then how do we move to intent or spirit

If, let's say, it started with just the void, what then? Okay, so we'll clear up another one of those questions, the myth that people have that was like, well... it was always the trinity oh there's three gods in one right i think was the father son holy ghost I was like, because we, our mind wants something simple, right? I'm trying to understand the universe as one living being.

You know, when we can't even contemplate everything that's going on in our own body, this one human, we can't even contemplate all the different dynamics, the trillion cells working together in organs and those organs communicating and working. And how does it do all that? We don't know. we can't comprehend that right even just parts of that but like oh i see the universe is one living being like that and how it's all doing so um

And then it's got three aspects. What? Okay, so we could say the will, the word, and the manifestation, right? The will of God, the unmanifest. Born into light or manifest light is the word. It's an expressive force. It's like a ray of light from the sun. And then the manifestation, that ray of light becomes something, you know. What is matter but dense energy? E equals MC squared, right?

taken all this energy compressed into matter take a lot of energy compressed into matter like and now we have a form of energy came from light, came from the void. So we have the unmanifest, the light, the manifest. We have the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. We have... Krishna, Shiva, Vishnu. We have the Trinity happening. in three forms, all of them, God being both creator and manifestation, creator and perceiver.

And that's all God. It's all God. It's all the aspects of God. Yeah. If we want to divide it up into three types, you know, how things move out of the void. into manifestation and back. The vehicle between the two is light. Or we could say energy. And so the word for you... just so we could call we call formless to light to form okay right and we see okay all of that is god yeah and form is made by light and the light comes from the formulas made by the formulas

Yes. And just so we don't, for clarity's sake, we don't mix up, because we mentioned like a lot of terms, tell me if I'm misunderstanding it. When you say like formless, devoid, the will, God, well, not let's leave God, but formless, devoid, the will, that's all one word for the same, different words for the same. Yes.

and light intent the word spirit question mark is also yes it depends how we want to use the word spirit but good yeah okay to put spirit on a question mark and then i'd leave the word spirit out okay so light the word and intent yeah and then form or what was that in the book or manifestation matter matter what we used to think that we are also yes okay okay and matter by you know physical matter as opposed to energy yeah okay I think

The really relevant thing on this, except for that it's fascinating, is that this all happens to me in the microcosm. So if we understand this, we can understand ourselves better.

And even live a better life. Because we can understand that we can have an idea, for example, come out of nothing from formlessness. Nothing. We can then... move that into creation and then it could come into a form could manifest yes like somebody has an idea the simplest example for a business or they want a relationship that comes from that formlessness then it's just it's an energy and then they start to move it and they can actually create something which is really amazing yes

And they apply their will and their faith, which is kind of their intent, to then create. Wow. Now, where does spirit fit? How do you want it to fit? It's a label. It's a label. All of these words, they're empty words, and we're the one that insert meaning into it. Okay, if I call it, you know, if I call it life, then life is God. Okay, spirit is everything. Spirit is the matter. Spirit's in matter.

And boy, it's all life. It's all God, right? But if I want to say, well, I can divide it up differently. Okay. Okay.

depends how you use it i think it's true we use words these are labels i think the helpful thing they point to an experience that we can then understand Not just mentally, but somehow in our personal consciousness, we can understand and use. But I think one disclaimer to this whole conversation is we're using in a way our left. brain thinking discerning capacity to slice up reality but in truthfulness we can't really we can't really slice up reality we can't even

The vital, all those things are really like one, but to really have some map, we're using this slicer, discerning part of our brain. We are drawing. artificial lines uh on on top of creation you know yeah exactly artificial boundaries between countries and people they're made up county lines are made up We're going to say, oh, this is this county. That's that county. They're made up and they'll move around later. So, yes. That's just a disclaimer. Yes.

Because if someone were to, and I'm really aware of this because I just read the book by Dr. Jill Ball Taylor, where she had her left side of the brain literally not functioning. If somebody were to just close off the left side of her brain, we wouldn't. we just like perceive everything you perceive as one and not not be able to yeah yeah and so this is this is when you when you

turn off that left side of your brain, you're taking all the labels, all the mind's stories out. And yeah, you see the continuity. It's really interesting. She mentioned like she could even not discern between colors.

anymore without that part like somebody had to teach her to discern colors it was just one you know one color even sounds she couldn't discern sounds just one sound i could see that yeah yeah Yeah, and this goes into, yeah, our ability to kind of make distinction grows, because I was listening to someone describe, like, what do we hear as a young child, you know? But what actually is happening is the sound in the room will echo off the walls and it gets all blurry.

So it's like, whoa, you know, if I say one word, it's actually whoa. That's what she was experiencing without, she couldn't understand words. She couldn't even understand distance. She couldn't understand that there's a distance between objects. She couldn't.

She had to train her mind to perceive that it's all made up. That's even before we can think. I mean, our mind is trained to do that stuff. And so, yeah, we end up having to... block out all the echo sounds to find like oh the the the first word right and then we give it meaning Right. And then we build meaning is the whole story. And reference library for that word. Yeah. So language language becomes a huge part. And then.

yeah we divide everything up and visually also when it's it's when you take that out it looks very different it's like it's all blended yeah

But this is how we assemble the world and build our experience. Yeah. And that's how we need that to function in a way. Yes. Otherwise, we would just be... blissed out and ignorant i mean blissed out is not we just wouldn't even think about surviving or functioning as a separate entity so she she calls that like becoming a solid like i'm gonna become a solid

for a moment but she knows now it's an illusion yeah yeah almost almost we're born we're born formless and we're perceiving formlessness and we have to build structure and that is made up in our minds made up Yeah. We assemble the world and we have to give it all this distinctions and separation in order to process it. Because if we're... If I take in all of this light at once into my eyes, it's going to be an overwhelming experience. But if I...

organize it into all these little objects and then say, okay, and then I'm going to focus on this one image of Daniel. Then I can manage that with the part of my intellectual brain. And I use language to discern certain symbols and we just talk like that, right? But if I look at this room, I can pick out 20 objects. in my field of vision, if I'm processing and thinking about that at once, what am I going to say? I have 20 different, I start 20 sentences of what I'm talking about.

So our attention is used to discriminate down to a functional level of a quanta of information.

about the totality of what I'm perceiving. Yeah. And then we think we know everything. Well, that's because we have an ego part of our brain. telling us a story or a lot. But I think this is really important because this really is a deeper meaning of how our mind creates the world. Yeah, how we assemble our experience. Kind of like also your Layla's podcast. Yeah, how we, the building of virtual reality or how we don't actually see reality. Another topic.

And then it's so it's very funny. Some people have the conversations and it's like, you know, this is okay. The case for God, the case against God and very smart people say, well, there's no God. because if God existed, he would be all knowing. And if God existed, he would be all loving. And so, you know, how is this happening and suffering to happen in the world? Because X, Y, Z. It's like, therefore, does it? Well, okay.

These are stories of God and made up criterion. Okay. You, you're not seeing somebody who's omnipotent or this entity is omnipotent. It's not making everything loving. And therefore. no god it's like okay well we discriminated down our criteria in our mind to this and then we don't find anything that fits that therefore it doesn't exist it's like okay so it's like

Your criteria is too small. It's already distorted by beliefs about things God should be or shouldn't be or should do or should not do, should allow or should not allow. It's like, okay. the the the mental model belief system of what religion says god is like is too small it's like no it doesn't god doesn't fit in that box

Like, oh, there's nothing. I have this box and God should fit in this box of these stories and fit this criteria. It's okay. Well, I can't find anything that fits in that box. Therefore, it doesn't exist, right? You know, it's like going to the ocean. It's like, okay, I got a cup of water. And, you know, you dip in the cup of water, you look in the water, it's like, okay, well, I don't see any dolphins. I don't see any whales. I don't see any seals in my cup of water. It's like, okay, therefore.

you know those things don't exist right it's like well no it's like and even even you or i go to the ocean and we go scuba diving and we see whales we see dolphins We see all sorts of life. Are we seeing the whole ocean? Are we seeing everything that's contained in the ocean? No, we can go experience this. We have an experience of this small moment in the ocean, in this small period of time of life. Okay? But we haven't experienced the ocean.

We haven't any personal experience of the ocean, which is a drop, in a drop of time. Okay. But we do not know by experience the totality of the ocean and everything it contains and what it's doing. And we know less about the galaxy and we know less about the universe. Okay, and so we know very little through experience of God, but boy, what we can just experience in the day with so much beauty is here.

in my personal experience and so there's so much beauty and awe in creation and i won't the totality of it is unknowable to me with this vehicle But I sure like the expansion as I pursue experiencing the relationship with it in that way.

That's really beautiful. This is one of the things I mentioned it in the live chat I did in the community. You know, one of the fundamental elements of moving closer to God, which is really just closer to yourself, eliminating that separation that we feel. that brings you closer to oneness with the world around you and peace with the world around you, peace within yourself, is to practice being in a state of awe.

to to look around the world i'll take something practical out of this is like to look around the world in and put on your your eyes of like that child or without your left brain and one of the ways to do that is to just see What is amazing around practicing what is amazing. Okay. And if you, if you're not seeing it today.

It's because your mind is filtered and diced it up into everything rational and logical that has a story. Stories are, right? But the things that are amazing that put you in awe stops the story, stops the mind. So, you know, lay down in your backyard or something or go someplace and watch the stars. Spend five minutes, spend ten minutes. Go watch the stars. Go to the woods.

and look at the trees just perceive what's happening with what they're doing the air and the cycles of life and you know connected you know just connected with the earth and the roots and the sun and light like they're there in communion between matter and light go to the ocean and look at the vastness of it Be in awe and just try to contemplate, how did this get here? What 13.8 billion year traveling explosion?

you know, had to happen for there to be an earth. And then the improbability of carbon becoming conscious to perceive it. And a trillion cells working together to hold this organism together so that then we can look out the eyes and take in the light and the vastness of the beauty. You know, an infinite world outside and trillions of cells working together. Like, try and get a trillion things to work together. That's in awe by itself. And so then put yourself in that awe. It will quiet the mind.

and help you feel connected to everything. After we just divided it all up with our language. Yeah. Yeah.

Sorry about that. I'm sorry. I think it's really good. It gives the full picture depending on the lengths we take. They want to be a solid and, you know, we need that to function.

doing what else to let go and be an infinite yeah yeah because you you need your mind one of the things was was very blessed about miguel is like his explanations right you see his his discernment and clarity and explanations over the years it's just like walk away it's like oh my god that's so clear because you it's like you you need to take your mind on that journey to expansion into awe. Are you like...

Because if you leave it behind, you do like Jill Bolt Taylor did. It's like, okay, you have the experience, but you don't function. Then you're like, okay, but you don't want your mind in charge. Because then it... You experience the world of your mind and it's keeping you from direct experience. That would be awesome. And so it's like, okay, mine, I'm going to take you along.

You have all this understanding now. So it's okay to have the experience. Because your mind is scared of those experiences. the ego get into the ego it's scared of those experiences that connection and expansion yeah the ego mind is scared i think some part of the mind could be really excited yeah the ego mind is scary i think even leaving the ego mind aside even just for the mind in general the thinking mind not just the ego it's helpful then like we talked to have this map

to bring back to daily living and functioning and interactions with life and people and all of that. Is this helpful? Where's the practical value in this understanding? So yeah, hopefully this is useful to people.

I think this is good for now, but I think we could draw it more of the practical value, and I think there's a lot. Just by thinking about the will of the world.

in the manifestation there's a lot that could be applied in life well i think i think just to have a a new paradigm or this model that i'm sharing what is god can help people kind of change a lot of these stories that are false often that they live with, that God's some religious narrative that they grew up with that feels like, I mean, I've worked with a lot of people who, you know.

as adults still have the narrative that they they grew up in the household like oh well if you've sinned or you've done something bad you're a bad person you're going to hell and they grew up afraid of doing something wrong or bad for fear that they're going to go to hell and suffer forever and i'm like okay well let's you know they were given that story and it's like whoa and

And once you're in that story, it's like, you never feel like you're a good person. You never feel like you're deserved to be loved. And so, you know, if they just have like, start to have a different model.

they can have a chance to start move away from those stories or that there's different versions of God that aren't part of the narrative they were given. I think another value is also We're so used to being bogged down in our personal ego minds troubles that just dreaming and thinking about it different. it's called cosmic version, more totalic version of the universe and creation gets you out of that box into seeing, whoa, there's a lot more here.

And for me, it gets me excited to get out more of that box. So my attention is more on all that is here rather than small stuff that... um my personal ego mind can get troubled with or stuck about so hopefully hopefully some people found something useful practical helpful to them to get out of their stories and their ego mind and consider a different model of the world and themselves what are we and what is this world

what's going on here. Yeah, and adopt some different beliefs that are more kind and loving to themselves instead of the old narratives that they were first given. upgrade the belief programs. And can we say get excited about, you know, thinking more about those things and dreaming about them and feeling awe and just get excited about how much more is possible. than what we perceive in daily life and busy wish okay so how about we leave it here for now thank you teacher

Thank you, brother. Gary G is your new, I told you your new nickname. It fits good with your name. I think you earned that. I earned that. By where you are now. That's my sense in the last year or two. Knowing your fears by now. Knowing my what? Knowing you for a few years by now, I think. After your... Yeah. We've had some good conversations. it's time in the journey so yeah yeah so thank you for being interested and asking uh yeah these things that i

I'm not trying to keep a secret, but yeah, people don't usually ask about it. I've thought about it, like, well, where do I share that? Ah, well, people probably don't care. And I think, and I dismiss it because like, well, no, I'm looking for a way of practical to help somebody out of suffering. So my cosmology of the world is like, that'll help. Okay, maybe it'll help. All right, let's talk about it.

It will help. And we can get to the other parts of it in the future, but it will help. You know, even if it's just like, oh, if they can just with their rational mind goes, oh, that makes sense. That's why I experienced different things.

every day or jump around between stories and it's like yeah if you have a better working model for what's happening then you're less confused you know you're closer to the truth with a better working model and you can see when you're in that limited mindset and go oh i remember that podcast or that discussion there's so much more than universe what am i doing let's get out of this

Yeah. Why am I taking my consciousness and dreaming into this little story about, you know, what happened three years ago? Yeah. So thank you so much. And I'm really grateful to have you as my guide over the years. I think maybe you're one of two people. I would say I got to meet another person this year, but one of two people in the whole universe that I think I can actually talk about this and get like really deep insights and value.

So I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. And maybe you'll go further than me and you'll be able to revise my cosmology and make it better. Amen. Amen. Or find it was so accurate. Gary had it nailed down to the T. All right, brother. Thank you. Thank you so much. This has been an episode from the Awareness and Consciousness podcast, from pathwaytohappiness.com. This is Gary Van Wimmerdam.

Hope you find it helpful in navigating this very complex world as a very complex being. If you want some practical steps into how to make changes in your emotions, your thoughts, your behaviors, please check out my book, Mindworks, my courses at PathwayToHappiness.com for some practical ways to do that.