ILLUSION
REDEFINING SELF
The physicist Peter Russell is one of several new paradigm scientists to have reached the same conclusions as mystics and sages for thousands of years - that Consciousness is not something within us; it is something which we are within. It is primary, not secondary.
This is not just the essence of the world's mystical traditions, the basis on which the concept of Enlightenment is constructed, but also the conclusion of many modern scientists pursuing consciousness research. From ecology to quantum physics, the message is the same: we are not separate. The distinct three-dimensional organism, which we take ourselves to be, is not only in a constant state of interaction with the world around us, but is also just a limited aspect of what we truly Are.
The implications of this are clearly very profound, suggesting that the whole notion of human bondage is built upon the dynamic interaction of two human emotions - fear and desire, which operate within a dynamic 'feedback loop', keeping us ensnared within a perpetual spiral of guilt about the past and fear about the future.
As the Buddha tried to remind us, fear and desire are actually the same thing, just two sides of the same coin. Fear is the ego's projection about what it doesn't want to happen in the future, the source of all anxiety, stress and worry, about money, health, death and old age. Desire is the ego's projection about what it does want to happen in the future - a new car, a new house, a promotion at work, winning the lottery. Since these are conceptualisations about the future, something which is imagined, they constantly remove us from the reality of the present.
Peace and happiness can only arise in the gap that exists between fear and desire, when there is no worry about the future, or guilt about the past, when there is nothing but pure Presence, pure awareness in the moment. Happiness is our natural state, our birthright. It is closer to us at every moment than the air we breathe in our lungs.