What is Consciousness

Introduction of Relief of Suffering – Altering Consciousness through Understanding Consciousness

What is Consciousness?

Consciousness has been a heavily used and often misrepresented word in our culture. From a scientific perspective, being conscious represents the capacity to be aware of ourselves, our environment, and our interactions with life while also consciously knowing that we have this awareness.

Most of us like to think of ourselves as fully conscious, and to an extent, we are. We are aware of our perspectives and the conditions we experience as reality. However, many of us live through an auto-pilot that is not technically conscious. We believe the reality we perceive to be accurate and often limit ourselves because of it, but it is not our only option.

It is a mistake to look at consciousness as a measure of ‘enlightenment’ rather than recognize it as a malleable state of perspective. High consciousness is not limited to master teachers and gurus. Those who struggle to eliminate over-reactive, immature states of consciousness do not lack the ability to be enlightened any more than a person suffering from the conditions of a head cold lacks the ability to be healthy. We all have conscious and unconscious moments—wisdom and ignorance—but this is more a statement of our ever-changing brain functions than of our capabilities. Knowing this, it is still important to realize that when it comes to being more conscious and less driven by primal mechanisms, we cannot do it by will alone. We must go to the source and change the function.

It is well-recognized that mental, emotional, and physical illnesses result from poor brain function. Whether it is mild conditions, such as stress, insecurity, and the common cold, or something more severe, like PTSD, depression, and even cancer, doctors will diagnose and medicate us for it. Therapists will see us for years to help us manage it. We’ll take yoga classes, learn to meditate, and try a myriad of alternative medicines to improve it.

The world is full of opportunities that promise to teach us how to analyze and eventually master our personal experience of reality—usually by controlling the thought, feeling, or emotion behind it. However, to believe we can master consciousness by evaluating consciousness is a significant error in thinking. You can’t think better to feel better. If you improve your brain function, you will feel better, and as a result, you will naturally think better thoughts.

Trying to control the thought or feeling without adjusting the function behind it limits our ability to transcend unhealthy patterns. This limit is why so many of us experience only nominal results or try and fail at program after program. It’s not you. It’s the program. Can you consciously control your mood, thoughts, and perceptions of reality? Yes. Can you experience growth through your efforts? Yes, but it will be arduous, incremental, and often temporary because the brain does not think first. Thinking is a cluster of neurons that register after the unconscious mind makes a series of other decisions. Some decisions result in defeating, self-recriminating, negative thoughts, while others result in inspired, self-loving, positive thoughts. The choice of which thought we entertain is not a choice that we make consciously.

Of the eighty-six billion neurons in the human brain, only three billion are conscious. Yes, that leaves eighty-three billion neurons acting either subconsciously or entirely unconsciously. Ultimately, the three billion conscious neurons are nowhere near the neurons that are really in charge. As a result, there is an inherent struggle when we try to solve our problems by controlling the experiences we already see. What we need to address is what we don’t see.

Most therapeutic processes try to do this, working to uncover the unconscious triggers that drive our conscious behaviors, and I won’t deny that unraveling unconscious triggers does work. However, it consumes relentless, sometimes torturous, hours of effort to receive any results. To try and process every subconscious trigger we have, to try and evolve one thought, one experience, or one perception of reality at a time can take decades of work—lifetimes for some. And in the end, it isn’t even necessary.

We don’t need to work on the symptoms of feelings or thoughts or even personal identity to create significant, expedited change. We need to understand the brain functions that occur before thought—brain functions that ultimately decide how we think—directly translating to what we think. We need to understand the chemicals and what triggers them so we can gain the ability to direct them.

Recognizing and controlling triggers can be one of the most demanding applications of this method, but it is also the most instrumental in creating long-lasting success. With it, we can go right to the source and completely transform who we are by doing it. Better yet, we can do it, not in decades or even years. We can do it in weeks to months.

Is your approach giving you the results you need? Is your life significantly better than it was a month ago? If it is, stay with what you’re doing. If it isn’t, be willing to introduce something that will give you faster, more permanent results. You don’t need to replace your current process. This program will work with any other methods you might already have in place, and all you need is just twenty minutes per day.

At the end of the day, a fundamental understanding of brain function is a powerful tool for getting the most out of life.
The design of the Inspired Evolution Project (IEP) is to modify brain function. We do this by examining five levels of consciousness and the functions that trigger them. As we advance through the levels, we naturally move beyond the mostly unconscious level of mere primates and into the high-function capabilities inherent to all humans.
In this first book, I will introduce the first three states of consciousness relative to most humans.

• The primal fight-or-flight or dying state—what I call the state of suffering.
• The primal rest-and-digest or surviving state—what I call the state of being safe or relieved of suffering.
• And the human homeostatic or thriving state—the state I recognize as feeling successful, motivated, and free of suffering.

I will begin our process by reviewing the reactive ‘unconscious’ behaviors of primal consciousness, the brain functions that trigger them, and the effect they have not just on our consciousness but our overall health and well-being. I will also include a deeper explanation of the movement from primal reactions to more advanced, proactive behaviors and provide simple, accessible tools to improve the function so you can live a happier, healthier life today.

Regardless of your level of suffering, I suggest you engage in each step offered in this program, even if it has information you already know. You will gain the ability to master the art of controlling your chemicals much faster if you have a complete understanding of our program and how to use it. If you don’t, you might never achieve your goals, not by your failure, but by the default mechanisms themselves.

Let’s begin by getting to know the brain functions that trigger each of the three states of consciousness.