Shamanism for the Age of Science: Awakening the Energy Body - Kenneth Smith 2018
Being
Living the Unfolding Moment
Life springs forth from the moment at hand. From this hinge, you can access any number of possibilities. Mathematically, we have the infinite points of connection a circle provides. Emerging scientific models suggest we have a number of alternative realities waiting to be tapped. Or perhaps the universe is inherently imagination. From any of these perspectives, experience forms from intent, entrainment, circumstance, and innate nature. By cultivating them, life—rather the perception of life—becomes exquisitely malleable. Anything can happen.
Being, the capstone of ontological development, is a precise state of awareness where creativity emanates from each and every instant. Being supersedes all models about it: whether the model is quantum physics or metaphysical cosmology, it falls to the wayside when you are in the moment. Being is a point from which you not only access infinity; you are infinity. You are fully living the unfolding moment.
Being
In Being and Time, Martin Heidegger offers three basic suppositions needed to explore being. First, citing philosophical inquiry from Plato to Aristotle to Hegel, Heidegger regards being as the “most universal” concept and yet through centuries of investigation it has hardly been understood. Second, by nature it cannot be defined but this doesn’t negate its meaning. Third, the quality of existence is self-evident. In each and every act, we use some aspect of being.1
Furthermore, he considers being as a “unitary phenomenon” and states that to study it we must define an ontological world that includes “being-in-the-world.” With this grounding, Heidegger then declares that the new and significant relationship being offers enables us to transcend the worldly nature of life. He outlines being as requiring the understanding of oneness from the point of view of daily life as only then can we transcend this baseline state.2
First published in 1927, Being and Time resides firmly as part of the Western European philosophical tradition. Although we may not be any better off today in understanding something so paradoxical and so intrinsic to the human experience, over the past fifty years thanks to a growing awareness about various forms of mysticism (of which being is a principal component), the work of psychologists such as Jung and Maslow (which concerns fulfilling daily social needs to grow toward actualization), and now the advent of quantum physics (which reveals the intrinsic oneness of the universe), the nature of this phenomenon is getting a closer look.
Within the breadth of this work, being consists of maintaining a natural vibration, an ebb and flow between self and world, a grand harmony of energies within and without. In this exquisite state, you have a greater sense of self, a lightness of emotion, and a calm clarity that fills you with meaning. There is also a sense of oneness with all creation, and a feeling of having a personal place in the world. Paradoxically, this rhythm automatically carries with it the experience of nonattachment. The cosmos becomes impersonal.
Living in the moment characterizes being, and the moment at hand is the crossroads for potential and actualization. The moment is where life resides. Getting there and then staying there requires serious and disciplined effort, as being is the most sophisticated of all human behaviors.
Heightened Consciousness
Being may also be regarded as a constant state of heightened consciousness. It requires the synthesis of learning and imagination, a condition of artful living. Your first and second energy fields communicate and work together to give you a full-body sense of living. This provides your principal posture and orientation to navigate infinity.
The practice of heightened awareness takes you to more possibility, to being able to handle a variety of assemblage point positions. You now experience a continually expanding world of new options, perceptions, and abilities. As you travel deeper to core the intensity of your life increases; psi and mystical experiences spontaneously come into play as imagination gives entrance into myriad new dimensions.
In furthering our understanding of this awareness, Maslow has mapped out B-cognition—being-related cognition—in detail, assigning characteristics and values to a range of behaviors including problem solving, creativity, and peak experiences, whereas he relates D-cognition to deficit needs. Some of the traits of B-cognition are total attention, richer perceptions, an altered state of time and space, and positive experience. The attendant values include a sense of oneness, fairness, beauty, simplicity, and autonomy. B-cognition is a measure of self-actualization and the wellspring of creativity.3
While the wide-open consciousness of B-cognition supports growth-oriented behaviors, Maslow also presents it as having inherent dangers such as producing a lack of action, diminishing personal responsibility, and espousing too much tolerance. It therefore needs to be balanced in a way that practical daily requirements of livelihood may be enacted. Handling the downside of B-cognition is where a solid grounding in classical metaphysics adds immeasurable value. B-cognition then becomes a distinct class of behavior in that it contains the elements, goals, and results of a coherent, cognitive technology that impacts every aspect of our lives. We could call this behavior—the process of building and sustaining a purposeful awareness of the moment—M-cognition, moment-related cognition. It consists of endeavors in which you realize what is already inside you. It reflects all that goes into metacognition, the knowing and understanding of how it is that you come to know in the first place.4
In this manner, you may better come to know everything that goes into forming cohesion. To grasp this basis of perception, you need to address the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual dimensions of individuals and groups. Added to this are the influences such as the multifaceted nature of time, culture, language, relationships, and so forth. Stepping beyond this detailed effort, you arrive at the direct sensing of cohesion, which stimulates will. With continued realization, you develop heightened consciousness, a direct avenue to being. It is then through this awareness that you navigate your daily life. By this time, you’ve reshaped your life, your world.
Core and Being
A firm connection with your core means being. Personality—the manner in which you express yourself—forms in the light of social considerations. You make your way through life trying to meet social needs, by aligning with group consensus. This has beneficial results; yet doing so may also estrange you from your individuality and from your core. Band M-cognition skills are not yet well understood, even for individuals, so how can they be brought about en masse?
Personality is a facade, a veneer. However, strategies like a path with heart provide a means to match personality with core. When you behave from your core, or at least orient yourself to core, your personality then matches the deepest regions of yourself. As a result, you nurture a natural energy field; you enter into being.
Ontological Intelligence
Just to make a point, let’s say that a person who is truly being represents the genius level of ontological intelligence. This necessitates orchestrating all aspects of the self. Each chakra needs to be awakened and in resonance with the others. Personality and core need to match. Individual and social requirements need to be in harmony. This is quite an accomplishment.
The awakening of this form of intelligence places you in the new, significant relationship to which Heidegger speaks. How you make sense of the world and how you continue to behave intelligently forms the new class of behavior aching for full examination. The study of mystical experience and other altered states provides guiding lights. Ontology is not just the study of the ways and means, the bits and pieces; it examines the whole of the person as measured by being. It also requires scrutiny of all connections with the environment—the being-in-the-world—and all other behaviors associated with what might be the epitome of living.