Stranded on the Tarmac

An unusual couple: she and he
Originally uploaded by mistca.

Recently, I received an email filled with marvelous questions. I thought I’d share the discussion here. Rebecca began with a great juxtaposition:

I'm stranded on a tarmac at the Atlanta airport waiting on a flight to Louisville (and it's hard to concentrate as the men behind me are talking loudly about deer hunting) but I was interested in your description of bacteria getting to the top of one evolutionary mountain. The bacteria are living the good life - only to find themselves in the valley at some later point.
(see August 9th: Evolution is a walk across a rugged landscape)

I was applying that to some sales training I've recently become involved in. I work in human resources for a furniture store - and retail sales people are really cut throat. They can be top of the heap one month - but if they don't continuously change their tactics - and evolve to the customer's ever changing demands, they soon find themselves in the valley of low sales and low commissions, making them unhappy - which makes them start to feed on one another- which is where I, as a human resources person, come into the picture.

All of this was really interesting to me - but then your statement at the end regarding how important meditation is as a way for evolving our consciousness really caught me off guard!

I've never thought about the possibility of evolving one's consciousness! I suppose I've been of the belief that consciousness is something you are born with that remains a constant underlying hum. One's personality and likes/dislikes change all of the time - but consciousness to me seems like the basic foundation of one's person. That sort of consciousness seems like a grand, eternal - and people either have it or they don't.

PB: Yes, it is a constant and we all have it. It’s been called Pure Consciousness, since it is consciousness itself without an object of perception. It is the screen upon which the movie of life flickers.

What can evolve with time is the ability to see the screen more and more clearly. This is a direct experience and profoundly different from an intellectual understanding. It’s as if Consciousness is suddenly a succulent mango popped into your mouth, where before you’d only read about them.

As a consequence, how you express consciousness in your life changes. You’ve upgraded the movie screen to an IMAX, and the movie going experience jumps to another level.
For example, you are an incredible poet…now. But just a few years ago you didn’t write. (see Rebecca’s Website for her poems)