The lenses that we use to view the world and people around us, rose-tinted or not, are affected by factors that contribute to the colour and shape of those lenses. Our emotions, experiences, preferences, and habits pool together in what we call a limited ego, and this makes us believe that what we see and remember is exactly what happened. This ego, spinning around its own interests and associations, positions, colours, and shapes the lens of perception according to its whims. It is like looking at reality through a very tiny keyhole.
The first reducer of perspective are the physical senses. We perceive only about three per cent of the electromagnetic spectrum. We cannot see anything before red and after violet. Dogs can hear and smell better the we can. Bats guide themselves around using sonar. Many insects and birds navigate around due to a map-like spatial memory, better than many human beings. Imagine if, for example, we could “see” people’s vibrations. The advantages of that would be tremendous. In essence, the world that we see, hear, and touch is not all that exists.
Secondly, we are limited by the roles we have to play. A mother sees her children as a mother. A boss sees the team through the eyes of a ‘boss’. In other words, the tasks and responsibilities exert a pressure that means we only perceive things from the perspective of the role. This extends to cultural aspects as well – race, nationality, religion, and so on.
The third limiting factor is our own story. We carry the memory of everything we have gone through in childhood, adolescence, youth, and other stages of life. All the events and experiences that we took from them crowds into a small window of perception. Objectivity becomes impossible as we take most of our experiences personally. For all the above reasons, it is only by chance that we can perceive the same thing in the same way as someone else. When there is an unlimited sense of self, the door opens wide and we can see things as they really are.
To open the door wide and have a full perspective, we need to employ three powerful forms of consciousness.
First, I am the spiritual being, conscious energy, or soul, and I have a body. It is my instrument for expressing what is in me, and experiencing the result of that expression. This consciousness opens the door to be able to see others as souls, and even to perceive dimensions beyond this physical one. After all, if I am a spiritual energy, and not my material form, there are other questions to consider. If I am not matter, then I did not come from matter. The place we try to reach when we meditate or pray, and is remembered in all religious traditions – heaven or nirvana – is a dimension of light, the home of souls.
Secondly, I am the actor and I have many roles connected to my family, profession, social interactions, and even culture, religion, and nationality. I am one and the roles are many. If I have this consciousness, I can fulfil the roles in a better way. I can see that every single human being is an actor in this play of life. I cannot control anyone else’s roles. I have to pay attention to my own roles, to see how to harmonise them with those of others.
And thirdly, I am not my story. I am the protagonist of it. At a particular point in my mother’s pregnancy, I came into the womb, and started giving life to my tiny body. At another moment in the future, I will leave it. In this way, I can understand that I have been around before this life, and will exist after it. I, the soul, will continue to participate in a far bigger story. The story of this life is just one chapter of a book.
Using these three powerful forms of consciousness, I can really change the way I interact with the world. I do not need to kill the limited ego, but learn to operate better by applying these three powerful forms of consciousness.
Ken O’Donnell is an author and the director of Brahma Kumaris’ services in South America.