The gameboard of awareness and consciousness

“Authentic spirituality is not some little flicker or buzz of knowingness, but a vast fire of liberation providing both heat and light for what must be done.” –Robert Augustus Masters

Our beliefs shape and mold the reality that plays out in our lives. These beliefs, both conscious and unconscious, drive our feelings, our actions and our inner commentary.

For example, if your belief game piece is currently stuck on the square of victim consciousness (“Things happen TO me,” “Life sucks and then you die” are a few standard beliefs on this square), you can affirm and intend all you want, but your beliefs, the guy driving the bus of your reality, will end up getting the last word.

When you spend most of your waking hours on that game board square (it’s extremely popular), your channels are plugged up. All the good that wants to come your way can’t get through.

ACIM Lesson 129 reminds us that there are more squares on the game board of consciousness, other squares that can bring us great joy, fulfillment and satisfaction.

For the purpose of this discussion, I’ve broken it down into four major squares of consciousness. Each of these squares has dozens of subsets, all that play out in different ways in our lives. Let’s just say that my goal is to move my game piece closer to level four.

1. “The damn, not again” consciousness. The starting gate for most of us is some manifestation of victim consciousness. It varies from person to person, but the over-arching theme is we have no control over anything that happens in our life. The best we can do is work really hard, cross our fingers and hope that all the “sh*t” we hear about out there will somehow escape us.

2. “The woo-hoo! This is getting cool!” consciousness. One of the next levels (again it plays out differently in each person) is where we realize we have a say. We learn there are energetic laws that are just as reliable as physical laws. We discover that our thoughts are units of mental energy that play out in the world just as powerfully as the principles of gravity or aerodynamics.

Usually we move in and out of this square of consciousness, mixing it up with other squares. We still feel separate and still retain some of that “poor me” consciousness. In fact, we spend nearly as much time talking about what we don’t want as what we do. We still believe the things we want are out there, in the future, something we have to strive for.

3. The “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” consciousness. This is where you know you’re blessed, when you start noticing signs, gifts and guidance, when you know the universe is working on your behalf. This is when it gets really good, when you start finding the joy in everything—the cute little heart the barista made into the foam on your latte, the softness of the cashmere sweater you pull over your head.

4. “I am one with all” consciousness. In this consciousness square, which I must admit is not yet a 24/7 theme for moi, there is no sense of separation from anything. This consciousness knows it is one with Source. It knows you are an unlimited being, hooked up with all that is.

In this consciousness square, everything is eternal and everything else (your thoughts, your reality) is subservient to this bottom-line spiritual Truth. When we’re lucky enough to view life from this consciousness, we are totally surrendered to the “all that is” and know nothing is missing from our life.

And, in fact, by yielding to that consciousness, by giving it permission to play out in our lives, we come to realize that all those little intentions and manifestations we so dutifully held in our consciousness are small potatoes compared to this. It’s so much bigger and grander and woo-hoo’er than anything we could have ever imagined.

Pam Grout is the author of 19 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her new book, Art & Soul,Reloaded: A Year-Long Apprenticeship to Summon the Muses and Ignite Your Daring, Audacious, Creative Side.