One Sunday morning, Stu and I decided to take the scenic drive from Waimea to Hilo for lunch. As we drove between the two massive mountains, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, I began to feel more alive and awake. “Living on the island sometimes feels like living in another dimension,” I commented. The famous Hawaiian singer, Israel “Iz” Kamakawiwo’ole, who died young, once said the veil between life and death, heaven and earth, is more transparent here in Hawaii. We began a broad ranging discussion on the nature of reality, beginning with the eleven dimensions spoken of in ancient Indian Vedic literature.
“There are seven dimensions beyond the four we humans are designed to experience,” Stu (my partner and a spiritual mentor) said. “Science has now proven their existence, but they are beyond our normal capacity to experience.” He said this corresponds to the yogic knowledge that there are seven lokas, or planes of existence, beyond the physical. “When the third eye is awakened, we are able to operate outside the four dimensions. Different laws apply on the other seven planes, but an awakened being can utilize these laws on the physical plane to some degree,” he explained.
After a stimulating discussion, we arrived at our destination—a French crepe place in the old downtown section of Hilo. The sound of opera music filled the small space of the restaurant as we sat down at a table by the window. It seemed unusually uplifting and beautiful. There was a piano in the corner of the restaurant and I wondered if Gabriel, the waiter who is a musician, would play something while we ate our crepes.
“There are fundamental laws of human life that people need to understand,” Stu said, continuing our conversation after we ordered our meal. “Whether we know it or not, we are designed as creators. What we put our attention on manifests in our lives.”
“The data that comes in doesn’t change the brain, the brain changes the raw data. The inside creates the outside. We are constantly training our brains to look for only those cues in the environment that match our beliefs. The brain becomes hardwired to ignore data that doesn’t match our beliefs about reality,” he said.
I remember reading somewhere that when Columbus’ ships sailing to the New World appeared on the horizon, no one except the local medicine man could see them. Apparently, if the story is factual, something they had never seen before didn’t exist for them. Their brains excluded this new information because it didn’t fit with previous data.
The physicist, Werner Heisenberg described what is called the “Heisenberg effect” in 1962. He said, “What we observe is not nature in itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.” We are not experiencing an objective “out there;” we’re experiencing what our inside allows us to experience. Physicists tell us that all possibilities exist at the quantum level, but only one solidifies to become our reality.
Knowing we are creating our lives, what do we want to pay attention to? What do we want to train our brains to see? Quantum physics has shown that attention turns waves into particles, energy into matter, the astral becomes physical. Thought waves turn into solid matter. “Nothing solidifies into matter until our awareness falls on it. Everything is a probability until we turn our attention to it,” Stu said.
“This has all been talked about in terms of “positive thinking” or the “law of attraction” in books like The Secret,” I mentioned.
“The problem with those approaches is that we can only maintain a consistent intention for a very short time,” he explained. The ‘you’ that is intending is constantly changing. When we are anchored outside of time, our intentions become much more powerful because they are unbroken.”
“The sense of time comes from two things: the body with its diurnal rhythm, and the mind with the movement of thoughts,” he continued. “When the body and mind are seen as objects, the you who is the subject, observing, is timeless. The observer is outside time—not subject to the movement of time. The observer is in alignment with higher intelligence. Tune into the awareness mechanism. It is always present, but it is easy to become distracted by what’s moving. Awareness is anything other than what you are aware of. It is a subject with no object. It is not a thing, so it cannot be described—it has no qualities.”
Sipping green tea after finishing my crepe, I thought about how it is easy to talk about the deeper truths of life, but that we need to put our understandings into practice in our lives here and now, wherever we are, whatever our life situation. Waiting for some other now when we are better prepared, when our life has settled down, when conditions are more beneficial, is trying to put off the inevitable. All we have is here and now, exactly as we are. We are creators; what do we want to create? Where do we want to put our attention?
I looked over at Gabriel. He was too busy waiting on customers to play for us today, but the opera music had provided an inspiring background for our discussion, as the knowledge Stu was expressing sank deep into my consciousness.
We took the winding coast route back to Waimea, through lush, tropical greenery and dramatic ocean views. Stopping at the little Tibetan shop along the way, we bought some incense and a Thangka—a sacred Buddhist painting—from Tenzin, the shop owner. He explained the one we picked out was a depiction of the wheel of life and is supposed to act as a reminder that this life is suffering until we wake up to our true nature.
Consider This: Remember you are a creator. Create a beautiful life.
