Centres of Consciousness

recommend book⇒Handbook to Higher Consciousness

Ken Keyes Jr.

978-0-9600688-8-3

paperback

birth

1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74

978-0-9600688-9-0

hardcover

publisher

Love Line

978-0-940687-13-4

audio

published

1984-08-01

Ken’s classic. This is by far his best selling book. You can read part of it online.

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Ken does his deepest discussion of the Seven Centres of Consciousness in Handbook to Higher Consciousness.

This method is especially useful for people with active imaginations. It is my personal favourite method. It works instantly, with a wonderful rush of new understanding.

Imagine group of people viewing a fight between Fido and a neighbourhood dog.

Young Billy may be terrified; he is sure Fido will be killed. He is in security centre, primarily filtering his experience for threats and ignoring the rest.
Rocky is enjoying the noise and excitement of the scene. He feels mild sexual excitement from thinking about what the fight is really over. He is in sensation centre, filtering his experience for excitement and pleasure.
Dad is angry, shouting at the neighbour to call off his dog. Dad is in power centre, filtering his experience for control.
The neighbour is in love centre, calmly accepting what is happening, doing his best to stop the fight. He is not in the least disturbed by father’s rants.
Cornelius is in cornucopia centre. To him this scene is just what he wanted. Dad has been cranky lately and now Dad gets a chance to safely blow off some steam.
Grandma is in conscious awareness centre. To her this tableau is much like watching a movie. She notices all the different reactions everyone has, but she herself remains calm and alert. She watches herself simultaneously worry about Fido, be irritated by the noise, be angry with father for making such a dang fool of himself, but she does not get caught up in the emotions. The Buddha suggested that reality is like an illusion, not real, not illusion, something else that transcends both. Therefore there is no reason to take it too seriously or to get attached to how it comes out.
The mailman in is cosmic consciousness centre. It feels to him as if he were everybody and everything, including Fido. This is very hard centre to describe in words, but most people have a few moments in their life when they experience the world as a perfect unity where there is no separation between their body and the rest of the universe.

Sometimes we use the level number instead of the name, saying he’s in third centre, rather that he’s in power centre

Most people spend the bulk of their lives viewing through some combination of security, sensation and power centres. Often just imagining what a scene would look like from some of other centres is enough drop an addictive demand (and the attendant suffering). There is nothing sinful about hanging out in security, sensation or power. It is just more fun to hang out in love, cornucopia, conscious awareness and cosmic consciousness. Ideally, you want to use all seven centres of consciousness at once to get the most accurate and detailed picture of what is happening.

Have you ever seen a colour separation used in printing? Only when you put each of the transparencies together do you see the full picture, though you can get the gist of it by looking at only one of the separations. In a like manner, you need all off the centres of consciousness to get the complete picture.

Everyone is always using every one of the seven centres of consciousness to some degree all the time. Think of it as like the equaliser on a stereo. You can turn up the base (sensation center), or turn up the treble (conscious awareness centre). You get the most accurate view of the music by turning up the volume on all the centres loud enough to hear and then additionally emphasising the ones most appropriate for the given situation. There is nothing wicked about turning up the volume on security, sensation or power. However, it may not be the optimal way to view any given situation.

Level	Centre	Associated Emotions
1	security	alarm, alienation, apprehension, anxiety, bitterness, confusion, dejection, despair, despondency, discouragement, doubt, dread, embarrassment, fear, grief, guilt, helplessness, hopelessness, hurt, insecurity, isolation, jealousy, loneliness, nervousness, panic, powerlessness, sadness, shame, terror, worry.
2	sensation	boredom, disappointment, discouragement, disgust, dismay, envy, frustration, grief, jealousy.
3	power	aggravation, alienation, anger, annoyance, disdain, embarrassment, exasperation, frustration, fury, hate, hostility, impatience, indignation, irritation, jealousy, powerlessness, rage, resentment, revulsion, wrath.
4	love	love, emotional acceptance, contentment, peace, happiness, compassion, appreciation, enjoyment, calmness, satisfaction, intimacy, togetherness, enthusiasm, buoyancy, gladness, cheerfulness, humility, calmness, joviality, fulfillment, merriment, friendliness, serenity, delight, courage, safety, empathy, fun, compassion, affection, contentment, relaxation, tranquillity, tenderness, closeness, lightheartedness, warmheartedness, benevolence, appreciation, harmony.
5	cornucopia	all love centre emotions, abundance, bliss, elation, exhilaration, exultation, fulfillment, gratitude, joy, more than enough, rapture, richness, wonder.
6	conscious awareness	nonjudgemental observing. Your inner Vulcan.
7	cosmic consciousness	awe, oneness, perfection.

For more detail on the subtle distinctions between these emotions see emotions in the living love glossary. The Dalai Lama puts it this way:

The moment you think only of yourself, the focus of your whole mind narrows and because of this narrow focus uncomfortable things can appear huge and bring you fear and discomfort and a sense of feeling overwhelmed by misery. The moment you think of others with a sense of caring, however, your mind widens. Within that wider angle, your own problems appear to be of no significance and this makes a big difference. If you have a sense of caring for others, you will manifest a kind of inner strength in spite of your own difficult situations and problems. With this strength, your problems will seem less significant and bothersome. By going beyond your own problems and taking care of others, you gain inner strength, self-confidence, courage and a greater sense of calm.
~ Tenzin Gyatso (1935-07-06 age:82) the fourteenth Dalai Lama

Reframing

Reframing is looking at a situation from a different perspective. It is a generalisation of centres of consciousness. Here is a classic example of reframing. A westerner asked a Buddhist Tibetan abbot about what he thought of the Chinese taking over Tibet. The westerner taunted that all their prayers were for nothing. The abbot replied, "We prayed for the happiness of all sentient beings, not just those in Tibet. Now we have been scattered to all parts of the world. The teaching of compassion is now available to anyone who wants it."

One of my favourite reframings is when someone is rude to me on the Internet, it gives me an opportunity to demonstrate how a living lover could handle such a situation. It can be instructive both to the rude person and to anyone watching. They can learn without formally studying Living Love. Instead of being angry, I’m happy at being given the chance to perform and strut my stuff.

Your reframe is an additional way to look at the situation, not a total replacement. Neither your old nor your new view is completely accurate. Even if your new view is less correct, you still need a fresh misperception of reality every once in a while.

Pathway 11

The eleventh pathway states: I am constantly aware of which of the Seven Centres of Consciousness I am using and I feel my energy, perceptiveness, love and inner peace growing as I open all of the centres of consciousness.

This is an extra reminder to use this powerful method.

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