Discernment + Information = THE FIRST AWAKENING  

When you put on your special sunglasses (discernment) and sort through the information that surrounds you, you will arrive at The First Awakening.  (Remember the very end of "911 Mysteries"?  Most people turned the movie off before even seeing that part.)  The First Awakening is an awareness that we have a problem here on the earth!  And it isn't just "chaos" or the way things have evolved."  It has been a long-term design.  We are being herded toward a "New World Order" that is being controlled by a very few people.  Our systematic programming -- called social engineering -- has been conducted for generations, and with the advent of large modern communications systems, it is now working much faster.

Getting to the First Awakening and realizing we are in deep trouble can be very frightening.  Many people try to go right back to sleep.  Others attempt to frantically wake up their friends and family, only to be told they are crazy.  (Your friends and family have not had a chance to put on special sunglasses and see the world for what it really is.)

So what do you do?  When truly awake, it's almost impossible for any reasonable person to go fully back to sleep.  Many of us continue to hold jobs and intermingle with others, but feel increasingly alone and sometimes desperate.  Emotional isolation can make a person very depressed.  And a rather glaring reality keeps blinking at us, much like a mirror catching a blinding flash of light:  We are all in this together.  Why DON'T they care?

It's been said that each of us who is awake carries a hundred thousand sleeping people.  In this time of rapidly worsening conditions (just take a look at what's happening in the economy -- and know that it's a distraction to keep us all scrambling), it's very important that those of us who are awake stay awake and as sane as possible.

For only in a state of equanimity can one step into The Second Awakening.

Inspiration + Creativity = THE SECOND AWAKENING 

Yes, we're all in this together!  We outnumber THEM.  THEY are only living (off us) because we are asleep.  When we wake up, they will not be able ... to live off us.  People around us have been lulled to sleep, as their inspiration and creativity (and individuality) has been drained out of them because they have responded to the stimuli of Big Media.  They have been socially programmed to sleep.  As the world stops providing for them (the economy dying), they can become hysterically afraid or become inspired and creative.  We can take care of ourselves, and we always have, if we remember this.

Surviving and thriving are two different things.  We thrive when we are free and creative; we survive when we line up to take drops from a social feeding tube.  We have forgotten how creative we are.  Instead, we have allowed Tommy Hilfiger and Nike to design our shoes and clothes; we have listened to recorded music put out by big studios and their selected performers; we have lined up in our cars for fast food that Wendy's and Burger King prepare for us.

Watch this YouTube video to get back a sense of your "forgotten" self:

The strongest tool we have is our Consciousness.  But most of us don't even know what it is.  We think of our brain as the thing that organizes our body and creates our conscious life, but the brain is only like the engine of the car.  Turned off, it does nothing.  Turned on, it just runs the car.  It isn't the thing that created the car.

Then there's the Mind.  What is that and where does it live?  No one knows.  You can locate the brain, but you can't locate the Mind.  So people say our Mind is what determines who we are and what we do and how we think.  But the Mind must be more than just a mind, because there's something that triggers it periodically -- that gives it inspiration, that shapes and changes it.  We all have the capacity to expand our minds, and yet we are still ourselves.  So there must be something beyond the mind ...

Call it Consciousness.  And consciousness is fed with Intention.  Intention may be reactive, or it may be the result of contemplation, desire, a goal.  In either form, it shapes what happens around us.

Which brings us to a very fascinating reality.  There is something on this earth that responds to our intention.  Many scientists from many countries have researched and documented this, and the results are quite surprising.  The potential this research presents is for you to contemplate.

That substance is water.  Pure and simple ... water.  Water is all over this planet -- and in fact, Earth is often called "the water planet."  We (humans) are ourselves made up of water -- more than 90% of us.  Did you know that water has memory ... that it receives and makes an imprint of ANY outside influence, remembering everything that happens around it?  How it shows this record is by way of its "clusters" of molecules.  Water molecules form arrangements in response to what is going on ... water's molecule clusters are a kind of memory cell -- like a nervous system containing hundreds of thousands of information panels.

Intention itself can create a harmonic structure in water.  And that structure becomes the basis of the world around us.  Water carries information transmission.  Water is a system.  Systems science has shown that in a phase of instability, thought alone is sufficient to change events within the system.  So -- go for it!  Use what makes up most of you and most of the world to change things!  (We highly recommend you see the DVD "Water.")

You could think of the First Awakening as "separation consciousness."  What does that mean?  It means that [they] have found ways to create problems that divide us, that frighten us, that make us forget our own power.  How did they do this?  Well, remember that we have two levels in our physical brains -- high and low, or new and old.  The "old" or "low" brain is sometimes called the "reptilian" brain.  It houses our instincts and our emotions (unfortunately).  The new or "high" brain contains our reasoning and thinking faculties.  When the low brain is triggered, it reaches for supporting experience from the high brain.  If there is none, we act on instinct alone.  If there is, we adopt a makeshift "plan."

In the case of the overwhelming political and global problems we begin to recognize as the First Awakening dawns, our low brain becomes terrified and our high brain tells us it has no answer.  You've never solved a global problem before.  How are you going to do it now?  So our response is to believe and feel we are helpless in the face of this.  Alone.  Useless.  Thus the First Awakening brings with it the confirmation of separation consciousness.  We are in this by ourselves.  No one can help.  We can't do anything about it.  Omigosh!  It doesn't feel good at all.  No wonder most people choose denial and try to go right back to sleep.

The Second Awakening is "unity consciousness."  Rather than registering as "Boy, do we have a problem," it is a recognition of "Wow, we're in this together!"  Yet the Second Awakening is not a natural reflex, because unity consciousness is quite foreign to most of us, being soaked in separation consciousness as we are.  The Second Awakening is a difficult state to attain, and a difficult concept for most current-events-conscious people to grasp.  The New Age movement, however, touts unity consciousness and positive affirmation, yet it is difficult to manifest a better world when one is not willing to see the existing world for what it is.  Many New Agers prefer not to dwell on negative things, and are thus not interested in the political picture.

So how does a person get to unity consciousness (the Second Awakening) from separation consciousness (the First Awakening)?  It seems that our job is to create a bridge between the two.  Somehow we have to be able to know what's wrong and feel good about the future.  Not easy! -- given the circumstances and our vulnerable human state.  Essentially, the First Awakening says "this is not good," and the Second Awakening says "this is good."  How do the two fit or work together?

Human Beings ... Creatures of Intention

It has been said that the "being" part of us is being taken away -- that we are being reduced to a class of "humans" only.  Look at it this way:  The "being" part of us says "this is good" and the human part of us says "we have problems."  Separated from our being part, we can only exist in the problem.

One could also substitute the term "awareness" for "awakening."  Thus, the First Awakening is the First Awareness:  we have problems.  The Second Awakening is the Second Awareness, or we are in this together.  Now that doesn't sound so bad, does it?

Humans alone are not creatures of intention.  They are creatures of reaction/response.  Human beings produce and emit intention.  Why don't we let our intention pave the way for our future, rather than reacting to what is laid out for us?

The 1990s were pronounced by President George H.W. Bush to be "The Decade of the Brain."  Funding for neuroscience shot up and research began in earnest on the "3-pound mass of interwoven nerve cells that controls our activity."  Most neuroscientists believed at the time that "the mind is a set of operations carried out by the brain, much as walking is a set of operations carried out by the legs ..." (Eric Kandel, Nobel Laureate).   But is that true?

Let's take a look at neurons and synapses -- the super-highways of biochemistry ...  There are approximately 100 billion neurons in a human brain, the same as the number of stars in the Milky Way.  Neurons form tendrils that result in a humming network of amino-acid filled fibers that connect to other tendrils attached to more neurons.  Synapses are the gaps between neurons, across which information travels.  There are some 500 trillion synapses, putting the number of possible circuits in the range of 10 followed by a million zeros.  And that's just in one of us.  Are we walking wonders or not?

Yet molecular biology would like more than anything to end the discussion of body/mind and brain/mind.  It's all just biology, chemistry and physics -- and by 2050 we'll know what there is to know.  It's all neurochemicals -- everything.  But although brains as machines may be the same (neurons and synapses), the YOU in each brain is clearly different.  What's it made of?  Each of us has experiences, which form the stuff of our story and our memories ... and our interpretation of these stories and memories may be said to be the basis of our personality.

Even leading neuroscientists allow that the brain is "a creature of habit" with "natural intentionality."  It issues and labels corrections, sensory experiences, difference and memories.  Its left hemisphere analyzes while its right hemisphere interprets.  It explains and narrates when it cannot identify by the obvious alone.  Our narrative impulse is so strong that it doesn't even stop during sleep, which is what underlies the fanciful leaps we make during and from the fragmented stuff in our dreams.  (Why are dreams so weird?  The brain tries to connect bits and pieces with its natural story-making department.)

Did you know that when Buddhist monks meditate their brains actually flex like Popeye eating spinach?  Their gamma waves are connecting super-far-reaching circuits ... or gathering consciousness.  Interesting, isn't it.  Thus it seems we can work on expanding the functions of our gray matter.  We can look for this thing called "consciousness" and bring it into being.  It isn't just "out there," beyond our reach.  It isn't something we can't access.  It's something we can call upon -- if we want to.

It is said that we use only 4 to 10 percent of our brains.  Remember the astronomical number of neuron-synapse pathways?  What if the ones that are never tried are the ones that could change the way we live and function?  What if the ones that are constantly traveled are the ones that have made our lives and personalities the way they are?  We are creatures of habit -- comfortable in our limitations mainly because they do not offer surprises.  The unknown, our low/reptilian brain tells us, could be full of unpleasant surprises.  I wouldn't know how to help you.  I contain your reflexes and instincts and emotions.  I've kept you alive until now, haven't I?  Am I not doing my job?  Please don't give me any surprises!  I might not be able to do my job!!

And that's about as simple as it gets by way of explanation.  Every time we have a thought, it is accompanied by a neuropeptide (a chemical).  The brain makes chemicals to go with emotions and thoughts.  Emotions triggered in the low brain reach into the high brain for thought/reasoning associations, and thus we get the link between emotions and our thoughts.  As neuropeptides are created over and over by the same emotions and thought patterns, our very cells become habituated to these chemicals.  Our thoughts, emotions, life view and even our intentions thus become limited by habit, by familiarity, which is encouraged by the reptilian brain itself.  (I don't want any new feelings!  I'm not used to them!  Don't be happy.  I'm used to complaining and being depressed.)

How Do We Change Things?

It is said that in order for others to change, we have to change ourselves (or the way we interact with and respond to them).  Similarly, in order for what is around us to change, we have to change ourselves.  People who have "woken up" to the dire issues going on around them are more than merely "concerned."  Some are deeply depressed, or outraged, or uncontrollably anxious about the future.  And some alternative talk-show hosts only fan the flames of despair: What are we going to DO?

If the brain-chemicals-accompanying-thoughts science is correct, then changing what is at the beginning of the chain -- our thoughts -- should do the trick, shouldn't it?  Perhaps at the very starting gate itself is this thing we call attention.  Where can your attention be at any given time?  In how many places?  If you are located in TODAY, right now, this moment, but your attention is on the past or the future, the thoughts you create at that moment have to do with your memory (the past) or your fantasy (the future).  Your thoughts are not about right now.  In the present, we can be exemplary -- unusually responsible, that is -- as our instincts combine with our rationality to deal with what's happening.  Think about how often you are not there, not present -- but somewhere in the past or the future ... worrying or wondering about what doesn't exist any longer (the past) ... or yet (the future).

Our ATTENTION sets our INTENTION.  Where we focus is how we start to think, and thinking creates the doing, and then the being.  We have three "compositions" going at once -- our thinking, our doing, and our being.  Distress about the past or about the future (which hasn't happened) actually flavors or colors our time spent in the present.  Think about it!  And the way we are in the present sets up our path into our future.  (All this is beautifully explained on the DVD "Evolve Your Brain" by Dr. Joe Dispenza -- if what is being written here resonates with you, please watch this DVD.)

So the way to change "things" out there is to re-set ourselves -- starting with our attention, which is the basis for our expressed intention.  Many people don't realize how much their emotions function as tools that carve out or attract the events in their lives.  Sometimes we are hit with a direct demonstration that cannot be ignored or denied -- you're thinking of something awful and boom! something around you happens that causes physical pain or another kind of physical problem.  Is it a coincidence?  As Joe Dispenza says, one event is an "incident."  Two events that occur together are called a "coincidence."  Three?  Four?  We're getting into actual patterns as the numbers get higher.