There is more than meets the eye. Of course, you already
know that. There is plenty that goes on under the surface that we aren’t always
aware of. Without all that happening, reality simply could not go on as it is.
We can say that reality is made up of layers. While it isn’t exactly like moving from one floor to another- everything occurs in the same physical space in this reality-, the idea at least serves the imagination.
Something Mystical in Colored Lights
Consider the light spectrum. On the left side are the longest wavelengths of light, which are also the lowest frequencies. On the opposite side are the shortest wavelengths of light, which are also the highest frequencies. From left to right, you’ll find light forms such as radio waves, microwaves, infrared light, UV rays, x-rays, and gamma rays. Roughly in the middle (between infrared light and UV rays) is visible light. That’s where ROY G. BIV lives. All those colors together, when reflected off a surface, make what we all know and love as white light. Praise ROY G. BIV like he’s your master, because he makes your world (well, unless you’re blind).
The name “visible light” implies that, while what we know as white light is visible to us, other wavelengths of light are not. The unaided eye can’t see radio waves or gamma rays. Yet, it would be silly to deny that these invisible wavelengths do not exist, or even that they don’t affect us. You know where The Incredible Hulk came from? That’s right. Gamma rays.
If that’s a tad too unrealistic for you, go walk into your kitchen. You know what will likely be there (especially if you don’t know how to cook)? That’s right. A microwave oven. You’re fryin’ up Hot Pockets with those long, invisible waves… And they probably are destroying you slowly (as are the hot pockets). But, we’ll put that issue aside for now.
The point is, you know that there are many things going on in physical reality that you cannot see. The unseen forces may even outnumber what is seen.
Now, I mentioned that the unaided eye cannot see these other light wavelengths. That doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to see them.
Haven’t you ever been to the doctor’s or dentist’s office, you wild man? You know those convoluted contraptions they use to take pictures of the inside of your body, particularly your bones? That’s right. When those pictures are taken, you’re getting blasted with x-rays. While we can’t walk around and see with the power of x-rays, we can at least capture single moments in that light, so to speak.
Good Vibrations
Generally, the different types of light are not referred to as the layers of light. It would seem strange to call them that, because they all exist in the same physical world at the same time. They simply have different frequencies. That is to say, they all vibrate at different frequencies.
Oh yeah. You know where I’m goin’ with that one. Just wait for it.
It is much the same with the layers of reality. They all occur in the same physical space at the same time. They simply vibrate at different frequencies is all. That is to say, yes my hippie friend—they carry different vibes.
Generally when we think of, we think of “good” vibes and “bad” vibes. “Good” vibes feel light, and “bad” vibes tend to feel heavy and constricting. In the context of this article, I’m not really referring to “good” and “bad” vibes. No layer of reality is better than another. They just vibrate at different frequencies is all. There’s no shame in that. Indeed, those at lower frequencies do feel “heavier” than those that vibrate at higher frequencies. But, that doesn’t mean that the lower frequencies are bad.
Overall, you’ll probably find that the “good” and “bad” labels will still apply basically as you use them now, but I’d like you to drop those ideas just for a few minutes here.
Additionally, for the sake of being able to imagine all of this, I’d like for us to consider these different frequencies as layers as well. You can imagine the different layers as existing on a spectrum, too, if that helps.
Alrighty?
Whether these terms are grammatically correct I do not know. But, to refer to the layer with the lowest frequency, I will say the lowest-vibrating layer; and, for the layer with the highest frequency, I will say the highest-vibrating layer.
I could split hairs to no end here and discern hundreds of different levels. But, I’ll keep things pretty basic. From those basic layers, you can imagine all the sublayers you could possibly want.
Layer 1: Subconscious (Biological)
The lowest-vibrating layer is the subconscious layer. You can also call this the biological layer. Here, things take place below the level of conscious awareness. This is where automatic bodily processes such as digestion, heartbeat, and blinking occur. “Subconscious” doesn’t mean that you don’t know these things are going on: rather, it indicates that these events will occur whether you’re thinking about them or not.
Of course, you can influence your biological processes if you start thinking about them. But, even in that case, you don’t have to tell your heart, “C’mon, man—keep beating! I need you now more than ever!” It’ll go no matter what you tell it.
Contrast these biological processes with a task such as solving math problems. In order to begin the task of solving a math problem, you must consciously choose to do so (well, unless you are the slave of an evil math teacher—in that case, all decisions follow unconsciously). If at any point you cease to put deliberate effort into solving the problem, the process will come to a halt. Nothing will happen until you decide to return your attention to it and start thinking about it again.
What I want to emphasize here is that, at the subconscious level- and at every level, for that matter- there is a certain type of communication that occurs. Yes, that means even between human beings.
When people who are attracted to each other say that they have “Good chemistry,” they’re using a phrase that has some reality behind it. When they makeout, for instance, the saliva that gets exchanged is, so to speak, just perfect for each other. Just the right antibodies are being shared in that exchange—and through that exchange, we help to keep each other alive a little bit longer. Only the best for you, my love. How sweet.
However, you don’t have to make physical contact with someone in order to communicate biologically with them. You only need physical proximity. How do you think you sniff someone out before you even shake their hand or tap them on the shoulder? Your nose can smell things you didn’t even know it could smell. Particles exist on the skin that, though tiny, serve as a window to the world of information that exists inside of your body. They let people in on the levels of various hormones within, as well as other conditions of the body.
Of course, there is information the nose picks up that we can consciously process as well—some information, unfortunately so. Some people- often the attractive ones- have a subtle scent that is absolutely delightful. If they don’t splash themselves with perfume first, you’ll pick up on it if you get close enough.
Others smell downright foul. People who are ill tend not to smell so good. Because these smells are given off subconsciously, however, they’d be rightly categorized at the subconscious layer.
There are other biological events and processes which, though they can be picked up on consciously, they occur by subconscious forces. When we are angry, we may turn red. When we are scared, we may turn white. When we are envious, we may turn green. If someone is breathing heavily or laboriously, odds are that they don’t feel so good.
While body language, like breathing, can be influenced consciously, we are always expressing some form of body language whether we do so consciously or not. If someone has their head down, is dragging their feet, and/or is walking very slowly, they likely feel disappointed. If someone is making themselves “small,” and is curled up in a ball while staring desperately into their iPhone, they may be intimidated—perhaps by the premise of meeting that scary job interviewer.
The list goes on and on. The amount of information that exists at the subconscious level is vast—vast beyond even the night sky itself. You could spend your whole life exploring all the information that exists at this level. It ranges from the biggest stars in the sky to the gases that fill the atmosphere right down to the tiniest atoms that make up reality.
Layer Two: Conscious (Day-to-Day)
The next layer, just above the subconscious layer, is the conscious layer of reality. This layer is plain, simple, and straightforward. What you see is what you get. This is the “surface level” of reality. The conscious layer is the equivalent of visible light on the light spectrum.
Right now, you see words on a computer (or phone) screen. If you look down (or to the side), you’ll see your hands. If you look up, you’ll see a ceiling. Look out the window and see who’s running around—squirrels, rabbits, trees, the grass. Go to the grocery store, and you’ll see that same cashier you’ve been eyeing for weeks.
Yep, that’s the conscious level. It is what it is.
Communication at the conscious level occurs primarily through words. Images and physical gestures (such as a handshake or a wave “Hello”) are used as well.
At this level, I am deliberately attempting to communicate something to you. “Thanks for the awesome back massage.” “Please give me my money back.” “There is more than one layer of reality, y’know.” This very article is an example of conscious-level communication.
Obviously the different layers of reality don’t have steel-reinforced boundaries between them. The way we interpret messages communicated at the conscious level, for instance, proceeds partially from our subconscious assumptions. The term “conscious layer” does not mean the same as living consciously. In fact, most of the communication that occurs at this level is reactionary, and delivered without deliberate thought. It is categorized as “conscious,” however, because it can be readily perceived through the senses.
This is in contrast to microorganisms such as bacteria. While we know that they are everywhere and play a role in our interactions with the physical environment, we cannot see them (without a microscope). They may produce effects that occur at the conscious level, such as physical illness (runny nose, fatigue, etc.), but they themselves exist at the subconscious level.
It is at the conscious layer where time and space are most relevant, as are objective measures such as height, weight, number of dollars in the bank, number of calories on the plate, and so on. These things take their greatest effect at this layer.
At the subconscious layer, objects are of significance, and action is the primary creative force. The case is the same at the conscious layer; however, at the conscious layer, thought and word are powerful forces for creation in addition to action.
The conscious level is where our attention goes by default. Again, this attention may be placed here rather unconsciously, but at least we have some solid sense of what’s going on… Right?
Layer Three: Superconscious (Soul)
The third layer of reality is the superconscious layer. This is where things start to get fancy.
Unlike the subconscious and conscious layers, the superconscious layer of reality doesn’t add any new physical material to reality. At this layer, we are above though not beyond the physical. The regular rules about how the world works are defied, though their existence is still acknowledged.
At the subconscious layer of reality, your identity appears to be your physical body. At the conscious layer, it appears to be your mind, perhaps with some bodily-goodness thrown in. At the superconscious layer, you identify with your soul.
Activity at the subconscious level requires technology to be seen and science to be known. Activity at the conscious level requires a pair of eyes to be seen and a mind to be known. Activity at the superconscious level requires a soul to be seen and spirituality to be known. Spirituality is the science of the higher layers of reality, and the soul is the technology that allows us to see more deeply and holistically into the universe.
The soul is to be found everywhere in physical reality. It is in this way that it is above, but not beyond the physical. You might say that the soul surrounds and is to be found within everything.
The superconscious level is where our favorite term of the day, vibes, goes to play. While vibes, like breathing, can be consciously influenced, they are not consciously created. In this way, vibes are quite similar to the example of body language I gave earlier. We are always emitting a vibe, whether we are aware of it or not. Vibes don’t need us to be aware of them in order to go about their business. They remain present nevertheless, waiting for us to acknowledge their presence.
Information and phenomena at the superconscious level can roughly be called psychic. That is to say, it is in this world, but not of it. Vibes, for instance, provide us with information about things in the physical world (much like hormonal signals, their approximate biological counterpart), but the physical world and the things in it are not the point.
Vibes are communication between souls. The soul likes the physical world because here it can play out its purpose, which is to have a certain set of experiences. The soul wants to experience itself being in a certain way. The physical world is the perfect medium for doing so, because it can bring forth precisely the opposite of what the soul wants to be. This opposite creates a contextual field in which your soul can indeed experience what it is.
To the soul, then, the physical world is not the point. It is a means to an end.
It follows that vibes are invitations to have a certain experience. When your attention is placed at the superconscious level, you are drawn to vibes which feel very light, loving, and free. At the superconscious level, it only makes sense to cultivate experiences of those sort. To lower your vibe and do something unpleasant just so that you can get green pieces of paper which you will then give to some person you’ve never met so that you can keep the lights on seems downright silly from a superconscious standpoint. I should also mention that superconsciousness is OK with run-on sentences, since it’s all just an experience and an exploration anyway.
Now, this is where things may appear a little tricky, but I assure you they make perfect sense. You see, every experience you’ve ever had is by the will of the soul. Yet, you and I both know that you have had many experiences where the overall vibe was low—very low, indeed. Such an experience probably comes to mind now.
Why would your soul rope you into experiences of this sort? Well, on the one hand, you could say that you had such an undesirable experience as a result of ignoring your soul. Desires arise from the soul: as such, if you ignore the soul, your life will be filled with things that are undesirable. Even if they seem desirable at the conscious level, your superconsciousness will start slapping you on your astral head before long. Something will feel off to you. You’ll feel heavy. You’ll look at the stuff at your life and see nothing but burdens upon burdens. Feelings are how the soul speaks to you, and that heavy feeling is your soul crying out—Pay attention to me, gosh darnit.
At the same time that the soul appears to be disagreeing with your present life circumstances, it was the soul who ultimately created those circumstances in the first place. How can this be?
Well, remember—to the soul, the physical world is beside the point. No certain set of circumstances is “better” or “worse” in the eyes of the soul. As such, the soul is not necessarily asking you to change your circumstances. Rather, it is asking you to change your experience.
Even then, I cannot emphasize enough that the soul never disagrees. To the soul, all is perfect. You cannot go wrong. You cannot live incorrectly.
That being said, the soul still has desires. It would like to go in a certain direction. No action of yours can move you out of that direction. You may change the path to the destination- making it longer and more convoluted, if you please- but the fact that you not only shall get there, but already are there, remains so.
So, if you listen to your soul, what will it tell you? The direction your soul is leading you is to the highest thought you’ve ever had about yourself. This thought is always changing and always unchanging, simultaneously. The highest thought conceivable about yourself is that You are God, and this thought is unchanging. Yet, the particular form that thought takes, in regards to your experience of the physical world, is always changing. Love expresses itself in a different form in every moment; yet, love itself always remains so.
It is at the superconscious level of reality where you can see that the stuff of reality is indeed love, and also that you are the creator of this reality. All at once, you are the creator and the experiencer of love. When you combine those two roles, you find that you indeed are love.
It is at the superconscious layer that this love is communicated between human beings. While we are in the physical presence of another person, whether we are verbally communicating or not, our “higher selves” are speaking to one another. The other person says, “Hey, dude—are you ready for me to facilitate that experience for you now? The one you’ve been waiting so long for?” And you say, “Heck yeah! Bring it on, brother!” Such is the case no matter what is going on at the conscious level—even if you are arguing.
I know the soul can seem tough to understand, because it appears to want the best for you and to continue your present experience simultaneously. Your present experience is the best for you. Your “present experience,” of course, lasts only for an instant, and then it is gone, to give way to a new present experience. The soul doesn’t want you to stay locked in the same moment forever—and yet, the moment of now is eternal.
Overall, the soul wants you to grow into your grandest idea about who you are, and in every moment it creates the best circumstances in which you can experience and demonstrate that idea. It’s very complex, yet it’s also very simple.
The soul will do this whether you choose to be aware of it or not. If you choose to be aware of the soul and to meet its desires, you will experience this high idea much more poignantly and obviously, and that idea will evolve much more rapidly. If you ignore the soul, you will still experience your highest idea about yourself. Yet, if you compare the two different ideas at the conscious level (i.e. one idea that comes from acknowledging the soul and one idea that doesn’t), the idea that arises from ignoring the soul will seem far less desirable to you.
From the standpoint of subjective reality, we would say that the soul, or superconsciousness, is the creator of the dream world. Additionally, it is at the superconscious level that synchronicities are recognized.
At the superconscious level, experience is of significance (in contrast to objects, at the lower levels), and feeling is the primary creative force.
Layer Four: Supraconscious (All-Knowing)
The fourth layer of reality is referred to by author Neale Donald Walsch as the supraconscious level. If superconsciousness is the creator of the physical world, supraconsciousness is simultaneously the creator of the physical world and the physical world itself. Supraconsciousness is the congruence of body, mind, and soul. At the supraconscious level, body and mind act in service to the soul, which spearheads all decisions that are made.
In relative terms, supraconscious action is the “fast path” to experiencing your highest idea about yourself. While you can’t choose a path that is wrong, you can choose a path that is more conscious. It’s as I said in World of Abundance—what is happening now is not better than what happened in the past. It simply is what it is. You simply are more aware of what is going on now—that’s all.
At the supraconscious level, what is communicated between beings (that includes beings of the human kind) is always I love you—nothing more, nothing less.
Consider supraconsciousness as a slight yet significant upgrade from superconsciousness. At the superconscious level, awareness transcends day-to-day biological, psychological, and social concerns. At the supraconscious level, you live in full awareness of why you may transcend those concerns. That is to say, you have the awareness of why, and you live in accordance with that awareness.
Supraconsciousness is superconsciousness in fully-aware action. At the superconscious level, you trust. At the supraconscious level, you know. You know without having to say so. Everything is a synchronicity at this level. How could anything not be?
At the supraconscious level, both objects and experience are of significance, and thought, word, action, and feeling all are powerful creative tools.
Supraconsciousness is incredibly powerful. At this layer of reality, the experience of pain is still possible, but the viewpoint of suffering is not.
Layer Five: Absolute Reality (One)
The fifth, final, and highest-vibrating layer of reality is Absolute reality. In absolute reality, all is one. That’s about it—and yet, that is everything.
Ultimately, there is only one thing, and we all are that one thing. Physical reality is an illusion. At the subconscious and conscious levels, the illusion is taken for granted and seen as ultimate reality. At the superconscious level, the illusion is used as a means to an end. At the supraconscious level, the illusion is seen as co-creator and is mastered. In absolute reality, all illusions are dispelled.
You can enter absolute reality without leaving physical reality. It is possible to experience being one with all things—even if these experience lasts for only a moment. I wrote about this experience in Being Fully Within Love. The experience is difficult to retain for longer than an instant, but I am confident that there have been people who spent much of their lives there.
At the layer of absolute reality, all is complete. At the superconscious level, you are aware that there is nothing that you have to do. At the level of absolute reality, this awareness is much more pronounced. It is in absolute reality where all the unchanging truths about life exist. Ultimately, there is only one unchanging truth, and it is, indeed, that there is only one.
At this layer, object and experience are one, as are thought, word, action, and feeling. There is only one component of reality (i.e. one object and one experience), and only one tool of creation (i.e. absolute love and absolute power).
In absolute reality, this truth is all that is communicated. In fact, there is no communication, because communication is unnecessary. Communication occurs only in the realm of the relative, where there are relationships. In absolute reality, there are no relationships—again, there is only one.
We’re One, But We’re Not the Same
No one layer of reality is more fundamental than the others. All exist at all times, and all are ever-expanding. Emergence occurs at all layers.
Take another analogy—this time, the lesser-known OSI Reference Model of Computer Networks. This model lays out roughly all of the processes involved in transferring data from one computer to another. These processes are categorized into seven different levels, based on whether those processes are more physically-based or logically-based. In short, you’ll find hardware on the low end (i.e. physical), applications (e.g. e-mail) on the high end, and the Internet falls somewhere in the middle.
No one of the seven levels is more important than the others. If any one of them gives out, kimwrate.com will no longer be available to your precious eyes. If the Internet goes out, this page goes down. If the application that is Google Chrome (or Firefox, or Safari, or Internet Explorer, or Maxthon, or Opera) stops working, you lose access to the data it serves up. If the hardware of your computer breaks, you aren’t doing squat.
The point is, all the levels are necessary to sharing data—just as all 5 layers of reality are necessary to the experience of reality that you are currently creating. No matter where you place your awareness, all five layers are still going to work, creating their part of the creation.
Before I go on, I don’t want that sentence about your hardware breaking to make you fear for your life. Consider that when you die you get a new body in a new reality. It still has the same five layers of reality that this present reality does. It’s just that its physical makeup and its laws of physics are different.
It’s like when you dream while sleeping. Things happen in that dream world that don’t happen in the waking, day-to-day world. Yet, while you’re in the dream, you take the dream world for granted as physical reality (unless, of course, you are lucid dreaming). It seems perfectly normal to you—that is, until you wake up, and come back to this physical reality.
Experientially, there is no physical vs. non-physical. Everything is physical while you are experiencing it.
A New Perspective
It is important to distinguish between consciousness and awareness. We all have the same levels of consciousness at our disposal, from subconsciousness right up to the level of consciousness present at absolute oneness.
Which layer we perceive reality from, however, is a matter of awareness. What do you choose to be aware of now? Your digestive processes? The words on this page? Your soul’s highest desires? The oneness of all that is? All of it at once?
Consider each of the five layers as a different perspective from which to view reality, much the same as objective reality and subjective reality. In fact, the five layers are simply different degrees of the objective and subjective perspective. As you move upward, reality becomes more subjective. At the subconscious level, reality is purely objective. At the conscious level, reality is a nice blend of the objective and subjective. At the superconscious level reality is overwhelmingly subjective (this is where the subjective perspective can be said to "start"), and it becomes more so until the fifth layer, where reality is purely subjective.
The five layers all are different standpoints. Standing at one point gives you a different view than another point does.
What would you like to look at? Bacteria interacting with cells? An illness playing out? An experience to behold? An opportunity to demonstrate your highest idea about yourself? Ultimate, absolute love? Or all of it at once?
All of these questions address the same, single event of physical illness. Yet, the perspective behind each question sees the event quite differently. At the subconscious level, it’s nature doing its thing. At the conscious level, it’s a tragedy. At the superconscious level, it’s just an experience. At the supraconscious level, it’s an opportunity. At the level of absolute reality, it is love, whole and pure. It is all of those things simultaneously.
You can view reality through any perspective you wish. After all, you are the creator of all at them all at once. You could even go so far as to say that there is a sixth layer, called the God layer, at which you create and experience all of it altogether and at the same time, in the eternal moment of now.
Indeed, we bring all of these perspectives together all of the time. In our science books and classrooms, we discuss, at the conscious layer, what we know about the subconscious layer. We can do the same with superconsciousness, expressing our understanding of it at the conscious level. In this way, we transform each layer, by seeing it anew through the perspective of the others. It is by this ability to transfer perspectives and entertain all of them all at once that We are Gods, for we can see it all.
If you didn’t understand a single world of this article, just know that all of it says, I love you. We are one.
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