3- H4H News: What is Unity Consciousness?

Synopsis: Hope for Humanity News is a series of three to five-minute weekly podcasts designed to educate, inspire, and comfort listeners during these challenging, but hopeful times.

Hi everyone! Welcome to Hope for Humanity News! I’m Reverend Joan Kistler.

At the end of our last broadcast, we talked about the part of us that thinks that we are these physical bodies and the voice in the head, and how this “ego-consciousness” is like a naive child that needs to be placed under the supervision of Unity Consciousness.

But what is Unity Consciousness? You might have already heard of it by its other names: Christ Consciousness (or the Mind of Christ),” and “Buddha Mind.”

In a previous broadcast, I compared consciousness to a canvas. Imagine if the artist could animate each form on the canvas and infuse it with its consciousness so that the artist could experience its masterpiece through each unique form?

That is what our Creator did. Our Creator placed its spark within us. This spark is known as Essence. The Consciousness of Essence, or Unity Consciousness, is fully aware of our true identity as One with All of Life and works out of that awareness.

We may experience ourselves as separate from our Creator, from the Earth, and from one another, but we can’t separate ourselves from the Unity of Life any more than a form can say, “See ya!” and rip itself from the artist’s canvas.

So, Essence is always with us and communicates with us as that intuitive connection I talked about earlier. Unfortunately, the constant chatter of the voice in the head often drowns out the “still, small voice” of Essence.

That’s why meditation, prayer, yoga, Tai Chi, and other practices that get us “out of the head” are becoming so popular now. People are beginning to notice that there’s something else within us that’s very different from the voice in the head that keeps chattering away at us.

No, there’s something else that we can hear only when our minds are still. It seems to connect with us from the heart, and its messages always help us to feel better: to be clearer about things, to be more peaceful, more open, more accepting, more forgiving, and more loving.

That “something else” is Essence.

When we learn to consistently tune into Essence and allow it to guide our lives, then we have entered into Unity Consciousness because then, we have returned our awareness to the All, with the knowledge that we are eternally and inseparably joined with all of Life.

So, was the development of the ego a mistake? Tune in next week!

2- H4H News: What is Ego-Consciousness?

Synopsis: Hope for Humanity News is a series of three to five-minute weekly podcasts designed to educate, inspire, and comfort listeners during these challenging, but hopeful times. 

Hi everyone! Welcome to Hope for Humanity News! I’m Reverend Joan Kistler.

At the end of our last broadcast, I mentioned how humanity became obsessed with the “self,” or ego, and became trapped in ego-consciousness.

But what is ego-consciousness?

Well first, we’re not discussing the ego in terms of Sigmund Freud’s id-ego-superego personality theory. We’re discussing the ego in terms of the false “self” that developed as a result of our ability to think.

Before we developed the ability to think, we existed in a blissful state of intuitive connectedness with all of Life. Have you ever seen a flock of birds or a school of fish move in perfect formation? They can do that because of their intuitive connection.

We have that too, but as we developed the ability to think, we began to “tune into” the voice in the head more and more and that intuitive connection less and less. Eventually, we decided that the voice in the head is who we are too, so we started listening to it, and doing what it says.

So, not only did we incorrectly identify with the physical body but also with our thoughts. The body-mind became “me-myself-and I,” when it is really only a tool designed to help us function properly in this physical world. It has no clue who we really are or what life is really all about.

But after listening to it for a while, we forgot what we once knew intuitively. Instead, we’ve been stuck with the ego’s crazy ideas. It tells us that since we are these fragile, separate bodies, everything “out there” is a terrible threat – a different thing with different wants and different needs.

It says to us, “Life is out to get you! You need my help to survive.”

Sounds insane, doesn’t it? Yes, the ego is very paranoid and very selfish. Now you know the source of all the insanity in the world. This idea of “self,” or ego, has led us to experience ourselves as individuals, but it is nothing more than an illusion of a lower state of consciousness.

But when brought to the light of awareness, this “self” – can no longer take over our lives. We begin to understand that it is like a naive child that needs to be placed under the supervision of a higher level of consciousness: Unity Consciousness.

What is Unity Consciousness? Tune in next week!

1- H4H News: What is Consciousness?

Synopsis: Hope for Humanity News is a series of three to five-minute weekly podcasts designed to educate, inspire, and comfort listeners during these challenging, but hopeful times. 

Hi everyone! Welcome to Hope for Humanity News! I’m Reverend Joan Kistler.

“What is consciousness?” Well, for us to ask this question is kind of like fish asking, “What is water?” Yeah, right! It’s swimming in it! Without water, fish couldn’t experience anything because there would be nothing holding its world together.

We are swimming in consciousness. Without consciousness, we couldn’t experience anything. Consciousness holds our world together and gives us the ability to say, “I AM.”

Consciousness can be compared to a canvas. Without the canvas, there would be no space for the artist’s artwork to appear. And even though shapes appear as separate forms on the canvas, they are not separate from the canvas or any different in nature from the canvas: they are just painted.

When I came into this world, this basic human shape was given a name. From there, colors were added:
I am female; I am Caucasian; and so forth. With each color, I began to experience myself as a unique creation. It’s fun, but it’s also limiting because I have to fit this “self” within the definitions of the lines and colors.

But when I simply say “I AM,” I free myself from all the lines and colors and return my identity to the canvas itself: Consciousness, the formless, timeless, limitless essence of Being.

We suffer because we became obsessed with this “self” – or ego. Our attention was drawn further and further away from the formless, colorless tapestry until we lost our awareness of the “I AM” and became trapped in ego consciousness.

What is ego consciousness? Tune in next week!

0 - H4H News:Introduction

Synopsis: Hope for Humanity News is a series of three to five-minute weekly podcasts designed to educate, inspire, and comfort listeners during these challenging, but hopeful times. 

Hi everyone! Welcome to Hope for Humanity News! I’m Reverend Joan Kistler. 

You might be thinking, “Hope for Humanity? It’s mighty hard to feel hopeful these days, Reverend Joan, especially when we listen to the daily news.”

Yeah, I know. The news is full of melodramatic chatter these days. But despite all that negative talk, deep down inside, you probably sense that something important is happening – especially within YOU!

You’re right! Something important IS happening within you – and within all of humanity.

Humanity is evolving into a higher level of consciousness.

Now, you might be thinking, “Great! But … what does that mean?”

Well, for thousands of years, we’ve been stuck in a lower level of consciousness. We’ve been living our lives with a primitive view of ourselves: that we are only these individual bodies that decay and die. That’s a very frightening thought, so naturally we’ve been making decisions out of fear most of the time. And that’s made life hard for everyone.

We think we are a human being experiencing life for a little while, and when our time is up, we die. Fortunately, this primitive view of ourselves isn’t true. The Truth is the opposite: we are Life experiencing being human for a little while, and when our time is up, we go on living.

The human body is just one of many forms that Life uses to experience itself in this world. We are each a thread woven into the Tapestry of Life Itself – forever joined with the Source of Life and with everything that is alive.

Knowing this is true freedom.

So, for a long time, we’ve been stuck with a very limiting and downright depressing idea of ourselves. But more of us are beginning to “wake up” and sense that we must be far more than we think we are.

That’s what spiritual masters like Jesus and the Buddha did. They woke up! They realized that they are part of Life itself, and their awakening had a huge impact on the world. Imagine how much the world is going to change when we ALL wake up and begin making choices that honor and protect all of Life?

Yes, at times, it seems all hope is lost. J.R.R. Tolkien symbolized humanity in these times with the character Frodo in his novel, The Lord of the Rings. As Frodo was making that grueling climb up Mount Doom, he felt very little hope, as the world seemed to be going to hell in a handbasket all around him. But he kept climbing, and in the end, he cast the ring into the fire, and all of Middle Earth was saved.

When we can view what’s happening in today’s world from a higher perspective, it’s easier to hold onto hope, to be conscious participants in the awakening, and to inspire those around us to wake up.

So, I want to start a conversation about hope for humanity. If you’d like to join the conversation, tune in every Sunday at 1 PM. Like and follow this page to see daily follow up postings after each broadcast. We welcome your questions and comments whether you are religious, spiritual, both, or neither.

Tune into our next broadcast as we journey into the question, “What is consciousness?”