EP2: What is consciousness? (Part 1)

Joshua Dorfman: 00:00

Yes, yes! Greetings. My name is Joshua Dorfman. You are listening to The Traveling Temple. What you can expect from this podcast, we will be covering spirituality, consciousness, wellness, mental and emotional health, emotional mastery, healthy interpersonal boundaries, autonomy, and sovereignty. from a metaphysical lens.

Joshua Dorfman: 00:23

Today, I want to talk about consciousness and answer the question, what is consciousness? If you're on the spiritual path, then consciousness is a word that you have heard of. So while consciousness is a multifaceted concept, I'm going to speak specifically on individual consciousness, what that is, and actually share A story of mine from an ayahuasca experience I had, where I experienced my consciousness going into my grandfather's body.

Joshua Dorfman: 00:53

We'll get into it. So, first of all, the word conscious is in the word consciousness. So right there that alludes to consciousness is consciousness. Awareness. Because when you're conscious, you are aware. Next, individual consciousness is basically your unique awareness. It's your personal experience of life, of being alive.

Joshua Dorfman: 01:19

It's your personal experience in thought and thinking, feeling. Therefore, your individual consciousness includes your mind, your emotions, and also your personality. I like to think of consciousness as a home, as a house, a physical house. When you have a house, obviously you furnish it, you decorate it, you bring art into it, you personalize it and make it your own comfortable space.

Joshua Dorfman: 01:47

So your individual consciousness is the home for your opinions, your beliefs, your life's experiences, your emotions, your thoughts, and anything that you would receive from it. informationally that would come from social media, the news, podcasts, etc. So your individual consciousness is a home for everything that you're made of, everything that life has given you experientially, etc.

Joshua Dorfman: 02:17

Now we can understand that Each individual has their own individual and unique life that they have lived up until this point in our living that is comprised of various types of experiences, relationships, emotions, and catalysts for different types of thoughts. We can also understand that your unique life experience, your unique relationship experiences, et cetera, they become a part of what makes your identity, they become a part of what creates your personality, and so In a way, your individual consciousness is you.

Joshua Dorfman: 02:55

It's also the world you live in, or in other words, it's the way you perceive the world. It's your perception of things. It's the lens upon which you are viewing and experiencing everything that life has to offer. Now, because consciousness is your identity, your personality, your life experiences, It's also your opinions, your beliefs. And so I think it's safe to say that your consciousness is also your reality. Because what is reality? How you define, interpret, and piece together everything that you have experienced. in your life. For example, maybe you've done this, maybe you haven't. I love doing this. Have you ever people watched? You just stop on the sidewalk, you sit in the park, even a coffee shop, and you just look at the people and you see people immersed in conversations, or you see people walking.

Joshua Dorfman: 03:57

You'll see people in thought, you'll see their eyes, their facial expressions, and if you're sensitive, then you'll even feel their energy, and you might even get psychic insight. But the point is that when you're watching people and you're looking at each individual person, what you're staring at is each individual's consciousness.

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Joshua Dorfman: 07:13

Or basically, since consciousness is awareness, where do you constantly direct your awareness? What type of information? What type of media? What type of articles? What type of conversations? What type of people? What type of situations? What type of environments? Big question. Loaded question. But very, very important. Because if you were to take the time to start answering those questions, and see where you are directing your consciousness, Or your awareness. majority of the time, you're going to start to gain insight to what is creating the way you feel. So if you're feeling really good and you're feeling really positive and you feel really happy majority of the time, then you're probably directing your awareness towards things that make you feel good.

Joshua Dorfman: 08:01

Now, if you're feeling down, depressed, anxious, stressed, angry, sad, then you're probably directing your awareness toward things that make you feel these ways. And we're not only talking about information on an external level, media, etc. We're also talking about memories. Your memories. are also information. And your memories can be revisited any time that you wish. And when one is revisiting sad or troubling memories, then guess what they're creating? Discord. And so now we're moving into this idea, right, that so you're saying, Joshua, that I can create happiness, I can create joy, I can create positive feeling.

Joshua Dorfman: 08:52

And the answer is yes. And you can create that by directing your awareness toward things that make you feel good and that make you think good. This is an excellent wellness hack. You can also remove from your consciousness things that do not make you feel good, things that just don't serve you in a positive way by directing your inner awareness toward other things. Just think of the analogy of the house. Remember, your consciousness is your home and your home is supposed to be where you can rest and relax and feel safe and chill, honestly, and be easy, right? Your home is supposed to be where you can enjoy yourself. And so your consciousness is also something that you're supposed to be able to enjoy yourself in, just like you would clear clutter.

Joshua Dorfman: 09:43

In the closet of your house, for example, you can remove clutter in your consciousness. Just like you clean your house on a regular basis, you can also clean your consciousness on a regular basis. And that's meditation, that's yoga, that's a jog, that's journaling, etc. Right? All those self care practices. In a home, you might want to repaint, redecorate, change the colors, change the environment. You can always do the same with your consciousness because we're always growing. And so, anything new you learn is like redecorating your consciousness. Any new relationship, any new experience is like decorating or refurbishing your consciousness. Now I'm gonna get into story time. On one of my ayahuasca journeys, "grandmother," who is ayahuasca, right, ayahuasca is referred to as grandmother or la madre.

Joshua Dorfman: 10:38

"Grandmother" brought my awareness to my grandfather. Now at this time I had been worrying about my grandfather's, he's in his mid 70s, he's diabetic, high blood pressure, but he's somebody that's very stressed all the time. So grandmother, Brought my awareness to my grandfather and the worry that I had and then she took my consciousness and placed it into his Physical body so I could feel it felt like I was in his body and when I went to his body What I was feeling and seeing was I was sitting in the chair that he is always sitting, so he was sitting in the chair, but I was in his body experiencing it, and he was watching the news.

Joshua Dorfman: 11:19

Now, my grandfather watches the news pretty much from the moment he wakes up, uh, until the moment he's going to sleep. All the channel news, and all the Spanish channel news. I got to feel his body being affected by what he was seeing. We know, channel 7, 11, 5, all the news channels, Leon. It's all basically very, very negative, very fear based and very scary. And it makes the world. seem extremely dangerous and extremely scary. Now, this is not to say there aren't scary and dangerous things happening in the world. What I'm saying is if you were to watch that and that only, you would probably never leave your house. And there's probably a lot of people who don't.

Joshua Dorfman: 12:02

So I'm in my grandfather's body. He's watching the news. I could feel him becoming scared. I could feel him becoming angry and enraged. I can feel him becoming sad. And then I feel him becoming stressed. And I felt his life force energy dwindle. The life force, like the essence of life of living, like the conviction to live. Like I felt that dwindling. And I felt physically in his body like this hardening around his stomach and his chest. Now Grandmother was showing me this. Because she was showing me what is actually making him unhealthy. Even though he's diabetic and high blood pressure, yes, he's on his medications and he works with different herbs and he does his best to, you know, do what he can with what he knows.

Joshua Dorfman: 12:48

But he's somebody that is like constantly going to the emergency room, constantly fainting, constantly having things happen. And so what she was showing me, what I got to experience was that the information he was taking in by way of the news all day every day was making his health decline. It was affecting him energetically. Right? In his emotions and in his mind. And then that energy of that anxiety, that anger, that stress, that fear was making him unhealthy. To the point where his digestive system was failing and he had a stroke. And this was after the ceremony, but he ended up having a stroke earlier this year. Now, I bring this up and share this because if you have heard of ayahuasca, then you know, and if you haven't heard of ayahuasca, it's a plant medicine that's very sacred and old.

Joshua Dorfman: 13:37

Ayahuasca, "grandmother," is a master teacher and you can learn a lot, experience a lot from a spiritual lens about life. Okay. And so through that experience, I got to experience the power of information, the power of influence and the power of negative information and negative influence that that has over our health and well being. So I say all of this to say that when you think about your own individual consciousness, think about it as your home. And you want to make sure that your home, your consciousness, is furnished with the things that make you feel good, like a comfortable bed, things that make you feel inspired, like good music, Etc.

Joshua Dorfman: 14:25

Because your consciousness is going to dictate how you experience your life. And in doing so, it's also going to dictate how you feel about yourself and how you feel in general, physically, each day. So please pay attention to what you're taking in and how it's making you feel. Be very mindful and very discerning about where you're directing your awareness. Making sure that you're directing your awareness, directing your consciousness toward good thoughts, doing good deeds, and toward things that make you feel good, because your consciousness is your home. It is your reality. So take a deep breath, slow exhale. Thank you for listening. Peace and love.

Joshua Dorfman: 15:22

I am here for you. And it is my honor to do so. So I do invite you to ask me questions or list any topics that you would like me to speak on. And I will do my best to incorporate answers in future episodes. If you'd like to learn more about me, you can visit my website at joshuadorfman dot com and follow me on Instagram at Joshua dot Dorfman. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for being. Peace and love.