The New Consciousness and Your Health

                             The New Consciousness and Your Health:
                           A Series of Short Videos from Dr Robin Kelly.
                                                                                                                                                
                  The New Consciousness and Your Health - Part 4. Click here. 

                  The New Consciousness and Your Health - Part 5. Click here.

Inspired by Graham Hancock’s article in the New Statesman, famously edited by Russell Brand, I feel the need to express succinctly and simply just how new theories of consciousness affect our health.  These are ideas I carry with me in every consultation I have the privilege to conduct – and where appropriate, and hopefully without dogma, I divulge and share. This is short article to herald in a series of short videos, in which I hope to capture ways I attempt as a doctor to ‘practice what I preach.’

As the titles of my recent books –The Human Aerial, The Human Antenna, and The Human Hologram -  convey, I have written and talked extensively about the evidence that consciousness is more than a by-product of our brain function. I talk of the evidence that our brain, heart and body are all integrated to receive, filter and sort out information from ‘out there.’ That this information, or the greater consciousness, is fundamental to our being. That in our waking consciousness, we largely filter out this greater awareness, and factor in the true delights and disasters of this world.

I would like to stress I remain optimistic about our future - often find myself singing in a poor imitation of the gruff but soulful voice of Satchmo – ‘Yes I think to myself, what a wonderful world.”

But what on earth does this word consciousness mean?

Well to an anaesthetist, and to most doctors, it still means the state you are in when you can answer us back.  It means being awake, and alive. But human consciousness I argue is more than this. It encompasses our awareness, just where it is we fit into this world, what we did yesterday, what we will do tomorrow. We reflect on things, we worry, and at times we get anxious and depressed. An ant is conscious too – but the ant’s world is arguably more local and simple. Our garden is its world, our neighbour’s garden an unexplained and unexplored universe. I doubt if it suffers from anxiety or depression, or reflects on how it could be a better ant. But, it does need to sleep. Even a mosquito who is around only for about 5 days takes time to escape the rigours of this space-time to sleep; maybe even ‘perchance to dream.’

As we grow and evolve so does our understanding of our place in the greater scheme. It would appear that humans are now understanding, possibly remembering, that there are dimensions of being beyond those easily detected by our senses, and beyond the purely physical. We are understanding that so called ‘altered states’ of consciousness, our dream world, our déjà vu feelings, our premonitions and our out-of-body experiences are not merely an escape from reality- delusional or hallucinatory - but connections to other realms as real and meaningful as our existence here on mother Earth. An expanded state of consciousness that transcends the here and now, and what we have been conditioned to think of as the limits of our life – our supposed linear path from cradle to grave.

The question is now not simply “is there life after death?”  but “what exactly is life?” and “what is death?” And are the words ‘here,’  ‘now’, ‘before’ and ‘after’ appropriate and adequate to explain the rules of existence within other dimensions, other universes? An expanded consciousness recognises that we are all fundamentally linked, and connected to others, and all of nature, and that separation and abandonment are foreign  to us and can be injurious to our deeper nature. Separation and our exclusiveness is both unnatural and a delusion. And yet each of us is unique.

OK - so what does this mean for us apparently locked into this here-and-now?
 
Well, for those who count success in life in purely physical materialistic terms – dogmatically claiming that ‘this’ is all there is – it could prove to be disappointing. After all, in other dimensions of reality they may not rule the roost.

In contrast, for those having a hard time here it is, of course, much more promising and inviting to know that purity and kindness, rather than profit and power, could eventually be truly valued after all. And what is more flourish in an exotic, eternal reality that makes our lives here look distinctly drab and passé. Such optimism can in turn provoke patronising jibes from hardened materialists and rationalists - all this talk of living beyond death is simply the expressed opinion of the naïve and the under-educated. That weird lot that have acupuncture, hug trees, meditate and listen to Sting and Russell Brand.

But let’s just imagine for a moment that this talk of a new consciousness is not just the wishful woolly thoughts of those sucked in by woo-science. Let’s entertain the idea that it is indeed our new reality. How does this then affect the way we interact with each other?  

What does it mean to me as a doctor? And how does it begin to influence the focus of each and every consultation? What should we talk about?

1. Death. Possibly an odd place to start, but the whole concept of survival times, living long and uncomfortably, ‘you only live once’, and our preoccupation and fear of dying should be reassessed. I suspect we will live longer and better as a result.

2. Feelings. These should be understood and valued, and their role alongside rational thought appreciated more. Symptoms will be listened to again by both patient and doctors, and less ‘silencing’ pills prescribed.

3.  Love. The true connecting force between us all. We must talk about this.

4. Space. Importance of environment and spending time in healing spaces.

5. Recognising ill health is often caused by a separation from our natural state of connectivity.

6. Recognising our ongoing connection to our ancestors, and how this awareness can help heal.

7. ‘Being’ with a person – sometimes this is all that is needed.

8. Learning to value our heads and hearts equally – our thoughts and feelings in harmony.

9. Creativity. Our natural state.

and more……

So, over the next few weeks I will embrace these topics in short video presentations – spontaneous, brief and from the heart.

I hope you can join me, and help guide me with your wise feedback!