(((☼~LIVING HERO~☼)))

The Subliminal and the Sublime

In our language, we have two similarly named thresholds of awareness. One is the subliminal, “that which lies below,” that which we generally refer to as the subconscious. The other is the sublime, which we speak of mostly at times when we have briefly transcended that upper limit, when we are momentarily sent “over the top” with feeling, with awe, surprise or beauty, surpassing our usual realm of sensation and awareness. People have been known to faint from being unable to sustain the sublime.

We would not know these boundaries if we didn’t, in unusual states and circumstances, access what is beyond them. Symbols, metaphors and buried memories do break into consciousness from the unconscious. And we do have wondrous and sublime experiences in nature, through love, in beholding our own newborn child, in moments of discovery, and through the experience of insight.

These thresholds of awareness frame not where you have been and what you have done, but the range of perception and feeling you were fit to bear, whereever you went and whatever you did.

Our ability to access both the subliminal and the sublime is integral to our capacity to accept and bear their truth and their gifts. These thresholds in the self are not fixed. They can go from brick walls to accessible doorways to a mere change in the landscape within yourself. As you develop yourself as a human being and become someone more psychologically mature, of greater spiritual fortitude, your range of awareness and capacity to feel into both the subliminal and the sublime will grow. You will be able to experience more feeling without fear, awkwardness, overwhelm or discomfort. You will also be much more in touch with the tremendous creative and integrative forces that are within you.

How do you open the range of your awareness and enlarge your capacity to feel and know more of your own life’s forces and riches? The best ways I know involve yoga, creativity and meditation.

©Jari Chevalier, 2008

Posted under: psychology, consciousness, creative arts, integrate, insight, meditation, maturity, human potential, human development, philosophy, creativity, creative, love, body, mind-body, fear, feeling

This entry was posted on Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 11:39 pm and is filed under psychology, consciousness, creative arts, integrate, insight, meditation, maturity, human potential, human development, philosophy, creativity, creative, love, body, mind-body, fear, feeling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response , or trackback from your own site.