Applied Consciousness Sciences

Applied Consciousness Sciences, which isn't considered a science as per the definition of the scientific community, offers an open environment and systematic view that unifies a multiplicity of different holistic approaches that follow their own methods, techniques and theories. It attempts to bring together and systematize these holistic approaches by offering a common basis from where they can be described as a single transparent field. Furthermore, it offers to follow a holistic research method to investigate different aspects of experience, from a greater connection. This article describes a common vision, scope, orientation, point of departure and general approach by which one can recognize an ACS approach.

As a field ACS has a systematic learning from the subjective approach that guides each learner towards contemplative stabilisation combined with liberating discernment or awareness. It therefore connects with practices like Mindfulness and Vipasana. Its practice also relates to diagnostic and touch practices in Traditional Tibetan Medicine and Ayurvedic Medicine; and its theory relates to amongst others the aforementioned practices, modern Systems Thinking and Systemics. In the past decade it has grown into a contemporary 'open' field with a unifying theory that explains the various aspects of consciousness, various diagnostic and feedback practices and a view on how individuals, organizations and society can be guided towards wholeness. Its theory facilitates visualization, interpretation and simulation of the dynamics behind creative, pathological, psychological and physiological processes. Its objective is to create clarity, understanding and to facilitate transformation.

ACS is a Creative Commons Share Alike 3.0 development. The use of any aspect of ACS is free. It can be modified to suit different needs and environments and it can be incorporated in any field, discipline or program. It isn't attributed to one person or organization and can therefore not be monopolized. It can be used by academic, research or other organizations to make these developments available to learners and citizens, young and old, irrespective of religious or social background. This takes away any financial burden that might limit people in their capacity to engage in activities that support personal and social transformation.

History

The international development of ACS was started in 2001 in The Netherlands and it continues to evolve internationally. Organizations in The Netherlands, USA and India continue to support the research and development of this relatively new field. Amongst the institutes that support ACS are the Men-Tsee-Khang Institute, which is the Tibetan Medical & Astrological Institute of H.H. the Dalai Lama, Aradne (USA), Stichting Business Universiteit (Netherlands), Stichting-Reis (Netherlands) and my eyes Group (Netherlands).

Objective

The main objective of ACS is to guide individuals and organizations towards using their own awareness as a basis for personal and social transformation. Individuals can learn how to continually look at the complexity of life from where it originates, in the present moment. Seemingly complex problems lose their complexity when seen from this point of departure. Central in ACS theory and practice are the individual learner's point of departure or point of view; subjective experience and unfolding transformational process. A Science of the Subjective .

Point of Departure

Our capacity to perceive reality as-it-is, largely depends on whether we are capable of perceiving past our own limiting convictions and engrained patterns. That, which makes us assimilate these convictions and patterns as our own, is identification. This is how our perception of reality is filtered or distorted and makes us feel separate. Consequently we have a false sense of separation that we refer to as 'I'. This is where we mostly tend to look from! Identification or the lack thereof can respectively limit or free us. Different aspects of consciousness that ACS refers to are:

• Roles - the roles and connected experiences, amongst which knowledge and skills with which we normally identify.
• Knowing- the (universal) knowing that intently perceives different roles and experiences, local (knowledge) and remote; past, present or future.
• Witness – from a bird’s-eye-view the witness mindfully receives all perceptions and is then presented with possibilities to choose from and explore through "knowing".

Identification, as opposed to mindfulness, keeps us from experiencing all of these aspects as holistically interconnected or as a whole. Identification attaches and assimilates. This keeps us from finding balance and is the basis from where we focus on differences and miscommunicate. The countless roles that we act out, the knowing and the witness are different aspects of who we are. Because of identification we assimilate and become a particular role. It then appears as though we are constantly shifting between different roles and in and out of knowing. In reality everything happens at the same time. We are the witness who mindfully oversees the totality of what we experience; we are the knowing that has access to different experiences; and we are the countless roles, connected with particular knowledge and skills that we use in different situations.

Aspects of Awareness

Different approaches can be used to create more awareness or liberating discernment about those mechanisms that keep people from feeling/being whole or mindful. They aim at guiding individuals, groups and organizations towards using feedback to dynamically recognize patterns and raise their own awareness. This can allow individuals to let go of limiting convictions and engrained patterns that filter their perception and create adverse effects in mind and body. The following aspects of awareness are enhanced when individuals, groups or organizations start using feedback to dynamically recognize patterns. These aspects of awareness enable them to continually grow, anticipate change, find balance and creatively develop the conditions by which they can cater to their own needs in the present. The aspects of awareness described below are slightly different from how these are described by the Consciousness Quotient Institute (CQI) . In addition to the six (6) aspects of awareness that are described by the Consciousness Quotient (CQ), ACS also describes Feedback-Relational Awareness. We consider this aspect very important in all processes of self-organization. Moreover, ACS goes beyond the challenges of describing consciousness by empowering learners to use these different aspects of awareness to holistically investigate consciousness.

• 

  Aspects of Awareness.

• Mental-awareness - clarity about what we think.
• Emotional awareness - clarity about what we feel.
• Physical awareness - clarity about what we sense.
• Self-relational awareness - clarity about how we relate to our individual self.
• Social-relational awareness - clarity about how we relate to others.
• Feedback-relational awareness - clarity about the use of information (feedback) for self-adjustment and self-organization.
• Meta-awareness – opens up the possibility of raising the other aspects of awareness. Meta-awareness (witnessing), the bird's-eye-view, is simultaneous, continuous, un-filtering, simple, authentic, creates clarity and knowing.

• 

  IQ, EQ and CQ.

Channels of Perception

Different forms of reading or biofeedback are available to facilitators to dynamically create awareness about those mechanisms that keep people from feeling/being mindful. In ACS, reading or biofeedback is primarily used by the learner, to learn to continually witness feedback from the mind-body and recognize dynamic patterns. This continually enhances the aspects of awareness mentioned above. When witnessing becomes continuous, learning and awareness-raising continually arise from within. Consequently all patterns of dependency (and connected bio-responses) will gradually cease to exist. Most approaches that guide towards wholeness make use of one or more of the following forms of reading or biofeedback.

• Reading of external psychophysical characteristics, such as facial characteristics, build, movement and posture, makes the learner aware how the world outside sees him/her.
• Reading the nine forms of facial expression: love, laughter, anger, compassion, aversion, fear, heroic, wonder, peace; allows the learner to be aware how s/he reacts to the world outside.
• Reading information from the sound and rhythm of speech and breathing allows the learner to be aware how s/he communicates with the world outside.
• Empathic reading allows the learner to become aware how s/he communicates non-verbally through transference.
• Inquiry into the subtle psychophysical experiences (actions) in the mind-body allows the learner to become aware of emerging patterns in the present moment.
• Pulse diagnosis, which is different from pulse-diagnosis in Ayurveda, Traditional Tibetan Medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine; allows the learner to become aware amongst others about: 1) how s/he has accumulated traumas and connected bio-responses from the prenatal period till the present and how these may be recognized; 2) how patterns of bio-behavioral responses (fear, sadness and rejection) dynamically act on mentioned traumas and how these can be dynamically recognized; 3) how one can recognize to what extent the transformational process is active; 4) how one can recognize one's constitution; 5) how one can recognize one's personality type.
• Touch biofeedback of 108 vital points allows the learner to become aware exactly where in the body subtle biobehavioral responses manifest and how these can be recognized. These can manifest amongst others as 1) tension (kinetic-electric), 2) burning (electromagnetic), 3) heaviness (gravitation), or a combination of the same (pain, etc.). The learner can also learn to apply touch biofeedback practice on him/herself.

Using the feedback from the above channels of perception learners are allowed to perceive from a broader spectrum of sensitivity. This enables them to breach their own barriers and raise their own awareness.

Communicate & Grow

The learner witnesses feedback from the mind-body through different channels of perception and aspects of awareness and learns to dynamically recognize patterns therein. The inner need that arises in the learner then stimulates him/her to readjust the way s/he relates to and communicates with the immediate world outside. The learner can gradually gain clarity about how knowing offers him/her access to different experiences, the countless roles that s/he acts out in different situations, including communication and dialogue, but now from a greater connection. S/he also witnesses the dynamic mechanisms by which witnessing, knowing and experiencing are holistically interconnected. The coherence between the Heart and Brain is one of the indications of this interconnectedness. When synchronized or interconnected the Heart enhances the Brain's capacity to perceive reality.

While through the Brain a learner can perceive the content of what is communicated verbally, through the Heart the learner can perceive how this is communicated nonverbally. While the Brain perceives form, the Heart perceives presence. For instance it is through the Heart that we can sense danger or that someone is staring at us. In activities like learning, communicating and dialoguing the Heart can therefore allow learners to perceive aspects which otherwise remain invisible. For example: miscommunication and arguments have their basis in the invisible aspects of communication. Learners can be aware of reality as-it-is, which goes beyond what they think about that reality. They can also see how what they perceive from different points of departure is complementary.

The above also applies to becoming aware of those mechanisms that underlie the development of disease and self-healing or homeostasis. The learner can constantly gain more clarity about unresolved trauma's and associated patterns of stress responses that act on the same. Learners will therefore be more able to constantly recognize patterns of (stress)responses and use these as feedback. They can more effectively find balance and turn adverse effects associated personal transformation, into a healing effects. In a healing crisis people may feel ill as a result of the mind-body releasing conditions from the past. There is a notable difference between a disease crisis and a healing crisis. The learner needs to be able to recognize the patterns associated with both. And only through this dynamic pattern-recognition or discernment, can a learner continually strengthen the mechanisms of healing.

There is a lot more that a learner can discover experientially when learning is based on the trinity of witnessing, knowing and experiencing. It can also offer an enduring basis from where individuals and organizations can foster the capacity to continually align processes, anticipate change, find balance and live and communicate with compassion.

Theory and Practice

While conventional Sciences focus on investigating and manipulating the content of experience, the Applied Consciousness Sciences focus on investigating and creating awareness about the point of departure or starting-point from where we perceive that content of experience . The former departs from the point of view that a third-person can alter the content of experience for us, especially when we suffer, to prolong life and make it more enjoyable. The latter departs from the point of view that when we gain clarity about those mechanisms by which we suffer, we have the choice to refrain from feeding those mechanisms and create the enduring conditions by which we can enjoy life to the fullest. In the former we are dependent on others and in the latter we learn how to grow beyond our own patterns of dependency. This dissolves our own inner limitations. ACS aims at achieving this through liberating discernment. The basis for investigating one's own subjective experience.

ACS's views, theories and practical instruments for research, which are elaborately described in the Applied Consciousness Science, A Reference Guide, start from and aim at bringing individuals, groups and organizations, to a point where they can perceive from the witness, knowing and various roles, all at the same time. Towards this end it describes a meta-awareness paradigm as the basis of its theories and practices. Apart from empowering the learner, it also empowers a multitude of different approaches, theories, models and methodologies.

Research & Development

ACS offers to follow a holistic research method wherein the learner continually observes, senses, experiments, and systematically formulates, tests, and adjusts hypotheses. The learner can achieve this when what s/he perceives is based on the trinity of witnessing, knowing/observing and experiencing. S/he starts at the subjective end of the spectrum of experience, the zeroth-person, which is opposite the third-person perspective assumed by modern scientific inquiry. This allows the learner to perceive and describe experience from a spectrum of sensitivity that may include the zeroth, first, second and/or third-person points of view.

The research of the subjective, the formulation, testing and adjustment of hypotheses, have both a personal and general objective. The personal objective is to help raise the learner’s own awareness to recognize those patterns that create adverse effects and that keep him/her from aligning self with the environment. From the inside out. The general objective is to describe and formulate general recognizable patterns and characteristics, a ‘language’, by which these patterns can be recognized. Understanding this ‘language’ can enhance the learner's level of discernment and capacity to recognize patterns, which is the basis of self-organization, self-learning and personal transformation. Discernment turns the adverse effects into healing effects. Moreover, ACS helps to accelerate learning through the use of biofeedback instruments. These can enhance the clarity and understanding of learners about the linguistic features of subjective experience.

Within an ACS context, ‘holistic research’ may be seen as a synonym of ‘learning from the subjective’. We believe that as we grow up we trade our capacity to learn from the subjective, for a learning that is externally imposed. By helping learners to restore their spectrum of sensitivity we wish to enable learners to recreate the internal conditions by which learning can be meaningful, integrated and transformational. Learner-centered pedagogy can further strengthen this and make educational transformation viable.

The following research activities have led to the development of amongst others the theories, biofeedback and other practices in ACS.

Phase I:

• Literary Research
• Fundamental Research
• Holistic Research

Phase II:

• Evidence Based Research (Seeking partnerships)

Applications

In the past decade ACS has been the basis of programs offered in different environments, namely:

• Health care - Health care professional - Also offered to individuals with physical, psychological or psychiatric disorders.
• Education - Educational professionals - Also offered to learners with and without learning disabilities.
• Business - Business professionals - Designer and communication trainings, individuals and groups.
• Governmental - Officials - Consultancy and communication training.

NOTE: The application of ACS is not limited to the above environments.

Resources

• Letter of Support - Letter of support from the Tibetan Medical & Astrological Institute of H.H. the Dalai Lama.
• HeartMath article - McCratyeal article in integral review 2009: The coherent Heart.
• ICRL papers - International Consciousness Research Laboratory (Princeton) that offers articles about consciousness research.
• Consciousness Quotient Institute - Resources on CQ and online Consciousness Quotient test.
• Thomas Jordan - Resources on 'The roles of consciousness development in social conflicts'.
• The Quickening - A movie that explores why so many people have been experiencing the sensation that "Time is Speeding Up".

External links

• Aradne - Institute in the USA that supports the research and development of the ACS; and offers various ACS based programs.
• Stichting Business Universiteit - Institute in The Netherlands that supports the research and development of ACS; and offers academic programs that include the Unifying Conceptual Designer program.
• Stichting-Reis - Institute in The Netherlands that offers various ACS based programs.
• my eyes Group - Network organization that supports the development and offers ACS and business oriented programs.
• The Baca Journey - A website that offers many resources regarding conscious living.