At birth there is just awareness. The awareness in the first few years creates a relationship with the body mind entity and gradually falls into the belief that it's true nature is the physical being with all its attributes. During this time this new and first belief system starts to grow and build itself into a complex entity that can be called the ego structure. As the ego grows, the original awareness shrinks until it is hardly perceptible by which time the ego has overtaken and grounded itself into a state of conviction that it is the true nature. This entity is obviously temporal and also brings about an innate fear derived by the temporary nature of the so called individual which is basically a misidentification. This misidentification can carry on for lifetimes, recreating a self until the fear system itself feels the need to escape from its own self created prison. Once this process starts it will gradually take the individual away from its own delusion and bring back the true nature by disconnecting from the separate self and reintegrating with oneness of consciousness.The false self is then brought back but is seen as temporary and false and is used for expression by consciousness in a natural way. No fear or reason just universal consciousness falling asleep into a multitude of forms and then waking up out of its self imposed sleep back into oneness.
Consciousness sleeps in the stone, dreams in the plant, stirs in the animal, awakens to itself in the human. Rumi.
Unfortunately there seems to be a dichotomy in my statements above that I am convinced is the human condition. The statement above written by the great poet Rumi sounds beautiful, wonderful and creative until the process arrives at the human being with its ability to be self aware but with the inability to perceive its true nature due to what might be called 'The River of Forgetfulness.'
Just at the point when the emerging expansion of conscious,i.e. the human being, has the potential to flower back into universal consciousness, it is also restricted by its own mental capacity of belief and amnesia.
Is this intentional? Which suggests there is something with intention. Is it a mistake? Which suggests that the entity doing it can make mistakes or has negative intentions. Is the evil in this world Gods' fault which suggests God could be at fault or have we created a god that we believe in that doesn't exist. Whatever has created this dilemma at the final hour is the only problem there is and will ever be. All other so called problems, evils and mental maladies inside and outside caused by fear stem from this original cause. The Original Sin, not in the religious sense but in the sense that 'Sin' stems from the root, 'without knowledge' which was replaced with belief and therefore confusion and fear.
The ego has grown into a false identity and imprisons the so called human being until this stumbling block is removed after what seems to be a countless waste of time which exists in the mind of the apparent individual. The Gateless Gate. That illusory obstacle that appears to exist but in truth only exists in the misidentification of ones true nature due to belief.
I feel it necessary to repeat a statement!
You do not have consciousness. You are consciousness. This false intermediary that thinks it has consciousness is the prison and the prisoner. Colin Smith 2019