Peace Perception: The Movement in Sight

By Nicholas Kowerko

Peace Perception is a gentle book of encouragement. It is an analysis of consciousness, of shifting spiritual perception, and seeing in life a lifting radiance. It is an analysis of karmic literature, verses of the Bible, mantric chanting. It is an account of going through different self-help programs and spiritual books. It is a stream of affirmations, an opening to grasping multiple points of view at once, an increasing awareness of the magnetism that operates our universe.

Spirituality is not about persuasion and it is not about sales. Spiritual practice has to do with your life now – the thing you are looking at right this moment. Peace Perception is a book of invitational sentience, of feeling alive, and knowing that everything is all right because I'm doing all right.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9798350952803

Nicholas Kowerko

Nicholas Kowerko is a theatre director, a university professor (teaching acting, directing, and theatre history), and an acting coach. He has taught at several universities and worked at regional theater companies across the country and on Broadway. He holds a M.F.A. in Theatre Directing from the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University, and a B.A. in Arts Administration from the State University of New York at Fredonia. Peace Perception is his first book, although he has been a spiritual student of many different programs, for over ten years. Nicholas is often on the move, traveling from city to city, enjoying friends, family, cats, dogs, good food, and the many sights that life has to offer.

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Cover of Peace Perception by Nicholas Kowerko

©2024 Nicholas Kowerko. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Printed by BookBaby

ISBN: 979-8-35094-477-8

ISBN: 979-8-35095-280-3 ebook

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Magnetism of Peace

PART ONE: THE MAGNETISM OF PEACE

Seeing the Energy Fields ~ Oceanic Architecture

The Movement in Sight

Thought

I Am That

Karma: The Symphony

The Movement Insight ~ Good Karma

Emotions: A Colorful Aquarium

The Movement Insight ~ Feeling Feeling

PART TWO: A LIFTING RADIANCE

Hearing Guidance

Response Ability

The Movement in Sight: The Dark Night of the Soul

Tidal Wave ~ The Spiritual Ego

Looking and Seeing

Spiritual Practice ~ Sweet Artistic Arrangement

Conclusion

Afterword: Delightfully Clueless

APPENDIX: ON THE THEATRE

Towards a Theatrical Consciousness

Vision of the Artist, Vision of the Audience

Actor Training

Reference Notes

Bibliography

"In order for me to do the work I have to do,

I have to enter a place I’ve never been."

- Unknown

Introduction:

The Magnetism of Peace

Have you ever been looking out the window, seeing the grass, the trees, and the road, and then, your vision shifts to notice the glass of the window itself? Perhaps there’s a smudge that needs to be cleaned or morning dew on the glass. Both of these – the window and what is outside – are in front of you the whole time, yet you focus your sight on one or the other.

Hold your finger up in front of you. Watch what happens to your vision as you look at your finger and then look at the room past it. Go back and forth.

Can you reflect upon your life and recall when you had some kind of noteworthy shift in perspective? You changed your mind about something. Have you come into awareness of how you just don’t think about a certain someone anymore? Do you still think about people from high school? Have you come into awareness of how certain things don’t even cross your mind that used to?

If someone hurt your heart long ago, have you come into the awareness that you don’t think about the whole ordeal anymore? We’re not using the language, "I need to heal." Rather, we are becoming invitational to new awareness and insight.

Some people say, I’m so mad I can’t think straight, or I get nervous and I don’t know what to say. People do seem to be aware of how strong emotional currents effect the mind. Mind is always affected by the inner state.

This book holds a few basic premises:

This book is a presentation of a shift in consciousness, made visible and clear to sight. This book is a perception. It is the universe witnessed from a certain point of view – that point of view is not universal. Feel free to disagree with anything. We have different consciousness. No one needs to convince anyone of anything. Have you ever been with a friend and you’re looking at a panoramic landscape view or a city skyline? Your friend says, Oh, look at that window! They point at something very far away. And because of the huge canvas in front of you, it is impossible to perceive where they are pointing. You are looking at the view, trying to locate the window they’re talking about. This is so like life as we try to pair consciousness on consciousness.

There is a magnetism that works everything that happens in the universe. It is visible in life experience in countless ways. There is a magnetism between what appears to be a singular objective reality versus what is felt and comprehended as subjective. There is a magnetism in the structure of right brain and left brain perceiving. Most people move in the world trusting what the eye shows. The opposite end of that magnet is sensing energy, vibration, and aura. To conceptualize the world spiritually does not mean one is at odds with science. The two are extraordinarily compatible.

Bookshelves, digital or not, are overflowing with spiritual literature, including programs, courses, lessons, daily exercises, practices, and all the rest. Someone says, My friend just read this book and she said it changed her life. Should I read it? Another person could say, I tried that program. My friend raves about it. But it just didn’t resonate with me.

The spiritual student has to ask these questions in life. Why should I pay attention to this book and not that book? Aren’t they both spiritual? Can’t I pick and choose what makes sense to me? In many ways, we can see the carnival of what spirituality has brought to bear – some people chant abundance and manifestation as if they’re at a football game. Social media is certainly overblown with quotes that perceive the way things are in life. Surely, all these books and opinions cannot be true.

The devotee begins by observing, that person is in a field of consciousness, and that field of consciousness is different than mine. A yielding to this context is to begin to see. Spirituality is not an abstract, disorganized array of fleeting ideas.

The entire premise of the book is as follows: the authentic spiritual student wants to have their perception broken. The trap of any consciousness is to feel as though they have things figured out. I read that book already. It is a trap to say, Yeah, I know that already. The person who claims to know is speaking of only their sphere. It is uncomfortable to release the magnet of knowing. But you can do it. Rumi said, Sell your cleverness and purchase bewilderment.

The entire universe is a constant invitation to see more. There is no possible way that we can really know what is fully happening in life and the world. You may believe there is a big picture with a purpose – or maybe you don’t. There is an unimaginable amount of activity in the world that is just out of sight. We pick up very small pieces of information, we intuit a field, and then we call it the way things are in the world.

Okay, sometimes we make the wrong discoveries. So what? This is all a voyage flying through water ~ and swimming through air. We will read certain books and pick up wrong information. Everything is still proceeding harmoniously in the world. The universe has accounted for mistaken information.

Every sentence includes an infinity of words; one perceives only a few of them, the others being in the infinite or being imaginary. – Raymond Queneau¹

Have you ever heard someone say, When I first met him, I wasn’t attracted to him. But then I got to know him. Now I think he’s the most handsome man ever. Or perhaps someone says, I don’t know what I ever saw in him. Perception changes all the time in life. I do not know the purpose of the universe. I do not know the meaning behind what is happening to me in my life right now. I am holding resentments in my life. I know exactly where forgiveness is lacking in my life.

I want to be free and have a new outlook on life. I do not know and that is peace itself. What is the secret of life? To see what you don’t see.

PART ONE:

THE MAGNETISM OF PEACE

"The only true voyage of discovery …

would not be to visit strange lands,

but to possess other eyes,

to behold the universe through the eyes of another,

of a hundred others,

to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds,

that each of them is."

Marcel Proust

"Everything around us, the air we breathe …

are composed of spinning and vibrating atomic particles,

you and I are literally swimming in a turbulent sea

of electromagnetic fields. …

Our sensory receptors are designed to detect information

at the energy level."

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, My Stroke of Insight

Seeing the Energy Fields ~ Oceanic Architecture

Imagine a fishbowl and you are a goldfish. Suddenly, you become aware of the water that you are swimming in. That is you becoming aware of consciousness.

Consciousness is what you can see with your eyes – it is all matter. It is the table, the tree, the carpet. It is other people. It is anything that you can touch. But it is also the space in the room. It is the air, it is thought, it is emotion. It is anything that you cannot touch. It is both form and non-form. It is the world of logic, reason, and measurement. It is also ideas, imagination, and spirituality. It is perception.

Fengshui is the art of maximizing an effortless flow of energy (Chi energy) in different environments (home, office, and garden) especially through the placement of furniture and other items. This Chi energy is consciousness. The different physical postures of yoga, as well as breathing exercises, seek to maximize the effortless movement of Prana energy through the physical body. Prana energy is consciousness.

Whatever you see, whatever you think, whatever you feel, whatever you daydream about, wherever you go, however you do what you do, why you do it – is all consciousness. Consciousness is another way of saying soul. The Bible says soul. The psychoanalyst says unconscious. The psychologist says subjective, or subconscious. And the metaphysician says consciousness. All have the same meaning. – Dr. Ernest Holmes.¹

We should begin to separate what is happening in the universe from our emotional interpretation of it. Consciousness is everything that is right about the universe. And that is: everything. Everything that happens in the universe is not right or wrong, correct or incorrect, happy or sad, hopeful or despairing. The universe, an infinite number of fields of consciousness, is simply moving, just as winds blow and seasons come and go. Neville Goddard says, The world moves with motive-less necessity. ²

The universe is not choosing, deciding, thinking, hoping, rejecting, or any of the like – it is just responding. It has no agenda of its own. It simply responds and rearranges according to energetic composition, or vibration. Each person, place, and thing has an energetic charge, a spiritual weight. The universe, with fluid peace and harmony, moves all.

The Universe is:

impersonal in its doing

ready to receive all ideas

equally responsive

neutral and without a need

accepting and acting.

It simply takes and works into form

It doesn’t know good or bad

It is unopinionated blind force

Consider gravity. Consider a stream. Water is flowing downhill. It is not choosing to do this – water is just flowing downhill. The force of gravity naturally pulls the water down to the lower elevation. Visualize a whirlpool. See how this geometric shape of water is not a painter at a canvas deciding upon anything; the water is forming into a shape and flow that is compatible and appropriate to mass and composition.

Perfection, balance, and equality are the traits of our universe. We see this in geometry. It is in the symmetrical artistry of the snowflake and the perfect sphere shape of each planet. How could such perfect round-ness come together in space? It is in the geometry of the spider-web, the perfect tilt of the earth on its axis, the symmetry of autumn leaves, petals on spring flowers, a zesty clementine in summer. The examples of geometry in nature, so readily visible, surround us completely. The Stoics say, God geometrizes.³

Why do we only see this in shapes and patterns that are aesthetically convincing? The electrons are zipping on by in celestial highways with no traffic. When a crowd is walking down the sidewalks of New York City, they are displaying the laws of rhythmic motion. A school of fish shows us, in plain sight, the magnetism of the field of consciousness. Any perceived randomness in the universe is just our inability to see rhythm and shape.

Several decades ago, one could stand very close to an old television set and see all of these blocks of color that were making the whole picture – almost as if it was a mosaic. Likewise, on a computer, images are measured by pixels. If you zoom in very far on an image, one says it is pixelated. We see this same principle in the film, The Matrix.⁴ There is a scene where the protagonist sees the entire world through binary code: all furniture, walls, the floor, are an infinite cascade of zeros and ones. The Greek philosopher Pythagoras said that the universe is constructed according to number.⁵

An unimaginable number of particles make up the universe. The things that we perceive to be whole, solid matter, such as a table, a tree, or even another human being, are not so much a unit, but rather an assemblage. To put it another way: I am not the bread, I am the flour.

It is as if we are living in this sand castle metropolis – with trillions upon trillions of grains of sand being the composite of our buildings, our bodies, nature, animals, and also of the air and atmosphere itself. It’s not that we can look in one direction and say those are atoms but then look to the sky or an empty space and say there are no atoms there. It is both. It is not in space; it is space. The distinction of a solid item such as a stone and a perceived empty area has to do with the concentration of energy.

Alice A. Bailey, in her series of lectures, The Consciousness of the Atom, said, Science admits a difficulty of drawing a line between the inanimate and the animate. This small unit of energy, the atom, is quite lively, and it accounts for the geometry, the design, the balance, and harmony of all. Anything we can say of the individual person, we can say of the atom. As the micro, so the macro. Bailey later says, The method of evolution for every atom is due to two causes: the internal life of the atom itself and the interaction and intercourse with other atoms.

Each atom, with grace and mathematical precision, moves continuously as the building blocks of the universe. This peaceful intelligence is expressed in how trees look the same or how people consistently have two arms, ten fingers, and so on. Our heartbeat has a consistent rhythm. Our bodies work automatically to breathe and digest food – we do not have to do this work consciously.

Thomas Edison said, Look at the thousands of ways in which atoms of hydrogen combine with those of other elements forming the most diverse substances. Do you mean to say they do this without intelligence? Atoms in harmonious and useful relation assume beautiful or interesting shapes and colors to give for a pleasant perfume as if expressing their satisfaction gathered together in certain forms.

How things appear to us is actually a rather unreliable guide to how they really are. Most people live under a very logical, cause-and-effect, sensory experience. They assume, My eyes show me the truth. That scheme is a clumsy deduction. Between two thoughts, all kinds of affects play their game; but their motions are too fast, therefore, we fail to recognize them. … [Thinking] is quite arbitrary fiction, arrived at by selecting one element from the process and eliminating all the rest. – Friedrich Nietzsche⁶. Meaning and substance in the universe is non-linear and invisible.

An extremely concise history of perception:

From the point of view of a person, Earth, the ground, is down, and the sky is up. The apple falls from the tree to the ground. This is the basic law of gravity. But then where are the sun and other planets going as they’re moving in the sky?

We discover the earth is round and is somehow being held up in space by some force. Likewise, gravity seems to be pulling objects towards the center of this round earth.

The earth is not the center, but the sun is. So the earth is making these movements through space, rather than simply rotating on an axis.

We make the discovery, by movement of earth and other planets, that space is curved, and seems to be remarkably like an ocean.

And as an ocean, there are waves. There seems to be measurable areas of this ocean, almost as if this ocean had an architecture to it.

This vast field, within which are contained an infinite number of electromagnetic energy fields – fields within fields, braided, woven, and embedded into each other – are observable in daily living. We need no special instrument to view these fields. We only need right perception.

So the fish in the bowl suddenly becomes aware of the water in which they are swimming. Now, imagine that the goldfish becomes aware of what is outside of the glass. That is you becoming aware of a different field, or level, of consciousness. You could conceive that it is a reality that exists, but have yet to experience it.

The field looks different to each person, depending on their level of consciousness. Those who are at the same level of consciousness experience the same events, thoughts, and emotions. Higher and lower levels of consciousness are all fields laying on top of each other.

Life is not just three primary colors: sometimes, I’m happy; sometimes, I’m sad; and mostly, I’m fine. While we can perceive this oceanic architecture that is present in life, life is the full color wheel. It is a veritable kaleidoscope of emotional auras.

The average person can experience anger, optimism, fear, and hope all in one day. A person’s level of consciousness has to do with their prevailing intention. Where do you generally live beyond emotional fluctuations? Would you say you’re mostly hopeful, even though you do experience the occasional outburst or rainy-day blues? Or are you mostly frustrated with life, and only have small glimpses of joy that last one evening every week?

You can also view it this way: picture a giant swimming pool. Have you ever gone into the deep end and sat at the bottom? There is quite a lot of pressure – you can feel the water pressing upon your skin. As you go toward the shallower ends, the pressure decreases, and it becomes easier to move.

Lower levels of consciousness, such as depression or anger, live at the bottom of the swimming pool. When you’re in grief, it’s like walking through the thick deep end of the pool. Those who are depressed literally feel the weight of the atmosphere. Look at how press is within the word. This water pressure affects a person’s movement, their thinking, their motivation, their freedom or lack of it.

As a person raises their level of consciousness, life becomes lighter. They are moving toward the middle of the pool. There is less constriction because the water pressure is not so intense. The field is lighter. You feel it all around you. You have more freedom of movement. If you’re holding a grudge, can you feel how it literally weighs you down? Consider the expression, the weight of the world on their shoulders. Have you ever forgiven someone who hurt you, and once you really let it go, life seemed to feel lighter?

Many teachers have said, let your cork float. It is a person’s grudges, angry opinions, and resentful positionalities that keep them down at the deep end of the pool. When these things are let go, it is like a cork at the bottom of the pool that naturally floats to the top. In the Buddhist text, The Dhammapada, the ancient wisdom goes, empty your boat and it will go faster.⁷

If you are sitting in a hot tub, for a time you enjoy it; it’s soothing. But