Living Arts
The Technology of Consciousness
A conversation with Vaishali, author of You Are What You Love.
by Sydney L. Murray
The first time I met Vaishali I knew she was a force to be reckoned with. Her energy and vitality were palpable and I knew that she was someone from whom I could learn. With insightful and humorous perspectives on being human, Vaishali illuminates spiritual laws in a context that makes sense. Recently we had the chance to speak.
Vision Magazine: What are your thoughts on technology?
Vaishali: I think of technology as the outer world and most everything I do is inner world. There is technology we haven’t begun to tap into, which is our consciousness and how to own and operate it. I think of an author from our publishing company, Purple Haze Press. His name is Mellen-Thomas and his story appears at the end of Chapter 8 in my book, You Are What You Love. His story begins: “I died in 1982 of inoperable brain cancer…” This gets your attention. He was dead for over an hour and a half. He talks about this experience in his new book Journey Through the Light and Back. One of the questions asked of him was: “Why do we have to age, get illnesses and die?” His answer was, “You don’t.” People don’t own and operate the human experience in the optimal way and that is why we get the side effects of illness and aging.
I refer to the body as a rental car and most rental cars are designed to get more mileage than we get because of the way we drive them. Mellen-Thomas has been working on a cellular rejuvenation machine with the technology that he brought back [from his near death experience] which involves light. It’s amazing. My partner Elliot and I had the chance to try his cellular rejuvenation machine. Once you get on it you can feel your scars and battle-wounds getting activated; you feel energy moving where it hasn’t before. Technology is nothing without consciousness. It is how we bring the technology of consciousness to outer world devices which really give it its value and power.
I imagine prime source is the original technology because it created the heavens, the earth and everything else. If we’re going to talk about technology it is one-upped by consciousness. I also don’t think that we can have an honest conversation about consciousness and technology if we don’t include our divinity. They are not separate.
VM: What was the one thing that changed your life?
Vaishali: The introduction to the 18th Century Swedish scientist, mystic and inventor Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). He’s in the Guinness World Records for having one of the largest IQs ever and was voted by Stanford University as one of the most brilliant people in the world. He understood technology and he used technology to understand divinity. He was able to control his breathing to enter a trance-like state and supreme concentrated focus. After fifty-six years of doing this habitual meditation he broke through to the spiritual realm and was able to talk to higher and lower beings. He spent the rest of life writing about that realm and how it’s organized.
VM: Can you summarize Swedenborgian teachings?
Vaishali: It’s the title of my book, You Are What You Love. You love whatever you are giving your attention to and the one power greater than technology is love. What do you love? What do you give your attention to in the course of your day? That’s what you love. Isn’t that the ultimate technology?
I have been diagnosed with a terminal disease twice. I told my body, “I trust you have the energy and the wisdom to heal. I trust that you know what a place of healing, wholeness and balance looks and feels like and you are capable of achieving it. I will give you everything you need such as good food, clean water, fresh air and exercise.” This is why knowing how to own and operate the human experience and applying the right form of consciousness is critical if you want to have an enlightened, liberated life.
VM: What is the one thing we can all do on a daily basis to transform our lives?
Vaishali: Understanding the technological power of free will. You choose what you give your attention to. The media, for example, have a vast array of extremely powerful technological advances to distract you, but you decide what you give your attention to.
When I hear about a missing child I am grateful for technology because it brings my attention to wishing that child well.
I see the technology of media as the opportunity to cultivate greater compassion and to require more of myself.
VM: How has your radio show changed your work?
Vaishali: Before doing radio the bulk of my work was one-on-one. But there is something universal about suffering. As Buddhism says: “Pain is not really optional; pain is just a part of the human experience—how much suffering you walk away with is optional.” What the technology of the radio show allows me is: when someone calls in with a question, I know there are many people listening who have the same question, so it shows how one question from one person has the power to shift the perspective of an unending number of people. A woman called and said, “I want to have a more spiritual relationship with my boyfriend.” I responded, “The answer is simple: Spirit simply means life. When you’re giving your attention to your child, parent, or partner, you bring attention to that relationship and if it is affirming and life-sustaining you are manifesting a spiritual relationship with that person.”
VM: What is on the horizon for you?
Vaishali: We have signed a number of new authors at Purple Haze Press. Mellen-Thomas and Robert Wood talk about the death process and what happens when you die. Death is the most exciting adventure that a human being can embark on, considering it is an inevitable outcome. Our culture has a dysfunctional relationship with death, but in some forms of Eastern healing, death is the ultimate cure; the ultimate healing. You didn’t fail; you didn’t lose; it doesn’t make you “less than.”
That dialogue has great value in our culture, because there is no technology that’s going to stop people from dying. I am inspired by the writings of Mellen-Thomas. He talks about death as an interactive process and you get to ask all of the questions that you’d like. Why is there suffering? Why did I have this problem? Why do I feel my parents didn’t love me?
In summary, as powerful as technology is in government warfare, in storing information on a microchip and in allowing us to have cell phones and communicate with people around the world…love is still the most powerful force in the universe. If people valued love the way they value their laptops, their BlackBerrys, or their GPS devices, just imagine how different our world would be.
Vaishali, author of You Are What You Love can be heard on www.contacttalkradio.com and KTLK in Los Angeles. Visit www.ktlk.com or www.purplev.com