"ONA" means Whole Self. This Whole Self is you, as the appearance of physical matter; and as the energy that makes up that matter, in constant motion, transmuting and transforming according to the changing intentions of your consciousness, under the guidance of your true spiritual Innermost Self. Your Whole Self includes the full spectrum of existence, from physical to spiritual. The techniques of ONA are a way of accessing the potentials of your Whole Self through remembrance.

The ONA Foundation is a non-profit corporation founded for the purpose of teaching the ONA Techniques for attaining full consciousness of your Whole Self. These techniques also involve remembrance.

Remembrance

Broken up, the word, "remember", "re-member", means "to make a member again"--in other words, to restore a component to the Wholeness to which it belongs.

Now, Wholeness works in such a way that no member can truly be lost. Rather, we simply forget we have some members. By re-membering, we re-attain access to facilities that have been lost.

Putting it in other terms, once you've learned to ride a bicycle, you never truly forget. You may let so much time go by since you've last ridden a bike that, when your car breaks down, you forget that getting to work on a bicycle may even be an option; but, once reminded, your ability to ride remains.

Regarding Consciousness

What did you have for breakfast this morning? At exactly what time did you brush your teeth? What were you thinking when you agreed to go out with the last person you dated?

We tend to go through life on auto-pilot. And there is certainly value to not having to decide, every morning, whether or not to get out of bed! Yet, sometimes, we find ourselves making decisions unconsciously, that we might never have made had we thought about it.

Do you watch TV in the evenings automatically, without considering whether you might actually get more pleasure or value from another activity? (Or, similarly, do you sit down to read in the evenings without considering that there may be something on TV you'd have enjoyed watching? --ONA is not against TV; ONA is simply in favor of making conscious decisions!)

In the boxes below, please enter five recent things you did without thinking, and five things you did consciously. 

What Is Your "Whole Self"?

You are a physical body.

It is pretty obvious that each of us is associated with a body. Some people believe we are no more than that, and they say, "I am a physical body." People who believe in the soul or spirit are more inclined to say, "I have a physical body," to imply there is more. But, the body is not a possession of ours, like an old suit we can discard. It is, in fact, a part of who we are (as are the bodies of any other incarnations you may have had).

In spite of the illusion to the contrary, your body is not a constant. It exchanges molecules with other beings, living and non-living, on this planet and others. It's been estimated that by every twelve years, you have exchanged every atom in your body for another like it. That you retain a consistent consciousness throughout the complete exchange of body parts, should alone prove that you are not just a body.

You are energy patterns that make up consciousness, emotions, spirit, and more.

Your physical body appears to be made of solid matter--more or less!--but you know that it is really composed of cells: little bags of materials, stuck together. You also know that those materials are various compounds, which are molecules, and that molecules are actually vibrating bundles of atoms (which also vibrate). Atoms, we all learned in fifth grade, are composed of protons, electrons, and neutrons. But...what are they composed of?

The answer to that question was the great contribution of quantum physics, which discovered a number of sub-atomic particles such as muons, leptons, and quarks. This level of reality, out of which all denser matter is constructed, not only vibrates; it behaves as much like our concept of "pure energy" (in waves) as it does like particles. Light, for example, which we say is "made" of particles called photons, exhibits the properties of waves when it travels.

Therefore, it is a true statement that all apparent "matter" is actually composed of energy, as Einstein's famous equation (E=mc²) proposed and nuclear power plants prove. It is also a fact that it takes a lot of energy to make a small amount of matter...or, conversely, that a small amount of matter contains a huge amount of energy.

It also turns out that different kinds of energy are also made of (or transmitted by) the very same kinds of sub-atomic particles that make up matter. The only difference between you, a rock, and magnetism, therefore, is an aspect of those quantum energies called by metaphysicians, "vibration."

When we are talking about the quantum energies, behaving as waves, we are viewing their faster vibrations. When we experience them as particles, we are seeing somewhat slower vibrations. When we step back and view the particles as combined to form atoms, slower still; stepping back farther to see those atoms combined into molecules, slower still. Heavier, denser, molecules (like those that form rocks) have slower vibrations than lighter molecules such as those composing air.

Now, here's a key point: All these vibrations occur simultaneously, like a grand chord on an organ. We can choose to listen to the lower notes or the higher ones if we like, but all the notes are always there.

ONA reveals that aspects of ourselves that we speak of, such as our conscious selves, our emotional selves, or our spiritual selves, are actually just subsets of our entire range of frequencies. There are, in fact, twelve distinct gradations of these frequencies that make up our Whole Selves.

What Is A Physical Body?

It is pretty obvious that each of us is associated with a body. Some people believe we are no more than that, and they say, "I AM a physical body." People who believe in the soul or spirit are more inclined to say, "I HAVE a physical body," to imply there is more. But, the body is not a possession of ours, like an old suit we can discard. It is, in fact, a part of who we are.

In spite of the illusion to the contrary, your body is not a constant. It exchanges molecules with other beings, living and non-living, on this planet and others. It's been estimated that by every twelve years, you have exchanged every atom in your body for another like it. That you retain a consistent consciousness throughout the complete exchange of body parts, should alone prove that you are not just a body.

Energy Patterns

Two hundred years ago, physicists believed they had solved the basic mysteries of the universe. "All that's left of the weighing," one remarked. Everything in the Universe, they believed, was composed of chemical compounds and elements, which in turn were made up of atoms, which in turn were composed of protons, neutrons and electrons. End of story.

Except, it wasn't. In the early years of the 20th century, physicists were astounded to discover that the smallest particles they had known, the electron, was itself composed of even smaller particles...and these tiny bits that composed electrons behaved in absolutely bizarre fashion. These sub-atomic particles, such as muons, leptons, and quarks, exist at a level of reality at which the properties of matter and energy merge. In some ways they behave as particles; the next moment they act like waves. Everyone "knows" that Einstein's famous equation, E=mc², means that energy can turn into matter and vice versa; but that's only half the story. The other half is that energy really is matter, and vice versa.

Your very own body, which seems so solid to you (relatively speaking), is actually no more solid than a beam of light or a radio wave.

We will have much more to say about these bits of "solid energy", or quanta, as they are called, as we progress through these workshops. For now, let's concentrate on their ability to vibrate. All quanta possess a property called "frequency", the speed at which they vibrate. When we are talking about the quantum energies behaving as waves, we are viewing their faster vibrations. When we experience them as particles, we are seeing somewhat slower vibrations. When we step back and view the particles as combined to form atoms, slower still; stepping back farther to see those atoms combined into molecules, slower still. Heavier, denser, molecules (like those that form rocks) have slower vibrations than lighter molecules such as those composing air.

Now, here's a key point: All these vibrations occur simultaneously, like a grand chord on an organ. We can choose to listen to the lower notes or the higher ones if we like, but all the notes are always there.

ONA reveals that aspects of ourselves that we speak of, such as our conscious selves, our emotional selves, or our spiritual selves, are actually just subsets of our entire range of frequencies. There are, in fact, twelve distinct gradations of these frequencies that make up our Whole Selves, which we'll examine shortly.

Exercise 0-b