People have been trying to define consciousness for thousands of years. The difficulty is that consciousness does not conform to anything we can easily relate to. A table is a piece of furniture, love is an emotion and consciousness is what? An analogy which makes the subject a little less muddy is that just as water provides a medium for milk, consciousness provides a medium for this physical world. It is the fundamental ground of all being. The journey of consciousness indicates that it has a destination.
We don’t have to understand the mechanics of the universe to go about our daily lives. However, once every now and then it is good to take a glance over our shoulders at where we have come from and to contemplate our destination.
The journey begins with unqualified consciousness. This state the Guru calls non-causal; it has no cause, it simply is and always was, having no awareness of its own existence. We may immediately think that to not have an awareness of your own existence is a lesser state than being able to think “I exist.” However, to simply exist, in harmony with everything in the universe, not distinguishing between “me” and everything else, is a state called enlightenment.
A slight imbalance in favor of the strongest force within the state of pure consciousness, and the subtlest portion of Cosmic Mind, “I Exist” comes in to existence. From here, Cosmic Mind steadily evolves and expands becoming the ‘mind’ hidden in every physical manifestation. We can never know why the creation began, perhaps because we are trying to perceive something infinite with our finite mind.
Understanding where we as human beings fit into this journey of consciousness answers many ageless questions. Cosmic Mind (awakened consciousness) moves forward with continued centrifugal movement as told by an ancient yogic cosmological theory. The most accepted theory by modern cosmologists as to how the universe was created, the Big Bang, runs parallel with it. Consciousness “clothes” itself with the five fundamental factors; ether, air, light, liquid and solid, concluding with the densest solid.
CONSCIOUSNESS (inanimate stage)
Evolution of the cosmos goes on. Birth and death are unstoppable. Stars are born and die, stardust settles on the earth and enters our bodies via the food and water we consume. The majority of elements in the periodic table of the elements are from stardust, for example, copper, iodine, iron, (iron makes your blood red) zinc, phosphorous. In other words they are from other than earthly sources. These elements have vital functions in our bodies; for example: iodine is required in the synthesis of thyroid hormones, i.e. growth.
At that moment when the centrifugal force of the evolving universe reaches its zenith, the densest point of the physical object, one of two things happens; explosion or implosion. Explosion, like a supernova, and the object becomes powdered down into its requisite fundamental factors. They then move onward as the journey of consciousness continues.
With implosion in that densest solid object, a single cell comes into existence with a nucleus controlling all five fundamental factors in that cell. Inanimate objects now become developing cellular structures. How can this happen? because there is consciousness and mind inherent in them. Now centripetal movement takes over and consciousness begins its ‘source seeking’ movement. Mind begins to re-emerge, having become dormant in the first phase of creation it is now being expressed in division and multiplication of cells.
To accept the idea that sentience or mind exists as potential at the source of creation and has been guiding the development of creation through its various stages is logical. To think that mind and creativity emerged from enzymes and proteins is illogical. Otherwise we must ask: “At what point do molecules begin to think”?
UNIT CONSCIOUSNESS, (animate entities)
Consciousness is most commonly seen as being divided up into multiples of consciousness, called “unit consciousness,” beginning with a single cell. Of all those creatures with unit consciousness on this earth, only human beings fully reflect all the stages of mind that Cosmic Mind exhibits. The Journey of Consciousness does an about face at this point. Now that it has evolved from formlessness to form, it begins to move back to the formless state, towards that from which it came, pure consciousness.
The deeper one goes into the underlying foundations of the natural universe, the less material, the less dead and the more alive, conscious and nonlocal it becomes. (brain is local, mind is nonlocal).
Actually there is only one “I feeling” being broadcast in the cosmos and human unit minds act as radio receivers. They pick up the “Cosmic I” and translate it into “I am John” or “I am Sally.” Each brain is different yet there is a coherent experience among all people which can only be explained by the fact that a single consciousness is at work. An example, imagine a radio station broadcasting music from the top of a hill. The radio waves radiate in all directions and are received by the radio in your car. Many other cars can also tune in to the station and although each car is moving in its own direction each one can pick up the same music.
As the journey of consciousness draws to completion with ever increasing momentum, it strives to find the most efficient way to reach its goal. The desire of the unit to merge with the whole intensifies, spirituality is born.
BIRTH OF SPIRITUALITY
Religions and great souls are born on the earth, all (at least most) with the understanding that, “we are all ONE.” They all provide ways for consciousness to connect with and return to its origin. With growing awareness of that silent and watchful observer inherent in each of us we enable it to emerge.
Meditation is the continuation of a cosmic process. Spiritual practices were developed to facilitate and accelerate the journey of consciousness. It is our duty to simply get out of the way, ie. ego, vanity, etc. put to one side, letting consciousness find its way to fulfillment. Sometimes it’s not so easy to simply, “get out of the way” but that is how individual consciousness merges with the ocean of Cosmic Consciousness.
Near the end of his life, Einstein apparently realized that the nonlocality of time and space implied that there was a fundamental unity of all things,
“A human being is a part of the Whole, called by us the “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest – a kind of optical illusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection from a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.”
Albert Einstein
FROM THE GURU
“From the inanimate to the animate goes the process of evolution. Consider a piece of stone for instance. It has neither the power of action nor the sensation of mind. What is the reason? It is because hitherto there has been no manifestation of mind in the stone at all. Consider the trees and plants that are more animate than the stone. There is activity in them. They grow, draw the vital juice from the earth, maintain their species by creating seeds in their own bodies, and enjoy and suffer pleasure and pain when taken care of or hurt. We see in them the manifestation of consciousness, for mind has awakened in them. Thus progressing on the path of mental development, we see in humanity its greatest manifestation. Just as evolution takes place from the subtle to the crude, similarly the unit entity reverts step by step from the crude to the subtle, towards the same Absolute Consciousness from whence it came. It is just like the waves of the sea, rippling back from whence they have come.”
Shrii Shrii Anandamurti
(Subháśita Saḿgraha II, 50)