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Consciousness
Not Composed of Parts
(Essentially the Same in Different Formulations)
Consciousness is usually identified with
mind, but mental consciousness is only the human range
which no more exhausts all the possible ranges of
consciousness than human sight exhausts all the gradations
of colour or human hearing all the gradations of sound
-for there is much above or below that is to man invisible
and inaudible. So there are ranges of consciousness
above and below the human range, with which the
normal human has no contact and they seem to it unconscious,
- supramental
or overmental and submental ranges...
Superconscient and subconscient are only relative
terms; as we rise into the superconscient we see that
it is a consciousness greater than the highest we
yet have and therefore in our normal state inaccessible
to us and, if we can go down into the subconscient,
we find there a consciousness other than our own at
its lowest mental limit and therefore ordinarily inaccessible
to us. The Inconscient itself is only an involved
state of consciousness which like the Tao or Shunya,
though in a different way, contains all things suppressed
within it so that under a pressure from above or within
all can evolve out of it -"an inert Soul with
a somnambulist Force."
The
gradations of consciousness are universal states not
dependent on the outlook of the subjective personality;
rather the outlook of the subjective personality is
determined by the grade of consciousness in which
it is organised according to its typal nature or its
evolutionary stage. It
will be evident that by consciousness is meant something
which is essentially the same throughout but variable
in status, condition and operation, in which in some
grades or conditions the activities we call consciousness
can exist either in a suppressed or an unorganised
or a differently organised state; while in other states
some other activities may manifest which in us are
suppressed, unorganised or latent or else are less
perfectly manifested, less intensive, extended and
powerful than in those higher grades above our highest
mental limit.
SABCL
Vol 22 page 234-35
...we could account for the status of consciousness
aware of one field of being or one movement of it,
while the awareness of all the rest would be held
behind and veiled or, as it were, cut off by a waking
trance of dynamic concentration from the specialised
or limited awareness occupied only with its own field
or movement. The totality of the infinite consciousness
would be there, not abolished, recoverable, but not
evidently active, active only by implication, by inherence
or by the instrumentality of the limited awareness,
not in its own manifest power and presence. It will
be evident that all these three powers can be accepted
as possible to the dynamics of the Infinite Consciousness,
and it is by considering the many ways in which they
can work that we may get a clue to the operations
of Maya.
This throws light incidentally
on the opposition made by our minds between pure consciousness,
pure existence, pure bliss and the abundant activity,
the manifold application, the endless vicissitudes
of being, consciousness and delight of being that
take place in the universe.
SABCL
Vol 18 page 344-345
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