THE SECRET DOCTRINE OF THE ROSICRUCIANS/PART 8
PART
VIII
THE
THREE HIGHER PLANES OF CONSCIOUSNESS
We have
now reached that
stage of our
presentation of the subject of
the Secret Doctrine of the
Rosicrucians, and
particularly of that
phase known as
the Seven Planes
of Consciousness, in
which we ask the student to consider those phases of
Consciousness above the Plane of Animal Consciousness. Accordingly our
present consideration is with
those three great
Planes of Consciousness
which begin with the Plane of
Human Consciousness, and include
the Planes of the Consciousness of
the Demi-Gods, and which find
their highest manifestation on the
Plane of
the Consciousness of
the Gods.
While these
three higher Planes
of Consciousness are
included in the
Rosicrucian symbol of
the seven Planes
of Consciousness, i.e., the
seven linked circles,
the Rosicrucians have
also a special
symbol by which
they seek to indicate
these three wonderful
higher Planes of
Consciousness, viz.: the
symbol of the
three linked circles.
It will be
noticed here, also,
that each of
the circles are
linked with the
two on either
side of it,—the circumference of
each circle extending
over that of
the two others
on either side
of it; this
indicates that each Plane
of Consciousness is
blended with the
others, a truth
which will be
made more apparent as we progress without commentary
on the teaching
in this chapter.
V.
The Plane of Human Consciousness
The Plane
of Human Consciousness, as
its name indicates,
is that plane
of conscious activity
which is manifested by
human beings, high
and low, in
varying degrees. This
Plane of Consciousness, like
all the others
of the Seven Planes
of Consciousness, is
divided into seven
sub-planes, and each
of these into
seven, and so
on, as explained
in preceding chapters of
this book. Moreover,
at one pole
this plane is
linked with, and
blends into the
highest subplanes of the Plane
of Animal Consciousness; while
at its other
pole it blends
into the lower
subplanes of the
next highest plane, i.e.,
the Plane of
the Consciousness of the Demi-Gods.
Again, following the
symbol of the
Three Linked Circles, the
same individual who manifests on
the Plane of Human
Consciousness is (in
a measure) in touch
with the two higher
planes, known, respectively,
as the Plane
of the Consciousness
of the Demi-Gods,
and the Plane
of Consciousness of the
Gods.
The reason
that the Rosicrucians
place these three
higher planes of
consciousness in a
trinity of circles,
apparently apart from the
lower four planes,
is that on
these three higher
planes of consciousness
the individual soul manifests Self-Consciousness, or
the consciousness of
"I Am," in
at least a
certain degree; while
on the lower
four planes this consciousness
of "I" is
entirely absent, and
the mental activity
is more or less automatic and
instinctive. This distinction will
be brought out
as we proceed.
On
the very
lowest forms of
Human Consciousness, the
man's mental and
emotional activity is
but little more than
that of the
higher animals—in fact,
in some cases
the animals actually
seem to display
a greater degree
of intellectual power, though
on instinctive lines.
But even in
the lowest forms
of human life
there appears at
least a faint glimmering
of Self-Consciousness, or
the conviction that
"I Am I,"
that form of consciousness by
means of which the
human individual becomes
aware of himself
as an individual
entity. This, rather
than the degree of intellectual development, is the characteristic distinguishing mark
of the human
being.
It is
quite difficult to
describe clearly in
words the actual
distinction between the highest
forms of animal consciousness, and
the lowest forms
of the self-consciousness of
the human being,
although the difference between the
highest animal and
the highest man
in this respect
is quite marked.
Admitting the difficulty
of the explanation, it
may be said
that while even
in the case
of the highest
animal the consciousness is always
directed outward, in even the
lowest type of
man there is
at least a
faint degree of the
inward direction of consciousness. The
animal always thinks
of outside things,
while even the primitive man
occasionally thinks of himself—makes
himself the object of his own
thoughts, in at
least the sense
of considering his
own feelings, ideas,
etc., and comparing them
with others previously
had by him.
Or again, there
is no "inside
world," or "something within," to the
animal; while man
always (at least
in some degree)
is aware of
the "inside world,"
or the "something within" as
distinguished from the
"something without."
A
favorite illustration of
the psychologists, employed
by them to point out the distinction between the
"simple consciousness"
of the higher
animal, and the
"self
consciousness" of the
human being is
stated by a
writer as follows: "A
horse standing out in the
cold sleet and
rain undoubtedly feels
the discomfort, and
possibly the pain, for
we know by
observations that the
animals feel both.
But the horse
is not able
to analyze his
mental states and to
wonder when his master will
come out to
him; or to
think how cruel
it is to
keep him out
of the warm
stable; or to wonder
whether he will
be taken out
in the cold
again tomorrow; or
to feel envious
of other horses
who are indoors; or
to wonder why
he is compelled
to be out
on cold nights,
etc., etc.—just as
a man would
do under the same
circumstances. He is
aware of the
discomfort, just as
is the man
and he would
run home if
he could, just
as would the man.
But he is
not able to pity himself,
nor to think
about his individuality
or his personality,
as would the man—nor
does he wonder
whether such a
life is worth
living, after all.
He 'knows,' but
does not know that
he knows,' as
does the man. The animal cannot
'know himself.'"
But we
must not fall
into the error
of supposing that
the primitive man, or even
the less-developed individuals of
modern civilization, possess this
faculty of self-conscious to a high
degree. On the
contrary, with both
of these types this
form of consciousness
may be said
to exist merely
in a "dawn
state"—and yet the
"dawn" is a
distinct advance upon the
darkness of the
mental night. A
modern psychologist says
of the comparatively
higher forms of self-consciousness: "Many persons
never have more
than a misty
idea of such
a mental attitude.
They always take themselves for granted,
and never turn
the gaze inward."
The
development of the higher forms of self-consciousness may be noted in the
gradual unfoldment of
the mind of the
young child—for on
the mental, as
well as on the physical
plane, the young
of the human
being rapidly passes through
and reproduces the
stages of the
evolution of its
ancestral forms. At a certain
stage of the mental evolution or
development of the
young child there
comes a particular
period at which
the child seems
to awaken to a
dawning realization that it
is an individual,
instead of being merely a bunch
of feelings and
desires. Up to a
certain point the
young child speaks of itself in
the third person, i.e., as
"Johnny,"
"Mary," etc. Then
all of a sudden
it begins to
employ the terms
"I" or "Me" in
speaking of itself—though
it may make grammatical errors in using these pronouns, nevertheless,
there is never
any doubt left
that the child
knows just what
they stand for:
it knows "I am I."
Some psychologists
call attention to the fact that many
children experience a
feeling of something
akin to terror
when they first
reach this sense
of "I," or individuality. Some
writers have testified
to having felt
a strange sense of
Aloneness, and detachment
from all other things, when this sense
of individuality first
burst upon them
in early childhood.
In some cases the fuller dawn of
self-consciousness is accompanied by
a newly developed
bashfulness, shyness, or
that more or
less morbid state known
by the common
name "self conscious." With
the faculty of introspection,
there often comes the tendency to
employ the same
too freely, and
thus to become
morbid on the
one hand, or
else foolishly egotistical and
vain on the
other hand.
A
writer well says
of this particular
state of newly
awakened consciousness: "Although this
feeling of separateness and
apartness grows less
acute as the
man grows older,
yet it is
always present to
a greater or
less degree until a
still higher stage
is reached, when
it disappears. And
this self-conscious stage
is painful to
many. Many find themselves
entangled in a
mass of mental states
which one thinks
is himself, or
inextricably bound up with
himself, and the
struggle between the
awakening Ego and
its confining sheaths
is very painful
in some cases. And
this becomes more
painful as the
individual advances in
self-consciousness and nears
the end at
which he is to
find deliverance. Man
eats of the
Tree of Knowledge
and begins to
suffer, and is
driven out of
the garden of Eden
of the child
consciousness in which the
individual has lived
like the birds,
concerning not himself
about the affairs of
his higher nature.
Man pays dearly
for the gift
of Self-Consciousness—yet it
is worth it
all, for finally he
reaches heights of
higher consciousness and
is delivered from
his burden."
With the
dawning awareness of
one's own mental
states, one comes to
the realization that
other human beings possess similar
states, and one
begins to speculate
and reason about
the working of
these states in others. Then
comes the desire to communicate one's
ideas to the
mind of the
others, and to
appeal to his
feelings or reason.
All this promotes the
development of Intellect
and logical thought,
which is a marked characteristic of
evolving human
consciousness. Man begins
to seek for
an answer to
the many "whys" which
are presenting themselves
to him, and he
seeks to reason
from the known to
the unknown. He
proceeds to invent
appliances conducive to the
accomplishment of things
which lie desires.
He harnesses his
Intellect to the
chariot of his Desires, and
drives it along by command
of Will, the
chariot-driver.
Man,
indeed, pays a price for this advanced
consciousness, as we have
said. He pays
a constantly increasing
price as he advances into
the new territory
of conscious existence
and experience. The
more he knows,
the more he desires; and the more
he desires, the
more does he
suffer from the pain of
not having. Capacity
for pain is the
price man pays
for his advance
in the scale;
but he has
a corresponding capacity
for pleasure accompanying
it. He has not
only the pain
of unsatisfied desires
for possession of
material things, and
physical wants, but
also the pain arising
from the lack
of intelligent answers
to the ever-increasing volume
of problems presenting
themselves for solution to his evolving
intellect; and also has pain of
unsatisfied longings, disappointments,
frustrated aims and
ambitions, and all
the rest of
the list.
The animal
lives its life
and is contented—for
it knows no
better. If it
has enough to eat, a
place to sleep,
a mate, it is
satisfied, and asks
no more—it has
few needs, and,
while its degree
of happiness is
not great, it
lacks the capacity for
mental and emotional
pain possessed by
those higher in
the scale. And
many men are
but little above this
stage—they are easily satisfied;
they are
ignorant of the
unsatisfied desires which render others unhappy. They have no
unanswered questions—they do not even
dream of the
existence of such
questions. But as man progresses, his
wants multiply, and
his pain increases.
New wants are
but partly satisfied,
and the unsatisfied remainder
bring pain to him. Civilization becomes
more and more
complex, and new
wants and lacks
manifest themselves. Man attaches
himself to "things," and
creates for himself
artificial wants which
he must labor
to meet. His intellect
often fails to
lead him upward,
and too often
merely enables him
to invent new
and subtle means
and ways of gratifying
his senses in
a way impossible
to the animals
or primitive man.
Some men make
a religion of the
gratification of their
sensuality and their
appetites, and sink
below the level of
the beasts in
this respect. Others become
vain, conceited, and
filled with an
inflated sense of
the importance of
their personality. Others become
morbidly introspective, and
spend their time
analyzing and dissecting
their moods, motives,
and feelings.
Others exhaust
their capacity for
pleasure and happiness,
by looking outside
of themselves for
happiness, instead of within.
These are the
dark shadows cast by the bright
light of Human Consciousness, however —the shadows always
found as the
"opposite" of all
real evolutionary progress.
As
man progresses in the scale of
Self Consciousness, however,
he finds himself
gradually detaching his
sense of the Self
from its sheaths
and working tools.
He begins to
realize that there
is an "I
Am" within his
being, to which all
the feelings, the
emotions, the desires,
and even the
thoughts and ideas,
are but incidents.
In this high
stage he perceives himself
to be an
"I Am" surrounded
by his mental
and emotional tools
and belongings—a Sun surrounded by
its whirling worlds
and activities. He
realizes that the
Ego is not
only superior to the body,
but also to the
"mind" and feelings;
and he learns
now only how
to master and
intelligently use his
body, but also
how to intelligently master
and use his
Intellect and his
Emotions.
A
well known writer
has said of
Man in this
advanced stage: "If
we are willing
to believe in
this mastery over
the body, we must
be prepared to
believe in the
mastery over our
own inner thoughts
and feelings. That
a man should be
a prey to
any thought that
chances to take
possession of his
mind is commonly
among us assumed
as unavoidable. It may
be a matter
of regret that
he should be
kept awake all
night from anxiety
as to the
issue of a lawsuit on the
morrow, but that
he should have
the power of
determining whether he
should be kept
awake or not seems
an extravagant demand.
The image of
an impending calamity
is no doubt
odious, but its
very odiousness (we say)
makes it haunt
the mind all
the more pertinaciously and
it is useless
to expel it.
"Yet this
is an absurd
notion—for man, the
heir of all
the ages: hag
ridden by the
flimsy creatures of his
own brain. If
a pebble in
our boots torments
us, we expel
it. We take
off the boot
and shake it
out. And once the
matter is fairly
understood it is
just as easy
to expel an
intruding and obnoxious
thought from the
mind. About this there
ought to be
no mistake, no
two opinions. The
thing is obvious,
clear and unmistakable.
It should be as
easy to
expel an obnoxious
thought from the
mind as it
is to shake
a stone out
of your shoe;
and till a
man can do that
it is just
nonsense to talk
about his ascendancy
over Nature, and
all the rest
of it. He
is a mere
slave, and prey to
the bat-winged phantoms
that flit through
the corridors of
his own brain.
Yet the weary
and careworn faces
that we meet by thousands;
even among the
affluent classes of
civilization, testify only
too clearly how
seldom this mastery is
obtained. How rare
indeed to meet
a man. How
common rather to
discover a creature
hounded on by tyrant
thoughts (or cares
or desires), cowering,
wincing under the
lash—or perchance priding
himself to run merrily
in obedience to
a driver that
rattles the reins
and persuades him
that he is
free—whom we cannot
converse with in a
careless tete-a-tete because
that alien presence
is always there,
on the watch.
It is
one of the
most promising doctrines
of certain schools
of occult philosophy
that the power
of expelling thoughts, or
if need be,
killing them dead
on the spot,
must be attained.
Naturally the art
requires practice, but like
other arts, when
once acquired there
is no mystery
or difficulty about
it. And it
is worth practice.
It may indeed fairly
be said that
life only begins
when this art has
been acquired. For
obviously when, instead
of being ruled by
individual thoughts, the
whole flock of
them in their
immense multitude and
variety and capacity
is ours to direct
and dispatch and
employ where we
list, life becomes
a thing so
vast and grand
compared with what it
was before, that
its former condition
may well appear
almost antenatal. If
you can kill
a thought dead,
for the time being,
you can do
anything with it
that you please.
And therefore it is that
this power is
so valuable. And it
not only
frees a man
from mental torment
(which is nine-tenths
at least of
the torments of
life), but it
gives to him a
concentrated power of
handling mental work
absolutely unknown to
him before. The
two things are
correlative to each other.
"While at
work your thought
is to be
actually concentrated in it,
undistracted by anything
whatever irrelevant to the matter
in hand—pounding away
like a great
engine, with giant
power and perfect
economy—no wear and tear of friction,
or dislocation of
parts owing to
the working of
different forces at the same
time. Then when
the work is finished,
if there is
no more occasion
for the use of the machine, it
must stop equally, absolutely—stop entirely—no
worrying (as if
a parcel of
boys were allowed to
play their devilments
with a locomotive
as soon as it
was in the
shed)—and the man must
retire into that
region of his
consciousness where his
true self dwells. I say that the power of
the thought-machine itself
is enormously increased by this
faculty of letting it
alone on the
one hand, and of using it
singly and with
concentration on the
other. It becomes
a true tool,
which a master-workman lays down
when done with,
but which only
a bungler carries
about with him
all the time
to show that
he is the possessor
of it."
If the
student will master
the idea expressed
in the above
several quoted paragraphs,
he will indeed
become a Master of
Mind. And if
he will extend
the idea to
the field of
his Emotions, and
will put into
practice there the same
idea and method,
he will also become a Master of his Emotions—an accomplishment of
inestimable value. But, before
doing either of
these things he
will find it
necessary to come
to a full
realization of the fact that his
Self—his real "I"—is a Something superior to and transcending both
his Thought and his Emotions. He
must enter into a
vivid realization of
the "I AM,"
before he may
hope to be able to
say "I Do" regarding
these accomplishments. As the old
Rosicrucian masters were
wont to say:
"When the 'I'
knows itself to
be the Self
and Master, then only
is it able
to take its
throne and enforce
its will upon
its subjects in
the world of
its thoughts, desires, feelings,
and emotions."
Not only
may the enlightened
"I" manifest its
power along the
lines above indicated,
but it may
also work its
will in that region
which popular modern
psychology has chosen
to call "The
Sub-Conscious Mind." The
latter is merely that
great region of
mind outside of
the limits of the concentrated
field of attention.
In that great
region a great part
of the thinking
of the average
man is performed,
the results being
flashed into the
field of his
attention in a more
or less haphazard
way. Without going
deeply into the
subject, we would
say here that
the man who
has grasped the reality
and power of
the "I" is
able to issue
positive commands to
this part of
his mental machinery, and not
only cause it
to perform the
work of thought classification, induction
and deduction, for
him, but also
to present the report
of such work
to his conscious
attention at any
specified time and
place. The Masters
of Mind relieve themselves
of much of the
drudgery of ordinary
intellectual processes in
this way, and obtain results logically perfect and
ready for use, according
to the measure
of training and
direction which they
have been able
to impose upon
the aforesaid regions of
their mind.
In conclusion,
it should be
called to the
attention of the
student that the
average man "consciouses" only
on some of the
lower subplanes and
subdivisions of The
Plane of Human
Consciousness; and that
there are wonderful regions within
that great plane
awaiting the exploration
of the wise
of the race,
and the generations
of the distant future. The
wise of the
race are not
waiting for the
centuries-long slow evolution
of the bulk
of the race,
but are taking the
"short cut" to
the higher sub-planes
by means of
careful training along
the lines indicated by capable
teachers who have demonstrated the
virtue and value
of the methods
which have been
known to and
taught by the advanced
occultists for thousands
of years, the
Rosicrucian Teachings being
splendid examples of
such achievements. Even
without calling upon
the two still higher Planes of
Consciousness, the enlightened race
may reach heights
of mental achievement which
are so far
above those dreamed
of by the
average person of
the race as
to appear like the
wildest fiction.
VI. The
Plane of the
Consciousness of the
Demi-Gods.
There is
a Plane of
Consciousness so much
higher than even
the Plane of
Human Consciousness—of even
the highest sub-planes of that great plane—that the Rosicrucians
have applied to it the somewhat fanciful term of
"The Plane of
Consciousness of the
Demi-Gods." This, because
the individual who attains
these heights, and is able
to "conscious" on
this plane is
so much higher
than mere Man
that he seems to
be "almost as
the gods." The
Rosicrucians teach that
on this high
plane of being
dwell certain very
advanced souls—once men, but
now almost as
gods when compared
to men—who aid
in the great
work of the
advancement of the race
of men in
the general course
of spiritual evolution.
The teaching
is that the
race as a
whole is slowly
evolving on to the said
higher Plane of
Consciousness, and long ages
from now will
"conscious"
normally on it.
In the meantime,
however, certain advanced souls
have transcended the Human
Plane, and have
passed on to
the higher plane,
where they aid and
assist the rest
of the race. Moreover,
to the individual
whose unfoldment is
rapid, from one
or more of
many well-known causes, there
come at times "flashes of
consciousness" from the
higher plane aforesaid,
which at least
for the time
being bring the individual
into conscious contact
with that plane. The pages of the mystic records are
filled with statements of experiences of
this kind. In
certain forms of
poetic fervor, religious exaltation, and
mystic experience, these flashes
come and are
then recorded by
the individual experiencing
them—the record, however,
usually being given in
the terms of
the philosophy, religion, or
general belief of the person
experiencing the contact
or "illumination,"
the person not
fully realizing from
just what source
the flash of
Truth has come.
In
recent years many of these experiences
have been classified
and included in
works of writers,
under the general name
of "Cosmic Consciousness." In
most cases the
persons having attained these experiences,
and those who
have recorded them,
are of the
opinion that the
flash of consciousness
realized is the highest
possible. But, as
wonderful as are
these experiences, they
are in most
cases but flashes
of insight of the
light of some
of the lower
sub-planes of the
great Plane of
the Demi-Gods—countless higher
planes being existent and
awaiting the unfoldment
of being to
experience their light
and glory, and
beyond all of
such there existing the
highest plane of
all, the Plane
of the Gods,
to which all
the rest is
as but a faint shadow of
the reality.
The
characteristic feature of the Plane of
Consciousness of the
Demi-Gods is that
of Oneness with
Universal Life—the
consciousness of the
Life of All-Manifestation. Varying in many degrees
and forms, of
course, this is the
characteristic feature of all experiences
of this great
plane of conscious
activity. On this
plane, the individual feels in
close touch with
all the rest
of Creation—a united
part of (not
apart from) the
ALL. The experience
of even a slight
momentary contact with this plane of being constitutes
the common "mystic experience," of which sages, seers, poets,
and illumined souls
of all ages
have sung, and
regarding which they
have tried to
inform us in words
inadequate to the
task. The study
of these mystic
reports throw much
light on the
subject, and is
well worth the time
and attention of all true
students of the
Rosicrucian teaching. But
the student must always remember
that these experiences are
not the end
of all thought
on the subject,
nor the final
word of Truth.
As valuable as
is this part of
the teaching, it
must never be
mistaken for the
highest peak of the Mountain
of Truth.
To
those who have experienced the flashes
of Illumination, or
the glimpse of
the Fire of
Cosmic Consciousness—both of
which classes of phenomena
belong to the
Plane of the
Consciousness of the Demi-Gods—there
has come a
realization of the actual
Oneness of Life
in the Universe,
and an actual
awareness that the
Universe is animated
by One Life
which is diffused among
and permeates every
portion of its extence
and manifestation. To such has
come an assurance that there
is nothing "dead" in the Universe—that
every part and
portion, individual and
collective, is instinct with
Life. Not only
this, but for
at least the
time of the
experience there has
come a sense
of absolute certainty that the
individual is in
touch with this
One Life, and is an
actual centre of
activity within its presence.
It should
be pointed out,
moreover, that in
such experiences there
is not merely
the intellectual conviction
of the certainty of the facts
just stated, but
that, on the
contrary, there is
manifested an actual "knowing," direct and immediate, of
such facts. The
person having the
experience knows these
things just as
he knows that
he himself is alive
and present in
the universe. It
is impossible to
convey the exact
nature of this
consciousness to any
who have not had
at least a
faint flash of
it. It can
be described only
in its own
terms.
In
most of these cases, while
the actual consciousness
has passed away
after a few
moments, there has
been left a memory which abides
ever with the
individual, and which
gives to him
such a certainty
of the truth
of which he has
been a witness
that nothing can
ever shake his
conviction thereof. It
must be remembered that these flashes of consciousness are prophecies of
the stage of consciousness which
at some future
time will become
the normal state of
consciousness of the race. Moreover,
it must not
be forgotten that
there exist certain
advanced souls on this
earth to whom
this stage or
state of consciousness
is the normal
and habitual one—and
in whom there
always exists a realization
in actual consciousness
of At-One-Ment with
the Universal Life.
Such beings are
indeed Demi-Gods, as compared
to the average
human being. Some of the
great world leaders—the
founders of great religions, and
others of their
kind, were filled
with this consciousness
and strove to
make it manifest
in a veiled form to
their followers who
were not strong
enough to bear
the full truth.
Many of these
great souls are
still present on the
earth-plane in the
flesh, in newly
incarnated forms, continuing
their work and
striving to uplift the race.
A
modern poet expressing the conviction of
Universal Oneness of
Life uses terms
which will be
recognized by all who
have had flashes
of Cosmic Consciousness, as
follows:
"For the
All is One,
and all are
part,
And not
apart as they
seem to be;
And the
blood of Life
has a single
heart,
Beating through
God, and clod,
and Me!"
Walt Whitman, who himself
had experienced Cosmic
Consciousness, says of
the experience:
"As in
a swoon, one
instant
Another sun,
ineffable, full dazzles
me,
And all
the orbs I
knew, and brighter,
unknown orbs,
One instant
of the future
land,
Heaven's land."
* *
* * *
* * *
* *
"I cannot be
awake, for nothing
looks to me
as it did
before, Or else
I am awake for the
first time, and
all before has
been a mean
sleep.
* *
* * *
* * *
* *
"When I
try to tell
the best I find,
I cannot;
My
tongue is ineffectual
on its pivots,
My
breath will not
be obedient to
its organs,
I become
a dumb man."
Tennyson, according
to his friends
had glimpses and
flashes of Cosmic
Consciousness, and in
many of his
poems he has given
expression to the
thoughts and feelings
which had come
to him at that time.
The following is a good illustration of
the latter:
"For knowledge
is the swallow
on the lake
That sees
and stirs the
surface-shadow there,
But never
yet hath dippt
into the abysm,
The Abysm
of all Abysms, beneath,
within
The blue
of sky and
sea, the green
of earth,
And in
a million-millionth of a grain
Which cleft
and cleft again
for evermore
And ever
vanishing, never vanishes
* * *
And more,
my son, for
more than once
when
I
Sat all
alone, revolving in
myself
That word
which is the
symbol of myself,
The mortal
symbol of Self
was loosed,
And passed
into the Nameless,
as a cloud
Melts into
Heaven. I touched
my limbs, the
limbs
Were strange,
not mine—and yet
no shadow of
doubt, But utter clearness,
and through loss
of Self
The gain
of such large
life as matched
with ours
Were Sun
to spark, unshadowable
in words,
Themselves but
shadows of a
shadow-world."
Dr. Richard
Maurice Bucke, of
Toronto, Canada, a
number of years ago published a
book entitled "Cosmic Consciousness," in which he grouped
together a number
of very interesting
experiences along these lines
which had been
related by those
experiencing them; Dr.
Bucke himself, as
well as his
friend Walt Whitman, and several other close friends, had experienced flashes of this same stage
of consciousness. He deduces
the following general
idea from the
consideration of these
experiences:
"Superimposed upon
self-consciousness as is
that faculty upon
simple-consciousness, a third
and higher form
of consciousness is at
present making its
appearance in our
race. This higher
form of consciousness,
when it appears, occurs as
it must, at
the full maturity
of the individual,
at about the
age of thirty-five,
but almost always
between the ages of
thirty and forty.
There have been
occasional cases of it for
the last two
thousand years, and
it is becoming more
and more common.
In fact, in
all appearances, as
far as observed,
it obeys the
laws to which every
nascent faculty is
subject. Many more
or less perfect
examples of this
new faculty exist
in the world
today, and it has
been my privilege
to know personally
and to have
had the opportunity
of studying, several
men and women who
have possessed it.
In the course
of a few
more millenniums there should
be born from
the present human race,
a higher type of man,
possessing this higher
type of consciousness. This
new race, as
it may well
be called, would occupy
toward us a
position such as
that occupied by
us toward the
simple conscious 'alulus
homo.' The advent of
this higher, better
and happier race
would simply justify
the long agony
of its birth
through countless ages of
our past. And
it is the
first article of my belief, some of the grounds for
which I have endeavored to
lay before you,
that a new
race is in
course of evolution."
In another
part of his
book, Dr. Bucke
gives the following
general characteristics of the special type of experiences recorded
by him in the book:
"I have,
in the last
three years, collected
twenty-three cases of
this so-called cosmic
consciousness. In each
case the onset or incoming of the new faculty is always
sudden, instantaneous. Among
the unusual feelings
the mind experiences is
a sudden sense
of being immersed
in flame or
in a brilliant
light. This occurs
entirely without worrying or
outward cause, and
may occur at
noonday or in
the middle of
the night, and
the person first
may feel that he
is becoming insane.
Along with these
feelings comes a
sense of immortality;
not merely a
feeling of certainty that
there is a
future life—that would be a small matter—but a pronounced
consciousness that the
life now being lived
is eternal, death
being seen as
a trivial incident
which does not
affect its continuity.
Further, there is an
annihilation of the
sense of sin,
and an intellectual
competency, not simply
surpassing the old
plane, but on an
entirely new and
higher plane. *
* * The
cosmic conscious race
will not be
the race that
exists today, and
more than the present
is the same
race that existed prior
to the evolution
of self-consciousness. A
new race is
being born from us,
and this new
race will in
the near future
possess the earth."
Emerson in
his wonderful essay
on "The Over-Soul" clearly
indicates his knowledge
of the experiences mentioned herein
in connection with what has been called "Cosmic
Consciousness." The following
quotations therefrom will serve to disclose his general
thought on the
subject:
"Always,
I believe, by the necessity of our
constitution, a certain
enthusiasm attends the individual's consciousness of
that divine presence.
The character and
duration of this
enthusiasm varies with
the state of the
individual, from an
ecstasy and trance
and prophetic inspiration—which is its rarer appearance—to the faintest glow of
virtuous emotion, in
which form it
warms, like our
household fires, all
the families and
associations of men, and
makes society possible.
A certain tendency to insanity has
always attended the
opening of the
religious sense in men,
as if 'blasted
with excess of
light.' The trances
of Socrates; the
'Union' of Plotinus;
the vision of Porphyry;
the conversion of
Paul; the aurora
of Behmen; the
convulsions of George
Fox and his
Quakers; the illumination of
Swedenborg are of
this kind. What
was in the
case of these
remarkable persons a ravishment has in innumerable
instances in common
life been exhibited
in a less
striking manner. Everywhere
the history of religion
betrays a tendency
to enthusiasm. The
rapture of the
Moravian and Quietist; the
opening of the internal sense of
the Word, in
the language of
the New Jerusalem Church; the revival of the
Calvinistic Churches; the experiences of
the Methodists, are
varying forms of
that shudder of
awe and delight
with which the
individual soul always mingles
with the universal
soul. The nature
of these revelations
is always the
same; they are perceptions of
the absolute law.
They are solutions
of the soul's
own questions. The
soul answers never
by words, but by
the thing itself
that is inquired
after. * *
* We live
in succession, in
division, in parts,
in particles. Meantime within
man is the
soul of the
whole; the wise
silence; the universal
beauty to which
every part and particle
is equally related; the
eternal One. And
this deep power in
which we exist,
and whose beatitude
is all accessible
to us, is
not only self-sufficing and
perfect in every
hour, but the
act of seeing,
and the thing
seen, the seer
and the spectacle,
the subject and the
object, are One.
We see the
world piece by
piece, as the
sun and moon,
the animal, the
tree; but the whole,
of which these
are the shining
parts, is the
soul. It is
only by the
vision of that
Wisdom that the horoscope
of the ages
can be read,
and it is
only by falling
back on our
better thoughts, by
yielding to the
spirit of prophesy which
is innate in
every man that
we can know
what it saith.
Every man's words,
who speaks from
that life, must sound
vain to those
who do not
dwell in the
same thought on
their own part.
I dare not
speak for it. My
words do
not carry its
august sense; they
fall short and cold. Only
itself can inspire
whom it will,
and behold, their speech
shall be lyrical
and sweet, and
universal as the
rising of the
wind. Yet I desire, even
by profane words,
if sacred I may
not use, to indicate the heaven of
this deity, and
to report what
hints I have
collected of the transcendent simplicity
and energy of
the Highest Law."
So such
are the general
reports of the
nature and character of these glimpses of this Universal Consciousness which men
here and there
have experienced in
all times. Let
us now consider
the powers kindled
in those to whom glimpses (or
more) of this
consciousness has come.
For an increase
in "knowing" always
brings with it an
increase in power,
according to the
law of cause
and effect. In the
first place, the
possession by an
individual of even
a faint dawn
of this Universal
Consciousness, by whatever name
it may be
known, endows him with
a certain "in
touchness" with all
the rest of
Life. By a
subtle intuition he
may, under favorable
circumstances, speak, write, paint,
act, or produce
music representing this phase
of vital, mental,
and emotional activity
transcending any actual experience
on his own
part. Such an
individual becomes "en
rapport" with, or
"in tune" with, the manifold variety
of living forms, and is able to
produce a representation thereof
through his own
expression. This is the
secret of the "genius" of great artists, writers, musicians,
poets, and others
who express through
their own respective mediums or vehicles the messages
they receive from
the other forms
of life with
which they are connected
by subtle filaments
of unity. Such a one
can "enter into"
(in imagination) the
life experiences of any
and all
forms of life,
and to then
represent them in
visible or audible
form in a
degree depending upon
their own development.
Moreover,
such individuals are "universal" in
their sympathies, and
can feel with
any form of
life with which
they come in contact.
And as a
consequence of the
latter, they tend
to inspire in
other persons and
living creatures a
"liking," fellowship, and
understanding. Many of
the great illumined
souls of the
race, having this
consciousness in at least
some degree, find
themselves "at home"
with all manners
and conditions of
mankind, and in
many cases with the
lower life forms
as well. Sympathy
has been defined
as "a fellow
feeling," and it
may be seen
at once that when
one has a
feeling of fellowship
with all Life
(and such individuals have
this to some
degree), then there are
created certain bonds
and links of
sympathy and unity
which serve to
unite the individual
more or less strongly
to all living
things. In the
case of the
great teachers of the race, such
as the founders
of the great
religions and similar
souls, we find
that universal sympathy
with and understanding of
all life which
sets such individuals
apart as marked
and distinguished men,
and imparts to
them a universality which
makes them citizens
of all countries
and dwellers in
all time.
Again, we
find that in
the case of
many individuals of this
type there exists
a certain power
of attraction for
other forms of life
and things, which
enables them to attract to themselves those conditions, environments,
and persons best adapted
to their wellbeing
and happiness; and
which also gives
them certain so-called
"miraculous" powers
over Nature. He who is consciously
identical with Nature
is able to
work "miracles" with
Nature. We cannot
go deeper into this
subject at this
time and place,
for several very
good reasons, but
the above is
a strong hint to those who are prepared to hear
and understand the
truth concerning certain
phases of Life
and Nature.
What we
have said so
far in our
consideration of the
individuals manifesting flashes
or glimpses of
this phase of consciousness, applies
in a much
greater degree to
those who have
penetrated fully into
the higher sub-planes
of this great Plane
of Consciousness. On
this planet, and
on others, dwell
Beings so fully
awakened and unfolded
in this phase of
consciousness that they
are as Supernatural
Beings to the
ordinary human being.
Many of such beings
are performing important
offices in the
unfoldment of the
race, and the
betterment of mankind.
Many of these people
have been regarded
as Angels or
Demi-Gods by ordinary
people with whom
they have come
in contact in the
past, and many
of them are the
Invisible Helpers of
whose presence many
of the race
have been made
aware by actual
experiences.
Many
of the White Magicians
of the race
belong to the higher phases of this great Plane
of Consciousness. And, alas,
some who are
what is known
as Black Magicians have managed
to "break into
the Kingdom of
Heaven" on these planes,
and have prostituted
their power; but to such inevitably comes
punishment by Nature
herself, and are either
forced into the
legions of Light or else are disintegrated and destroyed
by the very
forces of Nature which
they have set
into operation for
selfish and ignoble
purposes.
VII. The
Plane of the
Consciousness of the
Gods
If,
as we have seen, it is most difficult to speak in understandable terms
concerning the phases
of life and activity on the last mentioned Plane of
Consciousness, what must
be the difficulty
of even hinting
at the life
and activities of the
highest plane of
all—the Plane of
the Consciousness of
the Gods.
On
this highest of all Planes of Consciousness,
however, dwell beings so high in the scale of knowledge, power, life, and bliss that even
the imagination of
the advanced student
or teacher can
scarcely grasp the
idea. This is the
Plane of
the Gods, in
verity—of being so far advanced
that they are
practically akin to
the conception of
the Gods created by
man to account
for the Universe,
and to serve
as objects of
worship.
On
this Plane are
Personal Gods—many of
them—but none of
them, alone, may
be regarded as
GOD, in the sense
of the Eternal
Parent or Infinite
Reality. For even
the highest of
them have their
limitations and restrictions, and all
are but Manifestations of the
Infinite Unmanifest. Each
of these exalted Beings has
had its beginning
or birth in
Manifestation, and each will
finally have its
ending and disappearance
into the Infinite
Unmanifest, where all
sense of separateness
and personality will disappear.
The
highest authorities inform us that the
characteristic element of
this highest form
of all consciousness
is the conscious realization
of the individual
that he IS identical with
the Infinite, and is only
apparently separated
therefrom by the
most tenuous and
subtle veil of
illusion.
Strange as
it may appear
to one not
acquainted with the
subject, glimpses and
flashes of this
consciousness, in rare instances,
filter down into
the consciousness of
individuals on this
earth at the
present time, and
have done so in
the past. Many
of the brave
souls and keen
minds of the
Illumined have actually
pierced the veil
of this plane, and
have been almost
blinded by the
light that has
flashed upon them.
The consideration
of this Plane
of Consciousness must be closed here,
for reasons which
the advanced occultist will at
once realize, and
which the less
advanced student must
be told are
adequate. Many, not
prepared for the full
Light must be
protected from spiritual
and mental blindness
by being exposed to rays before
they have become accustomed
to the lesser
lights of the
Truth. Rest assured,
however, O student,
that when your
eyes are ready to
gaze upon the
Sacred Flame, it
will no longer
be hidden from
you.
The Truth
in Symbols
There are
certain truths which cannot
be well expressed
in words, but
which may be at least
partially expressed in symbols.
To those who
feel a desire
to penetrate rather
more deeply into
the Mystery of the
Three Higher Planes of
Consciousness, we call
attention to the
symbol accompanying this
particular chapter of
this book. There is
a wealth of
knowledge and important
information hidden in
this symbol, undiscoverable to the
many but
at least partially
discoverable by the
few. To the
Few, we offer
the following suggestions
concerning this Symbol.
Your attention
is called to the fact
that each circle
in the symbol
is called to and blended
with the one
on either side of
it. Accordingly in
the circular extent
of each circle
there is to be found
FOUR different spaces
or regions, as follows:
(1) Its own
unblended space or
region; (2) the
space or region
in which its
own space or
region is blended with
that of one of the neighboring circles, which constitutes
a shield-shaped space;
(3) the space
or region in which
its own space
or region is
blended with that
of the other neighboring circle,
constituting a shield-shaped
space; and (4)
the space or
region in the
very centre of
the symbol, in
which the space
or region of
each circle is blended
with that of
both of the
other two—thus producing
a Triune Region.
This arrangement, again, furnishes us
with SEVEN distinct
regions, as follows
(giving each circle
the name of
a letter, as
A, B, or C,
respectively) I. Circle
A; II. Circle
B; III. Circle
C; IV. Space
A-B; V. Space
A-C; VI. Space
B-C and finally
VII. Region A-B-C, at
the centre. There
are thus three
unblended areas; also
three blended areas
of two elements;
and finally one blended
area of three
elements; the latter
combining within itself
all three elements
in equal proportion. Let
him who wishes
for the Light
solve this Riddle
of the Symbol!
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