Defining Consciousness

Consciousness cannot be explained discursively, either through mere definitions or by listing its qualities. It cannot be known by mere definition because it is not a synthetic concept (formed from other concepts). And it cannot be abstracted from qualities because it is by consciousness that we abstract. Rather the referent of the word "consciousness" can only be taken awareness of by taking account of it, by taking notice of it in ourselves.

Here is how we can take note of our consciousness, or how Baba has us to meditate on it and bring it to the fore of our awareness:

Consciousness is the opposite of unconsciousness. We know consciousness in part by way of this contrast. To see what is expressed in this contrast, think about what is different between your deep sleep state (which Baba says is identical with the unconscious state) and your awake state (which Baba equates with consciousness). In describing these states Baba allows us to feel it is perfectly reasonable to reflect upon our own process of waking to inform us of what he is describing. In the latter we have the capacity to take experience of our surroundings, and in the first we have no such capacity. So this capacity to take experience appears to be what Baba is telling us consciousness in fact is.

But Baba adds one detail here. Between our fully unconscious state (deep sleep) and our fully conscious state (ordinary awake state) there is semi-conscious state (ordinary dream state). These are stages of the in-folding and ex-folding of consciousness in the ordinary course of a human day. The same stages repeat in death and rebirth, the only difference being that the awaking that follows death is into a new body (generally in the fifth month of a gestation) rather than into the same body. [1]

So consciousness is the capacity of the soul to take experience of something. Baba tells us that the kind of consciousness determines the kind of thing the soul can take experience of. Gross consciousness takes experience of the gross world. Subtle consciousness takes experience of the subtle world, etc. But consciousness is consciousness. What differentiates the "kind" of consciousness is merely the "kind" of sanskaras that it is (from its past experience) conditioned by. Through the formative lens of gross sanskaras consciousness can take experience of the gross (most dense) world. Through subtle sanskaras consciousness can take experience of the subtle (less dense) world. Through mental sanskaras consciousness can take experience of the mental (fine) world. And through no sanskaras consciousness can take experience directly and immediately, without any conditioning by sanskaras at all, and thus can take experience of Self.

Baba explains that consciousness is latent even in unconsciousness. This is easy to see when we understand the word "consciousness" as referring to the capacity to experience. For even when one is in deep sleep (unconscious) one's capacity to experience remains latent - even though one cannot (at the time of being unconscious) take such experience. Thus the capacity is there but latent. Upon waking the stored or latent or unused potential for consciousness is released. And you regain your capacity to take experience. You regain consciousness.

Baba tells us that consciousness evolves and that this evolution of consciousness is in fact the underlying cause of what we experience outwardly as external evolution in nature. To explain this underlying evolution of consciousness, Baba compares it to our own daily process of waking. Just as we pass from deep unconscious sleep, through a dream state, to our conscious waking state each morning, the soul's journey is one of passing from its original state of unconsciousness (God in the Beyond Beyond State) to its awake state of consciousness in a human being (awake dream state) and finally to awaken entirely to fully awake state (God Beyond State). Each soul's journey from its original sleep state to final awake state covers eons of evolution and reincarnation.

During evolution (whereby consciousness evolves) there is a reciprocal relationship between ever increasing consciousness and the resultantly more complex experience that is taken by the soul. With each increase in consciousness in evolution new more complex experience is possible. And the impressions left on the soul by ever more complex experience causes further growth of consciousness. In order to express the impressions left by more complex experience, the soul is forced to forge ever more perfect media - which we find as the forms of evolution. In other words the increasingly advanced consciousness of the soul forges increasingly advanced appropriate media for the use of its increasing consciousness in order to express the impressions left over from the last form.

So each stage of evolution is the result of more consciousness and results in more consciousness. Stone form is the result of consciousness that is nearly-nil. By way of the medium of a stone form, the soul can take very little experience but not none. The nearly-nil impressions left upon the soul from experiencing itself as stone, however, forge more consciousness that then requires the higher media of vegetable form, and so forth up through the stages of evolution toward man. Through the media of the animal form the soul can take experience of a great deal of the scope of the gross world just as humans can and are thus highly conscious. But animals are still not fully conscious, for they do not yet fully recognize their own presence. In order to have the full experience of the presence of self, and thus be fully conscious, the soul must pass through the human stage of conceiving of itself as a beholder of its experience, in contrast to the beheld experience - as two separate and opposite things. This is generally known as the subject/object distinction. This is necessary because the soul originally takes notice of itself in terms of this contrast. To describe this stage some philosophers say that self discovers self "against the backdrop of the world." This is like discovering light by contrast to darkness.