*CONSCIOUS - also CONSCIENCE, AWARE, AWAKE, EXPERIENCE, KNOWLEDGE, UNDERSTAND, TRUTH, TAO, NOT-TWO, YIN-YANG, BOTH, COMPLETE, WAY, PATH, WHOLE, GROW, EVOLVE, HEAL, ONENESS, CONNECTEDNESS, BALANCE, UNITY, REALITY, PRESENCE, SUFFERING, GLORY, MYSTERY, PARADOX, SALVATION, REALIZE, EVOLVE, JOURNEY, ENLIGHTEN, WISDOM, TRANSCENDENCE, TRANSFORM, ILLUMINATION, INTUITION, LOVE, CHRIST-CONSCIOUSNESS, GOD-CONSCIOUSNESS, KINGDOM, HEAVEN, EXPAND, REVELATION
The 5 stages of mystic conscioussness are: 1. awakening or conversion, 2. self-knowledge or purgation, 3. illumination (or enlightenment, presence, transcendence, reality, intuition, fellowship) 4. surrender (or dark night, or humility?), 5. union (or love or wisdom) (Mysticism by Underhill, p203)
Seven stages of human consciousness:
1) Physical - simple awareness and concerned for simple basics of life: food, shelter, and family
2) Emotional - Most people reside here with concerns for culture, art, politics, and releigion
3) Astral - When you sit in meditation and start to feel bigger than the purely physical, that is the astral revealing itself.
4) Mental - imagination, inspiration, energic, expanded state; Most gurus and Zen masters are in this stage because of ego inflation
5) Enlightenment - Until this self-realization we do not know our "original face" and thus we suffer greatly; Enlightenment is an unlearning, not a learning; last layer of individual personal being
6) Cosmic Consciousness is a state of consciousness in which you are aware that God is all that there is and more, that He is the link that connects all individuals. God is the Divine Consciousness that illumines the entire creation. The realisation of this Divine Consciousness or God liberates one from bondage to passing phenomena, from the illusion of names and forms. This is the state that is called God-realisation or Self-realisation. (http://sivanandaonline.org/html/dls/magazine/2008/May08-6.shtm)
7) Unity Consciousness - Also Oneness or Nirvana. Characterized by a realization, when the Self is seen in the object, we realize I am That, Thou Art That, All This is That. (Upanishads) The subject-object duality collapses, the dream of God is seen through and all illusion ends. It is characterized by the loss of identity or sense of person, the subconscious driver of the former ego. There is no longer ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ but rather a continuum. The world ‘out there’ ceases to exist. Many paradoxes are resolved in the inclusiveness of the One. (http://in2deep.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/states-of-consciousness/) - Observer effect; beyond size and form, is the limitless void from which all is born
Experiencing unity and self awareness is higher consciousness. It is a practical means to peace, giving each person the ability to be self sufficient, to be self-governing, and being able to add to the welfare of all life, while experiencing Divinity within. We can create peace, we can create unity, and we can be the Divine Spark that becomes the Living Flame. (http://www.intentblog.com/archives/2007/05/towards_higher.html)
"Reality changes in different states of consciousness, and the same holds true of love." In many ways this is the kernel of Deepak Chopra's message and the key to connecting with The Third Jesus. We perceive reality, including God, according to the level of our own consciousness - "For those who have ears to hear let them hear," as Jesus put it. (http://www.amazon.com/Third-Jesus-Christ-Cannot-Ignore/dp/0307338312)
We dwell in a profoundly mysterious universe. When we became self-conscious (in the Garden of Eden), we loss the sense of oneness with the rest of creation (as symbolized by our banishment from Paradise). (p18-9) Freud recognized the relationship between healing and consciousness. (p25) (see SUFFERING) Genesis 3 of the Bible is a myth about how we human beings evolved into consciousness. The choice between good and evil is our own and we must take responsibility. (p108) (Further)
Maybe the evolutionary sequence really is from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit, each transcending and including, each with a greater depth and greater consciousness and wider embrace. And in the highest reaches of evolution, maybe, just maybe, an individual's consciousness does indeed touch infinity—a total embrace of the entire Kosmos—a Kosmic consciousness that is Spirit awakened to its own true nature. (Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything, 42-3)
There are not three stages of life -- the material, the mental and the spiritual. The material and the mental are one, although they constitute two degrees of the same one. (http://www.theunofficialinfiniteway.com/sios/sios_21.html)
Our understanding suggests God is an unfolding creative process that may expand without limit. In that framework we are the eyes of God with the power to create the world. We are the evolution of consciousness becoming aware of itself and beginning to acquire the power to take conscious control of evolution. (http://www.experiencefestival.com/consciousness)
A still higher level of transformation is God consciousness. You can see and feel the life throb of the spirit in every object of perception. You realise that everything you see and hear and touch is animated by the full power and wisdom of the universe. This is the level of consciousness that generates synchronicity. It's very important to recognise and cultivate it within yourself. And the last state is unity consciousness. Where the spirit within you not only perceives but merges with the larger spirit - become one with it. This is where there's instant manifestation of thought into matter. In unity consciousness, there's spontaneous fulfilment of every desire. (http://www.metta.org.uk/wds/wds4.htm)
Our intellectual consciousness is only an intermediary stage. The path of contemplation helps us grow into the next level of consciousness. In the transpersonal stage insights are experienced as oneness with the object of one's religion. In cosmic consciousness stage one experiences pure being, the source from which all things flow: Emptiness is form, form is emptiness. Nature and supernature are not-two. All things are one, and yet they remain separate from one another. (Meaning, p29-31)
The highest level of our practice is to recognize that our individualized consciousness is God. To be still and become aware of the multiplicity of ways in which this consciousness expresses itself - this is our work. When we know this, we see that there is nothing particular to change about ourselves. The point is simply to understand who we are. That understanding will effect every change that is required. (Stillness, p239)
Summary of the 7 States of Consciousness:
Ind. Pure ‑‑Rel Level‑‑ Absolute
States of Consciousness Self Self Gross Subtle Level
1. Deep sleep
2. Dreaming
3. Waking x x
4. Transcendental x
5. Cosmic x x x
6. God x x x x
7. Unity x x x x x
Enlightened men have a certain child‑like quality. It is not a return to childhood, but a fuller maturity which synthesizes the innocence and openness of childhood with the experience and wisdom of adulthood. Not a circle from
unity to diversity and back to unity, but a SPIRAL from unity through diversity to an awareness of unity and diversity TOGETHER. The fully enlightened man has a fully developed heart and a fully developed mind: love and reason, so often held to be in opposition, are now found co‑existing in harmony. The balance between two opposing modes of thought having been testored thinking is not active OR receptive, but active AND receptive; intellectual AND intuition; scientific AND artistic; concrete AND abstract; focal AND disfuse; ‑ a synthesis of all polarities. The balancing of opposites experienced by the enlightened man is not a compromise of opposites: it is a true synthesis of opposites in which both are enjoyed to the full and neither is appeased. The enlightened man does not stand midway between a material and a spiritual life: he lives both to the full aspects of a higher reality. For example:
Synthesis
(Benevolent understanding)
/\
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ \
Sympathy /________________________\ Antipathy
Compromise
(Indifference)
The Gospel according to Thomas: 'When you make the two one and when you make the innner the outer and the outer as the inner and the above as the below, and when you make the male and the female into a single one...then you shall enter (the kingdom).' (TM, p129)
The cost of consciousness: the expulsion. (Judaism, Wisdom, p178)
By plucking the fruit, human beings became conscious of their capacity for good as well as for evil. (Beginning, p30)
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked. (Gen 3:7 vs. 2:25)
Spirit, consciousness, depth - so many words for the same thing. (Everything, p41)
The Spirit that was present throughout the entire evolutionary process becomes increasingly conscious of its own condition. Spirit slumbers in nature, begins to awaken in mind, and finally recognizes itself as Spirit in the transpersonal domains. It is the same Spirit present throghout the entire sequence: the ground, path, and fruition of the whole display. With Spirit's shocking Self-recognition, Forms are all Forms of Emptiness. There is no end limit, no foundation, no final resting place, only Emptiness and endless Grace and so the luminous Play carries on. (Everything, p246)
There is a cosmic intelligence or consciousness that's not any more "out there" than it is right here, not separate from who we are or what we think and dream. BY EVOLVING THROUGH US, IT BECOMES AWARE OF ITSELF. (PS 1/4/97)