Dictionary of all Scriptures & Myths

CONSCIOUSNESS

The passive aspect of Spirit on the mental plane-it is immortal and eternal.

In manifestation, consciousness becomes dual-higher and lower. As consciousness descends into matter from the higher mental plane, on the one hand, so it rises on the other. Hence, as the physical matter becomes replete with qualities, and fully informed and operated upon from above; contemporaneously with this activity in matter, there takes place the highest expression of the Divine consciousness from the highest plane -atma.

The dual consciousnesses aspects of that which appears to be continually striving together in itself. All manifestation involves this apparent conflict and recognition of contraries. It is, however, as the contraries are perceived to be not in reality opposites to each other, but mutually helpful of the good and the true, that the reign of the Higher consciousness (Christ) may be said to begin. This is possible only as the Divine Life within ourselves overcomes the forms, and conquers the planes whereon the sheaths of consciousness are employed.

The Higher consciousness is all in all when the functioning upon all planes is completed, and this stage practically implies the union of the lower and higher on the upper mental plane, when the twain, male and female (manas and buddhi) are no longer severed, but are one. This is the "sacred in marriage " all scriptures.

The lower, or separated, consciousness is in a sense illusory, since it answers to the partial realization only of the nature of the Self. The consciousness itself is one, but in the forms it appears as many. The apparent breaks are due to the illusory limits of the forms.

The divergence of consciousness is to be understood in this way :- that there is, through the constitution of the mechanism of the Self (Higher Self and Māyāvic Self), an alternation in the action of the Self upon the planes--higher and lower-of its being. The energised mechanism appropriate to each plane tends to follow the line of least resistance through its own inherent capability of responding to those stimuli which enable it to exercise its functions on the respective planes.

"I build my belief in immortality on the conviction that the fundamental reality of the universe is consciousness, and that no consciousness can ever be extinguished for it belongs to the whole, and must be fulfilled in the whole. The one unthinkable supposition from this point of view is that any kind of being which has ever become aware of itself, that is, has ever contained a ray of the eternal consciousness, can perish." - R. J. CAMPBELL, The New Theology, p. 230.

"Our self-consciousness at any time is but a poor, limited expression of what we really are, and if we could get down far enough into the sub-conscious depths of our being, we should find ourselves one with all the rest of existence, and with God who is the ground thereof." - R. J. CAMPBELL, Serm., The Self and the Body.

See Also

GLORY
HIGHER AND LOWER SELF
ICHOR
INITIATIONS
LIGHT
MARRIAGE
MAYA
OPPOSITES
SELF
SEPARATION
SPIRIT
UNION