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Cosmic Consciousness by Ali Nomad

I THE NEW BIRTH: WHAT IT IS: INSTANCES DESCRIBED

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However, the phrase, "self-abnegation," predicates the concept of sacrifice; the giving up of something much to be desired, while, as a matter of truth, there arises in the consciousness of the Illumined One, a natural contempt for the "baubles" of externality; therefore there is no sacrifice. Nothing is given up. On the contrary, the gain is infinitely great.

Manikyavasayar, one of the great Tamil saints of Southern India, addressed a gathering of disciples thus:

"Why go about sucking from each flower, the droplet of honey, when the heavy mass of pure and sweet honey is available?" By which he questioned why they sought with such eagerness the paltry pleasures of this world, when the state of cosmic consciousness might be attained.

The thought of India, is however, one of ceaseless repudiation of all that is external, and the Hindu conception of _mukti_, or cosmic consciousness, differs in many respects from that reported by the Illumined in other countries, even while all reports have many emotions in common.

Again we find that reports of the cosmic influx, differ with the century in which the Illumined one lived. This may be accounted for in the fact that an experience so essentially spiritual can not be accurately expressed in terms of sense consciousness.

Far different from the Hindu idea, for example, is the report of a woman who lived in Japan in the early part of the nineteenth century. This woman was very poor and obscure, making her frugal living by braiding mats. So intense was her consciousness of unity with all that is, that on seeing a flower growing by the wayside, she would "enter into its spirit," as she said, with an ecstacy of enjoyment, that would cause her to become momentarily entranced.

She was known to the country people around her as _Sho-Nin_, meaning literally "above man in consciousness."

It is said that the wild animals of the wood, were wont to come to her door, and she talked to them, as though they were humans. An injured hare came limping to her door in the early morning hours and "spoke" to her.

Upon which, she arose and dressed, and opened the door of her dwelling with words of greeting, as she would use to a neighbor.

She washed the soil from the injured foot, and "loved" it back to wholeness, so that when the hare departed there was no trace of injury.

She declared that she spoke to and was answered by, the birds and the flowers, and the animals, just as she was by persons.

Indeed, among the high priests of the Jains, and the Zens (sects which may be classed as highly developed Occultists), entering into animal consciousness, is a power possessed by all initiates.

Passing along a highway near a Zen temple, the driver of a cart was stopped by a priest, who gently said: "My good man, with some of the money you have in your purse please buy your faithful horse a bucket of oats. He tells me he has been so long fed on rice straw that he is despondent."

To the Occidental mind this will doubtless appear to be the result of keen observation, the priest being able to see from the appearance of the animal that he was fed on straw. They will believe, perhaps, that the priest expressed his observations in the manner described to more fully impress the driver, but this conclusion will be erroneous. The priest, possessing the enlarged or all-inclusive consciousness which in the west is termed "cosmic," actually did speak to the horse.

Nor is this fact one which the western mind should be unable to follow. Science proves the fact of consciousness existing in the atoms composing even what has been termed _inanimate_ objects. How much more comprehensible to our understanding is the consciousness of an animate organism, even though this organism be not more complex than the horse.