This Classic work is now copyright expired and therefore in the public domain.

Cosmic Consciousness by Ali Nomad

III AREAS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

page 1 of 6 | Cosmic Consciousness - home

Consciousness may be termed, simply, "the divine spark," which enters into every form and phase of manifested life emanating from that one Eternal Power which materialists designate as "energy" and which Occultists, both Oriental and Occidental, best define as "Aum," God! The Absolute--The Divine Mind, and many other terms.

Consciousness, therefore, enters into everything--is the life essence of everything.

The materialistic hypothesis formerly predicated the axiom that there were two distinct phases of manifestation, namely organic and inorganic.

Organic life was sentient, or conscious, while inorganic life was insensate--a structure acted upon from forces outside itself, and dependent upon an exterior force for its action.

Other names for this differentiation, would be "matter" and "spirit." The point is, that the old materialistic philosophy failed to recognize the fact that consciousness, in varying degrees, characterizes all manifested life.

This fact every phase of Oriental philosophy recognized, and always has recognized. The assumption of the Christian Science devotee, that there is anything new in the postulate that "all is spirit," is possible only because of his ignorance of Oriental philosophy, as will be seen later on in these pages, when we take up the relative comparison between the Oriental and the Occidental systems of "salvation."

To resume therefore, we postulate the following recognized axioms of Universal Occultism.

All life is sentient or conscious.

All life is from the one source, and therefore contains this "divine spark."

All manifestation expresses degrees or phases of consciousness.

The degree of this consciousness fixes the status of the organism, and determines its classification, whether it is organic or inorganic; simple, or complex.

Every cell, each separate cell, in fact, has its own consciousness--that is each cell is a center of this power that we term consciousness; a group of cells with this power focalized to a given point, or center, makes an organ of consciousness, and so on up the scale through many many degrees of complexity of organism, until we come to man.

Webster defines consciousness as "the ability to know ones mental operations." But, we do not take this definition in Occultism, for the obvious reason, that it is not possible to state arbitrarily whether or not, the cell "knows its operations," and since all operations are necessarily mental in the final analysis, we assume that there is a phase of consciousness below that of cognition of "self," which may be termed "the unconscious consciousness," which again is synonymous with the phrase "automatic cerebration."

Coming up through the various myriad degrees of sub-conscious life (sub being here used as below self consciousness) we arrive at the stage of simple consciousness which characterizes the animal kingdom, remembering that consciousness in the abstract is not a _condition_, or state of environment. It is one of the eternal verities. It _is_ just as Aum _is_.

The attainment of a wider and wider area of consciousness, is but the _uncovering_, or the attracting to a central point or to an individual organism of _this that is_. Thus consciousness, in the abstract, may say of itself "before creation was, I am."

That is what is meant when it is said that God is omnipotent, and omniscient.

The difference between mere power, or energy, and consciousness, whether considered from the standpoint of the organic or the inorganic kingdom, may be likened to the difference between a blind force, and a power that knows itself.

Consciousness is practically the great central light that "lighteth every man that cometh into the world." Without consciousness, manifestation would be darkness. Thus it is said, "the light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not." This applies to that tiny spark of divinity in which consciousness exists but where there is not realization of its divinity.