WHAT
IS COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS?
©
January 9. 2020 Edward R Close
I have mentioned Cosmic Consciousness several times in
my posts and publications, indicating that it is nothing less than the real goal
and purpose of all existence. But what exactly is cosmic consciousness? Cosmic Consciousness
completely transcends the thoughts and concerns that dominate the minds of most
sentient beings alive today. Because of this, and the ever-expanding, perhaps
even infinite scope of the cosmos, i.e., all that is, and the state of being fully aware of it, it
is very difficult, if not impossible to describe such an advanced state of enlightenment
in the finite terms of any language known on this planet today. Despite these
difficulties, there have been a number of attempts to describe Cosmic Consciousness
by thinkers and writers in the past. But it is not my intent to discuss and
compare those attempts, as interesting as that might be. I plan to simply start
with the basic definitions offered by Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke, a Canadian
Psychiatrist who undertook the daunting task of defining Cosmic Consciousness
and examining the lives of several individuals he considered to be examples of
this exalted state.
I find it interesting that Dr. Bucke finished his book,
entitled Cosmic Consciousness, in 1900, and published it in 1901, the
very historical time period during which Max Planck discovered the quantum
nature of physical reality, and Albert Einstein was busy thinking about the Electrodynamics
of Moving Objects (Special Relativity). Of equal interest, to me at least, is the
fact that all three of these ideas fit very nicely into the cyclic nature of mental
virtue revealed in the Ancient Indian Vedas and interpreted by Sri
Yukteswar Giri, in his book The Holy Science, published in 1894. I have
written in some detail about this in Secrets of the Sacred Cube, a Cosmic
Love Story, and in my later, as yet unpublished manuscript, Survival.
I believe Dr. Bucke was the first in modern times, to consider
what he called Cosmic Consciousness to be the next major evolutionary stage of
sentient beings beyond the self-awareness level of the average human being in
the upward struggle of conscious beings from the bare beginnings of awareness
to the state of being fully aware of the entirety of reality, defined as the
cosmos. He divided consciousness into three stages: 1) Simple Consciousness, 2)
Self Consciousness and 3) Cosmic Consciousness. In this categorization scheme,
Simple Consciousness is the awareness present in animals, Self Consciousness is
experienced by human beings, and Cosmic Consciousness is a rare state, an
elevated state of consciousness which only a few extraordinary human beings
have ever attained in historical times.
Comparing these three categories of consciousness with
the concepts of consciousness in the Neppe-Close paradigm, I find no major conflict.
However, I would say that these categories are broad generalizations compared
with the Neppe-Close view of consciousness, which is more detailed and more
precisely related to the current scientific understanding of psychology and
psychiatry. With the discovery of the existence of gimmel, the
non-physical aspect of reality that is necessary for a stable universe to exist,
we see indications that some level of consciousness is present in every electron,
proton and neutron making up the stable atomic structures of the universe. Thus
there is some basic level of awareness present even in plants and minerals.
As in our TDVP paradigm, Bucke sees individual conscious
beings displaying a wide distribution across the spectrum of the levels of
consciousness within each of the three stages. And he sees the number of
individuals reaching the threshold of Cosmic Consciousness to be increasing slowly
over time; and that is consistent with the current era of ascending mental
virtue, the Dwapara Yuga, as described by Sri Yukteswar in The Holy
Science. But the purpose of this
discussion is not to describe the entire spectrum of awareness from one quantum
equivalence unit of gimmel, all the way to Cosmic Consciousness, other than to
say that it exists. My intended focus here is on Cosmic Consciousness, and I
will start with a brief summary of Dr. Bucke’s work, and discuss how it applies
to us today.
Dr.
Richard Bucke’s Experience and Approach
Taking
note that certain historic figures, and even a few people who were alive during
the time of his investigations (roughly 1870 to 1900), who appeared to have attained
exceptional physical and intellectual abilities and moral characteristics, all
far beyond the mean or average person in the general population, Dr. Bucke proposed
that such exceptional persons represent the next step in human evolution, and he
set out to gather the available information about such individuals to see what
they had in common. In this way, he sought to define the state he called Cosmic
Consciousness. which, in his words, was, and is: “… a higher form of consciousness
than that possessed by the ordinary man.” - Cosmic Consciousness, Page 1.
He goes on to say: “Cosmic Consciousness is a third form which is as far above
Self Consciousness as is that above Simple Consciousness.” – CC page 2.
It
is important to note that one would not be able to write authentically about the
subject of Cosmic Consciousness, with no more than intellectual superficiality,
unless one had experienced personally at least a glimpse or a taste of it. In
the spring of 1872, Richard Maurice Bucke, himself, had the experience of illumination.
His experience is described in the Proceedings
and Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, Series H, Vol. 12, pp 159,
as follows:
“He
and two friends had spent the evening reading Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats,
Browning, and especially Whitman. They parted at midnight and he had a long
drive in a hansom [a two-wheeled horse-drawn carriage]. His mind, deeply
under the influence of the ideas, images and emotions called up by the readings
and talk of the evening, was calm and peaceful. He was in a state of quiet,
almost passive enjoyment.
“All at once, without warning of any
kind, he found himself wrapped around, as it were, in a flame colored cloud.
For an instant he thought of a fire = some sudden conflagration in the great
city [London, England]. The next (instant) he knew the
light was within himself.
“Directly after there came upon him
a sense of exultation, of immense joyousness, accompanied or immediately
followed by an intellectual illumination quite impossible to describe. Into his
brain streamed one momentary lightning flash of Brahmic splendor which ever since
lightened his life. Upon his heart fell one drop of Brahmic bliss, leaving
thenceforward for always an after taste of Heaven.”
It
was probably this experience that prompted him to undertake the study that led
to the writing of the book Cosmic Consciousness, which he published in
1901. In
that book, Dr. Bucke listed fourteen individuals as real-life examples of individuals
possessing Cosmic Consciousness, and provided a second list of 36, saying that “some
of them were lesser, imperfect and doubtful instances” of Cosmic Consciousness.
He provided biographical sketches of many of these individuals, especially of the
fourteen that he considered to be definite examples of Cosmic Consciousness. Data
common to these individuals included: A reported sudden experience of “illumination”
after which they exhibited intellectual, moral and spiritual enlightenment.
Each of them experienced an immense joy or bliss, impossible to adequately
describe, but which imbued them with the realization that they were immortal
souls who could not be touched by death. This state of ecstatic illumination,
even if it did not last as a permanent state of consciousness for some of them,
changed their lives forever. A few, like Moses, Gautama Buddha, Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, William Blake, and Walt Whitman, apparently enjoyed Cosmic Consciousness continuously
from the time of their illumination onward.
The
fact that I am writing about Cosmic Consciousness in this article, immediately
raises the question of whether or not I am qualified to write authentically
about it. I believe I am, by virtue of personal experience, and I will present
my evidence, but it is up to you, the reader, to decide for yourself whether you
believe what I report is authentic knowing, or the height of the proverbial “delusion
of grandeur”.
The
first time I felt compelled to write about my personal experiences of inner
illumination was during the years of 1970 to 1977. During that time period, I
was one of the seven charter members of the Department of Interior Systems
Analysis Group with headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. In my first published
book, The Book of Atma, written mostly at night on an upright Underwood
typewriter in a partially-finished attic room in my home in Falls Church,
Virginia, and published by Libra Publishers of New York, in 1997, I described relevant
personal experiences that occurred in 1951, in Texas County, Missouri, and in
1960 in Los Angeles California. I will describe those experiences briefly here,
summarizing the details of the experiences, previously published elsewhere.
Note:
The Book of Atma, is available on Amazon, or can be ordered directly
from EJC Advantage, P.O. Box 368, Jackson, MO 63755, for $20 plus $3 for shipping anywhere in the US.
Texas
County Missouri, 1951
At
twilight on a summer evening, I strolled out of the yard of my parents farm
home located south of the small town of Raymondville, Missouri, past a row of
large double-trunk catalpa trees to the bank of a small pond. I was fourteen,
and would be entering high school in Houston, Missouri in the fall. I had been
reading math and physics books that summer, and was taken by the ideas of
Special Relativity expounded by Albert Einstein in his little book, Relativity
the Special and General Theory, a Clear Explanation that Anyone can Understand,
published in 1916. I did indeed understand the Special Theory, but had become bogged
down in the General Theory, which presented ideas that required an
understanding of mathematical physics beyond my ability to comprehend at that
time. Frustrated, I stood on the pond bank, and as the reflections of the stars
began to appear on the surface of the pond, I looked up at the sky and exclaimed:
“God, I want to know everything!”
The
response I received was totally unexpected. It seemed as if someone had flipped
a switch that turned off the normal sounds of the evening countryside: frogs,
crickets, birds, etc. Those sounds were replaced almost immediately by a deep
humming sound, like the thrilling sound of rushing waters. Several years later,
I would learn that that sound was something called the Aum, or Om Sound in
esoteric Eastern religious philosophies. With the swelling of that deep sound
of the internal workings of the universe, everything around me began to glow
and throb with life, a life that I now experienced as part of the conscious
awareness of my own being! I accepted that experience as my answer, and
vowed to become a theoretical physicist like Albert Einstein. For more detail,
see pp 43-49, of The Book of Atma.
Mount
Washington, Los Angeles California, 1960
On
the evening of September 17th, 1960, atop Mount Washington, an outlier
of the Hollywood Hills, just north of downtown Los Angeles, at the
Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) Mother Center, I was initiated into the
venerable practice of Kriya Yoga by Sri Dayamata, then President of SRF, the
organization founded by Paramahansa Yogananda in 1920. What happened during the
initiation cannot be told more succinctly than the brief description that was
published as part of the description of the event on page 206 of Transcendental
Physics, published by Gutenberg-Richter Press, in 1977, and by toExcel
Press, iuniverse, in 2000:
“I
beheld an inner light like nothing I had ever seen before. There was nothing
vague or dream-like about this light. It was just as real as any light I have
ever seen from any external source. It was golden in color, spinning rapidly,
and vividly three dimensional.…The reason I am describing this event in this
book is because it is an example of inner objectivity, a clear observation of
an objective aspect of consciousness that I have experienced myself.”
For
more detail, see The Book of Atma, p 53, and Transcendental Physics,
pp 205-209.
At
the end of The Book of Atma, I returned to the subject of Cosmic
Consciousness. Here are some relevant excerpts:
“Knowing
is all it takes. If we find our present consciousness too structured and
complex to allow true knowledge and understanding to dawn, we may start by
making our total existence, our every instant of consciousness, in short, every
aspect of our lives, a path to cosmic consciousness. Change your perspective to
see each act, each breath, each now, as an opportunity to touch Reality or God.…Realize
that the real, unthinkable, indescribable Reality is always there, waiting for
you to recognize your own identity. … Rest in absolute assurance of your basic
unity and oneness with the Infinite. Humanity has never been anything but God
asleep, entertaining Itself with dreams of shadow and light, plus and minus,
pleasure and pain!
“Enlightenment! Satori! Samadhi!
Paradox of paradoxes. Nothing has been attained, and nothing has been gained,
for the realization has dawned that consciousness is, and always has been
Bliss. I have only recognized what already was the case. In truth, only Truth
exists! The mountain is just a mountain, the flower is simply a flower. There
is no dilemma, there never has been. There is no pleasure or pain, no life
separate from death. There is no separateness. I simply recognize my original
state, which has never actually changed. Earth life passes, a stream of images,
of events, all equally important, equally unimportant. Consciousness is Bliss.”
Poetic description
comes closest to describing the exalted state of Cosmic Consciousness. One
thinks, for instance, of William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence:
To see a World in a
Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild
Flower
Hold Infinity in the
palm of your hand
William Blake was one
of the prime individuals that Bucke identified as examples of Cosmic Consciousness.
I would argue that not only does the beginning couplets of this poem give us a
hint of the vision of an enlightened soul, but the rest of the poem, as the title
suggests, implies that thoughtless actions harming other sentient beings are
sure to bring about dire consequences to individuals and civilizations alike.
For example, later in the poem we find:
A Horse misused upon the
Road
Calls to Heaven for
Human blood
Each outcry of the hunted
Hare
A fibre from the Brain
does tear …
And,
common to the thoughts of those enlightened beings is the resolution of
opposites as suggested by the following lines:
A Truth that’s told with
bad intent
Beats all the Lies you
can invent
It is right it should be
so
Man was made for Joy
& Woe
And when this we rightly
know
Through the World we safely go
A Clothing for the Soul Devine
The American poet, Walt
Whitman was one of the poets who inspired Richard Bucke and may have been the
primary influence triggering Bucke’s personal experience of illumination. Bucke
was said to be able to recite the entirety of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass
from memory. Here are a few excerpts from Leaves of Grass:
Stop this day and
night with me and you shall possess the origin
of all poems,
You shall possess the
good of the earth and sun, (there are millions
of suns left,)
You
shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look
through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in
books, I have said that the soul
is not more than the body,
And I
have said that the body is not more than the soul,
And
nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self is,
And
whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own
funeral
drest in his shroud,
And I or
you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the
earth,
And to
glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds
the learning of all times,
And
there is no trade or employment but the young man following
it may become a hero,
And
there is no object so soft, but it makes a hub for the wheel'd
universe,
And I
say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and
composed before a million universes.
And I
say to mankind, Be not curious about God,
For I
who am curious about each, am not curious about God,
(No
array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God
and about death.)
I hear
and behold God in every object, yet understand God not
in the least,
Nor do
I understand who there can be more wonderful than
myself.
Why
should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see
something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each
moment then,
In the
faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in
the glass,
I find
letters from God dropt in the street, and everyone is sign'd
by God's name,
And I
leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go,
Others
will punctually come for ever and ever.
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor
take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them
from yourself.
Comment: Having read
Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass several times, I think that I can summarize it
as follows:
I am Walt Whitman and
he is me,
I am in everything,
and everything is in me.
Finally, to make this
discussion complete, I include the following discussion, relating gimmel, the
necessary third form of reality (which is non-physical) to Cosmic Consciousness. This discussion was previously posted in part on this blog site on Sunday, September 4th, 2016,
under the heading THE ECSTASY OF COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS:
Is Cosmic
Consciousness real? Is it something everyone can experience? The short answer
is YES! The spiritual geniuses of all ages have extolled the ecstasy of Oneness
with the Infinite, and now, science is at long last on the threshold of
confirming the reality of their revelations. The ultimate paradigm shift is
here. But most scientists are unaware of it and, in some cases, opposed to it,
because science education has slipped farther and farther in the last 50 years
toward abject materialism and atheism. As a result, contemporary science has
very little to say about consciousness, and virtually no awareness of the
reality of the existence of Cosmic Consciousness shining forth eternally behind
the façade of the physical universe.
Why has science missed
the true essence of reality? The truth is, it hasn’t, - not entirely. Many
hints have been there, bursting forth in the brilliance of the occasional
genius, like Pythagoras, Poincare, Cantor, Fermat, Newton, Leibniz, Planck, Schrödinger and
Einstein. Compelling clues are there, in the results of the insights of such
geniuses; most noticeably in pure mathematics, relativity and quantum physics.
Most contemporary scientists, however, blinded by the lesser light of the
material success of the technological applications, miss the brilliance of the
very real light of Cosmic Consciousness, shining behind all things. But this is about to change.
Why is this about to
change? It is about to change because the fundamental nature of science is the
search for truth, and the truth cannot be hidden by the superficial
metaphysical cloud of materialism. The truth is that no physical universe could
exist without the third, non-physical substance, and this third form of reality
is the ray of light that illuminates new science beyond the dead-end of
materialism. We call this new science the Triadic Dimensional Vortical
Paradigm (TDVP). The nature of this third form is not
theoretical: it is derived from particle physics data and pure mathematics.
We have called this third form, possessing no mass and no energy, gimmel.
The measure of the three forms, gimmel, matter and energy, is the Triadic
Rotational Unit of Equivalence (TRUE), discovered by this writer and discussed
on this blog and defined in Neppe-Close publications, including the e-book
Reality Begins with Consciousness, available on www.BrainVoyage.com, and in a
peer-reviewed article published in the IQ Nexus Journal.
It comes as no surprise to
me that the ratios of ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ to baryonic (normal
physical matter and energy) found by the Hubble probe are virtually the same
(within the limits of measurement error) as the ratios of electron and nuclear
gimmel to matter and energy in the natural elements of the universe. The
mathematical details of this, worked out by Dr. Neppe, are published in our IQ
Nexus Journal article.
Reality is composed of
TRUE quantum units of mass, energy and consciousness, these triadic structures
are the building blocks of the universe, and the source of TRUE is the infinite
substrate of Cosmic Consciousness, as informed by the Conveyance Equations,
derived and described in several Close-Neppe, and Neppe-Close publications,
including the book Reality Begins with Consciousness. The bottom
line is: Reality is Consciousness, and the realization that every spark of
individualized consciousness is actually a temporarily limited bubble of Cosmic
Consciousness, reveals the fact that the goal of finite existence in the
physical universe is the full realization of Cosmic Consciousness. And
that realization is pure Ecstasy.