June 12, 2012
The Light of Consciousness
The overwhelming and profound nature of the spiritual metamorphosis that occurs as one begins to move beyond individual and collective egoic self structures is difficult to convey without knowing about it directly from personal experience. If one had only known the darkness and had never seen the light of the sun, how could it be described in such a way that it would truly be understood? The light of consciousness illuminates all things but if we haven’t discovered it directly for ourselves, no matter how bright that light may be, we won’t be able to see it. And why is that? Because our attention is simply on other things. An enlightened person is illuminated by that same luminous essence that makes it possible for the world to exist.
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Andrew Cohen is a spiritual teacher, cultural visionary, founder of EnlightenNext, and the author of 
One has to discover the light of Consciousness by himself, but the presence of Masters,who have seen, experienced the light of Consciousness, can propell and excite the mind of the gunuine person desiring to see the light of Consciousness…One has to traverse the path to Divinity by himself but a Master like Andrew Cohen can help push one on the course in the right direction….especially by alluding to the Divinite tastes…..
The light of Consciousness is not like a sensible light. We are talking about awareness of pure spirit and its effects, which constitute spiritual knowledge. There are beings among us today who are dwelling in this knowledge, but not having awakened knowledge about knowledge, to know that they are wise beyond Andrew, perhaps far beyond.
The highest state is the end of domination, and it looks like an unfavorable state to sadhus. The mind retreats into pure logic and reason, with no more attempts to shove a petty worldview upon the rest. Such people are meeker than meek, and may not even know their own power. But like others, they can select where they go to work, and may have more energy than the world has allowed to them.
No guru has yet exhibited the virtue of true friendliness, that he likes people for their noble character traits and enjoys spending time with them. All posture in a dominant role, and for a guru to step out of such a role would alienate the sadhus. But true friendliness is higher. That the gurus are not there yet, is seen in that they have not conceived of a new society of enlightened sages. Each is content with his nest of pupils, unable to imagine higher social forms that must be what Heaven is like, if it really exists as so many religions aver that it does.
These higher social forms require great personal power, to form objective mental models for the intrinsic (or abiding) traits for dozens or hundreds of others. But one must perceive the intrinsic traits, before forming such mental models for the personalities of others. Without that direct spiritual perception, the mental models must be about objects, not living persons, and this is why Jesus announced tersely, “Let the dead bury the dead.”
In my experience, the light of Consciousness (with a capital C to denote the Absolute) is not like the diffuse light of the Sun or a light bulb. Rather, it is more like the coherent light of a laser beam, enabling us to see with self-reflective Intelligence—the eyesight of Consciousness—a holographic, fractal-like view of the Cosmos.
This means that the Authentic Self that we all share as human beings is ‘Satchidananda’, the Bliss of Absolute Consciousness in Sanskrit, where the notion that we are beings separate from the Divine, Nature, or each other disappears completely. Sadly, however, this is the opposite of what we are taught in Western civilization, cultural conditioning that inhibits us from awakening to our True Nature.
The path to a new human nature!!
Thank you for expressing such beautifull thoughts
Quite so, Andrew. The seeing of that light for many is at first hinted at, then glimpsed, then seen clearly. And yet much work on individual and collective egoism still needs doing before one can fully live that light. Zen koan practitioners must “solve” hundreds of head scratching koans before they see that each is simply a direction, a pointing to that light which is beyond articulation.
Koan practice is one way. Your teachings are another. But certainly, apart from the rare spiritually gifted individual, those who proceed without guides and proven teachings have fools for consuls.
An interesting thing here is that what I have heard termed “descended masters,” at a retreat with Eknath Easwaran, and that I think Ramakrishna called the “ever-free,” would likely be trimmed down to a small part of their fuller potential, as they associate with sadhus to act as guides both seen and unseen. This is because the higher divine manifestations, while powerful, are crippled by not only physical brutality, but the brutality of a body-identified mind. You’d have to take such an entity into a place where greed and anger are never seen, for many months, before you could even say they’d been given a fair chance to display their personality and worth. No such situations exist today.
If those individuals decided to enact their full powers, holding nothing back, then the trends of human history, so black, selfish and violent, would be turned around in their midst. But I think at that time the sadhus could no longer bear to live near them. Every thought, every word and action, would come from a motivation in the sky that they cannot perceive, which is the core of selflessness in a purified soul. It also won’t look powerful to sadhus, who were expecting domination and posture as sensible signs of greatness. They wouldn’t understand it, like it was a different species, and the Bible did mention that the angels were a separate creation, from the humans.
Such beings live in power, using small amounts of their power to supply a bliss that can support selfless motivation. Bliss doesn’t land in your lap. The road of sadhana is increasing power of spirit, which is more work than anyone suspects as yet. I’m just saying, this amazing potential exists, and has always existed although humans were allowed to dominate the planet. So far God has only revealed the “fist of technology,” in minds mostly externalized, but there is another more important stroke of his, which is the “fist of heart,” based in true affection on the attributes. Without this heart, all creation languishes, as it has been on Earth. With it, there might be sweet or profound meaning at last.
Upon reading Andrew’s Quote of the Week this morning, I was struck by the impact it had on me. As an active practitioner, trying to sustain awareness of that powerful dimension of myself, the Authentic Self, is a constant. However, recently when I became immersed in a searing novel about the Holocaust in Hungary,I found myself identifying with the horrors and accompanying anguish of that time. Even as Andrew’s voice kept reminding me of the positivity of the Universe, there was resistance until I read — the light of Consciousness; the darkness lifted and I once again KNOW the truth in his words. The ever-present challenge of being the One remains, but the egoic knot has been untied allowing realization to be present.
Thanks, Andrew, for phrasing your thoughts in simple language. Commenters might take it to heart — if we’re going to regurgitate borrowed knowledge, let’s do it in a style that indicates we’ve taken it truly to heart.
I am coming to understanding the importance of “attention” . Without attention, the information we are receiving at such a fast rate, could just pass by. To truly stay in touch with the inspiration, the enlightenment, the light of our creation, one must intentionally focus their attention on the light and its profound power. Manifesting our divine potential requires attention.
If anyone want to experience the true light of Consciousness, MAUM
Meditation can show you. MAUM meditation is a very uncommon meditation using a 7 step guide. Woo Myumg is the founder and there are over 200 meditation centers world-wide now. I’ve been doing the meditation for 9 months now and I’ve learned to disregard myself or ego and all my illusions while living in this moment. I tell you this, it’s nothing you have ever experienced and only the Truthseeker can complete all 7 steps. The meditation is profoundly effective if you believe in it and trust your God presence in you.
By the “light of consciousness,” one should gain a vision of the soul and its properties. From this the pure selfless ideal arises, that you know how to act to have a good effect on spirit, your own and that of others. This is why self-knowledge is the core of sadhana. The being of the others cannot be known directly. You can know your own being, and then test in practice, whether they are constructed similarly, with similar ideas about what is profound, noble, or good.
However the properties of pure spirit are unsuspected by minds used to thinking in the light coming from the senses, which is externalized, dualistic thinking. Then there is no question of domination or posturing. The being is known, and you stand on that. If there are many who have attained this state, they can support a mutual ecstatic field between themselves, that is always devoid of greed or anger. Conflict is unknown to such people. They trace everything to a rational principle; conflict only arises when desire intrudes on the thinking process, and someone wants things their private way, instead of the objectively best way.
From the light of self-awareness, an original morality is generated. You know what hurts or helps spirit to grow, so you can engage in authentic Golden Rule Thinking, watching the joy-state of those around you and wanting to contribute to their growth–with links too, to the profundities of spiritual reality, that this life could never be about material as the primary good. Such people have no need of any laws. Each writes a sufficient law in his own heart. Hurting another would be like hurting themselves; and every selfish move is seen immediately as destructive against friendship.
Dear John,
I support this living mutual estatic field devoid of domination, manipulation, greed, ambition with you. Thanks soully for those words:
“• The highest state is the end of domination
• true friendliness is higher. That the gurus are not there yet, is seen in that they have not conceived of a new society of enlightened sages. Each is content with his nest of pupils, unable to imagine higher social forms that must be what Heaven is like,
• These higher social forms require great personal power, to form objective mental models for the intrinsic (or abiding) traits
• Without that direct spiritual perception, the mental models must be about objects, not living persons
•
• Every thought, every word and action, would come from a motivation in the sky that they cannot perceive, which is the core of selflessness in a purified soul.
It also won’t look powerful to sadhus, who were expecting domination and posture as sensible signs of greatness. They wouldn’t understand it, like it was a different species
• the “fist of heart,” based in true affection on the attributes. Without this heart, all creation languishes, as it has been on Earth. With it, there might be sweet or profound meaning at last.
•
• This is why self-knowledge is the core of sadhana. The being of the others cannot be known directly.
• Such people have no need of any laws. Each writes a sufficient law in his own heart.
• Hurting another would be like hurting themselves; and every selfish move is seen immediately as destructive against friendship.”
and I would add what J.Krishnamurti claims “The one who says he(she) is enlightened is not enlightened”
Who can pretend to grasp the sea in his (her) hands?
Let us be real and honest for a new world to be.
The highest state is called sahaja or natural samadhi. I think there are many people today existing in this state, without being aware of it. Since bliss is a function of power, it can be shoved in a corner until it looks irrelevant, and they feel very much like human beings.
The relationships these people form are all one-sided. They are able to perceive the intrinsic (abiding) personality traits of others and form warm mental models about them, but these others look at them and see only the “desire-one,” which is their own self-concept. If one is subject to dualistic motivation, one expects to see this in others, to understand their behaviors and speech in a context of predictions about a personality.
The gurus who have only been through nirvikalpa samadhi, that Ramakrishna said is a very low state, have poetical skill to rave about what amount to small experiences, until it seems they have dominated the cosmos, seen the infinite, pierced the Absolute! But they don’t have enough bliss to work, and enjoy it too. They don’t have enough bliss to long for rebirth on this wonderful planet.
The more powerful people chuckle over things like this, and they are the ones that can juggle mountains. Jesus said a rich man is less likely to get to Heaven, than a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. He should have gone on to clarify this means any mind tainted by the thought of “mine,” to the roots where thoughts are generated. To think, “Mine,” is already to make everyone else an enemy, a competitor over the object-field where the dualistic mind has assigned value by comparison, with no awareness of the true good of life, which is growth and joy of spirit. The ego begins its intellectual life by setting everyone else aside, as an enemy; such a one would reject the Lord and angels, and of course would hate the heavenly scene.
The Christians think they want to go to Heaven, but I can prove it is not so. If they say this, you ask them how they think the network of relationships will differ in Heaven, from how it is on Earth. They are bound to say it will not differ substantially, if they consider themselves “good people, none better.” Then you ask them why they have not created Heaven here! You see, Earth is a Heaven-qualified place, but the people are not Heaven-qualified. Like the Bible says, they are born to trouble, like the sparks fly upward.
Heaven was always all around the human race; but they turn their faces away from one another, as living spirit, toward the object-field and domination, with all its violent implications. The ego does not long for the joy of another, and this the huge social issue. But you have to experience that authentic joy of spirit, before you can know how to support it in a social situation. It turns out too, that most of the things which support authentic joy, the ego calls cold and distant. This is because those things are subtle, far beyond body-consciousness. Like it says in scripture, the light of the senses is darkness to spirit, and the light of spirit is darkness to those who dwell in sense-consciousness.
Andrew is pointing to a developmental actuality that comes at the price of surrendering and sacrificing all that obscures the “light of consciousness,” which is the nature of our awareness prior to anything that we have been conditioned to call “myself.”
Anything that we believe and identify with as our separate individuality must be seen through as ultimately Empty, and when one comes to identify with the Emptiness of all Form, that indeed, Emptiness and Form are Not-two, then all that had darkened and obscured the “light of consciousness” will have been dissolved as the illusion and shadow that it was, and only the Light that is prior to all arising will be…
But this Light must be an experiential recognition, and a developed actuality, not just a nice philosophy that tries to fill the space with ideas that can never encompass the Light of Truth. Words cannot convey; this is what every mystic who has ever lived, past and present, has contended. Language is a limit; ideas and beliefs are just merely ways of trying to identify with what you think your mind can grasp, when any amount of grasping, even the most subtle, obscures the Light.
What you think is “good” may suit you fine, but when the light of consciousness burns to ash your need and brings you to your knees, you will know That Which can’t be described and named.
Nada,
That’s a good description of the ultimate condition, but what are you going to do with that, then? Prabhupada described the “eternal pastimes” of the Lord and gopis. Jesus said the new man must be born. Attaining emptiness from ego, in all its subtlest forms in the vast unconscious mind where the samskaras lurk unsuspected by the masses, the condition called “divine” is entered. From there a new personality flowers, which is beyond every thought of “mine,” all motions of grasping. The gurus have never bothered to integrate the gods and goddesses listed in the Bhagavatam, or the angels listed in the Bible, to their philosophy, deciding to claim to teach while avoiding these and other difficult questions such as whether Heaven exists, the nature of the soul and whether it can be saved or damned by an external Creator. These teachings came from somewhere. Even if they are insubstantial, a truly wise guru would attempt to explain their origins.
This word “divine” is very meaningful, but none of that has been revealed in the religions. To talk openly about the divine is to discuss not only what is beyond the capacities of the egos, but beyond their conceptual abilities. The ego lives by domination, and the religions were handed down with flattery in mind, so that they could feel immediately justified before God and man, without significant effort in sadhana. A soul with divine powers has immense creativity, arising prior to sense experience, seeking positive effects on pure spirit before the material realm is encountered. All of that is like rain from the sky, to the egos. The motivations disappear, and as they look around for the “desire-one,” as they conceive themselves to be, they are bewildered at what is beyond them.
Constructing a mental model about the intrinsic (abiding) traits of another, can be said to involve creating a new and unique language to describe that person, with forms of mind but not words. Words are categorical in nature, so inherently are poor descriptors of an individual. Key to this process is isolating the intrinsic traits, rather than searching for likes and dislikes, or other shallow traits which are basically sense reactions, as the egos do. This activity is very difficult, yet the powerful souls can engage in this activity around hundreds or thousands of others, which must be the nature of Heaven if it exists. This was called “the communion of the saints” in Christianity, but it is not like sharing being. Reacting with joy to the joy of another results in a harmony which at first glance could be called “one mind,” and from this spun down the teaching of the unity of life.
The nature of selfless action is to seek a positive effect on spirit, before the senses are encountered. This is the true freedom. You have a vision of the realm of spirit from your own spiritual experience, and from the knowledge gained by this experience you know how to support spiritual growth and joy at the profoundest levels. A person living like this has many incredible attributes, unexplored in human history. Since the motivations arise prior to sense experience, prestige or money are distractions, not inducements. These obscure the real effects he is seeking, which are the enhancement of spiritual joy.
No one knows what it can be like to dwell in a society free from money and prestige, because no competent entities have tried it in history. Without this more powerful class of persons, there can be no successful communitarian structures, because the ego will always bark it down. The ego actually generates thinking in order to oppose others. It derives its self-sense by sensate variation, since it cannot perceive the intrinsic traits. This sensate variation includes differences in the object-piles, variations in notoriety called prestige, but often just plain obstinance, that it saw a potentially harmonious situation arising and felt like it was losing the self-sense, and therefore became disagreeable.
The powerful souls have what I call the “perfectly inoffensive personality,” as the root of all their mental function. This can be called meekness, or else a thorough reliance on reason and logic, with no impulses to push another out of the way acting from desire. One trait of these people is that they are slow to speak, but quick to appreciate. Pauses appear frequently in their speech patterns, where they feel unsure they are the correct ones to have the floor, and from this those who do have interesting remarks are assuredly heard. But if the ego hears a pause, it drones on some more about itself, feeling glee that it has subjugated another to heed its prejudices. Further, the powerful souls distill their speech, bringing everything into a context of awareness of personality, but the egos use speech mainly to reflect their sense experience, forgetting the listener was not present with them at that time. What is droning, and what creative, speech? What causes one to “grit the teeth,” and what, like the Buddha said, brings peace to the mind?
Perhaps the most surprising thing, is true affection on the attributes. If the intrinsic attributes are seen, and if the person has authentically noble traits, emotions are activated by the well-ordered soul to support what is seen as objectively good, with warmth of heart. The powerful souls are thus bound together by a kind of “glue” that is invisible to the egos, and likely infuriating to them if they encounter it in practice. When the egos create social structures, they try to stitch it together by words, high-sounding ideals, and other sensate signs. The powerful souls just say, “We like each other, what else is there to do?” It is more fun together than alone, if anger and greed never cloud the social horizon.
It is a very big deal, to respect the emotional and intellectual presence of the others, at all times. The ego cannot manage this; following self-will, it categorizes and subjugates those around itself, thinking in object-models and alarmed if they express enthusiasm or genuine creativity. To be always constructing mental models for what the others are saying and doing, and appreciating their “glories” as they do so, but also retaining your own ideas in harmony to theirs, is the activity which negates ego. It might be good sadhana, but I think to engage in that activity requires a prior state of no-ego, a person who has entered a more objective consideration of what-is, reality or existence. The ego always kills social harmony, because it experiences the words and actions of others as impinging on its private project. They are experienced as nuisances, while it goes after a sensate variation on the material plane. The higher vision is that all this is spiritual life, and the joy of spirit is life’s purpose. You can then encounter the others with a view to supporting their joy, which is what all noble entities do. They look at you the same, and if many have an authentic idea of what brings joy to deepest, pure spirit, Heaven appears.
Dear John, I don’t know what “gurus” you find yourself capable of making a distinction about, since ‘guru’ is a word used for teachers of all types, but at this point in time, at the edge of the post-post-modern wave of unfolding, I feel all who proclaim themselves interested in things “spiritual” by definition, need to be fearlessly willing to look at all the ways their philosophy is shot through with archaic, magic and mythic beliefs. What the Shamans, Saints and Sages of past times discovered has much value; they cut the paths we are blessed to walk on, but some of what emerged in those “past times” was within cultural contexts that post-modernism can barely identify with, and what post-post-modernism will integrate more fully into an overall view, without the “myths” that just don’t make sense for current and future times.
You are obviously opinionated in ways that show a desire for an “integrated” view, but I would suggest that if you want to know the “light of consciousness” as the ever-present clarity of unconditioned awareness, you begin deeply questioning why you hold such opinions about others knowledge, when it is your “true estate” to be free of such opinions, and to integrate all valuable knowledge into the highest edge of the average mode of consciousness.
With Light and Love,
Linda Nada
Linda,
You seem to have defeated me, so that I need to admit there are no angels, nor any Heaven out in space! I have however been describing a set of properties not exhibited in human history, and who was it that imagined this? I look rather silly, I admit. I was only posting here for a little “sport.” Swedenborg was not so ancient. He told about “circles” of angels, who were so distant from one another, they could not understand one another’s motivations. If true, this would mean there are infinite gradations in knowledge, not just one opinionless state. If one claims to come from an opinionless state, one nevertheless declares opinions about it, and the thoughts and actions to proceed from this state may be correlated with the degree of purification encountered there, as in the Hindu idea of nirvikalpa samadhi, that Andrew also appears to claim, though usually not in those words.
In other words, if one claims to come from an opinionless state, then gives discourse about relationships, the forms of society which are noble and harmonious, and then acts in daily life in concert among other people, these are all signs of the degree of spiritual knowledge. You know what spirit is like, you know how to act around other spirits to bring joy. So while the experience of sadhana is of the loss of ego, the option nevertheless remains for awareness of what spirit is, in its essential nature, and positive actions around spirit, that support universal joy. I don’t think the ego has this knowledge, but the core of spirit.
Andrew is making a de facto claim to spiritual knowledge, in all of his discourse. He not only went into samadhi, he now knows something about spirit, and this is what he talks about and what has drawn the attention of so many students. Like other gurus of today he is in a strange position of knowing, but making claims of an absence of personality not consistent with himself as a type of knower. Your statements so far are devoid of practical implementation, and as such they are rarified and poetic. Once you begin to act around other spirits, then you are acting within the degree of your knowledge. I’m saying there are infinite degrees of this knowledge, all of which can be debated and proved superior or inferior, depending too on the powers and perceptions of the individual, as the souls continue their spiritual growth.
Hello John, Thanks for your response…
Please allow me to build upon my comment so that you understand more fully the “developed actualities” I have been discussing.
Of course every person at every LEVEL of unfolding holds opinions, but those opinions are based in, or are expressed from, the level of awareness the individual is at currently. And here I must affirm that what I’m discussing is the PERMANENT ACQUISITION of traits that emerge because the individual has transcended the previous level of identification, and made “space” for new, higher qualities to unfold in, and as, their awareness.
You keep referring to STATE EXPERIENCES, and I’m referring to developmental traits, stable qualities of “becoming”, permanent acquisition of self-knowledge and mastery. A person can PEAK EXPERIENCE the state of samadhi, but never make it a stable realization. Why? Because they continue to identify with their current level of awareness but believe they are spiritually awakened because they had a peak experience of ultimate freedom. But the permanent acquisition is radically different, because the more profound TRAITS that are within stable realization become a permanent part of that individuals expression in the world, while the person who has “peak experiences” remains with only “passing tastes” of these potentials, which ideally should lead them to deeper inquiry. Depends very much on how willing the person is to let everything go.
Permanent traits of spiritual unfolding are (almost) automatically geared toward serving the world, and I say “almost” because at every level, pathology can occur. But that is a very long conversation, one which you can investigate for yourself by studying Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory.
So while you might find these conversations “sport”, don’t you think it is a good developmental “trait” to be more humbly interested? You keep mentioning the “spreading of joy”, but how can I trust you when you are spewing mind-sperm, sport-like, all over the page? I can’t take you seriously and with an open heart if you feel no responsibility to use your language ability with more intention to actually co-creating something valuable. And also, while you appear intelligent and informed, don’t you think it’s radically rational to agree that there is more to know and better ways of knowing? Swendenborg was a fantastic mystic, true, but does it help YOU develop your ACTUAL KNOWLEDGE to just talk about what someone else has discovered. You must be willing to stand AUTONOMOUS in your own development while checking in with a community of others interested in a CONTEMPORARY TRANSLATION of what spiritual development means, not just for you, but for the ALL.
Thanks again for even your “sport-like” curiosity,
Linda Nada
The mystery of google. I think I was searching for a book and somehow landed here after many clicks.
Interesting. To think that words are sufficient to describe spiritual experiences and understand the merest glimpse of meaning is to be naive to the core. Spirituality is a continuous, personal journey along a treacherous path – only those with the desire, zeal and passion, an inner fire driven to learn the Ultimate can experience its joys, its pains (even horrors as this is a dangerous path for the true “seeker” – guidance from those who have gone before is useful but in the end, it is up to the “seeker”). That’s all I have to say. No dogma, religion, text or other description conveyed by words (or rather, symbols) since every word is contextual to our empirical or experience.