PSI Annual Journal 2002

From time immemorial mystics, those who have achieved God Realization or the Mystical Union, have spoken of conscious awareness as having seven potential states. However, to understand these states, we have to put them into context and define some concepts from the mystical perspective. First of all, mysticism is neither New Age, nor Old Age. It is Ageless. It is the Soul merging into its Source. It is not about creating a personal reality, but becoming one with Ultimate Reality. To fully understand the seven states, we will build a foundation and briefly address: the nature of Source (or God), the nature of man, the purpose of creation, the nature of this existence (duality), and the seven states of realization and awareness.

God is pure Essence. The idea that the infinite, unlimited God could ever be defined or understood by the finite, limited human mind is a challenge that cannot be overcome. However, some idea of god, no matter how seemingly inadequate, is necessary to have a point of reference. which later is transcended and made ecstatically whole beyond all possible anticipation. God is that which contains all that is; that which is the potential for all that could ever be or ever has been; and that beyond which no greater can possibly be conceived. God is absolute, unbounded, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. Its nature is existence (being), pure consciousness (intelligence), and pure bliss (which is characterized by the inner states of peace, joy, love, and wisdom). However, God manifests Its various aspects in the different states of higher consciousness. As an individualized being in the soul; as creator in pure God Consciousness; as the consciousness that is within and supporting all of creation in Unity or Christ Consciousness, and in Cosmic Consciousness as the Essence of All That Is, the Absolute, Unmanifest Being beyond creation.

Man is the capacity for God. Man is an intelligent manifestation of creation, animated by soul and overshadowed by a mistaken sense of identity with body, mind and senses. We are deluded into searching for happiness in an external world, forgetting that what we truly seek is the Divine bliss within. We are essence or spirit locked into an animal form with all of the limitations and ensuing needs for food, safety, security, pleasure, and control that are inherent in having a body. This misidentification with the body and inherent sense of separation is known as “ignorance.” Who are we when we are in ignorance? We are the sum total of our desires, cravings, hopes, and fears. We are the effect these have on our selves, others, and our environment. We look outward for what is our within.

The Story of Creation

The great 20th century mystic and God-Realized Master Paramahansa Yogananda said that, “The desire of Spirit to enjoy Its singular nature in many forms spawns the drama of the universal cosmic dream. The Master Dramatist has manifested throughout the cosmos an inconceivable ingenuity and inexhaustible variety. To unrealities He has given seeming reality. And yet, why must the show go on? It is God’s lila (sport). He has a right to separate Himself into many if He so chooses. The point of it all is for man to see through His trick. If God did not cover Himself with the veils to maya (or delusion), there could be no cosmic game of creation. We are permitted to play hide-and-seek with Him, and try to find Him and win the grand prize.”

There is another more entertaining story along the same basic idea that I like to tell at retreats for those who are not well versed in Eastern mysticism: “So, here we have God, sitting somewhere in heaven contemplating his existence and thinking: “her I am, perfect in all ways. I am unbounded, absolute, all knowing, all powerful, all loving – yet somehow I am incomplete! I have never known limitation. I have never differentiated my pure being, I am this magnificent, unblemished crystal – perfect, and boring!

I think that I will manifest Myself in form, as a myriad of universes and experience all facets of My creation. I will send out from My Very Being individual aspects of Myself (souls) to know this creation. But there is a problem here! If they go out and know that they are an individualized aspect of Me in creation, they will never know limitation; they will never differentiate. So what I will do is make them forget their Divine Nature. They will forget that they are Me and think that they are ‘them.’ I will command them to go forth; to experience and be all that they can be; and then I will call them home to Me. I will be complete having known incompleteness. I will be differentiated and complete by including their identities as a part of Me.”

So, God has five responsibilities in this great sport of creation: that of creating, maintaining, destroying, concealing (His true nature), and revealing (it is He who must ultimately reveal Himself to us). The One becomes many. The many differentiate, and return to the One. (The rest is commentary!) Creation is an act of repulsion from the source – a descent of Spirit into matter. Spiritual evolution is a reversing of the creation process, transcending matter and returning to the Source. Creation is movement and modulation of the Infinite Silence. It is the Unbounded dreaming boundaries; it is perfect Wisdom experiencing ignorance of its true nature. It is Pure Bliss experiencing pain, happiness, and suffering. It is the unity of the Whole, of Love Eternal living the illusion of loneliness and fear. What a paradox it is that the Supreme Absolute desires to experience Its absolute nature within the confines of Its relative manifestation; that God is dreaming us as these little mind, body, and sense egos. God is Essence – Silence.

Creation is form-vibration on the surface of Silence. Ultimately there is only One, but there appears to be many, just as there is only one ocean with many waves. The waves are not the ocean. They are limited and cannot contain the vast ocean, but the ocean can contain the wave. The apple cannot contain the form, the vastness or wholeness of the tree, but the tree contains the apple. It is similar to understanding that “I am not the body, nor is the body me.” The body is an aspect of my self, one very limited, temporary, and finite expression. And so, creation is a reflection of its Creator, limited by time, space, and finite existence; it cannot contain the fullness of the Nature of its Source. The structure of the cosmic dream is the modulation of Silence.

It is experiencing individual life as separate and outside the union with Oneness. The dream is experienced so realistically because of mental excitation, which is a habitual focusing of the life energy and attention without. Waking from the dream is achieved by discovering and experiencing the essence of who you are, while in the activity. Waking from the dream is seeing through this illusion and experiencing that there is only One.

Duality is the nature of creation. This includes not only the physical planes, but the other subtle, metaphysical realms of existence such as the realms of emotions, thought, energy, vibration, and light. Today metaphysicians describe man as having three bodies that cover the essence of the soul: a physical body, an astral body, and an etheric (light) body. If it is of creation (subject to change) – it is not who we are, no matter how subtle and sublime. Sound, vibration, and light are not our First or Ultimate Source. They are still manifestation. The experience of reality (duality) is the ever-changing play of opposites. Ultimate Reality is changeless and its threefold nature – existence, consciousness, and bliss immeasurable – is beyond time, space, and the limitations of the created realms.

Relativity (even the most subtle realms, as indicated previously) is characterized by a complex sequence of continuous alternation between the extremes of common opposites: the alternation of pleasure and pain; life and death; sickness and health; old age and youth. And as night alternates with day, fame with obscurity, poverty with fortune, war with peace, all forms come and go. Relativity is the play of light and energy subject to the direction and matrices of intelligence. The Source of the Intelligence that precedes energy and all subtle elements of creation is beyond duality.

Essence remains changeless. Forms are continuously in a state of flux. One of the greatest teachers in the relative world is death. Inevitably, one day, all that we have ever worked for, all that we have believed and thought, all that we have “evolved” to, and all we have loved so dearly will be taken away in the unavoidable transition of death. However, it is the nature of the delusion that we crave stability and peace where we know it’s not – in the world of change and tumultuousness that we try so desperately to arrange as we like it to be; a world of “personal reality” that is given meaning by what we have, feel, experience, and achieve.

Absolute control of our personal reality is as futile as the effort of a little child by the seashore who tries to make the unrelenting ebb and flow of the ocean’s might tides come to a permanent standstill – at a comfortable spot on the shore – near his fragile little castle of sand. The “relative” is characterized by a virtual infinite variety of polarities: positive and negative: male and female: yin and yang: light and dark: good and evil. The only constant in duality is change. Our greatest delusion is that we can control it.

The soul, the Inner Self, is God dwelling within. It is the individualized aspect of the Diving Itself whose nature is existence, consciousness and bliss unbounded. The soul is the purest sense of the individualized being knowing its true identity as Love, Peace, Wisdom and Joy while using instruments of body, mind, and senses as a means of communication and interaction with objectified creation.

When the individual lives from the point of reference of the Inner Self or Soul, then he is in harmony with the laws of nature and the individual will becomes an instrument of the Divine Will. Right action and the fruits of the spirit (love, peace, wisdom and joy) become his state of being and doing.

Ego is a state of consciousness wherein the soul forgets its true nature and identifies with the body, mind, and senses. Ego is the pseudo soul, the individualized consciousness of the soul under the spell of delusion. Ego keeps the soul consciousness engaged with sensory activities and overshadows the nature of the inner self. It pulls the attention of the soul outward to the world. It acquires likes, dislikes, attachments, craving, and needs. It is characterized by a sense of separateness; a primary loneliness which creates subtle melancholy and a deep sense of personal inadequacy – a sense that there is something wrong, something missing – a nagging incompleteness that seeks abatement in power, relationships, paranormal experiences, grand accomplishments, and visions of grandeur for the evolution of the race. The ego uses anything, no matter how base or noble, to focus the attention on the tempting promises of fulfillment, completion, and perfection in a world limited, imperfect, and ephemeral by its very nature. It promises the ocean in a desert.

Ultimately, what we have come to do is to unite with God. We cannot create the kingdom of heaven on earth until it is first and fully realized within. The kingdom of heaven on earth is most clearly understood as the “effects” of humanity reaching its potential in God Realization. The “sacred mission” of each individual is to “be perfect as the Father in Heaven is perfect.” In other words, know yourself in the fullness and completion of union with God.

Consciousness is the degree to which Essence is reflected in form. Let’s use a loose analogy here. The sun is self-luminous fullness itself. It is a perfect luminary. Its essence is light. The moon has no light of its own. Its form is matter. When we see a “dark” moon, there is not light reflected by the sun. There is no correspondence between light and dark. The moon does not reflect the sun so consciousness is “low.” However, during full moon, there is a complete reflection of the light of the sun onto the surface of the moon. Consciousness is “high.” And the moon is resplendent in the fulfillment of its function to illumine the night sky. Likewise, a human being in the unconscious state of sleep is like a dark moon. A human being in the state of Divine Union is like a full moon.

Consciousness is described in terms of “state.” Each state marks a point of personal identity and provides a certain perspective of reality…of who we are…and what we have the potential to realize. As consciousness becomes fuller, we experience finer and finer, more subtle states of creation until we reach the realms of the soul, the creator, the Creator within creation, and God beyond creation. We traverse all aspects of relativity and eventually come home to Ultimate Reality – the essence of our being before manifestation.

Three Identities.

How we experience our identity dictates the state of consciousness that we can be in. Our identity is our spiritual center of gravity, our point of reference. Who we experience our selves to be, our point of identity, dictates our consciousness, perspective, beliefs, attitudes, values, emotions, and sense of well being. It is the experiential answer to the question “Who Am I?” Although we can all recite the book that says we are all God, until the experience of being one with God is your permanent state, there is an element of enlightenment but not true God Realization.

Outer Self – the Ego
The ego experiences the following to be true:
I am the body, mind, and senses existing in the multidimensional realms of feeling, thoughts, energy, matter, and light.
I am in the world and am overshadowed by it.
I am in a state of incompleteness.
I am separate.
I am the doer.
I am imperfect.

The underlying feeling tones are anxiety, fear, desire, anger, melancholy, criticalness and loneliness. A deep sense of “I am not good enough. Something is missing. Somehow I have failed. I am separated from something I want to be united to.”

Inner Self – the Soul. When we experience ourselves as the soul, we experience our selves as individualized aspects of Spirit. Our experience is an inner fullness, an inner silence that is not overshadowed by outer circumstances. It is living in the State of Grace from the permanent states of Love, Peace, Wisdom and Joy (Bliss).
We are self-sufficient – complete.
We are in the world but not of the world.
Living as silent witnesses in the State of Grace.

Supreme Self – God. These are the three progressions and states of God Realization:
I am one with Spirit (God) as the Creator (God Consciousness)
I am one with Spirit (God) within Creation (Unity/Christ Consciousness)
I am one with Spirit (God) beyond Its Creation (Cosmic Consciousness)

Here there is a complete paradigm shift. Our experience of reality is now the living knowledge that:
There is only consciousness.
There is only one doer.
Everything is perfect.

We live in the state of Ecstatic Union. This is seeing reality from the viewpoint of Ultimate Reality. This is true wisdom – seeing the finite from the eyes of the Infinite.

The Three Ego States – Outer Self

Sleeping, dreaming, waking (normal and paranormal) states are each unique.

In deep sleep the ego is dissolved and rests in the silence of the soul. This state is healing and refreshing. The mind gets sorely needed rest, and the body becomes more normalized and rebalanced and starts the process of healing. Many people have used deep, undisturbed sleep to heal the traumas of stress, certain mental illnesses, and deep body fatigue. When in this state, we are not aware that we are not aware.

Dreaming is the state of the subconscious mind processing impressions from the present and the past. Dreams can often reflect states just underneath the level of conscious awareness. Often when we dream, we are aware of our dreaming. In it we can create worlds populated with people, places, events and life forms that amuse, frighten, and enchant. Dreams reflect our physical, mental, and psychological states. Seldom are they true, but they do have significance. They reflect the condition of the waves on the waters of stillness – or the quality and activity of the mind as it creates ripples on the smooth surface pond of our inner Being. Dreams are the sum-total reflection of how we process stimuli as it enters our nervous system during waking consciousness. Dreams are a view into the contents of the subconscious.

The waking state is a simple state of perceiving stimuli through the central nervous system, identifying these stimuli, feeling their effects in the physiology (emotions), categorizing them (fitting them into our belief system), and deciding what to act on and what to let slip effortlessly into our subconscious minds. This is the domain of the conscious mind governed by logic, reason, feeling, and desire.

The paranormal state is the experience of thoughts, impressions, feelings, visions, and intuition from one or more subtle states of creation that are from one or more subtle states of creation that are for the most part nonphysical. Paranormal powers are not exhibits of spiritual advancement. Although many great saints and sages may exhibit some of these powers, the ability to exhibit these powers does not make one a great saint. These realms are subtle and for the most part are hidden, yet they are still realms and belong to the laws of duality. They are of form and not Essence.

In ego state we are identified as body, mind, and senses. Emotions and events can overshadow us. There is a sense of separateness that enlivens our desires. We substitute the pursuit of happiness (which must have an object) for joy, which is our inner nature. We crave completion and seek ultimate fulfillment in human relationships which cannot possibly bear the burden of what we truly seek – Divine Relationship. We seek power and control to gain pleasure and avoid pain, and we focus our attention looking outward to create a “heaven on earth” while missing the “Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven within.” Heaven on Earth is a secondary gain of individual God Realization. Even focus on such a noble goal as evolution of the species can be a diversion from the primary mission of attaining Divine Union. The primary characteristic of this ego state is excitation of the mind and senses.

The State of the Soul – Inner Self

The soul is found in inner silence. It is the silent witness. Its nature is Love, Peace, Wisdom, and Joy. It is God within us, an immortal reflection of the Supreme Self.

It is awareness without an object of awareness, pure awareness experiencing itself as ineffable equanimity and grace. Real love cannot be determined by a set of behaviors. Consider the life of Christ. His love took many diverse and apparent contradictory forms, from scourging the money changes in the temple and calling the holy men of the day hypocrites, to healing the sick, raising the dead, and sacrificing his life on a cross.

Love is not an absolute behavior or set of prescriptions or proscriptions, but a commitment to the highest good – and the action most appropriate for the highest good of evolution at that moment. And there will be as many determinations of the highest good as there are people in different states of consciousness. One’s state of consciousness will dictate perspective and the wisdom to discriminate and act.

Being grounded in the state of the Inner Self allows us to fully live and participate in the world without being overshadowed and caught up in it.

The ego’s highest accomplishment is communion with its source – the Soul. In this state all suffering ceases. We are connected to the peace, love, security, and fulfillment of our Inner Self. There is the experience of being connected with both the inner and the outer. We are completely engaged in events and things but are also aware of that deep, undisturbed internal peace so that we seem to be “witnessing these things.” Even in the dream state we observe the dream and the dreamer. We are full and “in bliss” for no apparent external reason. Whatever comes, whether ups or downs, sickness or health, poverty or abundance, or any of duality’s opposites – there is an abiding sense of equanimity and ever-new joy. Nothing can disturb this state once it has been stabilized. It is like being in a movie theater and realizing that you are no longer tossed and turned by the frames of pictures playing on the movie screen. You begin to realize that you are the pure, non-changing, self-fulfilled field (screen) upon which the motion pictures of life (karmas) are playing themselves out. Then you can really enjoy the movie and begin to get a glimpse that this is not as real as it seems to be. The primary characteristics of this state are deep, imperturbable inner peace, joy, love, wisdom, and self-sufficiency.

The Supreme Self – God Consciousness

God Consciousness is the perception of Spirit as the Creator and source of the soul. It is the state of the soul merging with its Source. This is the realization of our being one with God as the Creator. This is the experience of the “saint,” no matter what religion or creed. For those whose temperament is more of the intellect and aspire to the path of knowledge, this experience is one of great awe, majesty, and illumination. For others there is a deep sense of “falling in love” with God. The experience is that of profound devotion; the Divine marriage of soul and its Source. For others, this inspires a great sense of service and wanting to spread this joy through service, alleviating human suffering, and religious endeavor. None of these is exclusive of the other. It is simply due to the variation in temperament that dictates which experience may be stronger. The primary characteristic of this state is a joyous sense of ecstasy.

Universal Consciousness – Christ Consciousness

This is the experience of God within creation. In this state there is a vast sense of fullness. This is the home of miracles. The consciousness of God within creation is called Unity or Christ Consciousness. The God-Realized one feels his presence everywhere in creation: in every atom, in every universe, in every being. He is one with the laws of nature. All powers are at his disposal, from materializing objects, to healing, to raising the dead. All knowledge is available and every action is in perfect accord with the Divine Plan. He has transcended the limitations of time, space, mind, and the three bodies: physical, astral, and etheric (light). The universe is his body and all things that happen in the universe are his sensations.

At this point the soul participates further in the nature of God and can demonstrate the absolute Diving qualities of omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence – and can spontaneously heal, alleviate karma, and change the consciousness of those who attune themselves to him.

The primary characteristics of this state are omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, and complete control over the laws of nature.

Cosmic Consciousness

This is the experience of god beyond creation. Words cannot bear the burden of describing this state. The great ones do tell us that in this state we dream the cosmic dream of creation with the Master Dramatist Himself. We have reached our Home, our final destiny, and the point from which we have come. We have fulfilled our obligation to “go forth,” “experience and be all that we can be,” know our self as the soul, and merge the soul with its Source without losing our individuality; and watch the great play of creation from the state of Ultimate Reality. The primary characteristic of this state is that we live beyond the dream of duality.

Ultimately, the seven states of consciousness as well as their function and purpose can be better understood through an analogy (that may not be too far off the mark!). For a minute, let’s let go of the small stuff and see it all from a bigger picture.

Let’s “make believe” that just before creation occurred God brought all of the souls together who were going to go out through the various universes and planes to experience His creation for Him. Remember that the purpose of it all was for the Creator to experience the completeness of his Existence. He who is Unlimited has not experienced limitation and needs to have this experience in order to completely differentiate and be complete.

So, here we are all gathered together and we are getting our assignments. And then God says, “I need some volunteers for the most difficult of all assignments. I need souls to go to the earth plane to experience the worst of all possible conditions that I can imagine for Myself to experience. I will send you to a plane where you will become enchanted with the manifestations of light, sound, thought and matter. It is a very dense plane. It is the densest in the all of creation. It is also the one of greatest suffering for you will forget your true nature, forget Me, and suffer greatly from the separation, loneliness, depression, disappointment, illness and anxiety of trying to find Me and all of My gifts outside your self. You will have to endure many, many lifetimes. You will be deceived by false prophets, and teachers who will promise you My Heaven on this earth. Your beautiful Soul nature will be covered with an ignorance – a state of consciousness of ego – the false pseudo-Soul. Worst of all, you will think I have forgotten you and don’t love you. These conditions sadden Me greatly, but it is necessary that I achieve the nearly impossible on this earth plane; the most difficult and paradoxical of all experiences. I must experience My Unboundedness within boundaries. I must forget that I am One and think I am many. And when this has occurred, I must reverse the layers of the creation process and find Myself again.”

“Who loves me enough to accept this impossible and painful assignment? Who loves Me enough to endure and allow for My completion?”

“And then a number of great hero souls shouted out in unison, ‘I, Lord! We love You and only You and we will show you the depth of our love. Send us?’”

At that moment the human race was born
And God knew that He was loved beyond measure.

And here we are struggling, and being human, trying to remember that we are a part of God. Be compassionate with yourself and others…look around at the other hero souls (no matter what state they are in) who have also volunteered to undergo the earth plane to fulfill the mission of creation. We are loved dearly by Love Itself…and when we reach our Home…there will be joy and celebration without end!

Jerry Thomas is an accomplished philosopher, writer, teacher and lecturer. His broad and diverse education includes extensive study in modern sciences, comparative spirituality, mysticism, and world religions.

He is a life long participant and student of both Eastern and Western monastic traditions with a formal education that includes advanced degrees in science, education and organizational development.

He is also a retreat master and founder of the Stillpoint Retreats which is a unique series of experiential seminars and workshops. In these silent retreat experiences, he teaches simple mystical methods of attaining the Transcendent Self while still living a fully productive life in the everyday world.

www.stillpointretreats.com

PSI Symposium Annual Journal 2002