Science and God

My point being that consciouness and the phenomenal world are connected and interdependent; one cannot exist without the other.

Consciousness-without-an-object is.
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Before objects were, Consciousness-without-an-object is.
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Though objects seem to exist, Consciousness-without-an-object is.
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When objects vanish, yet remaining through all unaffected, Consciousness-without-an-object is.

My point being that consciouness and the phenomenal world are connected and interdependent; one cannot exist without the other. Each perspective has its own merits, and amuses, but reality exists a priori before the belief structure of each subscriber.

Part Four

What Is Consciousness?

I realize that our task would be much easier if from now on we could be working with a precise definition of the word "consciousness." But it is important to stay flexible toward this question of the nature of consciousness. The word is used these days in so many different ways that out of sheer impatience one is tempted to single out one or another aspect of consciousness as its primary characteristic. The difficulty is compounded by the fact that our attitude toward knowledge of ourselves is like our attitude toward new discoveries about the external world. We so easily lose our balance when something extraordinary is discovered in science or when we come upon a new explanatory concept: Immediately the whole machinery of systematizing thought comes into play, Enthusiasm sets in, accompanied by a proliferation of utilitarian explanations, which then stand in the way of direct experiential encounters with surrounding life.

In a like manner, a new experience of one's self tempts us to believe we have discovered the sole direction for the development of consciousness, aliveness or--as it is sometimes called --presence. The same machinery of explanatory thought comes into play accompanied by pragmatic programs for "action." It is not only followers of the new religions who are victims of this tendency, taking fragments of traditional teachings which have led them to a new experience of themselves and building a subjective and missionary religion around them. This tendency in ourselves also accounts, as we shall see later, for much of the fragmentation of Modern psychology, just as it accounts for the fragmentation in the natural sciences.

In order to warn us about this tendency in ourselves, the traditional teachings--as expressed in the Bhagavad-Gita, for example--make a fundamental distinction between consciousness on the one hand and the contents of consciousness such as our perceptions of things, our sense of personal identity, our emotions and our thoughts in all their color and gradations on the other hand.

This ancient distinction has two crucial messages for us. On the one hand, it tell us that what we feel to be the best of ourselves as human beings is only part of a total structure containing layers of mind, feeling and sensation far more active, subtle and encompassing (like the cosmic spheres) than what we have settled for as our best. These layers are very numerous and need to be peeled back, as it were, or broken through one by one along the path of inner growth, until an individual touches in himself the fundamental intelligent forces in the cosmos.

At the same time, this distinction also communicates that the search for consciousness is a constant necessity for man. It is telling us that anything in ourselves, no matter how fine, subtle or intelligent, no matter how virtuous or close to reality, no matter how still or violent--any action, any thought, any intuition or experience--immediately absorbs all our attention and automatically becomes transformed into contents around which gather all the opinions, feelings and distorted sensations that are the supports of our secondhand sense of identity. In short, we are told that the evolution of consciousness is always "vertical" to the constant stream of mental, emotional and sensory associations within the human organism, and comprehensive of them (somewhat like a "fourth dimension"). And, seen in this light, it is not really a question of concentric layers of awareness embedded like the skins of an onion within the self, but only one skin, one veil, that constantly forms regardless of the quality or intensity of the psychic field at any given moment.

Thus, in order to understand the nature of consciousness, I must here and now in this present moment be searching for a better state of consciousness. All definitions, no matter how profound, are secondary. Even the formulations of ancient masters on this subject can be a diversion if I take them in a way that does not support the immediate personal effort to be aware of what is taking place in myself in the present moment.

In all that follows in this book, we shall continue to speak about levels of consciousness and intelligence within man and within the universe, for this idea is crucial in any attempt to reach a new understanding of science. But I wish, for the reader and for myself, that this more inner, personal meaning of the idea be constantly kept in mind.

3) Jesus said, "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

"Thus, in order to understand the nature of consciousness, I must here and now in this present moment be searching for a better state of consciousness."

But in reality justice was such as we were describing, being concerned however, not with the outward man, but with the inward, which is the true self and concernment of man: for the just man does not permit the several elements within him to interfere with one another, or any of them to do the work of others, --he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself; and when he has bound together the three principles within him, which may be compared to the higher, lower, and middle notes of the scale, and the intermediate intervals --when he has bound all these together, and is no longer many, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he proceeds to act, if he has to act, whether in a matter of property, or in the treatment of the body, or in some affair of politics or private business; always thinking and calling that which preserves and co-operates with this harmonious condition, just and good action, and the knowledge which presides over it, wisdom, and that which at any time impairs this condition, he will call unjust action, and the opinion which presides over it ignorance.

"Purity is the power to contemplate defilement" Simone Weil

Now I have stated that this presence is your true state and your birthright. During those periods of self awareness this presence was intuited. What I would tell you is that you don't align with who you are, you just quit maligning with what you are not. Now this takes us squarely to the root of the problem, the 'orginal sin' of humanity and the cause of all suffering.

14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

"We can only know one thing about God - that he is what we are not. Our wretchedness alone is an image of this. The more we contemplate it, the more we contemplate him." Simone Weil

"Attention consists of suspending our thought, leaving it detached, empty and ready to be penetrated by the object. It means holding in our minds, within reach of this thought, but on a lower level and not in contact with it, the diverse knowledge we have acquired which we are forced to make use of. Above all our thought should be empty, waiting, not seeking anything, but ready to receive in its naked truth the object which is to penetrate it."

"Absolute unmixed attention is prayer. "

It is extraordinary to think how much of the intellectual activity of man is actually a beginning contact with this force, this third person of the Holy Trinity. All efforts to think, being the call for confrontation between levels, are a first step towards the prayer to the holy reconciliation of presence. Thought begins with seeing, but ends, unfortunately, with the slavery to the mechanisms of conceptualization. Out of these conceptualizations, which are only the records left in the nervous system by moments of seeing, and which are needed as instruments of the energy of the spirit existing in the world, or the lower reality - out of these neural results of the spirit man erroneously tries to imitate the work of the spirit. but only the spirit can do the work of the spirit.

Thought, which means in essence seeing, exists on these many levels. There are no esoteric thoughts or esoteric ideas, as such; but there is esoteric thinking, an inner action which carries the energy of harmonization and reconciliation between levels........................

The principal power of the soul, which defines its real nature, is a gathered attention that is directed simultaneously toward the spirit and the body. This is attention of the heart, and this is the principal mediating, harmonizing power of the soul. The mediating attention of the heart is spontaneously activated in the state of profound self-questioning. God can only speak to the soul, Father Sylvan writes, and only when the soul exists. But the soul of man only exists for a moment, as long as it takes for the question to appear and disappear.

steve wrote:Gentlemen;

Why argue over the Bride for the son of a barren woman?

In a sense, if we look at quantum mechanics and the role of consciousness in altering the effects of so-called matter, it could be that the in the near future that science will affirm the role of consciousness in modern physics.

My point being that consciouness and the phenomenal world are connected and interdependent; one cannot exist without the other. Each perspective has its own merits, and amuses, but reality exists a priori before the belief structure of each subscriber.

A bit of an existentialist myself.

Peace
s

So what if you ARE God? Or no-thingness. New Age, old age, middle age -go beyound these concepts to that which witnesses creation in this very moment. Why fear truth? What is there to fear or worry about? Your body will find the grave sooner or later, so why not find the truth of your being? Only you can do this. Every spiritual utterance, every sutra or scripture is about YOU. Aplogies to Dr. Phil, but it is all about YOU -find out with finality what that means.

Man would like to be an egoist and cannot. This is the most striking characteristic of his wretchedness and the source of his greatness." Simone Weil.... Gravity and Grace