The Ascent of Consciousness.
Exploring the dynamics of human evolution. (as appeared in Elohim)
What is consciousness? To ask this question is to ask about the very essence of existence. I like to answer in this way, with a little story.
In the beginning there was Consciousness, which was nothing at all. This nothing at all contains everything that could possibly be, and has, therefore, infinite potential and infinite intelligence. After a Big Bang some fifteen billion years ago, Consciousness manifested itself as a vast realm of hydrogen gas. This single event is deeply significant in that it is the start of you and me as we know ourselves in form. For hydrogen is the first of what we call matter.
Naturally, this Big Bang also heralded the creation of space and the dawning of time. Taking its time, Consciousness acted out the vital and vibrant dance of hydrogen. After a billion years of this dance, hydrogen gathered itself together in a wondrous attraction. Clouds of this gas condensed and the first stars appeared, burning with the first light of the universe. A hundred billion galaxies were spawned.
As these stars grew, they manufactured carbon and nitrogen and all the elements needed for life. When they died, they exploded into space, spreading and seeding more complex elements that eventually formed life. And so, as life, we were born almost four billion years ago, informed by “the journeywork of the stars” as Walt Whitman put it with such visionary acumen.
This story is told in a similar vein to all creation stories, but this one is told to us by our scientists and cosmologists. Put simply, existence is a single ongoing event of incredible intelligence, and consciousness is the source and substance that gives rise to all of it. In other words, the universe arises out of consciousness. The mystics have been saying this for thousands of years. Sri Ramana Maharshi, one of India’s most revered spiritual masters, says, “If the mind subsides, the whole world subsides. Mind is the cause of all this.”
Consciousness is reality, the only reality. It exists before and beyond time and space. All else, the stuff of existence, is an illusion. It comes and goes. It has no existence of its own. This is what the new physics tells us.
For me it was the scientists who made sense of the inscrutable words of the mystics. “Asserting that the world is real,” said Seng Ts’an, one of the Grand Masters of Ch’an in ancient China, “you are blind to its deeper reality.” And for me it was this deeper awareness of reality that transformed my life when I realised that I am inseparable from this emergent, self-organising force of intelligence. This is who I truly am, who you truly are.
Beyond the appearance of separation is unity. Consciousness is all there is. Consciousness as all there is, is unity. The seers, both ancient and modern, have always pointed out that our suffering arises because we believe we live in the world. In truth the world lives in us. As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe so beautifully expressed:
The ‘outer’ world is all ‘in here’.
This mystery grasp without delay,
this secret always on display.
The true illusion celebrate,
be joyful in the serious game!
No living thing lives separate:
One and many are the same.
Every aspect of the being you are is inextricably connected to everything else in the entire universe. You are consciousness, God, one mind and, as such, you are the creative force of life itself. The distinctive feature of humanity is that we can know it! For me this is what the following words from the Bible mean: For in the image of God is humanity made. Genesis 9:6
We are consciousness that can be conscious of itself. We are the creatures that know not just how to be that creature – as all creatures do – but that we know that we know. As such, as the thinking animal, we are, metaphorically speaking, the ‘son of God’. In other words, we are God that can be conscious of itself.
Informed by ‘Consciousness is all there is’, the personal mind can surrender its belief in separation. This is not an ‘understanding’ that makes sense to the mind. This is ‘knowing’, a transcendent knowing, having nothing to do with knowing anything in particular. We feel this knowing in our hearts. It is a universal knowing that goes beyond our personal minds. Indeed, it is a knowing that aligns our individual minds with the universal mind, the universal intelligence that is one mind. It is a knowing that “passeth all understanding”, defying strategy and formula, utterly inexplicable and utterly simple. It is simple, insofar as it is knowing, regardless of appearance, that all is well. This is our spiritual intelligence.
In this knowing, all is transformed and consciousness evolves. The ascent of consciousness is the evolutionary process itself. When we know the truth of who we are, we are aligned with the evolutionary principle of growth and self-optimisation that exists throughout the universe. This is universal intelligence, spiritual intelligence.
It seems to me our journey through life reflects a natural and fundamental process from unconscious to conscious, from ignorance to true awareness, from reactivity to a profound sense of place and purpose. This is a human journey, a journey that fulfils the purpose of being self-conscious in the way human beings are. As light is an attribute of the sun, so self-consciousness is an attribute of humanity. In other words, we comprehend ourselves. Our process is to do with this particularly human attribute of self-comprehension. In our awareness of who we truly are, transformation occurs, naturally and spontaneously in accord with the intelligence of the universe. In our willingness to be transformed is our purpose in the ascent of consciousness. In the words of C.G. Jung, “As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.” Life is not just about being. It is a mysteriously creative process of being and becoming.
The Buddha said, “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.” Consciousness, mind, is all there is. Consciousness, as all there is, has no boundaries, is undivided and eternal. One mind. This is the power, the force, the substance of all that exists. One power. One force. One substance. There is nothing that is not that. We may call it God; we may call it consciousness but whatever we call it, it is all there is. Therefore, consciousness is who we are. Who I am, who you are, has no boundaries, is undivided and eternal. Who I am is who you are. In the appearance of many thoughts, many minds and many forms, there is really only one mind, one form. It is infinite and eternal; therefore, I am infinite and eternal. It is the intelligence and creative force of existence. Therefore, I am the intelligence and creative force of existence. It is existence; therefore, I am existence.
To some extent we all understand the significance of these words from the great poet John Milton. “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” As we divide the indivisible, and believe ourselves separate from each other, and separate from God, we create “a hell of heaven”. As we recognise the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, we evolve “a heaven”.
Now at this stage of evolving consciousness, we are invited to be informed by spiritual intelligence, beyond our ego intelligence. In this is our omniscience untouched by any idea of separation and limitation. This is the wisdom that we are at the heart of our being. In this is all that we may become. Consciousness awakening to itself in ever-evolving mystery and beauty.
