Nothing arises without a cause. A cause gives rise to those things most like itself, before it gives rise to things less like itself.
Consciousness gives rise to Universe. The Universe does not give rise to Consciousness. Consciousness bubbles up into the Universe, percolating through various layers of Itself in diverse states. Consciousness enfolds Itself to create a bubble within Itself. The primary aspect of Consciousness is reflection. Folding upon Itself it reflects its nature within the enclosed bubble. The reflection of Light is Absence of Light, or Darkness, this enclosed Darkness we call Space. It is Consciousness in a reflex condition. Space is called Night and Kali (Time). Typically identified as a Conscious, usually Feminine, Being.
Following birth we are trained to observe objects. Carlos Castaneda speaks of this in The Second Ring of Power, being the agreement commonly shared about the shape and appearance of the world. When a child recognises this it joins the rest of the family and this becomes the dominant perception of the world. The work of the Shaman, the Sorcerer, is to access an alternative view of the Universe. This may be described as a parallel vision, or as the awakening of the Siddhis in Yoga.
But objects, the study of material science, are only crystallised forms of Consciousness, or Forms composed of Crystallised Consciousness. The process of Crystallisation is described in various schools, the clearest of which would seem to be the Yogic or Sanata Dharma, in which Mind proceeds in a series of condensations through Ether, to Air, to Fire to Water to Earth, each layer adding a further property to the growing list of limitations, wrapping around Consciousness pure.
Since each layer is merely Consciousness in a modified condition, Consciousness pure can permeate them all. It is this which is described above as ‘Consciousness bubbling up into the Universe’.
In individuated consciousness, the end result of the condensation described above, Consciousness witnesses itself through the lens of an isolated entity, the self, or jivatman. It peers out through the cage of the senses on to the world at large. Being taught that this is the only reality, it perceives what others tell it it will perceive. No matter the extraordinary instruments built to augment the auditory and visual senses of the human being, the direction of attention is ever outwards, even when peering at subatomic expressions. What that ‘I’ sees is only ‘Not-I’, increasing the sense of separation and reinforcing the conception that the ‘I’ is an isolated fragment of a material, accidental Universe.
When it looks inwardly it perceives organs, cells and atoms, which are themselves merely crystallised Consciousness.
If the question is asked ‘Who Am I’ or ‘What am I’ the exploration of Consciousness itself begins. Depending on the quality of the teachers encountered the answers to those questions will either reinforce the material, isolated idea or begin the journey towards Consciousness that Castaneda refers to as discovering or passing through the ‘Crack in the Universe’. Hesiod referred to this as the Yawning or Chaos, which word means the Gap. This is known in all the major Spiritual traditions under various names but essentially refers to uniting individuated Consciousness with that over-arching Consciousness of Space and from Space the return to the Undivided Ocean of Consciousness usually envisaged as White and fluid, and referred to as the Cosmic Ocean, or the Sea of Milk and Honey.
The mistake that is made by material science and its adherents, is that this Unified Consciousness is not aware of the individual. That Source Being of Consciousness is described as ‘a Loving God’, ‘the All Powerful’, the Tao and the One, according to the tradition and intentions of the spiritual path so naming it. Since it is the source of Consciousness and with it of Self-Consciousness, it is necessary that such a source will itself be aware of its own existence and far from being disinterested in the struggle of the individual who has attained to such a Unity will be most encouraging towards that one to ensure that complete union is, and will be, attained. In some traditions this is known as uniting (yoga) with Parama Purusha, the Supreme Personality.
