Consciousness – part 1

Real expansions of consciousness are those that actually create a transformation in the person, where there is a genuine turning point reached in one’s life.


Robert: Welcome to Inner Sight. Inner sight is simply seeing that which is always present but not yet fully recognized. You have within you the ability to see yourself and the world around you in a new way with new eyes. So, stay with us, and together we’ll look at the world and ourselves with inner sight. Our topic for today is consciousness. All the dialogue that you’ll hear in this show emanates from one of the twenty-four volumes of books that are written by Alice Bailey, who is the founder of the Lucis Trust organization. This thought comes from Alice Bailey: “What must be grasped is that all that is, is ever present.” That reminds me of twentieth century science and the new development that true time or true reality is that past, present and future all coexist at the same moment. It’s kind of a hard concept to comprehend, but it seems like Alice Bailey knew that before the discovery of quantum physics as a science. She was way ahead of her time, I suppose. How is this opening thought related to the subject of consciousness? 

Sarah: It’s one of those central ideas from the Ageless Wisdom that I’ve always found fascinating. I can’t say that I really understand it, and yet something in me knows that it’s true and is inspired, and I’m kind of excited and invigorated by it. This morning, I happened to be reading a new book by the great writer on religion Houston Smith. He has a book that came out last year, Why Religion Matters. I was thinking about the subject of this broadcast this morning, and I came across a passage where he was talking about quantum physics. He had an idea that I think is related to Alice Bailey’s statement that all that is is ever present. He said, “One of the interesting recent developments of physics has been the realization that the observer must be included in experiments. It’s not just that we can’t know where a particle is until we perform an experiment to locate it. The particle is from our side literally nowhere, until by collapsing its wave packet an experiment gives it location. This highlights the active component in knowing. Cognition is not a passive act. If seeing is believing, it’s equally the case that believing is seeing for it brings to light things that would otherwise pass unnoticed.” I think this is another way of saying what Alice Bailey implied: that all that is, is ever present, but we don’t necessarily have the capacity or the eyes to see it. Our whole journey in consciousness is learning to open our eyes, learning to develop the mechanism that will enable us to see reality as it is. I think this is the essence of the whole spiritual quest because we’re told that God is love, that perfection already exists on some level, and if we can’t see these things, if we can’t experience in a conscious way the utter perfection and beauty and absolutely perfect love in which all manifested things are held, it’s because we don’t have the capacity to see it. That’s what I think she’s implying. 

Dale: Yes, I think that’s right because our life is a continuous journey of discoveries, and every day we discover more and more about ourselves and our environment. We’re starting to define ourselves in terms of our genes and the DNA, which was not the case even a decade ago. Genes and DNA have always been present, right from the time of creation, but are only now being discovered. 

Sarah: Like those planets that weren’t discovered. Astrologers say they didn’t have an impact on human consciousness because they hadn’t yet been discovered. 

Dale: Right, they’ve always been present in the universe for billions of years. 

Sarah: But they have to be recognized by humanity before their power can affect human consciousness, according to astrology. 

Dale: That’s right. Genes are the building blocks from which everything is built, along with the atoms, every atom of substance. All physical forms, whether they be mineral forms or plant forms or animal or human, are made of these building blocks and we’re just now discovering more and more about them. I think the next major step is to continue this exploration into the strictly spiritual realms of the soul and in the realms of consciousness and the soul of all things. 

Robert: It’s Interesting what both of you are saying. I can’t help but remember the time where I was sitting on an old-fashioned plane and looking out the front window at a propeller. I couldn’t see beyond the propeller, and I couldn’t see the reality that existed beyond that, but then all of a sudden the plane started up and the propeller started going a million miles a second, and I was able to see through the propeller to the other reality. I guess that’s analogous to what both of you are saying: there are realities that perhaps with a different frame of consciousness we may be able to key into, maybe because of a different frequency, whatever it might be. Perhaps before we go any further, we should define consciousness. 

Sarah: Consciousness is, in the Ageless Wisdom, another synonym for the soul, which we have talked about at considerable length in previous programs. It’s the factor that is created or generated when pure spirit — which is the energy of life itself, the breath of God, you could say — and matter are brought together. The bringing together of spirit and matter produces consciousness according to the Ageless Wisdom. Another way to look at it is to see an image of it in one’s mind’s eye. It’s depicted as a point within a circle. That’s a traditional symbol for consciousness: the point within a circle, the point representing the state of awareness, of being. The circle represents the placement of that state of awareness within the greater whole, and the whole journey of consciousness is the extending of the periphery of the circle in greater and greater arcs of inclusiveness, extending the border of the circle into wider and wider spheres. This is why one of the questions that people on the spiritual path have to answer is: What constitutes your environment? Probably a lot of our listeners think the environment is the deserts and forests and so on, but the environment in a social sense is one’s sense of relationship with others and with the world. The environment expands as consciousness expands. 

Dale: Yes, that’s one very short definition of consciousness: awareness of one’s environment. That awareness grows as we become awake and more sensitive to everything around us and within ourselves. So, it’s a difficult thing to put your finger on, what this consciousness is, because we live within it. 

Sarah: But we shouldn’t assume that everybody is fully conscious; I think that’s one place to start. Maybe we all think that because we’re standing erect and our eyes are open we’re conscious, but not really. A lot of people can have their eyes open and be on their feet and be quite asleep. If you’re not sure about that, watch the next time you’re in a crowd of people and people walk perhaps on you, in front of you, past you in ways that you realize you’re not even picked up on their radar. They don’t see you. They don’t see much of anybody. They have their destination; they have their agenda and that’s it. Their consciousness is extremely focused and extremely narrow, and there are others who are just naturally aware of everybody and everything going on around them. You know the old saying about mothers having eyes in the back of their heads—well, their consciousness is so attuned to the needs of their children that those children exist within the aura, the ring- pass- not of the mother. 

Dale: That’s what they used to say about teachers too. (laughter) 

Sarah: They see everything. Nothing escapes them. Those are people who are very expanded and inclusive in their consciousness. So, we shouldn’t assume that everybody is fully conscious or even somewhat conscious. My opinion is that a lot of people are quite unaware of themselves in relationship to the larger world. 

Dale: The word consciousness means “that with which we know,” so it’s a state of being aware and the ability to respond to stimuli, essentially to the world around you. The ability to respond I think is the key here, because if you don’t respond you’re obviously not too conscious of it. 

Sarah: And I suppose anyone who’s raised a baby to adulthood would be able to document that expanding of consciousness as the baby passes from infancy, where he’s totally engrossed in the world from which he just came, and gradually becomes connected to the outer world. A lot of people who study the spiritual growth of children speak about the sense of spiritual connection that very young children often have when they’re fairly new to Earth and that, sadly, it seems to slip away as they become more and more integrated into society and the world. 

Dale: Yes, and I think there’s not enough relating consciousness to the factor of the soul, because that’s really the source of where our consciousness comes from. There is a belief in the scientific community that perhaps consciousness arises out of the physical genes or the brain cells, but that’s just one approach. From my point of view, I think consciousness is given, it comes by way of the soul, it comes from those inner planes. That is the true source of what we call consciousness, and that’s where we get this ability to adapt to the stimulation of the environment. 

Sarah: Consciousness needs form to contact the environment. That’s why we have bodies. That’s why we have a mind and emotions. We need those mechanisms, as I understand it, to make contact with others. 

Dale: That’s why we have the brain because we need the brain for the mind to work. 

Sarah: But the problem is that the individual often becomes completely identified with and attached to the form in which it is temporarily residing. The soul consciousness uses these bodies as vehicles. The Bhagavad-Gita speaks of it as a chariot that the soul rides in. Our physical body is a chariot through which our soul rides for eighty or ninety years on Earth and then gives it up and moves on to a better chariot. But we become so identified with that chariot that we think it expresses the sum total of what we are, and that’s the whole problem about human consciousness: that we are fixed in this form which is purely material and which is separated from all other forms — the borders of our physical form stop at the skin — so it perpetuates the illusion that we’re separate from everyone and everything else, when in fact on the level of consciousness, we’re all connected. I think probably many of our listeners might have had an experience where they’ve shared a dream with someone else. I’ve had that, where I’ve had the same dream as another person, and it was quite a remarkable realization that it’s very fluid up there. But on the physical level, where many of us are identified, things are separate and concretized, and that’s the problem with consciousness. But we need this form in order to live in the world, and the whole goal of divinity, I think, is to become expressed through form, not imprisoned in it, but to express its radiance and its glory through form. 

Robert: Would it be correct to say that the body, the physicality, is analogous perhaps to an article of clothing?  

Sarah: Yes, it’s something you put on and then you shed — the “you” being the soul — you take it on at birth and you shed it at death and both are completely normal. 

Robert: Then the consciousness remains after the clothing is taken off. 

Sarah: The consciousness abides, and those who have had near-death experiences can testify to that. 

Dale: That factor of identity also remains, and that’s what moves on. You never lose that sense of identity. 

Robert: Descartes once said, “I think, therefore I am.” I always looked upon that as: the only beings that think are human beings, but maybe that’s not so. Are there different stages of consciousness? 

Sarah: Yes, according to the Ageless Wisdom, consciousness permeates the whole manifested universe, not only the human realm. There’s consciousness in the mineral kingdom, which is leading to the development of discrimination. There’s consciousness in the vegetable kingdom, which is leading to the quality of sentiency, of being sensitive; people who talk to their plants are helping develop that sentiency. There’s consciousness in the animal kingdom which is producing the development of will and purpose. I think of my cat, Starlight, who taught me a lot about the will! In the human kingdom, the goal is the development of the sense of the group, of relationship to others, to be ultimately one with one’s fellow men. So, there is consciousness and it’s progressing throughout all these levels of existence. The great question mark and the trouble spot is man, because he can identify himself both with the physical realm, the form, as we were talking about, and there’s something in him that identifies with pure Spirit, with God. That’s the whole reason behind the religious urge which goes back, they believe, to earliest Homo Sapiens who understood that in the sun and in fire there was an element of divinity and they responded to that. So, there is this ability to identify both with the physical and the divine, and it’s what produces the sense of pain and suffering because we’re pulled between these pairs of opposites. 

Dale:  Yes, it’s that soul factor that is always working within the form, whatever that form is—whether it’s a plant, an animal or a human being, there is a soul factor present that is giving that form life and the ability to reach out. You find even at the level of the atom there is a level of consciousness. In fact, one of the books by Alice Bailey is called Consciousness of the Atom, and it’s a fascinating little book. 

Sarah: A series of lectures that she gave here in New York about eighty years ago. 

Dale: In 1922, I think it was, but it’s still very current and relevant today. So, even at the level of the atom and within the atom itself, there is this element of consciousness that tells this atom what to do, where to associate with other atoms and so forth. From the very smallest up to the greatest, even up to the planet itself there is this element of consciousness and soul, and it’s because of this soul factor that there is consciousness. 

Sarah: I think scientists probably have a keen awareness of the intelligence in matter that organizes the composition of a molecule and so on. It’s mysterious and yet documented; they might not call it consciousness, but that does seem to be the organizing principle that they are discovering through their research. For the human being, the way out of this dilemma that we’ve been talking about is the mind, because through the mind we have the ability to approach God. The Great Invocation, which closes our program, speaks of that: “From the point of Light within the Mind of God, Let light stream forth into human minds.” This is the means of connection or the bridge or conduit of consciousness from the mind of the human being to the Mind of God. And that’s what is being developed through experience, evolution and spiritual practice. 

Dale: Yes, even at the level of the mineral or the plant and the animal, there is this rudimentary mind that animates it and gives it life. It’s what turns the flower towards the sun and the animal to be an animal and to do its thing. 

Robert: What is meant by an expansion of consciousness? I would think that would be an area we should explore, because that’s a phrase that’s used very often. 

Sarah: Right. Well, coming back to that image of the circle with the point in the centre, the expansion of that circle’s circumference is what happens with the expansion of consciousness: to incorporate more and more of the whole. And it’s an expansion that occurs, as I mentioned, through spiritual practices like meditation and study of scriptures. It also occurs in a more leisurely manner, through evolution, through experience, through repeated incarnations; those who believe in reincarnation. The return of the soul, again and again through suffering, experience, and the gradual gaining of wisdom expands consciousness, but one can try to accelerate that process through real effort in meditation and study of spiritual scripture. Sometimes the most amazing events in life can accelerate that expansion of consciousness, and I was reading in this book by Houston Smith that I mentioned, Why Religion Matters, the experience of a French person who fought in the resistance in France in World War II, who had been blinded at an early age through a childhood accident. He discovered that he could use his eyes to actually see, to be conscious, but on an inner level. He said, “I began to look from an inner place to one further within, whereupon the universe redefined itself and peopled itself anew.” He said, “I was aware of a radiance emanating from a place I knew nothing about” — but which was inside of him, within him, and he said the radiance was there, or more precisely, light — “I bathed in it as an element” — and he could actually see in that light. I find this fascinating. 

Robert: It is. 

Sarah: I’ve been thinking about it all day. He could see people as they are, his intuition was extremely keen, he was an excellent judge of character. He had more vision in a way than most of us with eyes. 

Dale: So, from that experience you can see that real expansions of consciousness are those that actually create a transformation in the person, where there is a genuine turning point reached in one’s life. Those are the real expansions of consciousness, where ones awareness suddenly becomes totally more inclusive. 

Sarah: In other words, the sense of I expands to include more and more of the whole. That may sound like an impossibility, but in fact the sense of being an identity, we’re told, ever remains, no matter how far consciousness progresses. 

Robert: That’s about all the time we have for our discussion today. You’ve been listening to Inner Sight. Now we would like to close with a world prayer called the Great Invocation. It’s a call for light and love and goodwill to flow into the world and into our hearts. Let’s listen for a moment to these powerful words. 

Sarah: Closes the program by reciting the adapted version of the Great Invocation

(This is an edited transcript of a recorded radio program called “Inner Sight.” This conversation was recorded between the host, Robert Anderson, and the then President and Vice-President of Lucis Trust, Sarah and Dale McKechnie.) 

(Transcribed and edited by Carla McLeod) 

(#102)


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