THE MECHANISM OF CONSCIOUSNESS
The soul is a center of consciousness within the all-consciousness, or
the life of the solar Logos; an individualized portion of the universal
mind. That fragment of the divine life, with its latent God-like
attributes, is expressed through a mechanism of consciousness that is
formed of the matter of the various planes. Naturally enough it is
expressed more fully upon the higher planes than upon the lower. At a
very high level it is known as the monad. When it reaches down into the
higher subdivisions of the mental world it is the ego, a lesser
expression of the same divine life that pours from the Logos through the
monad--lesser because it is then functioning through the denser matter
of a lower level.
The knowledge that has been gained about the nature of matter in recent
years is helpful in understanding the activities of consciousness. The
atom is found to be a center of force, and we are at the point where
matter, as we have known it, disappears. All the force and consciousness
of the solar system is, of course, but the life of the Logos, and on
higher planes the distinctions we observe here fade out. Matter becomes
a very different thing from the matter we know. The ether of the
physical world is almost inconceivably tenuous matter. Yet it is gross
when compared to the lowest grade of astral matter. The matter of the
mental world is enormously rarer than the most tenuous matter of the
astral world. In view of these facts it requires no stress of the
imagination to understand that the matter of the higher planes is
responsive to the vibrations of consciousness.
The outraying energies of the individualized center of consciousness act
upon the matter of the plane and draw about it a film that slowly grows
into a vehicle through which consciousness can be more fully expressed,
and which serves as a point of vantage from which its expression can be
extended to lower planes.
The seven subdivisions of the mental world fall naturally into two
groups, composed of the three higher and the four lower grades of
matter. The ego, anchored in the matter of the two planes above the
mental world, descends to the upper levels of the mental and the vesture
of matter with which it clothes itself is known as the causal body.
Sending its energies downward, or outward, to the lower levels of the
mental world, it establishes itself there in what slowly becomes a
mental body. Again in the astral world the process is repeated and a
vehicle of consciousness is formed of astral matter. The physical body
is the lowest and last of the vehicles to be formed and as it is slowly
built, in the months preceding birth, the matter it contains falls into
place under the operation of occult laws which permit no element of
chance to enter into its construction.
Each of these bodies serves as a vehicle of consciousness on the plane
to which it belongs. The soul is evolving simultaneously in each of the
worlds, physical, astral and mental, and these various bodies enable it
to receive the vibrations of the plane they belong to and thus to be
conscious there. The mental body is the seat of intellectual activity.
Thought arises as a vibration in it and passes through the astral body
into the physical brain. Whenever we think we are using the mental body.
The astral body is the seat of emotion. With it we feel. All emotion
passes from it to the physical body to be expressed in the material
world. The astral world is also called the emotional world, as the
mental plane is called the mental world. The physical body is the soul's
instrument of action. It attaches it to the physical world, enables the
consciousness to contact material objects and to move and express on the
material plane the thoughts and emotions generated in the mental and
astral bodies.
Another part of the mechanism of consciousness is known as the etheric
double. But it is only a link in the chain and not a body through which
the soul can function. It is composed of the etheric matter of the
physical world and connects the astral body with the physical body. As
every atom of physical matter is surrounded and permeated by etheric
matter, it follows that the physical body has its duplicate in etheric
matter. "Etheric double" is a very appropriate name since it is a
perfect duplicate of the physical body in etheric matter. It serves the
purpose of supplying the life force to the nervous system and is the
medium through which sensation is conveyed. The action of an anaesthetic
drives out so much of the matter of the etheric double that the
connection is broken and sensation in the physical body ceases.
One of the difficulties in the way of getting a clear conception of the
constitution of man, and realizing that he is a soul functioning through
various vehicles of consciousness, is the materialistic modes of thought
common to Occidental civilization. We are accustomed to thinking of the
physical body itself as being the man, and if there is any thought at
all of the consciousness surviving the death of the body it is very
vague and indefinite as to where it exists and how it is expressed. Very
little thinking should be necessary to show the absurdity of the belief
that the body is the man. Two bodies may be alike, as in the case of
twins, but the souls, the real men, may be absolutely unlike. The real
man is superphysical. His intelligence or his stupidity, his genial
disposition or his moroseness, his generosity or his selfishness, are
but the manifestations of himself through the body by which they are
expressed. The body itself is a mere aggregation of physical atoms, as a
planet is, so organized that they constitute an instrument for a
purpose. The mass of matter constituting the body is a variable mass. It
may increase or diminish greatly, but the man remains unchanged. There
is no permanent relationship between the man and the physical matter
which he uses for his vehicle of consciousness. According to the
physiologists every atom of the body changes within a period of a few
years. The cells wear out, break down and pass away to be replaced by
new matter. Not a particle of the physical matter that was in our bodies
seven years ago is there now, and none that is there now will remain.
Within seven years, or less, we shall have bodies composed of new matter
as certainly as an infant's is.
Of course such reconstruction of the body does not change its
appearance. It is built on the same lines. It is as it would be with
some very old cathedral. As the centuries pass it must be slowly
rebuilt. The floors wear out and are relaid. The roof serves its time
and is replaced. The walls crumble first in one place and then another
until they have been completely reconstructed. After a thousand years
has passed there may be none of the original material in the building,
yet its appearance is unchanged. The bodies we have today shall have
passed away and will be growing in the trees and blooming in the flowers
in a few years. The bodies we shall then have are now scattered through
the world. They will be brought together during that time and will come
from many parts of the earth.
The physical senses continually deceive us and nowhere more than in our
ideas about the physical body. It is an unstable mass of matter, in
constant motion, with great gulfs of space between its atoms. Emerson
was very far ahead of his time and it took science a half century to
catch up with him and learn that he had recorded a fact in nature when
he wrote:
Atom from atom yawns as far
As earth from moon, or star from star.
In 1908 the _Scientific American Supplement_, commenting on our
reconstructed ideas about matter, remarked that the actual mass of the
physical body to the apparent mass was about one to one million!
If the physical body is merely an organized mass of matter, continually
varying, constantly coming and going, and having no permanent
relationship to the consciousness that functions through it, what reason
is there for believing that it is the man? Does it seem strange that the
center of consciousness should be able to draw about itself on the
higher planes aggregations of matter and finally to express itself on
the material plane through the mass of matter we call the body? If that
is mysterious quite as miraculous things are going on constantly about
us unnoticed. Thoreau calls attention to the fact that we become so
accustomed to the marvelous expressions of life all about us that we are
oblivious of the phenomena that are taking place. Commenting on the
magic possible to nature he says:
"Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where
no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed--a, to me,
equally mysterious origin for it. Convince me that you have
a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.... In
the spring of 1857 I planted six seeds sent to me from the
Patent Office, and labeled, I think, 'Poitrine jaune
grosse,' large yellow squash. Two came up, and one bore a
squash which weighed 123½ pounds, the other bore four,
weighing together 186¼ pounds. Who would have believed
that there was 310 pounds of poitrine jaune grosse in that
corner of my garden? These seeds were the bait I used to
catch it, my ferrets which I sent into its burrow, my brace
of terriers which unearthed it.... Other seeds I have which
will find other things in that corner of my garden. Perfect
alchemists I keep who can transmute substances without end,
and thus the corner of my garden is an inexhaustible
treasure-chest. Here you can dig, not gold, but the value
which gold merely represents; and there is no Signor Blitz
about it. Yet farmer's sons will stare by the hour to see a
juggler draw ribbons from his throat, though he tells them
it is all deception. Surely, men love darkness rather than
light."[E]
A seed is a center of force through which life, at a much lower level
than the human, flows and gathers about that center the material mass
that serves the purpose of its lowly evolution. At the human level
consciousness has become self-consciousness and a marvelously complex
mechanism is required to express it and serve the purpose of its farther
evolution.
This complex mechanism of consciousness, composed of the various bodies
through which the ego expresses itself at different levels, is used as a
whole for functioning on the physical plane. But when the ego is
functioning no farther down than the astral plane, the physical body
is, of course, temporarily discarded. It is then in the condition known
as sleep, or trance. Sleep is the natural withdrawing of the
consciousness from the physical body. When the separation occurs in the
case of the medium it is called a trance. The cause of the inert
condition of the physical body is the same in both cases--the withdrawal
of the consciousness of the ego. The physical body is then unoccupied,
but the consciousness maintains magnetic connection with it. In death
that tie is severed and the consciousness can return to the body no
more. Instances in which the apparently dead are brought back to life
are cases where the magnetic tie is not broken, notwithstanding there is
every appearance of death.
In form and feature the physical body has its exact duplicate in the
astral body, and in it we function in the astral world whenever the
separation between the two occurs, whether from sleep or death. In sleep
the consciousness, expressing itself in the astral body in the astral
world, may be turned dreamily inward or it may be turned outward and be
vividly aware of the life and activities of that world. But there is
small chance that any memory of it will come through into the physical
consciousness upon awakening. Occasionally, however, it does occur and
then it is usually remembered as a very vivid dream. In illness, and
other abnormal conditions, the connection between the physical and
astral consciousness is much closer. At a comparatively high point in
evolution the two states of consciousness merge. The man is then
continuously conscious, and has a full memory in the physical brain of
all his activities in the astral world during the hours when the
physical body was asleep.
Consciousness is, of course, at its worst when expressed through the
limitation of its lower vehicles. Any person, whether brilliant or
stupid, will be much abler and keener on the astral plane than on the
physical, because in sleep, and after death, he has lost the limitations
imposed by physical matter. But the degree of restriction is variable
and depends much upon the _kind_ of matter of which the brain and body
are composed; for the physical atoms vary greatly, and as they come and
go in the passing years the body may either become purified and refined
or it may grow grosser and coarser. By careful attention to food and
drink, and by control of the emotions, the limitations of physical
matter may be lessened and a much higher and more efficient state of
consciousness in the physical body can be attained.
FOOTNOTES:
[E] The Succession of Forest Trees.--Thoreau.