CONSCIOUSNESS WITHOUT THOUGHT.
The question is, What is this experience? or rather--since an
experience can really only be known to the person who experiences
it--we may ask, “What is the nature of this experience?” And in
trying to indicate an answer of some kind to this question I feel
considerable diffidence, just for the very reason (for one) already
mentioned--namely that it is so difficult or impossible for one
person to give a true account of an experience which has occurred to
another. If I could give the exact words of the teacher, without any
bias derived either from myself or the interpreting friend, the case
might be different; but that I cannot pretend to do; and if I could,
the old-world scientific forms in which his thoughts were cast would
probably only prove a stumbling-block and a source of confusion,
instead of a help, to the reader. Indeed, even in the case of the
sacred books, where we have a good deal of accessible and authoritative
information, Western critics though for the most part agreeing that
there _is_ some real experience underlying, are sadly at variance as to
what that experience may be.
For these reasons I prefer not to attempt or pretend to give the exact
teaching, unbiassed, of the Indian Gurus, or their experiences; but
only to indicate as far as I can, in my own words, and in modern
thought-forms, what I take to be the direction in which we must look
for this ancient and world-old knowledge which has had so stupendous an
influence in the East, and which indeed is still the main mark of its
difference from the West.
And first let me guard against an error which is likely to arise. It is
very easy to assume, and very frequently assumed, in any case where a
person is credited with the possession of an unusual faculty, that such
person is at once lifted out of our sphere into a supernatural region,
and possesses every faculty of that region. If for instance he or she
is or is supposed to be clairvoyant, it is assumed that _everything_
is or ought to be known to them; or if the person has shown what seems
a miraculous power at any time or in any case, it is asked by way of
discredit why he or she did not show a like power at other times or in
other cases. Against all such hasty generalisations it is necessary to
guard ourselves. If there is a higher form of consciousness attainable
by man than that which he for the most part can claim at present, it is
probable, nay certain, that it is evolving and will evolve but slowly,
and with many a slip and hesitant pause by the way. In the far past of
man and the animals consciousness of sensation and consciousness of
self have been successively evolved--each of these mighty growths with
innumerable branches and branchlets continually spreading. At any point
in this vast experience, a new growth, a new form of consciousness,
might well have seemed miraculous. What could be more marvelous than
the first revealment of the sense of sight, what more inconceivable
to those who had not experienced it, and what more certain than that
the first use of this faculty must have been fraught with delusion and
error? Yet there may be an inner vision which again transcends sight,
even as far as sight transcends touch. It is more than probable that
in the hidden births of time there lurks a consciousness which is not
the consciousness of sensation and which is not the consciousness
of self--or at least which includes and entirely surpasses these--a
consciousness in which the contrast between the _ego_ and the external
world, and the distinction between subject and object, fall away. The
part of the world into which such a consciousness admits us (call it
_supramundane_ or whatever you will) is probably at least as vast and
complex as the part we know, and progress in that region at least
equally slow and tentative and various, laborious, discontinuous, and
uncertain. There is no sudden leap out of the back parlor onto Olympus;
and the routes, when found, from one to the other, are long and
bewildering in their variety.
And of those who do attain to some portion of this region, we are not
to suppose that they are at once demi-gods, or infallible. In many
cases indeed the very novelty and strangeness of the experiences give
rise to phantasmal trains of delusive speculation. Though we should
expect, and though it is no doubt true on the whole, that what we
should call the higher types of existing humanity are those most likely
to come into possession of any new faculties which may be flying about,
yet it is not always so; and there are cases, well recognised, in
which persons of decidedly deficient or warped moral nature attain
powers which properly belong to a high grade of evolution, and are
correspondingly dangerous thereby.
All this, or a great part of it, the Indian teachers insist on. They
say--and I think this commends the reality of their experience--that
there is nothing abnormal or miraculous about the matter; that the
faculties acquired are on the whole the result of long evolution and
training, and that they have distinct laws and an order of their
own. They recognise the existence of persons of a demonic faculty,
who have acquired powers of a certain grade without corresponding
moral evolution; and they admit the rarity of the highest phases of
consciousness and the fewness of those at present fitted for its
attainment.
With these little provisos then established I think we may go on
to say that what the Gñáni seeks and obtains is a new order of
consciousness--to which for want of a better we may give the name
_universal_ or _cosmic_ consciousness, in contradistinction to
the individual or special bodily consciousness with which we are
all familiar. I am not aware that the _exact_ equivalent of this
expression “universal consciousness” is used in the Hindu philosophy;
but the _Sat-chit-ánanda Brahm_ to which every yogi aspires indicates
the same idea: _sat_, the reality, the all pervading; _chit_, the
knowing, perceiving; _ánanda_, the blissful--all these united in one
manifestation of Brahm.
The West seeks the individual consciousness--the enriched mind, ready
perceptions and memories, individual hopes and fears, ambitions, loves,
conquests--the self, the local self, in all its phases and forms--and
sorely doubts whether such a thing as an universal consciousness
exists. The East seeks the universal consciousness, and in those cases
where its quest succeeds individual self and life thin away to a mere
film, and are only the shadows cast by the glory revealed beyond.
The individual consciousness takes the form of _Thought_, which is
fluid and mobile like quicksilver, perpetually in a state of change
and unrest, fraught with pain and effort; the other consciousness is
_not_ in the form of Thought. It touches, sees, hears, and _is_ these
things which it perceives--without motion, without change, without
effort, without distinction of subject and object, but with a vast and
incredible Joy.
The individual consciousness is specially related to the body. The
organs of the body are in some degree its organs. But the _whole_ body
is only as one organ of the cosmic consciousness. To attain this latter
one must have the power of knowing one’s self separate from the body,
of passing into a state of _ecstasy_ in fact. Without this the cosmic
consciousness cannot be experienced.
It is said:--“There are four main experiences in initiation, (1) the
meeting with a Guru, (2) the consciousness of Grace, or _Arul_ (which
may perhaps be interpreted as the consciousness of a change--even of
a physiological change--working within one), (3) the vision of Siva
(God), with which the knowledge of one’s self as distinct from the body
is closely connected, (4) the finding of the universe within.” “The
wise,” it is also said, “when their thoughts cease to move perceive
within themselves the Absolute consciousness, which is _Sarva sakshi_,
Witness of all things.”
Great have been the disputes among the learned as to the meaning of the
word Nirwana--whether it indicates a state of no-consciousness or a
state of vastly enhanced consciousness. Probably both views have their
justification: the thing does not admit of definition in the terms of
ordinary language. The important thing to see and admit is that under
cover of this and other similar terms there does exist a real and
recognisable fact (that is a state of consciousness in some sense),
which has been experienced over and over again, and which to those who
have experienced it in ever so slight a degree has appeared worthy of
lifelong pursuit and devotion. It is easy of course to represent the
thing as a mere word, a theory, a speculation of the dreamy Hindu;
but people do not sacrifice their lives for empty words, nor do mere
philosophical abstractions rule the destinies of continents. No, the
word represents a reality, something very basic and inevitable in human
nature. The question really is not to define the fact--for we cannot do
that--but to get at and experience it.
It is interesting at this juncture to find that modern Western science,
which has hitherto--without much result--been occupying itself with
mechanical theories of the universe, is approaching from its side
this idea of the existence of another form of consciousness. The
extraordinary phenomena of hypnotism--which no doubt are in some
degree related to the subject we are discussing, and which have been
recognised for ages in the East--are forcing Western scientists to
assume the existence of the so-called _secondary consciousness_ in the
body. The phenomena seem really inexplicable without the assumption of
a secondary agency of some kind, and it every day becomes increasingly
difficult _not_ to use the word consciousness to describe it.
Let it be understood that I am not for a moment assuming that
this secondary consciousness of the hypnotists is in all respects
identical with the cosmic consciousness (or whatever we may call it)
of the Eastern occultists. It may or may not be. The two kinds of
consciousness may cover the same ground, or they may only overlap to a
small extent. That is a question I do not propose to discuss. The point
to which I wish to draw attention is that Western science is envisaging
the possibility of the existence in man of another consciousness of
some kind, beside that with whose working we are familiar. It quotes
(A. Moll) the case of Barkworth who “can add up long rows of figures
while carrying on a lively discussion, without allowing his attention
to be at all diverted from the discussion”; and asks us how Barkworth
can do this unless he has a secondary consciousness which occupies
itself with the figures while his primary consciousness is in the thick
of argument. Here is a lecturer (F. Myers) who for a whole minute
allows his mind to wander entirely away from the subject in hand, and
imagines himself to be sitting beside a friend in the audience and to
be engaged in conversation with _him_, and who wakes up to find himself
still on the platform lecturing away with perfect ease and coherency.
What are we to say to such a case as that? Here again is a pianist
who recites a piece of music by heart, and finds that his recital is
actually hindered by allowing his mind (his primary consciousness) to
dwell upon what he is doing. It is sometimes suggested that the very
perfection of the musical performance shows that it is mechanical or
unconscious, but is this a fair inference? and would it not seem to be
a mere contradiction in terms to speak of an unconscious lecture, or an
unconscious addition of a row of figures?
Many actions and processes of the body, _e.g._ swallowing, are attended
by distinct personal consciousness; many other actions and processes
are quite unperceived by the same; and it might seem reasonable
to suppose that these latter at any rate were purely mechanical
and devoid of any mental substratum. But the later developments of
hypnotism in the West have shown--what is well known to the Indian
fakirs--that under certain conditions consciousness of the internal
actions and processes of the body can be obtained; and not only so, but
consciousness of events taking place at a distance from the body and
without the ordinary means of communication.
Thus the idea of another consciousness, in some respects of wider range
than the ordinary one, and having methods of perception of its own, has
been gradually infiltrating itself into Western minds.
There is another idea, which modern science has been familiarising us
with, and which is bringing us towards the same conception--that namely
of the fourth dimension. The supposition that the actual world has four
space-dimensions instead of three makes many things conceivable which
otherwise would be incredible. It makes it conceivable that apparently
separate objects, _e.g._ distinct people, are really physically united;
that things apparently sundered by enormous distances of space are
really quite close together; that a person or other object might pass
in and out of a closed room without disturbance of walls, doors, or
windows, etc.; and if this fourth dimension were to become a factor of
our consciousness it is obvious that we should have means of knowledge
which to the ordinary sense would appear simply miraculous. There is
much apparently to suggest that the consciousness attained to by the
Indian gñánis in their degree, and by hypnotic subjects in theirs is of
this fourth-dimensional order.
As a solid is related to its own surfaces, so, it would appear, is the
cosmic consciousness related to the ordinary consciousness. The phases
of the personal consciousness are but different facets of the other
consciousness; and experiences which seem remote from each other in the
individual are perhaps all equally near in the universal. Space itself,
as we know it, may be practically annihilated in the consciousness of
a larger space of which it is but the superficies; and a person living
in London may not unlikely find that he has a backdoor opening quite
simply and unceremoniously out in Bombay.
“The true quality of the soul,” said the Guru one day, “is that of
space, by which it is at rest, everywhere. But this space (Akása)
within the soul is far above the ordinary material space. The whole of
the latter, including all the suns and stars, appears to you then as
it were but an atom of the former”--and here he held up his fingers as
though crumbling a speck of dust between them.
“At rest everywhere,” “Indifference,” “Equality.” This was one of
the most remarkable parts of the Guru’s teaching. Though (for family
reasons) maintaining many of the observances of Caste himself, and
though holding and teaching that for the mass of the people caste rules
were quite necessary, he never ceased to insist that when the time came
for a man (or woman) to be “emancipated” all these rules must drop
aside as of no importance--all distinction of castes, classes, all
sense of superiority or self-goodness--of right and wrong even--and the
most absolute sense of Equality must prevail towards every one, and
determination in its expression. Certainly it was remarkable (though
I knew that the sacred books contained it) to find this germinal
principle of Western democracy so vividly active and at work deep down
beneath the innumerable layers of Oriental social life and custom. But
so it is; and nothing shows better the relation between the West and
the East than this fact.
This sense of Equality, of Freedom from regulations and confinements,
of Inclusiveness, and of the Life that “rests everywhere,” belongs
of course more to the cosmic or universal part of man than to the
individual part. To the latter it is always a stumbling-block and an
offence. It is easy to show that men are not equal, that they cannot
be free, and to point the absurdity of a life that is indifferent and
at rest under all conditions. Nevertheless to the larger consciousness
these are basic facts, which underlie the common life of humanity, and
feed the very individual that denies them.
Thus repeating the proviso that in using such terms as cosmic and
universal consciousness we do not commit ourselves to the theory that
the instant a man leaves the personal part of him he enters into
absolutely unlimited and universal knowledge, but only into a higher
order of perception--and admitting the intricacy and complexity of
the region so roughly denoted by these terms, and the microscopical
character of our knowledge about it--we may say once more, also
as a roughest generalisation, that the quest of the East has been
this universal consciousness, and that of the West the personal or
individual consciousness. As is well known the East has its various
sects and schools of philosophy, with subtle discriminations of
qualities, essences, god-heads, devilhoods, etc., into which I do
not propose to go, and which I should feel myself quite incompetent
to deal with. Leaving all these aside, I will keep simply to these
two rough Western terms, and try to consider further the question of
the _methods_ by which the Eastern student sets himself to obtain
the cosmic state, or such higher order of consciousness as he does
encompass.