Thou most Divine! above all women
Above all men in consciousness.
Thou in thy nearness to me
Hast shown me paths of love.
Yea; walks that lead from hell
To the great light; where life and love
Do ever reign.
Thou hast taught to me a patience
To behold whatever state;
However beautiful and joyful; however ugly and sorrowful.
To know that these are—all!—but
The glimmerings of the greater life—
Expressions of the infinite.
According to the finality of that moment
Now to come; in the eternal now, which thou
Sweet Presence, hast awakened me to—
I see the light—the way.
An everlasting illumination
That takes me to the gate; the open door
To the house of God.
There I find most priceless jewels;
The key to all the ways,
That lead from Om to thee.
A mistake—an off-turn from the apparent road of right
Is but the bruising of thy temple,
Calling thy Self—thy soul—
The God within; showing thee,
The nita of it all; which is but the half of me.
And as thy consciousness of the two
The nita and the ita, comes to thee
A three is formed—the trinity is found.
Through thee the Deity hast spoken
Uniting the two in the one;
Revealing the illusion of mortality
The message of Om to the Illumined.
—Ali Nomad.
Man is essentially a spiritual being.
The source of this spiritual Omniscience we may not, in our finite intelligence, fully cognize, because full cognition would preclude the possibility of finite expression.
The destiny of man is perfection.
Man perfected becomes a god.
“Only the gods are immortal,” we are told.
Let us consider what this means, supposing it to be an axiom of truth.
Mortality is subject to change and death. Mortality is the manifest—the stage upon which “man in his life plays many parts.”
Immortality, is what the word says it is—godhood re-cognized in the mortal. “Im” or, “Om"—the more general term—stands for the Changeless. Birthless. Deathless. Unnamable Power that holds the worlds in space, and puts intelligence into man.
Biologists, even though they were to succeed in reproducing life by chemical processes from so-called “lifeless” (sterilized) matter, making so high a form of manifestation as man himself, yet could never name the power by which they accomplished it.
Always there must remain the Unknownable—the Absolute.
“Om,” therefore, is the word we use to express this Omniscient, Omnipotent and Omnipresent power.
The term “mortal” we have already defined. The compound immortal, applied to individual man, stands for one who has made his “at-one-ment” with Om, and who has, while still in the mortal body, re-cognized himself as one with Om.
This is what it means to escape the “second death,” to which the merely mortal consciousness is subject.
This is the goal of every human life; this is the essence, the substance of all religious systems and all philosophies.
The only chance for disputation among theologians and philosophers, lies in the way of accomplishing this at-one-ment. There is not the slightest opportunity for a difference of opinion as what they wish to accomplish.
Admitting then, that the goal of every soul is the same—immortality—(the mortal consciousness cognizing itself as Om), we come to a consideration of the evidence we may find in support of this axiom. This evidence we do not find satisfactory, in spirit communication; in psychic experiences; in hypnotic phenomena; and astral trips; important, and reliable as these many psychic research phenomena are.
These are not satisfactory or convincing evidences of our at-one-ment with Om, because they do not preclude the probability of the “second death;” but on the contrary, they verify it.
However, aside from all these psychic phenomena, there is a phase of human experience, much more rare but becoming somewhat general, that transcends phenomena of every kind.
The western world has given to these experiences the term “cosmic consciousness,” which term is self explanatory.
The Orientals have long known of this goal of the soul, and they have terms to express this, varying with the many types of the Oriental mind, but all meaning the same thing. This meaning, from our Occidental viewpoint, is best translated in the term liberation, signifying to be set free from the limitations of sense, and of self-consciousness, and to have glimpsed the larger area of consciousness, that takes in the very cosmos.
This experience is accompanied by a great light, whether this light is manifested as spiritual, or as intellectual power, determines its expression.
The object of this book is to call attention to some of the more pronounced instances of this Illumination, and to classify them, according as they have been expressed through religions enthusiasm; poetical fervor; or great intellectual power.
But we have also one other argument to make, and this we present with a conviction of its truth, while conceding that it must remain a theory, until proven, each individual, man or woman, for himself and herself. The postulate is this: immortality (i.e. godhood) is bi-sexual. No male person can by any possibility become an immortal god, in, of and by himself; no female person can be complete without the “other half” that makes the ONE.
Each and every SOUL, therefore, has its spiritual counterpart—its “other half,” with which it unites on the spiritual plane, when the time comes for attainment of immortality.
Sex is an eternal verity. The entire Cosmos is bi-sexual. Everything in the visible universe; in the manifest, is the result of this universal principle. “As above so below,” is a safe rule, as far as the IDEA goes. This hypothesis does not preclude perfection above, of that which we find below, but any radical reversion or repudiation of nature is inconceivable.
“Male and female created he them.” This being true, male and female must they return to the source from which they sprung, completing the circle, and gaining what?
Consciousness of godhood; of completeness in counterpartal union. Not absorption of consciousness, but union, which is quite a different idea.
Out of this counterpartal union a race of gods will be born, and these supermen, shall “inherit the earth” making it a “fit dwelling place for the gods.”
This earth is now being made fit. This fact may seem a far distant hope if we do not judge with the eyes of the seer, but its proof lies in the emancipation of woman. Its evidences are many and varied, but the awakening of woman is the cause.
This awakening of woman constitutes the first rays of the dawn—that long-looked for Millenium, which many of us have regarded as a mere figure of speech, instead of as a literal truth.
The argument is not that there has been no individual awakening until the present time; but that never before in the finite history of the world has there been such a general awakening, and as it is self evident that conditions will reflect the idea of the majority, the fact that woman is being given her rightful place in the sense-conscious life, proves that the earth will be a fit dwelling place for a higher order of beings than have hitherto constituted the majority.
The numerous instances of Illumination, or cosmic consciousness which are forcing attention at the present time, prove that there is a race-awakening to a realization of our unity with Om.
Another point which we trust these pages will make clear is this: So-called “revelation” is neither a personal “discovery,” nor any special act of a divine power. “God spake thus and so to me,” is a phrase which the self-conscious initiate employs, because he has lost sight of the cosmic light, or because he finds it expedient to use that phraseology in delivering the message of cosmic consciousness.
If we will substitute the term “initiation,” for the term “revelation,” we will have a clearer idea of the truth.
Perhaps some of our readers will feel that the terms mean the same, but for the most part, those who have employed the word “revelation,” have used it as implying that the plan of the cosmos was unfinished, and that the Creator, having found some person suitable to convey the latest decision to mankind, natural laws had been suspended and the revelation made.
It is to correct this view, that we emphasize the distinction between the two words.
The cosmos is complete. “As it was in the beginning, it is now and ever shall be, worlds without end.”
A circle is without beginning or end. We, in our individual consciousness may traverse this circle, but our failure to realize its completeness does not change the fact that it is finished.
We can not add to the universal consciousness; nor take away therefrom.
But we can extend our own area of consciousness from the narrow limits of the personal self, into the heights and depths of the atman and who shall set limitations to the power of the atman, the higher Self, when it has attained at-one-ment with Om?
It is not the purpose of this book to trace the spiritual ascent of man further than to point out the wide gulf between the degrees of consciousness manifested in the lower animals and that of human consciousness; again tracing in the human, the ever-widening area of his cognition of the personal self, and its needs, to the awakening of the soul and its needs; which needs include the welfare of all living things as an absolute necessity to individual happiness.
Altruism, therefore, is not a virtue. It is a means of self-preservation—without this degree of initiation into the boundless area of universal, or cosmic consciousness, we may not escape the karmic law.
The revelations, therefore, upon which are founded the numerous religious systems, are comparable with the many and various degrees of initiation into THAT WHICH IS.
They represent the degree which the initiate has taken in the lodge.
It may be argued that this fact of individual initiation into the ever-present truth of Being, as into a lodge, offers no proof that this earth is to ultimately become a heaven. It may be that this planet is the outer-most lodge room and that there will never be a sufficient number of initiates to make the earth a fit dwelling place for a higher order of beings than now inhabit it. This may, indeed, be true. But all evidence tends toward the hope that even the planet itself will come under the regenerating power of Illumination.
All prophecies embody this promise; all that we know of what materialists call “evolution” and occultists might well name “uncovering of consciousness,” points to a time when “God’s will,” “shall be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
All who have attained to cosmic consciousness in whatever degree, have prophecied a time, when this blessing would descend upon every one; but the difficulty in adequately explaining this great gift seems also to have been the burden of their cry.
Jesus sought repeatedly to describe to his hearers the wonders of the cosmic sense, but realized that he was too far in advance of the cyclic end; but even as at that time, a number of disciples were capable of receiving the Illumination, so to-day, a larger number are capable of attainment. If this number is great enough to bring about the regeneration—the perfecting—of the earth conditions, then it must be accomplished.
We believe that it is. We make the claim that the Millenium has dawned; and although it may be many years before the light of the morning breaks into the full light of the day, yet the rays of the dawn are dispelling the world’s long night.
In his powerful and prophetic story “In the Days of the Comet,” H.G. Wells, tells of a great change that comes over the world following an atmospheric phenomenon in which a “green vapor” is generated in the clouds and falls upon the earth with instantaneous effect.
As this peculiar vapor descends, it has the effect of putting every one to sleep; this sleep continues for three days and when people finally awake, their interior nature has undergone a complete change.
Where before they “saw dimly,” they now see clearly; the petty differences and quarrels are perceived in their true perspective. Instead of place, and power, and influence, and wealth, being all-important goals of ambition as before the change, every one now strives to be of service to the world. Love and kindness become greater factors than commercial expediency and business success.
In many respects, Wells’ description of the great change and its effect upon people, corresponds with the effect of Illumination.
The sense of entering into the very heart of things; of growing plants; the birds and the little wood animals; the intense sympathy and understanding of life described by him, sounds like the effect of cosmic consciousness, as related by nearly all who have attained it.
How the world’s activities are resumed after the change, and under what vastly different incentives people work, form a part of the story, which is written as fiction, but which contains the seed of a great truth.
This truth is expressed in science, as human achievement, and in religion as fulfilled prophecy, but the truth is the same.
Both religion and science point to a time when this earth will know freedom from strife and suffering. Even the elements which have hitherto been regarded as beyond the boundaries of man’s will, may be completely controlled; not may be, but will be. Manual labor will cease. National Eugenic societies will put a stop to war, when they come to the inevitable conclusion, that no race can by any possibility be improved, while the most perfect physical species are reserved for armies.
Awakening woman will refuse—indeed they are now refusing—to bear children to be shot down in warfare, and crushed under the juggernaut of commercial competition.
Those who realize the signs of the times, look for the birth of cosmic consciousness as a race-consciousness, foreshadowing the new day; the “second coming of Christ,” not as a personal, vicarious sacrifice, but as a factor in human attainment.
“For I am persuaded,” said St. Paul, “that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God.”
If we interpret this in the light of cosmic consciousness, we realize that we shall know, and experience that boundless, deathless, perfect, satisfying, complete and all-embracing love which is the goal of immortality; which is an attribute (we may say the one attribute) of God.
We are not looking for the birth of a Christ-child, but of the Christ-child; we are not looking for a second coming of a man who shall be as Jesus was, but we are anticipating the coming of the man (homo), who shall be cosmically conscious, even as was Jesus of Nazareth; as was Guatama, the Buddha.
That there may be one man and one woman who shall first achieve this consciousness and realization is barely possible, but the preponderance of evidence is for a more general awakening to the light of Illumination.
“We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in the twinkling of an eye,” said St. Paul.
The prophecy of “the woman clothed with the sun, and with the moon under her feet,” is not of a woman, but of Woman, in the light of a race of men who have attained cosmic consciousness.
Nothing more is needed to make a heaven of earth, than that the great light and love that comes of Illumination, shall become dominant.
It will solve all problems, because problems arise only because we are groping in the dark. The elimination of selfishness; of condemnation; of fear and anger, and doubt, must have far greater power for universal happiness and well-being than all the systems which theology or science or politics could devise. Indeed, all these systems are sporadic and empirical attempts to express the vague dawning of Illumination.
In the fullness of its light, the need for systems will have passed away.
THE NEW BIRTH: WHAT IT IS: INSTANCES DESCRIBED
The chief difference between the religions and the philosophies of the Orient and those of the Occident, lies in the fact that the Oriental systems, methods, and practices, emphasize the assumption that the goal of these efforts, is attainable at any moment, as it were.
That is, Oriental religion—speaking in the broad sense—teaches that the disciple need not wait for the experience called death to liberate the Self, the atman, from the enchantment or delusion, the maya, of the external world. Indeed, the Oriental devotee well knows that physical death, mrityu, is not a guarantee of liberation; does not necessarily bring with it immortality.
He well recognizes that physical death is but a procedure in existence. Death does not of itself, change the condition of maya, in which the disciple is bound until such a time, as he has earned liberation—mukti, which condition may be defined as immunity from further incarnation.
Immortality is our rightful heritage but it must be claimed,—yea, it must be earned.
It is a mistake to imagine that death makes man immortal. Immortality is an attribute of the gods. But since all souls possess a spark of the divine essence of Brahman (The Absolute), mukti may be attained by earnest seeking, and thus immortality be realized.
This condition of awakening, is variously named among Oriental sages and chelas, such for instance as glimpsing the Brahmic splendor; mutki; samadhi; moksha; entering Nirvana; becoming “twice-born.”
In recent years there have come to light in the Occident a number of instances of the attainment of this state, and these have been described as “cosmic consciousness;” “illumination;” “liberation;” the “baptism of the Holy Ghost;” and becoming “immersed in the great white light.”
Baptism, which is a ceremony very generally incorporated into religious systems, is a symbol of this esoteric truth, namely the necessity for Illumination in order that the soul may be “saved” from further incarnations—from further experience.
The term cosmic consciousness as well describes this condition of the disciple, as any words can, perhaps, although the term liberation is more literal, since the influx of this state of being, is actually the liberation of the atman, the eternal Self, from the illusion of the external, or maya.
Contrary to the general belief, instances of cosmic consciousness are not extremely rare, although they are not at all general. Particularly is this true in the Orient, where the chief concern as it were, of the people has for centuries been the realization of this state of liberation.
The Oriental initiate in the study of religious practices, realizes that these devotions are for the sole purpose of attaining mukti, whereas in the Occident, the very general idea held by the religious devotee, is one of penance; of propitiation of Deity. This truth applies essentially to the initiate, the aspirant for priesthood, or guru-ship. No qualified priest or guru of the Orient harbors any doubt regarding the object, or purpose of religious practices. The attainment of the spiritual experience described in occidental language as “cosmic consciousness” is the goal.
The goal is not a peaceful death; nor yet an humble entrance into heaven as a place of abode; nor is it the ultimate satisfying of a God of extreme justice; the “eye for an eye” God of the fear-stricken theologian.
One purpose only, actuates the earnest disciple, like a glorious star lighting the path of the mariner on life’s troublous sea. That goal is the attainment of that beatific state in which is revealed to the soul and the mind, the real and the unreal; the eternal substance of truth, and the shifting kaleidoscope of maya.
Nor can there be any purpose in the pursuit of either religion or philosophy other than this attainment; nor does the unceasing practice of rites and ceremonies; of contemplation; renunciation; prayers; fasting; penance; devotion; service; adoration; absteminousness; or isolation, insure the attainment of this state of bliss. There is no bartering; no assurance of reward for good conduct. It is not as though one would say, “Ah, my child, if thou wouldst purchase liberation thou shalt follow this recipe.”
No golden promises of speedy entrance into Paradise may be given the disciple. Nor any exact rules, or laws of equation by virtue of which the goal shall be reached. Nor yet may any specific time be correctly estimated in which to serve a novitiate, before final initiation.
Many indeed, attain a high degree of spirituality, and yet not have found the key of perfect liberation, although the goal may be not far off.
Many, very many, on earth to-day, are living so close to the borderland of the new birth that they catch fleeting glimpses of the longed-for freedom, but the full import of its meaning does not dawn. There is yet another veil, however thin, between them and the Light.
The Buddha spent seven years in an intense longing and desire to attain that liberation which brought him consciousness of godhood—deliverance from the sense of sin and sorrow that had oppressed him; immunity from the necessity for reincarnation.
Jesus became a Christ only after passing through the agonies of Gethsemane. A Christ is one who has found liberation; who has been born again in his individual consciousness into the inner areas of consciousness which are of the atman, and this attainment establishes his identity with The Absolute.
All oriental religions and philosophies teach that this state of consciousness, is possible to all men; therefore all men are gods in embryo.
But no philosophy or religion may promise the devotee the realization of this grace, nor yet can they deny its possible attainment to any.
Strangely enough, if we estimate men by externalities, we discover that there is no measure by which the supra-conscious man may be measured. The obscure and unlearned have been known to possess this wonderful power which dissolves the seeming, and leaves only the contemplation of the Real.
So also, men of great learning have experienced this rebirth; but it would seem that much cultivation of the intellectual qualities, unless accompanied by an humble and reverent spirit, frequently acts as a barrier to the realization of supra-consciousness.
In “Texts of Taoism,” Kwang-Tse, one of the Illuminati, writes:
“He whose mind is thus grandly fixed, emits a heavenly light. In him who emits this heavenly light, men see the true man (i.e., the atman; the Self). When a man has cultivated himself to this point, thenceforth he remains constant in himself. When he is thus constant in himself, what is merely the human element will leave him, but Heaven will help him. Those whom Heaven helps, we call the sons of Heaven. Those who would, by learning, attain to this, seek for what they can not learn.”
Thus it will be seen, that according to the reports offered us by this wise man, that which men call learning guarantees no power regarding that area of consciousness which brings Illumination—liberation from enchantment, of the senses—mukti.
Again, in the case of Jacob Boehme, the German mystic, although he left tomes of manuscript, it is asserted authoritatively, that he “possessed no learning” as that word is understood to mean accumulated knowledge.
In “The Spiritual Maxims” of Brother Lawrence, the Carmelite monk, we find this:
“You must realize that you reach God through the heart, and not through the mind.”
“Stupidity is closer to deliverance than intellect which innovates,” is a phrase ascribed to a Mohammedan saint, and do not modern theologians report with enthusiasm, the unlettered condition of Jesus?
In the Orient, the would-be initiate shuts out the voice of the world, that he may know the heart of the world. Many, very many, are the years of isolation and preparation which such an earnest one accepts in order that he may attain to that state of supra-consciousness in which “nothing is hidden that shall not be revealed” to his clarified vision.
In the inner temples throughout Japan, for example, there are persons who have not only attained this state of consciousness, but who have also retained it, to such a degree and to such an extent, that no event of cosmic import may occur in any part of the world, without these illumined ones instantly becoming aware of its happening, and indeed, this knowledge is possessed by them before the event has taken place in the external world, since their consciousness is not limited to time, space, or place (relative terms only), but is cosmic, or universal.
This power is not comparable with what Occidental Psychism knows as “clairvoyance,” or “spirit communication.”
The state of consciousness is wholly unlike anything which modern spiritualism reports in its phenomena. Far from being in any degree a suspension of consciousness as is what is known as mediumship, this power partakes of the quality of omniscience. It harmonizes with and blends into all the various degrees and qualities of consciousness in the cosmos, and becomes “at-one” with the universal heart-throb.
A Zen student priest was once discovered lying face downward on the grass of the hill outside the temple; his limbs were rigid, and not a pulse throbbed in his tense and immovable form. He was allowed to remain undisturbed as long as he wished. When at length he stood up, his face wore an expression of terrible anguish. It seemed to have grown old. His guru stood beside him and gently asked: “What did you, my son?”
“O, my Master,” cried out the youth, “I have heard and felt all the burdens of the world. I know how the mother feels when she looks upon her starving babe. I have heard the cry of the hunted things in the woods; I have felt the horror of fear; I have borne the lashes and the stripes of the convict; I have entered the heart of the outcast and the shame-stricken; I have been old and unloved and I have sought refuge in self-destruction; I have lived a thousand lives of sorrow and strife and of fear, and O, my Master, I would that I could efface this anguish from the heart of the world.”
The guru looked in wonder upon the young priest and he said, “It is well, my son. Soon thou shalt know that the burden is lifted.”
Great compassion, the attribute of the Lord Buddha, was the key which opened to this young student priest, the door of mukti, and although his compassion was not less, after he had entered into that blissful realization, yet so filled did he become with a sense of bliss and inexpressible realization of eternal love, that all consciousness of sorrow was soon wiped out.
This condition of effacement of all identity, as it were, with sorrow, sin, and death, seems inseparable from the attainment of liberation, and has been testified to by all who have recorded their emotions in reaching this state of consciousness. In other respects, the acquisition of this supra-consciousness varies greatly with the initiate.
In all instances, there is also an overwhelming conviction of the transitory character of the external world, and the emptiness of all man-bestowed honors and riches.
A story is told of the Mohammedan saint Fudail Ibn Tyad, which well illustrates this. The Caliph Harun-al-Rashid, learning of the extreme simplicity and asceticism of his life exclaimed, “O, Saint, how great is thy self-abnegation.”
To which the saint made answer: “Thine is greater.” “Thou dost but jest,” said the Caliph in wonderment. “Nay, not so, great Caliph,” replied the saint. “I do but make abnegation of this world which is transitory, and thou makest abnegation of the next which will last forever.”
However, the phrase, “self-abnegation,” predicates the concept of sacrifice; the giving up of something much to be desired, while, as a matter of truth, there arises in the consciousness of the Illumined One, a natural contempt for the “baubles” of externality; therefore there is no sacrifice. Nothing is given up. On the contrary, the gain is infinitely great.
Manikyavasayar, one of the great Tamil saints of Southern India, addressed a gathering of disciples thus:
“Why go about sucking from each flower, the droplet of honey, when the heavy mass of pure and sweet honey is available?” By which he questioned why they sought with such eagerness the paltry pleasures of this world, when the state of cosmic consciousness might be attained.
The thought of India, is however, one of ceaseless repudiation of all that is external, and the Hindu conception of mukti, or cosmic consciousness, differs in many respects from that reported by the Illumined in other countries, even while all reports have many emotions in common.
Again we find that reports of the cosmic influx, differ with the century in which the Illumined one lived. This may be accounted for in the fact that an experience so essentially spiritual can not be accurately expressed in terms of sense consciousness.
Far different from the Hindu idea, for example, is the report of a woman who lived in Japan in the early part of the nineteenth century. This woman was very poor and obscure, making her frugal living by braiding mats. So intense was her consciousness of unity with all that is, that on seeing a flower growing by the wayside, she would “enter into its spirit,” as she said, with an ecstacy of enjoyment, that would cause her to become momentarily entranced.
She was known to the country people around her as Sho-Nin, meaning literally “above man in consciousness.”
It is said that the wild animals of the wood, were wont to come to her door, and she talked to them, as though they were humans. An injured hare came limping to her door in the early morning hours and “spoke” to her.
Upon which, she arose and dressed, and opened the door of her dwelling with words of greeting, as she would use to a neighbor.
She washed the soil from the injured foot, and “loved” it back to wholeness, so that when the hare departed there was no trace of injury.
She declared that she spoke to and was answered by, the birds and the flowers, and the animals, just as she was by persons.
Indeed, among the high priests of the Jains, and the Zens (sects which may be classed as highly developed Occultists), entering into animal consciousness, is a power possessed by all initiates.
Passing along a highway near a Zen temple, the driver of a cart was stopped by a priest, who gently said: “My good man, with some of the money you have in your purse please buy your faithful horse a bucket of oats. He tells me he has been so long fed on rice straw that he is despondent.”
To the Occidental mind this will doubtless appear to be the result of keen observation, the priest being able to see from the appearance of the animal that he was fed on straw. They will believe, perhaps, that the priest expressed his observations in the manner described to more fully impress the driver, but this conclusion will be erroneous. The priest, possessing the enlarged or all-inclusive consciousness which in the west is termed “cosmic,” actually did speak to the horse.
Nor is this fact one which the western mind should be unable to follow. Science proves the fact of consciousness existing in the atoms composing even what has been termed inanimate objects. How much more comprehensible to our understanding is the consciousness of an animate organism, even though this organism be not more complex than the horse.
There is a Buddhist monastery built high on the cliff overlooking the Japan
Inland sea, which is called a “life-saving” monastery.
The priests who preside over this temple, possess the power of extending their consciousness over many miles of sea, and on a vibration attuned to a pitch above the sound of wind and wave, so that they can hear a call of distress from fishermen who need their help.
This fact being admitted, might be accounted for by the uninitiated, as a wonderfully “trained ear,” which by cultivation and long practice detects sounds at a seemingly miraculous distance.
But the priests know how many are in a wrecked boat, and can describe them, and “converse” with them, although the fishermen are not aware that they have “talked” to the priest.
Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, the latest incarnation of God in India, and the master to whom the late Swami Vivekananda gives such high praise and devotion, lived almost wholly in that exalted state of consciousness which would appear to be more essentially spiritual, than cosmic in the strict sense of the latter word, since cosmic should certainly imply all-inclusiveness, rather than wholly spiritual (spiritual being here used as an extremely high vibration of the cosmos).
We learn that Sri Ramakrishna was a man comparatively unlettered, and yet his insight was so marvelous, his consciousness so exalted that the most learned pundits honored and respected him as one who had attained unto the goal of all effort—liberation, mukti, while to many persons throughout India to-day, and indeed throughout the whole world, he is looked upon as an incarnation of Krishna.
It is related of Sri Ramakrishna that his yearning for Truth (his mother, he called it), was so great that he finally became unfit to conduct services in the temple, and retired to a little wood near by. Here he seemed to be lost in concentration upon the one thought, to such an extent that had it not been for devoted attendants, who actually put food into his mouth, the sage would have starved to death. He had so completely lost all thought of himself and his surroundings that he could not tell when the day dawned or when the night fell. So terrible was his yearning for the voice of Truth that when day after day passed and the light he longed for had not come to him he would weep in agony.
Nor could any words or argument dissuade him from his purpose.
He once said to Swami Vivekananda:
“My son, suppose there is a bag of gold in yonder room, and a robber is in the next room. Do you think that robber can sleep? He cannot. His mind will be always thinking how he can enter that room and obtain possession of that gold. Do you think, then, that a man firmly persuaded that there is a reality behind all these appearances, that there is a God, that there is One who never dies, One who is Infinite Bliss, a bliss compared with which these pleasures of the senses are simply playthings,—can rest contented without struggling to attain it? No, he will become mad with longing.”
At length, after almost twelve years unceasing effort, and undivided purpose Sri Ramakrishna was rewarded with what has been described as “a torrent of spiritual light, deluging his mind and giving him peace.”
This wonderful insight he displayed in all the after years of his earthly mission, and he not only attained glimpses of the cosmic conscious state, but he also retained the Illumination, and the power to impart to a great degree, the realization of that state of being which he himself possessed.
Like the Lord Buddha, this Indian sage also describes his experience as accompanied by “unbounded light.” Speaking of this strange and overpowering sense of being immersed in light, Sri Ramakrishna described it thus: “The living light to which the earnest devotee is drawn doth not burn. It is like the light coming from a gem, shining yet soft, cool and soothing. It burneth not. It giveth peace and joy.”
This effect of great light, is an almost invariable accompaniment of supra-consciousness, although there are instances of undoubted cosmic consciousness in which the realization has been a more gradual growth, rather than a sudden influx, in which the phenomenon of light is not greatly marked.
Mohammed is said to have swooned with the “intolerable splendor” of the flood of white light which broke upon him, after many days of constant prayer and meditation, in the solitude of the cavern outside the gates of Mecca.
Similar is the description of the attainment of cosmic consciousness, given by the Persian mystics, although it is evident that the Sufis regarded the result as reunion with “the other half” of the soul in exile.
The burden of their cry is love, and “union with the beloved” is the longed-for goal of all earthly strife and experience.
Whether this reunion be considered from the standpoint of finding the other half of the perfect one, as exemplified in the present-day search for the soul mate, or whether it be considered in the light of a spiritual merging into the One Eternal Absolute is the question of questions.