CHAPTER IX

CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.

1. CONSCIOUSNESS.

For an immense period of time - ­throughout the later vegetable and the animal evolution, and throughout the evolution of normal humanity up to the present time - the astral, or desire, sheath is, as we have seen, subordinate to the physical, so far as the workings of con­sciousness are concerned. We have now to trace the unfolding of the conscious­ness, of the life becoming aware of its surroundings. While the nervous system is truly said to be created from the astral plane, it is none the less created for the expression of consciousness on the physical plane, and for its effective working thereon. It is there that con­sciousness is first to become Self­-consciousness. [194]

When the vibrations of the outer world play on the physical sheath of the infolded infant Self, the Jivatma, the Ray of the Monad, they at first cause responsive thrills within that Self, a dawning con­sciousness within itself, a feeling, unrelated by that Self to anything outside, though caused by impacts from outside. It is a change outside the enveloping film of the Self, clothed in sheaths of denser matter, which outside change causes a change within that envelope, and this change causes an act of consciousness - conscious­ness of change, of a changed condition. It may be an attraction, a drawing towards, exerted by an external object over the sheaths, reaching to the envelope of the Self, causing a slight expansion in the envelope, following an expansion in the sheaths, towards the attractive object; and this expansion is a change of condition, and causes a feeling, an act of conscious­ness. Or it may be a repulsion, a driving away, again exerted by an external object against the sheaths, reaching to the enve­lope of the Self, causing a slight shrinking in the envelope, following the shrinking [195] away of the sheaths from the repellent object; and this shrinking is also a change of condition, and causes a corresponding change in consciousness.

When we examine the conditions of the enveloping sheaths under an attraction and a repulsion, we find they are entirely different. When the impact of an external object causes a rhythmical vibration in these envelopes - that is, when their materials are made to arrange themselves in undulating regular lines of rarefaction and densification - this arrangement of the enclosing matter permits an interchange of life between the two objects that have come into contact, and in proportion to the correspondence of the rarefactions and densifications in the two is the fulness of the interchange. This interchange, this partial union of two separated Lives through the separating sheaths of matter, is “pleasure”, and the going out of the Lives towards each other is “attraction”; however complicated pleasure may become, herein lies its essence; it is a sense of “moreness”, of increased, expanded life. The more fully developed the Life, the [196] greater the pleasure in the realisation of this moreness, in the expansion into the other Life, and each of the Lives thus uniting gains the moreness by union with the other. As rhythmical vibrations and corresponding rarefactions and densifications make this interchange of life possible, it is truly said that “harmonious vibrations are pleasurable”. When, on the contrary, the impact of an external object causes a jangle of vibrations in the envelopes of the impacted object - that is, when the materials are made to arrange themselves irregularly, moving in conflicting directions, striking themselves against each other - ­the contained Life is shut in, isolated, its normal out-flowing rays are checked, inter­cepted, even turned back on themselves. This check to normal action is “pain”, increasing with the energy of the in­-driving, and the result of the driving-in process is “repulsion”. Here, also, the more fully developed the Life, the greater the pain in this violent reversal of its normal action, and in the sense of frustra­tion that accompanies the reversal. Hence, again, “inharmonious vibrations are [197] pain­ful”. Be it observed that this is true of all the sheaths, although the astral sheath becomes specialised as the recipient of the class of sensations later called pleasurable and painful. Constantly, in the course of evolution, a general life-function thus becomes specialised, and a particular organ is normally used for its exercise. The astral body being the vehicle of desires, the need for its special susceptibility to pleasure and pain is obvious.

To return from this brief digression into the state of the envelopes to the germ of consciousness itself; we shall find it important to notice that there is herein no “awareness” of an external object, no such awareness as is ordinarily conveyed by the use of the word. Consciousness, as yet, knows nothing of an outer and an inner, of an object and a subject; the divine germ is now becoming conscious. It becomes consciousness with this change of conditions, with this movement in the sheaths, this expanding and contracting, for consciousness exists only in, and by, change. Here, then, for the separated divine germ is the birth of consciousness; [198] it is born of change, of motion; where and when this first change occurs, there, con­sciousness, for that separated germ, is born.

The mere clothing of this germ with successive envelopes of matter on succes­sive planes gives rise to these first vague changes within the germ that are the birthing of consciousness; and none of us may count the ages which roll on as these changes become more defined, and as the envelopes become more definitely shaped by the ceaseless impacts from without, and the no less ceaseless responsive thrillings from within. The state of consciousness at this stage can only be described as one of “feeling”, feeling becoming slowly more and more definite, and assuming two phases, pleasure and pain - pleasure with expansion, pain with contraction. And, be it noted, this primary state of con­sciousness does not manifest the three well-known aspects of Will, Wisdom, and Activity, even in the most germinal stage; “feeling” precedes these, and belongs to consciousness as a whole, though in later stages of evolution it shows itself so much in connexion with the Will-Desire aspect [199] as to become almost identified with it; in the plural, as feelings, indeed, it belongs to that aspect, which is the first to arise as a differentiation within consciousness.

As the states of pleasure and pain become more definitely established in consciousness, they give rise to the three aspects: with the fading away of pleasure­ there is a continuance of the attraction in consciousness, a memory, and this becomes a dim groping after it, a vague following of the vanishing feeling, a movement - ­too indefinite to be called an effort - to hold it, to retain it; similarly with the fading away of pain there is a continuance of the repulsion in consciousness, again a memory, and this becomes an equally vague movement to push it away. These states give birth to: Memory of past pleasure and pain, indicating the germination o the Thought-aspect; longing to experience again pleasure, or avoid pain, the germination of the Desire-aspect; this stimulating a movement, the germination of the Activity-aspect. Thus Conscious­ness is differentiated into its three aspects from its primary unity of Feeling, repeating [200] in miniature the kosmic process in which the triple Divinity ever arises from the One Existence. The Hermetic axiom is here, as always, exemplified: “As above, so below”.

2. SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.

Desire, thus germinated, gropes after pleasure, not, as yet, after the pleasure ­giving object; for consciousness is as yet limited within its own kingdom, is conscious only in the within, is conscious only of changes in that within. It has not yet turned its attention outwards, is not yet conscious even that there is an outwards. Meanwhile that outwards of which it is not aware is continually hammering at its vehicles, and most vehemently at its physical vehicle, the vehicle most easily affected from outside, and with most difficulty from within. Gradually the persistent and violent shocks from outside draw its attention in their direction; their irregularity, their un­expectedness, their constant assaults, their unrelatedness to its slow, groping [201] movements, their unexplained appearances and disappearances, are in opposition to its dim sense of regularity, continuity, of being always there, of slow surges of change rising and falling within what is not yet to it “himself”; there is a consciousness of difference, and this grows into a sense of a something that remains within a changing hurly-burly, a sense of a “within” and a “without”, or, to speak more accurately, of a “without” and a “within”, since it is the hammering outside that causes the difference of “without” and “within” to arise in consciousness. “Without” comes first, if only by a fraction of time, because its recognition alone makes possible and inevitable the recognition of “within”. So long as there is nothing else, we cannot speak of “within”; it is every­thing. But when “without” forces itself on consciousness, “within” rises up as its inevitable opposite. This sense of a “without” arises necessarily at the points of contact between the continuing consciousness and the changing hurly-burly; that is, in its physical vehicle, its physical [202] body. Herein is slowly established the awareness of “others”, and with the establishment of this “others” comes the establishment also of “I”, over against them. He becomes conscious of things outside instead of being conscious only of changes, and then he comes to know that the changes are in “himself”, and that the things are outside himself. Self-­consciousness is born.

This process of perceiving objects is a complex one. It must be remembered that objects contact the body in various ways, and the body receives some of their vibrations by the parts differentiated to receive such vibrations. The eye, the ear, the skin, the tongue, the nose, receive various vibratory waves, and certain cells in the organs affected vibrate similarly in response. The waves set up pass to the sense-centres in the brain, and thence to the knowledge-senses in the astral sheath; there the changes in consciousness take place which corres­pond with them, as explained in Chapter II., and they are sent on as these changes, the sensations of colour, [203] out­line, sound, form, taste, smell, etc., still as separate sensations, to consciousness working in the mental sheath, and are there combined by it into a single image, unified into a single perception of an object. This blending of the various streams into one, this synthesis of sensa­tions, is a specialty of the mind. Hence, in Indian psychology, the mind is often called “the sixth sense”, “the senses, of which mind is the sixth”.[60] When we consider the five organs of action in relation to the mind, we find a reverse process going on; the mind pictures a certain act as a whole, and thereby brings about a corresponding set of vibrations in the mental sheath; these vibrations are reproduced in the motor senses in the astral sheath; they break it up, analyse it into its constituent parts, and these are accompanied with vibrations in the matter of the motor centres; these, in turn, are repeated in the motor centres in the brain as separate waves; the motor centres distribute these waves through the ner­vous system to the various muscles that [204] must co-operate to produce the action. Regarded in this double relation the mind becomes the eleventh sense, “the ten senses and the one”[61].

3. REAL AND UNREAL.

With the change of consciousness into Self-consciousness comes the recognition of a difference which later, in the more evolved Self-consciousness, becomes the difference between the objective or “real” - in the ordinary western sense of the word - and the subjective or “unreal”, and “imaginary”. To the jelly-fish, the sea­ anemone, the hydra, waves and currents, sunshine and blast, food and sand touching the periphery or the tentacles, are not “real”, are registered only as changes in consciousness, as in truth they are also to the body of the human infant; I say registered, not recognised, since no mental observation, analysis, and judgment are possible in the lower stages of evolution. These creatures are not yet sufficiently conscious of “others”, to be conscious of [205] “themselves”; and they only feel changes as occurring within the circle of their own ill-defined consciousness. The external world grows into “reality” as the consciousness, separating itself from it, realises its own separateness, changes from a vague “am” into a definite “I am”.

As this self-conscious “I” gradually gains in clearness of self-identification, of separateness, and distinguishes between changes within himself and the impact of external objects, he is ready to take the next step of relating the changes within himself to the varying impacts from outside. Then follows the develop­ment of Desire for pleasure into definite desires for pleasure-giving objects, followed by thoughts as to how to obtain them; these lead to efforts to move after them when in sight, to search for them when absent, and the consequent slow evolution of the outer vehicle into a body well-organised for movement, for pursuit, for capture. The desire for the absent, the search, the success or failure, all impress on the developing consciousness the difference [206] between his desires and thoughts, of which he is, or can be, always conscious, and the external objects which come and go without any reference to himself; and with disconcerting irrelevance to his feelings. He distinguishes these as “real”, as having an existence which he does not control, and which affects him without any regard to his likings or objections. And this sense of “reality” is first established in the physical world, as being the one in which these contacts between the “others” and the “I” are first recognised by consciousness. Self­-consciousness begins its evolution in and through the physical body, and has its earliest centre in the brain.

The normal man, at the present stage of evolution, still identifies himself with this brain-centre of Self-consciousness, and is hence restricted to the waking consciousness, or consciousness working in the cerebro-spinal system, knowing himself as “I”, distinctly and consecutively, only on the physical plane, that is, in the waking state. On this plane he is definitely self-conscious, distinguishing [207] between himself and the outer world, between his own thoughts and outside appearances, without hesitation; hence on this plane, and on this plane only, external things are to him “real”, “objective”, “outside himself”.

On other planes, the astral and the mental, he is, as yet, conscious but not self-conscious; he recognises changes within himself, but does not yet dis­tinguish between the self-initiated changes and those caused by impacts from without on his astral and mental vehicles. To him they are all alike changes within himself. Hence all phenomena of consciousness occurring on super-physical planes - planes on which Self-conscious­ness is not yet definitely established - the normal, average man calls “unreal”, “sub­jective”, “inside himself”, just as the jelly­fish, if he were a philosopher, would designate the phenomena of the physical plane. He regards astral or mental pheno­mena as the result of his “imagination”, i.e., as forms of his own creating, and not as the results of impacts upon his astral or mental vehicle from external worlds, subtler [208] indeed, but as “real” and “objective” as the external physical world. That is, he is not yet sufficiently evolved to have reached self-realisation on those planes, and thus to have become capable of objectivising there the external worlds. He is only conscious there of the changes in himself, the changes in consciousness, and the external world is consequently to him merely the play of his own desires and thoughts. He is, in fact, an infant on the astral and mental planes. [209]