Part 1
and from how it is intended to be read)
It is said that consciousness is the "ground of being". This means that everything begins and ends with consciousness, the end all and be all is consciousness. For the metaphysician, that referred to as God is not the personified being of the religions, not a being with attitude that can only be satisfied and happy if its creations behave in prescribed ways. No, for non-religious spiritual persons such as me and many who are reading this, that referred to as god is consciousness, as expressed in various ways -- Universal Subconscious Mind (USM), Universal Consciousness, Infinite Mind, One Mind, All That Is (ATI), and simply The Universe, as well as others.
Trying to talk about Infinite Mind from our position as humans, with the limitations of human thinking and words is, to say the least, inadequate. In fact, it can sound rather silly. Alas, that is all we have. So for the purpose of facilitating discussion in this series, I propose that we allow such words as intention, interest or desire as applied to USM -- but in a very limited sense. Specifically, the sense should be that USM's intention, interest or desire never has anything to do with "other" -- only to "itself". What I mean will become more clear as you read on.
God, as the phrase Infinite Mind suggests is infinity. Infinity means singularity, one thing, undivided, without limits. Universal Subconscious Mind has one primary intention, if we can allow that word - and that is to experience itself. But the only possible way experience can occur is by the existence of "other". In other words, one can only experience oneself in contrast and comparison to something else. So One Mind -- Infinite Mind - Universal Subconscious Mind experiences itself by becoming, or, taking on, (an almost infinite) variety of other forms.
God, as Infinite Mind, loves all that it is. It does not demand anything of its parts anymore than you would demand that your arm conform to certain rules of behavior. It is preposterous to even consider that Universal Subconscious Mind could have such petty whims or concerns. In fact, God, as Universal Subconscious Mind is interested in ever greater variety of experience. And the very best way for expanded self-experience to occur is for all of the parts to be conscious and to have free will to express as they choose. That is no petty whim. Thus, this God (USM), unlike the God of religion, would never set restrictions, or rules of behavior, or hand down commandments, or in any way disallow. Least of all, would this God be enraged by its parts. God is consciousness - not petty emotions.
It could be said that the purpose of the Universe, in the service of USM experiencing itself, is expansion of consciousness. And all of the parts or units that Infinite Mind has become are participants in the expansion of consciousness. Since the One Mind loves all that it is, if it could be said to have a preference (and here again we face the inadequacy of verbal expression, for the idea of preference is not really applicable to USM), it might be said that it prefers all of its parts to be love as well. But as free will is essential for variety of expression and experience, the parts cannot be restricted from the option to be unloving.
Though I won't go into the reason here in this article, part of the scheme of the Universe is that when the individualized parts of consciousness take on separate physical form - and let's think of human beings here -- they are fearful. And their fixation in fear often outweighs their ability to remain focused in love. There is however, an evolutionary component to the overall scheme in which the individualized parts of spirit progressively learn to trust and to prefer love.
So the purpose of Universal Subconscious Mind is expansion of consciousness, by which it is able to have ever expanding experience. Now here, someone might be puzzled. If USM is already infinite, why would there be need for expansion? The answer is that the phrase expansion of consciousness has to do with the experiential aspect, the expansion of the individualized consciousnesses that are expressions of the Source - not the Source itself. It is the experience of its infinity that is expanding.
It is the individualized expressions that are limited … well, hold on … it would be more accurate to say that they have the illusion of limitation. But at the same time the individualized consciousnesses have the capacity to progressively grow beyond the illusion of limitation. To a great extent then, the limited consciousness of the individualized expressions is self-imposed. And at the root of the self-imposed limitation is the fixation in fear that I referred to earlier. That self-imposed limitation is also what is meant by "closed consciousness".
One of the most significant insights of the mystics throughout time, and, as it turns out, also the insights derived from quantum mechanics, is the interrelatedness, intertwining and interconnection of everything in the Universe. This idea of unity and oneness is the very root of the word Universe. From quantum mechanics, the word to describe this is "nonlocality". Everything is one thing; anywhere is everywhere.
The reason I bring this up is to say that in attempting to talk about this subject of expansion of consciousness, since everything is related to everything else, it cannot be explained in a linear fashion. So expect to see continuing interrelating and interweaving of ideas and concepts as we progress.
I also bring this up to suggest that it is best then not to think of the individualized expressions of USM as separate from it. We, the individualized expressions, as part of the whole, not only are not separate from it, we are everything that the whole is. It is part of the illusion that we do not recognize that. At the same time, the illusion is part of the whole wonderful scheme; so we also should not curse the illusion or the Source from whence it came to be.
In light of the interconnectedness we spoke of, it is not difficult to see that the higher purpose of expansion of consciousness plays out through the evolution of the consciousness of the physical expressions. And being that man is the most sentient, most conscious expression, the consciousness of man is the focus of our discussion. Participation in the expansion of consciousness by the individualized expressions is an essential part of the scheme. And this is where things begin to get a bit dicey.
Man does not do his part by fully engaging in the expansion of consciousness. The reason he doesn't, in the end, goes back to fear. Fear leads man to resist expansion of consciousness. Few people ever think about this because few people even think about these higher aspects of life -- outside the context of religion, that is. But, as we will see in this series, religion is actually one of the primary ways in which man resists expansion of consciousness.
In order to help readers better understand what I mean by resistance to participation in the expansion of consciousness, it will help to first talk about the spectrum of consciousness, positions (or points) within the spectrum, and the concept of closed / open consciousness. That will be the subject of Part 2 in this series, The Way of Open Consciousness.
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2007, William Gunderson
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