The Secret of Pure Consciousness and What It Means for Our Evolution
Pure consciousness is the timeless experience of Oneness that is shared by all people but only practiced by very few
We will begin with the end of our journey, which leads us to the beginning. This may sound a little strange, but as we know, life itself is strange.
Our journey begins in unity, and we will return to unity.
All seekers know that on this journey we sometimes feel, beyond all doubt, that we are Oneness. We feel deep in our hearts that we are one with the whole cosmos. One with all worlds, with all planets. One with the tiniest creature. Not only that but one with the highest states of being.
In this experience, our identity expands far beyond the body and our consciousness merges with the cosmic consciousness. As the great Indian mystic Kabir said:
Many people know that the drop merges in the ocean, but very few know that the ocean merges in the drop.
We are talking about the experience of pure consciousness. Beyond words and unattainable for mental understanding. When the separations have disappeared and only the eternal presence remains, pure consciousness rises naturally and without any effort from deep within. It is like being in love, with the difference that there is no one who becomes loved.
We love for the sake of love itself, a tender dance with the entire cosmos.
Normally, we only experience pure consciousness very few times in our lives. The experience is short, but we remember it consciously or unconsciously. This memory allows us to become a seeker. We know that there is something beyond all conditioning that gives a deeper meaning than our ordinary life.
Pure consciousness is the timeless experience of Oneness that is shared by all people, but only practiced by a few.
At all times, there has been and still is a community on earth that cultivates, investigates, and passes on the knowledge of this experience. This is the Perennial Wisdom. All religions build upon this experience. Every spiritual tradition and school is based on it. The experience we call Self-knowledge. The knowledge of our true nature. Who we really are when all the veils have fallen and there is nothing left, only pure consciousness.
Self-knowledge resists organisation, standardisation, and being pressed into a fixed mental framework. The moment it becomes an institution or a dogma, its essence and vitality is gone.
The Experience of Pure Consciousness and the Levels of Consciousness
The experience of pure consciousness is the experience of the eternal present moment. Timeless and formless, the absolute here and now, eternity. This omnipresent eternity is with us and in us. We are not separate from it; we are the presence moment; we are eternity.
This is the highest possible stage of human evolution. It is the end of the journey, the completion of conscious evolution. Many names are given to it, Awakening, Buddhahood, Satori, Christ Consciousness, Oneness, and so on, but they all point to the same experience.
The experience of pure consciousness is possible on every level, the pre-personal, the personal, the transpersonal, and the nondual. How we deal with it depends on our interpretation, and this is related to the level of our consciousness.
Pre-personal
At the pre-personal level of consciousness, we interpret it as a divine force or identity. We believe that gods and goddesses rule the world and, therefore, us. There is still a kind of deep connection. We are still part of the great chain of existence, innocent, like children playing on the field of the gods. It is the world of fixed rules, of dogmas, of structures of obedience and duty. The connection to pure consciousness is usually in the hands of priests or a religion. Even if the individual still feels the connection with the natural flow of being, there is a clear separation, a boundary, between humans and gods.
Personal
On the personal level of consciousness, this experience has almost no meaning at all. Here we have lost the connection. Separation is our reality. We unconsciously try to heal the separation in the outside world. We reduce the cosmic dance to a machine, and the measure of all things is our rational intellect. Our God is a mathematical abstraction. Science, technology, and nihilism have become the new religion, displacing everything that doesn’t fit into numbers. We have declared ourselves in the last stage of evolution. Instead of pure consciousness, we celebrate pure materialism.
Remark: The personal level may not look so pretty. Suffering and drama are at the forefront. If we were to apply this to the individual development of a single person, the pre-personal level would correspond to the childhood years and the personal level to puberty. The problem is that we get stuck at the personal level. This does not mean, however, that puberty does not also have its function.
Transpersonal
At this level, we begin to understand what pure consciousness is. It has become the centre of our lives. It is only in this kind of consciousness that our destiny is fulfilled. Contemplation and meditation are an essential part of daily life. The previous two levels become integrated and utilized for practical reasons. We realise that we are not the person, not the body, not the mind. We are no longer an individual person having a life, but we are life experiencing itself through a person. Problems come and go, like clouds in the sky. We are detached from the world, and therefore we live peacefully and appreciate the wonder of existence. In short, this is where we are meant to be.
Nondual
This is the level of mystics and spiritual masters. Therefore, it is none of our business. If we are not there, this plane will confuse us, and if we are there, we just are. Like the wind, the sun, and the water, we are what we are. We are ourselves.