Other Transcripts:   Aaron on Consciousness
September 22, 2005

Consciousness Revisited

What follows below is just a collection of thoughts, a rummaging through my head with a attempt to write out some basics of what Aaron has taught me about consciousness. There may be some repetition; I've not attempted to present a formal paper.

Stages and states of consciousness are not synonymous. There are many ways to categorize states and stages. I see stages of consciousness as a flowing movement. States are more precise. We'll begin by looking at the various stages and states. They can be named in many ways. Different systems of thought divide the stages into 3, 5, 7, 9 or other numbers. All seem to agree there are 3 basic states, gross, subtle and causal. These relate to Nirmanakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Dharmakaya. Beyond the causal (Aaron tells us he is from "beyond the causal plane") is a non-dual state. I don't have a term for it other than nondual awareness.

Gross is of the everyday world (Nirmanakaya). This is the physical level. Gross is like the waking state where we are aware only of the gross experience (nama-rupa)

Causal is the highest state (Dharmakaya). It's given that name because it goes back to the root "cause", That-Which-Is. Another way of saying this is that because the Unconditioned exists, the conditioned exists. However, causal still touches the world of conditions. The "beyond the causal plane" transcends conditions. Causal is sometimes likened to the state of sound sleep, where all gross and subtle phenomenon cease. High causal is one step beyond causal. In Vajrayana high causal corresponds to the Clear Light, or Shunya (shunyata/emptiness).

Subtle goes beyond the physical senses, and is the astral body. Subtle is everything in between gross and causal. Here we have that Nirmanakaya bridge. Subtle consciousness is linked to the dream state, apart form the solid realities of the senses, yet with thoughts, images, etc. based on subtle energy.

Bodies: The energetic expression of the physical level is called the physical etheric body (from "ether" the state between energy and matter). Here we find the elements that support matter. This is part of the gross state. Next is the subtle or astral body. Astral body is transitional between the Physical and the Spiritual. Last is the causal bodies. Within each state, all three bodies appear.

The stages of consciousness are like intersecting planes. We move back and forth between them, although one is the predominant at any given time. But through any one day, we may touch on many stages of consciousness. The mythic consciousness of the child many appear in a somewhat whiny, "I want that; I don't like this," type of thought. A deep moment of compassionate seeing may lead into Christ or Buddha consciousness. Yet neither is the norm for that person at that time, and neither is held long. One level, perhaps the rational, or psychic, may be the norm for that person at that time. This level would be the habitual or predominant state of consciousness.

The levels of consciousness with the terminology that we'll use today: (these labels are drawn for various systems of articulation. Aaron has chosen them. This is excerpted from 04.11.17 W transcript. You may wish to read the whole transcript (041117W_web.htm).

In a very brief capsule, we first find the magical consciousness, the young child. The young child doesn't have too much sense of reasoning. If he cries and a bottle appears, he doesn't see the whole chain of events, only feels that by some magic his cry brought forth what he needed. The older child advances into mythic consciousness with a deep set of beliefs, often based on the magic of which he has dreamed. Within mythic consciousness there is a strong sense of good and evil. Everything is in terms of black and white, no grays. The fundamentalists of any religion are often deep in mythic consciousness, unwilling to release belief systems even though experiential understanding brings new information.

The next level is the rational consciousness level. Here we begin to use the physical senses and mind to understand the universe. Rational consciousness is totally empirical, only what the senses can see and tell.

Vision logic consciousness is still based in the rational, the logical, but it climbs a step up the mountain to a bigger perspective, begins to see with a clearer vision, touches more on intuition. It is not yet ready to open to the subtle energies but it allows the possibility of data beyond the empirical, both from the outer world and from the self as intuition.

Then we move into psychic consciousness where the various non-physical senses open: clairvoyance, clairaudience, and so forth. As this level deepens, we open to the subtle level of consciousness in which energy is experienced and exchanged. People may begin to see auras. When you walk into a room, you feel the energy in the room and you trust what you feel. Or when simply talking to another individual, you pick up the verbal cues, as what is said, but the non-verbal cues, including the energetic level of cues, is more important than the verbal.

Subtle consciousness ends in what the Christian mystics call the dark night of the soul wherein the perceiver begins to see how much all of this observation has come from a personal self as a center of the experience. Within this dark night, or in the Buddhist tradition, the experience of ego dissolution, the experience of no self, we shift completely out of what has been a mundane level of consciousness, the etheric and astral levels, and into what is technically called a causal level of consciousness. Here we have what is sometimes called Christ consciousness or Buddha nature, the level of living from a place literally of no self, knowing one's deepest connection with all that is.

Even this is not the end, because in the causal level there is still a self no matter how subtle, as perceiver, as observer, but with the disintegration even of that sense of self, the full understanding that this which we have called self is really a collection of body experience, thoughts, and so forth, there is the breakthrough into non-dual consciousness. This is the highest level of consciousness.

This has been just a very brief map. The reason I wanted to offer it to you is to help you understand that much of that purpose for which you have taken incarnation is to raise the consciousness. As you raise the consciousness, you move out of the personal self and toward the non-dual self, and thereupon begin to be able to relate to the world around you with more lovingkindness, much more wisdom and compassion. Fear falls away. There's really no longer fear of anything, because with the opening of causal consciousness you know that the deepest core of being is indestructible. You still will not stand in the middle of a highway inviting the truck to smash into you. In fact, there may be even greater respect for the body because the body is seen as the vehicle for growth in this incarnation. But there is respect based on love, not on fear.

So there is this basic work of consciousness-raising. And then we must ask, what helps us to raise our consciousness and what gets in the way and keeps us stuck in lower consciousness?

Last night in SI class, Aaron's talk spoke of these levels of consciousness as related to the chakras. See info on the chakras in the transcript, 041013SI_web.

It is impossible to diagram the bodies and stages because they exist on different, intersecting planes. The physical body/ etheric body exists in our every day space-time. Within this etheric body are the gross tissue of the body as well as the energy meridians and chakras. The astral body exists at two levels, one which transcends space and one which transcends both space and time. The first level of the astral body involves emotions and the non-physical senses (clairaudience, clairvoyance, etc) .This level transcends space. The second level of the astral body, called the thought level, is sometimes seen as a separate body, but I experience it as an upper floor of the astral body. This level transcends both space and time. In dreaming we are on the astral plane. However, the etheric body also includes the astral, as the etheric body binds everything together. This is where words and even diagrams fail. The causal body is at the edge of conditions of any sort.

There is no way to divide these levels in our experience because they feed into each other. For example, emotions that exist in the astral body express themselves in the physical body. Thus, we can't call an expressed distortion merely physical or energetic. It is both. Back to intersecting planes….

That noted, here is an attempt at drawing this out:

But remember, within each state we encounter all the bodies, just as we meet all the kayas in any moment. The one mentioned is the usual predominant one.

We can see a flow. First see the causal body, the place of absolute stillness and absolute potential. The causal state is like the place where the underground spring of Aaron's metaphor breaks the surface. "Beyond the causal plane" is like the spring itself. The thought arises (upper astral body) and emotion arises with the thought (lower astral body) and is then expressed in the physical (etheric body).

Let us not get into "why" the thought arises here. That's for a separate intensive on dependent arising! Abhidhamma does explain it though. This is all about vinnana (rebirth consciousness) and karma.

One way I see the bodies is through the aura. I have never studied the various texts on auras. This is merely what I see, not a scientific document. I see four distinct levels of each person's aura. The first is the physical, and usually expresses physical health or illness through color and integrity. This is the etheric level of aura. Next is the emotional layer, and is the start of the astral layer. Third is the thought level, which I consider to be the higher level of the astral body. Last is the causal level.

As an example, I might see the aura of someone who is experiencing physical pain, with the level closest to the body predominantly a red- orange color, with some breaks where the injury is located, or breaks in areas that relate karmically to the injury. If the person is very upset, the emotional layer of the aura will also usually be a hot color and have breaks. If the person is calm, just present with the pain, that inner layer may be surrounded by a cooler next layer. If the person is experiencing no physical pain at the moment, but there is some emotional turmoil, the inner layer may still be hot in color, and fragmented, because this inner layer is not just about the present experience of the body but also about karma. If there is much ease in the body, mind not creating stories, the whole inner three layers may be cool. The innermost layers change more often than those further out. Thus, each person has a predominant aura color and texture that I see, and also changing inner auras. The second and third layer often merge into one.

The outer layer usually stays a lot the same in my experience, changing very gradually. It moves from hotter to cooler, from darker to lighter, as a person matures in spiritual practice. With the opening to the causal level, the aura becomes more white. I see Aaron with a very white inner aura (causal level) with very subtle pale, cool blue overtones and a very radiant pure white outer aura (beyond the causal). There are no physical or astral levels to his aura. So these layers of aura for me show the physical, astral and causal levels of the being.

Let us look at some of the other models of levels of consciousness. These exist in every spiritual tradition. For example, in the Taittiriya Upanishad is the concept of five selves. I quote from a web site: http://www.kheper.net/topics/Vedanta/koshas.htm

This is one of the first writings to present a systemmatic metaphysic or theory of first principles. It speaks of the individual as divided into five selves (atma, initially - as with all such terms - "breath", and then "self" or "soul"; the term elsewhere, and especially later, came to characterise that aspect of the self which is synonymous with the Absolute).

Five levels of self are referred to:
the anna-maya-atma or the "Self (atma) made of Food
the prana-maya-atma or "the Self made of Vital Breath (prana)
the or mana-maya-atma "the Self made of Mind (manas)
the vijnana-maya-atma or "the Self made of Consciousness or intellect (vijnana)
the ananda-maya-atma or "the Self made of Bliss (ananda)", where one attains to Brahman

In Buddhism, they are the vinnana, or consciousnesses (citta), which are mundane and supramundane. The sense consciousnesses and mind are the physical level. Then the subtle consciousnesses. Finally the supramundane consciousnesses or lokuttara citta.

We all experience all three states of consciousness. Even the infant experiences them. We experience the stages of consciousness though the filter of the predominant state of the moment:.

Gross state
Subtle state
Causal state

These 3 states are sometimes offered with a parallel to levels of sleeping/awakeness. In daily life we see forms, objects, things as solid. In dreaming sleep there is only subtle consciousness and the idea of objects, but no objects. Beyond dreaming sleep, even the thoughts cease. We experience all three states every day.

Physical body consciousness is aware of things perceived through the 6 sense gates. The astral body perceives through subtle consciousness. This is like the vipassana process where we see objects arise and fall away, and rest in that "one who knows," that which observes the physical but with a more spacious perspective. Finally we move into the subtle body. Those who are energy workers are using the subtle body. Then comes the Pure awareness level; as we open into the Unconditioned; we rest in a place where nothing arises or ceases.

Normally we just fall into one or another level. Most people can only enter the subtle and causal level when asleep. In meditation we learn how to open to these levels of consciousness while awake. This awakened mind can direct itself to and rest at ease in any of the three levels. With lucid dreaming, we experience the subtle realm while awake-conscious, rather than only in the unconsciousness of dream-sleep. Within the so-called enlightenment experience, we experience the causal level with consciousness or awakeness.

There are subcategories of these 3 levels. What makes it hard to categorize is the fact of overlapping planes. Certain states look like they exist in two levels. For example, that which is though of as the lowest level, magical consciousness that we see in children, can also seem to manifest in a very alike-looking way at the causal level. Here it is fed not by fear/ belief based only on the outer senses, but by non-dual mind and experience. They aren't the same but may appear so.

Anybody can experience any state. There's a big difference between having a "peak" experience, "that is a short term experience of the subtle or causal realm, and being able to integrate that experience. With the peak experience, one has suddenly touched the mountain top but doesn't know the way. With the integrated experience, all the levels that led to the peak experience are there, always available and integrated. We'll come back to this fact when we discuss so called "mental illness." Furthermore, states are interpreted by the highest stable stage of development. Movement into that peak experience of the nondual will be differently interpreted by someone who is stable in the stage just below the non-dual, and someone who is in a very early level of consciousness. We interpret everything, both states of experience and the taste of the soup through the predominant level of consciousness.

From Ken Wilber:

At any stage of your own evolution, of course you can have all sorts of amazing altered states, nonordinary states, and profound spiritual experiences. Nobody is denying that. But those states will come and go, passing through your psyche in a way that cannot be reliably maintained because the psyche has not yet grown enough depth to stably contain the vastness of these higher realms. That is why we say that the potentials contained in states become actual stages with increasing evolution.

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