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The Seventh Lesson: The Unfoldment of Consciousness.595
pass into this stage. They exhibit signs of bashfulness and what is commonly
termed “self-consciousness” in that sense. Some tell us in after years that
when they became aware of themselves as an entity they were overcome
with alarm, as if by a sense of loneliness and apartness from the Universe.
Young people often feel this way for several years. There seems to be a
distinct feeling that the Universe is antagonistic to and set apart from them.
And, although this feeling of separateness and apartness grows less
acute as the man grows older, yet it is always present to a greater or less
degree until a still higher stage—the Ego—consciousness is reached, when
it disappears as we shall see. And this mental-conscious stage is a hard one
for many. They are entangled in a mass of mental states which the man thinks
is “himself,” and the struggle between the real “I” and its confining sheaths
is painful. And it becomes still more painful as the end is neared, for as man
advances in mental-consciousness and knowledge he feels more keenly and
suffers accordingly. Man eats the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and begins
to suffer, and is driven out of the Garden of Eden of the child and primitive
races, who live like the birds of the air and concern themselves not about
mental states and problems. But there is deliverance ahead in the shape of a
higher consciousness, although but few realize it and still fewer have gained
it. Perhaps this lesson may point out the way for you.
With the birth of mental-consciousness comes the knowledge that there
is a mind in others. Man is able to speculate and reason about the mental
states of other men, because he recognizes these states within himself. As
man advances in the Mental Consciousness he begins to develop a constantly
increasing degree and grade of Intellect, and accordingly he attaches the
greatest importance to that part of his nature. Some men worship Intellect
as a God, ignoring its limitations which other thinkers have pointed out. Such
people are apt to reason that because the human intellect (in its present
state of development) reports that such a thing must be, or cannot possibly
be, that the matter is forever settled. They ignore the fact that it is possible
that Man’s Intellect, in its present state of unfoldment, may be able to take