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The Seventh Lesson: The Unfoldment of Consciousness.597
of their sensuality—their appetites—and become beasts magnified by the
power of Intellect. Others become vain, conceited and puffed up with a
sense of the importance of their Personality (the false “I”). Others become
morbidly introspective, and spend their time analyzing and dissecting their
moods, motives, feelings, etc. Others exhaust their capacity for pleasure
and happiness, but looking outside for it instead of within, and become
blase, bored, ennuied and an affliction to themselves. We mention these
things not in a spirit of Pessimism, but merely to show that even this great
Mental Consciousness has a reverse and ugly side as well as the bright face
that has been ascribed to it.
As man reaches the higher stages of this Mental Consciousness, and the
next higher stage begins to dawn upon him, he is apt to feel more keenly than
ever the insufficiency of Life as it appears to him. He is unable to understand
Himself—his origin, destiny, purpose and nature—and he chafes against
the bars of the cage of Intellect in which he is confined. He asks himself
the question, “Whence come I—Whither go I—What is the object of my
Existence?” He becomes dissatisfied with the answers the world has to give
him to these questions, and he cries aloud in despair—and but the answer
of his own voice comes back to him from the impassable walls with which he
is surrounded. He does not realize that his answer must come from Within—
but so it is.
Psychology stops when it reaches the limits of Mental Consciousness, or
as it calls it “Self-Consciousness,” and denies that there is anything beyond—
any unexplored regions of the Mind. It laughs at the reports that come
from those who have penetrated farther within the recesses of their being,
and dismisses the reports as mere “dreams,” “fantasies,” “illusions,” “ecstatic
imaginings,” “abnormal states,” etc., etc. But, nevertheless, there are schools
of thought that teach of these higher states, and there are men of all ages
and races that have entered them and have reported concerning them. And
we feel justified in asking you to take them into consideration.