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A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga600
There is a stage still higher than this last mentioned, but it has come to but
very few of the race. Reports of it come from all times, races, countries. It has
been called “Cosmic Consciousness,” and is described as an awareness of
the Oneness of Life—that is, a consciousness that the Universe is filled with
One Life—an actual perception and “awareness” that the Universe is full
of Life, Motion and Mind, and that there is no such thing as Blind Force, or
Dead Matter, but that All is alive, vibrating and intelligent. That is, of course,
that the Real Universe, which is the Essence or background of the Universe
of Matter, Energy and Mind, is as they describe. In fact, the description of
those who have had glimpses of this state would indicate that they see the
Universe as All Mind—that All is Mind at the last. This form of consciousness
has been experienced by men here and there—only a few—in moments of
“Illumination,” the period lasting but a very short space of time, then fading
away, leaving but a memory. In the moment of the “Illumination” there
came to those experiencing it a sense of “in-touch-ness” with Universal
Knowledge and Life, impossible to describe, accompanied by a Joy beyond
understanding.
Regarding this last, “Cosmic Consciousness,” we would state that it means
more than an intellectual conviction, belief or realization of the facts as
stated, for an actual vision and consciousness of these things came in the
moment of Illumination. Some others report that they have a deep abiding
sense of the reality of the facts described by the report of the Illumined, but
have not experienced the “vision” or ecstasy referred to. These last people
seem to have with them always the same mental state as that possessed by
those who had the “vision” and passed out of it, carrying with them the
remembrance and feeling, but not the actual consciousness attained at
the moment. They agree upon the essential particulars of the reports. Dr.
Maurice Bucke, now passed out of this plane of life, wrote a book entitled
“Cosmic Consciousness,” in which he describes a number of these cases,
including his own, Walt Whitman’s and others, and in which he holds that
this stage of consciousness is before the race and will gradually come to it