Consciousness

November, 1981

--          To be conscious of the indwelling Divine, the Divine in everything and in every moment and every movement is CONSCIOUSNESS in yoga siddhi.

--          When a hand moves towards you from behind unseen and you can feel it coming, you are conscious in the subtle physical plane, an animal endowment.

--          If you sit on a chair without removing the newspaper on it, people say you are clumsy. In fact you are physically unconscious if even after sitting on it you don't notice the paper. You are vitally (socially) unconscious if you notice it after sitting on it but do not mind its presence under you.

--          Each part of the being is conscious if its natural faculty is awake. The mind is conscious if it is curious, understands, thinks, observes and remembers. These are the essential faculties of the mind and if any of them fail, man becomes unconscious in that area. It is in that context we say that forgetfulness is unconsciousness. But understanding is central to mind.

--          When a man earns his salary and spends it all on himself and gives little to his family, we say he is cruel. If you observe his own life, apart from his being crude and cruel, you will observe he is constantly conscious of his own requirements, enjoyments and will exhibit a certain alertness in that function. He is conscious in areas of selfishness and unconscious of the requirements of the family. His self does not even include his own family of parents and children.

In our phraseology he is vitally unconscious.

--          A man goes and buys a property sold to him not by the owner but his brother or the tenant of the property. This buyer is so engrossed in the value of the property that he is unaware of the legal ownership of the property. When he is reminded that the seller has no right to sell it to him and his sale is invalid, if the buyer does not change his mind, if the information does not make him change his decision, the buyer's vital interest overwhelms his mental clarity, if any.

The buyer is (mentally) unconscious of the law and the legal position of the purchase.

If the buyer knows and ignores the situation and in ignoring nothing in him is disturbed, his overwhelming vital interest makes him unconscious in the mind.

--          Unconsciousness of the person is a deeper version of forgetfulness, lack of observation, lack of interest, unthinking behaviour in the mind. In the emotional vital area unconsciousness shows itself as insensibility and insensitivity. In the physical it is seen as obscurity, stupidity and stubbornness.