Transcendent Consciousness is Not God, Part 2

Last week I brought up the crucial point for any nonduality student that transcendent consciousness (the experience of limitlessness, oneness, love, joy, ecstasy, bliss, etc.) is not God. I read Suzanne Segal’s Collision With the Infinite, and shared her story to lay the groundwork for a discussion of this, which I now continue. 

I did not always know myself that the experiences we consider transcendent consciousness were only an effect on the brain. Early in my study, I confused transcendent consciousness with Christ. So, when I realized those experiences were only effects, I grieved a little and went through a period of adjustment to this idea, but I also felt relieved of a significant illusion. However, it has taken me decades to really sort it all out. 

For me, the goal was never to reach a transcendent consciousness, but rather to know Truth. I did, however, expect that a transcendent consciousness, or at least some aspects of it, could be a result of knowing Truth. And indeed, I did have a shift in consciousness. The personal identity and an entire experience of existence fell away during a long (and still occurring) ego death. (Detailed in A Memoir of Christ: A Student of A Course in Miracles Awakens, available at www.amazon.com.) Much of what Suzanne wrote about her experiences, and quoted from others, has been my experience as well. (As my shift was brought about by Spirit, I have also had experiences she did not report. For the same reason, I label my state as Spirit-consciousness.) 

Before I go further, let me explain what consciousness is. (I’m going to dip into my ontology again, so if you are familiar with it, you may want to skip or just skim it.) 

God is whole, timeless, formless, limitless, infinite, and One (All-that-is and the same throughout). God, being All, must contain the idea of Its Own opposite. But being All, God cannot have an opposite. So, the idea of not-God is over as soon as it is thought. However, within the idea of not-God, which includes time, it seems as though not-God began long ago and will be undone in some indefinite future.

Consciousness, which can also be called time or existence or the Atonement (as its inevitable undoing is what is unfolding in consciousness) is not-God. The way A Course in Miracles puts it, the first split in Mind was consciousness from Knowledge (God). Splitting continued, with mind (now consciousness) projecting (creating, in religious parlance) a material universe that is the opposite of God in every way (timebound, limited, diverse form) to express its not-God-ness. Some of these forms are seemingly individual minds (or consciousnesses) that are expressed in the material world as brains. 

And as I pointed out last week, the brain can be affected by myriad things to bring about the state we consider transcendent consciousness: True spiritual experiences, certain drugs, strokes, tumors and other diseases, and meditating for hours a day for many years. 

What can maybe help bring into focus the difference between pure (I prefer this word to transcendent) consciousness and God is the difference in the experience of oneness in each of them. (God isn’t really an experience, but I don’t have a better word…)

God is Whole and Complete unto Itself, so God’s Oneness is God’s extension of God. (In the Course, creation means extension, not to bring into being, as the word is commonly used.) Another term for God’s Extension is Love. God is Ever-extending or Ever-loving. Unlike how we love in consciousness, God has no object for Its Love as there is no gap whatsoever in God. (Think of the sun and sunlight. Sunlight is not an object to the sun’s subject. Sunlight is the sun’s effect or extension.)

But consciousness, which is inherently empty as it is the opposite of All, is ever projecting into the void it is. It is full of lots of stuff it conjures out of the material available, itself, a false idea conjuring false ideas. In consciousness, there is always subject and object, even if they are made of the same stuff (consciousness). At minimum, in its purest state, consciousness is both subject and object, aware of only itself without all the stuff. (Awareness aware of Awareness.)

Don’t get me wrong. The experience of Divinity that many who attain pure consciousness experience is real. The Course says when the “separation” happened it was given immediately to the Holy Spirit to undo. So, the source of the Divinity they experience is not consciousness, but Spirit, God’s Extension through Christ to consciousness. In other words, they extend their own Divinity to consciousness and find it reflected back to them. But do not confuse God’s Effect, Spirit, with God, Spirit’s Cause. To do so is to misunderstand Spirit and God—and therefore you.

The Course points out that to go from ego-consciousness to God would be too much of a shock for a mind, so some preparation is necessary. That is the role of Spirit-consciousness. As consciousness is made of God’s Mind (or would be, if it was at all), pure consciousness does resemble God. It is an experience of formlessness, limitlessness, oneness, etc. And it loves itself and what it has made as God loves Itself and Its Extension. So, you may think that many who reach pure consciousness by pursuing it for itself, rather than are brought there by Spirit as preparation for God, would become aware at some point that God is beyond consciousness. This happened to Bernadette Roberts (The Experience of No-Self), a Christian contemplative nun who reached what she called the unitive state (TM’s Cosmic Consciousness and my Spirit-consciousness) after about seven years of meditation. Not having heard or read of this in the contemplative tradition, she had not known to expect it. But after it happened, she still only found a couple of possible references to it despite intensive searching through many spiritual and religious traditions.

I have a theory about why it is that she could not find much written about this. I believe it also explains the infighting Suzanne found in the TM organization, as well as the extreme fear she experienced and to which she returned after so long with the vastness. It is what the Course calls the authority problem. And this gets to the heart of why it is important to not confuse pure consciousness with God. I will get into this next week.

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