Consciousness

Girl Looking in the Mirror by Alfred Stevens​

Consciousness is defined in a general way as sentience or awareness of internal and external existence. In this view, consciousness includes any kind of cognition, experience, feeling, or perception. A special case of consciousness is what has been called "self-consciousness" or "self-awareness," which is the experience or perception of one's own personality or individuality.

Theosophical literature presents consciousness as a fundamental (not an emergent) property of the cosmos, which is present in everything including inorganic matter. In this definition, consciousness is not necessarily a cognitive function as normally experienced by humans, but rather the more basic ability to perceive and respond to the environment in some form. Thus, the chemical atom is regarded as possessing a principle of consciousness in its most basic form. This does not mean that there is some process of thinking in the atom. An example of "atomic consciousness" could be its ability to "perceive" or "identify" atoms with which it has affinity, responding to them by forming molecules.

Theosophists have proposed that there are many levels of consciousness, depending on the plane or body through which it manifests.

The difference between consciousness and self-consciousness is also important in Theosophical literature, since the latter is said to be a special feature that is fully developed only in human beings, especially in connection to the physical plane. Some species in the animal kingdom, however, already show the incipient development of a basic form of physical self-consciousness.

General description

In the view of most scientists, consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, resulting from the communication of information across all its regions. However, although modern science has been successful in studying the brain, it has been unable to produce a satisfying theory of the nature of consciousness. Philosopher Philip Goff said:

Despite great progress in our scientific understanding of the brain, we still don’t have even the beginnings of an explanation of how complex electrochemical signaling is somehow able to give rise to the inner subjective world of colors, sounds, smells and tastes that each of us knows in our own case. There is a deep mystery in understanding how what we know about ourselves from the inside fits together with what science tells us about matter from the outside.

Theosophical literature does not agree with the scientific theory that consciousness is merely an emergent property, that is, a characteristic that appears out of the complexity of a system (the brain) but that is absent from its individual parts (cells or atoms). Theosophical teachers such as H. P. Blavatsky have claimed that consciousness is an fundamental feature of the cosmos, which means that everything possesses some kind of consciousness:

Esoteric philosophy teaches that everything lives and is conscious, but not that all life and consciousness are similar to those of human or even animal beings.

In the Theosophical view consciousness is not a single faculty but it is the result of the interaction between the seven principles that compose a human being. As to its mechanism, H. P. Blavatsky wrote:

In the normal or natural state, the sensations are transmitted from the lowest physical to the highest spiritual body, i.e., from the first to the 6th principle (the 7th being no organized or conditioned body, but an infinite, hence unconditioned principle or state), the faculties of each body having to awaken the faculties of the next higher one, to transmit the message in succession, until they reach the last, when, having received the impression, the latter (the spiritual soul) sends it back in an inverse order to the body. Hence, the faculties of some of the “bodies” (we use this word for want of a better term) being less developed, they fail to transmit the message correctly to the highest principle, and thus also fail to produce the right impression upon the physical senses, as a telegram may have started for the place of its destination faultless, and have been bungled up and misinterpreted by the telegraph operator at some intermediate station. This is why some people, otherwise endowed with great intellectual powers and perceptive faculties, are often utterly unable to appreciate—say, the beauties of nature, or some particular moral quality; as, however perfect their physical intellect—unless the original, material or rough physical impression conveyed has passed in a circuit through the sieve of every “principle”—(from 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, up to 7, and down again from 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, to No. 1)—and that every “sieve” is in good order—the spiritual perception will always be imperfect. The Yogi, who, by a constant training and incessant watchfulness, keeps his septenary instrument in good tune and whose spirit has obtained a perfect control over all, can, at will, and by paralysing the functions of the four intermediate principles, communicate from body to spirit and vice versa—direct.

Absolute consciousness

When talking about consciousness in its absolute quality, Mme. Blavatsky wrote:

To know itself or oneself, necessitates consciousness and perception (both limited faculties in relation to any subject except Parabrahm), to be cognized. Hence the “Eternal Breath which knows itself not.” Infinity cannot comprehend Finiteness. The Boundless can have no relation to the bounded and the conditioned. In the occult teachings, the Unknown and the Unknowable mover, or the Self-Existing, is the absolute divine Essence. And thus being Absolute Consciousness, and Absolute Motion—to the limited senses of those who describe this indescribable—it is unconsciousness and immoveableness. Concrete consciousness cannot be predicated of abstract Consciousness, any more than the quality wet can be predicated of water—wetness being its own attribute and the cause of the wet quality in other things. Consciousness implies limitations and qualifications; something to be conscious of, and someone to be conscious of it. But Absolute Consciousness contains the cognizer, the thing cognized and the cognition, all three in itself and all three one. . . . It must not be forgotten, also, that we give names to things according to the appearances they assume for ourselves. We call absolute consciousness “unconsciousness,” because it seems to us that it must necessarily be so, just as we call the Absolute, “Darkness,” because to our finite understanding it appears quite impenetrable, yet we recognize fully that our perception of such things does not do them justice. We involuntarily distinguish in our minds, for instance, between unconscious absolute consciousness, and unconsciousness, by secretly endowing the former with some indefinite quality that corresponds, on a higher plane than our thoughts can reach, with what we know as consciousness in ourselves. But this is not any kind of consciousness that we can manage to distinguish from what appears to us as unconsciousness.

States of consciousness

See Avasthā

Self-consciousness

Self-consciousness or self-awareness is the capacity for introspection and the ability to recognize oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals. It is not to be confused with consciousness. While consciousness is a term given to being aware of one’s environment, self-consciousness is the recognition of that awareness.

In the Theosophical view, "the principle of self-consciousness, the 'I-am-I'" is manas. Because this principle is the origin of the sense of "I-ness", it is called the "Ego":

Ego (Lat.) "I"; the consciousness in man of the "I am I," or the feeling of I-am-ship. Esoteric philosophy teaches the existence of two Egos in man, the mortal or personal, and the higher, the divine or impersonal, calling the former "personality", and the latter "individuality".

Online resources

• Consciousness at Theosophy World

Articles and pamphlets

• Intuitional Consciousness by Francesca Arundale
• Man's Waking Consciousness by G.S. Arundale
• Emotion, Intellect and Spirituality by Annie Besant
• On Moods by Annie Besant
• The Self Is the Friend of Self and also its Enemy by W. Q. Judge
• The Subjective and the Objective by W. Q. Judge
• Dimensions of Consciousness by Dora Kunz
• What Is Consciousness? by Richard Smoley

Books

• Study In Consciousness by Annie Besant
• Theosophy and the New Psychology by Annie Besant

Audio

• The Nature of Consciousness in the Upanishads by Michael Gomes
• Man's Experience at Different Levels of Consciousness by Dora Kunz
• The Origin and Development of Consciousness by Joy Mills
• The Nature of Consciousness, Part 1 and Part 2 by N. Sri Ram
• The Significance of Each Present Moment by N. Sri Ram
• Spiritual Consciousness by N. Sri Ram
• The Cosmological Aspects of Consciousness by Will Ross and Emily Sellon
• A Map of the Field of Consciousness by Pablo Sender
• The Expansion of Awareness by Helen Zahara

Video

• What Is Consciousness? by Richard Smoley

Additional resources

• Bibliography on Consciousness from the Henry S. Olcott Memorial Library.