Cosmic Consciousness: The Man-God Whom We Await

by Alexander J. McIvor-Tyndall

"Let a man who holds the Self clear, keep that Self free from wickedness."

This does not imply annihilation of identity, absorption of consciousness, although it has been so interpreted by many students. On the contrary, instead of losing consciousness of the Self (which is not merely the personality), we find the Real Self.

As an adult we realize more consciousness than we do as infants. Not that we possess more consciousness. We cannot acquire consciousness as we accumulate things. We can not add one iota to the sum of consciousness, but we can and do uncover portion upon portion of the vast area of consciousness which is.

Says the Dhammapada:

"As kinsmen, friends and lovers salute a man who has been long away and returns safe from afar; in like manner his good deeds receive him who has done good, and who has gone from this world to the other, as kinsmen receive a friend on his return."

If this state of mukti were annihilation of individual consciousness it would hardly be an incentive to do good deeds, except that good deeds in themselves bring happiness, but if the bringing of happiness did not also bring with it a larger consciousness, it would not be true happiness, but merely a condition, and conditions are always subject to change.

"It is not separateness you should hope and long for; it is union—the sense of oneness with all that is, that has ever been and that can ever be—the sense that shall enlarge the horizon of your being, to the limits of the universe; to the boundaries of time and space; that shall lift you up into a new plane far beyond, outside all mean and miserable care for self. Why stand shrinking there? Give up the fool's paradise of 'This is I'; 'This is mine.' It is the great reality you are asked to grasp. Leap forward without fear. You shall find yourself in the ambrosial waters of Nirvana and sport with the Arhats who have conquered birth and death."

This admonition to give up the struggle and strife for separateness is interpreted by many to declare for annihilation of consciousness of identity, but we contend that union is in no wise akin to annihilation, and since this assurance of union is further described as an enlargement of the horizon of your being, it is evident that your being can not be enlarged by becoming annihilated, or even absorbed into The Absolute, as in that event it would cease to be your being. Moreover, you are told that you will "sport with the Arhats who have conquered birth and death." Arhats are alluded to in the plural, and not as One Being.

To be sure there may be a final state of absorption of consciousness far beyond this state of being which is described as Nirvana.

Theosophy lays much stress upon the assumption that the attainment of godhood is possible to every human soul, but that this godhood must inevitably have an ultimate conclusion. That is, there is a place or heaven, which is called the Devachanic plane, and this plane, or place, is inhabited by "gods," for a definite period, approximating thousands of years, but that the final conclusion must be, absorption of identity into the universal reservoir of mind, or consciousness. But we may readily see that beyond the Devachanic plane, we may not penetrate with the limited consciousness which takes cognizance of external conditions. Any attempt, therefore, at a description of what occurs to the individual consciousness beyond the areas of Devachan, must be futile.