What is Cosmic Consciousness

The title of our talk for this morning, I believe it's asking a question, what is cosmic consciousness?

Anyway, I knew it was about cosmic consciousness.

Now, with this particular title, our Tarot Key number 21 is going to be discussed, of course. Now Tarot Key number 21 you'll see before you called The World.

You see a dancer.

Indeed, she is a dancer without clothing except for a veil that is swirling about her being held.

Holding also something that you would say symbolizes force, power, whirling energy going in opposite direction. We see also the symbols of the four fixed signs of the zodiac on tarot key number 21 and the entire symbolism is suggesting activity that is not based on anything solid in other words the foundation which you heard when we had that beautiful reading from the book of tokens on this tarot key the foundation as we see it when we look at the actual symbolism of the tarot key certainly is nothing physical material it is something that you might say the foundation is air and interestingly enough in the elemental attributions cabalistically the on the cabalistic tree of life you will see foundation from which this tarot key flows down to the the kingdom or the physical plane manifested Earth, you will see that foundation, symbolized incidentally by subconsciousness, which we take up more intensively in our classwork, is also attributed to air.

So you might say foundation is nothing solid. Foundation is air.

And to understand cosmic consciousness, even fractionally, although the conscious mind, remember, the limited mind cannot really understand cosmic consciousness it would be like asking a glass of water to hold the ocean one can't, the very moment you use a word the very moment you try to give any description you are putting a limitation upon an idea and therefore it can't be that nevertheless symbols can point to an idea those who've gone before us on this ladder of the hierarchy of attainment and knowing and doing can help bring this knowing through the vibratory formulas the the definite methods that we utilize to help awaken us to the insight to help us to become attuned to the reception of these these ideas so that finally we are prepared to experience them for ourselves. Therefore, please bear in mind, just like no description of a very delicious meal can satisfy the hunger or give us any understanding of the food, we have to eat, taste, and take take in the assimilation of all of the elements involved.

In the same manner, no lecture, no amount of words, whether written or chanted, nothing can give it to us, that is, cosmic consciousness.

However, even though nothing else can give it to us, please we must remember that we can work at becoming prepared to receive it and know it for ourselves in other words we can learn how to prepare our meal how to eat it and how to ascend therefore have the assimilation it becomes ours it's worked into our cell structure due to our efforts with this understanding let's try to get our consciousness together pointing towards some answers relating to the puzzle of the principle involved in cosmic consciousness let's try to point together then what will occur will be that these energies symbolized by the figure who is incidentally isis this Uranium, that these energies symbolized here by the Tarot Key 21 will become more and more activated in us as we do our portion of the work. And by becoming activated in us, they will also help to prepare us to receive at least fractions, illuminations, realizations.

It will help us to see what we need to do, what we need to work upon, and sometimes, while we are here together, because our energies are being heightened, and if we have, along with this, been doing our own work at home, working on our own self-transmutation, we can have flashes of insights, which are what you might call bits of cosmic consciousness being caught in the framework of our own reflective awareness.

Just like the waters or a glass of water can capture the reflection of the sun, even though it certainly cannot hold the sun within it, so we can capture a reflection when we learn how to still the waters of our own mind in a special way and learn how to work at understanding the real principle behind alchemy or the great work, which is involved in attaining this state of awareness, even fractionally.

Now, the thing we want to first bear in mind is this, that the Tarot key representing cosmic consciousness is also representing limitation.

And here we have one of these very interesting usages that Tarot makes of the principles of consciousness, showing, representing symbolically, an idea, a principle, in what would appear to be its opposite cloak, cloak, remembering that beginning and ending are one when we are aware of a certain level of consciousness, we should also then come to recognize the fact that that which we see as limitation is actually the other side of the coin of cosmic consciousness.

I hope that you are listening to this because the attitude we have towards the idea called limitation really is the secret behind self-preparation. It is the secret behind knowing, experiencing, expressing cosmic consciousness itself to whatever degree we become capable of doing so. So now how would limitation be the opposite side or the opposite side of the coin of cosmic consciousness well for one thing meditation which is the result of proper concentration takes place via the use of what of limitation every act of concentration is an act of limitation of the consciousness and yet we have heard over and over again from every school of thought that meditation is the secret behind experiencing the higher states of consciousness so you can see we use we deliberately use the principle of limitation called meditation in order to experience something something beyond limitation.

In the same way, if we want to take the analogy of power in itself, it is by compressing certain substances that we get these substances to act as catalysts which bring energy. Energy every uh type of activity mechanically speaking uses this principle compression which is what limitation brings about power so Saturn which is assigned to this tarot key Saturn is the secret behind Cosmic Consciousness and Saturn astrologically speaking remember is is thought of as the devil.

As a matter of fact, Tarot Key 15, assigned to Capricorn, shows it because Saturn is the ruler of Capricorn, Key 15, and there you see the devil.

Everything that we see as limitation, we of course always attribute to something that we call Satan or the devil. In other words we call it bad and whatever we see as being non-limited we have the idea that this would be good and yet I think that we certainly can recognize the fact that this cannot be true because if it takes the use of limitation in order to be able to meditate then certainly limitation must be something other than we have thought and indeed if everything that appears to be utterly free is good then anarchy is good well we know very well that anarchy is going against law because law in itself is limitation we use words like cosmic law now Now the moment we use the word law, we're talking about rules and regulations.

Every law is a rule by which we have to set certain standards of conduct. Therefore, it's an act of limitation on absolute freedom, whatever that means.

If you recall several times, many times, I have reminded you of the first experience I had, which was just the beginning of many experiences since of course from many other points of view but the experience I had at a very very early age when I was still under the illusion that what we must do is get rid of all inhibitions all things that we call limitation that we have to throw off the yoke of of everything that has conditioned us in order to truly attain that rapture, that freedom, that ecstasy of cosmic consciousness. And after this first experience where I became, I didn't just touch, I didn't hear, because if you hear something it isn't cosmic awareness. If you can see something it isn't cosmic awareness true cosmic awareness is becoming it and unless you become it you can't at all of the real thing because it sifts through these colored windows of misunderstanding lack of insight not having had an opportunity to prove these principles so only when we become just like only when we can eat the food can we have the nourishment in the same way only Only when we can become, experience thoroughly, experience the identification with these larger principles, only then have we got that level of reality that we can bring back to memory or capture enough to know, this I am, this I know.

Well in the same manner the experience that I had originally which grew and developed into much richer understanding as time went on as the years went on this experience showed me without any doubt whatsoever that absolute freedom is primordial non individuality in other words the lower evolutionary levels were infinitely more more highly evolved than that non-conditioned, utterly, absolutely, wildly free state of consciousness which we can call the primordial essence, the primordial substance before. It started to become subjected to the limitations, in other words, the primordial mind stuff or portions of the oceanic primordial mind stuff, which, although it is free, and although it is ecstatic and rapturous, is still free and ecstatic and rapturous in a way that is utterly non-human because it is pre-human as well as in some ways post-human, I should think, except that which has become human or become anything else, has evolved beyond in other words it's taken or be or taken that portion of the primordial mind stuff which has been allotted to us which the divine consciousness has taken and started to compress in order to form to mold an individualized aspect of self it is this wild freedom that has been limited limited limited until the compression brings about a conflagration of self-awareness and the self-awareness in itself automatically means limitation to be aware of self has to be aware of limitation otherwise self would be all that is which it is only in this other state of awareness and one of the sad tragic things that has occurred in occultism is that people many people sincere who have touched some experience of this primordial free ecstatic wild substance they have misinterpreted this experience as being the ultimate instead of realizing they have been been experiencing a before aspect.

They have been experiencing something that is not which we wish to go to, but which we have come from in a sense, even though it also is something that we go to in another way.

They think that returning to the mother's womb, though they do not realize this, is evolution or freedom or liberation. And so we have many schools of thought that have grown up around this particular idea give up, they don't say it as such but in essence what they do say is give up self-consciousness because that's a delusion an illusion and a snare we are all one, they say of course it's true, we are all one they say give up all these drives and the thinkings and the feelings that come from the drives of this delusion of being separate and return to this rapturous, unified, ecstatic freedom where never again will you have to worry about anything. Well, you see, returning to the womb, so to speak, or returning to the cosmic primordial womb, is one of the dangers that does exist on the path of return. And remember, we have always said that anything worth anything has within it what you might call certain risks.

There's no such thing as a 100% safe anything.

For example, my precious and adorable cat Shaddai, who should have been called Dennis the Menace, but Shaddai comes pretty close because that's primordial energy, incidentally, involved in this name.

This absolutely fantastic insanely adorable cat loves everybody loves everything and so odd it was so obvious to my precious Jacob and myself that if we let this cat loose one thing was sure he would be kidnapped catnapt excuse me inevitably because he thinks everyone is marvelous and beautiful he's full of lovingness beyond description and and he cannot be happier and you can handle him you can hold him upside down and he'll purr away the fact that you're giving him attention is marvelous hold him upside down dangle him by a feet marvelous aren't you wonderful he'll be saying to you singing away he's just impossible but obviously anyone would march off with him and he'd purr away you know he'd figure so you know attention isn't is marvelous so we felt that with this kind of excessive tameness along with excessive wildness you see I love these extremes and therefore our cat certainly has them he we felt we have to keep these creatures safe so we didn't let him go out at all any of them we oh they have plenty of place to run and dance and then the back porch in which to play and get into plenty of mischief but plenty of mischief which they did and do you know what happened that should I broke his jaw right in the nice safe house so where is safety how safe can we be after all of this care and I can't you can't imagine the things my beloved Jacob and I put up with happily oh but joyously to make sure our babies are safe so should Shaddai managed to break his jaw, playing wildly and madly as he does.

He just threw over a table and managed to get right where it would crack him on the jaw. Now, he had to have the poor baby in the hospital and whatnot. Incidentally, he's back home, and he's biting everything madly and wrecking things like nothing ever happened.

In fact, even more so, if possible. So, thank God for this.

I wouldn't be without the problems that he creates for anything in the world, you understand.

And this again is showing us, all right, what is limitation for?

It is to have this rapture.

It's to have this ecstasy over something, someone, many someones. The individuality requires limitation or wouldn't be an individual.

So we have to come to see limitation as something other than ungodly.

And indeed, some of our youngsters today have made the terrible mistake of thinking that knocking out all law, all the rules, is the way to attain to the higher society. They have idealism. Those who think they haven't are making a sad mistake. They're not understanding our youngsters. They are very idealistic. They are just absolutely revolted and disgusted at the hypocrisy they have seen in their society.

And so they are making the same mistake that too many others make in occultism, thinking what you have to do is knock down, knock out, just throw out rules and regulations. But this cannot be so. To be aware is to have law. To have law is to have rules.

To have rules is to be part of the dance of life. No dance is a dance that doesn't have form the illusion of the freedom of floating an air is in the ability to use limitation to utilize the body gracefully to take this miracle that is so full of the principle of inertia and have it dance in the measured leaps of ecstasy which is a limitation step by step and motion by motion bringing about the experience of the freedom the foreverness the the the rapture which is part of it because to be full of rapture it not be full of awareness of self as something miraculous and wondrous relationship is to be unaware of the real meaning of cosmic consciousness itself it would be like someone who's blind living in the Sun but what good does it do to live in the Sun if you're blind if you cannot see the things the light that reflect the light and remember the ability to see anything is because that's something that we call a limitation like material things happen to be there and so light reflects off of material things and gives us the experience of form which in itself is again another miracle at limitation then assigned to saturn is also assigned to cosmic consciousness because true cosmic consciousness can come only to those who learn to accept the principle of limitation and to love it to love it to use it instead of letting it use them and therefore qabalistic we have the consciousness that relates to Dominion you've heard me say the The administrative intelligence is assigned to this tarot key, to the kind of consciousness that it holds.

And to be able to administrate is to know the rules, the regulations, the law, and to administrate them. That is, you're the one that does the administrating. When we don't know them, then we are administrated.

We are subject to the ruling and rules of others. Freedom is not a matter of anarchy for example let's take some more things if our sun did not follow certain laws that are being held with we wouldn't have a condensed globe of gas that holds itself in a special form and follows special rules therefore the solar system and the evolution that takes place it would just be going all over the place all energy would be going all over the place all the time and therefore it couldn't be any specific anything because it would be wildly everywhere that's chaos for I ask you to think for a moment that extreme chaos is more symbolic of evil and therefore that which some people think is freedom is not freedom them at all it's just licensed to become unhuman in qabalah then we train ourselves to take the principle of saturn the limitation principle and to use it to become administrators of this principle to understand it in such a way that we utilize it for greater and greater capacity to concentrate to take that cosmic mind stuff that is our gift from the one that dwells in us and evolves us out of itself to take the gift of that portion and condense it condense it shape it grow it until it finally it bursts into the conflagration where as a greater light it shares bears light into the everywhere and yet remains itself.

Attaining individuality in its completion happens to be aligned with true cosmic consciousness because then the individuality cannot become lost.

The Lord of the Universe would not go working through these principles in and through all of us, through all these eons at regular intervals, for the attainment of individuality and its usage, if it weren't meant to be permanent.

And yet, some schools of thought were using terms like the dewdrop melting into the shining sea.

Now, this state of consciousness I have been very familiar with, as you know. And though it is a lovely something to rest in, it is not something which we should consider our aim.

Because what we have to consider our aim is the ability and capacity to become a shining sun a river that though it flows into the sea still maintains itself as a current you know it is now known that within the ocean there are all kinds of rivers and currents and worlds and attainment of individuality has to do with being able to maintain our own uniqueness in the midst of an enlarged consciousness or awareness so that the qabalistic or western occult method of attainment is aimed at helping us to so strengthen our individuality that throughout the rest of of whatever the cycle is, whether it could be put in terms of billions of years or whether time becomes meaningless in considering it, this individuality cannot be lost because it has already become a begotten offspring of the Most High.

Jesus had things to say that relate to this key, which most people do not recognize because they do not know that Jesus was a trained Qabalist and attained his cosmic consciousness through the Qabalistic techniques but remind yourselves what Jesus had to say in a very special way first of all he used to say come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy laden come learn of me for I am meek and lowly of heart my yoke is easy and my burden is light now notice what was said my yoke is easy my burden is light he was not saying lose your yoke lose your burden he was saying it is easy it is light now let's go on to another thing that jesus said when he was on his way to that which is the test of the attainment of the individuality within unhappy conditions and circumstances remember he said lift up thy cross and follow me all right I wonder how many of you realize what was really being said now this has been interpreted by fundamentalists in a very fundamentalist manner but let's go to this tarot key again now you the hebrew letter tav on key 21 is also called the mark see each letter has the name of an article now the mark or the cross this is something people don't forget because they used to make a cross for the mark or a mark for the cross that's why you often hear these terms as interchangeable mark and cross now this hebrew letter was called the cross and this tarot key and the hebrew letter assigned to saturn saturn incidentally is assigned to the to lead in the order of the chakras and lead remember is that which the alchemist said we must turn into gold that means the Sun and the Sun is the Christ awareness now Jesus said lift up thy cross on the Qabalistic tree of life the physical plane the kingdom is below that's the lowest portion that is the outer manifestation of the most high now going up in the center is the path of tab that's Tarot key 21 that we're talking about and in our paths of return which we are covering in our Thursday night class now now paths of return what we're doing is taking that which Kate was projected down has become lead so to speak and I don't we all feel as heavy lead so often that we do in that very lead remember we transmute to gold eventually now that picking lifting up of the cross you can see attainment being the attainment of the consciousness of that jesus shared having to do with beauty though there's even more that is what this uh cycle of evolution is bringing about to attain that central consciousness of beauty tiff with the Christ awareness the ego seated in the hearts of men the sphere of the activity of the Sun the complete knowledge that we are the offspring of the Most High all of this is involved with experiencing true cosmic consciousness and here lift up thy cross it means lift up your lead maybe it's get the let out of your pants and it's lift up the heaviness lift up your feeling of burden because saturn when we are not responding to it from the higher levels makes us feel heavy overwhelmed burden filled with too many responsibilities uh put upon too much to do you know people expecting too much from us oh whoa now that's Saturn on the lead level not transmuted waiting down the article of apparel we mentioned and making it pretty heavy to walk let alone dance on air yet as this dancer does so we have the lifting of the cross which means lifting of the Tav the mark the lifting of this heaviness this personal sense of responsibility to the higher sense of responsibility the feelings of burden the the the grouching and the complaining and the agonizing and the weeping the heaviness the the satan uh portions of the being remembering that satan is tied up with this key capricorn and saturn that rules it through key 21 so that we have all of this that has to be lifted up and where do we have to lift it we have to lift it first through the foundation and then on through the holy guardian angel although we have to take those other paths because otherwise we cannot take the mind and the emotions the intellect and the desire nature the accomplishments of evolution the accomplishments of the perfected personality that serve as the channel for the most high these we must take with us we do not want to lose them to melt into a shining sea what would have been the use of anything we want to take these with us as the administrator of these powers so it is harder to be a good Qabalist incidentally than it is to be a good anything else in the way of schools of thought because in Qabalah we expect everything from you you know and we think that's being reasonable just as reasonable as when I've said of my beautiful jacob you know that I'm a reasonable woman I'd expect no more from my man than that which is reasonable all I expect is that he that he be mine heart mind body soul and spirit you know I I let nothing out you know that's that's being a reasonable woman and in the same manner in Qabalah we're reasonable we expect to accomplish the hardest, the fullest we expect and we intend to bring all of the magic and all of the beauty that all of this miracle of the Lord of Life has been evolving with us. It's much easier to become an alcoholic than it is to follow and utilize the limitations of the Most High.

It's easier to take drugs, you know, this instant samadhi.

It's even not very difficult, if you want to know, to use certain techniques that certainly aren't as dangerous as drugs. They have other dangers. It's possible to use certain other techniques in order to experience certain kinds of freedoms of consciousness. But some of these techniques, as I pointed out, really take you backward, though people think they're going forward. It's a returning to the womb instead of a going forward into the higher state that is being able to take with us. So we are going to lift our cross. We are not going to try to escape. When we lift our cross what we're doing in essence is following what jesus said come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy laden in other words we don't be we don't have to be heavy laden anymore when we manage to work with the administrative intelligence when we reach towards that portion of us which has been growing us to begin with when we come to recognize that every limitation is really a gift of God and it's nothing to moan about as long as we want to moan so let alone I always feel if we still need to moan we ought to be given more and more to moan about I guess I feel that way because that's what God feels otherwise God wouldn't do this for us so So graciously, because you know, to him who hath shall be given, and to him who hath not even that which he hath is taken away.

So the more we groan, the more we're given a groan about, and so it should be. This is the gracious gift of the Most High.

Until we finally figure, well, maybe the lifting of the cross in the way of that greatest of all Qabalists is a better way. And it is because to dance on air is to really be full of love the knowledge of unity and the recognition that between me and thee there is relationship and this is the great rapture of individuality we can say God is love and it's a meaningless word if he is nothing to love if all there is is one unity without awareness of individualities within it, then how are we going to express love of something to something or someone to someone? To say, yes, that which is I is also I and all others in everything that exists.

Nevertheless, we are each I in a specialized manner.

This gives us something and someone to love.

So the Qabalist, in reaching upwards, in developing more and more of the capacity for cosmic consciousness comes to recognize the fact that to be what some might call a limited personality is a fabulous thing marvelous wondrous wondrous and marvelous the way we use it may be foolish until we discover what it's really for but foolish you have to be until you become wise surely we shouldn't object to being foolish if it's going to bring us wisdom should we now and once we have the wisdom we have the richness of it because we were foolish everything has its opposite and becomes that much more glorious cosmic consciousness then we've tried we were trying to say what is it well after all if we told you what it is it would cease to be cosmic consciousness now wouldn't it it's a good question though you know lures the mind what it is we can experience this is what counts and there are levels and levels of the experience but this you can be sure of those who have experienced it once or those who live in it almost continuously this we can say to you a limitation is not a limitation in the same way anymore the yoke is easy it is very easy because it is seen it is known not thought it is known without any doubt whatsoever that every single bit of frustration of limitation of that which holds down is a preparation for liberation for expansion for for something special, for the developing of a special gift, of a greater deepening.

Those who know directly, once or many times, once only or almost continuously, what cosmic consciousness is, can say to you that the awareness of differences is the greatest gift that the cosmic unity can give, because it's the gift of love that if one were looking for a reason for evolution for the evolution that evolves centers of individuality the answer which master R gave so beautifully and richly that if you have to have an answer all you can say is God is love love has a need to give of itself love has a need to have something to shower itself upon to give and to give and joy Joy is in the heart only when one is in the act of giving.

And it is always the giver who is the rich one, who's the gold. The lead has certainly been transmuted into gold. Every heaviness has become a treasure in the storehouse. The eternal gold that cannot be lost.

The gold that gleams through every ray of sun. The gold that gleams from behind every pair of eyes, that true eye. Cosmic consciousness is knowing that every single thing that is, is in some way a portion of myself interacting, interrelated, beautiful, glorious, wondrous, miraculous, incomprehensible and yet utterly and completely knowable from the inside. It is being able to be at one with you, it is being able to be at one with all that lives it is knowing that beginning and end are one because it's awareness of our own beginnings and endings and yet the miracle of all that takes place in between and the preparation for another cycle all of us my loves every single one of us are magical essences magical compressions of the divine mind stuff interacting flowing back and forth one with another in with each other our love sharing the river of life there being but one life and that life God all of us are this and we are all being taught we're all being trained we're all being carried we're all being helped to bring this knowledge to consciousness so that we know it for ourselves acted by ourselves live it within ourselves and express it through ourselves moment by moment and day by day and throughout all eternity so it is and so it shall be let's rejoice in that we'll continue Thank you.