FROM A SITE VISITOR: Where is the Absolute? Can you give a simple explanation of how consciousness manifests and how it becomes corrupted or blocked? Also, how can it be at rest if it’s a form of energy as you say? Thx,
F.: Hello,
How did it manifest? As a form of specialized energy that moves about, as all energy does, it can be “pulled” into the manifestation if it should come into contact with a space that has a nervous system (such as a plant on this planet).
Should the natural act of “transference” happens, whereby such a plant is consumed by a human who then breeds and sets off a chain of naturally-occurring events that result in what persons call “a birth,” then the conscious-energy will shortly thereafter be conditioned and programmed with false concepts.
It is such programming and conditioning which eventually blocks the pure consciousness from being aware of ItSelf and which results in the blockage or corruption you reference. Because of such misinformation, the consciousness can falsely identity itself as separate matter and therefore erroneously believe, “I am my body.”
As for being “at rest,” the term is used to refer to the non-manifested conscious-energy which, as your question seems to imply, is not really “at rest” at all. Energy is in motion, and if unmanifested then the consciousness will not be aware of anything...though in that form it is awareness with no awareness of awareness.
Only manifested can it be conscious of itself. A bird that flies away when you approach is conscious of its beingness and moves away, automatically, as a result of the natural tendency of consciousness to try to extend itself. Yet during the manifestation, there is no rest for consciousness.
Consciousness, wrongly conditioned, nevertheless would "preferably" function as its pure, free, unconditioned natural state, not as a state of dreamed-up concepts, ideas, emotions, insane beliefs, demands, expectations, and limitations in “time-space.”
[How can such an innate "desire" for both "extension" and "freedom" manifest? Consider. If a child were locked away in captivity as an infant, that child (and later the teen and eventually the adult) would long for freedom, even though it has never been free and has no frame of reference by which it can contrast its incarceration. Yet the longing is there nevertheless. Again, a bird does not have to be taught to fly away from you if you approach it. It’s natural.
Being free is natural, but once persons are acculturated and domesticated, freedom ends. When concepts are imposed upon humans, the result is a sense of restriction and limitation on the energy which I AM while temporarily manifested.
Thus, some Realized sages have historically invited persons to Realize and then abide as the Absolute that is beyond such movement of consciousness with its ability to register desires and fears and dis-ease. It is only by dwelling as the original nature, as that natural state, that any sense of “rest” can happen.]
Now, consider another aspect related to your query about consciousness being "blocked or corrupted," namely, suffering. Suffering is the result of believing that the manifested conscious-energy is the false “I” that associates itself with body and mind and personality...all of which are the vehicles for suffering and pain during the relative existence.
All physical organisms are confined in a state of “bondage.” How can the manifested consciousness possibly be “at rest,” really? Have you not sensed on occasion some intimation of an immortal free-ness that has seemingly been lost as a result of the challenges of this beingness?
It was such suffering that drove the character Hamlet (in the Realized poet Shakespeare’s play by the same name) to ask whether he should be or not be. The character wonders whether he should allow the manifestation of consciousness to continue or whether he should take action to end the manifestation of consciousness which allows the registration of misery and suffering (and, yes, for some, physical pain without respite as well):
“To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; no more; and by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consummation devoutly to be wish’d.”
Because a sense of freedom is a prerequisite for happiness, and since the manifested consciousness can never be free to move about limitlessly as it did pre-manifestation, then the only alternative by which freedom can be realized (and therefore by which happiness can happen) is to shift away from identification not only with false roles but with the never-truly-at-rest-if-manifested-consciousness as well. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
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