Thursday, October 13, 2016

October 13 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

WHAT The MYSTICS HAVE TAUGHT
Ernest Holmes

Cosmic Consciousness - Illumination

"Dr. Bucke defines Cosmic Consciousness as:  "One's consciousness of his unity with the Whole."  The mystic intuitively perceives Truth, and often without any process of reasoning - immediately is aware, with what Swedenborg called a sort of "interior awareness," a spiritual sense.

There can and does descend into our minds - embody and personify in our person - a Divinity, a Unity, the Spirit of God, the direct incarnation of the Original Thing, in us - the mystical presentation of Christ.

Dean Inge, perhaps the best thinker in the Anglican Church of today, tells us that Plotinus had seven distinct periods of cosmic consciousness, in which state he was so completely unified with the Universe that he became One with It.  His spiritual philosophy was a result of these experiences.  Plotinus, you will recall, was one of the greatest of the Neo-Platonic Philosophers.

Dr. Buck, the author of that most rational book, "Cosmic Consciousness," cites many instances of known and authentic records of people who have had definite Cosmic experiences.  In his scientific approach to this subject, he calls attention to the necessity of distinguishing between psychic revelations and Cosmic Consciousness.

Reports of the experiences of most psychics are contradictory.  While on the other hand, the experiences of those who have entered into Cosmic Consciousness - over a period of thousands of years - tell us an identical story, once we get the key to their language - all tell the same story of Reality.  The psychic may or may not be true; the spiritual is always true. The psychic realm is the realm of the subconscious, or relative first cause.   The spiritual is the realm of First Cause.  Therefore, we may read Buddha, Jesus, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Swedenborg, Emerson, Whitman, Browning or any of the other great mystics, no matter in what age they have lived, and we shall find the same Ultimate.  By reading the writings of most psychics, we enter confusion; therefore, we must understand clearly this vital difference between psychism and mysticism.  One may or may not be true; the other is always true."

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