IV
THE THREE STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS
THE life of man
is passed in three states, which are as follows: waking,
dreaming sleep, and dreamless deep sleep. One may comprehend
how to attain to a higher knowledge of the spiritual worlds
by forming an idea of the changes in the conditions that have
to be undergone by the aspirant to such knowledge. Before a
person has passed through the necessary training, his
consciousness is continually broken by the periods of rest
which accompany sleep. During these periods the soul knows
nothing of the outer world and nothing either of itself. Only
at certain times above the wide ocean of unconsciousness
there will arise dreams which are related to events in the
outside world or to the conditions of the physical body. At
first one recognizes in dreams only a special manifestation
of the sleep-existence, and commonly men speak of two states
only — waking and sleeping. From the occult standpoint,
however, dreams have a special significance, apart from both
the other two states. It has already been shown in a previous
chapter how changes occur in the dream-existence of the
person who undertakes the ascent to higher knowledge. His
dreams lose their meaningless, disorderly, and illogical
character, and begin gradually to form a regulated,
correlated world. With continued development this new world,
born of one's dreams, will yield nothing to outer and
phenomenal realities, not only as regards its inner truth,
but also in the facts which it reveals, for these in the
fullest sense of the word present a higher reality. In the
phenomenal world especially there are secrets and riddles
hidden everywhere. This world reveals admirably the effects
of certain higher facts, but he who limits his perceptions to
the senses alone cannot penetrate into causes. To the occult
student such causes are partly revealed in the state already
described as being evolved out of his dream-existence. To be
sure, he ought not to regard these revelations as actual
knowledge so long as the same things do not reveal themselves
to him during ordinary waking life as well. But to that he
also attains. He acquires the power to enter the state which
he had first evolved from his dream-life during the hours of
waking consciousness. Then the phenomenal world is enriched
for him by something quite new. Just as a person who, though
born blind, undergoes an Operation an his sight and finds
everything in his environment enriched by the new testimony
of visual perception, so does the person who has become
clairvoyant in the above manner, regard the entire world
around him, perceiving in it new characteristics, new beings,
and new things. No longer is it necessary that he should wait
for a dream in order that he may live in another world, for
he can transport himself into the state of higher perception
at any suitable time. This condition or state has an
importance for him comparable to that of perception with open
eyes as opposed to a blindfold state. One can say quite
literally that the occult student opens the eyes of his soul
and sees things which must ever remain veiled from the bodily
senses.
This state
(which has previously been described in detail) only forms
the bridge to a still higher stage of occult knowledge. If
the exercises which are assigned to him should be continued,
the student will discover at the appropriate time that the
vigorous changes hitherto mentioned affect not only his
dream-life, but that the transformation extends even to what
was before a deep and dreamless sleep. He notices that the
utter unconsciousness in which he has always found himself
during this sleep is now broken by conscious isolated
experiences. Out of the great darkness of sleep arise
perceptions of a kind which he had never known before.
Naturally it is no easy matter to describe these perceptions,
for our language is only adapted to the phenomenal world, and
in consequence it is only possible to find approximate words
to describe what does not appertain to that world at all.
Still, one has to make use of these words in describing the
higher worlds, and this can only be done by the free use of
simile; yet, seeing that everything in the world is
interrelated, such an attempt can be made. The things and
beings of the higher worlds are anyway so distantly connected
with those of the phenomenal world that though in good faith
a portrayal of these higher worlds in the words usually
descriptive of the phenomenal world may be attempted, one
must always retain the idea that very much in descriptions of
this kind must obviously partake of the nature of simile and
imagery. Occult education itself is only partially carried an
by the use of ordinary language; for the rest, the student
learns in his ascent a special symbolical language, an
emblematical method of expression; but nothing concerning
this can at present, and for very good reasons, be openly
imparted. The student must acquire it for himself in the
occult school. This, however, need form no obstacle to the
acquisition of some knowledge concerning the nature of the
higher worlds by means of an ordinary description, such as
will here be given.
If we wish to
give some suggestion of the experiences mentioned above as
appearing from out of the sea of unconsciousness during the
period of deep sleep, we may best liken them to those of
hearing. We can speak of perceptible sounds and words. If we
may liken the experiences of dreaming sleep to a certain kind
of seeing comparable to the perceptions of the eyes, the
experiences of deep sleep allow of similar comparison with
oral impressions. It may be remarked in passing that of these
two faculties that of sight remains the higher even in the
spiritual worlds. Colors are there still higher than sounds
or words, but the student at the beginning of his development
does not perceive these higher colors, but merely the
inferior sounds. Only because the individual, after his
general development, is already qualified for the world which
reveals itself to him in dreaming sleep, does he straightway
perceive its colors, but he is still unqualified for the
higher world which is kindled in deep sleep, and in
consequence this world reveals itself to him at first as
sounds and words ; later an he can mount up, here as
elsewhere, to the perception of colors and forms.
If the student
now realizes that he passes through such experiences in deep
sleep, his next task is to make them as clear and vivid as
possible. In the beginning this is very difficult, for
remembrance during the waking state is at first
extraordinarily scanty. You know well on waking that you have
experienced something; but as to its nature you remain
completely in obscurity. The most important thing during the
beginning of this state is that you should remain peaceful
and composed, and should not allow yourself, even for a
moment, to lapse into any unrest or impatience. Under all
circumstances the latter condition is injurious. It can never
accelerate any further development, but in every case must
delay it. You must abandon yourself calmly, as it were, to
what is given to you: all violence must be repressed. If at
any period you cannot recall these experiences during the
deep sleep, you should wait patiently until it becomes
possible to do so, for such a moment will certainly some day
arrive. If you have previously been patient and calm, the
faculty of remembrance, when it comes, will be a securer
possession; while, should it for once appear, perhaps in
answer to forcible methods, it would only mean that for a
much longer period it would afterwards remain entirely
lost.
If the power of
remembrance has once appeared and the experiences of sleep
emerge complete, vivid, and clear before the waking
consciousness, attention should then be directed to what here
follows. Among these experiences, we can clearly distinguish
two kinds. The first kind is totally foreign to everything
that one has ever experienced. At first one may take pleasure
in these, may let oneself be exalted by them; but after a
while they are put aside. They are the first harbingers of a
higher spiritual world to which one only becomes accustomed
at a later period. The other kind of experiences, however,
will reveal to the attentive observer a peculiar relationship
to the ordinary world in which he lives. Concerning those
elements of life on which he ponders, those things in his
environment which he would like to understand, but is unable
to understand with the ordinary intellect, these experiences
during sleep can give him information. During his daily life
man reflects on that which surrounds him and he arrives at
conceptions which make comprehensible to him the
interrelation of things. He tries to understand in thought
what he perceives with sense. It is with such ideas and
conceptions that the sleep-experiences are concerned. That
which was hitherto merely a dark and crepuscular conception
now assumes a sonorous and vital character which can only be
compared to the sounds and words of the phenomenal world. It
seems to the student ever more and more that the solution of
the riddle upon which he ponders is whispered in sounds and
words that proceed from a finer world. Then ought he to
relate what has come to him in this way with the matters of
ordinary life. What was hitherto only accessible to his
thought has now become an actual experience for him, living
and significant as can seldom, if ever, be the case with an
experience in the world of sense. The things and beings of
the phenomenal world are shown thereby to be more than merely
what they seem to the perceptions of the senses. They are the
expression and the efflux of a spiritual world. This
spiritual world which lay hitherto obscure now reveals itself
to the occult student in the whole of his environment.
It is easy to
see that the possession of this perceptive faculty can only
prove itself to be a blessing if the soul-senses of the
person in whom they have been opened are in perfect order,
just as we can only use our ordinary senses for the accurate
observation of the world if they are in a well-regulated
condition. Now these higher senses are formed by the
individual himself in accordance with exercises which are
given to him in the course of his occult training. As much
concerning these exercises as may be openly said has been
already given in
The Way of Initiation.
The rest is imparted by word of mouth in the occult schools.
Among these exercises we find concentration, or the directing
of attention upon certain definite ideas and conceptions that
are connected with the secrets of the universe ; and
meditation, or the living within such ideas, the complete
submerging of oneself within them in the manner already
explained. By concentration and meditation a person works
upon his own soul and develops within it the soul-organs of
perception. While he applies himself to the practice of
meditation and concentration his soul evolves within his body
as the embryo child grows in the body of the mother. When,
during sleep, the specific experiences above described begin
to occur, the moment of birth has arrived for the full-grown
soul, who has thereby become literally a new being brought by
the individual from seed to fruit. Instructions concerning
the subject of meditation and concentration must therefore be
very carefully prepared and equally carefully followed out,
since they are the very laws which determine the germination
and evolution of the higher soul-nature of the individual;
and this must appear at its birth as a harmonious and
well-formed organism. If, an the contrary, there were
something lacking in these instructions, no such being would
appear, but in its place one that was misborn from the
standpoint of spiritual matters, and incapable of life.
That the birth
of this higher soul-nature should occur during deep sleep
will not seem hard of comprehension if we consider that the
tender organism, still unable to withstand much opposition,
could hardly make itself noticed by a chance apparition among
the powerful, harsh events of workaday life. Its activity
cannot be observed when opposed by the activity of the body.
In sleep, however, when the body is at rest, the activity of
the higher soul, at first so faint and unapparent, can come
into sight in so far as it depends upon the perception of
sense. A warning must here again be given that the occult
student should not regard these sleep-experiences as entirely
reliable sources of knowledge so long as he is not in a
position to transport himself to the plane of the awakened
higher soul during waking-consciousness as well. If he has
acquired this power he is able to perceive the spiritual
world between and within the experiences of the day, or, in
other words, can comprehend as sounds and words the hidden
secrets of his surroundings.
At this period
of development we must clearly understand that we are
dealing, at first, with separate, more or less unconnected,
spiritual experiences. We must be on our guard against the
erection of any system of knowledge, whether complete or only
interdependent. By so doing we should merely confuse the
soul-world with all manner of fantastical ideas and
conceptions ; and thus we could very easily weave a world
which has really no connection what ever with the true
spiritual world. The occult student must practise continually
the strictest self-control. The right method is to grow
clearer and clearer in one's realization of the separate and
veritable experiences which occur, and then to wait for the
arrival of new experiences, full and unforced in their
nature, which will connect themselves, as if on their own
account, with those that have already occurred. By virtue of
the power of the spiritual world in which he has now once
found his way, and by virtue, also, of practising the
prescribed exercises, the student now experiences an
ever-enlarging, ever more comprehensive, outspreading of
consciousness in deep sleep. Out of what was erstwhile mere
unconsciousness, more and more experiences emerge, and ever
fewer and fewer become those periods in the sleep-existence
that remain unconscious. Thus, then, do the separate
experiences of sleep continually close in upon each other
without this actual interlocking being disturbed by a
multitude of combinations and inferences which would still
arise from the meddling of the intellect accustomed to the
phenomenal world. The less one's ordinary habits of thought
are mixed up in some unauthorized manner with these higher
experiences, the better it is.
If you conduct
yourself rightly, you now approach nearer and nearer to that
stage of the way at which the entire sleep-life is passed in
complete consciousness. Then you exist, when the body is at
rest, in a reality as actual as is the case while you are
awake. It is superfluous to remark that during sleep we are
dealing, at first, with a reality entirely different from the
phenomenal environment in which the body finds itself. Indeed
we learn — nay, must learn if we are to keep our footing
an firm ground and avoid becoming a fantastic — to relate
the higher experiences of sleep to the phenomenal
environment. At first, however, the world which is entered in
sleep is a completely new revelation. In occult science the
important stage at which consciousness is retained interiorly
through the entire sleep-life is known as the
“continuity of consciousness.” [ Note 1 ]
In the case of
a person who has arrived at this point, experiences and
events do not cease during the intervals when the physical
body rests, and no impressions are conveyed to the soul
through the medium of the senses.
Notes:
1. That
which is here referred to is, at a certain stage of
development, a kind of “ideal,” the goal
which lies at the end of a long road. The next things
that the student learns are two extensions of
consciousness — first, into a soul-state wherein
hitherto nothing but unregulated dreams were possible,
and, secondly, into another state wherein hitherto
nothing was possible except unconscious and dreamless
sleep. He then knows the three states, even if it remains
impossible for him to refuse entirely all tribute to the
ordinary state of sleep.
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