Goals of Consciousness

Goals of Consciousness: The Art of Subration

        What is the highest order covenant our species has within nature? It is a promise! This promise baits many questions which this treatise seeks to unravel: such as, what is the sacred contract of the Homo sapiens?  Are we as a species destined to be enlightened? What is the internal dynamic of this process of evolution?  What forces govern this process?  As a species, can we enter the arena of this process with grace and skill?  Looking at the kaleidoscope of our choices, it seems evident in the Western consumptive, dominator society, we have been acting out of the paradigm Katherine Hepburn so eloquently stated to Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, “Nature, Mister Allnutt, is what we are put in this world to rise above.” The Art of Subration is the process which elucidates the goals of consciousness and outlines the translation skills necessary to grow through gap consciousness and further refines the final stages of Subration into Enlightenment as I have discovered by my personal journey.

        Historically, there have been many paths leading toward many different endpoints identified by whichever Saint or Guru was popular at that given time. Whichever tradition one observes, whatever the identified endpoint one is seeking, it matters not. For Subration is THE process an individual undergoes to achieve growth of consciousness to whatever endpoint your particular tradition identifies as Enlightenment.  Once the basic steps of growth are understood the process can be undertaken with much less confusion.

        In each age, man has developed tools to enable cultural evolution to continue.  The survival conditioning of man’s horizontal outward directed focus must be transformed. As one is born into the physical vehicle, the self must successfully cognize this horizontally outward mode of functioning. Those who fail to traverse this internal to external orientation are lost in their own reality. Depending on the severity of the inward focus most of these individuals are labeled autistic. Once the self has successfully completed this horizontal outward exploration, the awareness can be reconditioned, taught to contract inwardly to support more complex, abstract thinking. This horizontal inward directional mode is further supported first, by learning to read, and then by moving toward a more complex educational process.  Finally, as one learns to quiet the mind and integrate these two directional awarenesses through a true form of meditation, one again learns to explore new ground by directing the awareness inward and upward. This inward directional focus, pratyahara, “withdrawal” is a critical movement. Learning to withdraw the senses from the external world moves one to understand the sense-impressions that arise from external stimulation are created by reverberations within your personal domain. Vertically Inward is the direction an evolving consciousness must grow. The highest up is the deepest in; the dimensions are nested and interpenetrating.

        Psychology is the science of the mind. Psyche is a Greek word and its German translation is ‘soul’. Without a psyche there can be no Psychology. Psychology, as the study of the psyche, originally meant study of the soul. “In the Hindu tradition, the term psyche has replaced Soul as the link between spirit and matter. When the psyche is raw, undeveloped, and quite primitive it is subject to gross illusion and unconscious repetitive behaviors.  As it grows in breath and sensitivity, it becomes a perfect link between pure matter and pure spirit and gives meaning to matter and expression to spirit.”¹ In other words, your behaviors evolve along with your level of consciousness. (Hopefully with knowledgeable COACHING and compassionate reflection). Also, in Egyptian mysticism the “terms for this septenary constitution of man, as found in the Kabbala: Cha - material body, Anch - vital force, Ka – the ethereal counterpart or astral body, Hati – animal soul, Bai – rational soul, Cherbi – spiritual soul, Ku – the divine spirit.²

There are many paths leading towards the goals of consciousness.  ‘All roads lead to Rome; the road to Rome is not Rome itself’. Spiritual Teachers and innovative Psychologists have worked to define the process responsible for the growth of consciousness. Subration is the soul’s voyage whereby engagement with the vacuity initiates the witness state generating the realization of boundlessness that defines the state of “I AM THAT” which is the Buddhafield. Restated, Subration occurs when ones’ awareness extends to identify some previously unknown new ground; identifies a new object of observation.  As this new ground, landscape is understood and integrated into your reality, this newly discovered object, landscape of awareness, then becomes the new expanded ground of awareness, your new subjective perspective. One has grown to include, subrate into a larger arena of habitation. And then the process begins to grow anew. Ones’ awareness expands beyond the old boundaries through a process of discovery, extension into the denser bodies of habitation by exploring the broader functions of the interaction of the physical-gross, emotional, mental, astral;-subtle and causal bodies. Integration into these expanded domains claims new territory and then the old objects of awareness become the new subject or ground of habitation.  As one continues, this process of Subration/growth/evolution begins again, new ground is discovered and awareness extends to identify new territory and the process is renewed. The theatre of our soul’s habitation is vast. The obscurations which keep our awareness from fully experiencing this grand spectrum are many, from daydreaming to the survival creation of pre-Egoic dissociated inner children to the habituation of old limitations of thought and action. The psyche/soul is much like a multi-staged rocket. As one becomes competent operating in the physical vehicle, we can then subrate into the astral vehicle and ultimately into the causal vehicle, subsequently inhabiting each successive domain. Universal awareness is just that; awareness of the Universe! For those who choose the path, it can be traversed - Enlightenment is obtainable!  The famous 16^th Century prophet, Michel de Nostradamus predicted a thousand years of peace, “when the seventh millennium has come, in which man is transformed. It is to be a period where the two sides of the hemisphere meet, science and religion merge and a galactic community come into being.”^3….

        Historically, this process has been defined as “The Great Work” or creating the Buddhafield. Thomas Berry defines The Great Work as a process whereby WE “carry out the transition from a period of human devastation of the Earth to a period when humans would be present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner.”³ As we approach this epoch in our species evolution, many cultures’ myths and legends define our planet’s covenant. Some of these prophesies are:

        “The end of this century is the end of the magical seventh millennium, the last thousand years of our known history.    Astrologically, we are at the changeover point from the Age of the Pisces to the Age of the Aquarius.  This also marks the five hundred year psychic cycle, when there is supposedly a marked change of consciousness planet-wide.  The Celts believed that the veil between the world of man and the world of the spirit becomes very thin at certain seasons, in certain ages and epochs.  Celtic traditions mark this period as taking place every five hundred years.  Even the mythical Phoenix, which has a life of five hundred years, is due to re-appear in a mighty holocaust to rise again, reborn from its  ashes.”⁴

From the indigenous tribes, the Hopi Indian Prophecy speaks of the emergence of the fifth world.  The indigenous peoples of South America speak of the time when the condor and the eagle fly together.        

        “From the Diamond Sutra, we learn that Gautama the Buddha claimed that after each twenty-five centuries there comes a radical change of consciousness on Earth with an accompanying period of    intense chaos.  Buddha moves the wheel of Dharma once every two   thousand five hundred years.  The wheel that Buddha moved has  finally come to rest and his age dies.  The wheel must then be started again for the Dharma must be renewed.”⁵

        A subsequent task of this Great Work as seen by Enlightened Masters of our age is to create the Buddhafield, a group of enlightened beings who collectively create a morphogenetic transition.

        “J. Krishnamurti once said that it would take 10 awakened beings     working in consort; while Gurdjieff assessed the number of such  beings needed to change the world at 100.  Bhagwan Shree  Rajneesh, who has attempted to bring 10,000 disciples into his ow Buddhafield, agrees with Gurdjieff that the number needed to  detonate the evolutionary mega bomb is around 100.  And yet maybe, it is only one.”⁶

        Is the nature of this Buddhafield uniform? Ultimately, there is no separation of awareness in the Buddhafield. Only the ego based illusion of good or evil, right or wrong creates our perception of separation. “From the perspective of non-dual wisdom there is no important and unimportant.”⁷ As one grows or Subrates to inhabit this knowledge, one experiences that THERE is only the ONE, without a second. Truth must be experienced. Direct knowledge is not thinking.  Thinking and knowing are quite different.

        How do we as human beings connect to this formless field through the ABYSS? And beyond… The Dalai Lama states, that:   

        “Knowledge and understanding develop on the basis of a         consciousness that has the ability to perceive its objects.  When the  necessary conditions are met, its ability to perceive increases, the   scope of its objects of knowledge expands, and understanding deepens.  In this way the mind can develop its full potential.”⁸           And, “Through such a process, the mind’s true color, so to speak,   will  gradually dawn on the practitioner. When the mind is free from all kinds of thoughts and concepts, suddenly a form of vacuity will appear. If the meditator tries to gain familiarity with that vacuity, the clarity of the consciousness will naturally become more obvious.”⁹

        Saint Francis of Assisi once said, “What we are looking for is what is looking.” One of the clearest discourses of the states and stages one may grow through is found in MSI’s Ascension (1991), and further expounded on in his Enlightenment (1995). MSI refers to this vacuity as the Ascendant. Over time the meditator is taught to recognize THAT, and is taught to place more and more of one’s attention on the Ascendant.  This experience is sticky to the mind. One can learn to choose through experience to recognize and strengthen this level of awareness. Eventually, it will become a shadow presence; this is the hallmark of witnessing. Then it will become YOU and the boundaries begin to blur. And then, one learns this is the Truth, the Buddhafield, and The Universe. I am That! Christian scripture restates this truth in ‘I and my Father are ONE.’ This statement is not a euphemism; it is a re-statement of what ones’ conscious experience stabilizes into being.  Different spiritual traditions label this experience differently. Words only point the finger; the experience is the goal! 

Blessings Be,
Ashoka Aurora Ishaya


Bibliography

1)  Sri Nisargadatta Mararaj.  I AM THAT. Tran. Maurice Frydman.  Bombay: Chetana.  1973. Part I. P. 183.

2)  Schure, Edouard. THE GREAT INITIATES: A Study of the Secret History of Religions. (1961). New York: Rudolf Steiner Publications. P.511.

3)  Yatri. UNKNOWN MAN: The Mysterious Birth of a New Species. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1988. P. 243.

4)  Berry, Thomas. THE GREAT WORK: Our Way into the Future.  New York: Bell Tower.  1999. P. 3

5)  Yatri. (1988). Unknown Man: The Mysterious Birth of a New Species.  New York: Simon and Schuster. P.243.

6)  Ibid. P. 242.

7)  Yatri. (1988). P.232.

8)   Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. (1998) The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep. New York: Snow Lion Publication. P. 26.

9)  Dalai Lama. (2001). Stages of Meditation. New York: Snow Lion Publications. P. 3.