"Everything in the Universe, throughout all its kingdoms, is conscious: i.e., endowed with a consciousness of its own kind and on its own plane of perception. We men must remember that because we do not perceive any signs — which we can recognize — of consciousness, say, in stones, we have no right to say that no consciousness exists there. There is no such thing as either “dead” or “blind” matter, as there is no “Blind” or “Unconscious” Law."
— Helena Petrovna Blavatsky - The Secret Doctrine - Volume I
The Physical Body is the most material sheath or instrument used by the forces manifesting as the human composite nature. This body is the evolutionary product of the inner man’s experience during vast ages of time in and through all the kingdoms of nature. Thus the reembodying ego, having acquired knowledge of the earth’s manifesting forms and forces, combines or correlates the principles and products of the mineral and vegetal life-atoms in its animal body, while evolving through its human incarnations.
Occult biology also teaches that every monad which now has unfolded itself into the human stage, did at some remote cosmic period pass through all the lower kingdoms of nature as they then existed; even as the monads now finding expression in the elemental, mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms are undergoing the same process of evolutionary unfolding from within outwards and therefore are on their way upwards to a state equivalent in characteristic powers to what the human now has reached.
The Human Kingdom is one of the great kingdoms or divisions of monads on earth. Below it are the animal, plant, mineral, and also three elemental kingdoms; above are kingdoms of Dhyanis or highly evolved human beings and gods. One of the critical points in evolution, at which self-consciousness is attained, although by no means fully developed. Here the spiritual and the material meet: the spiritual self finds its house in the organism built up of lower elements, and the two-natured human being of earth is thus formed.
In natural history, a large group, department, or domain, marked off from others by characteristic qualities, three being generally recognized: animal, vegetable, and mineral, with mankind at the summit of the animal kingdom. Ancient thought as a whole, however, took account of vast spheres of cosmic inner space and inner consciousness inhabited by numerous hierarchies of all-various evolving, intelligent, and semi intelligent beings.
Hence it is that mankind was a separate kingdom; and, if we consider human nature as a whole, humanity is more sharply distinguished from the lower kingdoms than they are from each other. To these four in theosophy are added three kingdoms below the mineral called elemental kingdoms, thus making a Septenate.
Above the human may be enumerated three Dhyani-Chohanic or god kingdoms, but the word “man” has often been used so as to include these kingdoms. These divisions correspond to the other Septenary and denary divisions in the cosmos.
The more highly each kingdom is specialized along its peculiar lines, the more sharply is it differentiated from the other kingdoms; but the distinction tends to disappear and merge into a continuity when the entities in the different kingdoms are in an elementary or germinal stage.
The entities in any kingdom higher than the lowest must pass in brief recapitulation through all the stages represented by the preceding kingdoms, before they can develop the features characteristic of their own kingdom. All the seven kingdoms or life-waves are manifestations of different groups or life-waves of monads in various degrees of emanational self-manifestation.
"The universe is founded in consciousness and guided by it. The final reality is Universal Consciousness. The Supreme Consciousness is Omnipresent. Its evolutionary powers pervade the entire Universe. All processes of Nature are governed by the laws of this Absolute Force."
— Shriram Sharma
Consciousness is the state of being aware, either of something external or internal. In sentient beings, it is the concomitant of thoughts, feelings and sensations. The word “consciousness” is ordinarily associated with common waking consciousness. But the latter is only one type of consciousness. The difficulty in defining what really is consciousness has long been recognized by the early pioneers of psychology, such as William James and Sigmund Freud.
William James wrote in his Varieties of Religious Experience:
"Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness, definite types of mentality which probably somewhere have their field of application and adaptation. No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded. How to regard them is the question, for they are so discontinuous with ordinary consciousness."
Today, various modes of consciousness other than normal waking consciousness are recognized, such as dream state, dreamless sleep, hypnosis, hypnagogic state, drug-induced state, mystical states, enlightenment, intuition, and other forms of supramental states.
With the advent of behaviorism, consciousness took a back seat and its existence was even questioned. Behaviorism considers as valid only those which can be observed and measured. Hence such things as intentions, consciousness, thoughts, and similar subjective experiences were not given as much validity as observable behavior.
Eastern religions and philosophies distinguish between consciousness and vehicles of consciousness. Thus Purusa as pure consciousness perceives through Prakriti, or material essence. This is a view shared by Theosophical writers.
Thus, Madame Blavatsky wrote:
“While Consciousness is not a thing per se, Mind is distinctly — in its Manvantaric functions at least — an Entity.”
— Helena Petrovna Blavatsky - Collected Writings
In Theosophy, consciousness is derived from two primordial principles: the spiritual principle, and the material vehicles through which such a principle acts. They are equivalent to Parama-Purusa and Mulaprakriti.
The Mahatma Letters to Alfred Percy Sinnett states:
"The one and chief attribute of the universal spiritual principle — the unconscious but ever active life-giver — is to expand and shed; that of the universal material principle to gather in and fecundate. Unconscious and non-existing when separated, they become consciousness and life when brought together."
— The Mahatma Letters to Alfred Percy Sinnett
Thus, apart from Absolute Consciousness, which H. P. Blavatsky considers as unconsciousness, consciousness implies limitations and qualifications. It needs an object to be conscious of, and an entity to be conscious of the object.
Chidakasa is a Sanskrit term that means “space of consciousness” or “inner space.” In yoga philosophy, it is the link between the conscious, subconscious and super-conscious, located behind the forehead and the Ajna chakra. Chidakasa is where the activities of consciousness — both gross and subtle — take place.
Chidakasa in which all gross and subtle activities of the consciousness take place; it is the sky of consciousness, everything dies and evaporates in this space of consciousness, everything is reduced to its essence in this space. Even the mind (conditioned consciousness), along with intellect and ego, merges in this space of unconditioned Pure Consciousness through the paths of devotion, knowledge and action.
Yoga Vasistha speaks about the Bhutakasa – dealing with gross matter, Chittakasa – dealing with mental concepts and Chidakasa with the Ātman. These are spaces projected by the mind but all spaces are reduced to one, that is, to the ultimate space which is one’s own true self. Chittakasa is the field of the mind which provokes a deeper enquiry because there is in it still the duality of the 'seer' (drg) and the 'seen' (drshya); this duality ceases to exist in Chidakasa which is the field of Pure Consciousness viewed by the mind non-causally.
"As the one fire, after it has entered the world, though one, takes different forms according to whatever it burns, so does the internal Ātman of all beings, though one, takes a form according to whatever he enters and is outside all forms."
— Katha Upanishad II
"Prior to the manifestation of the cosmos, the primordial state of consciousness is called Chidakasa, consciousness in Akasa or primordial space. Its emergence is in seven degrees. The first is coeval with the first and second unmanifested Logoi. At this stage it is still latent. Then when manifestation or differentiation occurs, the latent consciousness becomes Mahat, or Cosmic Ideation."
— Helena Petrovna Blavatsky - Collected Writings
As Mahat is the primordial essence or principle of cosmic consciousness and intelligence, it is the fountain of the seven Prakritis — the seven planes or elements of the universe — and the guiding intelligence of manifested nature on all planes. Going deeper, we have pre-cosmic ideation, which is an aspect of that metaphysical triad which is the root from which proceeds all manifestation.
In the Vishnu-Purana, Brahma, for purposes of world formation, assumes four bodies — dawn, night, day, and evening twilight. Man is said to come from the body of dawn, for dawn signifies light, the intelligence of the intellect of the universe often called Mahat, the ultimate progenitor, and indeed the final cosmic goal, of the Hierarchy of Light of which the human hierarchy is a small portion.
Mahabuddhi from Mahā great + Buddhi consciousness, spiritual soul. Great Buddhi or consciousness; synonym of Mahat (cosmic mind or intelligence). Mahat from the verbal root mah to be great, the great; cosmic mind or intelligence, the basis and fundamental cause of the intelligent operations in and of nature considered as an organism. In Brahmanical philosophy, Mahat is the father-mother of Manas.
Madame Blavatsky called it the first product of Pradhana, the first-born of the Logos, universal mind limited by Manvantaric duration, the cosmic noumenon of matter, the one impersonal architect of the universe, the great Manvantaric principle of intelligence, the Third Logos, and the divine mind in active operation.
In Sankhya philosophy, it corresponds to kosmic Buddhi or Mahabuddhi and is called the first of the seven Prakritis or productive creation, the other six being Ahamkara and the five Tanmatras. When a ray from Mahat expresses itself as the human Manas (or even as the Manasic attribute of the finite gods), it then because of surrounding Maya involves the quality of egoity or Aham-ship. Thus it is said that the great Tree of Life has Parabrahman as its seed, Mahat as its trunk, and Ahamkara as its spreading branches.
Chidakasa also means the space of consciousness and the space behind the forehead which is the seat of visualization that links man with the conscious, subconscious and super-conscious and also the object of meditation or Ishta Deva; it helps gain insight into the connection between the two confronting worlds – the higher that is beyond all objects and thought and the lower which is the material world of senses. Subtle vision is developed through practice of Chidakasa Dharana.
Bhutakasa is the space outside, the outside world of objects that the senses meet and a mere reflection of the infinite within; Chidakasa is the space within which having turned the mind inwardly the sublime objectless infinite is to be realized through Adhyatma Vidya. In his Vivekachudamani, Shankara reminds that the first means to yoga is control of speech, then cessation of sense organ activity, control of mind and control of intellect.
Shankara states:
"If the mental functions are established in the true, unchanging, Higher Self, Brahman, this awareness of the phenomenal world is not experienced. What remains thereafter is merely a matter of meaningless word."
— Shloka 399
Then all wrong identifications and knowledge of the anatman cease to survive, there is complete removal of sorrow, and all that remains is the Infinite.
Yama tells Nachiketa:
"The Immortal Self (Ātman) is the sun shining in the sky, he is the breeze blowing in space, he is the fire burning on the altar, he is the guest dwelling in the house; he is in all men, he is in the gods, he is in the ether, he is wherever there is truth; he is the fish that is born in waters, he is the plant that grows in the soil, he is the river that gushes from the mountain, he is the changeless reality, the illimitable."
— Katha Upanishad II
What follows are the manifestations of consciousness in the lower planes of nature.
Consciousness in human and sentient beings results from the perceptive faculties awakened in the different levels or planes of nature. A stone has consciousness on its own level, but not of a kind that human beings are capable of.
"The special organ of consciousness in living people is the brain, located in the aura of the pineal gland. At variance with the common assumption that consciousness can only perceive one object at a time, she states that human consciousness can simultaneously receive no less than seven distinct impressions, and even pass them into memory.”
— Helena Petrovna Blavatsky - Collected Writings
“God the Supreme Musician offers his Music of Peace. Man the divine audience offers his peace-receptivity. God is the Supreme Musician. It is He who is playing with us, on us and in us. We cannot separate God from His Music. The universal Consciousness is constantly being played by the Supreme Himself, and is constantly growing into the Supreme Music. God the Creator is the Supreme Musician and God the creation is the supreme Music. The Musician and His Music can never be separated. His creation is being fulfilled. The Music Supreme feels its fulfilment only when it consciously becomes one with the Supreme, the Creator Himself. Through music, God is offering the message of unity in multiplicity and also the message of multiplicity in unity. Music is God's Dream. God is dreaming at every moment through music. His Dream is called the cosmic Reality, the universal Reality. From the highest point of view, music is not mere words; it is not a concept, not an idea. Music is Reality in its highest form. God is playing the supreme Music in and through us, His chosen instruments. He is playing on us in His own Way. He does not need any human instruments or words to convey His Message, to convey Himself. This He can do in silence without taking any help from the sound-world. God created sound in order to know outwardly what He is inwardly. Inwardly He knows what He is, but if He does not outwardly manifest His inner Divinity then the world cannot accept Him, cannot realize Him. So He created sound just for the sake of His own manifestation.”
— Sri Chinmoy
