Open-Secrets

Tag: universal consciousness

  • Universal Mind – Mind for Everyone

    Universal-mindI wrote about universal consciousness a while back and that got me thinking about universal mind. What’s the difference between universal mind and universal consciousness?

    Universal mind is sometimes referred to as God’s mind or the mind of God.

    Consciousness is not necessarily self-reflective though it contains the potential self-knowing.

    The url UniversalMind links to a web application site. I find this hilarious! Is the Internet moving toward being the universal mind?

    Perhaps this quote from A.H. Almaas puts it in perspcetive:

    We call it the Universal Mind because when we go beyond it, we see it as mind. But it is not mind as created by me personally. It’s the mind that actually exists as the totality of the Universe. Some people call it God’s mind. So from the level of the nonconceptual, the physical universe and Essence and all that exists are mind. They are concepts, like ideas or forms that are filled out with something. What they are filled out by is the nonconceptual, the original consciousness.

    And here is what Ralph Waldo Emerson says:

    Who shall define to me an Individual? I behold with awe & delight many illustrations of the One Universal Mind. I see my being embedded in it.

    Quoting Mark Epstein:

    What does universal mind mean? The problem with the concept of a transcendental reality is that it sets up a duality in which we are always other. This leads to a feeling of inferiority and a tendency to disparage one aspect or another of our experience. Buddhists prefer the idea of “no mind” to that of a universal one.

    When you contemplate universal mind – what/who is contemplating?

  • Universal Consciousness

    ConsciousnesRumors and reports from the front lines abound around universal consciousness. And yet, a quick glance into the daily world, the newspaper, the blogosphere or a few minutes on Bill O’Reilly or the Huffington Post reveals universal unconscious still reigns supreme in the hearts and minds of the masses.

    Most people think they are conscious. Even if you define being conscious as being awake or merely aware, most mystics would still proclaim that the conscious masses are still, unfortunately, unconscious.

    I was in Barnes & Noble the other day and saw Jill Bolte-Taylor’s book – My Stroke of Insight. I ordered it today from Amazon. Ms. Bolte-Taylor probably has a few things to say on the subject of consciousness that might interest me.

    It’s been a long while since I read anything by J Krishnamurti, but I still hold his inquiry into violence close to my heart:

    When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.

    When it comes to exploring consciousness and universal consciousness, the same open and open-ended inquiry needs to be engaged. It’s a bit more challenging though than lettin go of your country or religion or any particualr piece of identity because when it comes to the exploration of consciousness the whole enchilada will be challenged at levels we hold near and dear.

    Can a catchy t-shirt help raise consciousness or universal conscioiusness? What say you?

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