“We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.”
Carl Sagan
A mystic studies consciousness but not in the same way as a scientist does. Where the scientist seeks to understand consciousness from the outside using objective scientific tools and the logical mind, the mystic seeks to understand consciousness from the inside through subjective experience. From this mystic’s point of view, consciousness is much bigger than physical reality, which makes it difficult to understand for a mind made of matter. Consciousness is within form but is much bigger than the form; it’s formless at its purest states. This formless nature makes it difficult to pin it down, making it very mysterious to the mind. So, to navigate the formless consciousness, the mystic uses its entire embodiment to “clock” it, including the emotional, mental, etheric, and physical bodies. The different bodies are just different layers of the body’s consciousness, where your emotions are just as conscious as your thoughts and physical body. Even if the mystic regularly engages consciousness on all these separate layers, it remains mysterious. The great philosopher Aristotle famously wrote: “The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know.” The same can be said for the mystic who navigates consciousness; the more you merge with and navigate consciousness, the more mysterious and intangible it becomes.
THE OCEAN OF CONSCIOUSNESS
The mystic experiences consciousness as an ocean. A vast, limitless, formless, and ever-expanding ocean that is the foundation of everything in existence, both in and out of form. This ocean contains everything: every human, animal, tree, stone, star, galaxy, and atom in the universe, but also everything that hasn’t materialized into form. This great and limitless ocean is perfectly still and can be described as The Source. Out of this ocean, consciousness pools out. Tiny drops of consciousness begin to “move” and break out of the ocean, embarking on a journey of evolution. The drop starts its separate journey through the different layers of reality, which will take it through the twelve dimensions of consciousness. From the moment the tiny drop leaves the pure ocean of consciousness, the trajectory has already been set: It’s heading home to Source, where it will be absorbed back into the great ocean of consciousness. The journey reminds us of the waters on Earth, where the water evaporates into the air in hot weather, traveling long distances with the winds before eventually raining down on the mountains and landscapes on Earth. When back on the ground, the water finds its way into the various lakes, rivers, and streams, leading it back home into the earth’s oceans.
The mystic sees everything in the universe as these tiny drops of consciousness, including you. You and every other soul came out of that great ocean of consciousness and set out on your journeys. You are like a microcosm of that great ocean while simultaneously carrying your unique spark or essence. Like water drops, which are identical at the atomic level – made of hydrogen and oxygen – the drops of consciousness are identical at their fundamental level. However, when the water drops freeze into a snowflake, you see a unique, complex design expressed in every snowflake. It’s almost impossible to find two snowflakes that look the same! Drops of consciousness can be viewed in much the same way, each carrying a unique and complex design that makes each drop special.
This mystic is aware of human consciousness moving through twelve stages during its evolution. These stages are also known as dimensions but are not the same as mathematical dimensions. Instead, they are descriptive states or “levels” in consciousness that take on different “qualities” as consciousness evolves. Remember, it’s difficult to grasp these esoteric ideas with the mind; they are not meant to be understood intellectually but rather experienced within oneself. The intellect can’t understand consciousness; it must be experienced in the consciousness within the individual. This mystic will, however, try to give a grossly simplified overview of what happens to the tiny drop of consciousness that sets out on its evolutionary journey.
A TINY DROP OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Everything comes from Source: a pure and still light. Buddhism calls it the clear light, and many call it the void. It’s an ocean of light that contains the potential for everything. The ocean is perfectly still and clear – and conscious. The void then “births” something; it compresses into light that suddenly begins to move. Small particles of light – a tiny drop of consciousness – pool out of that great still ocean of light. In Vedic philosophy, this first vibration is symbolized by the sound of Ohm. The moving light particle is the same as the ocean of light it came from, but the movement has set it on its separate path. You are that light particle – a tiny drop of consciousness that has emerged from the still light and has become a part of the moving light together with billions of other tiny particles. The first movement out of stillness, the Ohm vibration, pulled you into the first dimension. Here, the tiny drop of consciousness evolves into a singularity, able to perceive reality as a separate point of consciousness. You have become I AM but are still closely connected with your original Source. Here, consciousness might stay long before moving further.
When it’s ready, the drop moves into the second dimension. This is where the drop relates to the other drops of consciousness that have emerged from the same ocean. Here, the separated drops connect with the other drops, creating interdependence. This is where the dualistic nature of light emerges, reflected in the separateness and connectedness of the particles. The light is in constant movement, radiating information back and forth between its particles, creating a continuous expansion of the light itself. The particles are connected on the most fundamental level and need each other to expand. In Buddhism and Hinduism, these fundamental connections are called Indra’s Net, an infinite web of connections between the many drops of consciousness. The drops are separated points, but none exist independently from the others. The separated point can be described as Atman, while the whole web can be described as Brahman. Each drop is separate but can experience the whole web, creating a relationship between all individuated points of consciousness.
To understand the mechanics of consciousness, it’s essential to understand the dualistic nature that forms in the second dimension. The individuated point can now experience itself as separate but also connected to the experience of consciousness outside itself. It’s able to mirror itself in the other drops of consciousness! This starts the polarization process, where the mirroring adds more movement and friction between the individuated points. The more it mirrors, the more it moves, and the whole web begins to dance. The points swirl around each other, moving from passive to active, stillness to movement, creating more and more friction between them as they go. This is the dance of Yin and Yang, where the stillness of Yin gets mirrored by the movement of Yang. This is the creation of the feminine and masculine principles – Yin and Yang – in perfect opposition. These two are the archetypes, the primal principles of the universe, and the friction between them eventually becomes so intense that they collapse into each other. This collapse births the next evolutionary step for the drop of consciousness: the world of form.
THE MATERIAL WORLD – A CONTAINER OF CONSCIOUSNESS
From the second dimension, consciousness journeys into the third dimension. The third dimension is the new form created by the friction of the polarization between the feminine and the masculine in the second dimension. This new form is consciousness in a very condensed and compressed state, what we call matter. The tiny drops of consciousness that were once part of that great polarization process in the second dimension can now be expressed through form and structure. It still carries the qualities from the first and the second dimension – the stillness/feminine from the first and the movement/masculine from the second – and it can still mirror the other drops of consciousness. Here, consciousness has slowed down so much and has compressed into such solid states that it can experience itself as solid matter. The third dimension can be described as a “container of consciousness,” where the drop “freezes” into form, like raindrops turning into snowflakes in the cold. It becomes solid. Consciousness isn’t something that comes into a form – it is a natural essence of the form. It’s built into the form.
In the third dimension, the polarities express themselves in different ways. They “bleed” out from the second dimension, and you can see them expressed in more compressed physical forms throughout the natural world: day and night, summer and winter, calm and storm, birth and destruction, male and female, light and dark. We see it expressed in the romantic unions between humans – the feminine and the masculine seeking union with each other – and through the male and female forms creating new life. The polarities are also expressed in the human consciousness, mirroring our outer and inner realities. In the human consciousness, we find polarities like desire and fear, love and hate, worthlessness and arrogance, lack and abundance, tyrant and victim, and peace and conflict, to name a few. It’s a beautiful dance of polarities spinning from one side to the other in an endless cycle, creating dramas in our lives.
When consciousness condenses and compresses into form in the third dimension, it also moves through five different layers of expression. These layers are the five natural elements of Ether, Air, Fire, Water, and Earth. These are different forms of condensed consciousness in the third dimension. Consciousness first moves into the subtle Ether element, which then compresses into more dense elements, down to the Earth element. Built into the third dimension is also the concept of time. Time is a phenomenon that stretches things out and lets consciousness soak in the experiences by not letting everything happen at once. Time gives consciousness the ability to evolve in endless ways, moving through cycles upon cycles of experience. Buddhism refers to this continuous dance as the Wheel of Karma, where consciousness loops in an endless cycle of death and rebirth in physical form. The drop of consciousness dances with the friction from the polarities, jumping from one side to the other, learning and experiencing life from every point of view. The asymmetry provided by polarization creates evolution, keeping things moving. The friction from the spinning polarities sets everything in the universe on its evolutionary path; the stars, planets, humans, trees, atoms, and even the universe itself have their trajectory of evolution.
WE ARE ALL GOING HOME
When the tiny drop of consciousness – you – is ready to move on from the third dimension, it sets out on what often gets referred to as the spiritual path. Your focus moves from the external material world to the inner spiritual realms. You start releasing the traumas and emotional wounds that have built up in your consciousness. They can be described as consciousness under pressure – created by friction from the polarities. Everybody has a lot of trauma and wounds in their field, both personal and ancestral, acquired after having lived through incredible hardship and traumatic experiences over many lifetimes. Some have more trauma than others, but it’s the same process for everybody. The sincere spiritual seeker sets out to release all the shadows and traumas in their consciousness – one shadow and trauma at a time. Through focus, dedication, and great compassion, the individual deconstructs the polarities in the consciousness field. Our attachments and aversions to the polarities keep them in place – keep them spinning, creating more friction – so they must be identified. Then, the polarities can be balanced and eventually released. For each polarity you release from your consciousness field, there is less “pressure” to keep consciousness locked into the third dimension. After a while, you can feel a shift in how you react to the dramas of the external world. You become much less triggered by dramas of the outside polarities because they no longer resonate within you. It becomes so much easier to stay balanced and respond appropriately. This is because you have already worked through and released them within you.
With the refinement of the consciousness field, it becomes more formless and can move organically into the next dimension. As you release more and more polarities, consciousness clarifies and can move fluidly into the fourth, fifth, and sixth dimensions, all dimensions of form. They still contain polarities but are more subtle than the third dimension. With each new dimension, consciousness collapses more and more, becoming more balanced and formless. The more refined consciousness becomes, the faster it moves through these dimensions. Moving into the seventh dimension marks a clear shift because this is a formless dimension. Holding onto structures and forms remaining in the consciousness field is difficult here. Here, the work of releasing worldly attachments and fears gets supercharged, and the consciousness field becomes more and more clarified. From the seventh, consciousness moves into the eighth and ninth dimensions, where all polarities eventually collapse. In the ninth dimension, only unconditional love and non-judgment remain. There is no more for or against anything because consciousness has evolved into a refined, non-polarized state. When consciousness is ready to take the last step, it journeys into the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth dimensions of enlightenment, where you go into samadhi. These are amorphous states without form, structure, or polarities; not even unconditional love and non-judgment can be found in these realms. The tiny drop of consciousness gets ready to be absorbed into the great ocean of still light it once came from, adding one more drop of experience to the endless and ever-expanding sea of consciousness.
This is the story about how consciousness evolves, as experienced by this mystic. You should not believe one word of it or take it as truth. Because the mind can’t fully understand consciousness, it must be experienced and absorbed. It’s the experience in itself that gives consciousness its ability to move and evolve. You can learn from others’ experiences and use these as guides on your journey, but ultimately, your state of consciousness will show you the next step you need to take. It doesn’t matter where on the path you find yourself or how fast you are going because all drops of consciousness are heading in the same direction. In these realms, time doesn’t matter. We are all going home.