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266 SPIRIT AND THE MIND
Confusion regarding the definitions and qualities of consciousness is widespread.
After a behavioristic hiatus of over half a century, American psychologists in the 1960’s began, at first tentatively, to return consciousness to its former central position of concern. Because of this long period during which the use of the term was not allowed, we lost contact with the historical roots of the several different, but legitimate, definitions of consciousness. Today, we find psychologists of a wide variety of orientations using this word and assuming that its meaning is the same for others as it is for them.2
So arises the need for new terms reflecting our new awareness. I’m proposing the following.
1) Consciousness—in its broadest sense, our capacity for awareness. In its most fundamental and pure state, consciousness is infinite, abso- lute, eternal and universal (see #12, Universal Consciousness). Hin- duism defines consciousness as one of three fundamental attributes of divinity, the other two being absolute truth and bliss.3
If consciousness is more fundamental than mind it cannot be fully grasped by mind. Therefore, from the start we have to accept a fundamental ambiguity, which reflects the mind’s inability to fully grasp profound spiritual reality. To be specific about type, aspect, orientation and quality of a state of limited consciousness, a preceed- ing qualifier is needed, as in the terms below.
2) Conscious consciousness—immediate awareness: perceptions and impressions, which engage immediate attention.
3) Unconscious consciousness—in psychoanalysis, a term which refers to a dimension of the psyche or mind in which all mental material is not readily accessible to conscious awareness by ordinary means. If we assume there is a realm beyond mind we would add, “all mental and supramental (beyond mind) material” which is not readily accessible to conscious awareness by ordinary means. Having con- sciousness of the unconscious is inferred by its appearance in dreams, slips of the tongue and in symptom formation.
4) Witness consciousness—the awareness of being aware, that aspect which separates man from the rest of the animal kingdom. The witness who is aware, the “observer” who is conscious of being con-


































































































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