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Light of Mind

Awareness, Illumination, Consciousness.


Russell
"To exemplify our meaning let us remind you of the familiar belief that magnetism is a force, separate and apart from electricity, which has the power to pick up nails on a bar magnet and tons of iron on a giant magnet. Scientific terminology is redundant with references to such effects as magnetic lines of force, the earth's magnetic field, and electromagnetism, when every effect attributed to magnetism is solely electric. Furthermore, there is no such separate force as magnetism which performs the work of Creation. That which man thinks of as a magnetic force is spiritual Light of Mind and not a physical working force of Creation. Likewise, we hear constant references to negative electricity, negative charge, and negatively charged particles, which are as impossible in Nature as silent sound is impossible." [Atomic suicide, page 103]

"The Dawn of Mind-Consciousness is too recent for all men to THINK with their Mind. Man-in-the-mass still senses with his body. His desires are still dominated by his senses. His concepts are still sense-based. He hurts himself with his own acts and calls them evil. He conceives a personal God with vengeful human emotions. Evil was conceived in the senses of man. It has no existence in the Light of Mind." [Atomic Suicide, page 190]

"In other words, God's thoughts are not transient. They are immortal image-forms of immortal Idea. They repeat themselves in Nature eternally, for that is what Nature is. Nature is a light-extension of the Light of Mind-Idea." [Atomic Suicide, page 244]

"If this book shall have led him to the Light of Mind, which man is in God, and he is illumined with that Light of all-knowing, all-power and all-presence, giving him dominion over all the earth - it will have then served the double purpose of the hopes of its authors - rather than just the single purpose of its naming." [Atomic Suicide, page 267]

See Figure 14.05 - The Dominant is the Light of the Mind of Diety

"God is the Light of Mind. God's thinking Mind is all there is. Mind is universal. Mind of God and Mind of man are ONE.

This eternally-creating universe, which is God's eternally-renewing body, is the product of Mind-knowing expressed through Mind-thinking." [A New Concept of the Universe; 16 - 1 The Undivided Light]


Maurice Nicoll
A and B Influences: Mechanical Life and Spiritual Awakening in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, Volume 1 by Maurice Nicoll:
"Last time the existence of two distinct kinds of influences in life, called A and B respectively, was spoken of. In this commentary, of which this is the second part, we are speaking of the need for connecting any part or detail of this system with the whole meaning.
In order to get force to work, what you do in working on yourself must have meaning, and the more meaning the system conducts for you—that is, the more it means to you and the more the evaluation of it grows—the more force you will get from it. If you do not value it, if you like to doubt it, if you never really think about it, and do not try to see its significance more and more as time passes, by working along both the line of knowledge and the line of being, and so on, then whatever you do in connection with the work will have no meaning for you and so no force.
You know that when anything has intense meaning for you it generates force in you, and if it has little or no meaning, then there is no force.
At present, we are speaking of the general meaning of this work—that is, on the highest scale. In this connection, it is now necessary to speak of the source of B influences. As was said in Part I, B influences do not arise within life as do A influences. Their origin is from a source outside mechanical life. Actually, their source is in C influences. What does this mean?
As you know, in the teaching of this work, mankind is not taken as being all on one and the same level. Man is divided into different categories. Quite different kinds of men exist. There is, first of all, the circle of mechanical humanity, as it is called, in which No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3 men exist. They are respectively men in whom mainly one centre is used—the instinct-moving centre in the case of No. 1 man, the emotional centre in the case of No. 2 man, and the intellectual centre in the case of No. 3 man. These instinct-moving men, emotional men, and intellectual men, because they are mainly "one-centred", see everything differently, each from one side, from one centre.
They form together the circle of mechanical humanity which is characterized by the fact that people belonging to this circle are based on violence and do not understand either themselves or one another. It is called sometimes the circle of "confusion of tongues" or Babel, in which misunderstandings, quarrels, strife, persecutions, and war of every kind must always exist without leading to anything different.
Next comes an intermediary circle formed of No. 4 man. This circle does not arise in life but as the result of work. No. 4 man is developed in all the ordinary centres, so he is not one-sided and so is called "balanced man". No. 4 men begin to be able to understand one another and begin to overcome violence in themselves.
Then comes the conscious circle of humanity formed by No. 5, No. 6, and No. 7 men who understand one another, who are not based on violence, and who are not only developed in the ordinary centres but who have the power of being conscious from a lesser to a greater extent in higher emotional and higher mental centres. These centres transmit influences to which mechanical humanity—that is, sleeping humanity—are insensitive, or rather, which they cannot "hear". It is from the circle of conscious humanity that B influences originate.
But they originate, not as B influences, but as C influences. It is only when they are sown into mechanical life that they become B influences. This happens because, as C influences, they cannot exist in mechanical life, but become changed and altered in such a way that they only approximate to their original form. Just as the ideas and emotional perceptions belonging to higher centres cannot be caught or understood by the "formatory centre", so conscious teaching cannot exist in the sphere of mechanical life by itself. But it can be kept alive and transmitted by means of schools having a direct connection with people who have reached that degree of inner evolution and consciousness belonging to the circle of conscious humanity.
In these schools, C influences can exist and be transmitted orally—that is, by oral teaching—from one person who understands, to another, who begins to understand, and so to another who does not yet understand. This chain must exist. And in such a case, these influences can be transmitted orally as C influences, handed on from one person to another.
Let us take the example of the Gospels. As was said in the first part of this commentary on A, B, and C influences (which was read last time), the Gospels constitute an example of B influences. People sometimes ask a question of the following nature: "Why," they say, "are the Gospels an example of B influences? Surely Christ was a conscious man? Why, then, are the Gospels not an example of C influences?"
We must remember that the Gospels appeared a long time after Christ died—from fifty to one hundred years after. It is not at all certain who were their authors. It is incorrect to suppose they are merely records written on the spot by eyewitnesses. Luke, for example, never heard Christ. He was a pupil of Paul, who of course never heard Christ, and who quarrelled with the school at Jerusalem and apparently got his teaching in some school near Damascus. But it is unnecessary to go into historical questions.
You have only to read the Gospels to see that it is said that Christ taught his disciples in private and only said a certain amount to the public, and nearly always in the form of parables. In the Gospel of Matthew, after the Parable of the Sower has been related, it is said that the disciples asked Christ why he spoke to the people in parables: "And he answered and said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables; because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand." —(Matthew XIII xi-xiii)
The kingdom of God is the circle of conscious humanity. It means the circle of those who have evolved beyond violence, of those whose knowledge is practical—that is, what they know, they will, and so do—of those who understand one another because they speak a common language—(and let us remember that we, in this work, are learning a common language).
Everyone knows and feels that there must be some place, some society, some beings who live without mutual violence, criticism, dislike, or hatred. I will quote, in this connection, a passage in the Mahometan esoteric literature. A pupil came to Mahomet for instruction. Mahomet said: "What is the substance of thy faith and the reality of thy understanding of it?" The pupil said: "I have seen Hell and Heaven three times in a vision. In Hell, everyone was attacking his neighbour. In Heaven, they were visiting one another." Mahomet said: "Thou hast seen aright."
I have said enough in this commentary now to show you what is the supreme meaning of the work. Everyone who wishes to can read and think for himself about the parables in the Gospels concerning the Kingdom of Heaven—that is, the circle of conscious humanity. These parables are very extraordinary when you think of them in the light of the work. For the work is necessary to understand the fragments of teaching given in the Gospels. It is then possible to understand why it is said, in this system, that what we seek above all things is Light—and Light means consciousness.
We seek to live more consciously and to become more conscious. We live in darkness owing to lack of light—the light of consciousness—and we seek in this work light on ourselves. Everything this system says about work on oneself—about self-remembering, about struggling with negative emotions, about internal considering, about self-justifying, and so on, has as its supreme aim to make a man more conscious—to let light dawn in him. And it is a very strange thing, this light. It is first to become more conscious of oneself and then more conscious of others.
This is a strange experience. I mean by this that the direction in which the work leads you through increasing consciousness, increasing light, is not at all the direction you might imagine as a person asleep, a person who knows only ordinary consciousness—that is, the first two states of consciousness in which humanity lives.
To become more conscious of yourself is a strange experience. To become conscious of others is just as strange and even more strange. The life you yourself lead with passions and jealousies, meannesses, dislikes, and hatreds, becomes utterly ridiculous. You wonder, in fact, what on earth you have been doing all your life. "Have you been insane?" you ask yourself. Yes, exactly. In the deep sleep we live in, in the light of the Kingdom of Heaven, we are all utterly insane and do not know what we are doing.
The work begins to teach you what to do. To awaken—that is the object of this work. And for a man who awakens even to one single thing that the work teaches, it means that he is no longer the same man. In this way, the work changes us. But the work cannot change anyone unless its meaning is felt. You can feel the meaning of the work through another at first, but the time comes when you must feel it through yourself. And then every detail of the work becomes alive to you because you see it as a book of instruction, as a plan, as a map, and as a compass that must be followed if you wish to awaken to another life and another way of living on this earth.
Take quite simply this one single instruction: do not identify. Follow this instruction. Follow it to the end and see what happens and what changes take place in you and what light begins to reach you. But if this work has no real meaning to you and if the meaning of life is always far greater and more real to you than the meaning of the work, then no change in yourself can ever happen, and you will only know life-emotions and remain in the circle of mechanical life, in the circle of confusion and strife and quarrels and disappointments and complaints and war." [Mechanical Life and Spiritual Awakening in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, Volume 1 by Maurice Nicoll]

See Also


Awareness
Brain Sympathetic Flow
Celestial
Dawn of Mind-Consciousness
Discernment
Dominant
Figure 14.05 - The Dominant is the Light of the Mind of Diety
Illumination
Knowing
Light
Magnetic Light of all-knowing, all-powerful Mind
Magnetic Light of Mind
Magnetic White Light of Mind
Mind of God
Mind
opticity
Satori
still God-Light of Mind
Thought
Volition
White Light of Mind
Will
Wisdom
14.19 - Dominant is Light
14.20 - Dominant is Light of Mind or Thought or Idea

Created by Dale Pond. Last Modification: Wednesday October 16, 2024 05:22:48 MDT by Dale Pond.