1. Identity = "self"; 2. Is there more than one consciousness?

 

Let’s assume that she is correct in stating that there is a “beyond no self”, that our bodies become “pure” sensory perception without a consciousness to know our self and God, this feeling self has a way of expressing, she communicates and can understand others.  What would Super-mind and Over-mind look like at this stage, maybe Ken explains this but I have never looked at it by comparison to this stage of “beyond no self” or “pure” sensory perception.  The mind would no longer function as an individual but would only function in relationship – our return back into the world of manifestation.

No-Self: the falling away of self or consciousness consists of two different experiences, two because consciousness is composed of two different dimensions of experience – knowing and feeling.  First there is the cessation of the unconscious reflexive mechanism of the mind, which is the knowing self.  Second, there is the falling away of the divine center, which is the living flame and the deepest feeling self.

Beyond No-Self: What remains beyond self is obviously the body and senses – now, “pure” sensory perception.  For the senses to stay awake or function without consciousness is a feat akin to the miraculous.  The revelation of the true nature of the body is the resurrection; not only is the body eternal, but its true nature is the Trinitarian Christ-Christ’s mystical body.

 

What I find so interesting about these levels are the ways in which the Christian tradition describe the sacrificial aspect of Self.   Dying to self is the process of letting go of all attachment; each act requires a significant death experience.  The No-Self would be an experience of No-God, if our faith is based on a relationship with the Divine; when the Divine disappears what are we given as an expression.  The final stage of "Beyond No-Self" and the Trinitarian Christ, can be a transition back into the world.  The "pure" sensory perception can be considered as the Universal Self. 

I would like to thank Anna for her post but went off on a slightly different direction after posting the following:

 Anna wrote:

Beyond No-Self: What remains beyond self is obviously the body and senses – now, “pure” sensory perception.  For the senses to stay awake or function without consciousness is a feat akin to the miraculous.  The revelation of the true nature of the body is the resurrection; not only is the body eternal, but its true nature is the Trinitarian Christ-Christ’s mystical body.

What I find so interesting about these levels are the ways in which the Christian tradition describe the sacrificial aspect of Self.   Dying to self is the process of letting go of all attachment; each act requires a significant death experience.  The No-Self would be an experience of No-God, if our faith is based on a relationship with the Divine; when the Divine disappears what are we given as an expression.  The final stage of "Beyond No-Self" and the Trinitarian Christ, can be a transition back into the world.  The "pure" sensory perception can be considered as the Universal Self. 

Self in its most basic sense, is identity (identification, being).  When you are in complete identity, you are completely immersed or absorbed in this identity or being.  Like a baby.  Except that a baby is not yet a fully-individuated "self" in the egoic sense or really in any sense but is immersed in a state of complete identity.  What I've always found curious is that my most creative moments are when my ego-self is temporarily banished or forgotten so to be able to dissolve with an object of creation, such as this comment response.  I recall reading somewhere that there is simply no room for both ego and the object of creation in a task of creativity.  Once self-consciousness enters the picture--the magic and creativity is gone.  

At this moment in time, my full, undivided "self" or being is none other than this activity of contemplation and writing.  Nothing else exists in the youniverse.  That's how I tend to operate (not a good "multi-tasker"): I "merge" with whatever it is I am doing or being and forget the rest.  Such as putting on make-up.  It is fun to me: I consider it an art form: not vanity.  I've often missed work, appointments, and outings trying on make-up or writing but most of the time I make it, but am chronically late.  Good thing I don't have anywhere to go.  Yet I'm happy to be free to be me, my unique self, or no-self; whatever the case may be.  

Couple of things though:

"Beyond No-Self" as defined above--as a state of now, "pure" sensory perception without consciousness could be interpreted in various ways as I see it:

1.  My first guess is that the author is referring to "Forgetfulness" as taught by St. John of the Cross: Bk. 1. Ch. 4. #5.  "The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. The soul has to proceed rather by unknowing rather than knowing."

2.  Another thing that comes to mind (whether related to this concept or not) is Alan Watts's lecture on the necessity for all "souls" to be born and to die in a state of complete forgetfulness from all previous lives.  This is a necessity so that consciousness can start over anew with a clean "slate" as it were.  Just imagine how horrible it would be (after all) to be burdened with so much pain and suffering over countless of past lives--some of them perhaps very painful kinds of memories and gruesome kinds of deaths?  Not to say that I "believe" in reincarnation literally (as in one person = one soul); my understanding of it is a little more nuanced than the traditional concept.

Reincarnation had actually been taught in some early Christian sects although I believe that various church fathers in the Second Council of Constantinople decided to throw out this doctrine for fear of losing their power and influence.

I take it that these various aspects of self are not necessarily discreet stages of selfhood in the Christian sense but rather, as you mention, "layers" of identity that are ever-present (whether in latent or manifest forms) in all sentient (and non-sentient) beings but perhaps "revealed" to the mystic (inasmuch as it is possible to speak of something being "revealed" to consciousness without the actual involvement of consciousness itself--something very difficult to fathom so perhaps is more akin to a death or a sacrificial aspect of self).  I would imagine that for most, the concept of 'self' or identity is confined to the first definition--egoic identities (whether this ego-self is in reference to the ego-self or body-mind ("I"), mythic-membership or group-ego ("We"), or perhaps a form of ego that is dispersed throughout all of nature in a magical enmeshment and unity ("..")).  

However, if "self" is to be defined as "identity"--then complete identity would mean the complete suppression of consciousness, no?  It would seem near impossible to be fully immersed in this identity which is the "whole," and with nothing left out to objectify.  

This changes once consciousness enters the picture and begins the process of observation, methinks.  Be it a thought that shoots out of the head disturbing some particle or wave packet that catches the "eye" and pops into a "quiff"--the "self" then contracts from complete identity or immersion from wholeness because it is now separated from the quiff that it "popped" by the very act of observation that came about as a  result of increasing consciousness (this portion is all highly speculative and is critiqued in Quantum Questions so I'm speaking only very metaphorically perhaps).

Gebser associates complete identity with origin--i.e., the archaic structure of no consciousness.  It is a pre-conscious spirit whose consciousness is more accurately described as a form of foreboding, an undifferentiated wholeness, pre-temporal origin, the source of creativity.  This concept is reminiscent of the Biblical Creation and indeed many other creation myths, yet it differs dramatically from William Paley's "God the Clockmaker" which suggests a fully conscious and rational God who winds up the universe mechanically and sets it in motion and then sits back and enjoys "His" creation as Master of the universe.  This is not to dispute Spirit in masculine form nor in second or third person but I find that this form of third person Christian divinity of God the Clockmaker or even second person communion "with God" and possibly even theism itself can potentially pose difficulties with your author unless we add the trinity and a quadernity to include not only a matriarchy, a patriarchy, or a first-born child adulation as forms of divinity but a first, second, and third person perspective of divinity and a feminine aspect as well so as to acknowledge this godhead in everyone and everything--including self--should the self happen to filter through some feminine or androgynous type of prism to "radiate" that way--for instance.

The task of integrality is to return to a conscious form of pre-temporal origin and to re-claim this godhead--which is a birthright.  If conscious, it is no longer an unconscious spirit but a conscious spirit.  As such it would no longer be completely immersed in complete identity with the "All" at all times because it is conscious, yet I do see a place for it in daily life as in meditation, prayer, or in some other ritual activity to promote vertical growth and group cohesion.  Curiously, "origin" is associated with androgyny, according to Gebser.  It is not simply gratuitous that the integral structure and even the precursors to integral (such as the holistic and pluralistic orientation of healthy green) attempts to transcend gender identity.  

But returning to your main point, Gebser also discusses the importance of forgetfulness (as in the teachings of St. John of the Cross, since forgetfulness is thought to be a prerequisite for entering the kingdom of heaven) while acknowledging that with mutation into integral comes an intensification of consciousness.  "Intensification of consciousness" need not be an oxymoron to 'forgetfulness'  (happens to me all the time) so long as this intensification of consciousness does not refer exclusively to magnitude (e.g. spatiality) or to brightness (e.g. strict mentality) but rather to an intensification akin to a clear light that makes transparent and present those other "layers" passing through the various prisms.

With increasing consciousness comes memory: and the very act of remembering and observation themselves results in a dis-identification with identity or origin which is ever-present.  Thus, with increasing consciousness, there is a loss of identification from complete identity with pre-temporal origin or Godhead.  I would say that identity is possibly inverse proportional to increasing consciousness, but that intensification of consciousness permits identification with a conscious form of Spirit.  I think this works very nicely with both Buddhist and Christian concepts of divinity and creation without necessarily watering things down too much . 

Reincarnation had actually been taught in some early Christian sects although I believe that various church fathers in the Second Council of Constantinople decided to throw out this doctrine for fear of losing their power and influence.  Wow.  That felt like deja vu.

3.  As for "consciousness" and "self" (identity), I tend to see them not necessarily as synonymous but perhaps as two sides of the same coin of divinity.  Incidentally the most "awakened" or alert consciousness--the mental-rational (orange and green)--is the most "conscious" insofar as rationality and "brilliance" but precisely for this reason cannot penetrate the layers of self (please refer to Anna's post) concerned with complete identity to access this "Beyond No-Self," perhaps.  As such it is the most dis-identified from origin and consequently the most apt to suffer identity crisis and other neuroses because of its sense of separate self. 

4.  This is a clumsy way of putting it but the way I perceive "self" in the ultimate sense is not "one soul per person or zygote" (e.g. a multiplicity of "different" souls) but rather as one Spirit whose degree or intensification of consciousness is many and varied but commensurate with whatever apparatus or "tool" that it has on hand to make things visible and present--be it a person, a kaleidescope, a prism, or other faculty of perception that is utilized for the sole purpose of making origin transparent and visible.  Each sentient being could be likened to a prism as well that is capable of filtering different kinds and levels of perception for Spirit depending on the colour, opaqueness, brilliance, or transparency of the entity's filtering mechanism, yet they are all ultimately perceptions emanating from the same source of divinity which is not confined to bodies, but pervades all of reality.  Aldous Huxley mentioned something also to that effect.  Ultimately what I am suggesting is that perhaps consciousness pervades the youniverse that filters through each person.  And since consciousness is the flip side of identity but not necessarily self-identical to identity itself--that identity or self is a singularity as well.  

I can't imagine that there is anyone who could prove to me otherwise that there is more than one "consciousness" or "self" in existence.  This differs from solipsism because I'm not suggesting that only "my" "mind" or consciousness exists but rather that identity/consciousness exists, but it pervades all of reality in varying degrees and filters through various filtering mechanisms such as people.  So there are lots of "people": but only one consciousness.  For instance : I have a lot of things running around in my "mind"--yet I still consider my composite of jumbled or disjointed thoughts to belong to a single consciousness.  There is a word for that but I cannot think of it.  

Never have I experienced two or more consciousnesses "running around" at the same time in my mind.  This I think I read in Quantum Questions: Who was it that said that?  Schroedinger?  Bohr?  I do recall that one of these pioneers of 20th century physics wrote that even when one conversating with someone in a dream, we speak back and forth as in a regular conversation, but do not know what the other person is going to say until they say it even though the dreamer is the one who is making up the entire conversation without even knowing it..  And without the slightest clue that what the "other" person is "saying" is coming from "my" mind..not from "theirs.".  So maybe there is only one.  I suppose you could call me a Monist.  Not only for myself--but for everyone. But then again, that's what "monism" means so never mind.