Cosmic Consciousness | Page 8

to this, seek for what they can not
learn."
Thus it will be seen, that according to the reports offered us by this
wise man, that which men call learning guarantees no power regarding
that area of consciousness which brings Illumination--liberation from
enchantment, of the senses--mukti.
Again, in the case of Jacob Boehme, the German mystic, although he
left tomes of manuscript, it is asserted authoritatively, that he
"possessed no learning" as that word is understood to mean
accumulated knowledge.
In "The Spiritual Maxims" of Brother Lawrence, the Carmelite monk,

we find this:
"You must realize that you reach God through the heart, and not
through the mind."
"Stupidity is closer to deliverance than intellect which innovates," is a
phrase ascribed to a Mohammedan saint, and do not modern
theologians report with enthusiasm, the unlettered condition of Jesus?
In the Orient, the would-be initiate shuts out the voice of the world, that
he may know the heart of the world. Many, very many, are the years of
isolation and preparation which such an earnest one accepts in order
that he may attain to that state of supra-consciousness in which
"nothing is hidden that shall not be revealed" to his clarified vision.
In the inner temples throughout Japan, for example, there are persons
who have not only attained this state of consciousness, but who have
also retained it, to such a degree and to such an extent, that no event of
cosmic import may occur in any part of the world, without these
illumined ones instantly becoming aware of its happening, and indeed,
this knowledge is possessed by them before the event has taken place in
the external world, since their consciousness is not limited to time,
space, or place (relative terms only), but is cosmic, or universal.
This power is not comparable with what Occidental Psychism knows as
"clairvoyance," or "spirit communication."
The state of consciousness is wholly unlike anything which modern
spiritualism reports in its phenomena. Far from being in any degree a
suspension of consciousness as is what is known as mediumship, this
power partakes of the quality of omniscience. It harmonizes with and
blends into all the various degrees and qualities of consciousness in the
cosmos, and becomes "at-one" with the universal heart-throb.
A Zen student priest was once discovered lying face downward on the
grass of the hill outside the temple; his limbs were rigid, and not a
pulse throbbed in his tense and immovable form. He was allowed to
remain undisturbed as long as he wished. When at length he stood up,

his face wore an expression of terrible anguish. It seemed to have
grown old. His guru stood beside him and gently asked: "What did you,
my son?"
"O, my Master," cried out the youth, "I have heard and felt all the
burdens of the world. I know how the mother feels when she looks
upon her starving babe. I have heard the cry of the hunted things in the
woods; I have felt the horror of fear; I have borne the lashes and the
stripes of the convict; I have entered the heart of the outcast and the
shame-stricken; I have been old and unloved and I have sought refuge
in self-destruction; I have lived a thousand lives of sorrow and strife
and of fear, and O, my Master, I would that I could efface this anguish
from the heart of the world."
The guru looked in wonder upon the young priest and he said, "It is
well, my son. Soon thou shalt know that the burden is lifted."
Great compassion, the attribute of the Lord Buddha, was the key which
opened to this young student priest, the door of mukti, and although his
compassion was not less, after he had entered into that blissful
realization, yet so filled did he become with a sense of bliss and
inexpressible realization of eternal love, that all consciousness of
sorrow was soon wiped out.
This condition of effacement of all identity, as it were, with sorrow, sin,
and death, seems inseparable from the attainment of liberation, and has
been testified to by all who have recorded their emotions in reaching
this state of consciousness. In other respects, the acquisition of this
supra-consciousness varies greatly with the initiate.
In all instances, there is also an overwhelming conviction of the
transitory character of the external world, and the emptiness of all
man-bestowed honors and riches.
A story is told of the Mohammedan saint Fudail Ibn Tyad, which well
illustrates this. The Caliph Harun-al-Rashid, learning of the extreme
simplicity and asceticism of his life exclaimed, "O, Saint, how great is
thy self-abnegation."

To which the saint made answer: "Thine is greater." "Thou dost but
jest," said the Caliph in wonderment. "Nay, not so, great Caliph,"
replied the saint. "I do but