consciousness

• not inherent in matter

9:4.2The ab­so­lute mind is the mind of the Third Per­son; it is in­sep­a­ra­ble from the per­son­al­ity of God the Spirit. Mind, in func­tion­ing be­ings, is not sep­a­rated from en­ergy or spirit, or both. Mind is not in­her­ent in en­ergy; en­ergy is re­cep­tive and re­spon­sive to mind; mind can be super­im­posed upon en­ergy, but con­scious­ness is not in­her­ent in the purely ma­te­rial level. Mind does not have to be added to pure spirit, for spirit is in­nately con­scious and iden­ti­fy­ing. Spirit is al­ways in­tel­li­gent, minded in some way. It may be this mind or that mind, it may be pre­mind or super­mind, even spirit mind, but it does the equiv­a­lent of think­ing and know­ing. The in­sight of spirit tran­scends, super­venes, and the­o­ret­i­cally an­te­dates the con­scious­ness of mind.

• mind endows c. in absence of personality

9:6.3Mind grav­ity can op­er­ate in­de­pen­dently of ma­te­rial and spir­i­tual grav­ity, but wher­ever and when­ever the lat­ter two im­pinge, mind grav­ity al­ways func­tions. When all three are as­so­ci­ated, per­son­al­ity grav­ity may em­brace the ma­te­rial crea­ture—phys­i­cal or mor­ontial, fi­nite or ab­so­nite. But ir­re­spec­tive of this, the en­dow­ment of mind even in im­per­sonal be­ings qual­i­fies them to think and en­dows them with con­scious­ness de­spite the to­tal ab­sence of per­son­al­ity.

• inherent quests for knowledge, morality, spirit, and personality values

16:6.9These sci­en­tific, moral, and spir­i­tual in­sights, these cos­mic re­sponses, are in­nate in the cos­mic mind, which en­dows all will crea­tures. The ex­pe­ri­ence of liv­ing never fails to de­velop these three cos­mic in­tu­itions; they are con­sti­tu­tive in the self-con­scious­ness of re­flec­tive think­ing. But it is sad to re­cord that so few per­sons on Uran­tia take de­light in cul­ti­vat­ing these qual­i­ties of coura­geous and in­de­pen­dent cos­mic think­ing.

• embraces awareness of personality actuality; ability to recognize other personalities; freewill

16:8.6Self-con­scious­ness con­sists in in­tel­lec­tual aware­ness of per­son­al­ity ac­tu­al­ity; it in­cludes the abil­ity to rec­og­nize the re­al­ity of other per­son­al­i­ties. It in­di­cates ca­pac­ity for in­di­vid­u­al­ized ex­pe­ri­ence in and with cos­mic re­al­i­ties, equiv­alat­ing to the at­tain­ment of iden­tity sta­tus in the per­son­al­ity re­la­tion­ships of the uni­verse. Self-con­scious­ness con­notes rec­og­ni­tion of the ac­tu­al­ity of mind min­is­tra­tion and the re­al­iza­tion of rel­a­tive in­de­pen­dence of cre­ative and de­ter­mi­na­tive free will.

• inherent quests for knowledge, morality, spirit, and personality values

16:9.1The cos­mic-mind-en­dowed, Ad­juster-in­dwelt, per­sonal crea­ture pos­sesses in­nate rec­og­ni­tion-re­al­iza­tion of en­ergy re­al­ity, mind re­al­ity, and spirit re­al­ity. The will crea­ture is thus equipped to dis­cern the fact, the law, and the love of God. Aside from these three in­alien­ables of hu­man con­scious­ness, all hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence is re­ally sub­jec­tive ex­cept that in­tu­itive re­al­iza­tion of va­lid­ity at­taches to the uni­fi­ca­tion of these three uni­verse re­al­ity re­sponses of cos­mic rec­og­ni­tion.

16:9.2The God-dis­cern­ing mor­tal is able to sense the uni­fi­ca­tion value of these three cos­mic qual­i­ties in the evo­lu­tion of the sur­viv­ing soul, man’s su­preme un­der­tak­ing in the phys­i­cal taber­na­cle where the moral mind col­lab­o­rates with the in­dwelling di­vine spirit to du­al­ize the im­mor­tal soul. From its ear­li­est in­cep­tion the soul is real; it has cos­mic sur­vival qual­i­ties.

16:9.3If mor­tal man fails to sur­vive nat­u­ral death, the real spir­i­tual val­ues of his hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence sur­vive as a part of the con­tin­u­ing ex­pe­ri­ence of the Thought Ad­juster. The per­son­al­ity val­ues of such a non­sur­vivor per­sist as a fac­tor in the per­son­al­ity of the ac­tu­al­iz­ing Su­preme Be­ing. Such per­sist­ing qual­i­ties of per­son­al­ity are de­prived of iden­tity but not of ex­pe­ri­en­tial val­ues ac­cu­mu­lated dur­ing the mor­tal life in the flesh. The sur­vival of iden­tity is de­pen­dent on the sur­vival of the im­mor­tal soul of mor­ontia sta­tus and in­creas­ingly di­vine value. Per­son­al­ity iden­tity sur­vives in and by the sur­vival of the soul.

• embraces awareness of personality actuality; ability to recognize other personalities; freewill

16:9.4Hu­man self-con­scious­ness im­plies the rec­og­ni­tion of the re­al­ity of selves other than the con­scious self and fur­ther im­plies that such aware­ness is mu­tual; that the self is known as it knows. This is shown in a purely hu­man man­ner in man’s so­cial life. But you can­not be­come so ab­so­lutely cer­tain of a fel­low be­ing’s re­al­ity as you can of the re­al­ity of the pres­ence of God that lives within you. The so­cial con­scious­ness is not in­alien­able like the God-con­scious­ness; it is a cul­tural de­vel­op­ment and is de­pen­dent on knowl­edge, sym­bols, and the con­tri­bu­tions of the con­sti­tu­tive en­dow­ments of man—sci­ence, moral­ity, and re­li­gion. And these cos­mic gifts, so­cial­ized, con­sti­tute civ­i­liza­tion.

16:9.5Civ­i­liza­tions are un­sta­ble be­cause they are not cos­mic; they are not in­nate in the in­di­vid­u­als of the races. They must be nur­tured by the com­bined con­tri­bu­tions of the con­sti­tu­tive fac­tors of man—sci­ence, moral­ity, and re­li­gion. Civ­i­liza­tions come and go, but sci­ence, moral­ity, and re­li­gion al­ways sur­vive the crash.

16:9.6Je­sus not only re­vealed God to man, but he also made a new rev­e­la­tion of man to him­self and to other men. In the life of Je­sus you see man at his best. Man thus be­comes so beau­ti­fully real be­cause Je­sus had so much of God in his life, and the re­al­iza­tion (rec­og­ni­tion) of God is in­alien­able and con­sti­tu­tive in all men.

• self-consciousness › dependent on innate other-awareness

16:9.7Un­selfish­ness, aside from pa­ren­tal in­stinct, is not al­to­gether nat­u­ral; other per­sons are not nat­u­rally loved or so­cially served. It re­quires the en­light­en­ment of rea­son, moral­ity, and the urge of re­li­gion, God-know­ing­ness, to gen­er­ate an un­selfish and al­tru­is­tic so­cial or­der. Man’s own per­son­al­ity aware­ness, self-con­scious­ness, is also di­rectly de­pen­dent on this very fact of in­nate other-aware­ness, this in­nate abil­ity to rec­og­nize and grasp the re­al­ity of other per­son­al­ity, rang­ing from the hu­man to the di­vine.

16:9.8Un­selfish so­cial con­scious­ness must be, at bot­tom, a re­li­gious con­scious­ness; that is, if it is ob­jec­tive; oth­er­wise it is a purely sub­jec­tive philo­sophic ab­strac­tion and there­fore de­void of love. Only a God-know­ing in­di­vid­ual can love an­other per­son as he loves him­self.

• inherent quests for knowledge, morality, spirit, and personality values

16:9.9Self-con­scious­ness is in essence a com­mu­nal con­scious­ness: God and man, Fa­ther and son, Cre­ator and crea­ture. In hu­man self-con­scious­ness four uni­verse-re­al­ity re­al­iza­tions are la­tent and in­her­ent:

16:9.101. The quest for knowl­edge, the logic of sci­ence.

16:9.112. The quest for moral val­ues, the sense of duty.

16:9.123. The quest for spir­i­tual val­ues, the re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence.

16:9.134. The quest for per­son­al­ity val­ues, the abil­ity to rec­og­nize the re­al­ity of God as a per­son­al­ity and the con­cur­rent re­al­iza­tion of our fra­ter­nal re­la­tion­ship with fel­low per­son­al­i­ties.

16:9.14You be­come con­scious of man as your crea­ture brother be­cause you are al­ready con­scious of God as your Cre­ator Fa­ther. Fa­ther­hood is the re­la­tion­ship out of which we rea­son our­selves into the rec­og­ni­tion of broth­er­hood. And Fa­ther­hood be­comes, or may be­come, a uni­verse re­al­ity to all moral crea­tures be­cause the Fa­ther has him­self be­stowed per­son­al­ity upon all such be­ings and has en­cir­cuited them within the grasp of the uni­ver­sal per­son­al­ity cir­cuit. We wor­ship God, first, be­cause he is, then, be­cause he is in us, and last, be­cause we are in him.

16:9.15Is it strange that the cos­mic mind should be self-con­sciously aware of its own source, the in­fi­nite mind of the In­fi­nite Spirit, and at the same time con­scious of the phys­i­cal re­al­ity of the far-flung uni­verses, the spir­i­tual re­al­ity of the Eter­nal Son, and the per­son­al­ity re­al­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther?

16:9.16[Spon­sored by a Uni­ver­sal Cen­sor from Uversa.]

• self-consciousness › can jeopardize reception of some spiritual truth

19:5.9We know that the Trin­ity Teacher Sons are de­voted to the con­scious en­light­en­ment of uni­verse crea­tures. I have ar­rived at the set­tled con­clu­sion that the In­spired Trin­ity Spir­its, by super­con­scious tech­niques, are also func­tion­ing as teach­ers of the realms. I am per­suaded that there is a vast body of es­sen­tial spir­i­tual knowl­edge, truth in­dis­pens­able to high spir­i­tual at­tain­ment, which can­not be con­sciously re­ceived; self-con­scious­ness would ef­fec­tively jeop­ar­dize the cer­tainty of re­cep­tion. If we are right in this con­cept, and my en­tire or­der of be­ing shares it, it may be the mis­sion of these In­spired Spir­its to over­come this dif­fi­culty, to bridge this gap in the uni­ver­sal scheme of moral en­light­en­ment and spir­i­tual ad­vance­ment. We think that these two types of Trin­ity-ori­gin teach­ers ef­fect some kind of li­ai­son in their ac­tiv­i­ties, but we do not re­ally know.

• freedom to choose only exists within realm of one’s

34:3.8When a Cre­ative Spirit be­comes “space con­scious,” she is prepar­ing to rec­og­nize a cir­cum­scribed “space do­main” as hers, a realm in which to be space free in con­tradis­tinc­tion to all other space by which she would be con­di­tioned. One is free to choose and act only within the realm of one’s con­scious­ness.

• most primitive c. is accumulation of protoplasmic memory material

101:6.4The evo­lu­tion­ary type of knowl­edge is but the ac­cu­mu­la­tion of pro­to­plas­mic mem­ory ma­te­rial; this is the most prim­i­tive form of crea­ture con­scious­ness. Wis­dom em­braces the ideas for­mu­lated from pro­to­plas­mic mem­ory in pro­cess of as­so­ci­a­tion and re­com­bi­na­tion, and such phe­nom­ena dif­fer­en­ti­ate hu­man mind from mere an­i­mal mind. An­i­mals have knowl­edge, but only man pos­sesses wis­dom ca­pac­ity. Truth is made ac­ces­si­ble to the wis­dom-en­dowed in­di­vid­ual by the be­stowal on such a mind of the spir­its of the Fa­ther and the Sons, the Thought Ad­juster and the Spirit of Truth.

• resides in adjutant mind-spirits

102:2.5Even the dis­cov­er­ies of sci­ence are not truly real in the con­scious­ness of hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence un­til they are un­rav­eled and cor­re­lated, un­til their rel­e­vant facts ac­tu­ally be­come mean­ing through en­cir­cuit­ment in the thought streams of mind. Mor­tal man views even his phys­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment from the mind level, from the per­spec­tive of its psy­cho­log­i­cal reg­istry. It is not, there­fore, strange that man should place a highly uni­fied in­ter­pre­ta­tion upon the uni­verse and then seek to iden­tify this en­ergy unity of his sci­ence with the spirit unity of his re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence. Mind is unity; mor­tal con­scious­ness lives on the mind level and per­ceives the uni­ver­sal re­al­i­ties through the eyes of the mind en­dow­ment. The mind per­spec­tive will not yield the ex­is­ten­tial unity of the source of re­al­ity, the First Source and Cen­ter, but it can and some­time will por­tray to man the ex­pe­ri­en­tial syn­the­sis of en­ergy, mind, and spirit in and as the Su­preme Be­ing. But mind can never suc­ceed in this uni­fi­ca­tion of the di­ver­sity of re­al­ity un­less such mind is firmly aware of ma­te­rial things, in­tel­lec­tual mean­ings, and spir­i­tual val­ues; only in the har­mony of the tri­unity of func­tional re­al­ity is there unity, and only in unity is there the per­son­al­ity sat­is­fac­tion of the re­al­iza­tion of cos­mic con­stancy and con­sis­tency.

• trust Adjusters for all matters beyond dead level of c.

110:4.4Trust all mat­ters of mind be­yond the dead level of con­scious­ness to the cus­tody of the Ad­justers. In due time, if not in this world then on the man­sion worlds, they will give good ac­count of their stew­ard­ship, and even­tu­ally will they bring forth those mean­ings and val­ues in­trusted to their care and keep­ing. They will res­ur­rect ev­ery wor­thy trea­sure of the mor­tal mind if you sur­vive.

• rests gently upon electrochemical mechanism below and spirit-morontia system above

111:1.5Mor­tal mind is a tem­po­rary in­tel­lect sys­tem loaned to hu­man be­ings for use dur­ing a ma­te­rial life­time, and as they use this mind, they are ei­ther ac­cept­ing or re­ject­ing the po­ten­tial of eter­nal ex­is­tence. Mind is about all you have of uni­verse re­al­ity that is sub­ject to your will, and the soul—the mor­ontia self—will faith­fully por­tray the har­vest of the tem­po­ral de­ci­sions which the mor­tal self is mak­ing. Hu­man con­scious­ness rests gen­tly upon the elec­tro­chem­i­cal mech­a­nism be­low and del­i­cately touches the spirit-mor­ontia en­ergy sys­tem above. Of nei­ther of these two sys­tems is the hu­man be­ing ever com­pletely con­scious in his mor­tal life; there­fore must he work in mind, of which he is con­scious. And it is not so much what mind com­pre­hends as what mind de­sires to com­pre­hend that in­sures sur­vival; it is not so much what mind is like as what mind is striv­ing to be like that con­sti­tutes spirit iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. It is not so much that man is con­scious of God as that man yearns for God that re­sults in uni­verse as­cen­sion. What you are to­day is not so im­por­tant as what you are be­com­ing day by day and in eter­nity.

• cannot be explained by electronic association

112:2.10There ex­ists a great cos­mic gulf be­tween mat­ter and thought, and this gulf is im­mea­sur­ably greater be­tween ma­te­rial mind and spir­i­tual love. Con­scious­ness, much less self-con­scious­ness, can­not be ex­plained by any the­ory of mech­a­nis­tic elec­tronic as­so­ci­a­tion or ma­te­ri­al­is­tic en­ergy phe­nom­ena.

• Supreme is living way to transcendence of c.

117:3.3Said Je­sus: “I am the liv­ing way,” and so he is the liv­ing way from the ma­te­rial level of self-con­scious­ness to the spir­i­tual level of God-con­scious­ness. And even as he is this liv­ing way of as­cen­sion from the self to God, so is the Su­preme the liv­ing way from fi­nite con­scious­ness to tran­scen­dence of con­scious­ness, even to the in­sight of ab­sonity.

• resides in adjutant mind-spirits

117:5.7The great cir­cuits of en­ergy, mind, and spirit are never the per­ma­nent pos­ses­sions of as­cend­ing per­son­al­ity; these min­istries re­main for­ever a part of Su­prem­acy. In the mor­tal ex­pe­ri­ence the hu­man in­tel­lect re­sides in the rhyth­mic pul­sa­tions of the ad­ju­tant mind-spir­its and ef­fects its de­ci­sions within the arena pro­duced by en­cir­cuit­ment within this min­istry. Upon mor­tal death the hu­man self is ev­er­last­ingly di­vorced from the ad­ju­tant cir­cuit. While these ad­ju­tants never seem to trans­mit ex­pe­ri­ence from one per­son­al­ity to an­other, they can and do trans­mit the im­per­sonal reper­cus­sions of de­ci­sion-ac­tion through God the Sev­en­fold to God the Su­preme. (At least this is true of the ad­ju­tants of wor­ship and wis­dom.)

• proceeds from fact to meaning to value

118:5.3Mor­tal con­scious­ness pro­ceeds from the fact, to the mean­ing, and then to the value. Cre­ator con­scious­ness pro­ceeds from the thought-value, through the word-mean­ing, to the fact of ac­tion. Al­ways must God act to break the dead­lock of the un­qual­i­fied unity in­her­ent in ex­is­ten­tial in­fin­ity. Al­ways must De­ity pro­vide the pat­tern uni­verse, the per­fect per­son­al­i­ties, the orig­i­nal truth, beauty, and good­ness for which all sub­de­ity cre­ations strive. Al­ways must God first find man that man may later find God. Al­ways must there be a Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther be­fore there can ever be uni­ver­sal son­ship and con­se­quent uni­ver­sal broth­er­hood.

• self-consciousness › is not the soul

133:6.5“The soul is the self-re­flec­tive, truth-dis­cern­ing, and spirit-per­ceiv­ing part of man which for­ever el­e­vates the hu­man be­ing above the level of the an­i­mal world. Self-con­scious­ness, in and of it­self, is not the soul. Moral self-con­scious­ness is true hu­man self-re­al­iza­tion and con­sti­tutes the foun­da­tion of the hu­man soul, and the soul is that part of man which rep­re­sents the po­ten­tial sur­vival value of hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence. Moral choice and spir­i­tual at­tain­ment, the abil­ity to know God and the urge to be like him, are the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the soul. The soul of man can­not ex­ist apart from moral think­ing and spir­i­tual ac­tiv­ity. A stag­nant soul is a dy­ing soul. But the soul of man is dis­tinct from the di­vine spirit which dwells within the mind. The di­vine spirit ar­rives si­mul­ta­ne­ously with the first moral ac­tiv­ity of the hu­man mind, and that is the oc­ca­sion of the birth of the soul.