States of Physical Consciousness
There are many states of consciousness that rule our lives and with each ruling state comes a system of laws that must be adhered to whether we like it or not. You may break the laws but not without consequence. The reason it is so hard to understand God and Truth in the physical and material consciousness is because any other state of consciousness other than the spiritual consciousness is false and not without error – distorted.
In false consciousness there are three (3) main states of physical consciousness which opens up a plethora of interpretations of the Truth. Collectively they can be referred to as the Carnal-mind.
1. Personal Consciousness – in this consciousness the mind is filled with selfish and limited ideas.
2. Sense or Serpent Consciousness – in this consciousness the mind believes and acts through the senses or through sensation.
3. Material Consciousness – is a state of mind based upon belief in the reality of materiality, or things as they appear.
These three (3) states of false consciousness are seen in the meeting of Eve and the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. Eve represents man’s negative thought-forms. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil for Eve was personal, sensual and material – Carnal. Carnal is relating to physical, especially sexual needs and activities.
The Serpent in the tree represents Sense-consciousness. It was Eve’s sensual attraction to the material and physical experience (tree of knowledge) that led her to entertain the idea of being god-like and the lure of the “untouchable” was too hard to resist. It was also desirable and pleasing to her eye. The tree also had its personal appeal. To eat of this tree (partake in materiality) would open one’s eyes and they would be like God knowing both good and evil. The tree also had its material connection. It was good for food.
Let me again clarify what is being said. It was the Like-minds thought-forms that were attracted by a physical experience and thus partook of materiality. The story of Adam and Eve is a representation of this happening.
Before the tree incident Adam and Eve only new good. Knowing bad or evil would not make them like God because God does not know evil. Bad or evil is imperfection and God is perfect. It makes more sense to say that at the time Adam and Eve only new Spirit or God. Partaking in material thought and physical consciousness would allow them to experience what is not God – materiality, falsehood, error and sin.
Eve’s partaking or eating the forbidden fruit (false-consciousness) is the first indication of the Like-mind going in a direction away from its source of being of perfection – the Christ. To “eat of” means to partake or “join in” something, in this case the participation in the physical or the seen – matter. In general, matter is physical substance (understanding) which is distinct from mind and spirit.
The Like-minds thought-forms began to enmesh themselves into matter. Thus, matter was impregnated with spiritual consciousness. Again, this is considered to be spiritual adultery. The Like-mind was uniting with something that is different from mind and spirit. To join-in with matter the Like-mind had to take on a new consciousness or understanding. This new consciousness is the Law of Confusion (1st Distortion) or the lack of understanding (lack of substance). This is the state of being uncertain. Lack of substance is the quality or state of being empty, pointless, or shallow. It is having no solid basis in reality, fact or the truth. This is the material or worldly experience – empty and pointless.
In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus tells his disciples whoever has found the world has only found a corpse (Gospel of Thomas v.56) The one who understands themself will recognize that they are far greater than the world and that the world is not good enough for one of God’s children.
Consciousness is to be aware of one’s surroundings. Spirit-consciousness is the awareness of the spiritual plane, the unseen or heaven and sense-consciousness is the awareness of the physical plane, the seen or earth. The Like-mind had to take on sense-consciousness or animal-consciousnesses to be able to take part in matter.
In reality, the Like-mind was partaking of the after effect of its primary action or false spiritual thought. To put it more clearly, it’s like enjoying the shadow of an object, let’s say a tree, instead of enjoying the tree itself and thinking that the shadow of the tree is the real tree. The Like-mind is existing or partaking of the expression of false ideas rather than partaking of true ideas.
Man is living in his own shadow rather than living in his light. Man is living in his darkness or his slumber and not living in his awakened state. Man is living in his recycled self, living over and over again until he finds substance (understanding) within himself. Because of the material appeal it may take man many lifetimes to realize his true identity.
The physical, including matter, is the result of spiritual ideas – Law of Mind Action. The Like-mind partaking in the physical is uniting with past thinking – after effect. Man is literally living in the past. It was never God’s intention for his children to be afterthoughts. This is why the world seems to keep repeating itself. Through sense-consciousness there is no new ideas only recycled ones. As King Solomon said, there is nothing new under the sun.