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This is season two, episode eight, Beyond Intellect: Neville's Living Consciousness. 

While modern thinkers define consciousness through intellect and attention, Neville aligns with the esoteric tradition. Consciousness is a direct living experience that transcends thought itself. 

Now, in the last episode we reviewed concepts of consciousness first starting with the colloquial notion used in common parlance, and then the philosophical and psychological definitions drawing from eminent authorities C.G. Jung and Bernardo Kastrup. Bernardo's presentation of analytic idealism did help us make sense of both a mental universe and a universal consciousness that is fragmented into vast humanity. So to that extent he did help our conceptualization of Neville's worldview. But on the question of the experience itself, of consciousness, we have to part ways with Bernardo. 

Now, you may have been surprised to see that these two authorities, at least as far as I can determine, how do I know I can't get into their minds. But as far as what I can tell from what they say and what they write, their notions of consciousness are clearly limited to the functions of intellectual. They have learned but limited understandings of consciousness, characterized by a dictionary definition of apperception: “ introspective self consciousness or mental perception, especially the process of understanding something perceived in terms of previous experience.” 

Alright, so by his own admission, Kastrup, on a podcast that I had heard, says something to the effect, well, I'm not an enlightened being, so that's fine. He's a perfectly modest person and none of my complaint here is any sort of value judgment. I'm simply trying to point out that neither of these two authorities, Kastrup or Jung, is reaching the essential point. 

Jung, despite his stature, has no mention that I've read or apparently that Kastrup could find in his collected works of personal consciousness beyond the rather pedestrian thought: “I know that I have thoughts, I know that I have emotions.” Now Jung, for his part, says there's a world of difference between ‘I do this’ and ‘I am conscious of doing this’. Well, there may be a world of difference, but I'm not sure what he means because there's no further description. 

And back to Kastrup. Well, he tries to refine this idea, this experience of consciousness, by drawing the reader's attention to his own breathing in the moment. 

Okay, well, as it stands, then I have to say no, in both cases, they're simply talking about focused attention, and that is not the notion of consciousness that we're driving at. 

I've really tried to give the benefit of the doubt to modern science by first of all examining the contemporary concept of ‘mindfulness’. But no, we saw in the definitions for that that it's simply the same idea of apperception. And even watching intently someone like Dean Radin, who is presenting the noetic sciences. Well, no, the results are still stuck in dualism, mind and matter, apperception and, at best, focused attention. 

In the last episode I suggested that it's necessary to at least entertain the idea that there's a qualitative shift in human thinking going from ordinary life to esoteric sources. It's necessary to make this qualitative shift to consult sources that can really only be called esoteric. They come from outside the normal mainstream of life. 

While I did quote those sources briefly and give you an idea of the exercises, I'm asking you, the listener, to access and engage quietly with those sources directly, because my intermediation, me summarizing or reading the exercises and so on will only mar the experience for you. You must have it directly.

So go to the show notes and there you'll find all the references. 

Well, I can't help myself. I have to give you one more quote because when I talked about focused attention, you know, I didn't even really use the right word. I should have said ‘fascination’. And Rodney Collin gives a lengthy, detailed, and just brilliant expose on what self remembering is all about. 

You will come to an understanding as to the distinction between fascination, which is the normal state of affairs even when you're doing productive work; to divided attention, which is the next step; to finally a full blown concept of self remembering. I really urge you to get that book, the Theory of Celestial Influence, and read that chapter, Human Psychology, and get the full benefit of the understanding of consciousness in the sense in which I'm trying to put across. 

So here's a very brief quote: 

“Fascination is the most usual of all the ways of expending the fine matter of man's creative energy. It constitutes, in fact, man's usual state and for this very reason is completely unrecognized... For the finer and more productive kinds of human work, a man learns by the use of attention to keep this fascination in a certain direction. For example, a good shoemaker remains for an hour fascinated by the making of a pair of shoes. Without this most elementary holding of attention in one direction, no good work of any kind, even the most simple can be produced”(~Rodney Collin, Theory of Celestial Influence).

All right, the argument goes on from there. In my experience, you will not find better information to elevate and clarify your whole understanding and practice of awareness of being -- personal consciousness. 

Well, in the rest of this podcast episode, what I want to do is look at some of the remarks that Neville makes with regard to consciousness and see how it relates to what we've learned. You've probably noticed that in going from one author to the next, from one school of thought to the next, it's very difficult to keep the language straight because people's definitions keep changing. So in this regard, keep in mind that when Neville uses the word consciousness, he could be using it to be equivalent with what he calls the imagination, in other words, the human psyche. Then again, he could be using the word consciousness in terms of a personal experience of awareness of being, and he also uses it in the universal sense. That is encapsulated in the biblical quotes: “I and my father are one” but “my father is greater than I.” In other words, I'm aware of myself in a certain conditioned state as a person, but the faculty of awareness is greater than my conditioned state. 

We'll listen to some of these quotes from Your Faith is Your Fortune. Now, Neville wrote this when he was 36 years old. It was published in 1941. Let's first of all connect Neville's instructions with the sources that I have already quoted. I can't say that Neville's instructions are substantially different. He says, “To accomplish this seemingly impossible feat, you take your attention away from your problem and place it upon just being. You say silently but feelingly, I am. Do not condition this awareness, but continue declaring quietly, I am. I am. Simply feel that you are faceless and formless and continue to do so until you feel yourself floating.” 

This is very similar to, for example, Rolf Alexander's instructions, except that he (Alexander)encourages you to leave behind the words and “launch” your consciousness into realization. 

To continue with Neville's quote: “Floating is a psychological state which completely denies the physical. Through practice in relaxation and willfully refusing to react to sensory impressions, it is possible to develop a state of consciousness of pure receptivity.” 

So that's an excerpt that shows you that Neville does give instruction on how to achieve awareness of being consciousness in the moment. And now let's take a look at some quotes that show the consequences of that. 

“If man were Less bound by orthodoxy and more intuitively observant, he could not fail to notice in the reading of the Bible that the awareness of being is revealed hundreds of times throughout this literature. To name a few: “I am hath sent me unto you.”... 

Notice how that's taken psychologically. It's a conversation between God and Moses. It's a conversation between two parts of one person, one psyche. And the awareness of being says, I am hath sent me unto you. In other words, it is the consciousness that sends oneself into expression. 

Here's another: “Be still and know that I am God.” In other words, you have to quiet the mind. You have to invoke the sense of self remembering, self awareness, to realize consciousness, apart from thinking, feeling, sensing, 

Neville says, “Without effort or the use of words, at every moment of time, man is commanding himself to be and to possess that which he is conscious of, being and possessing.” So my understanding of that is that we have to recognize that mind is the medium in which we live and move and have our being. It's a relentless drive belt existence. That is, whatever you are conscious of, being is instantly manifest as your physical body, your physical circumstances, your surrounding situation. 

Okay, how about this one?: “I am the beginning and the end. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” What does that mean? It means that the consciousness of a certain state contains, in that one instant, the entirety of that state - its causal beginning, its expression, its attitudes, its emotions, its experiences, and its end. The whole thing is contained in one eternal moment that you invoke through consciousness.

So that's what happens when you appropriate the state of the wish fulfilled. You invoke the whole broad condition of being in the present moment. 

In Neville's conception, your desires flow automatically and naturally from the state in which you find yourself. And to move beyond that state, you simply follow your desire to realize some greater, grander aspect [concept] of yourself. “I dwell within every conception of myself, and from this withinness I ever seek to transcend all conceptions of myself. By the very law of my being, I transcend my conceptions of myself.” 

Now notice this point here. This is an interesting nuance that he introduces: “I transcend my conceptions of myself only as I believe myself to be that which does transcend.” In other words, you have to have awareness of being; you have to have an idea of this concept of transcending yourself and believe that for it to actually take place. 

Here's a continuation from the same chapter: ”If man would give up his belief in a God apart from himself, recognize his awareness of being to be God (this awareness fashions itself in the likeness and image of its conception of itself) he would transform his world from a barren waste to a fertile field of his own liking. The day man does this, he will know that he and his father are one, but his Father is greater than he. He will know that his consciousness of being is one with that which he is conscious of being, but that his unconditioned consciousness of being is greater than his conditioned state or his conception of himself.” 

As I said, that was published back in 1941. It must have taken an extraordinary amount of courage to publish that and to stand on a public platform and speak those words at that time. And yet today, how much has changed? I would say very few people on a spiritual path today conceive of themselves as being an identity with the creative source, with God. That is still an audacious, blasphemous concept. 

An summary then, what we did in today's episode was to cover the concepts of consciousness which we had already discussed in detail in the previous episode. But I thought it was worthwhile to go over the material once again, just to make it crystal clear that I'm pointing to an experience that goes beyond scientific knowledge, it goes beyond official knowledge, and it goes to esoteric knowledge. 

You really have to get to the point where you explore those sources. Go [to the show notes or] back to the previous episode and check the show notes for those citations and, and get the books, read through them and do the exercises! It's only in the personal connection with that material that you're really going to get the idea. And that will stand you in good stead for everything – for studying the rest of Neville's material and your spiritual well being. 

Then we turned our attention to quotes from Neville showing that he actually did give instructions on awareness of being, very much aligned with the explanations and exercises given by Ouspensky, Gurdjieff, Rolf Alexander and Rodney Collin. And then I quoted a little bit from Rodney Collin himself, who gives a particularly brilliant and detailed exposition on self remembering. 

Finally, we looked at a series of quotes from Neville, Your Faith is Your Fortune, to develop and expand on the idea of... consciousness, in which we live and move and have our being.