Time is just the same measurement of space as is length, breadth and height. It may be said that a certain grouping of physical phenomena forces us to assume the presence of the phenomena of life. The neophyte’s first ordeal. In his opinion “simple consciousness” characterizes an animal and “self-consciousness” characterizes a man. But certain groups of sensations force us to assume in certain groups of physical phenomena the presence of the phenomena of life. This idea afforded Newton the possibility of building his theory of fluents and fluxions.Newton came to the conclusion that constant quantities do not exist in nature. Ouspensky, [1922], at sacred-texts.comRationality and life. . . The object perceived would be a something different from the mind perceiving it. . The possession of self-consciousness and language (its other self) by man creates an enormous gap between him and the highest creature possessing simple consciousness merely.Cosmic Consciousness is a third form, which is as far above Self Consciousness as is that above Simple Consciousness. The one-dimensional being. Our usual psychic life proceeds upon some definite plane (of consciousness or matter) and never rises above it. . The bankruptcy of materialism, i.e., “logical” systems, when it comes to organizing life on earth is now evident in the bloody epoch which we are undergoing, even to those men who but yesterday were prating of “culture” and “civilization.” It became clearer and clearer that the changes in the outer life of the majority, when these changes come, will do so as a result of inner changes in a few.We may say further with regard to Dr. Bucke’s entire book, that touching the idea of the natural growth of consciousness, he does not notice that these faculties do not unfold themselves perforce: conscious work on them is necessary. He is all humanity, man as the “species”–Homo Sapiens, but at the same time possessing the characteristics, peculiarities and individual ear-marks of all separate men. An age of great inspiration and unconscious productiveness is invariably followed by an age of criticism and consciousness. Instinctive actions, on the other hand, are developed during the life-periods of the species, and the aptitude for them is transmitted in a definite manner by heredity. And he does not dwell at all on conscious efforts in this direction, on the idea of the culture of cosmic consciousness. A change of consciousness can alone be a guarantee of the surcease of wilful misuses of the powers given by culture, and only thus will culture cease to be a “growth of barbarity.” Democratic organization and the nominal rule of the majority guarantee nothing: on the contrary, even now, where they are realized–though only in name–they create without delay, and promise in future to create on a larger scale, violence toward the minority, the limitation of the individual, and the curtailment of freedom.2. But, as has been shown by certain philosophical theories, it is impossible to establish strictly objectively, the presence of consciousness other than our own. If men would only understand this, even with a part of their consciousness, a new world would open, and to look on life from all our usual angles would become very strange.For then they would understand that love is something else, and of quite a different order from the petty phenomena of earthly life.Perhaps love is a world of strange spirits who at times take up their abode in men, subduing them to themselves, making them tools for the accomplishment of their inscrutable purposes. The letter of a Hindu occultist. In an infinite series it will certainly become its own opposite.Hegel has given utterance to this last thought: “Every idea, extended into infinity, becomes its own opposite.”In this change of meaning is contained the cause of the incomprehensibilityto man of the noumenal world.
We assume that logic is one, that our logic is something absolute, existing outside and independent of us, while as a matter of fact, logic but formulates the laws of the relations of our psyche to the outside world, or the laws which our psyche discovers in the outside world. Intellect and emotions. The conclusion that animals have no concepts we deduced from the fact that they have no speech. Modern physics assumes electro-magnetic phenomena as the basis of all physical phenomena. It is decreed that we live “so”–that we “simply live” thinking of nothing or thinking only on that which yields a solution–on the surface at least. The angles and curves of the fourth dimension in our life. The means or instrument of the first is sense; of the second dialectic; of the third intuition. Others say that the meaning of life is in the approach to non-existence: still others, that the meaning of life is in the perfection of the race, in the organization of life on earth; while there are those who deny the possibility of even attempting to know its meaning.The fault of all these explanations consists in the fact that they all attempt to discover the meaning of life outside of itself, either in the future of humanity, or in some problematical existence beyond the grave, or again in the evolution of the Ego throughout many successive incarnations–always in something outside of the present life of man.