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[Olivia]

I am taking an academic class named “Christian Mysticism” in a college. One of the text books is “Mysticism” written by Evelyn Underhill. We were required to write a short reflection paper on the chapters we read every week accordingly. So far, I have written 4 papers. And I would like to share them here because every paper is related to Pangu Shengong philosophy. I would love to hear your feedback or thoughts on the topic.

Here is the first paper I wanted to share:

"Underhill says in this chapter, “We have said that this consciousness in its full development seems to be extended not in one but in two directions.” According to my understanding, she means that consciousness will be developed both outwardly and inwardly. At the same time when we develop more awareness to the outside world, we also gain more knowledge about the world inside our souls. The development of consciousness is both eternal and temporal. The eternal development consists of many tiny temporal growths; and sometime, a few significant temporal occurrences trigger and strengthen the eternal development of our consciousness. In addition, the Truth is not always absolute, it is dynamic. In other words, the Truth has different levels: it can be absolute true in one level yet not so in another level; it is relative. As our consciousness develops, we will be more aware of it and have deeper understanding on it. And the absolute and dynamic features are embedded in our consciousness development. In a nutshell, these two directions are not contradicted with each other but complement to each other, leading to a deeper understanding and a higher synthesis.

I do have experience of this kind of “complementary forms of perception” in my own spiritual development. In the New Year of 2010, my father (Master Ou) gave an important talk to his senior students about the orientation of heart-soul and how to love and be loved. He used cooking as an example to explain this profound topic. How to cook a dish well and then cook every dish well? The first step is to figure out your “orientation of heart-soul”. In other words, it is to ask yourself whether you are willing to cook this dish or not. Because of being lazy and coveting convenience, we may find ourselves a lot of excuses for no cooking; however, we do not consider this action indicates our disrespect to our physiological functions. Moreover, when we live with others, this action indicates we don’t have enough love and care to others. Therefore, when we choose to cook a dish, we in fact choose the direction of being kind to ourselves and to our family members. I was deeply amazed and persuaded as I was translating for him to the audience. It would be, however, only an outwardly transcendent development of my consciousness unless I literally apply this apprehension into practice. I did start to cook more with this “intellectual” consciousness. The process of doing it, and the feedback that I get from my body and others—those who enjoy my cooking, internalize and eternalize the “intellectual” consciousness. Thus, a higher synthesis forms.
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[Richard]

  Thank you Olivia for your sharing understanding! That's a good topic. I agree with you that consciousness develops outwardly and inwardly. Once our inward accpets something from outward, then we would react to the "future coming things" according to our inward, or say subconsciousness?

  It's a great explanation about that the development of consciousness is both  eternal and temporal. I suddently think of the examples, please look:

 From the matter aspect, "living is the foundation for human", while from the spirit aspect, "love" is always the most important thing in our life (we love to hear "Love is Externity"  : ), so these two are the eternal in our consciousness?
 
 As the temporal, can we say some of our characters  or moral standards are related?


 To the Truth, this is like a Wholeness, including various parts; while the Parts would effect the wholeness as the time grows and the things develop. Of course, we "wish" that the parts will bring a more perfect wholeness : )

 

[Saber]

In Christian mystical terms, sometimes development of consciousness is described as the Christ Consciousness, the inner is the basis of the external perceptions. For the mystical Christian, it seems that over time the Christ Consciousness pervades personal perception to the point that one sees all as infinite Christ Consciousness.  Other traditions have a similar paradigm.  Studying meditation for many years, the Upanishads speak of multiple levels of consciousness, beginning with simple waking, dreaming, and sleeping.  The practitioner of meditation/yoga  then develops a personal transcendental state, then an awareness of the transcendental state grows in all his life, and finally realization develops that the transcendent “self” is really the entire universal consciousness.  In each stage of development of consciousness, the experience of the world differs, i.e. the truth is different in the different states of consciousness.  On one level there are all the differences that the senses perceive, but on another the unity of consciousness is the prevailing reality.  These states of consciousness apparently exist due to the subjective perception of the observer. 

When Master Ou says that the Path of Life goes on forever, I think he is implying a similar developmental model.  We practice some internal qigong, then we act differently in the world; then we practice more, and eventually as our state of consciousness develops, we express more compassion.  After some time, we perceive greater compassion in the world and universe.  Of course it must have been there all the time, but now we notice it because our consciousness is attuned to it.  Here is a small example from the Path of Life (English edition p. 142).  I had read the following lines without much reaction several times: “Yes: very soon extraordinary scenes appeared from all directions in succession. The north seemed an expanse of white snow, while the south was all bright red; the east was surging with rows of waves (later described as lakes), and the west looked like the green ocean.”  As his vision allows him to look more closely, he perceives immortal fruit, and finally, “the earth was in the sky, and the sky was on the earth!”  It seems that consciousness went from personal to divine, to infinite.  As pleasurable as the description is, I now think that the colors and cardinal points are significant on another level. The ancient seers saw all in terms of the divine connections, even the colors and directions had a divine quality.  Before practicing PanGu Shengong, I learned many of these things, but now, I am beginning to feel them.  For that I am most grateful to Master Ou.  Now, lets go and cook something!

[rtexpress357]

I am often reminded by my memory of my AA sponsor regarding cooking (or doing any task for that matter):
"If you're doing it with resentment in your heart, don't do it at all". That's a real good rule of thumb for me.