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<title>The Ladder of Unconsciousness</title>

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<p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center; line-height:150%;margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">&nbsp;</p>
<p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center; line-height:150%;margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<b><font size="4">The Ladder of Unconsciousness</font><o:p></o:p></b></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal align=right style='text-align:right;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><b><i><span
style='font-size:18.0pt'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></i></b></p>

<p class=MsoBodyText style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">CONSCIOUSNESS, the normal consciousness we know, has
various degrees of potency: its familiar form is the rational consciousness or
intellect; then at a higher level, there is the intuitive consciousness and at
a still higher level the visionary consciousness, that is, the consciousness
that sees the Truth, and at the highest, the objectless consciousness,
consciousness in itself or the <span class=SpellE>sachchidananda</span>
consciousness.<span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.0pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Likewise
unconsciousness too has its own various degrees. As consciousness rises up to
higher and higher grades of consciousness, so unconsciousness too descends
into lower and lower grades of unconsciousness. The first degree of
unconsciousness is simple forgetfulness. It is the absence of consciousness,
not the loss of consciousness. The consciousness is there but it is not
apparent or expressed, it is held back for the time. One can recall it; it can
be remembered and brought forward. The abeyance of consciousness, when it
persists, when it amounts to a turn of nature, is <span class=GramE>called</span>
ignorance. Yet ignorance is not the negation of consciousness, it is clouded or
veiled consciousness; it is not that the sun is set and gone but simply that it
is behind the clouds, it is up in the sky but shrouded. This behind-the-veil
consciousness is the subliminal consciousness or simply <span class=SpellE>sub-consciousness</span>.
<span class=SpellE>Sub-consciousness</span> is a consciousness that is not
dormant or asleep, stilled into silence, it is at work but behind the normal
waking state – It is the <i>swapna-state </i>as the Indian sages termed it.
Lower down is the state of unconsciousness proper. It is a still more
diminished degree of consciousness, apparently a total absence of
consciousness, not merely an abeyance or subsidence of <span class=GramE>consciousness,</span>
it is a lack of consciousness. The animal consciousness might be taken as an 
instance or expression of the ignorant consciousness, likewise the plant</p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 321<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span class=GramE>consciousness</span>
parallels the subliminal consciousness – the Indian description of it is <span
class=SpellE><i>antahprajna</i></span><i>. </i>Next to it is the consciousness
in the mineral, it is unconsciousness. By unconsciousness it is meant here
naturally the absence of the mental consciousness: the presence or absence of
consciousness means the presence or absence of the mental consciousness. There
is a generic consciousness, consciousness in itself, or pure consciousness,
which is imbedded in all created things, for creation itself is at bottom a
vibration or pulsation of consciousness <i>(<span class=SpellE>vijnana-vijrmbhanam</span>).
</i>There is a range or rung still further below with a still lesser degree- of
consciousness: it is called the inconscient, which is a totally total, in depth
and in extent, absence of consciousness. In the other degree that is above it,
there is the probability of consciousness in the midst of apparent absence,
here it is reduced almost to nothingness or to just a possibility: for, as I
have said, some consciousness, the presence of <span class=SpellE>Sachchidananda</span>
is always there everywhere in the core of things. Yet there is also an absolute
negation and this has been termed Nescience, it is the zero of things, where
there is no question of possibility or impossibility: it is the final and
definite end, <span class=SpellE><i>sunyam</i></span><i> </i>of the Buddhists,
termed <span class=SpellE><span class=GramE><i>asat</i></span><i> </i>by
the Vedantists.</span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Now,
the curious and most interesting thing is that the end is not the end of
things; for beyond the zero there is the minus sign and what does minus mean? I
t does not mean mere <span class=GramE>negation,</span> it means a reality – a
negative real. It is a moot problem in philosophy – philosophers have
questioned, argued, discussed at length about it – whether negation means only
denial, just the contrary of affirmation. If affirmation means a real, negation
means simply the unreal. It has been declared by competent authorities that
negation, like affirmation, is also a reality but of the opposite sign. We know
in mathematics the minus sign is as real as the plus.</p>


<p class=MsoBodyTextIndent2 style='border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;
padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 15.0pt 0in; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>The minus consciousness is
something like the minus numerical figure. And indeed in its pure and
essential reality, its ultimate, it has or is a figure – a very ominous figure
– It is Death. And as such it becomes an altogether real, living entity, of the
opposite sign as I said. This minus reality stretches downward and goes round
and touches as it were, the back of the Supreme plus reality, 'the Supreme <span
class=SpellE>Consciousnes</span>”. That is the negative infinite, the great
shadow of the Infinite Light.<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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<span style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page
– 322</span></p>

<hr>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:11.25pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none; margin-bottom:0'>The absolute Nescience is the mere reversal of the Supreme Consciousness,
the everlasting <span class=GramE>Nay</span> is the everlasting Yes turned
inside out. Death making a right-about turn is Immortality.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:13.65pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Modern
science speaks of anti-matter and the possibility of a world of anti-matter. A
world of anti-matter seems to be self contradictory if it does not amount to
be an absolute impossibility. The only possibility or plausibility is a world in
which matter and anti-matter co-exist (as actually in the present world), but
the miracle is that they do not cancel or annihilate each other producing an
absolute zero; indeed, the two opposing Clements in their interaction through a
process of continuous creation and destruction carryon the world <i>ad
infinitum</i><span style='mso-bidi-font-style:italic'>.<i> <o:p></o:p></i></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:13.4pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>But
we are more concerned with the mystery of anti - matter which is the ultimate
form of what we have called minus consciousness whose image, as I have said, is
Death. Sri Aurobindo has described in <i>Savitri </i>how Death the unreal or
the negative Being in its ultimate recession turns round and stands face to
face with the Divine in His plenary light and power, merges into it and becomes
one with it, for Death was nothing else than the Divine. Only when ignorance
and unconsciousness (the negation) is thus transformed into its original
essence and reality, it adds to it something, a quality which was not there, so
to say, which is the fruition or summation of its long journey of material
evolution. It is the delight of union, or fusion of two in place of mere unity
– the delight of unity in multiplicity.</p>

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<span style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page
– 323<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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