THE SCALES OF CONSCIOUSNESS

This leads to a discussion of the scales of consciousness, which the ancients used to map out the path of immortality. Each individual soul, including the enlightened soul, may be understood as operating on its own scale of consciousness as determined by its self-conceived ideas of space, time, and motion.

The mystery here arises from the fact that at the moment of enlightenment, awareness expands from point to infinity in an instantaneous flash of pure intuition. Why, then, does the enlightened soul need to expand its range of comprehension? It is already established in unbounded awareness; what more is there?

Insight is provided by the Vedic tradition in which the individual soul was called the jiva and the universal self was called the atman. These represent the point value of consciousness and the infinite value of consciousness, respectively. To realize the infinite self, the pointlike soul must expand to infinity. This is the innate potential of the soul. “The jiva is extremely subtle like the point of a hair divided and subdivided many times, yet it has the potential for infinity. He [the jiva] should be realized [as the atman].”²

Speaking mathematically, point and infinity may be viewed as the absolute limits of the field. When a person becomes enlightened, these two limits are grasped simultaneously and instantaneously in a single flash of pure intuition so that the innate potential of the soul is fulfilled. Yet this realization takes place abstractly on the level of pure intuition alone. We may compare this to remembering someone, but being unable to recall his or her name. You know exactly whom you are thinking of, but a name escapes you, and as a result, you are unable to represent that person on the level of the discursive intellect. It is only when you grasp the name that the intellect rests and the recall becomes complete.

Similarly, the initial flash of pure intuition, which extends from point to infinity, reveals abstractly the infinite landscape of the self. At that point, we come to know directly and intuitively the absolute limits of the field, though we may not grasp fully all the discrete steps that lie in between point and infinity. This kind of full understanding of the field by the discursive intellect requires step-by-step exploration of the full range of scales between point and infinity. We must fill in all the blanks between point and infinity. This involves a journey of pure knowledge over the full spectrum of consciousness.