Cosmic Consciousness by Richard Maurice Bucke - Read the Complete Text for free at NewThoughtLibrary.com

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Richard Maurice Bucke's

Cosmic Consciousness

Book page numbers, along with the number to the left of the .htm extension match the page numbers of the original books to ensure easy use in citations for research papers and books

Self and Symbol - Argument - The New Birth / What It Is - Man's Relations to God and His Fellow Men - Areas of Consciousness - Self-ness / Selflessness - Instances of Illumnination and its After Effects - Examples of Cosmic Consciousness - Moses, the Law-Giver - Gautama, the Compassionate - Jesus of Nazareth - Paul of Tarsus - Mohammed - Emanuel Swedenborg - Emerson, Tolstoi, Balzac - Tolstoi - Balzac - Illumination as Expressed In the Poetical Temperament - Methods of Attainment: The Way of Illumination - Contents -

true lover of nature feels in the out-of-doors, he might well say "I trust that I shall never attain to that state of consciousness. Or if attainment be compulsory, then shall I prolong the time of accomplishment as long as possible."

And who would blame him? Why should we strive for the attainment of a state of being described so unattractively as to give us the impression of entire loss of so enjoyable and unselfish a sensation as love of nature?

The Vedantic idea, according to interpreted translations is that out of The Absolute, the All (Om), we come, and therefore back to it we go, being now in our present state of consciousness, en route, as it were to return.

But returning to what? That is the unanswerable problem of all religions; all philosophies; all science. If we return to a void, such as some interpreters of the Vedas declare, then surely this urge within mankind toward this annihilatory state would hardly be expected. It would be inconsistent with that instinct of self-preservation which we are told is the first law of nature.

Compared to this Vedantic concept of the Absolute, the Christian's simple, and very empirical ideal of eternal happiness is preferable.

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