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 -

much difference of interpretation as to the meaning of mukti, liberation. It sounds paradoxical to state that it is only by giving up all consciousness of self, that immortal Self-hood is gained.

Thus has arisen all the confusion as to the meaning of "absorption into a state of bliss." How may the Self realize a state of selflessness and yet not be lost in a sea of un consciousness?

Only one who is capable of self-sacrifice were he called upon, can correctly answer this question, and by what may be termed the very law of equation, the sacrifice becomes impossible.

Should any one seek to bargain with himself to pay the price of loss of self, so that he might gain the higher, fuller life, his sacrifice would be in vain because it would not be selflessness, but selfishness--there could be no sacrifice, were it a bargain.

Let no one think that this unchanging law of the Cosmos is in the nature of either reward or punishment, or that it was devised by the gods, as a method of initiation--a test of fitness for Nirvana. Even though the test be applied by the gods, it is not of their planning.

It is, just as the absolute is, and analysis of the way and wherefrom is not possible of contemplation.

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