Please explain to me what is meant by Cosmic Consciousness.

It is a state of consciousness in which you are aware that God is all that there is, and what
is more, that He is the link that connects all individuals. God is the Consciousness that illumines
the entire creation. Realization of this Consciousness or God liberates one from bondage to
passing phenomena, from the illusion of names and forms. This is the state of God-realization or
Self-realization.
After God-realization, the individual is completely merged in the Cosmic Consciousness
or God. It is like the rivers entering into the ocean; they lose their identity and you can no more
distinguish the waters of the Ganges from the waters of the Godavari. The appearance of the
world vanishes in the Reality of God, just as when the lamp is brought, the snake which appeared
to be vanishes in the rope that exists.

From "May I answer that" by Swami Sivananda (1987-1963). More Informations on Swami Sivananda: on the Website of Divine Life Society, Photographs of Swami Sivananda, German Pages on Swami Sivananda

From the eastern point of view Swami Sivananda is quite correct, however from the point of view of Western psychology and mystical awareness, Cosmic Consciousness is considered in another manner. (See the book "Cosmic Consciousness" by Dr. Maurice Bucke, the psychiatrist friend of Walt Whitman) in which the words mean an expanded consciousness in the cosmos. My own experience of this type occured at the age of twenty-three (fully described in my book "Sharing the Quest" and completely changed the course of my life. Although by a natural consequence, my consciousness appeared to expand from the confnes of the body, passing outwards across the ocean and the land and out into space, in fact, Conciousness does not 'expand' at all: it already is. It is everything that is perceived. What expands is one's capacity of Awareness. Wen I found my being among the stars and planets of the universe the realisation came that I was everything in the universe: the classical experience of the mystics. This Conscience of the Cosmos is what is conceived and spoken of as Cosmic Consciousness in the West. From that moment on I was on the Path, having a totally different notion of my own being and how the universe asppears.

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Muz MURRAY (Ramana Baba) December 4, 2009 at 1:18pm

From the eastern point of view Swami Sivananda is quite correct, however from the point of view of Western psychology and mystical awareness, Cosmic Consciousness is considered in another manner. (See the book "Cosmic Consciousness" by Dr. Maurice Bucke, the psychiatrist friend of Walt Whitman) in which the words mean an expanded consciousness in the cosmos. My own experience of this type occured at the age of twenty-three (fully described in my book "Sharing the Quest" and completely changed the course of my life. Although by a natural consequence, my consciousness appeared to expand from the confnes of the body, passing outwards across the ocean and the land and out into space, in fact, Conciousness does not 'expand' at all: it already is. It is everything that is perceived. What expands is one's capacity of Awareness. Wen I found my being among the stars and planets of the universe the realisation came that I was everything in the universe: the classical experience of the mystics. This Conscience of the Cosmos is what is conceived and spoken of as Cosmic Consciousness in the West. From that moment on I was on the Path, having a totally different notion of my own being and how the universe asppears.

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