More on Control of Consciousness
The Way of Man.(6.24) Control of Consciousness.
(6.24.1) There are many ways of facilitating the control of consciousness, preventing thoughts from wandering, replacing unwelcome thought associations. You may have some construction at hand which you are working at, or an unsolved problem, or some sort of task, or direct your attention to your Augoeides or, if you are too tired to keep your attention fixed, you can use a mantra.
(6.24.2) “Meditation” consists in “thinking the matter over”, analysing it methodically and systematically until all its elements have been clarified so that you know what it all is about, which otherwise seldom is the case. What the outcome is, is “another story”, and depends on individual understanding, knowledge, and power of judgement.
Control of Consciousness
(The Way of Man, 3.16) Control of Consciousness
(3.16.1) Attention indicates the concentration of consciousness. Attention can be called the visual point of the self. The consciousness content of our envelopes of incarnation is determined by how we use our attention. Control of consciousness is control of attention and the most important factor of evolution.
(3.16.2) The self’s consciousness, the monad consciousness (attention) must be occupied. If it is not occupied with something essential, something that promotes consciousness development, then it must be something different, less useful, often useless, quite often harmful. Hobbies, amusements, etc., thus are only substitutes. The individual’s level of development appears in his choice of objects of his attention. There are physical, emotional, and mental interests. Anyone who has acquired control of thought decides himself what he will think of. Others are dominated by their illusions and fictions.
The Envelopes of the First Self (The Way of Man).
The Envelopes as Beings of Their Own. The Worlds of the First Self.
(3.2) Generals
(3.2.1) The four envelopes of incarnation – the organism, the etheric envelope, the emotional envelope, the mental envelope – which the monad is able to work with, are four mechanisms. In so far as the monad has been able to activate the molecules and molecular consciousness of these envelopes, the four envelopes function as one mechanism for the monad in the triad.
(3.2.2) The monad in the incarnated triad envelope makes use of its envelopes of incarnation as instruments of observation, apprehension, and expression.
(3.2.3) Man’s aura consists of four material envelopes: the etheric, emotional, mental, and the causal triad envelope. The aura makes up man’s total life from his birth to the end of his incarnation. The aura makes up the monad’s possibility of consciousness and the domain of the monad’s apprehension; it is the receiver of all impressions, subjective or objective, from the four worlds. The aura radiates energy and has in some people a magnetic effect. The colours of the aura indicate the individual’s level of development, especially the colours of the mental and emotional envelopes.
On The Magnetic Centre, finding schools and A, B, C influence
The Fourth Way, by P. D. Ouspensky, Chapter 4
Q. Suppose one only imagines that one is working under influences B? A. One does not know about it and one does not ‘work’ under influences B. One can be interested in influences B just for one’s own personal advantage, profession, fame or something like that; then one loses all the profit one can get from them. But if a man values them for themselves, not selfishly, not only for his own gain, if he is interested in their meaning, then he may get something from them. Definitions are very difficult and mostly wrong, for our ordinary language has so many different associations that sometimes a more precise definition spoils the possibility of understanding. For instance, you can say, though I do not guarantee that it will always be right, that the chief characteristic of influence A is that it is always selfish, whereas influence B is unselfish. But people understand these words so differ ently that it does not convey much. You can also say that influences A need identification and influences B can exist without identification and that if there is identification with influences B it spoils them. In fact, the more identification there is with influences B, the more they become influences A. But all this is not sufficient to explain the difference between them.
Consciousness Expansion. Activation of Consciousness.
Consciousness Expansion. By Lars Adelskoh.
(What is the meaning of the Octahedron?) The sacred syllable AUM also explains the sequence and order in which the factors of consciousness activation appear, that is to say: motion, energy, comes first; then consciousness, and last the perception of forms.
This means that in every consciousness expansion - major or minor and irrespective of the natural kingdom concerned - the monad does not apprehend at once all three aspects of the new domain of reality in which it expands its consciousness, but always first the motion aspect, then the consciousness aspect, and last the matter aspect.
Self-Observation and Some Insights Gained From It
The Fourth Way. Part One. By Lars Adelskogh.
If a man begins to observe himself, he will soon have a couple of important insights. The first one is about “I”. We say “I am doing”, “I am sitting”, “I feel”, “I like”, “I dislike” and so on, and without thinking, automatically, we assume that we have only one “I”, which remains the same.