' The word, Consciousness '...

The word "Consciousness" is ordinarily taken to mean the totality of thoughts and feelings and knowledge held by anyone at any time: all his perceptions, ideas, remembrances, imaginations--in brief, his total awarenesses.

But in this philosophy, by capitalizing the initial "C," the term is given a fresh and deeper, still more abstract and subtler meaning.

It then becomes the self-contained being or entity which is aware.

This is the profound sense in which the word was used by Brahmin thinkers and mystics thousands of years ago, speaking and writing in the Sanskrit language.

The man who introduced it into the English language in 1690 was John Locke when he wrote: "Consciousness is the perception of what passes in a man's own mind."

This definition shows how long is the distance between those profounder Indians and the less metaphysically minded Europeans.


-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism > Chapter 5:
The Key To the Spiritual World > # 167
Paul Brunton