Self and Soul: From The Sanctuary of Self - Rosicrucian Order Library, Part 1 of 2

The Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, also known as the Rosicrucian Order, AMORC, is a worldwide cultural, educational, and philosophical organization that is perpetuating the profound and practical teachings of the Rosicrucians. These teachings, as passed down and added to over the centuries, from ancient Egypt to Europe and now all over the world, pertain to the mysteries of the universe, nature, and humans themselves. Today, we will read from chapter III, “Self and Soul,” from Part One entitled, “The Mysteries,” in Frater Ralph M. Lewis’s book, “The Sanctuary of Self.” A detailed and comprehensive explanation is offered in this chapter, on the nature of consciousness and human’s awareness. “It is commonly said that we feel self, but such is a verisimilitude (the appearance of truth). The fact is that the sensations of self are not like those we derive from the touch of an object. To self, there are no sensations of hot, cold, hard, or soft, nor are there sensations of pain or pleasure. You realize that you are you, quite aside from such experiences. This consciousness of self, then, is a consciousness of our consciousness.” “The consciousness has thresholds. By thresholds, we mean the points at which certain effects or sensations begin to occur in the brain. The thresholds for the impulses of sound and sight, for example, are considerably lower than those of the vague impressions of self. Consequently, it is comparatively easy to lose a realization of self, if the grosser impulses of the sense organs dominate the consciousness of the brain. In other words, if the consciousness is exposed to a bombardment of sounds and an excitation of visual impressions, we know from our own experience that we lose momentarily, a realization of self in these physical perceptions of the objective consciousness. Only when the thresholds of the receptor senses are partially blocked or suppressed, do we become fully aware of those more subtle impressions, which reach the higher thresholds of the brain consciousness, and which we experience as self.” “The activities of self, the realities of our inner being, are more complex in this sense than are those particulars of the material or everyday world which we experience. If, for analogy, the Cosmic order or God, whichever you please, is the synthesis of everything, then that God obviously is complex — infinite in substance and in variety. If we become conscious of the complex, or the greater evolvements or manifestations of His nature, the closer is our intimacy with Him, the more of Him we experience.”