Prologue

Willam James, in an oft-quoted remark, has stated that

Our normal waking consciousness is but one special type of consciousness, while all about it parted from it by the filmiest of screens there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence, but apply the requisite stimulus and at a touch they are there in all their completeness....

No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded. How to regard them is the question.... At any rate, they forbid our premature closing of accounts with reality.

This volume is an attempt to provide a framework for just such an account of the universe. Now this framework is, above all else, a synthesis of what are generally but nebulously referred to as "Eastern" and "Western" approaches to the understanding of consciousness; and due to the extraordinarily vast and complex nature of both of these approaches, this synthesis is—in at least some aspects—deliberately simplistic. An analogy from physics might prove helpful in explaining this approach.

Our environment is saturated with numerous kinds of radiation—besides the common visible light of various colors, there exist X-rays, gamma rays, infrared heat, ultraviolet light, radio waves, and cosmic rays. Except for that of visible light, the existence of these radiation waves was unknown until around 200 years ago, when William Herschel began the exploration of radiation by demonstrating the existence of "thermal radiation" — now called infrared — using for instruments nothing more than thermometers with blackened bulbs placed in various bands of a solar spectrum. Shortly after Herschel's discovery, Ritter and Wollaston, using photographic instruments, detected ultraviolet radiation, and by the end of the 19th century, the existence of X-rays, gamma rays, and radio waves had been experimentally proven using a variety of techniques and instruments.

All of these radiations are superficially quite different from one another. X-rays and gamma rays, for instance, have very short wavelengths and consequently are very powerful, capable of lethally damaging biological tissues; visible light, on the other hand, has a much longer wavelength, is less powerful, and thus rarely harms living tissue. From this point of view, they are indeed dissimilar. As another example, cosmic rays have a wavelength of less than a millionth of a millionth of an inch, while some radio waves have wavelengths of over a mile! Certainly, at first glance, these phenomena all seem to be radically different.

Oddly enough, however, all of these radiations are now viewed as different forms of an essentially characteristic electromagnetic wave, for all of these apparently different rays share a large set of common properties. In a vacuum they all travel at the speed of light; they are all composed of electric and magnetic vectors which are perpendicular to each other; they are all quantized as photons, and so on. Because these different forms of electromagnetic radiation — on this "simplistic" level — are fundamentally so similar, they are today commonly viewed as composing a single spectrum. That is, X-rays, visible light, radio waves, infrared, and ultraviolet are simply described as being different bands of one spectrum, in the same way that the different color bands of a rainbow form one visible spectrum. So what were once thought to be quite separate events are now seen as variations of one basic phenomenon, and the early scientists — because they were using different instruments — were simply "plugging in" at various different frequencies or vibratory levels of the spectrum, unaware of the fact that they were all studying the same basic process.

Electromagnetic radiation, therefore, consists of a spectrum of energy waves of various wavelengths, frequencies, and energies, ranging from the "finest" and the "most penetrating" cosmic rays to the "densest" and least energetic radio waves. Now compare this with Lama Govinda's description of a Tibetan Buddhistic view of consciousness. Speaking of consciousness as being composed of several shades, bands, or levels, Govinda states that these levels "are not separate layers ... but rather in the nature of mutually penetrating forms of energy, from the finest 'all-radiating,' all-pervading, luminous consciousness down to the densest form of 'materialized consciousness,' which appears before us as our visible, physical body." Consciousness, in other words, is here described very much like the electromagnetic spectrum, and several Western investigators — taking their cue from just such descriptions — have in fact suggested it might prove fruitful to view consciousness as a spectrum.

If, for the moment, we do consider consciousness as a spectrum, then we might expect that the different investigators of consciousness, especially those commonly termed "Eastern" and "Western", because they are using different instruments of language, methodology, and logic, would "plug in" at different bands or vibratory levels of the spectrum of consciousness, just as the early radiation scientists plugged in at different bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. We might also expect that the "Eastern" and "Western" investigators of consciousness would not suspect that they were all plugging in at various bands or levels of the very same spectrum, and consequently communication between investigators might be particularly difficult and occasionally hostile. Each investigator would be correct when speaking about his own level, and thus all other investigators—plugged in at different levels—would appear to be completely wrong. The controversy would not be cleared up by having all investigators agree with each other, but rather by realizing that all were talking about one spectrum seen from different levels. It would almost be like M. Curie arguing with William Herschel about the nature of radiation if each didn't understand that radiation is a spectrum. Curie, working only with gamma rays, would claim radiation affects photographic plates, is extremely powerful, and can prove lethal to organisms, while William Herschel, working only with infrared, would claim nothing of the kind! And of course, they would both be right, because each is working with a different band of the spectrum, and when they realized that, the argument would cease, and the phenomenon of radiation would then be understood through a synthesis of all of the information gained on each level, which is exactly the way physicists view it today.

Our expectation that if consciousness is a spectrum, then communication between Eastern and Western investigators would be difficult because each is working on a different vibratory level,...