Re "The mystical psychiatrist Richard Maurice Bucke distinguished between three types of consciousness: Simple Consciousness, awareness of the body, possessed by many animals; Self Consciousness, awareness of being aware, possessed only by humans; and Cosmic Consciousness, awareness of the life and order of the universe, possessed only by humans who are enlightened.":
Bucke's experience of CC only lasted a minute or so. Some of his friends later advised him to try Indian yoga to learn how to replicate the experience. He wasn't interested. It wasn't that he didn't believe that yoga/meditation could alter someone's state but he regarded it as too much like "taking heaven by storm". It was evolution of the race that would gradually produce more enlightened humans - in the same way that "self consciousness" had naturally arisen out of "simple consciousness". Was he right? It's striking that Gopi Krishna (of kundalini fame), living in India and spending a lifetime on the spiritual quest, said that he'd only ever met two people he regarded as fully awakened. One was an anonymous sadhu who emerged from a forest about whom we know nothing; the other was Ramana Maharshi. Now one thing we do know about Maharshi is that he achieved his awakening spontaneously and *not* as a result of doing yoga/meditation or other spiritual exercises. So he was a "natural mystic" in Bucke's sense. Maybe the "anonymous sadhu" was a "natural" also. Perhaps we should all be more relaxed about the spiritual trip and just let Mother Nature take her course. She probably knows better than us what it's all about.
