Education in Values and Spirituality :: Consciousness and the Divine

Module 4 - Consciousness and the Divine

Module 4 has two units. Your type and quality of consciousness influence your ability to cultivate values and spirituality. Understanding consciousness has occupied the minds of sages and philosophers since the beginnings of recorded history. We present a number of perspectives and descriptions in this module.

The term God refers to the Supreme Soul, the Higher Power, a being of supreme intelligence, the transcendent consciousness of the Divine. Neither the soul nor the Supreme Soul are bodies, consequently neither the male nor the female pronoun applies. The pronoun he or she assumes a person is a male or female body. A soul is also not an object, therefore the pronoun it cannot apply either. The English language arose in a patriarchal and materialistic context. In Hindi God is referred to as purusha which means male. This has led to the notion that males are divine while females are not. For want of a pronoun that is not gender specific the male pronoun has traditionally been used to refer to the incorporeal. However this is unsatisfactory because it has led to the conviction that the incorporeal is male. As far as possible we have avoided using any pronoun when referring to the Supreme Soul. In the unavoidable instances where we have used He, do not think it means a male.

Unit 1 defines consciousness and explains the differences between states and modes of awareness in psychological terms. It examines the metaphysical nature of consciousness through current scientific paradigms and describes the intellectual and intuitive modes of consciousness.