Dear Khalsa Ji,
Through this post, I share with you, my understanding of what ‘Higher Consciousness is?
(i) Gurbani mentions about Dasham Dwar, it is said to be within human head – skull. We all know that it is the Brain there. In other words the Dashan Dwar, as I understand, is located in our brain.
(ii) In my posts I have been using the term ‘deeper layers of the brain’ to refer to the unspecified part of the brain, which in literature is sometimes called sub-conscious. It is hardware. In the text that follows I will use this term subconscious repeatedly for the deeper layers.
(iii) Science knows that all the inputs that the brain receives are recorded by it. The conscious part of the brain is selective, and thus remembers only a part of it; it is not able to recall all from the past memories.
(iv) It is also known to science that when certain point/areas of the brain are simulated by special probes the person is able to express very vividly what it had experience long back in time, in great details. The person just does not remember, but it relives and experiences the happenings again, in full, including colours, fragrance, sound, feelings etc. This is to say that every thing is recorded in the brain in subconscious part which the conscious part of the brain is not able to access fully on its own.
(v) As I understand, this subconscious also contains all the information as to how we had lived our past lives. It is this subconscious which is responsible to give us certain natural pattern of behaviour even in at very early part of life. It is my very personal understanding that this part of the brain contains all about our mission for this earthly life and realisation of ‘The Sat’ whom we knew before being born in this world.
(vi) The gate or the link or the Dwar, between this part of the brain i.e. what I have been referring to as subconscious and conscious is deliberately gagged. (I will not dwell on why it is so in this post) before we are born.
(vii) The gag becomes tighter and tighter as the ego or the ‘I-ness’ or the Ahamkara becomes stronger and stronger. Ahamkara makes the person to live in accordance with the dictates of its conscious part of brain, which, in most of us is controlled by our worldly desires and vices, of course to varying degrees. It does not allow the 'inner voice' of the subconscious i.e. our inner self (‘The Sat’) - to reach the conscious part of the brain, which is needed to keep us on the correct path.
(viii) As I understand, it for this reason Guru Sahib has repeatedly asked us to dissolve our ego, i.e. Ahamkara (I-ness). Science now knows that when the person goes into deep meditation, the portion of the brain, which gives the person as sense of separateness from the rest i.e. a specific identity (I-ness or Ahamkara), goes to sleep. Thus the person, having lost its identity, does not distinguish its self from the rest and merges with the totality, which is nothing but ‘The Sat’. This as I understand is a state of ‘Samadhi’.
(ix) When the person dissolves its Ahamkara (I-ness) and its being becomes so, then even in the normal conscious state there is nothing to put a gag between the deeper layers of the brain i.e. subconscious part of the brain and its complimentary conscious part of the brain. The two parts then work in tandem and one becomes fully aware. This is, as I understand, the higher state of consciousness, which is the subject of discussion under this thread.
(x) This happening, as I understand, is referred to as opening of the ‘Dasham Dwar’ – a precursor to achieving ‘Higher Consciousness’. The purified functioning brain is an instrument to achieve this end
With love and respect for all.
Amarpal Singh
Punjab, India