THE UNPAID BALANCE OF THE PRICE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

 
A newly constructed building is not considered to be really completed until the debris of construction has been cleared away. Similarly the fully developed individual consciousness is not available for union with the Divine until these residual products have been cleaned away and there is left only the completely untrammelled, unitary nature of the individualized soul, now fully conscious of self.

As discussed earlier, in the process of both sleep and death the individual returns unconsciously and briefly to the beyond-beyond state of God. In it the soul achieves refreshment before it returns first to the subconscious state of ordinary dreams or the intense subconscious state of heaven or hell, and then to the ordinary conscious state of wakefulness or reincarnate life.

The individual cannot remain in the beyond-beyond state of God for long for very important reasons. The goal is to achieve the full awareness of consciousness, which is fully achieved when all of the residual impressions have been dispelled.

Full consciousness is achieved in the first human form, but remains captured, so to speak, by the residual impressions, which continue to exist regardless of the waking or sleep state of the individual mind. It is as if they continued to stand as the unpaid balance of the price of consciousness. It is due to the standing impressions or sanskaras that individual consciousness must return again and again from oblivion to square its account with illusion, in illusion.