Today we bring you yet another classic FBA Dharmabyte and#8220;Consciousness: Individual and Collectiveand#8221; by Sangharakshita from the 1983 talk and#8220;The Bodhisattva Principleand#8220;. Collective consciousness is the closest description of what we have come to call the spiritual community. A group of truly human individuals who share enlightenment as their ideal, who, in traditional Buddhist language go for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, the spiritual community is the expression of the Bodhisattva principle in the world.
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Consciousness: Individual and Collective
[music] Dharma Bites is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for your life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. Thank you, and happy listening. Individual consciousness, which is broadly equivalent to reflexive consciousness, is the consciousness appropriate to the truly human, that is to say, the consciously evolving individual. Such an individual is characterized by awareness, emotional positivity, responsibility, intelligence, creativity, spontaneity, imagination, and insight. And his consciousness is of the corresponding type. Collective consciousness, in this context, is not group consciousness. That is to say, is not the consciousness common to a number of living beings who have not yet attained to individuality. Even though the Bodhisattva principle is as much the key to the development of collective consciousness in this sense as it is to the development of individual consciousness or indeed to the development of collective consciousness in the sense in which I am using the term in this context. For collective consciousness in this latter sense, there is no really suitable term in the English language, or indeed in any European language unless the Russian subornost comes near it to some extent, which is why I generally enclose the two words "collective consciousness" within single inverted common. Collective consciousness, in the present context, is a special kind of consciousness, common to in a sense even shared by a number of truly human individuals who follow the same spiritual discipline and have the same spiritual ideals or who are engaged in the same creative activities. Collective consciousness in this sense is as much above individual consciousness taken separately as group consciousness is beloved. The Bodhisattva principle is the key to collective consciousness in this higher sense in that the Bodhisattva, even though appearing as an objectively existing personality in reality, shown since the distinction between subject and object, self and other. Collective consciousness is the consciousness appropriate to what we in the Western Buddhist Order have come to speak of as the spiritual community, giving this term a special meaning which it does not possess in ordinary English usage. By spiritual community, by the order, we mean a group, as we have necessarily and misleadingly to call it, of truly human individuals who have enlightenment, the path on the spiritual community itself as their ideals, or who in traditional Buddhist language go for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Of this spiritual community, the Bodhisattva is the spirit, even as the spiritual community is the expression, at least to some extent, of the Bodhisattva principle in the world. It is the Bodhisattva who, from the beyond which is within, as well as from the beyond that is without, leads the spiritual community on the path to enlightenment. The Bodhisattva always has lead, and always will lead. We see him in the Jataka's as the hero, the being who represents the growing point of evolution, within each group or class of beings, we see him always taking the lead. In some of the great Mahayana Sutras, we see him establishing what is known as the pure length or ideal environment for the pursuit of the spiritual life. We see him as of the Lokiteshvara, Chen Resi, Lord of Compassion, whose eleven faces look down upon the sufferings of sentient beings in the eleven directions of space, and whose thousand arms are outstretched to help. We see him as Manju Sri, Lord of wisdom and eloquence, who, with his right hand, whirls above his head, the flaming sword of knowledge that cuts asunder the bond of ignorance, while with his left he presses the book of wisdom to his heart. We see him as Vad-turopani, Lord of might, whose blazing thunderbolt cuts through the obstructions of the cyclic order of conditionality and opens up the way for the progressive order. We see him, we see her as Tara, Lady of Salvation, who delivers from all dangers temporal and spiritual. We see, in fact, the glorious company of Bodhisattva, who are the spiritual community in the highest sense of which our earthly spiritual community is a pale and indistinct reflex. We see him, we see them as embodiments of the Bodhisattva principle, key to the evolution of consciousness, individual and collective. We hope you enjoyed today's Dharma Bite. Please help us keep this free, make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donny and thank you. [music] [music] [music] [ Silence ]