We see, as human beings, that all our knowledge, which is called rational, is referred to consciousness. I am conscious of this table, I am conscious of your presence, and so forth, and that makes me know that you are here and that the table is here and things I see, feel, and hear are here. At the same time, there is a very great part of my existence of which I am not conscious — all the different organs inside the body, the different parts of the brain, the brain itself; nobody is conscious of these things.
When I eat food, I do it consciously; when I assimilate it, I do it unconsciously; when the food is manufactured into blood, it is done unconsciously; when out of the blood all the different parts of my body are made, it is done unconsciously; and yet it is I who am doing this; there cannot be twenty people in one body. How do I know that I do it, and nobody else? It may be urged that my business is only in eating the food and assimilating the food, and that manufacturing the body out of food is done for me by someone else. That cannot be, because it can be demonstrated that almost every action of which we are unconscious now can again be brought up to the plane of consciousness.
Conscious and unconscious planes
The heart is beating apparently without our control; none of us here can control the heart; it goes on its own way. But by practice, men can bring even the heart under control until it will just beat at will, slowly or quickly, or almost stop. Nearly every part of the body can be brought under control. What does this show? That these things which are beneath consciousness are also worked by us, only we are doing it unconsciously.
We have, then, two planes in which the human mind is working. First is the conscious plane; that is to say, that sort of work which is always accompanied with the feeling of egoism. That part of mind-work which is unaccompanied with the feeling of egoism is unconscious work, and that part which is accompanied with the feeling of egoism is conscious work. In the lower animals, this unconscious work is called instinct. In higher animals, and in the highest of animals, man, the second part, that which is accompanied with the feeling of egoism, prevails and is called conscious work.
The plane beyond consciousness
But it does not end here. There is a still higher plane upon which the mind can work. It can go beyond consciousness. Just as unconscious work is beneath consciousness, so there is another work which is above consciousness, and which also is not accompanied with the feeling of egoism. The feeling of egoism is only on the middle plane. When the mind is above or below that line, there is no feeling of “I,” and yet the mind works.
When the mind goes beyond this line of self-consciousness, it is called Samadhi, or super-consciousness. It is above consciousness.
An excerpt from Raj Yoga, a book by Swami Vivekananda, published in 1896.
