C

 

Cagliostro, Alessandro

Castaneda

Chuangtzu

Consciousness

 

 

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Cagliostro, Alessandro:

Conte di Alessandro Cagliostro (1743–1795), Italian adventurer, magician and alchemist, whose real name was Giuseppe Balsamo. After early misadventures in Italy he traveled in Greece, Arabia, Persia, and Egypt. While in Italy, he married Lorenza Feliciani, who became his assistant on his trips to the cities of Europe, where he posed as a physician, alchemist, mesmerist, necromancer and Freemason. He claimed the secret of the philosopher's stone and of miraculous philters and potions. As the Grand Copt of the order of Egyptian Masonry he organized many lodges. His reputation was amazing, particularly at the court of French king Louis XVI. Implicated in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, he was imprisoned, acquitted, and banished. Cagliostro himself stated during the trial to have been born of Christians of noble birth, but abandoned as an orphan upon the island of Malta. He claimed to have travelled as a child to Medina, Mecca, and Cairo, and upon return to Malta to have been initiated into the Sovereign Military Order of the Knights of Malta, with whom he studied alchemy, the Kabbalah and magic.

Cagliostro returned to Rome in 1789, where the Inquisition charged him with heresy and sorcery. Imprisoned for life, he died in a dungeon. Cagliostro has fascinated later generations as well as his contemporaries, and he appears often in literary works.

 

 

Chuangtzu:

 

Chuang Tzu (399-286 B.C.), was an influential Chinese philosopher who lived during the Warring States Period, a period corresponding to the summit of Chinese philosophy, the Hundred Schools of Thought. He is credited with writing - in part or in whole - a work known by his name, the Chuang Tzu, which expresses a philosophy which is skeptical, arguing that life is limited and knowledge to be gained is unlimited.  The only account of the life of Chuang Tzu is a brief sketch in chapter 63 of Ssu-ma Ch’ien  Records of The Grand Historian, where he is described as a minor official from the town of Meng (in modern Anhui) in the state of Sung, living in the time of king Hui and king Hsuan of Ch’i (late 4th century BCE). Ssu-ma Ch’ien writes:

"Chuang-Tze had made himself well acquainted with all the literature of his time, but preferred the views of Lao-Tze; and ranked himself among his followers, so that of the more than ten myriads of characters contained in his published writings the greater part are occupied with metaphorical illustrations of Lao's doctrines. But Chuang was an admirable writer and skillful composer, and by his instances and truthful descriptions hit and exposed the Mohists and Literati. The ablest scholars of his day could not escape his satire nor reply to it, while he allowed and enjoyed himself with his sparkling, dashing style; and thus it was that the greatest men, even kings and princes, could not use him for their purposes".

            Of the thirty-three existing chapters of his work Chuang Tzu, the first seven are called “inside chapters”, the next fifteen “outside chapters” and the remaining eleven “miscellaneous chapters”.

 

 

 

Consciousness:

 

The word "conscious" is derived from Latin conscius meaning, (1) having joint or common knowledge with another, privy to, cognizant of; (2) conscious to oneself; esp., conscious of guilt". A related word was conscientia, which primarily means moral conscience. In the literal sense, "conscientia" means knowledge-with, that is, shared knowledge. The word first appears in Latin juridical texts by writers such as Cicero. Here, conscientia is the knowledge that a witness has of the deed of someone else.

Consciousness is the phenomenon whereby the universe's very existence is made known. - Roger Penrose.

Consciousness is a quality of the mind generally regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and one's environment. Many philosophers divide consciousness into phenomenal consciousness which is experience itself and access consciousness which is the processing of the things in experience.

Many cultures and religious traditions place the seat of consciousness in a soul separate from the body. Conversely, many scientists and philosophers consider consciousness to be intimately linked to the neural functioning of the brain dictating the way in which the world is experienced. This aspect of consciousness is the subject of much debate and research in philosophy of mind, psychology, brain biology, neurology, and cognitive science.

In reality a darkness altogether different from natural night broods over the land. It is the psychic primal night which is the same today as it has been for countless millions of years. The longing for light is the longing for consciousness. – Carl Jung.

Consciousness is the condition or power of perception, awareness, apprehension. There are myriad gradations of consciousness, from the simple sentience of inanimate matter to the consciousness of basic life forms, to the higher consciousness of human embodiment, to omniscient states of superconsciousness, leading to immersion in the One universal consciousness (Parashakti). Chaitanya and Chitta can name both individual consciousness and universal consciousness. Modifiers indicate the level of awareness, e.g., individual consciousness (vyashti chaitanya); intellectual consciousness (buddhi chitta); God consciousness (Sivachaitanya). Five classical “states” of awareness are discussed in scripture: 1) wakefulness (jagrat), 2) “dream” (svapna) or astral consciousness, 3) “deep sleep” (sushupti), 4) the superconscious state beyond (turiya, “fourth”) and 5) the utterly transcendent state (turiyatita, “beyond the fourth”).