From lecture 217, THE PHENOMENON OF CONSCIOUSNESS:

Consciousness permeates all being, all creation, all existence — everything that is. In your dualistic realm, you speak of consciousness and energy as if they were two separate phenomena. This is incorrect. Consciousness is a creator of energy and energy must contain consciousness — various aspects of consciousness, perhaps “variations” of consciousness, as well as degrees. There is no physical, biological, electrical or atomic energy that could be anywhere near as potent as the energy of direct consciousness. By this I mean the energy of thought, feeling, intent, attitude, belief.

Every thought is energy. You experience this energy as feeling. There cannot be a thought — even the most mechanical, dead, sterile, cut-off thought — that does not also contain feeling. Pure, abstract thought may appear as totally divorced from feeling content. This is not so. As a matter of fact, the more abstract and pure the thought is, the more the feeling must be commensurate with it. You must also differentiate between cut-off thought and abstract thought. Don’t confuse them. Cut-off thought is a defense against feelings and undesirable aspects of the self. Abstract thought is a result of a highly integrated, spiritual state. But even the former can never be divorced from feeling — that is, energy content. The underlying feeling might be fear, apprehension, anxiety about the complexity of what the self suspects to exist and wishes to avoid. Self-hate, and a variety of other feelings which you well know, may coexist with this.

As its underlying energy current, abstract thought contains a feeling of immense peace, of an intrinsic understanding of universal law that is bound to induce joyousness and bliss. A purely abstract thought would create this kind of energetic or feeling experience. The more subjective the thought is, the more tinged with negativity the feeling becomes. A subjective thought is one that is created from personal desire and personal fear, from a state of egotism and separation — me versus the other. It is therefore never in truth.

How can knowledge, knowing — which is consciousness — be unfeeling? Even unfeeling knowing, what you call in this era “intellectual knowledge,” must have a feeling content. It stirs up certain chain reactions. And even though such knowledge maybe fragmented, and though people may use it to get away from the energy or feeling aspect of living, it nevertheless contains feeling, as I mentioned before, although they may not recognize these feelings. So, consciousness is always a feeling, an energy manifestation, whether or not you are aware of it. The most mechanical, fragmented and cut-off thought breeds a series of energy chain reactions in your entire psychic system. The power of choosing which thought to think in itself stems from strong energy movements and results in affect. Therefore consciousness must be one with energy.

In the average human state this does not seem to hold true, at first sight. However, when you go deeper, you are bound to see that whatever knowledge you harbor has a definite feeling content. As I said — and I purposely repeat this, for it cannot be emphasized enough in this context — dry, cut-off knowledge must also contain feelings. The underlying feeling may be fear. The more superficial energetic state may be boredom. Boredom is also an energetic state, although a negative one — negative in the sense that the absence of something does not mean that what is absent is not intrinsically and essentially present. It is only temporarily made absent. If you pursue the state of boredom deeper into the recesses of the soul substance, you will find that there is always fear somewhere: fear of knowing all you can know now, about yourself and about your relationship with the universe.

The relationship between you and the universe becomes increasingly obvious as you discover yourself, as you become more honest with yourself, as you stop acting out. States of consciousness can roughly be differentiated into the following three groups:

The first and least developed is the state of slumber, where a being does not know it exists. It has no self-awareness. It can feel and move and grow, and even, to an extent, think, but below the threshold of self-awareness, like a mineral or a plant. The organisms beneath the state of self-awareness have nevertheless in-built patterns of creation, self-creation, which that particular organism follows through in a deeply meaningful, purposeful way, always compatible with its particular lawfulness. These states are states of consciousness, but not states of self-consciousness. Take for example the life of a plant: it follows its own in-built plan. Only its now slumbering consciousness could create that plan, could create the imprint with all its own lawful cycles by which the organism lives, expands, dies, reincorporates itself, gives birth to itself, expresses itself and goes on in that same cycle. This requires an immensely intelligent plan that only consciousness could fabricate. Something like this cannot happen “by itself,” cannot be a dead, disconnected process.

The apparent disconnection of inanimate matter is only temporarily frozen consciousness, as I explained in a recent lecture on the processes of creation and the psychic nuclear points. When consciousness creates in a certain direction, the life spark slows down and down, until the energetic stream petrifies. It condenses into such a thick crust that the underlying energy is invisible, that is, not perceivable with the human eye. However, beings whose expanded state of consciousness makes them capable of perceiving more than the surface, can observe very clearly the highly potent energy aspect within inanimate matter which has no manifest consciousness. But such beings can also perceive the consciousness content within this potent energy, the consciousness contained within the outwardly “dead” material.

What does such consciousness “say” when it is aslumber? It may say, “I do not want to know; I do not want to know me — me in relationship to the world around me.” This statement is a creative nucleus — a statement made by consciousness, by deliberate choice and disposition. This statement brings forth an inexorable chain of events, leading gradually but surely to the condensed, slowed-down state that finally becomes a “crust,” hardened and apparently dead. This is what matter is composed of. The sequence of events leading to the state of hardened, inanimate matter stems from a negative, life and truth-negating statement. Nevertheless, once the hardening process is in action, matter itself can be used by consciousness for life-affirming and positive purposes. Free consciousness can thus “communicate” with the life-substance and consciousness within the hardened matter.

I give you this very brief explanation so that you can gain some concept about the fact that consciousness exists even within inanimate objects. Your scientists today have already ascertained that energy exists within matter, so that part is hardly news to you. You have yet to ascertain that the same holds true about consciousness.

Consciousness within inanimate objects is reachable by the much stronger and more active consciousness of the human mind, though to a lesser degree than the consciousness within plants, animals, or other human beings. Matter is still malleable and can be impressed by human consciousness. Since consciousness is capable of inventing and creating, it can mold, shape, and form out of the substances within matter. Take, for example, the need to have a piece of furniture, or a plate, or a glass, or a piece of jewelry, or whatever the inanimate object may be. That need — that desire to create these objects — molds the energy, and contained consciousness, like inanimate matter, receives the imprints of a directing, stronger, and more connected consciousness, and fuses with it in certain definite ways. Thus an object is created.

So every object you use, enjoy, or need fulfills its task. Its innermost nucleus of consciousness that always seeks expression toward the divine, toward service, toward truth, toward love, toward being — even in this separated deadened state — “replies” to the creation of mind and thus fulfills a purpose in the great plan of evolution. Even the deadest of all dead matter is not really dead. Spiritual beings who are in greater possession of their innate divine faculties and not bound to the purely outer manifestation as human beings are, can perceive the energy form and the consciousness expression of the most inanimate objects. Such an object also contains an energy field, which is its antenna, its receiving station, so that it must become a reactor. Its consciousness content is still too limited to be more than a reactor. It cannot be as yet an initiator and creator as the human state is, but it is definitely a reactor.

You may often find that you have certain relationships with objects. There are some objects you cherish, need and enjoy. They perform well for you. You may think that you love them because they perform well and give you good service, or beauty, or joy. But it is one of those benign circles working where it is hard to say what or who started it going. Take, for example, a motor car, or a machine you use, like a record player, or whatever it may be. You love that machine. You may even use it for your spiritual growth in one manner or another, so the purely utilitarian object is really not so utilitarian after all. You give it care. Your appreciation makes the machine respond, even with its extremely limited, small inner nucleus of consciousness that is just geared to respond and react, to be impressed and molded. Its energy field will be affected. With other objects it is the other way round. They never work out well. You hate them, are annoyed with them, and they respond accordingly.

The separation of consciousness that you experience is therefore a very debatable one. When we speak of the fact that the whole universe is permeated with consciousness, this is indeed a truth. Separated organisms, objects and entities are separated only on the surface level. But within and beneath that surface level there is a constant interaction.

I started to speak about the three stages of consciousness. I dwelled for a long time on the first state: consciousness without self-awareness. Animals, plants, minerals, and inanimate matter fall under this category. I wanted to show that nothing exists that does not contain consciousness. It is of course much easier to see this with animals, plants and even minerals, which have their growth and change processes, though much slower ones than the other categories.

The second state is self-awareness, which begins at the human level. What does self-awareness mean? Awareness of “I am,” “I exist,” “I can think,” “I can make a decision,” “My decisions have impact,” “My thoughts have effect,” “My feelings reach other beings.” This will be roughly the second state. In this state self-responsibility begins. The awareness of having an effect on the world around the self must result in accountability and the seriousness of choosing thoughts, attitudes, actions and responses. This state of consciousness, by virtue of its expanded awareness, finds many new alternatives which are lacking in the blind and more limited state. The state of consciousness below the threshold of self-awareness cannot make choices. It blindly follows the in-built pattern implanted in its substance. The human state is capable of re-creating the plan, and may increasingly avail itself of wider possibilities of self-expression, commensurate with its own growth.

It is very obvious that within the human state of consciousness, of self-awareness, there are many, many degrees and variations. You have human beings who are as yet unaware of themselves, of their power to create, change and affect. Their ability to differentiate is as yet limited, their power to think and act independently is equally limited. To them words such as these could hardly make more sense than to an animal. They would be meaningless to them. There are other human beings whose consciousness is already far more developed. They know quite well that they have the power to choose, to create and to affect. They are self-responsible and accountable for their decisions to think one way rather than another. To them such words make sense and are an inspiration and encouragement. There are of course many degrees of consciousness in-between these two categories.

However, even those human beings whose consciousness is least developed are aware that they exist. They know that they have needs and can, up to a degree, figure out how to fulfill these needs. They know that they can act. Maybe their scope is more limited than the scope and power to affect of a more highly developed human personality, but nevertheless there is an immense difference between them and the highest-developed animal state of consciousness. The latter may have some awakening power of thinking, but self-consciousness, in the sense I have described, is completely lacking.

The human state of self-awareness lives within its self-created dimension of time. Thus the sense of past, present, and future awakens in the human mind, but does not exist in the lower states of consciousness. As in many areas of development, there is a similarity between the lowest and the highest point of the curve, which in this case is the state of being. Inanimate matter, minerals, plants, and animals do not live within time. They exist in a timeless state of being, but they are without self-consciousness, self-determination, a self-propelling initiative. The human state of consciousness is in time. It is therefore not in the state of being, but in the state of becoming, though it is already fully in possession of self-awareness. On the highest rise of the curve we return to the timeless state of being, but with a high degree of consciousness.

This third state is the highest state of the three. We might call it universal consciousness, or perhaps cosmic consciousness. That is beyond the human state. In that state all is one, there is no separation. In that state of consciousness all is known. The innermost self is known, the God-self is known. The God-self of the personal entity, as well as that of other entities is known. The truth of being is known. In that state of consciousness you live in a state of being. But on this level of development the state of being surpasses self-awareness. It has reached universal awareness. To put this differently, and possibly more accurately: the self is recognized as being in all that exists.

The disharmonious state, the anxious state, the unhappy state, the depressed state, the state of unrest and fear and negative, contracted pain is always a reflection of something you might know right now, but choose — yes, literally choose — not to know. That choice creates a very potent negative energy field. This path helps you to deactivate these negative energy fields by changing the consciousness content in them. The first vital step here would be to transform the “I do not want to know” into an “I want to know,” and follow it through. You can give yourself this adventure of discovery.

What I told you in this lecture is specifically designed to make you aware of the potency of your thoughts, of the potency of each thought that you decide to think, each attitude you decide to adopt. Thought will create experiences and responses, and will also create within you. There it will either create a new energy field or it will enforce, reaffirm and fasten an old one, depending on whether the thought or intent is new or is a repetition of the old. Obviously, both alternatives can apply to either real or false, constructive or destructive energy fields. When you are truly conscious of this potency, you become more responsible and more capable of creating. You then approach the state in which you know that God-consciousness is within everything. The ego only decides which way to turn. Right now, within your thinking mind is the potentiality to express God’s consciousness any way you choose. And when your experience is negative, make sure to find out what created it and how it was created.

From lecture 197, ENERGY AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN DISTORTION: EVIL:

Let me first repeat that the universe consists of consciousness and energy. In the unified state, consciousness and energy are one. In the disunified state, they are not necessarily one. Energy can be an impersonal force that does not seem to contain or express consciousness. It seems a mechanical force that consciousness can direct but that is in itself alien to determination, to self-knowledge — in short, to everything that distinguishes consciousness. Think, for example, of electricity and atomic energy. Even the energy of mind seems often quite disconnected from the source of its consciousness. Perhaps you can feel what I mean, to a certain extent. For instance, many of you have experienced that the power of your thoughts, attitudes and feelings do not have an immediate effect in your life. They have indirect effect, which at first seems so disconnected from its source that comprehending the link between cause and effect requires focused attention and awareness. Only when your consciousness expands can you sense the oneness of this tremendous mind power and the energy it sets in motion. This oneness works in both a constructive and a destructive way. The principle is the same.

The separated, dualistic human mind creates the illusion that energy and consciousness are two different manifestations. The same split perception exists in human beings regarding life and self, God and humanity, cause and effect, and many other concepts or phenomena. There are people on this earth plane who experience the universe, the cosmos, as a purely energetic phenomenon. There are others who experience the universe, the cosmos, primarily as supreme consciousness. They are both right, of course. And they are both wrong when they claim that their view is the only truth. Both are one. Since thought is movement and energy, it is impossible to separate consciousness from energy in their essence, although in their manifestations there might be an apparent disconnection.

How can all the different philosophies and perceptions of life be true when they appear to be opposites? Let us look into this more closely. It is quite true that in the ultimate reality of the unified state there is no evil. Thought is pure and truthful; feelings are loving and blissful; the direction or intentionality of the will is utterly positive and constructive. Therefore there is no evil. But the same consciousness can change its mind, as it were, into an untruthful and limited thought process, accompanied by feelings of hate, fear, and cruelty: into negative will direction and intent. In that moment the same consciousness, or an aspect of this consciousness, turns into its own distorted version. If this happens, the energy also alters its manifestations.

Thus the manifestation of evil is not something intrinsic ally different from pure consciousness and energy. It has only changed direction or focus. Hence it is as accurate to state that in essence there is no evil as it is to state that on the level of the human manifestation there is.

Each individual must accept the reality of evil on this plane of development, in order to learn to cope with it and thus to truly overcome it. Evil must be faced and overcome primarily within the self. Only then can the evil that is outside of the self be dealt with. The attempt to reverse this process will fail, for everything must start from the inner center — and the center is the self.

Neither of these two extremes exists in the human consciousness. In the present development of human consciousness, both the pure and the distorted, good and evil, God and the devil, exist. It is the task of every human being, on the long road of evolution, lifetime upon lifetime — and it indeed takes thousands of lifetimes, not hundreds — to purify the soul and to overcome evil.

Let us look for a moment at what evil means, from the point of view both of energy and of consciousness. When energy is twisted, it produces a destructive manifestation. Its frequency slows down and becomes commensurate with the distortion of the consciousness which determines the state by choosing the will direction of the thought process and instituting the negative attitude pattern. The slower the movement, the more the distortion of consciousness has advanced, and the more we can speak of a manifestation of evil.

Another characteristic of distorted energy flow in its evil aberration is condensation. Condensed energy is the dualistic, disunified state. The more highly developed a being is, the purer is its energy, the faster its frequency and the more radiant its matter. The more distorted and destructive a being is, the more condensed is the form in which the consciousness manifests. Matter, as you know it, is an advanced state of condensation. The consciousness involved in this state must find its way back to an increased frequency of its energy movement by purifying its thought and attitude patterns.

What does evil mean as a phenomenon of consciousness? Religion has of course talked amply about this in terms like hate, fear, selfishness, duplicity, spite, cheating life by not paying the price, wanting more than one is willing to give, and other destructive attitudes. This is so obvious that it hardly needs further elaboration. But let us look at the phenomenon of evil on a more subtle level.

Jesus Christ said: “Do not resist evil.” This saying has been misunderstood in many ways. It has been interpreted too literally to mean that you should allow others to exploit you and that you should not assert your human rights and your human dignity. This interpretation has preached meekness and masochism that are not in keeping with divine truth. On the contrary, they help to perpetuate evil and allow the perpetrator to inflict evil on his or her environment.

Any truth can be interpreted in different, yet correct, ways. Since tonight we are discussing evil as a manifestation of consciousness and energy, I shall interpret “Do not resist evil” from this angle. “Do not resist evil” points to the fact that resistance itself is, and breeds, evil.

Unobstructed energy flows smoothly and harmoniously, like a gentle river. When resistance stops the movement of the energy current, its movement slows and its form condenses, clogging up the channels. Resistance tightens and thus coarsens the energy. It holds back what should move.

The consciousness responsible for the energy thickening must exist accordingly. This statement is not quite correct, but human language is incapable of expressing the essential oneness of consciousness and energy, so we must compromise and speak as though consciousness were “responsible” for the energy flow. Anyhow, from your vantage point this expression will be quite adequate. The distorted thoughts, intentionality, feelings, and attitudes resist what is: truth, life, God — any aspect of the goodness of the universe. Because it resists trusting the life process, this consciousness generates ill will or negative intentionality. No evil attitude can manifest unless resistance to good is also taking place. Conversely, wherever life flows without resistance, it must be harmonious, blissful, and creative.

The very manifestation of matter as you know it, which is a highly disunified state, is the result of resistance. Matter is thickened, coarsened, slowed-down energy. Existence in matter blinds true vision and is therefore unavoidably painful. Resistance, matter, blindness, spells dualism, separation, evil, and suffering — these are one and the same. Resistance stems the flow, closing up; it prevents the movement of the universal energy — of love, of truth, of the ever ongoing movement of life unfolding as divine manifestation. Resistance is always obstructing some valuable, beautiful aspect of creation. Resistance is therefore a manifestation of evil.