Higher Consciousness - Ordinary Consciousness As Projection

Ordinary Consciousness As Projection

In the spiritual traditions of India, consciousness is understood to be obscured by defilements (kilesa) which are compared to clouds covering the sun. These defilements are the result of conditioning (sanskara), accumulations in the unconscious caused by past actions (karma) . As a result, what any individual perceives as reality is a picture of the world at one particular moment filtered through his unconscious conditioning – a ‘reality’ that western psychology calls ‘projection’ (i.e., of the contents of the unconscious). Every individual human being has their own store of conditioning based on their unique past experiences, their 'reality tunnel'. The goal of spiritual practice (buddhadharma, shariah, yoga, etc.) is the transformation and higher integration of these contents so that any practitioner following a spiritual path comes closer to reality as the causes of delusion are dissolved. Enlightenment (also called salvation, kaivalya, moksha, union with God, etc.) furthermore, involves the complete dissolution of all the causes for future becoming so that reality is seen, finally, as it is, rather than through the veils of projected unconscious contents.