Do you see consciousness as the Absolute, or as an emanation?

[anagogy]

The first thing in creation is infinity.

Infinity becomes aware. This is the next step....

Although the majority of the ancient wisdom perceives infinite consciousness as the Absolute, in my limited understanding, I can't help but see awareness as an emanation.

To me, at the highest level consciousness is intelligent energy. The kinetic aspect of the absolute. The "light" which emanates from the luminary.

The perfect unity or infinity itself I see as being beyond consciousness and completely undefinable. The only word I can even come up with to attempt to describe it other than infinity or unity is Spirit. I suppose you might call it consciousness without awareness...but I wouldn't quite call that consciousness.

How do others see this? Is consciousness the absolute?

I'm personally of the opinion that awareness is the most pure form of energy possible.

In the absolute, there are no "objects" for the "subject" to be aware of, however. There is no contrast to set anything apart from anything else. So I hesitate to call it "consciousness" which is more like what we would call "mind". Mind is "subject", and matter is "object" and consciousness typically connotes a relationship between the two. In order to be "conscious" there has to be something to be "conscious of". I don't ordinarily split hairs like this (though this is common when you get into discussions with people that are well versed in eastern spiritual literature -- they seem to have a plethora of different words for different kinds of consciousness), but it is sort of necessary when having a in depth discussion regarding the "absolute".

So the awareness of the absolute is probably beyond anything we, in the realm of duality, can possibly conceive of with our mortal ken, but I believe it is somewhat reasonably described as an "awareness of awareness itself" (pure BEING). Though, the nuances of language necessarily makes that sound almost like a kind of duality, but I must stress it emphatically is not such, so language is something of a poor conveyor of truth in this department. Perhaps I can explain this lack of duality in some other terms:

We might ponder the question "what exactly is vibration anyhow?" All things in this world are vibrations of energy. But the question is: what is vibrating? And in what dimension does it vibrate in? And what is energy?  

In the absolute, there is no vibration. It is totally without distortion of any kind. A vibration is a reverberating pattern in consciousness. I would also describe it as the undulating sine wave of oscillation between the "subject" (self) and the "object" (that which has become seen as "not self"). As one "raises their vibration" the oscillation becomes faster and the distance between the two becomes shorter, until finally, in the octave density, when one becomes ONE with the rhythms of Being itself, the distance is breached completely, and thus, there is no longer a vibration to speak of. No longer is there a difference between mind and matter, between subject and object.

Mind, body, and spirit are all distortions of this Beingness we call the Absolute. So they all exist in latent form within that non dual singularity. The first distortion "free will" results from this nondual beingness CHOOSING to THINK. It *discerned* a concept by CHOICE. It chose to explore the distortion known as "mind". But here's the thing: if you explore an "in here" (which is precisely what mind is: "the inner world"), you reflexively, and automatically, generate and imply an "out there" to contain the "in there", and thus, the first duality is born and the Logos moves upon the face of the deep. The first three distortions are simultaneous according to Ra, and are essentially the mind, body, and spirit of the Logos unfolding out of the nondual bliss that existed in a timeless state (this is also articulated by the first 3 sephira on the tree of life).

The awareness of the absolute is without a sense of Self. The sense of self awareness is the 2nd distortion, the Logos. When Ra says "infinity became aware", I think they were referring to infinity becoming aware of the possibility of finity. Ra said the 1st distortion was free will, so this also means that is synonymous with what Ra is calling: "infinity becoming aware". It was an awareness of something "other than" infinity. This exploration of thought, this exploration of something other than infinite truth, allowed the primal and archetypal mind/body/spirit to unfold out of their latent and unified state, and manifest as our glorious creator, and the myriad of illusions that seemingly make up our interesting universe.

In regards to the kinetic and the potential, however, Ra has stated that there is no potential or kinetic in unpotentiated intelligent infinity. It is beyond such concepts. It is only in the realm of duality, the realm of contrast, that there appears a potential in relation to the kinetic. In the Absolute, active and passive come to mean the same "thing".