The Godward Way
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Consciousness Before Matter

Divine consciousness, human consciousness, and the return to the unknowable Father

Adam G. · 25 chapters

A philosophical and spiritual inquiry. Before we can describe a brain, we must see, imagine, or understand one. Nineteen chapters in five parts on a world grounded in a living source, a human consciousness that receives rather than authors it, and a direction that remains Godward beyond every image of the Father.

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Contents

  1. ·Preface

Part One · The question of beginnings

  1. 1The fact we cannot step outside
  2. 2What it means to come before matter
  3. 3Philosophy and the reversal of the usual picture
  4. 4A world that resists our wishes

Part Two · Divine consciousness

  1. 5God beyond the image of a greater mind
  2. 6Creation as knowing, willing, and giving
  3. 7The Self and the unfolding of a conscious world
  4. 8What other traditions refuse to let us assume
  5. 9The divine mirror and the Sufi heart

Part Three · Mysticism and the occult imagination

  1. 10The Hermetic cosmos and the work of return
  2. 11Kabbalah and the mystery of manifestation
  3. 12Imagination, will, and the temptation of power

Part Four · The life of human consciousness

  1. 13The brain and the form of experience
  2. 14The unconscious and the authority of inward experience
  3. 15Attention and the center of gravity
  4. 16Freedom, suffering, and the question of death

Part Five · Living toward the source

  1. 17Prayer without possessing God
  2. 18Catch and Offer as a practice of consciousness
  3. 19The world received anew
  1. ·A guide to the main distinctions
  2. ·Comparing the accounts without merging them
  3. ·Chapter notes
  4. ·Questions for reflection
  5. ·References and further reading