Universal Consciousness

Universal Mind is the universal higher consciousness or source of being in some forms of esoteric or New Thought and spiritual philosophy. It may be considered synonymous with the subjective mind or it may be referred to in the context of creative visualization, usually with religious or spiritual themes.

The term surfaced in eastern and western thought. In "The Huang Po Doctrine of Universal Mind", originated in around 857 CE, the idea of mind was disconnected from soul in this Buddhist school of thought.

Chu Ch’an says, “Universal mind, therefore, is something to which nothing can be attributed. Being absolute, it is beyond attributes. If for example, it were to be described as infinite, that would exclude from it whatever is finite, but the whole argument of the book is that universal mind is the only reality and that everything we apprehend through our senses, is nothing else but this mind. Even to think of it in terms of existence or non-existence is to misapprehend it entirely.” pp. 8-9

The notion of universal mind came into the Western Canon through the Pre-Socratic philosopher Anaxagoras, who arrived in Athens some time after 480 BC. He taught that all things were created by Nous (Mind) and that Mind held the cosmos together and gave human beings a connection to the cosmos, or a pathway to the divine.

The term surfaced again in later philosophy such as Hegel but Hegel sought to reconcile the stages of mind and the connection with the soul:

The sphere of education is the individuals only: and its aim is to bring the universal mind to exist in them. But in the philosophic theory of mind, mind is studied as self−instruction and self−education in very essence; and its acts and utterances are stages in the process which brings it forward to itself, links it in unity with itself, and so makes it actual mind.

Ernest Holmes, the founder of the Science of Mind movement, described the Universal Mind as follows:

...
Wikipedia