One can, with good reason, by puzzled by Sri Atmananda’s frequent mention of Higher Reason, an “organon” he distinguishes from lower reason.

Lower reason is easy enough to understand. It’s concerned with objects, it starts with perception, and it operates according to inference. In short, we’re in the field of logic–the logic, perhaps, that we learned in school–when we employ lower reason.

Higher Reason is an entirely different animal. Atmananda expounds:

Higher reason is that supra-intellectual organon present in all human beings, which begins to function only when the aspirant tries to understand something beyond the body, senses and mind. It may also be called functioning Consciousness. When the function ceases, it is pure Consciousness itself.

Atmananda, “Higher Reason,” #1120, Notes on Spiritual Discourses: Volume 2, p. 250.

Unlike lower reason, Higher Reason is a logic of the subject. Its only concern, in fact, is with the nature of Consciousness. In this passage, we’re given two metaphors with a hope to clarifying what Higher Reason is: “supra-intellectual organon” and “functioning Consciousness.” What specific sense can we make of these?

We know that Higher Reason is not the body, the senses, or the mind. Nor–if we wish to distinguish intellect from mind–is it the intellect. We are, furthermore, told that it’s an organon, which means that it’s an instrument. Indeed, it’s an instrument that’s beyond the body, senses, mind, and intellect.

What is it, then? It’s also, strangely enough, termed “functioning Consciousness.” We might wonder how Consciousness, which is not technically an instrument, can be said to be “functioning.” Moreover, for Atmananda, a function is identical with an action or activity, and Consciousness (or Knowledge) is held to be distinct from all actions and activities, at least as far as the discrimination (viveka) teaching is concerned.

Then how can Consciousness, which is not an instrument, act as if it were functioning or as if it were an instrument?

There may be no non-mysterious answer to this question except to say that we “know it when we see it.” But can we not say more? We can. We may not be able to define it, but we can sketch it poetically.

Higher Reason is equivalent to the inner voice of the Self. Indeed, it can be argued that Higher Reason is none other than the Inner Guru. Its sole job is to “pull one up” to Consciousness, the Self. It does so not through inference but through a step-by-step examination of direct experience.

At each step, one is invited to check to see that what’s being pointed to is actually being experienced. If, for instance, the question is asked, “Is it true that seeing is never apart from the seen, that the seen is never apart from seeing?,” one is to keenly look at the present experience in order to confirm that it is so.

Higher Reason carries on until it arrives at the following direct experience: Mere experience–when it’s without any superimpositions at all–is identical with Pure Consciousness.

Once the experiential knowledge that “I am Consciousness” has been recognized, Higher Reason retires, merging thus into Pure Consciousness.