Consciousness
“As we grow in our consciousness, there will be more compassion and more love, and then the barriers between people, between religions, between nations will begin to fall. Yes, we have to beat down the separateness.”
Ram Dass
I've never thought about consciousness's conceptual and physical components. I had no idea I was unconscious, like most people. I knew what the word meant, but I had no concept of what it really meant or how it affected things. Until I began my new way of thinking, which was based on Tolle's "The Power of Now" and "A New Earth," as well as the writings of many other well-known spiritual writers, like Michael Singer, Wayne Dyer, Ram Dass, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Neale Donald Walsh, Mark Manson, Garry Zukav, and many more.
The second scientific question follows: What is the world made of? is: "What is consciousness?
Here are a handful of the things I have learned:
Consciousness is our subjective inner experience, or awareness. It is central to our identity. I am reading these lines; I in this sentence, is consciousness.
Consciousness & Matter
If someone were to ask, who are you?
You will respond, "My name is X, I'm X years old, I am a professional football player, a mother, an artist, etc.
According to Bruce Alan Wallace (born 1950), an American author and philosopher who believes every moment that passes inside before you come goes like the frames of a motion picture, the moments simply continue to flow through space and time without ever stopping. You are the enduring being who is always present and experiencing these three ever-changing objects of consciousness.
Naturally, consciousness will continue to center around its source. It is like a flashlight beaming on different objects. If you look at the light itself rather than the objects it illuminates, you will see that the light is the same source shining on all the objects. Similarly, it is the same consciousness that perceives everything that is going past it, both inside and externally. That consciousness is you.
But if all reality is one universal consciousness, then what exactly is solid?
Einstein once observed that nothing happens until something moves—that is, everything vibrates at a particular measurable frequency. By breaking down the solid world into smaller and tinier components, you will discover that what appears to be solid is a dance of particles and empty spaces.
Yet, we interpret everything we see as solid; however, in reality, they are not. Matter is made of atoms; we tend to think of matter as solid billiard balls, but matter is entirely empty space. Reality is 99.999999, which is nothingness.
How does it feel to take a seat and realize you are aware of your existence? That's the main goal of spirituality. Your awareness will not be drawn to such objects when it is freed from any of the three primary distractions.
Consciousness & Self
Throughout his spiritual life, the esteemed Indian guru Ramana Maharshi posed the question, "Who sees when I see? When I hear, who hears? When I feel it, who feels it too?
The renowned yoga guru Paramahansa Yoganda provided the explanation: It is the self, the self-realization; this is the point at which you completely understand that you exist there. According to Judeo-Christian belief, the proper response to the question "Do you have a soul?" is "No, you don't; you are the soul; you are the consciousness that exists within you."
Michael Singer discusses the inherent sense of self-awareness in his book "Untethered Living." The self is the subject, viewing everything in space, including oneself. When you were young, you looked through your eyes and saw a reflection of yourself. This is the same way you looked back when you were in your twenties, thirties, etc. and saw an older reflection of yourself.
If you were there in your twenties, thirties, and later on your deathbed, noticing that you were dying, then what age are you in there? Who are you? You are the awareness and consciousness that know you are there. Your body has an age, and your body has a gender, but those concepts are irrelevant to the one who notices the body. You are in there; the question is: What do you do in there? How does it feel in there?
There are moments when it feels fantastic in there and moments when it feels terrible. Singer claims that you only go through three experiences in there:
Your senses are the first to pick up on external stimuli. It's either a positive, negative, or fleeting experience when it arrives there. As such, the external environment greatly influences your inside condition.
Your internal ideas are stored there based on the information gathered by your five senses. That means that the two things you experience inside are your thoughts and the outside world.
Your emotions and feelings are the third thing you encounter. Either all the feelings of fear or love are present in you.
At the age of 29, Eckhart Tolle found himself grappling with depression, reaching a point where the idea of ending his life seemed like the only way to escape his intense suffering.
The sentence that sparked his awakening came in the form of an introspective realization: “I cannot live with myself any longer.” This profoundly impactful thought occurred to him one fateful morning, when he was contemplating the concept of suicide.
Eckhart then reflects on what followed at that moment. He recalls, “Suddenly, a peculiar thought dawned upon me: 'Am I one or two? If I find it impossible to coexist with myself, then there must exist two entities within me: the 'I' and the'self' that this 'I' cannot endure.
Eckhart Tolle's teachings in “The Power of Now" and A New Earth" emphasize the importance of being present and letting go of the ego.
Find stillness and recognize that I am. Enter a state of God-consciousness beyond thought, where the eternal resides. The problematic dimension exists within your mind. In the present moment, problems dissolve. Ask yourself: What issue truly burdens me right now? Feel your breath and the aliveness in your body.
Consciousness & Light
Ram Dass makes the observation that energy permeates the entire universe, existing on all planes and in all forms, in his book "Be Here Now." We call this energy pran. Light, thoughts, feelings, and your body are all forms of pran.
These types are light in a finer form and pran in a grosser form. The universe is the purest form of pran, the smallest quantum of energy. The Clear White Light, a uniform light field that encompasses everything, is the highest level of form (as opposed to formless), from which all other planes are generated.
Many labels are equivalent at the level where there is only pure pran. In addition to pure pran, other names for this realm include pure light or pure consciousness.
It means that the universe is consciousness. “It follows that when you have succeeded in fully breaking the identification with your body, senses, and thoughts, then you merge into pure consciousness—universal consciousness. “What you thought was “your” consciousness turns out to be only a part of consciousness caught in the illusion of separateness.
A person who has served all attachments and has thus become one with consciousness is said to be in total existence, total knowledge, and total bliss. This is the highest form of samadhi.”
Consciousness & Brain
The mainstream view in science is that matter creates consciousness through the brain, which is made of matter, but science doesn’t even know what matter is. However, many scientists, argue that how can a physical thing like the brain produce something that is not physical, something that is untouchable, called consciousness?
You have a brain, but you are not your brain; consciousness is that awareness, the experience that you have, and it is not physical.
According to the American philosopher and neuroscientist Samuel Benjamin Harris, “There is nothing about a brain studied at any scale that even suggests that it might harbor consciousness. Science has no idea how the brain could create consciousness. It is still a mystery. There is no theory called the hard problem of consciousness.”
There is scientific evidence that consciousness doesn’t die when the body dies. An example would be the “Near Death Experience," known as the NDE. When the body and brain are impaired due to trauma or serious injury, people report vivid things. They see things while hovering over their bodies that people can verify, and this happens when the brain is completely off. This means that consciousness does not come from the body; when the body dies, consciousness continues because the body was never the source of consciousness.
Today, there are millions of people who report NDEs. Dr. Raymond Moody published a book called “After Life,” which really puts the NDE on the map. Researchers started to study NDE, and they found astounding similarities across culture and human history.
A case from a French ICU anesthesiologist documented in 2015: A woman’s heart stopped unexpectedly during surgery. The doctor stabilized her while she was unconscious, so she never woke up. She had a normal post-surgery recovery, but after she woke up, the patient told her doctor that she knew she had died during the surgery. When asked how, she said she left her body and saw what was happening in the next operating room. She said her consciousness had gone above the ceiling; she was able to see through the ceiling into the operating room next door. The patient saw a man’s leg being amputated in that room, and the leg was put into a bright yellow plastic bag for disposal. The patient told her surgeon; even her surgeon did not know about it until he confirmed it later with hospital records.
There is a massively strong relationship between the brain and the type of conscious experience you have. We have proven that the brain impacts our consciousness, but it hasn’t been proven that the brain creates consciousness. There is a high correlation between a huge fire and the number of fire fighters; however, that doesn’t mean that fire fighters cause big fires. They are related to the fire. In statistics, they say, correlation doesn’t imply causation.
The brain is like an antenna that receives consciousness, or the brain is a processor or a filter of consciousness. Consciousness operates through the brain. Life has no meaning if your brain produces consciousness; then, when we die, everything is gone.
Consciousness & Energy
What if consciousness isn’t stuck in our heads?
In one of Wayne Dyer's talks, he emphasized the importance of willingly suspending our disbelief. When we attend a movie, seeking to immerse ourselves in its story, we do not dwell on the fact that it's merely a two-dimensional screen with images projected from the rear of the room. Instead, we let go, allowing ourselves to be entertained for a few hours.
Likewise, there exists an energy in the universe—an energy we are all inherently connected to. To tap into it, we must suspend our disbelief regarding our nature. We are not merely human beings with a spiritual aspect; we are spiritual beings experiencing a human existence.
The quality of our lives hinges on how deeply we connect with this invisible force. Once we gain awareness of it, we are never truly separated from it. This force, whether called God, energy, awareness, spirit, soul, consciousness, or by any name, as Alan Watts once articulated, cannot be truly understood through words alone. It remains aloof from our comprehension because it resides in the non-material world, in the realm of spirit.
Consciousness & Religion
Where does God fit in all of this?
God is a charge term; depending on who you ask, you may get a different definition. The evidence points toward an interconnected, entangled stream of consciousness—a single mind. The key point is that there is no separation between us, and this idea, maybe the false stream, the one mind, is the equivalent of what some people mean by God.
Religions place a strong emphasis on awareness, introspection, comprehension, and moral consciousness, even though they do not explore the modern philosophical or scientific theories of consciousness.
Genesis 2:7 "Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being," this passage says in describing the creation of Adam. Some see this as the point at which God gave humans consciousness, setting them apart from other animals.
In "The Book & the Quran, a contemporary reading," Dr. Muhammad Sharour elucidated that mankind came to bear as God's stewards on Earth through the infusion of the soul's breath. This breath from God sparked the beginning of conscious history. It brought about the construction of homes, the adoption of clothes, and the definition of moral limits—what is acceptable and what is not. Mankind's remarkable achievements, including aviation, missile technology, vehicle and submarine production, and the construction of industrial complexes, can be attributed to this divine spark within.
Consciousness & Science
What does science say about consciousness?
The nature of consciousness is a topic of great interest and ongoing research in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, cognitive science, and philosophy. Scientists have put forth various theories and hypotheses to understand and explain consciousness, but it remains a complex and multifaceted subject.
Albert Einstein is not primarily known for his work on consciousness. His main contributions to science are in the fields of` theoretical physics and the development of the theory of relativity.
Einstein did make a few notable comments related to consciousness and the human experience, often in the context of philosophical or metaphysical discussions. One of his more famous quotes related to this topic is:
"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us 'Universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and his feelings as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness."
This quote reflects Einstein's contemplation of the interconnectedness of the universe and the idea that the sense of individuality and separateness that humans often feel is an illusion.
Reflection
"What are your thoughts on consciousness? How do you perceive it? Have you delved deeply into its nature and contemplated it?
Personally, I've always considered consciousness in a broad sense but hadn't truly delved into it until I encountered certain readings. My belief in God as omnipotent, the Creator of all things, leads me to perceive that He is omnipresent, existing within every being and throughout the universe. Therefore, I see myself as encompassed by God, connected through the very breath He bestowed upon Adam. Within me lies an indomitable power waiting to be accessed. I believe that tapping into this power requires a deep awareness of my own being, a consciousness that transcends mere existence. This connection, for me, is spirituality—an intimate bond with the divine, which I refer to as God. Others may choose different terms such as energy, vibration, power, or light."