Infinite Quantum Zen

~ ღ ~ Awakening From the Dream of Life 2/2 ~ ღ ~

During several subsequent years, I began to observe my surroundings even closer than before, and what I found was shocking to say the least. Whenever I looked around, no matter where I looked, I saw people sleepwalking through their lives, with each passing day, fervently and relentlessly running in the “rat race,” denying themselves of what they really wanted on the inside.

What I mean by the idiom “rat race,” is that most people seem to be so deeply immersed in their busy daily lives, running against time and keeping pace with time and deadlines, tough competition, latest trends and what is popular that they have very little, if any, thought of the deeper aspects of life — or time and interest for that matter, you see?

As years went by, it became ever so clear to me that most people live through their lives in an unconscious state, which means that such people aren’t aware of their life as part of a bigger context within a larger whole; they repeat the same activities daily with little or no conscious control over them.

Now, having said that, it is paramount to emphasize that being conscious is not about being physically awake — many people are physically awake, yet living unconsciously; to live consciously means being aware of everything that may have an influence on one’s life. And, yes, whilst living unconsciously, these people are part and parcel of society, and they fulfill that purpose and function exceedingly well, if not too well — being part of a machine that grinds mercilessly day after day, week after week.

This, in turn, helps keeping people’s focus on the endless and pointless pursuit of material satisfactions, which inevitably always, ultimately, without fail, ends up with disappointment, thereby strengthening and deepening the vicious cycle.

The conclusion being: one doesn’t need to have a keen eye for detail to see that most people seem to live their daily lives with little thought of who they are, why they are here, or where they are going. One can easily get the impression that most people are, indeed, moving through their lives completely unconscious, without present moment awareness.

Isn’t it fascinating that all too many accept the work-eat-entertainment-sleep-and-repeat-cycle as life and have no desire for a deeper understanding of it? Isn’t it intriguing that hardly anyone is wondering what we are actually doing in this world? Isn’t it interesting that all too many have no desire for a deeper understanding of our purpose in this universe? Isn’t it intriguing that all too many accept the status-quo and settle for less?

Indeed, from cradle to grave, people are sleepwalking through their lives — as though this would be the default setting, as it were. Whether unable or unwilling to wake up, people are slumbering in an illusory dream, day after day, week after week. It’s like people in droves would go about their day in ‘autopilot’ mode, as though people would voluntarily prefer to live their lives in an unconscious state.

It is no wonder, then, that the cycle of repeated birth into mundane existence prevails. As we have learned earlier in the book, this chain of lives or “samsara” as it is called in Sanskrit, refers to the idea that human life is a repeated story, or a series of stories that are more or less related, intertwined and interconnected; the one we all have been caught up — a dream from which we are unable or unwilling to wake up.

This perpetual cycle of interconnected and interrelated chain of lives is caused by a lack of knowledge, lack of awareness, and most of all, ignorance that is caused by our desire for fulfillment outside of ourselves, grasping at fleeting experiences. Now, let me ask you this: Is it not true that we all want the same things in life: health, happiness, and love — very much in that order, and most of all, contentment and fulfillment?

Is it not also true that none of them are dependent upon external factors such as money or belongings? Yet, the peculiar thing is that most people seek these things from the world outside themselves through various means, methods, and activities. And so you see, when people are looking outside, they never have to look inside. And so it goes that yearning for fulfillment outside of ourselves only generates more desire, making the cycle of desire a continuous, perpetual self-sustaining loop.

As such, we continue to embody ourselves, or be reborn in this infinite and eternal universe as a result of these unfulfilled desires — the chain of births lets us resume the pursuit, until such time when we can become aware enough to awaken from this never-ending dream, and realize that we ourselves hold the key that can end this perpetual cycle, resulting in the cessation of suffering that arises from our ignorance of the true nature of reality, and which is caused by our desire and attachments — see?

Influenced by external stimuli, external circumstances, primal drives and desires, people don’t really understand how precious human life really is — far too many take it for granted — failing to see, recognize, and acknowledge the immeasurable value of human life. Whether people don’t have the time or interest, or they are just simply ignorant.

Either way, their attitude and actions are keeping the vicious cycle alive — keeping them distracted, keeping their minds focused on anything but the true nature of their existence — preventing them from seeing the true value of their lives. As a result, most people have never realized the True Self — our innate Spiritual Nature, the Living Essence beyond name and form, words, ideas and thinking.

All this leads us to conclude that, it is, indeed, possible to Awaken From the Dream of Life; it is, indeed, possible to realize our True Self, and it is, indeed, possible to become free of suffering. Awakening from the dream of life is simply becoming aware; and being aware, each moment, of what we are doing as we are doing it, of what we are thinking as we are thinking it, and how we are feeling as we are feeling it, you see?

Remaining aware each moment is Self-Mastery, which can eventually lead to Self-Realization and Self-Actualization. Thus, if we awake from the illusory aspect of life (dream — unconscious, unaware state), the quality of our consciousness is elevated; likewise, the quality of our mind is elevated, and in turn, the quality of our thoughts, words, and actions is elevated.

It is only by becoming more aware, more conscious, of ourselves and our surroundings, which will lead us to grow and evolve, realize our true potential, and fulfill the telos of human existence. This is something that can only be achieved through awareness, and hence it is important to highlight the following truth: all development and progress, growth and maturation — whether spiritual, mental, or physical, comes from within the individual.

This goes on to say that spiritual development is a process like any other — it arises from discipline and continuous self-improvement. Mindfulness, meditation, concentration, and contemplation are the keys through which, and by which, one can make real progress — see? It is through these methods that one is able to discover their true essence, which is just pure beingness, pure awareness — unchanging state free from all ideas, concepts, and definitions.

And so it goes that of all the words we have in our vocabulary, awareness is best suited to describe our core essence, for you see, whatsoever you can see, whatsoever you can understand, and whatsoever you can interpret — will not be of much use.

This is because the seer is not the seen, which goes on to say that whatsoever you can see — you are not that. This includes thoughts, feelings, dreams, desires, memories, imaginations, projections, and so on and so forth. What you are, though, is awareness; and awareness is transcendental to all that it can see — the observer is beyond the observed.

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~ ॐ ~ Sambodhi Padmasamadhi ~ ∞ ~

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~ ღ ~ Awakening From the Dream fo Life 1/2 ~ ღ ~

Perhaps it is best to start this chapter with the following thought: so far in our journey through this book, we have encountered many different aspects of life in several of its sections, each exploring different facets of the same, with a variety of topics, ideas, concepts, perspectives and approaches. In so doing, we have learned something new from each section and chapter — the core of our focus remaining much the same: Awakening From the Dream of Life.

This chapter serves as a perfect bridge between everything discussed thus far, and everything awareness related, such as presence, self-awareness, and mindfulness, which are all essential for awakening, and are explored in more detail in the following few chapters. Awakening itself is something that takes place within each of us whenever we are ready to remember our eternal nature, whenever we are ready to take that first step in remembering who we are at the deepest level of our being, whenever we are ready to know our core essence as Spirit.

Now, let me ask you this: What if life is a dream, and when we die — we wake up? To stretch this even further, let us consider for a moment, that the individuated experience of life can be seen as a form of simulacra, in which the existence simulates the possibility of limitation, separation, and ultimately, its crescendo — that of death, where the individuated, finite expression of life is revealed to be part of a larger whole, to be part of the continuity that transcends all concepts and definitions.

And now, let me ask you this: What if, it is, indeed, possible to awaken from the dream of life, whilst being alive in material reality inhabiting physical body? When we investigate this idea, we find that on a deeper level, our shared “reality” seems to resemble, quite indeed, more of a collective dream than anything else. In this bigger dream, what we often call “life,” we ourselves are both the dreamer and the dream at the same time. This goes on to say that there is nothing outside of ourselves, even though it may appear to be so.

This is because everything within the dream comes from the dreamer’s mind, from the dreamer’s consciousness, and therefore the whole dream can be seen as a projection from our unconscious mind. In this respect, the whole dream world is simulated from the contents of the mind — originating from deeper levels of consciousness.

Now, if we are to suppose for a moment that life is, indeed — a dream, wouldn’t that mean, then, that eventually, the dream itself is dreaming the dream and creating reality? And if so, wouldn’t that mean, then, that reality is creating you as you dream? Now, if that is indeed the case, wouldn’t that mean, then, that essentially, we are dream characters in each other’s dreams? In that respect, this is my dream from my perspective, that is your dream from your perspective, and our dreams are entangled — isn’t that fascinating?

This brings us to conclude that life is a dream, and the dream is very much real and tangible. Every once in a while, it happens that we wake up to know that we are dreaming; every once in a while, it happens that we wake up to a higher spectrum of awareness where the dream is happening.

In this higher spectrum of awareness, it is possible to know how truly mysterious life really is. And so you see, while we are at it — we may as well dream lucidly, become awake and aware in a dream, and make the most out of it. But alas, unfortunately, most humans are dreamers who are not aware of the dream they are dreaming.

Naturally, taking all the aforementioned into consideration, it brings about the question: How is it possible to awaken from the dream of life? How is it possible to become more aware? Well, you see, there are three classical paths that lead towards being more aware, towards higher consciousness: meditation, concentration, and contemplation. Even though each path is different, they all lead to the same final goal or destination — absorption of Self into the Ultimate Reality; like a river flowing into the sea, the Soul returns to its Source, becoming one with the Ultimate Truth, you see?

There is another side of the coin, though: just like the water from the river flows to the ocean, evaporates from it, and falls as a rain to gather to streams and rivers again, likewise is the nature of human existence — cyclic, you see? Without being present, without awareness, without higher consciousness, one is destined to repeat the patterns again and again, unless, of course, one is able to break the cycle and Awaken from the Dream of Life.

By virtue of the aforementioned, with regard to the dream of life, it is worth highlighting the following: this dream is so deep, so strong, and so captivating in its essence that it makes us continue to sleep. As majority of the people are sleepwalking through their lives, slumbering in an illusory dream, it goes without saying that it is a challenging process to awaken from this dream; it is difficult to go against the stream, if you will.

In this context, the collective humanity represents that stream — most humans are not ready to awaken or to be awakened. Blinded by groupthink, people function like a flock of birds or herd of sheep, nearly all of them running at a given time in the same direction — this is that stream, you see?

It is for this reason why the spiritual path is often a lonesome one — only a few are able to awaken, and even fewer can become aware that such path even exists; of those who do, only very few recognize, acknowledge and appreciate the possibility it represents, even fewer contemplate and reflect upon it, and finally, a rare few have the capacity, tenacity and resilience, perseverance and will to embark on a spiritual path.

In other words, as we have learned throughout this book, the whole of humanity is a single being, having a collective consciousness — the sum total of all human life, having a collective direction and destiny; each life is a link in a chain of lives, bound together by cause and effect, different, yet the same. All things — both seen and unseen, are intertwined and bound together in ways incomprehensible to most, which poses a huge challenge when it comes to awakening — one must go against the stream, if you will — to awaken, you see?

It is a wide-ranging process that each individual must go through by themselves; no one else can do it for us — we ourselves are responsible for our own awakening, our processes of unlearning and unbecoming everything we are not, our processes of relearning, growth, development, and maturation. When we are talking about the spiritual awakening, it is worth pointing out that it is a complete surrender — a process of harsh self-honesty.

It’s a path of complete acceptance of the truth — no matter how difficult it is to bear; this is also the main reason why only so few individuals embark on a spiritual journey — it is challenging, demanding, and time-consuming — yes, but it is also exhilarating and rewarding, you see?

That said, a brief insight from personal experience might shed some light on this, after which we will circle back to the topic at hand with a wider perspective. So, here we go. When I reflect back several years, I can see in hindsight that the awakening happened in stages. It began with a deep inner feeling that there is something wrong with the world, or more precisely, the way in which people interact with the world and with each other.

As I spent time observing the world and people around me, an overwhelming sense of emptiness or soullessness washed over me, sending shivers down my spine — it was almost eerie-like feeling, if you catch my drift? Something essential and fundamental was missing. It was like people were hollow empty shells — like there was no one home, you see?

Although you could see an occasional smile in people’s faces, there was a certain something that was missing — you could see it in their eyes: people were lost, wandering through life like a ship lost at sea, drifting in search for hope and meaning.

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~ ॐ ~ Sambodhi Padmasamadhi ~ ∞ ~

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living-consciousness-the-book-alan-watts-zen-lucid-life-happiness-mindfulness-joy-love-diamond-sutra

~ ღ ~ Living Consciousness ~ ((( ॐ ))) ~ Vibrant Interconnected Reality ~ ღ ~

As an extension of the previous chapters, this chapter expands upon the information on consciousness and its relation to awareness. In this chapter, we will take a dive into the deeper waters of consciousness – it goes in tandem with another chapter titled “Living Awareness – The Heart of Living Life,” which comes up in the next section.

The terms Living Consciousness and Living Awareness arise from personal experience that best describe the aliveness of the experience of being alive, of being fully awake and aware whilst exploring the physical reality, the world around us, and the possibilities of human life by occupying the vehicle better known as the human body.

Living Awareness is all about experiencing our core essence, experiencing life directly, experiencing reality directly, experiencing humanness in the most direct way possible; and Living Consciousness is all those experiences put together – from cosmic to galactic, to human, animal, plant, and so on.

In short, Living Consciousness builds upon the idea of Interconnectedness of Everything through shared consciousness – it shows that we live in an Interconnected Reality. More broadly, if described using humanly intelligible words, terms, shapes and forms, one would describe Interconnected Reality as follows: it is made up of Interconnected Nested Multiverses within the Innerverse – these beautiful tree-like structures resemble Apollonian Gasket Fractals in multitude of dimensions.

This type of Interconnected Reality is Vibrant, Flowy & Malleable – everything and everyone is connected to each other and nothing is separate from the whole; each of us is part of this bigger whole – like water drops in the ocean; individualized but interconnected, independent but also interdependent of the whole.

Infinite Quantum Zen is a vast body of knowledge based on Living Awareness & Living Consciousness - Interconnected Nested Multiverses within the Innerverse - Beautiful tree-like structures resemble Apollonian Gasket Fractals in multitudes of dimensions

~ Interconnected Nested Multiverses within the Innerverse - Beautiful tree-like structures resemble Apollonian Gasket Fractals in Multitudes of Dimensions ~

When we take the previous into consideration and delve deeper into the idea of Interconnected Living Consciousness, we can find that someone who is on a path toward self-knowledge, will eventually come to the realization that the highest endeavour of the mind is the investigation of its own nature. Thereby, as one delves into their own nature through self-inquiry – turning their attention and curiosity inwards towards oneself and towards the truth of one’s nature, one can understand how everything else connects to the whole.

You see, just in the same way as we are part of the whole, so in the same way the whole is part of us. It is through self-inquiry – the constant attention to the inner awareness of “I,” that it is possible to see the parts as well as the whole; as one delves into this, one realizes that Self is Awareness, that everything is ultimately One Interconnected Whole. It is by self-inquiry, through which, and by which, one can better understand themselves, and in turn grow, ripe and mature.

As one grows in understanding of oneself, the Mystery of Life unfolds itself like a lotus of countless petals. The deeper investigation and understanding happens through the processes of Self-Realization & Self-Actualization – realizing one’s deepest desires and capacities, fulfilling the possibilities of one’s potential; expressing one’s creativity, quest for spiritual enlightenment, pursuit of knowledge, and desire to give to society.

On that note, the highest possible desire is to know thyself – in other words, Self-Realization and its natural progression, Self-Actualization. Eventually this inward focus can lead to an experience of one’s ultimate true nature – such as Kensho and Satori; and even beyond experience itself to a dimension that is empty of any experience or sense of self, such as Samadhi and Enlightenment. And so you see, when one becomes realized and actualized, one does not simply know life – one is life, one is existence, one is awareness, one is knowledge, one is wisdom – without any sense of separation.

Furthermore, in terms of consciousness, at the deepest level, there is but Oneself – One undivided Self; hence Oneself. There is but One all pervading Spirit; there is but one First Cause that has its Being of itself, and on which all other beings depend; there is but one Infinite Being, so there is but One Awareness – see?

This is where Living Awareness comes in, for you see, both the individuation – the experience of being an individuated human being – a person, as well as Oneness of Life, Oneness of Reality, are experienced through Omnipresent Awareness. In this respect, Living Awareness knows itself by itself, in itself, as itself, through itself. It is this very recognition and acknowledgment through many different facets of the same that can be called Living Consciousness.

And because both Living Consciousness and Living Awareness are closely related to Self-Realization and its natural progression, Self-Actualization, let us add a little more perspective and context.

Advaita Vedanta (Ancient Non-Duality Tradition) defines Self-Realization as the knowledge of the True Self – beyond both delusion and identification with material phenomena, defining the manifest material world to be temporal – an eternal play of shakti or energy; the immutable principle or the Ultimate Reality is beyond space, time, and form – therefore, it cannot be described, quantified, reasoned, or explained – all that exists on a differentiated basis can only be directly experienced as itself.

Hence, the “outside” world that we perceive with our senses as being solid, and believe to be made out of a dense material – is actually existing in consciousness, which goes on to say that everything is happening within consciousness where the mind appears. In other words, the mind is a localization of consciousness – believed to be located in the brain and situated in the head, which in turn is a part of the human body. The body itself is an image in the mind, and everything in the mind is happening inside consciousness.

Therefore, the individuated, solid, dense, located entity called “I” – is the manifestation of an idea – created by the mind as a form of an image; this, in turn, takes place inside the mind – residing in consciousness, inside which a flame of Living Awareness infinitely flickers, you see?

And if one pursues to find the ultimate nature of the mind, they would end up realizing that the ultimate nature of mind is that aspect of the mind which remains constantly present in its experience – this is the Eternal Essence that cannot be removed or excluded in any circumstances; in other words, it is pure presence – Infinite Living Awareness.

Living Awareness is too close to itself to know itself as Infinite Living Awareness, and therefore the only way to know itself is through individuation and the creation of the finite mind. The finite mind isn’t an entity as such, but rather an activity through which the Infinite is able to know the world.

Therefore, the finite mind is the activity of Infinite Living Awareness, which has the ability to vibrate within itself – creating the form of the finite mind. This activity then makes it possible for the Infinite to know the objective experience – enabling the Infinite to know itself through the finite mind. This knowing is Living Consciousness, you see?

To summarize, Living Consciousness is that which is present and aware – Infinite Consciousness knowing its own being; the knowing of our own being is Infinite Living Awareness. In other words, Living Consciousness is the tool for Living Awareness to know itself – the container of all experience. Living Consciousness is that in which all experience appears, with which all experience is known, and out of which all experience is made.

All that IS, or could ever be known – is experience; all experience is mind – thinking, imagining, feeling, sensing, perceiving. Therefore, it can be said that the mind’s knowledge of whatever it knows or perceives is only ever as good as its knowledge of itself.

– Living Consciousness is that which is present and aware.
– Living Consciousness is that in which all experience appears.
– Living Consciousness never knows anything other than its own being.
– Living Consciousness is the being of every cell and every particle.
– Living Consciousness is the Living Awareness of All That Is.
– Living Consciousness is the real you, or the one to experience the wondrous and wonderful presence within the human body.

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~ ॐ ~ Sambodhi Padmasamadhi ~ ∞ ~

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~ ∞ ~ Panpsychism – An Easy Escape From the Dilemma of Consciousness ~ ∞ ~

To further our discussion about consciousness, it is imperative to briefly dip our toes into something that may or may not shed some light on the complexity of understanding consciousness, and why consciousness is so difficult subject matter, especially to Western people.

As a way of introduction, let us call this something “an easy escape from the dilemma of consciousness.” It concerns a revival of an old philosophical theory known as panpsychism – emphasis on the revival aspect of it. You see, in recent years, we have seen science leaning towards the idea of panpsychism, which entails that everything has a degree of consciousness.

The view of panpsychism has recently been making a comeback in the philosophy of mind, because it is seen as one possible solution to the so-called “hard problem of consciousness.” But the catch is, that this “new wave” of panpsychism lacks the mystical connotations of previous forms of the view. In a nutshell, it is a sugarcoated, cherry-picked and watered-down version of the original.

Panpsychism, in philosophy of mind, is the view that mind or a mind-like aspect is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality. In this revival, there is only matter; and there is mind, in the sense that mind is matter.

Hence, there is nothing spiritual, supernatural, or mystical about it. It’s like the advocates of this “new wave” of panpsychism are cherry-picking only those things that best fit the standard scientific paradigm with its materialist foundation for the purposes of finding an easy escape from the dilemma of consciousness.

The ultimate goal of Western science is nothing more or less than the “theory of everything,” which is a hypothetical single, all-encompassing, coherent theoretical framework that fully explains and links together all physical aspects of the universe. But alas, without solving the “hard problem of consciousness,” such theory is unattainable.

The undeniable truth is that science alone cannot solve the ultimate mystery of life, because we ourselves are an intrinsic part of the mystery we are trying to solve – unless we add ourselves to the equation, we will never solve any of the major problems, nor will we solve the mysteries of life, either.

It goes without saying that we should not be surprised that our standard scientific method struggles to deal with consciousness. You see, it seems as though, modern science was explicitly designed to exclude consciousness. It seems that there is – still, at the beginning of the third decade of the 21st century, a great taboo against querying the mysterious inner world of consciousness. For some reason, it is not considered to be a fitting topic for “serious science.”

As such, some have convinced themselves that the only practical solution would be the revival of panpsychism; that this cherry-picked “new wave” of panpsychism would be the magic bullet that would solve all the problems regarding consciousness. But alas, the problem of consciousness, however, is radically unlike any other scientific problem.

Even though panpsychism is one of the oldest philosophical theories concerning mind, reaching far back into pre-Socratic times, it is paramount to highlight the fact that this “new wave” specifically deals with the mental aspect of it all – covering only a tiny fraction of the spectrum of consciousness. Therefore, it is unfortunate that with the rise in interest in the “hard problem of consciousness” in Western science, it has misleadingly become synonymous with consciousness, resulting in a lot of ensuing confusion and misunderstanding.

You see, the claim is that “I – the body am conscious,” and because “I am composed of physical matter,” therefore also the physical universe (matter) must be conscious. Panpsychism is often considered to be equivalent to the Non-Dual understanding of consciousness, which entails that consciousness pervades everything; and herein lies both the problem and misunderstanding. You see, the core of this misunderstanding lies at the very beginning of the statement – the mistake is: “I – the body am conscious.” And so you see, when you build on this ground, every other step also contains this initial misunderstanding.

Even though there is similarity to Non-Dual understanding of consciousness, there is also a profound and distinct difference: from the panpsychist’s perspective – mind exists in matter. In contrast, from the Non-Dual perspective – material world exists in mind. Panpsychism, therefore – is a form of materialism, in which the world is seen as separate from our core essence – that of awareness. A key problem with materialism is that it has been unable to explain how arrangements of matter can possibly generate subjective experience.

This problem is so incomprehensible that some materialist philosophers even try to deny the very existence of consciousness altogether, and find an easy escape from the dilemma of consciousness. As such, panpsychism provides an easy escape route for the materialist – it magically “solves” the hard problem of consciousness, simply by declaring consciousness to be either an irreducible property or the intrinsic nature of matter.

All that panpsychism does – is that it maintains the current belief that matter is either in substance or in structure the primary aspect of reality, which goes on to say that panpsychism gives us the sugarcoated version of materialism which doesn’t actually solve anything.

In panpsychism, consciousness is fundamentally fragmented in the same way as matter appears to be; consciousness is just one more irreducible property of matter at a subatomic level – just like mass, charge, spin and momentum. In other words, all matter is thought to have consciousness at a fundamental level – matter, however – remains the broader and more primary aspect of reality.

And so you see, to the panpsychist, “the real world” consists of matter and energy fields – which are, allegedly, outside, and independent of, consciousness. The presumption that the physical body has consciousness comes from the observation that because we are able to experience and to perceive the world, therefore we must also have consciousness – making us conscious; identifying ourselves with the physical body.

And yet, in all actuality, we don’t have consciousness – we are consciousness made manifest by Living Awareness; there is a fundamental difference between the two – see? In our observations of the world, we have also noticed that animals seem to express certain level of consciousness, and hence we have applied this same presumption to animals as well.

By virtue of the aforementioned with regard to levels of consciousness, one can pose the following questions: Where do we draw the line and say that something is conscious and something is not? When does matter become conscious, or can it ever become conscious at all?

If we really tune into this idea, we can find that in all actuality, only consciousness is conscious, and only awareness is aware; and that our ability to be aware, enables us to express consciousness through which we experience the world. We also find that there is a precursor to consciousness – that of sentience; which means “capable of feeling.” This is what makes the distinction between humans and other sentient beings like animals – it is quite different to be conscious than only capable of feeling.

When we’re talking about sentience, it is noteworthy that the meaning of sentience in Buddhism is far more sophisticated than in Western thought – it is described as the state of having senses, not limited to physical ones, but also including the subjective experience of the mind; sentience in Buddhism is awareness prior to the arising of Skandha*1 – thus, an animal, plants, trees, and even water qualifies as a sentient being.

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*1 Skandha in Buddhism, refers to the concept of five aggregates, which asserts five elements that constitute and explain a living being’s mental and physical existence: 1.) form or matter (rupa), 2.) sensation or feeling (vedana), 3.) perception (samjna), 4.) mental formations (sankhara), 5.) consciousness (vijnana).

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~ ॐ ~ Sambodhi Padmasamadhi ~ ∞ ~

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~ ∞ ~ The Mystery of Consciousness 2/2 - Awaken the Living Awareness Within ~ ∞ ~

By virtue of the aforementioned with regard to the nature of consciousness, one can pose a question: Do animals have consciousness? Do plants? To which the answer can be given: as the nature of consciousness is very much subjective, it can truly be known only through the aforementioned methods, you see?

In so doing, one can arrive at the following conclusion: all living things have consciousness, and are inseparably linked to all other living things in this Great Cosmic Web of Life; even plants have consciousness – plant’s knowing of where to grow and how to turn to the light is evidence of this.

Every living thing lives within the continuous cycle of birth and death where the remains of one become the nutrients for the other – nothing is ever wasted, everything just transforms into different forms at various times; everything shifts between different levels of existence or consciousness according to its vibrational frequency or awareness, you see?

Furthermore, upon deeper examination, one ultimately finds that inanimate objects are energy – like anything else, and contain trace amounts of consciousness, as all energy comes from a source of consciousness, you see? This understanding not only unites everything that happens in the visible outer world, but it also links the inner subjective world to the outer world.

All things – both seen and unseen, are bound together by cause and effect, which goes on to say that nothing can exist in absolute independence of other things or arise of its own accord; everything in the world comes into existence in response to causes and conditions – meaning that all beings and phenomena exist or occur only because of their relationship with other things. Therefore, one can say that all things – both seen and unseen, share consciousness. You see, in a completely interconnected universe, consciousness anywhere means consciousness everywhere.

As the whole of humanity is a single being, having a collective consciousness – the sum total of all human life, each life being a link in a chain of lives, bound together by cause and effect, different, yet the same – it would mean that we are part of, and intimately connected to, absolutely everything in the universe.

Now, if one sees the interconnected universe as a medium through which consciousness and information is communicated, shared and exchanged, they can also picture the universe as one enormously big, gigantic cell of consciousness containing all the information life needs to expand, develop and unfold.

In this respect, life, therefore, in and of itself, is one gigantic process of passing down consciousness and information. From this perspective, all of life is essentially one gigantic ocean of life, one gigantic ocean of consciousness.

Underlying this consciousness, there is awareness – through which, and by which, we become aware of consciousness. In other words, there is the content of consciousness as well as the awareness of it. In this respect, consciousness does not shine by itself – it shines by a light beyond it; this light is awareness, you see?

This is why the Buddhist likens consciousness to a lamp, which lights itself at the same time it lights up the objects around it. And so you see, awareness is like a light switch that turns on the lamp. From this, we can draw the conclusion that not only does all life have consciousness, but all life has awareness in varying degrees. More precisely, all Life is Awareness, and so it goes that to understand consciousness, one has to become more aware, you see?

Now, let us circle back to the problem with the “scientific attitude,” whose materialist approach and attempts to conceptualize consciousness is precisely what gives rise to confusion and keeps the vicious cycle alive, deepening the scientific dogma, and feeding scientism (the claim that science is the only source of knowledge; that science is the absolute and only justifiable access to the truth), which blinds us from seeing beyond self-imposed limits and illusion, preventing us from understanding consciousness.

When it comes to consciousness – our innate ability to experience or to feel – it remains a mystery to science, although many so-called “experts” have attempted to study, define and explain it. In our attempt to understand consciousness, we have chosen a stance of denial: if we cannot locate, measure, or see consciousness; if we cannot quantify or break down consciousness – it must be impossible; or at the very least – it must reside in the brain.

It is, after all, our firm belief that the mind is in the brain – so therefore also consciousness must reside in the brain, as well. Yet, ironically enough, we cannot prove it to be so. We tend to think that what we see is all there is – that there is nothing we cannot see. Even though we know this is not true, we like to pretend otherwise.

The investigation of our existence, and therefore of our sentience, of our consciousness, always seem to start with the presumption of things – the basic presumption of our being is based on the material reality. From this, the question arises: How could we ever possibly break down consciousness when it is the most concrete and fundamental of all things?

All current Western approaches for consciousness (at least all mainstream ones) are based on materialism – a philosophical stance which holds that the only thing that exists – is matter; that all things are composed of material, and all phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions. Therefore, the basic question has always been: How does something come out of nothing, and furthermore: How does consciousness arise from matter?

Scientifically oriented people often think that consciousness is an emergent biological phenomena – making no difference to physical systems; also psychologists often speak of the mind and the body as two separate entities for convenience – while many still acknowledge that they are intimately entwined.

Both have largely ignored how consciousness manifests in our existence; this has been done by assuming that brain produces consciousness – although it has never been verified. The only verifiable thing is that consciousness in human form is something that conceives, governs, constructs, and eventually becomes the activity of the body.

Some materialist scientists even believe that consciousness is nothing more than a side effect of our brain moving towards a state of entropy; this must be one of the most preposterous ideas put forward because consciousness in and of itself is concentration of awareness – which is totally opposite of what is being suggested by those materialist scientists.

When we really “tune in” to our own consciousness by using different mindfulness practices – one comes to realize that consciousness always arise from awareness – it doesn’t exist in itself; it is always relative to awareness. This is the main reason why science – as we know it today, cannot properly understand consciousness. You see, as things stand now, the so called “hard problem of consciousness” is deeply rooted in scientific materialism, which is based on the reductionist assumptions of various kinds.

This means that modern science and medicine are essentially based on the reductionist view of the material world. Therefore, it also reduces human existence to our physical existence, in much the same way it reduces reality to what can be detected through sensory experience or can be analyzed with reason – leaving no room for intuition, insight and Inner Knowing.

Due to scientific materialism, we believe and assume that all phenomena in the universe, including time and consciousness, are governed by “eternal laws,” and that all phenomena are subject to the same physical laws, which can be discovered by the means of systematic observation and experimentation. Here we should ask ourselves: Are these so called “eternal laws” of nature really set, or could it be possible that they are still evolving? Who are we to say that the laws of nature are fixed?

It doesn’t take a genius to understand that if the universe is expanding and evolving, then also the laws of nature may be evolving as well. The problem is that we are always looking for a physical explanation. Hence, it goes without saying that the known laws of physics are not only incomplete, but they are inadequate to explain the phenomenon of consciousness.

According to science, the universe is made of nothing, and we have no idea how we experience it; on top of that, we don’t exactly know where is the experience happening. Clearly, it is not happening in our brains, because the brain itself is experience in our consciousness, and our body is no different in that regard. And the amazing part is that we cannot find consciousness anywhere – we cannot touch it, taste it, smell it, hear it, find it or localize it – but we can experience it. Intriguing, isn’t it?

The ancient wisdom traditions have a simple answer to this problem: we are asking completely the wrong question. You see, “where” implies a location in space, and existence in time, and our consciousness is not in space-time. So, clearly, we would have to consider that it could be the other way around – that consciousness is fundamental, and what we experience as the mental and perceptual experience of the world is actually a modified form of consciousness.

In other words, there is only consciousness, and therefore the physical world and our mental experiences are simply modified aspects of consciousness. To stretch this even further, the entire universe is also an experience in our consciousness. This leads us to a staggering conclusion: all experience and phenomena happens in consciousness, and hence there is nowhere to go but in.

In a broader sense, this means that in regard to space and time, matter and form – there really is no space “out there,” and no universal clock “anywhere” to keep time – rather, there is but an appearance of space and time, matter and form; and thus, it is all here – within the Innerverse, residing within each and every one of us. The mind creates the appearance of separation, you see?

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~ ॐ ~ Sambodhi Padmasamadhi ~ ∞ ~

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~ ∞ ~ The Mystery of Consciousness 1/2 - Awaken the Living Awareness Within ~ ∞ ~

In this section, we dive deeper into the topic of consciousness and its relation to awareness (which has its own dedicated section following this one). A good way to start would be to say that as we begin to shed the layers of the human condition that blinds our perception of our Infinite Being, we come across the idea of consciousness. It is something that underlies everything we know and everything we do, it is present in our daily life, and yet we know so little about it.

And so it can be said that consciousness is one of the biggest mysteries there is. Indeed, if one takes a moment to investigate, one arrives at the conclusion that consciousness has been one of the most profound mysteries of our existence from the very beginning. We talk about it all the time, and we know about it through our experiences – and yet, nobody agrees on what consciousness is – be it science, philosophy, mysticism, or religion; there are as many answers as there are people, you see?

In the previous sections, through many chapters, we have already discussed a fair amount about this topic. As such, the purpose of this section is to crystallize some of the main aspects of it, and pose questions more than give answers. Among some of the deep questions we ask in this section are: What is consciousness? Is it dependent on, independent of, or interdependent with physical reality?

Why do non-Western wisdom traditions and Western scientific perspectives disagree so completely in their ideas about it? Do animals have consciousness? Do plants? What do experiences such as dreams, intuition, creativity, spiritual and near-death events tell us about the malleability and the range of consciousness, its elusiveness and transcendental nature? How does one study consciousness? How does one better understand consciousness?

When we ask the question: What is consciousness, we arrive at the conclusion that there is no definitive, all-encompassing definition or description about consciousness, although the emerging field of consciousness studies seeks to arrive at one.

One such definition, favored by Western science, relies on materialist theories which argue that consciousness is constituted by the physiological structure of the brain, and hence it can be reduced to its neural activity, or that it is an emergent product of complex neural networks. Mainstream scientists like to say, argue – and even insist, that the brain creates consciousness and that consciousness cannot survive without the brain.

But if one looks deeper, utilizing the very tools provided by the science itself, namely Quantum Mechanics, it is just as plausible to argue that consciousness exists before the formation of the brain, and therefore consciousness can exist after the death of the brain. What an astonishing dichotomy, isn’t it? By contrast, non-Western traditions see consciousness as ontologically primary to physical matter, an idea that underlies most of the world’s wisdom traditions, including Zen, Taoism, Buddhism, Vedanta, and Yoga.

From the previous, we can see that the idea of consciousness has been used in many ways throughout the history of humanity. The Western approach with its materialist ideas, definitions and descriptions being the youngest, and hence the most partial and incomplete. Considering how far we have come as a species, with all the discoveries in science, engineering and technology – including astronomy, biology, chemistry, medicine, psychology, sociology, and philosophy, among many other fields, it is simply astonishing how little we have discovered about consciousness.

Although we don’t understand what consciousness is, we have some thoughts on what it might be, and hence there are a plethora of theories and hypothesis around it. Interestingly, none of these theories really answers to the primary question of what consciousness is, but rather, most, if not all, focus explaining what consciousness does.

Consciousness is generally described to be a state or quality of awareness; besides being an aspect or quality of awareness, sometimes it has been defined also as qualia, sentience, subjectivity, or the ability to experience or to feel. Other descriptions of consciousness include wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind; some go even so far as to say that consciousness is the same as life; ancient wisdom traditions all over the world has called it simply Spirit.

All the above-mentioned descriptions mean that consciousness in human form is something that conceives, governs, constructs, and eventually becomes the activity of the body. When we investigate consciousness more deeply by utilizing our innate ability of being aware of our own consciousness, we can find that consciousness is also something bigger than us – something much more than just the quality of our awareness, and the ability of being aware of our individuated self.

Isn’t it intriguing that everyone seems to have their opinions about consciousness, but so little true understanding about it; isn’t it intriguing that we sure do like to speculate, but we put very little, if any, effort in understanding consciousness better. It goes without saying that understanding both consciousness and awareness – defining characteristics of sentience, should be our primary goal above all else, or at the very least, considered as being of great importance as they are playing a key role in determining the course of human happiness and suffering.

These varying opinions about consciousness comes from the individual perspective of one’s own subjective experience of life, and yet we have no agreement on what consciousness truly and really is. As such, it can be said that understanding consciousness appears to be more difficult than anything we have ever encountered to this day.

The biggest problems in answering the many questions about consciousness, its nature and its extent arises out of the fact that humans have always started their explorations from the external world, rather than within the inner world, you see?

One of these problems is deeply rooted in the way in which we acquire information – the importance is often placed on the mind and the linear, rational, and logical thinking; this type of information gathering and processing is valued over the heart-based wisdom (science vs. intuition). For some reason, it is difficult for us to appreciate anything that goes against the norm, that is, logic and reason as we know and practice them today.

This brings us face to face with the difficulty on studying consciousness – our modern contemporary methods of studying consciousness are linear, whereas consciousness is very much a non-linear phenomenon. Also the modern science has its very own core problems (assumptions of and about the world) in their scientific methods – the biggest being the way of seeing the world: as if everything would be separate from ourselves.

As such, understanding the nature of consciousness is one of the grand outstanding scientific challenges. The fundamental methodological problem is how phenomenal first person experience can be accounted for in a third person verifiable form, while the conceptual challenge is to both define its function and physical realization.

Consciousness is something that cannot be observed in the way that material objects can – it cannot be weighed, measured, or otherwise pinned down. From this, it becomes clear that science can only go so far – or at least the science we know today, which means that the only viable way to study consciousness is through direct experience, exploring and sharing these experiences by discussing about them, and in so doing learning about them – see?

Many ancient wisdom traditions explore consciousness through direct experience, which is achieved through contemplative practices such as Qi-gong, Zen meditation, and Yoga; these practices teach the practitioner to achieve a state of mental quiescence or stillness in order to comprehend reality in its non-physical manifestations, and in so doing, achieve a state of unity with the ultimate ground of being.

There are three classical paths that lead towards being more aware, towards higher consciousness, towards better understanding of consciousness: meditation, concentration, and contemplation. Even though each path is different, each of them can help one to better understand consciousness; when followed and practiced consistently, they all lead to the same final goal or destination – absorption of Self into the Ultimate Reality.

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~ ॐ ~ Sambodhi Padmasamadhi ~ ∞ ~

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[ Click » here « to read the next part: The Mystery of Consciousness 2/2 ]