Conscious curiosity
Are you a meditator? Have you ever spent time investigating your own mind? I don't mean that constant flow of thoughts, ideas, and concepts, those things that are the domain of psychology. I mean consciousness itself. Awareness itself.
We are all aware. Aware of the world. Aware of ourselves. This is such a fundamental aspect of our experience that we seldom even stop to consider how utterly marvelous this really is. Have you ever asked yourself: "What is consciousness?"
I submit to you that consciousness is the greatest mystery in the universe. We are excited about discovering the inner workings of the human cell, the nature of electrons, or the motions of distant galaxies. But these things we as a society have at least some knowledge about. We understand them to some degree. But consciousness? We have no idea whatsoever what consciousness is.
Does this not strike you as utterly strange? We all experience consciousness. But none of us have a single clue what it is or where it comes from. We have it, but how did we get it?
If you ask a scientist they would most likely say that it is an emergent property of the brain. Or, they might say that it does not exist at all, that it is an epiphenomenon of the material world — a kind of optical illusion that gives us the erroneous idea that we possess free will. But that would all be guesses, prejudices or simply ways to avoid having to say: "I have absolutely no idea."
The problem is that whenever we try to observe consciousness we never see consciousness itself. We only see the objects that are occupying our mind, the objects held by our awareness. The untrained mind only sees the objects reflected in the mirror, never the mirror itself. But through the practice of meditation, we can actually experience directly the true nature of consciousness.
So... If you are not a meditator I just have to ask you: Are you not interested in the nature of consciousness? This strange thing that we take so utterly for granted?
Be still for a while and look within yourself. Mysterious, isn't it?
We are all aware. Aware of the world. Aware of ourselves. This is such a fundamental aspect of our experience that we seldom even stop to consider how utterly marvelous this really is. Have you ever asked yourself: "What is consciousness?"
I submit to you that consciousness is the greatest mystery in the universe. We are excited about discovering the inner workings of the human cell, the nature of electrons, or the motions of distant galaxies. But these things we as a society have at least some knowledge about. We understand them to some degree. But consciousness? We have no idea whatsoever what consciousness is.
Does this not strike you as utterly strange? We all experience consciousness. But none of us have a single clue what it is or where it comes from. We have it, but how did we get it?
If you ask a scientist they would most likely say that it is an emergent property of the brain. Or, they might say that it does not exist at all, that it is an epiphenomenon of the material world — a kind of optical illusion that gives us the erroneous idea that we possess free will. But that would all be guesses, prejudices or simply ways to avoid having to say: "I have absolutely no idea."
The problem is that whenever we try to observe consciousness we never see consciousness itself. We only see the objects that are occupying our mind, the objects held by our awareness. The untrained mind only sees the objects reflected in the mirror, never the mirror itself. But through the practice of meditation, we can actually experience directly the true nature of consciousness.
So... If you are not a meditator I just have to ask you: Are you not interested in the nature of consciousness? This strange thing that we take so utterly for granted?
Be still for a while and look within yourself. Mysterious, isn't it?
posted by Martin at Tuesday, May 09, 2006
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