What is consciousness? - A Scientific Study
I am
conscious; I not only observe but also think, feel, imagine, have intentions,
and make choices. I sense the presence of an observer and what that observer
observes. But who is doing it or observing it cannot be found in the neural
network of my brain. One thing is certain: this consciousness has always
existed from the beginning, even when I was a single cell, a zygote. That single
cell was alive (with all the information to develop into a human being) and
conscious before sperm and ovum fused to become an embryo; it had no brain at
the time, but it quickly multiplied into billions of cells that would go on to
become my various organs and, eventually, my brain. Now I am a conscious human
being who is exploring the very essence of consciousness.
All living
things are biologically conscious. All organisms use their senses to gather
information about their surroundings, allowing them to perform vital functions
such as breathing, finding food when hungry, protecting themselves when there
is danger, reproducing, and caring for their offspring. Even the simplest
living things show signs of the warm and caring relationship between a mother
and her young child. The female ants will carry their eggs on their heads as
they search for a safe place to breed. The spider uses its superior
architectural skills to construct beautiful webs for protection. Silkworms spin
hundreds of miles of fine threads to form cocoons for their shelter. So,
consciousness is not just something that humans have.
Every
single kind of living or non-living thing in this creation has its own peculiar
or distinctive technique for breathing, ranging from those that take in a very
short breath to those who take in a very slow breath. The plant as a whole is
alive and breathing, from its leaves to its stem to its roots to its flowers.
Consciousness is not visible in matter (but atoms decay); it is extremely
limited in plants; it is more prevalent in the animal kingdom (giving animals the
ability to consider their options and make decisions); and it is significantly
present in the typical human being. This makes humans more logical and
intelligent creatures on the planet compared to other things. Therefore, it
seems that there is some form of life or consciousness present in all things,
regardless of how simple or complex they may appear.
Max
Planck, who came up with the quantum theory and won the Nobel Prize in Physics
for it in 1918, says, "I regard consciousness as fundamental." He
said, "I regard matter as a derivative of consciousness. We cannot get
behind consciousness. But everything that we talk about, everything that we
regard as existing, postulates consciousness''.
The most
widely held scientific assumption is that consciousness cannot be separated
from brain activity, that it is inextricably linked to neural activity in the
brain, and that it evolves as an inherent feature of complex biological
computation over time. But the mechanism by which the brain generates
consciousness is still a mystery to science.
Science is
the pursuit of knowledge that aims to explain how things are made and how
things happen. But science has no idea:
Why things are the way they are?
Why are humans the way they are?
What makes animals the way they are?
What causes birds to be the way they are?
What does the appearance of the flowers mean?
Why did this universe come into being and evolve?
I shifted
my focus to the spiritual realm in order to gain better insight into the nature
of consciousness.
Sri
Ramana Maharshi, a well-known sage from southern India, posits that
consciousness is the only thing that really exists—not as an experience unique
to any one person but rather as the ground upon which all other beings and
physical phenomena rest and emerge. What we take in through our eyes is nothing
more than a reflection of the mind of the beholder. The image appears on the
mental screen and is taken as real, making us think that we are also a part of
the projected reality.
Jiddu
Krishnamurti, one of the greatest critical thinkers of our time, says that
"our consciousness is the consciousness of all humanity" and that
"our sensations, reactions, beliefs, pains, pleasures, and insecurities
are common to mankind." Even if our names and external appearances are
different in different parts of the world, humans everywhere experience the
same psychological process. All human beings possess the same, universally recognizable
form of consciousness. He claims that there is a stream of consciousness that
is common to mankind. This vast stream, which has no beginning and no end, is
continuously flowing, and we are all in it. Our consciousness is part of that stream.
The stream exists within us, and we are manifestations of it. This is the
common ground on which all human beings appear and disappear. It is the stream
in which we live psychologically.
Therefore,
each one of us is a representative of the entirety of that stream of
consciousness. The waves are not different from the ocean; they may be high or
low. He stated that my consciousness is the same as everyone else's. Therefore,
there is no individual consciousness. He says individual consciousness is an
illusion.
This is
hard to observe and recognize because of our strong individual conditioning. Human
consciousness, in its most common form, may be understood as relativity
consciousness. Since in every aspect of life, there is always a context.
Putting something into perspective with something else is the only way for a
human mind to fully understand it. The different ways in which we interpret the
world—through our religious, social, political, and economic perspectives—
define who we are as unique individuals. But our mental contents are strikingly
similar. At different points in time, we humans share nearly the same content
of love, hate, greed, lust, competition, fear, pleasure, pain, hope,
expectation, and imagination. In individuals, exaggeration of one aspect of love
for humanity can lead to the emergence of Mother Teresa; exaggeration of
another aspect, hate, can give rise to a Hitler. Both extremes are possible.
Suffering, sadness, conflict, struggle, guilt, profound pain, loneliness,
unhappiness, and confusion are universal human experiences. Only our belief
systems, which include religious, social, political, and economic concepts,
nurture and shape our individuality.
I
have concluded that no one can explain consciousness to me better than myself
since consciousness is my own sense of inner awareness of love, emotions,
feelings, thoughts, intentions, and everything else. Nothing is possible for me
unless and until I am conscious. Thus, I must delve even further into my own consciousness
because I am already familiar enough with it to know exactly what it is.
For that,
I have gone through various meditations. There are several approaches to
meditation in various traditions, each of which has its own unique practices.
The initial step in each of these meditation practices is to physically calm
the body, and then the second step is to still the mind. The basic goal of most
meditations, whether Zen, Hindu, Buddhist, or guru-led, is to control thoughts.
For this, they recommend getting into a certain posture, breathing in a certain
way, concentrating on a single point or object, chanting a prayer or repeating
a mantra over and over again, etc. Concentration requires focusing on a single
spot while ignoring all other potential distractions. Therefore, focus was on one
thing to keep the mind from going off in other directions. They encouraged me
to focus on a picture, an image, a sentence, or repeat certain words in order
to control my thoughts. Initially, I used to think about something, but my mind
kept drifting to something else. Thoughts were going everywhere and in every
direction. Most of the time, my thoughts were aimless and directionless, and I
used to try to pull them back to the point of focus. But teachers of meditation
always insisted on concentration, practice, and control.
After some
time, I realized that these meditations were not doing anything miraculous for
me. Adopting a certain sitting position increases blood flow to the brain, and
deep breathing results in increased oxygen intake. However, thoughts cannot be
controlled. These meditative states were certainly soothing, but they were
fleeting. I also experienced several visions while engaging in these
meditations, which were according to the techniques I was doing. However, I
later realized that all those experiences were the result of imagination or
information already planted in my mind by their masters or followers. Further,
I realized that the spiritual visions promoted by many gurus are nothing more than
mental projections. They do this through various techniques. We end up seeing
exactly what they want us to see because of their persuasive abilities.
The
repetition of a phrase or mantra is shown to have a calm or soothing effect on
the mind and to evoke a spectrum of feelings. But the words are nothing more
than words. The word "god" is not God, and the word "love"
is not loving. Furthermore, it is observed that constant repetition of words
dulls the mind, destroys sensitive responses, and puts a stop to further
investigations into the truth.
In the
majority of these meditations, all perspectives were external, the focus was
solely on quieting the conscious mind, and the inner processes of the workings
of the mind were completely ignored. So, the benefits gained from all these
meditation practices were only transitory. Meditation is of marginal value if
life is not free from anger, jealousy, envy, greed, anxiety, and hatred.
Meditation
without the foundation of righteous behavior is only a form of self-hypnosis. Then
I spent a lot of time figuring out how the brain works, how the mind is
created, how thoughts connect, and other aspects of human life.
I started
looking at the nature and workings of consciousness from different perspectives
in order to understand what it is. When I am awake, it rises; when I am asleep,
it falls to the level of body consciousness, where the nervous system and all
other organs continue to function. I noticed that biological programming has
its own kind of consciousness, which takes care of things like the flow of
blood, the beating of the heart, the digestion of food, and so on, and lets my
body exist. This is simply because every cell and organ is conscious, which
keeps my entire organism conscious at all times.
In deep
sleep, I am not conscious of my memories, experiences, possessions, worries or
fears, health or wealth, relationships, or even my own body, but I still exist.
The brain continues to receive impulses through the ears, eyes (some people
sleep with their eyes partially open), and nose. However, because the conscious
level of the brain is so low, these signals are not processed. Only when these
sensations are extremely intense or unusual does the brain become disturbed,
and the conscious level abruptly rises and begins processing information.
If I
am conscious, the universe is here. If I am not conscious, the entire world
disappears. For me, the world I experience is entirely the result of my own
consciousness.
The
consciousness at a given time may be defined by its contents. The consciousness
level of a child differs from that of a young or elderly person. Since we all
come from different backgrounds and have had different experiences, we each
have our own method of encoding information into our brain cells. That is why
each of us feels so unique and distinct from the others. In fact, the only real
distinctions are those of contents, patterns, and individual conditionings. As
a matter of fact, the specifics of one's consciousness become both unique to
each individual and dynamically change over time.
I followed
the path of theoretical physicists who studied the nature of subatomic
particles by removing all the particles from space (making a vacuum). They
found that space is not empty at all but is instead a throbbing quantum field
that creates matter, space, and time. In a similar way, I realized that I am
not different from my consciousness or the contents of my consciousness (mind).
Every action, every response, every thought, and every intention can be
explained based on my mind alone. My mind shows my beliefs, myths, ideals,
gods, pleasure, romantic ideas, pain, violence, fear, and my ultimate worry
about dying. Further it is very clear that consciousness is what causes the
brain to produce my mind. So, I decided to empty my mind of all its contents in
order to have the total perception of consciousness.
So, the
only way for me to get rid of the contents of consciousness was to open up my
mind, which was the only tool I had. This made it abundantly clear to me that
the mind, which is accessed through the brain, is nothing more than the
memories, programming patterns, and conditioning that are stored in brain cells.
I slowly
learned to move my brainwaves from the normal, awake beta range to the calmer
alpha, theta, and delta ranges. This made it possible for me to see the
patterns in the way I used to think, and as each new layer came to light,
unnecessary contents started to fall away.
Then
something strange happened to me. It was February 7, 2018, the last day on the
ship Costa, and it cruised southward somewhere in the middle of the Indian
Ocean at that time. We were there to celebrate the achievements of our company.
A ceremony to bestow awards on members of the organization who demonstrated
outstanding performance began in the theatre, along with creative performances
by international artists. I also received an honor, and we proceeded to party together
afterwards. People were in a celebratory mood and added to the evening's unique
atmosphere by getting out on the dance floor and showing off their best moves. From
nowhere, a thought struck me: being the last night on the ship, I must spend
the night on the deck. It was already past ten o'clock at night when I began
making my way up the steps to the deck. A few attendants were busy washing the
deck, and I moved to the rear to witness the ship's tail slicing through the waves.
The lulling sounds of the ship sailing through the sea, the crashing of the
waves, and the howling of the wind left wonderful impressions on my mind. The
scene was incredibly wonderful and romantic. Soon after that, I was the only
one left on the deck. The ship moved steadily through the night sky, making a
pleasant roaring sound. After savoring it for an hour, I lay down on a bench to
take in the breathtaking view of the sky above me. I was looking for Alpha
Centauri, a triple star system closest to earth, and I found it quickly. As
soon as I thought about how far away it was, I had the sudden realization that
the light that had reached my eyes must have come from four light-years back in
time. I was experiencing the immensity of the sky in my mind and was
consciously observing it. My eyes tried to penetrate the sky, creating more and
more space around me. Thoughts emerged, but I was too distracted by the natural
beauty and tranquility to pay them any attention. Soon I felt that the space
between two thoughts increased with every new thought. Then I had the sensation
of being completely alone in the universe, staring at the sky, absorbing its
vastness, and merging myself with the space. A searchlight from a nearby ship
briefly distracted me; I checked the time and saw that it was 12:30 am; and
then, after a while, I found myself once again at one with the immensity of
space. I felt myself disappearing into the vast, limitless space that had no
center. The body, the mind, the heart, the nerves, and the whole organism
became space. I was weightless, without a body, without a mind, without
thought, and without any center. I melted into the space, becoming the space,
and experiencing the utter silence, perfect tranquility, and ultimate peace.
The only thing that existed was awareness without consciousness, as I was not conscious
of anything. It was a state of being in which there was no being. Then, from
the opposite direction, a ship with a bright searchlight and a roaring sound
interrupted me, and I looked at my phone to see that it was 5:30 am. Then, I
became conscious of everything around me and myself.
My
curiosity quickly overwhelmed me. What was that experience when I was fully
awake, attentive, and aware but had no thoughts for about five hours straight?
My mind remained preoccupied with this occurrence for many days.
I repeatedly attempted to comprehend how it is possible to be fully awake for
hours without having a single thought. One thing that was quite clear to me was
that I was not in deep meditation, deep sleep, or a dreaming state. And I
reached that state of mind without making an effort, without conforming to any
particular pattern, and without being instructed.
Finally, I
realized that it was the pure presence of being-ness, without mind or neuron
firing in the brain. This was unquestionably a condition of infinite space, not
physical but psychological, full of life and vitality but without the past,
future, or myself. It was the natural perception of consciousness, which at the
time was neither the mind nor the function of brain cells because both the mind
and the brain were completely absent or silent. I feel that this is the true
nature of existence, awareness, or consciousness, as well as the actual state
of being.
After many
sleepless nights of thinking about this strange event, I was able to come to
the following conclusions:
1. Consciousness is just being-ness.
2.
Consciousness is not "I-am-ness" or "Mine-ness," which is nothing
but my mind alone. Consciousness is still there when the mind is not operating
at all.
3. My
mind is made up of my past experiences, upbringing, patterns, habits, feelings,
intentions, greed, fear, pride, aspirations, and thoughts.
4.
Although I own my own mind, I do not own consciousness, which is beyond the mind.
5.
Consciousness is more like an infinite space, a screen, or a phenomenon in
which the brain works and creates the mind.
6.
Consciousness is similar to a quantum field, a gravitational field (discovered
by Newton), and an electromagnetic field (uncovered by Michael Faraday). A
fully active and dynamic field that influences all forms of life and their
surroundings. It is the vacuum, nothingness, or emptiness postulated by the great
Buddhist scholar Nagarjuna. It is extremely subtle and exists outside of
matter, space, and time. It is possible that this field predates the Big Bang.
7.
Since consciousness is not a memory, piece of information, or thought, the only
way to connect with it is to quiet the mind first. The mind must have immense
space or openness, free of fragmentation, conflict, and confusion. There must
be a boundless space that is free of me, the ego, or the self. It must be as
clear as glass, allowing one to see things as they are without reflection,
refraction, or distortion. Only when the mind is free of all conditioning,
particularly religious conditioning, is it possible to have a true perception
of consciousness.
8.
There should be no excitement, no sadness, no emotion, no passion, and no use
of the imagination, but there should be a sense of wholeness, depth, quality,
vitality, and harmony with "what is," as opposed to "what should
be," which creates conflict. Then, and only then, one can see the whole
truth of "what is." For this, one needs a serious interest in
learning about oneself, a considerable drive, and energy flow to delve into the
study of consciousness. There needs to be a strong feeling of energy that has
no goal or cause and should be extremely silent.
9.
It is possible to delve into the interior of the mind and find out what has
been stored there for millions of years through evolving DNA. We don't know of
any other way to understand, realize, define, characterize, quantify, or
measure consciousness.
10.
Normal human beings are incapable of achieving this stage simply because they
are unable to stop thinking, hold a wide range of beliefs, are insatiably in
search of pleasure, and end up consuming a significant amount of energy by
engaging in constant conflict with their inner selves or other people.
This
experience can be recreated by anyone; however, a pure and clean mind is
required. Once the contents have been removed or neutralized, only then will
one have access to the entire stream of consciousness, or pure awareness, which
exists outside their mental sphere. There is nothing religious or mysterious
about this.
Consciousness,
like quantum fields, electromagnetic fields, or gravitational fields, is a type of
field, but it may not be subject to physical laws and may exist outside the
matter-space-time continuum, as I have understood and learned. It would appear that
consciousness is the fundamental element of reality and that matter is merely
an expression of it. The double-slit experiment confirms this: when a device is
used, even without conscious observation, the results are affected.
The
hard truth is that my consciousness is the cause of both my existence and the
world I live in. Consciousness creates reality on both the physical and
psychological levels.
Excerpts from the
book
Hard Truth of Everything Matter Life Death Consciousness
For richer
understanding of not only mysterious conscious but of everything in this
universe and beyond.
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