Consciousness is not a thing, nor a substance. It may or may not be “a flow,” a flowing presence. It seems unpersuasive to maintain that particular human consciousness is essentially a presenting in time of universal, divine consciousness. What is consciousness? What does it mean to be conscious? What is this activity known from within, so that one is conscious of being conscious, without, it seems, even knowing in clear thought what it is to be conscious?
Consider: When one is conscious, one is aware of diverse movements or processes taking place. Now I see, now I hear. I think—or thoughts arise into consciousness. Fragments of memories, fragments of dreams, of words spoken or heard last evening, of images taken in by consciousness recently or in a more distant date in space-time. Consciousness is present, is now, but it has a way of pulling in parts or pieces from diverse times and places, experienced in reality, or imagined within consciousness’ own activities.
Thoughts come to mind, that is, enter consciousness. From what source, one may not know well, or barely, or not know at all. Thoughts enter into consciousness—they “come to mind.” Why? From what source? Why am I having these thoughts now? For the most part, I do not know, and wonder if one can at all trace thoughts to their source, although one may find possible or even likely precursors, sources for this or that particular thought. And feelings. Why do they come in when they do? Why is it that one can feel and be consciousness of such a diversity of feelings in what seems to be a short period of time? Why sorrow, why gladness, why fatigue, why energy and alertness?
A common older term used for consciousness was the soul: psyche in Greek, anima in Latin. In both cases the word is feminine, which may be sheerly coincidental, or it could reflect a common and profound human experience: that human soul, consciousness, is receptive; it is not self-generating, at least does not seem to be, but responds to various forces, sensations, sights, sounds, and so on. Consciousness may be like mother earth, that receives rain, sun, darkness, cold, and yet brings forth an abundance of life. Consciousness, like the earth, receives and generates.
A more modern term for consciousness is mind, perhaps emphasizing the processes of thinking that take place in consciousness. Humorously I think of words from the film “Shadowlands,” in which an effete professor at either Oxford or Cambridge says—in Oxbridge English—“Whereas men have intellect, women have soul.” Well, intellect, soul, feelings, and much more, all seem to function together in everyone’s consciousness—unless what I am experiencing here and now is utterly unique, unlike what others or you may experience.
The term “consciousness” for this whole bundle of activities may be most recent of all. Although used in Germany as Bewusstsein, at least since Wolff in the 17th century, it came into English as “consciousness” by John Locke, writing in the late 17th, early 18th centuries. To be conscious, to be aware, to be mentally awake, to receive and to be responsive to the whole in which one participates bodily, to bring forth fresh thoughts, to take in passively without thinking.
What am I doing or being now, that I call it “consciousness”? I am experiencing the world outside of consciousness, bordering on consciousness, reaching into consciousness, and seemingly arising into consciousness from what one may term “unconsciousness,” or some unknown “depth” of mind or psyche that had not been consciousness a few moments ago. What a strange, mysterious process it is to be consciousness. Are some human beings conscious without being conscious, or passively absorbing sights or sounds from “the outside world,” without being aware of what is happening to them?
Am I conscious now? Are you? To bring forth words requires some degree of consciousness. To read, without or without understanding what is intended by the words on the page, requires some degree of consciousness. What can one do without being conscious at all? How would we know? Is what we call “death” a condition of consciouslessness, of not being conscious of anything, of not sensing, feeling, thinking? Can anything be called “alive” without some degree of consciousness? Is an ameba conscious in any way? It seems doubtful to me, but how does one know?
Consciousness is a knowing-from-within, a being part of the whole of reality, but
experienced not only as acted upon, but always as acting, as engaging the world outside of consciousness in some ways. What would it be like to experience only one’s consciousness, without an also-arising awareness of otherness, of things, persons, events that lie outside, beyond one’s own consciousness? Could a human being be conscious of itself, and at the same time oblivious to existence outside of itself? Such a condition, if possible, would be as close to “hell” as I could conceive: To be mindful only of self, wholly unaware of other, of others, of beings and things “outside” and largely independent of one’s own self, one’s self-consciousness.
If being conscious only of oneself would be a hellish, self-enclosed existence, would it be heavenly not to be conscious of oneself, or at least of one’s “ego,” feelings, thoughts? In popular imagination, “heaven” is a place, somewhere “up there,” in which one presumably still exists, and in more or less bodily form. I think of “heaven” not as a place, but as a state of consciousness, a being fully aware, fully alert, fully awake, and in peace: in the kind of peace “that surpasses understanding,” that is at once peace and bliss, a blowing out of ego, a condition that could be called “nibbana,” the blowing out of self in its forms, and yet being fully conscious. It is not to be conscious of nothing, nor of nothingness, not of “a god,” or a being-thing of any kind. I would call “entering into the joy of the LORD,” or experiencing that “peace which surpasses understanding,” or entering nibbana (nirvana) as being fully conscious, aware, without focusing attention on any being-thing, and surely not on being conscious of being conscious—that is, not on oneself. To be conscious in a form that transcends consciousness, or the limits of particular consciousness, and, if one dares to say so, is in undivided union with …with that which is beyond all form, name, being, feeling, thought.
Consciousness seems to seek to move ever beyond its limited self: to be?
Consider: When one is conscious, one is aware of diverse movements or processes taking place. Now I see, now I hear. I think—or thoughts arise into consciousness. Fragments of memories, fragments of dreams, of words spoken or heard last evening, of images taken in by consciousness recently or in a more distant date in space-time. Consciousness is present, is now, but it has a way of pulling in parts or pieces from diverse times and places, experienced in reality, or imagined within consciousness’ own activities.
Thoughts come to mind, that is, enter consciousness. From what source, one may not know well, or barely, or not know at all. Thoughts enter into consciousness—they “come to mind.” Why? From what source? Why am I having these thoughts now? For the most part, I do not know, and wonder if one can at all trace thoughts to their source, although one may find possible or even likely precursors, sources for this or that particular thought. And feelings. Why do they come in when they do? Why is it that one can feel and be consciousness of such a diversity of feelings in what seems to be a short period of time? Why sorrow, why gladness, why fatigue, why energy and alertness?
A common older term used for consciousness was the soul: psyche in Greek, anima in Latin. In both cases the word is feminine, which may be sheerly coincidental, or it could reflect a common and profound human experience: that human soul, consciousness, is receptive; it is not self-generating, at least does not seem to be, but responds to various forces, sensations, sights, sounds, and so on. Consciousness may be like mother earth, that receives rain, sun, darkness, cold, and yet brings forth an abundance of life. Consciousness, like the earth, receives and generates.
A more modern term for consciousness is mind, perhaps emphasizing the processes of thinking that take place in consciousness. Humorously I think of words from the film “Shadowlands,” in which an effete professor at either Oxford or Cambridge says—in Oxbridge English—“Whereas men have intellect, women have soul.” Well, intellect, soul, feelings, and much more, all seem to function together in everyone’s consciousness—unless what I am experiencing here and now is utterly unique, unlike what others or you may experience.
The term “consciousness” for this whole bundle of activities may be most recent of all. Although used in Germany as Bewusstsein, at least since Wolff in the 17th century, it came into English as “consciousness” by John Locke, writing in the late 17th, early 18th centuries. To be conscious, to be aware, to be mentally awake, to receive and to be responsive to the whole in which one participates bodily, to bring forth fresh thoughts, to take in passively without thinking.
What am I doing or being now, that I call it “consciousness”? I am experiencing the world outside of consciousness, bordering on consciousness, reaching into consciousness, and seemingly arising into consciousness from what one may term “unconsciousness,” or some unknown “depth” of mind or psyche that had not been consciousness a few moments ago. What a strange, mysterious process it is to be consciousness. Are some human beings conscious without being conscious, or passively absorbing sights or sounds from “the outside world,” without being aware of what is happening to them?
Am I conscious now? Are you? To bring forth words requires some degree of consciousness. To read, without or without understanding what is intended by the words on the page, requires some degree of consciousness. What can one do without being conscious at all? How would we know? Is what we call “death” a condition of consciouslessness, of not being conscious of anything, of not sensing, feeling, thinking? Can anything be called “alive” without some degree of consciousness? Is an ameba conscious in any way? It seems doubtful to me, but how does one know?
Consciousness is a knowing-from-within, a being part of the whole of reality, but
experienced not only as acted upon, but always as acting, as engaging the world outside of consciousness in some ways. What would it be like to experience only one’s consciousness, without an also-arising awareness of otherness, of things, persons, events that lie outside, beyond one’s own consciousness? Could a human being be conscious of itself, and at the same time oblivious to existence outside of itself? Such a condition, if possible, would be as close to “hell” as I could conceive: To be mindful only of self, wholly unaware of other, of others, of beings and things “outside” and largely independent of one’s own self, one’s self-consciousness.
If being conscious only of oneself would be a hellish, self-enclosed existence, would it be heavenly not to be conscious of oneself, or at least of one’s “ego,” feelings, thoughts? In popular imagination, “heaven” is a place, somewhere “up there,” in which one presumably still exists, and in more or less bodily form. I think of “heaven” not as a place, but as a state of consciousness, a being fully aware, fully alert, fully awake, and in peace: in the kind of peace “that surpasses understanding,” that is at once peace and bliss, a blowing out of ego, a condition that could be called “nibbana,” the blowing out of self in its forms, and yet being fully conscious. It is not to be conscious of nothing, nor of nothingness, not of “a god,” or a being-thing of any kind. I would call “entering into the joy of the LORD,” or experiencing that “peace which surpasses understanding,” or entering nibbana (nirvana) as being fully conscious, aware, without focusing attention on any being-thing, and surely not on being conscious of being conscious—that is, not on oneself. To be conscious in a form that transcends consciousness, or the limits of particular consciousness, and, if one dares to say so, is in undivided union with …with that which is beyond all form, name, being, feeling, thought.
Consciousness seems to seek to move ever beyond its limited self: to be?
