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In recent years, the term “CONSCIOUSNESS” has been used in esoteric spiritual circles (usually capitalized) to refer to a far more Homogeneous Consciousness (“puruṣa”, in Sanskrit), due to the fact that the English language doesn’t include a single word denoting the Universal Ground of Being (for instance “Brahman”, “Tao”, in other tongues). The word “Awareness” (capitalized) is arguably a more apposite term for this concept. The typical person believes that the apparatus which knows the external world is his mind (via the five senses), but more perceptive individuals understand that the mind itself is cognizable by the intellect. Wise souls recognize that the sense of self (the pseudo-ego) is the perceiver of their intellects, whereas awakened persons have realized that the true self/Self is the witness of ALL these temporal phenomena. The true self is synonymous with Consciousness, or with Infinite Awareness, or the Undifferentiated Unified Field (“Brahman”, in Sanskrit). The dialectic exercise in the following three paragraphs should help one to understand the nature of the fundamental conscious observer, that is, the ULTIMATE observer of all phenomena (i.e. the subject/Subject, which is the authentic self, as opposed to material objects): If one were to ask you whether you are the same person or individual you were at birth (or even at conception), you would probably respond in the affirmative. So, then, what PRECISELY is it about you which has remained constant since conception? In other words, what is the self-identity you had as an infant, which is the present “you”? It cannot be any part of your body or mind, since none of the atoms or molecules in your zygote body are extant, and “you” certainly did not possess a mind at conception. If you are reasonably intelligent, you may claim that your genome is the same now as it was then. However, it has recently been scientifically demonstrated that genetic code can (and usually does) change throughout an individual’s lifetime. Furthermore, nobody actively conceives of their essential nature being a bunch of genes! More intelligent souls would probably counter thus: “The thing which stays the same from my birth to the present time is my sense of self.” This too, is fallacious, since the sense of self does not emerge until at least a couple of years after birth. An infant has no ideation of itself as an individual actor. You may then say “I was a (male/female) human being” but that doesn’t specify any PARTICULAR human (you, yourself). So, then, what EXACTLY is it which remains “you” from conception till death? That is the “I am” which precedes any artificial sense of self. In other words, rather than saying “I am a man/woman/human/king/pilot/etc.”, simply the impersonal sense of “I am”. That is the true self, which is the Universal Self. Therefore, your essential nature is Cosmic Consciousness, usually called “God” by theists (see also Chapter 10). The Tao (The Reality [lit. The Way, The Path, or The Road]) which can be expressed in language is not the REAL Tao. All concepts are, by nature, relative, and at most, can merely point to the Absolute. That explains why some branches of theology use the apophatic method of discerning The Infinite (“neti neti”, [not this, not that], in Sanskrit). Also known in Latin as “via negativa” or “via negationis” theology, this philosophical approach to discovering the essential nature of Reality, gradually negates each description about Ultimate Reality, but not Reality Itself. Ultimate Reality (“Brahman”, in Sanskrit [from “bṛh” - lit. “Expansion”, in English]) alone is real - “real” in the sense that it is the never-mutable substratum of ALL existence. The wisest of the philosophers of ancient India distinguished the “real” from the “unreal” (“sat/asat”, in Sanskrit) by whether or not the “thing“ was eternal or ephemeral (cf. Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1:3:28, Bhagavad-gītā 2:16, et altri). Gross material objects (such as one's own body) and subtle material objects (such as thoughts) are always changing, and therefore not “real”. REALITY is clearly seen by those self-realized persons who have experienced spiritual awakenings (which occur either spontaneously, or after a gradual process over many months or years), yet only intellectually understood by those who have merely studied spiritual topics (that is, those who have practiced one of the four systems of religion described in Chapter 16, but have yet to awaken to their essential nature). “If you remain as you are now, you are in the wakeful state. This is abolished in the dream state. The dream state disappears, when you are in deep sleep. The three states come and go, but you are always there. Your real state, that of Consciousness itself, continues to exist always and forever and it is the only Reality.” ************* “The ego is the identified consciousness. When the impersonal Consciousness identifies itself with the personal organism, the ego arises.” ************* “The only true meditation is the constant impersonal witnessing of all that takes place in one’s life as mere movements in the universal Consciousness.” ************* “Consciousness must first be there, before anything else can BE. All inquiry of the seeker of truth, must therefore, relate to this consciousness, this sense of conscious presence, which as such, has no personal reference to any individual.” ************* “Insofar as you keep watching the mind and discover yourself as its witness, nothing else can project itself on the screen of consciousness. This is so, because two things cannot occupy the attention, at the same moment.Therefore, delve within and find out where thoughts arise. Seek the source of all thought and acquire the Self-knowledge, which is the awakening of Truth.” ************* “Just as the difference between the space in a pot and the space outside it disappears when the pot is demolished, so also does duality disappear when it is realized that the difference between the individual consciousness and the Universal Consciousness does not in fact exist.” ************* “All there is, is consciousness. That is the Source from which the manifestation has come. ...And the mind is merely a reflection of that Consciousness.” ************* “All there is, is Consciousness, not aware of Itself in Its noumenal Subjectivity, but perceived by Itself as phenomenal manifestation in Its objective expression. If this is understood in depth, there is nothing more to be understood.” Ramesh S. Balsekar, Indian Spiritual Teacher. “As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clearheaded science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about the atoms this much: There is no matter as such! All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Spirit. This Spirit is the matrix of all matter.” ************* “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck, German Theoretical Physicist.