Road To Here - #20 Question

Reflection on the nature of consciousness and its ontological position, and how this relates to a deeper understanding of meditation. From Road to Here, a comprehensive guided collection of teachings and music by Jaran de Los Santos Olsen, and quotes from various teachers and traditions. This track contains quotes by Rupert Spira, Erwin Schrödinger, Niels Bohr, Max Planck, and Albert Einstein.

Transcript

K What is the essence of your existence?

Or now?

The following might not be so easy to understand how it relates to meditation.

But I ask that you bear with me,

Because I think it is of vital importance.

At least it has turned out to be in my practice.

In my view,

One of the really important questions these days,

And one that I think there is a great deal of misunderstanding about,

Is the question,

What is consciousness?

And part of that question is,

What is the relation between consciousness,

The mind,

The body,

Life and nature?

This of course is a millennia old question,

Where different views have gone in and out of fashion.

Gradually,

With the advent of classical physics and technological advances,

Coupled with the waning influence of religion in the Western world,

The view of scientific materialism has increased in popularity.

Today it seems,

At least in my corner of the world,

That for most people it is simply assumed that materialism is the only reasonable view of the world.

This,

And related ideas and beliefs about ourselves and the world,

Are now so deeply ingrained that we are unaware that they are beliefs,

And take them without question for the absolute truth.

So,

What is this view of materialism really?

Materialism is the view that matter is the fundamental substance in nature,

And that all things,

Including mental states and consciousness,

Are results of material interactions.

According to materialism,

Mind and consciousness are by-products of material processes,

Such as the biochemistry of the human brain and nervous system,

Without which they cannot exist.

So,

Is it a good chance that you think,

Well,

Of course,

How else could it be?

Or,

Well,

There is not really any problem with that,

Is it?

Or,

That has been proven scientifically a long time ago,

Hasn't it?

The fact is,

However,

That there are significant problems with this view,

And it certainly has never been proven.

In the scientific community,

One of these problems is even just referred to as the hard problem,

And usually formulated something like this.

The problem of explaining why and how we have qualia,

Or subjective phenomenal experiences.

That is,

Why and how we have experiences such as green,

Of sweet,

And so on.

Delving further into the problems of materialism is outside the scope of this format,

But I'd encourage you to look into it.

Its dismissal of consciousness and claim that matter is objective and real,

Is in my view a bit like saying that the child gave birth to the mother.

So,

What are the possibilities that materialism is there?

I can't be comprehensive here either,

But I will briefly mention two.

The first,

Called panpsychism,

Views consciousness as a fundamental property of nature,

Much like mass and charge.

Our mental faculties and abilities may depend on the brain,

But bare knowing is viewed as irreducible and independent on biology.

The second,

Called idealism,

Also views consciousness as fundamental,

But take it a step further by suggesting that our individual consciousness in reality is part of a greater consciousness,

And that the world we experience as individuals doesn't have an objective reality apart from consciousness,

That it is a product or excitation of the greater consciousness.

These models of the world might be difficult to wrap your head around,

But don't worry about that.

For now,

See if you can allow yourself to be open to think out of the box,

To experience with less preconception,

And perhaps that can lead you to see the bare reality of consciousness for yourself.

After all,

It is always here and now.

The problem of consciousness is by no means a trivial one,

Not only something that puzzles hippies and new age folk.

Many of the greatest physicists of the past century have been quite vocal on the issue,

And I want to quote some of them as examples.

Erwin Schrödinger,

Nobel Prize winner for the development of the Schrödinger equation said,

Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms,

For consciousness is absolutely fundamental.

It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.

Niels Bohr,

Nobel Prize winner for his contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory said the following,

Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.

Max Planck,

Nobel Prize winner for the discovery of energy quanta said this,

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.

And last,

Albert Einstein,

Who certainly doesn't need introduction.

A human being is a spatially and temporally limited piece of the whole,

What we call the universe.

He experiences himself and his feelings are separate from the rest.

An optical illusion of his consciousness.

The quest for liberation from this bondage is the only object of true religion.

Not nurturing the illusion,

But only overcoming it gives us the attainable measure of inner peace.

I mentioned these to counteract commonly held beliefs.

I mentioned these to counteract the commonly held belief that for hard-nosed scientists who really know what they're talking about,

Atheism and reductionistic materialism is the only reasonable position.

This is simply not true.

And it's not only the fathers of modern physics that recognise the significance of consciousness.

Roger Penrose,

Who won the Nobel Prize this year in 2020 for his work on black hole formation,

Is co-founder of a model of consciousness called orchestrated objective reduction,

Or OR for short,

Which rejects the materialistic view and rather suggests that consciousness is related to the collapse of quantum superpositions.

This of course is a variant of bad psychism.

So how does all of this relate to meditation?

And what is a beneficial attitude towards these issues?

Well consciousness is central to meditation,

And I mean to life in general.

And so how we view consciousness becomes crucial,

Especially if we're holding a fixed view,

Consciously or unconsciously.

In the materialist framework,

Consciousness is just a by-product,

According to some prominent materialists,

Even just an illusion.

So why should we bother with it?

Whereas in other views,

Particularly in panpsychist and idealist views,

Consciousness is seen as fundamental,

As an irreducible part of nature,

Or even nature itself.

So naturally consciousness is looked to as a far more valuable reality in itself,

As well as seen as a real avenue for generating understanding about ourselves and the world.

So I think talking about this is important,

So that we don't dismiss consciousness.

As long as we don't know the truth of the world,

I think it's best to be honest and humble about that.

We don't have to subscribe to any fixed view.

In fact I think the best attitude is that of openness,

Of questioning,

Of curiosity.

As long as we have a fixed view,

We're likely stuck in words and concepts,

And we need to go beyond that.

So investigate,

Explore,

Look for yourself.

That is consciousness.

My own thoughts and intellectual views about this issue has fluctuated through the years.

I grew up in a non-religious family,

And generally with a materialistic model of the world.

Apart from fleeting fascinations with alternatives due to Roald Dahl's Matilda or Yoda and Jedi training,

This model of the world was rarely challenged.

And when it was,

It was easily dismissed as fantasy or fiction,

Or in the case of established religion,

Brainwashing and stupid superstition.

I always took it for granted that my consciousness was in there in my head somewhere,

Looking out at the objective world outside.

When I discovered Buddhism and was deeply struck by its down-to-earth wisdom,

I kind of tried to fit the whole thing into my understanding and worldview.

Now certain aspects of the Buddhist teachings are hard to square with the materialistic view of the world,

Such as rebirth and the possibility of psychic abilities.

But I sort of slotted it in nevertheless.

I would argue that the Buddhist view of the world was superior to the modern scientific view,

Not realizing that I didn't really know the Buddhist view through experience,

And was in fact still locked into that materialistic view.

As you can see,

It wasn't that these processes were obvious to me at the time,

But I can see how it happened now in hindsight.

When I,

After almost 20 years of practice,

Recognized consciousness directly,

I also realized that I had been locked into the materialistic way of seeing myself and the world my whole life.

Even in the periods of life where I thought I had a different view.

And that acted as a veil on my awareness and on my ability to understand.

Let me end this section with a last quote by Albert Einstein.

Einstein,

Who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science,

Becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe.

A spirit vastly superior to that of man,

And one in the face of which we with our mother's powers must feel humble.

In this way,

The pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort,

Which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.

1 you

Reviews

Really like this One,phylisophical but very enlightening