The Meaning Of Life - Mindfulness And Metaphysics 04

A 10-minute talk followed by a 20-minute commentary. An exploration of the creation stories of materialism and idealism and how idealism along with the practice of mindfulness can restore meaning to life. Recorded live with minimal editing and some ambient background noise.

Transcript

The creation story of materialism is that the best guess,

If you like,

Or the most common theory,

Is the Big Bang theory.

So what materialism is trying to do is go back to the beginning of time to find out what happened,

And materialism assumes everything's made of matter.

The reality is just physical stuff.

So it's looking at how that began.

Now with any theory of how things began,

You have what's called an ontological imperative,

Which is just philosophical speak for your starting point,

Your first assumption.

If you don't have that,

You can always say,

OK,

What came before that,

What came before that,

What came before the Big Bang,

What came before God,

What came before.

.

.

Yes,

If you don't start off with one assumption,

Then you've got that endless questioning of,

OK,

What caused that,

Or what came before that.

I think materialism seems to not find that satisfactory.

I don't think they want to start with an assumption,

Although it's inevitable.

They seem to want to try and explain how something can come from nothing,

To give a scientific explanation of there was nothing,

No time,

No existence,

And then matter came into being.

But I think that's going to be impossible,

Or just appeal to magic that,

OK,

There was nothing and then there was something.

Because under materialism,

Under physical cause and effect,

If there's nothing,

Nothing can't create something.

So it's going to go against their own principles and rules and laws.

So the closest they get is this idea of something very small and dense,

And then an explosion.

But then you can say,

OK,

Where does those starting conditions come from?

Why are they there?

So that's their assumption,

Their starting point.

And then there's this idea of galaxies forming,

The universe forming,

Then planets,

Then life,

Then life gets more complicated,

Then we develop our brains,

And then brains create consciousness.

So that's the story for materialism.

I've mentioned in the other sessions on this how actually there's a massive explanatory gap there from going from brains to consciousness.

And that's an assumption,

And there's actually no direct evidence for it,

And not even a theory as to how matter can create consciousness.

But I won't go through that again now,

But just bear in mind there's a big problem with that story.

So the alternative story,

If you like,

The alternative creation story,

Is for idealism,

Is that there's that complete acceptance.

You have to start with something,

Your first assumption.

To avoid the infinite regression of what came before that,

What came before that,

What came before that.

So idealism starts with the assumption of consciousness.

Just basic,

Raw awareness,

Subjective experience.

But initially it's not an experience of anything,

It's just the experiencer,

The consciousness itself.

And that starting point has a good grounding to be chosen as the assumption as experience is the only thing we can be certain of.

It's the most sceptical position.

It's the only thing we know for certain is there is experience.

So that's their starting point.

And then for a naturalist idealist like Pernado Gastrop,

Who's the idealist whose arguments and theory I follow most closely,

Then the rest of the story is pretty much the same.

It's just that what's evolving is consciousness rather than this thing called matter.

And you don't need an extra stuff called physical matter to explain what we're experiencing now.

So there's this natural stuff of mind,

Of consciousness,

And that evolves.

And the world before we were here,

Before conscious individuals were here,

Was the reality of that one basic consciousness.

And the arrival of conscious individual beings is a process referred to as disassociation.

So it's not the creation of consciousness from matter,

It's the creation of individual consciousnesses from the one consciousness.

But it's the same story from the view of evolution.

Well,

For Bernardo,

His point of crossover from when that one consciousness splits into a separate consciousness is life.

So when life begins,

So when matter,

In speech marks,

When matter goes from being inanimate to animate,

When life starts,

That's what a separate consciousness looks like,

Is life.

So the difference really is the starting point.

For the materialists,

They have this idea of matter.

So matter is just an idea.

It's a concept created by consciousness.

And at some point,

That idea of something outside of consciousness somehow creates consciousness,

Although there's no explanation as to how that happens.

Whereas for the idealist,

Consciousness is the starting point.

And what we consider to be the physical world is just the outer appearance of consciousness.

It's just what consciousness looks like.

It's what consciousness does.

But in essence,

What's the nature of the world,

Of reality,

Is consciousness.

So there's no gap to explain consciousness.

What idealism has to do is explain separate consciousnesses,

The fact that there are individual consciousnesses if what started was just one consciousness.

And that's this idea of dissociation.

It manifests as life.

And that's explained the same way with evolution.

And the fact is that in nature,

We do know that dissociation happens.

It happens within individuals.

So once you've got individuals,

Individuals can then also fragment into separate personalities,

To separate eyes,

Separate people.

So that's dissociative identity disorder.

And that's been recorded with brain scans.

There's one particular case where someone with this disorder,

One of their personalities was blind and one of them wasn't.

So when the blind personality was in control,

They couldn't see.

But what they did is they did a brain scan and the visual parts of the brain just weren't active.

So it wasn't just that she thought she couldn't see or she was pretending she couldn't see,

Or it was like a hypnotism where you act as if you can't see.

Actually,

There was no brain activity for vision at all.

So we have the evidence that dissociation happens.

So it's just taking that dissociation another level up and saying there's one consciousness above all our separate consciousnesses.

And that consciousness is the starting point.

That's where everything began and it gradually evolved.

So just a final point before we go into the commentary.

So in the materialist view of creation,

Everything's just an accident.

It's just physical stuff accidentally bounces around and then we pop up consciousness,

Pops out of nothing completely randomly.

The chance of it happening incredibly small,

It's just an accident.

So there's no meaning in the materialist universe.

It's all just an accident of stuff bouncing around.

But in materialism,

You have consciousness and the original consciousness is just like this raw experience.

But when it gets to us and we're separated bits of consciousness,

Then we are consciousness looking back at consciousness.

So the individual consciousness has been seemingly separated.

When we interact with the world,

We're interacting with the one consciousness.

So one way of looking at the meaning of life is that life and our consciousness that's associated with that is the means by which consciousness as a whole gets to know itself.

So it's reflected in us and we are looking back at consciousness.

So it's like a mirror of consciousness looking back at consciousness.

So that's the story of creation from idealism as compared to materialism and how it can bring meaning to the universe and to life.

So let's do mindfulness meditation.

I'll do a commentary for about 20 minutes or so,

Maybe 25.

So the connection with mindfulness and this philosophy is again that idea of meaning.

So in a materialist universe,

Mindfulness is just a practice that the brain does.

Whereas under idealism,

The practice of mindfulness is actually the meaning of life.

It's consciousness looking at consciousness.

It's the purpose and meaning of life.

If you see it within this creation story of consciousness within idealism,

Of getting to know itself by separating a bit,

Bits of itself off into life forms and then we interact.

So it gives more meaning and depth for me to have that different framework of idealism for the practice.

So I'm going to take a few deeper breaths in to begin.

So let's begin to explore what we can know for sure,

Our immediate experience in this moment.

So sometimes it's difficult to go to the most obvious thing because it's too obvious.

So we may start off by thinking,

Okay,

So what I can know for sure is that I'm hearing sounds.

I'm aware of the world,

Space and environment around me.

And I'm pretty sure I have a body.

I can see,

Feel my body existing within this space.

And then there could be that realization,

Well,

Actually,

Before all of that,

I've been thinking about this.

So maybe my thoughts are more fundamental because I can imagine not having any senses in the body and still being me,

Still thinking these thoughts.

But there's something even before that,

Even before your thoughts,

The thing we can be most sure of.

And that's the fact that we're having any experience whatsoever,

The fact that we are an experiencer,

That we are conscious,

That we have an awareness.

So anything that we notice in this moment,

Whether it's thoughts or feelings,

Sounds or the body,

These are all just different experiences.

And they're only possible because we are an experiencer.

We have awareness,

We are consciousness.

And when we reach this realization,

I am aware,

Then we are being what's called meta-consciousness or meta-cognitive of our awareness.

We're aware that we are aware.

We're conscious that we're conscious.

And the theory is that that's only possible because we're a small part of consciousness within the one consciousness.

So as we continue this mindfulness practice of being present,

The idea is to see if you can experience everything that you can be aware of within this present moment to be happening within your awareness.

So nothing is happening outside of you.

Everything is happening inside,

Inside your conscious experience.

So your body that you can experience right now is inside your awareness,

Within the space of your awareness.

And the sound you can hear in the environment around you and the environment itself are also inside you within your awareness.

So there's this idea that consciousness can best be understood,

Most closely understood or visualized as empty space,

An empty space within which the world is,

Your body is,

The sounds that you can hear are.

And also your thoughts,

Your feelings,

Your emotions,

Every possible experience,

Whether we would normally characterize those as internal experiences of mind or external experiences of matter.

Actually we can experience all of these experiences happening within our one awareness,

Within that open space of our conscious awareness.

So you are the space within which everything is happening,

Everything of the body and the mind.

The best way to experience this isn't to try and work it out or think about it,

But to experience this as if it was the case.

What would be that experience if that was true?

Sounds would just come and go within your awareness.

Your body would be just as you experience it right now,

Just as you feel it,

Just here within your experience,

Within your awareness.

And each and every thought that you have,

Every feeling and emotion,

Would also be exactly as it is,

Exactly as you experience it right now,

Just occurring naturally within your awareness.

So there's nothing you can do,

No effort to make to get to this experience,

Because it's just how everything already is.

If we try and create an experience,

If we try and change what's happening,

Then we're not being that empty space of awareness.

The empty space of your awareness is simply where everything happens exactly as it is,

Moment by moment.

So it's a completely natural state,

State of simplicity,

State of being rather than doing,

State of being alert and attentive,

But in a very open,

Effortless way.

And if we do get a glimpse or a sense of this empty and open space of awareness,

Beyond,

Between,

Behind,

Ever present with all the experiences,

Then we're connecting to the same consciousness as the one consciousness.

So just by allowing everything of our individual self,

Our particular experiences and thoughts,

Just to happen as they are,

Completely accepting them,

Allowing them to come and go,

Is stepping into the exact same consciousness as the universal consciousness,

The space,

The empty space of awareness within which all experiences of everyone happens.

And because we are a part of consciousness looking back at consciousness as a whole,

We are metaconscious,

We are conscious that we're conscious.

And that's something that we're adding,

That's something that consciousness on its own can't do without us.

So for consciousness to know itself,

It needs to first divide and look back on itself.

And that's our role,

To be aware of awareness,

To know that we are conscious.

And the idea is that every living thing is playing this role.

Every living thing has consciousness,

Has awareness.

And what we see of as non-living is still consciousness as a whole.

It's just not self-reflective consciousness.

It's consciousness that doesn't know it's conscious.

So the purpose of life,

The meaning of life,

The role of life,

Is to be consciousness aware of itself.

So,

Every experience we have,

Every decision we make,

Is part of this journey of consciousness learning about itself,

Constantly changing and evolving,

Continuously coming to know itself through us.

So when we experience quietness,

Stillness,

Spaciousness,

In meditation,

In mindfulness,

We're experiencing those qualities of pure awareness,

Of that empty space of awareness within which everything happens.

There's nothing that we can do from within those experiences to make that happen.

If we simply become aware of all the experiences that are happening,

Just allow them to be as they are.

And the only place we can be doing that from,

Is from this consciousness of open awareness,

Of being the space within which everything is happening.

Okay,

So if we finish there.

Reviews

Perfect description of the talk & meditation, thanks

‘Idealism’ sounds more credible than ‘Materislm’ to me because we do experience - Sight, smell, hear touch. However, ‘consciousness’ is harder to find an explanation which has been the case for thousands of years. Scientists are still scratching their heads to find one. Stephen’s inspirational talk allowed me to think deeper into his findings. My knowledge about Metaphysics is limited but keen to explore this endless topic of topics. I guess we experience consciousness which is only ‘our’ consciousness🤔. When we are in ‘our self-awareness’ state, we are experiencing ‘Awareness of Awareness’? This is what I have learnt from Stephen’s talk 04✨🧐. Is this right or am I entirely wrong? 😉🤓.

The meditation was unique as my self-awareness was deep and concentrated. It made me feel relaxed, warm, energised and enlightened to start my day. Stephen’s outstanding commentary helped me to experience the theories of his amazing talk and I felt centred, light and beautif. Thank you🙏✨🧘‍♂️❤️.