Philosophers' Corner - Consciousness

In discourses of consciousness, many religious ideologies purport this idea to be one that is related to spirit. Is the notion of consciousness truly a spiritual phenomenon? Does this alleged ‘spirit' allow human beings the world over to tap into that realm of universal consciousness that exist without borders?

Consciousness: the "I" the "Me" the "You"

How does brain know mind, or mind know mind? Where is the self? The soul? The human spirit?

We can feel and sense, absorb information, and form and express images that help us develop the personality of our mind. Through our experiences—biological, chemical, genetic—and our awareness of the here and now, we can project these images as if to a movie screen, which helps us form and understand our mind and its developing personality. Our beliefs and cultures help us develop our personalities, and one might say our consciousness lies in the gaps in between. Does that place consciousness everywhere? Or nowhere? Does consciousness separate or unify us? Is it the guide to our true identity or a tantalizing illusion that beckons us deeper into confusion and chaos? Does consciousness permeate the universe or lie in a very tiny part of the brain, in a remote cluster of cells?

I tend toward the description of today's science, which suggests consciousness is a biological add-on and really not important to our survival. Nevertheless, it is a gateway to help us understand more about our individuality and self expression, as well our spirit or soul, energy, chi. This, rather than animal survival instincts, is what makes us human.

To become proficient in any type of physical action requires a mind-body connection. In my school, I teach that your mind must melt through the body like ice melting in a glass until it takes the form of the glass. The brain must learn to connect to what I like to call the "mini brains" throughout the body. It isn't just that your left hand is different from your right hand based on which hand you favor; it is that your left has a different consciousness than your right. Throughout the training, you learn that each part of your body has, in a sense, a personality all its own. To have better physical movements and reactions, you must have a relationship with your own body, mind, and self. As the mind melts throughout the body, you move better and connect to the "me" and the "I", which will help you on your journey toward a better understanding of self and life, what I like to call "overall body consciousness".

Overall body consciousness requires personal drive, discipline, and information, as well the ability to pay attention to the many levels of the ever-changing self. Seek and you will find; but what you will find is something that will lead you to finding something else. So, if consciousness, moods, joys, and sorrow come down to three pounds of wrinkled brain tissue and a vast amount of nerve cells and their molecules, neurons, and synapses, is there a true you?

Science is advancing and, if dogma does not destroy us, I believe we have the potential to evolve into something really great, individually and as a race. Consciousness is the emergence of something great within us in that helps us and connects us with all that soulful energy of being. We are self-contained beings, walking bags of water mixed with all the stuff that makes us go, that gives us the motion to explore our essence of being, which needs experience to measure the depths of one's soul. This motion—life, experience—is a wonderful chance to learn and explore, to move from one plane of thought to another. So what if our consciousness starts here with you and nothing more! It is what we are and the starting point of our exploration. Consciousness may not be important to our survival, but it is the beginning of a journey to something more, to the ability to connect with both the visible and invisible of life and one's existence.

Let's look at the "me". We are always in the "me", asking or wanting something. "If I just had this, I could do that." "If I got this, I could help them." "I would be a better person if circumstances were different." "If I had what they had, I could do more with it." "The wrong people have the right things." "My wants are good; why don't I have what they have?"

The "me" is very wanting, but the "I" can help us balance those wants as long as we can hear and see the differences between the "me" and the "I".

The "me" wants in many areas of life: materially, socially, politically, in matters of love and sex, as well as our physical and mental health. When these wants are not answered, or do not go as planned, we become frustrated, disappointed, stressed out. This can lead to depression and self doubt.

But the "me" and its wants are how the "I" can measure itself and balance this into personal drive, joys, and excitement. The "me", for the most part, believes it is on the side of what is right, which leads us as a race to communication problems and wars. So you, the one, can affect the many. We'll often blame the system, but we fail to realize that we are the system. The "me" should be careful of what it wants—it may get it, at great expense.

What about the "I"? The "I" has very few wants, but it needs the "me"—the "me" is the vehicle through which the "I" works to gain understanding. The "I" exists in the simplicity of the here and now and looks for movement of the self. When the "I" and the "me" work together, you may find the simplicity of your wants in the here and now. The "I" looks for movement of self to grow, learn, and teach.

The warrior knows death is always close at hand and can happen at any moment. For this reason, the warrior's senses are heightened, generating a calm alertness and awareness of the life that beats inside. The warrior's strength lies in simplicity, for the true warrior knows that all that is needed to keep moving on to new places are food, shelter, clothing, and health. Both spiritually and physically, the warrior knows this is all one needs to survive the changing environments of one's life. It is our wants and the holding onto them so tightly that frustrates us, even to the point of killing oneself or others.

If one is truly at the point of doing this, the warrior must take action. In extreme cases, this may mean going into the ritual of your own death and letting all your wants die with you. By this I mean going through the ritual of faking your own death to start a new life somewhere else, leaving all you know and dying to this life and starting a new adventure, burying all the old and moving on while you still are aware and very much alive in the here and now to a new warrior's path.

In our dreams, no matter how abstract, the dream is real to us. When we wake up or die to our dream, all that is our dream dies as well. But we carry the remnants of the dream into our here and now. If one is able to filter out the nonsense of the dream and see the symbols that lie in between, the dream may have more to offer than mere nonsense. In our dreams we see both the "me" and "I". But when the dream dies, both the "me" and the "I" die to that dream, as well.

Or does it simply move from one plane of existence to another, a dream floating into a dream? We are all like children in the endless playground of mystery, of Grow, Learn, and, hopefully, Teach. If we view the emergence of consciousness as a powerful antenna that can grow more sensitive and powerful; if one becomes aware of this increasing power of consciousness; then the "you" realizes that the "me" and the "I" are part of the overall "you" in the matrix of universal consciousness and time. This is where the invisible becomes the real material of the mind.

Consciousness is part of the grounding force of our awareness and our connection to the "you"—that overall "you" that can connect us to the wisdom of the many voices within to that universal consciousness of the creation of time. Our consciousness is like an invisible web that spreads out through time and space, and the more sensitive our antenna becomes the more the matrix of that web is discovered.

So, what is the "you"? The "you" is the web. We are all part of the elements of nature and the many different levels and kinds of energy. Our thoughts, through different chemical processes in the brain, are carried and stimulated through electrical currents throughout the brain and absorbed and stored within the mind of the "me", the "I", and the "you". Our bodies and mind make up a world unto itself, with its own infinite universe of self discovery.

Think of time and space, creation, or God as an infinite screen like that of a computer. The more powerful your computer is, the more information it holds and the faster it can process that information. If you look at your screen, you have many visible programs that you can click on and open. As well as the programs you have on your screen, there are the ones that are unseen, which you need to find and click on to make visible. Still more programs run invisibly in the background. Amazingly, they all work and exist at the same time—so many systems within systems running on that tiny little screen and working through the foundation of its own hardware and software.

In that way, the "you" is at once local and distributed throughout time and space. Just as the Internet enables us to communicate and learn from people we have never met, both here and on the other side of the world, the web of consciousness is a "you-niversal" identity through which we can know and understand ourselves, those around us, and those whom we will never meet.

Realizing that you are part of a system and can have an effect on others and on this wonderful planet we live on fosters a stronger evolution of self and being. If we treat our mind and body with respect and respect others in this shrinking world, we can truly evolve as a human race.

Our consciousness may exist in a very small part of our brain, but it can help take us places without and within. We are like waves of energy and thought traveling throughout time. So recognize your time and body, mind, and spirit, and use them wisely. This is your time, good or bad, and only you can make the changes and decide what to do with this time you have in the here and now. To love life is to love the mystery and to Grow, Learn, and Teach.

Sifu Lawrence A Hill