Decoding consciousness

As our knowledge of consciousness and its operation improves, the description of our understanding of consciousness will require both metaphysics and neuro-cognitive sciences. The methods to understand consciousness have to be both experiential and experimental given the nature of the subject of our inquiry. Decoding the process of perception and its processing in the brain could probably be an area where experimental methods will provide encouraging results to improve our knowledge of consciousness. However given the inevitably personal and subjective nature of consciousness any understanding in this area has to be experientially validated because my consciousness is not available to others to detect, test or experiment with. Scientific experiments involve observation, hypothesis, experimental methodology, repeating the experiment and predicting the result. It can be done to understand brain chemistry and prescribing medicine to alter or induce a particular behavior by adding or subtracting chemical dosage to brain cells. Beyond that it will be difficult for science given its methods to analyze consciousness because it may not be possible to observe and repeat such experiments in many cases. It seems clear that as we move into the future of scientific discoveries, we should be able to understand better some aspects of consciousness but whether our knowledge about this subject can ever be complete is a debatable issue. After all it's an attempt by consciousness to understand itself. There might be an inherent limitation for a system to describe itself only using itself. Probably consciousness is forever going to be an elusive object for our mental faculties. (Courtesy:Sneha Sheth)

* * *

Total Inner Freedom

Total inner freedom an essential condition to see what is. Awareness cannot come without total inner freedom.

Freedom is negation of any conditioning of human mind by religious or political or economic or sociological divisions. It is broadly cultural divide.

What is conditioning? Is it belief system? It is categories , thoughts, constructs , concepts , myths , images that collectively reside inside a human being. It develops into tendencies and predictable hardened behaviour. It is something unreal, some kind of fantasy which passes as real inside the human mind or brain.

Religion is supposed to be unifying force amongst all human beings. It is supposed to have a common objective of deliverance or redemption or enlightenment or nirvana whatever one chooses to call. Unfortunately it has become a dividing force. A mere belief with an emphasis that one belief is superior over the other.A mind full of belief is not a free mind.

Man has to be human first before he can absorb religion as a category. The problem with man is he identifies himself as a specie and then sees himself not as a being or existence but as separate category from overall existence such as flowers or fish or clouds. In the process he sees himself as.separate from other humans too. It's a failure to see itself as being or existence.

Me is the dividing factor separating him from others. Me is my country, my likes, my religion, my ideology, my sensuality, and so on. It is the complete psychological ideation about me. My ambition, my experiences, my superiorities, my interlocutors,my achievements,my greed, my envies, my regrets all go onto become me.me creates a conflict with external world as in me vs you as well as internal within oneself. Internal conflict create a pressure to become a better and better me.me is content of consciousness. That me wants to add and subtract the content of consciousness creating internal conflict.

There can be no observation or no observing when there is me doing the act of observing. It is me which is acts as a curtain from actually seeing the reality. The real is truth or goodness or non duality or unity or living. Till there is me there is no living.

So how does me end? Me is content of consciousness and it can end only by emptying it. Any attempt to empty it is still within the field of thought and continues to reel in the sphere of me. Any effort is merely strengthening me. Any methodology throws you back into the well of me. any process is like buying time and me continues it's whirlwind inside the human brain.

Seeing that me is not real as a fact, not as a concept. The sheer act seeing the fallacy of me is emptying it's content. It is instant and immediate . It's like a computer file which is emptied by delete command. Unlike computer you cannot command me but you can perceive it's falsehood. In seeing is the ending.

It can never end if seeing is through images. Images about myself is me, my idea of other peoples image about me is also a part of me. Till that image is seeing there is no seeing. Seeing the mirage of me end me . Then there is harmony, there is peace and there is living. It is actuality.

How does one see is an irrelevant question. The only way to see inwardly is to be aware. Which means to be attentive,to watch ones motives or actions without any judgmental or analytical exercise. In that watching there is no choice. Choice implies duality, conformity, images and lack of freedom. In real freedom there is no choice. It's important to understand that choice is exercised by me which is content of consciousness. Choice when excercised externally like choosing blue colour or square design is okay. But when choice is exercised inwardly it's in the loop of me. When there is choiceless awareness one discovers there is unity.it is not a concept or theory. It is reality.

Me is a disorder. Belief brings in security. The entire story of mankind is in it's content of consciousness. It is not an indivisual's consciousness.it is common. It is all about fulfillement,loneliness,hatred and comparison,. Pride and vanity. Frustrations and fears. Whether rich or poor, young or old, black, brown or white, educated or uneducated the content of consciousness is the same. It all gets condensed into an image. An image of a successful man or image of low self esteem.an image of moral superiority or self flagelling misery.
Invariably an image which is comparing and becoming into something. That's not freedom. There is no freedom from self or the image of self at all. When there is a complete attention one realizes there is no centre. In that realization is total freedom. In that freedom there is total security,total harmony and total stability. Where there is self with all it's images there is clinging to falsehood. In the moment of complete attention there is no self, no centre. It's just existence. From such a state whatever action emerges is the right action.it is state of total awareness void of any objectified self.

In A New World

For a moment lets conjure up a scenario where the whole world has come to an end and a new world has energed wherein human beings exists as they did before on the planet earth but there is a total amnesia about the past. Therefore there is no memory left of the past. Not even the residual vestiges. Here you are on a ground where there are no Christians with no memeory of Jesus Christ. Nor there are any Hindus with the image of krishna and concept of soul . Similarly for the rest of the belief system s.This is a world where there is no division based on religion amongst its inhabitants. There are neither believers nor non believers because the question of belief itself is non existent. Remeber what we said in the begining ,its a new world with no residual memory of the past. Then how would have one described existence? Here is a quote from J. Krishnamurti which would most aptly fit the bill. Remeber this description would have evolved without any J. Krishnamurti around there in that new world;
"…is there an area in the human brain, or in the very nature and structure of a human being, not merely in the outer world of his activities but inwardly, deep in the vast quiet recesses of his own brain, something that is not the outcome of memory, not the movement of a continuity?"… "There is most certainly, definitely, an area where the past doesn’t cast a shadow, where time, the past or the future or the present has no meaning."… "You can’t ascend through knowledge; there must be an end to knowledge for the new to be. New is a word for something which has never been before. And that area cannot be understood or grasped by words or symbols; it is beyond all remembrances."

Lets what he has to further say .....

There can be no thought if there is total amnesia. Right? But fortunately, or unfortunately we are not in a state of amnesia. And one wants to find out what thought is, what place it has in life. You understand? So one begins to examine thinking. So what is thinking? Thinking takes place as a reaction to memory. Obviously. Memory responds to a challenge, to a question, to an action, or responds in relationship to something, or to an idea, to a person. Right? You see all this in life.
So what is thinking, what is thought, how does thought exist in the human mind? So one asks then, what is memory? You understand? What is memory? Memory is you have trodden on some insect that has bitten you. That memory, that pain is registered and stored in the brain, that pain, which becomes a memory, it is not actual pain. That pain is over but the memory remains. So next time you are careful. So there is experience as pain, which has become knowledge, and that knowledge, experience is memory, that memory responds as thought. Right? That memory is thought. And knowledge, however wide, however deep, however extensive, must always be limited. Right? There is no complete knowledge. I don't know if you are following all this.So thought is always partial, limited, divisive because in itself it isn't complete, in itself it can never be complete; it can think about completeness. You understand? It can think about totality, whole, but it's not, thought itself is not whole. So whatever it creates philosophically, religiously, it is still partial, limited, fragmentary, because knowledge is part of ignorance. You understand, sir? I don't know if you understand this. As knowledge can never be complete it must always go hand in hand with ignorance. Right? That's logical, rational.

And if one understands the nature of thought, and understands what concentration is, then thought cannot attend because attention is giving all energy - you understand? - without any restraint. I wonder if you understand this. If you are listening now, I hope you are, if you are listening and attending, what takes place? There is no 'you' attending. Right? There is no centre that says, 'I must attend'. You are attending because it is your life, your interest. If you are not interested, lying down in the sun, saying, well I'll listen partly, that's a different matter. But if you are serious and giving attention you will soon find out all your problems, all that is gone - at least for the moment.So to resolve problems is to attend. I wonder if you have got it. You understand this? It's not a trick! (Laughs)Source - Jiddu Krishnamurti Fourth Public Question & Answer Meeting in OjaiFrom

Meditation is Non-doing

When people come to me and they ask, "How to meditate?" I tell them, "There is no need to ask how to meditate, just ask how to remain unoccupied. Meditation happens spontaneously.  Just ask how to remain unoccupied, that's all. That's the whole trick of meditation - how to remain unoccupied. Then you cannot do anything. The meditation will flower.

When you are not doing anything the energy moves towards the centre, it settles down towards the centre. When you are doing something the energy moves out. Doing is a way of moving out. Non-doing is a way of moving in. Occupation is an escape. You can read the Bible, you can make it an occupation. There is no difference between religious occupation and secular occupation: all occupations are occupations, and they help you to cling outside your being. They are excuses to remain outside.

Man is ignorant and blind, and he wants to remain ignorant and blind, because to come inwards looks like entering a chaos. And it is so; inside you have created a chaos. You have to encounter it and go through it. Courage is needed - courage to be oneself, and courage to move inwards. I have not come across a greater courage than that - the courage to be meditative.

But people who are engaged outside - with worldly things or nonworldly things, but occupied all the same, they think ....and they have created a rumor around it, they have their own philosophers. They say that if you are introvert you are somehow morbid, something is wrong with you. And they are in the majority. If you meditate, if you sit silently, they will joke about you: "What are you doing? - Gazing at your navel? What are you doing? - Opening the third eye? Where are you going? Are you morbid? Because what is there to do inside? There is nothing inside."

Inside doesn't exist for the majority of people, only the outside exists. And just the opposite is the case - only inside is real; outside is nothing but a dream. But they call introverts morbid, they call meditators morbid. In the West they think that the East is little morbid. What is the point of sitting alone and looking inwards? What are you going to get there? There is nothing.

David Hume, one of the great British philosophers, tried once... because he was studying the Upanishads and they go on saying: Go in, go in, go in - that is their only message. So he tried it.  He closed his eyes one day - a totally secular man, very logical, empirical, but not meditative at all - he closed his eyes and he said, "It is so boring! It is a boredom to look in. Thoughts move, sometimes a few emotions, and they go on racing in the mind, and you go on looking at them - what is the point of it? It is useless. It has no utility."

And this is the understanding of many people. Hume's standpoint is that of the majority: What are going to get inside? There is darkness, thoughts floating here and there. What will you do? What will come out of it? If Hume had waited a little longer - and that is difficult for such people - if he had been a little more patient, by and by thought disappear, emotions subside. But if it had happened to him he would have said, "That is even worse, because emptiness comes. At least first there were thoughts, something to be occupied with, to look at, to think about. Now even thoughts have disappeared; only emptiness....What to do with emptiness? It is absolutely useless."

But if he had waited a little more, then darkness also disappears. It is just like when you come from the hot sun and you enter your house: everything looks dark because your eyes need a little attunement. They are fixed on the hot sun outside; comparatively, your house looks dark. You cannot see, you feel as if it is night. But you wait, you sit, you rest in a chair, and after few seconds the eyes get attuned. Now it is not dark, a little more light........

You rest for an hour, and everything is light, there is no darkness at all.

If Hume had waited a little longer, then darkness also disappears. Because you have lived in the hot sun outside for many lives your eyes have become fixed, they have lost flexibility. They need tuning. When one comes inside the house it takes a little while, a little time, a patience. Don't be in a hurry.

In haste nobody can come to know himself. It is a very very deep awaiting. Infinite patience is needed. By and by darkness disappears. There comes a light with no source there is no flame in it, no lamp is burning, no sun is there. A light, just like it is morning: the night has disappeared, and the sun has not risen.... Or in the evening - the twilight, when the sun has set and night has not yet descended. That's why Hindus call their prayer time sandhya. Sandhya means twilight, light without any source.

When you move inwards you will come to the light without any source. In that light, for the first time you start understanding yourself, who you are, because you are that light. You are that twilight, that sandhya, that pure clarity, that perception, where the observer and the observed disappear, and only the light remains.

Osho - from the book What is Meditation?