Consciousness is fundamental
We awaken to consciousness, but not to spirit.
(Even though it is spirit that “generates” the consciousness)
What was I before I was? Many would say Nothing. You did not exist before you existed. And they are not wrong. Before you, the unique person you are today, there was no such you. That is undoubtedly true. However, before you there was something. So how did you emerge, or form, from that something, in which you were not before?
What does “awaken to consciousness” even mean? It means that at some point an awareness of self, of (autonomous) being, of (separate) existence arose “in” me, this form. It is an existential realisation.
Once that primal awareness — which we call consciousness, I — has emerged, the next evolutionary step is the realisation that I have the ability to shape it, or it will be shaped for me by the factors in my environment and by my present history, which, until a certain point, has been shaped for me, and throughout my life, in some fundamental fashion. Thus arises the yearning for autonomy, to be sovereign over my own destiny. But, there is no (need for) awareness of spirit in that process of awakening to myself. Something awakens in me, in a completely unconscious fashion, and I am suddenly aware of myself as a separate being.
To be(come) aware of spirit is a choice.
How do I differentiate between what “consciousness” is, and what “spirit” is? Consciousness being spirit expressing itself in your being, one could think of consciousness as a “packet” of that field we call spirit. Consciousness is spirit made manifest.
Spirit is not something you can seek. It is always present. The question is whether you are aware of it or not—for it is part of the Hidden.
It is to become aware of something inside yourself that is also outside of yourself, and that process is extremely intuitive. How can I know of things outside of myself that I have no empirical experience of? Energy is a good start, as it “exists” in our realm and within you, yet has no physical presence except through its effect upon its “recipients. However, there are other more subtle forms of energy, like that which starts our motor when we are born, and every morning that we awaken. In fact, is the “energy” that fashioned me, and vivifies me, not the same energy that fashioned the Universe itself?
The revelation that closes the circle is when you realise that that energy is inside you too. That there are events occurring inside yourself that mirror those events that occur outside — and vice-versa.
‘You’ - the object, the totality, of what has been brought into existence, within your being.
‘You’ - the “I” that has been formed by your need to embrace your lived experience. That was formed by you — your decisions and your circumstances.
‘Virtual’ is the product of manipulation through the introduction of specific, controlled information. We can only cognate according to the rules we have been taught, with a certain spark, that if lit, could influence our conclusion. But we cannot remove ourselves beyond a certain range.
Particle of Consciousness
#consciousness
Consciousness could be thought of in a similar fashion to the quantum phenomenon – in that it could be described in terms of waves, with thoughts being “fundamental particles of consciousness”, and the awareness of any event consisting of a collection of these fundamental particles to make up the collection of thoughts that make up our perception of any event we are conscious of. Just as we have the fundamental particles of quantum thermodynamics that make up the atoms with which our world is comprised. Interestingly enough, these sub-atomic particles seem to exist close to the realm of consciousness – the place of unseen events. We are also ignoring the events that we are not conscious of, something Julian Jayne calls the reactive consciousness.
These “waves” from the ocean of (potential) thoughts collapse in some magical way into a thought. One could say that by completing i.e., becoming aware of a thought, the waves of potential thoughts have now collapsed into a thought… Similar to the observer effect in Quantum Theory, where the current hypothesis is that a wave collapses into a particle when observed.
If enough of these waves positively interact, a “thought” emerges by the process of accumulation—like waves crossing on the ocean, just as a particle would form when there is enough density, that is, accumulation of energy, to be measured. But if the waves are negative, then they will stifle their own emergence — resulting in a decrease in consciousness. And, as nature abhors a void, this lack, or emptiness will be filled — by whatever manages to claim this open space in your consciousness.
Kabbalah This is spoken about as the Kabbalistic view of the Tzimtzum. This is the process whereby the Supernal Being — referred to as Ein Sof, or Infinity — literally “Boundless Being” — constrained Itself to produce space for Creation to emerge. If one thinks of G-d as being that ocean of infinite thought, by constraining this ocean to form thoughts, just as the waters were contained to produce land. These thoughts had to be “small” enough to fill the vessels of our minds.
Having formed the space, Creation, or the Will to Manifest, entered and filled this “emptiness”. Thus expressing the principle known as “Nature abhors a vacuum”.
A blinding spark flashed
within the concealed of the concealed,
from the mystery of the Infinite,
a cluster of vapour in formlessness…
…
Under the impact of breaking through
one high and hidden point shone.
Beyond that point nothing is known.
So it is called the Beginning
— Zohar 1:15a; see Matt, Zohar: The Book of Enlightenment, Mahwah, NJ, 1983, pp. 49, 207-208.
Similarly:
“The beginning of existence is the secret and concealed point. This is the beginning of all the hidden things, which spread out from there and emanate, according to their species. From a single point you can extent the dimension of all things. Similarly, when the concealed rouses itself to exist, at first it brings into something the size of the point of a needle; from there it generates everything.”
—Moses de Leon, Shekel ha-Qodesh, p26; see Matt, The Essential Kabbalah, p70.
A note on the second quote:
#point
Every element in any dimension can always be reduced to a set of “discrete” points that make up a continuum that is the element under discussion. When you draw a line on a piece of paper, what we see as that line is actually made up of a serious of dots or 2d points. So it is in every dimension. A 10-dimensional object is made up of 10d points, and exists in a space that can be described by 10 variables, each on one of the 10 infinite axes — each orthogonal to all the other 9 axes - that are necessary to describe the point.
So there will be a version, albeit a “slice”, of that element in every dimension less than those 10-dimensions it is actually existing in. As is often said, it might even be unrecognisable in a lower dimension. For instance, a 4d-cube, which is called a tesseract, would be unrecognisable as a cube in 3d.
Ocean of Consciousness
#consciousness
We exist in an ocean of consciousness. In fact, we are of that consciousness too — just like a fish in the water, unaware that there is anything other than water, it is (or has become) a being — a certain, albeit limited in relation to us (or so we believe) — that has arisen from the water. Like the fish that “feels” (subconsciously) the currents and energies of the water, we feel the currents and eddies of the conscious ocean that we are part of. It almost talks to us, but in a different sound, which we interpret in language.
The way our most sophisticated minds have currently expressed these waves that we can somehow experience, but externally we can only measure with highly sophisticated electronic instruments, is as “waves of probability”… and that is an excellent postmodern way of stating it. These waves of probability are measurements of the possibility of an event occurring which we call proton, or boson, photon or quanta, but might have had other names. In earlier times it was referred to more simply as water — which is a good analogy for the effect of waves, and more recently, though there is some evidence of a similar idea in ancient Buddhist texts, as Æther. In some interpretations, water is seen as a dense version of light, as light is believed to be a dense version of a more subtle vibration, a “supernal” or divine light. In fact, in some modern context, matter is thought of as “frozen” light.
One could think of this ocean of consciousness as a store of potential energy, like a battery – that is why it is often referred to as the Source. This battery can be used to power many different items, from tools to lights. This battery stores energy as potential energy, and releases it when connected correctly to another event. Thus it is with the ocean of consciousness, like a battery, but you have to have the correct wires, made from the right material, connected correctly to the battery to tap the potential hidden in the battery and more…
But not only that, the device that is being connected has to be able to handle the current that is now pulsing through it. As with all energy, it has to be received, used and then released, else it turns toxic and dangerous. In order to do that, it needs to be correctly designed with the correct materials, and maintained in a certain fashion to continue to be able to function correctly. The better attuned it is, the more efficient and effective it will be.
Vector of consciousness
A goal creates an imaginary, virtual line between your present point, and the goal which is in your future. Once we begin to move towards the goal, a “real” line is created, one of history and time.
All movement requires a point of origin, a starting point.
Consciousness
#consciousness Our awareness of our consciousness is discreet, it blinks on and off—although consciousness itself might be continuous. This could be represented by a sequence of natural numbers, 1, 2, 3… or in binary, 0 & 1, on & off. At each interval of consciousness another data point is added—yet our awareness of it is finite—though again consciousness per se, could be infinite… and if it is, then we might have something in us (consciousness) that IS infinite.
Between any two pulses, there are infinite occurrences—but we can only perceive a finite amount of them. Just as between any two whole numbers, there are an infinite amount of real numbers (i.e., fractions), we still can only manifest a finite amount at any moment. (In fact, if we had to spend the next gazillion years “manifesting them, we would still not have manifested them all.) So between 0 and 1, 1 and 2, etc., we have an infinity of infinities.