The other day, what occurred to me on consciousness is something that I'll *try* to express with a basic (read "stupid") example: Consider yourself in a pitch-dark, huge, empty room. You can't see a thing, feel a thing, etc. None of your senses tell you there's anything out there, except for empty space. Now, one has to conclude it to be a *void*.
When this void is experienced, similar to what may be experienced in many a spiritual path, one might err to conclude that its a big void. But if the focus is clear that one who's experiencing the empty room out there is the one and only *consciousness*, then its like inferring that, at this stage. One may call that by any other name, but in common parlance also when one says s/he is aware of things, eg, when coming out of fever, shock or coma, the inference is one's *consciousness*. All words have this basic limitation when it comes to expressing any experience. While many a thing are beyond even experience, how can words describe brahman or logic infer tat tvam asi?
When this void is experienced, similar to what may be experienced in many a spiritual path, one might err to conclude that its a big void. But if the focus is clear that one who's experiencing the empty room out there is the one and only *consciousness*, then its like inferring that, at this stage. One may call that by any other name, but in common parlance also when one says s/he is aware of things, eg, when coming out of fever, shock or coma, the inference is one's *consciousness*. All words have this basic limitation when it comes to expressing any experience. While many a thing are beyond even experience, how can words describe brahman or logic infer tat tvam asi?
2 comments:
The pitch dark room example is nice. I'd written about & felt something quite similar - I guess lot of people would. Here it is:
Once, in total darkness in a room, nothing was visible, not even my own body! It was then very much unclear where I began & where I ended!!! It was extremely easy to visualize a bodyless me. In fact it appears that light or lack of it is being responsible for both time & space constraints. In a way, 'freedom' is about really unlearning everything that we know about the empirical Universe...
Well said, rather, expressed. True, its always the presence of *that* that makes up for positivity or absence of it that makes the negative. Like someone said that there's nothing like cold temperatures, its the lack of heating factor, akin to darkness being just the absence of light. So also do I opine that neti-neti leads to brahmaN but could be seen as a void, if the pUrNa aspect is missed!
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