On Consciousness - is it just wakefulness or more?

Reflections from Sadguru – On Consciousness

(in the company of Doctors)

Wakefulness is not consciousness.

We are mistaking. In Indian terminology we call it jagruti (refer Mandukya Upanishad) Nor is the brain the centrality of memory and intellect, beyond that lies pure intelligence, a sum of our lived experience and experiences passed on through collective archetypes (refer Jung). In yogic science, not much importance is given to thought: the sum of the overall feeling is assimilated. In this, in a manner of speaking the overall chemistry is absorbed. Artificial intelligence will handle data, and do things more efficiently than man, that’s a reality. But AI is not intelligence.

There are different levels of wakefulness exists. We tend to associate wakefulness with consciousness. Another stage is dreaming (Sapna) and it needs ‘turning off the lights’ – in other words, we need to shut off the body (eyelids closed). Sapna stage is more important.

Jagruti is to live in the world.

The third stage is Sushupti: conscious sleep, dreamless.

The fourth sage is Turiya where no memory exists. Memories create boundaries. It causes separateness. Memories are of many kinds and includes karmic memories (eight forms). Your memory determines everything: your karmic actions. The intelligence beyond memory (chitta) is Intelligence. What is the degree of intelligence? Like soap bubbles, which has air inside, how big is your memory, but when it burst there is no difference in your ‘air and my air’. How big a bubble did you blow?

Anesthesia as a process, is a curative to pain, which is what is sought to be avoided.Unless there is no pain, preservation would not be possible. Pain is a protective mechanism to preserve themselves. In surgery, cutting someone is painful, and necessary, to disengage the pain during the operation. While monitoring the physiological factors, instead drop that, and monitor the neurological system (if there is a way) the entire art could be raised to a different level. In Yoga, there is a term, ‘Murma’ touching body and shutting off the pain. 

Comparison was made between waking up from anesthesia and coming out of consciousness. Reflecting on his ‘enlightenment’ Sadguru posited that cyclical moments cause time observation. Transcending ‘going in circles’ is what is the ultimate purpose of life. Cyclical movements display physical life: which is by itself a miniscule portion of the cosmic reality. We are engaged with just the physical: so absorbed and engaged with ‘footprints’ but when you see the larger form, all images disappear. The larger consciousness is unknown, some never knowable. 

Once there is no cyclical movement, once you are disengaged with movement, with accumulation: when there is disengagement. Everything then is one: there, now and there – all is one. Modern physics look at space and time. Yogic science looks only at time: time creates space as an illusion. For a while, all accumulation is kept aside for a time: once there is no time and space within the body: there is emptiness. Space is created by time. When time exists, space exists: NO Time, NO Space.

Physicality is not perpetual: all that is created will cease to exist.

Form is taken up only because there is memory. When you disengage with memory, there is no time, and there is no space. Is the earth flat or round? We discovered it only when we found elevation from it. Then only does one have a larger perspective. Moment you distance yourself will you have clarity. Accumulation of memories can be a burden. When one does something accidentally, you blunder around. Mind is interrogative: it’s great for science. 

But for an inner review of interiority something else is needed: other dimensions of intelligence. In yogic science there are four minds: 

Buddhi, your intellect (discriminatory mind), by dissecting the truth will not be known. What would you know by dissecting a flower? 

The second kind, is ahankara (fixed ego identity), then your intellect serves that identity. Our limited identity causes strife. We need to take on a cosmic identity (I am That). Our body is a fundamental identity:colour, gender, race,fashion. The instinct to set up boundaries is for self-preservation. Yet these walls are also walls of exile-hood. 

The third is Manas. A huge silos of memories (elemental, atomic, evolutionary, Karmic(2) and sensory, inarticulate memory, articulate) 

The fourth dimension is  ‘chitta’ (no memory, just a void): an intelligence of no memory. This dimension allows you to expand one's possibilities. 

How does this understanding help humanity? 

We believe who dominates, is the most intelligent. Maybe we are the most intellectual, among species, certainly not intelligent. 

The neo-cortex is a new phenomenon from the point of view of evolution. We say smart, when the other is smarter than the other. We are excited with fMRI and imaging. We like thoughts: it gave us words, poetry, language. Logic is for the external world, not for one's exploration of self. Human suffering is at a whole series of level, beyond physical ailment. We are not suffering our life’s. We can suffer our past, even our future. In short, we suffer on account of our memory and imagination. Most of us are wishing to ‘forget our memories’ – thru suppression (whisky, drugs). Some resort to suicide. We are suffering our faculties. We do not need just to change, one needs a total transformation, that which is irreversible. We have choices to be wounded or to be wise!

What one feels is normal, others consider abnormal. This ‘artificial’ line is meant for control and regulation. The social process decides what is ‘right’ whether it works or otherwise. Our social reality is the messiness left by the earlier generation.

Meditation is Dhyana in India (later other names as Zen, etc). We are ‘goal oriented’ and not process oriented: that is a problem in practice today. Sunya is ‘nothingness’ total emptiness – conscious death. What is within my boundaries of sensation is me? The rest:Not me. One needs to expand one's sensory boundaries.

One needs to fix the source, not the consequences.