Spira's The Nature of Consciousness
30 November 2023
Eternal light, you sojourn in yourself alone. / Alone, you know yourself. Known to yourself, / you, knowing, love and smile on your own being. / An inter-circulation, thus conceived, / appears in you like mirrored brilliancy. / But when a while my eyes had looked this round, / deep in itself, it seemed - as painted now, / in those same hues - to show our human form. / At which, my sight was set entirely there. - Dante Alighieri
In this book it is suggested that consciousness is the fundamental, underlying reality of the apparent duality of mind and matter, and that the overlooking, forgetting or ignoring of this reality is the root cause of both the existential unhappiness that pervades and motivates most people's lives and the wider conflicts that exist between communities and nations. Conversely, it is suggested, that the recognition of the fundamental reality of consciousness is the prerequisite and a necessary and sufficient condition for an individual's quest for lasting happiness and, at the same time, the foundation of world peace. - Rupert Spira
Who am I? There's two ways to answer this question. The first concerns the ego: I am Yuen Seng, and I write code for a living. This answer is subjective - it depends on who's asking. The second answer, and by far the more interesting one, concerns something entirely different, something that "bypasses" the ego, into oblivion.
So who am I? Well, I am going to tell you. But I'm not going to tell you directly, because it's easier that way.
All that is known, or could ever be known, is experience. If you experience something, then you must know that you've experienced that something. You can't experience something without knowing that you've experienced it. Thus, experience is the only thing that can be known. It is the only truth, the ultimate test of reality.
I know something because I experience it. I experience something, therefore I know it. But who am I? What is it that knows or experiences? There seems to be some kind of knowing essence behind all of our knowledge and experience. Let's call it the mind. It doesn't really matter what we call it. Therefore, all that could be known is experience, and all experience is known in the form of mind, or the I. Again, it doesn't matter what we call it. Nevertheless, we can still talk about it, and investigate its nature.
Thus, the question Who am I can be reworded as: What is the nature of the mind, by which everything is experienced and known?
Let's step back a bit. What is experience? Experience consists of thoughts, images, memories, ideas, feelings, desires, intuitions, sensations, sights, sounds, tastes, textures, smells, and so on. All experience - internal and external - is made up of these things. Furthermore, they have objective qualities. We observe them in time and space. We can give them names: hot, cold, chair, table, sweet, sour, rough, smooth, chair, table, capitalism, socialism, liberty, freedom, and so on. And we know, we experience, these things through the form of the mind, or the I.
But experience does not know. It cannot know. The mind that knows and experiences, the knowing essence, can never itself be known or experienced objectively. Thus, the mind, knowledge about its nature, is unique in this sense. It is the most profound knowledge that can be known. The highest knowledge that can be attained by the knowing essence is knowledge about its own nature.
Experience is ever changing. It is always in flux. Feeling of depression comes, and it goes. Feeling of happiness comes, and it goes. The sight of a chair, of a table, of a beautiful woman, the smell of a flower, the taste of a delicious meal, the sound of a bird chirping, the feeling of a cool breeze, of a warm embrace, the thought of a loved one, of a hated one, memories of past events, thoughts of future events: all come and all go.
The knowing essence, however, is unchanging. The experience of hotness differs from the experience of coldness, but both are known by the same subjective essence. Therefore, the knowing is independent of the content of the known. Like a mirror, the knowing essence reflects all experience, but is itself unreflected. The mind experiences, but is never conditioned by experience. In fact, the converse is true: all experience is conditioned by the mind. Viewed through red tinted glasses, the world appears red.
Thus, the answer to the question Who am I is this: I am, or the mind is, the knowing essence, the permanent, universal knowing element by which all experience is known. Permanent because it persists: the knowing element knows of its experience as I, I now, a week ago, a year ago, ten years ago, twenty years ago, and twenty years into the future. Universal because everyone experiences reality, and everyone knows reality through the exact same knowing essence. The knowing essence is the absolute truth, the highest truth, shared by the whole of humanity.