Self and Consciousness XI

 I’m not sure if I have entirely maintained my focus. But, given the nature of a blog, I’ve given myself a certain latitude in exploring these issues. If my musings and reflections lack a certain amount of discipline it's because I'm giving myself some free range and hope to come back and edit my writings later. I began with the idea of exploring the self and consciousness. 

But, since the ontology of the self leads into a discussion of the ontology of the universe, I have digressed a bit. The description of the planets has its place; I think it’s fair to say that the author of Bhāgavatam had something more in mind than a geographical view of the cosmos.

Śrīdhara Mahārāja has hinted at a more nonlinear, metaphysical understanding of the cosmic ideas mentioned in Bhāgavatam. Physicists like to look at the physical universe of space and time both on the macrocosmic and microcosmic level. So it is with the metaphysical universe of spiritual energy. More on that later.

But let’s return to a discussion of consciousness itself at the individual level. Instead of speaking on a theoretical level, let’s do an exercise in consciousness.

Ask yourself a simple question: Who am I?

Am I Russian? Mexican? American? But I can change my nationality. What if I became a citizen of the United Nations? Nationality is important. But is that really who I am? Does that answer my question?

What about sex? Am I a man or a woman? But is that the most important defining factor of who I am? How about race and skin color? Also superficial.

Let’s go deeper. Hold out your hand for a moment. Take a look. What do you see? Is that you? Self-image is important. I always see myself as a young man with dark hair. Go ahead and take a look in the mirror. Is the face looking back at you the same as your self-image? Or are you younger in your mind’s eye?

What if we strip away everything superficial: your nationality, sex, religion, political identification, skin color? Who are you then? A collection of thoughts and impressions? But when you enter the state of consciousness called deep sleep you have no thoughts and impressions, yet you don’t cease to be. Your existence is not dependent on your thoughts and impressions.

What is the real essence of being?

Energy, you may say. But what kind of energy? We may be considered as beings made of energy. Touch your hand. The neurons in your fingertips send electrical signals through your nervous systems, up the spine into the brain. There, the electricity is converted into the experience of touch. Are you electricity, then?

If that were true, it would be possible to send an electrical impulse into a dead body and make it laugh and sing again. This was Mary Shelley’s thesis in her famous book, “Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus.” But life is more subtle still. Living energy is subtler somehow than electrical energy.

But somehow your life energy connects with the five senses to interpret what we see, smell, touch, taste, and hear, and so consciousness can interpret the “physical” dimensions of solid matter: color, flavor, odor, sound, and texture. Our five senses can “sense” the world of extension and depth, the entire three-dimensional world. A higher aspect of subtle energy organizes and evaluates sensual experience through the mind and intelligence.

इन्द्रियानी पराण्याहुर् इन्द्रियेभ्यः परम् मनः मनसस् तु परा बुद्धिर् यो बुद्धेआ परतस् तु सः

indriyānī parāṇyāhur

indriyebhyaḥ param manaḥ

manasas tu parā buddhir

yo buddheā paratas tu saḥ

TRANSLATION (by A.C. Bhaktivedānta Swāmī)

The working senses are superior to dull matter; mind is higher than the senses; intelligence is still higher than the mind; and he [the soul] is even higher than the intelligence. 

(Bhāgavad-Gīta Chapter 3: text 42)

When the ancient seers of the truth spoke of metaphysical reality,they began with this kind of simple analysis of the self. Before considering the nature of spiritual reality in a cosmic sense, they began with the microcosm of the individual self. What are the levels of consciousness, and from whence do they proceed? Before making any progress on the spiritual path to surrender, one must begin with this sort of inquiry.

Unfortunately, the sensual input we receive is often so overwhelming that we fail to step back and inquire. The senses offer us all kinds of delights: sex, drugs, and rock and roll. But it’s entirely possible to lose one’s self chasing after the objects of the senses.

Involved in a false identification of the self, we lose our own “self-interest.” We become “programmed” by the mind and senses

to seek false, temporary pleasures in the objects of the senses.

Bhagavad-gita teaches us to develop spiritual intelligence through dedication. This spiritual intelligence will guide us. Spiritual intelligence born of knowledge can guide one to become free from a false sense of self.

एवं बुद्धेः परम् बुद्ध्वा संस्तभ्यात्मानम् आत्मना जहि शत्रुम् महा-बाहो काम-रूपम् दुरासदम्

evaṁ buddheḥ param buddhvā

saṁstabhyātmānam ātmanā

jahi śatrum mahā-bāho

kāma-rūpam durāsadam

TRANSLATION

Thus knowing the Self to be transcendental to material senses, mind and intelligence, one should control the lower self by the higher self and thus-by spiritual strength-conquer this insatiable lust for satisfying the senses through exploitation and manipulation of the sense objects.

Ordinarily we may conceive of evolution as a kind of process by which beings evolve from simple life forms to more advanced life forms where the senses and mind become ever more sophisticated, culminating in the human form of life.

The subjective evolution of consciousness involves an attempt to evolve spiritually to a higher state of consciousness. 

Above simple cognition, metacognition allows us to examine our true self interest and arrive at the idea that the self has a spiritual nature founded not only in being (sat), but also in knowledge and awareness (cit) and finally in spiritual joy and bliss (ānanda). Metacognition alone is insufficient to arrive at the highest evolution of consciousness which is attainable only through dedication (bhakti). So, buddhi, or intelligence, may be useful as a metacognitive tool, but ultimately must be guided by divine love in order to reach the highest ecstasy available to the living soul.

A meditation on the relationship between sense, mind, intelligence, ego and self may lead us to self-discovery through a study of the heirarchy of consciousness.

Through careful analysis we find that the primitive layers of consciousness are involved in a hard struggle for existence. Without activation of a higher level of consciousness through reverence, living beings deluded by a false sense of self-interest are involved almost exclusively in a hard struggle for existence and a life of exploitation.

This is seen especially at the animal level of consciousness where attention to eating, sleeping, mating, and defense is total. Of course, sometimes we see more subtle emotions in animals, especially in cows, elephants, dolphins, chimpanzees, dogs, cats, and other domestic species. And yet, animal consciousness tends almost exclusively to exploitation, especially in wild animals and predators like wolves and sharks.

Human beings who have little understanding of their inner lives, who are completely guided by the need for survival and who lack reverence and compassion are also engaged in a hard struggle for existence.

Forgetfulness of one’s true spiritual self-interest is especially seen when one’s consciousness has been driven down to the animal level by harsh living conditions such as poverty, or by addictions to drugs and alcohol. We see that when reverence is lacking from life’s activities, the result is cruelty, violence and loneliness.

The physical arena is a magnificent learning environment. It is a school within which, through experimentation, we come to understand what causes us to expand and what causes us to contract, what causes us to grow and what causes us to shrivel, what nourishes our souls and what depletes them, what works and what does not. A close scientific study of material nature will lead to a higher understanding of the self, ultimately.

But,when the physical environment is seen only from point of view of the five senses, physical survival appears to be the fundamental criterion of evolution because no other kind of evolution is detectable.

It is from this point of view that “survival of the fittest” appears to be synonymous with evolution, and physical dominance appears to characterize advanced evolution.

When perception of the physical world is limited to the five-sensory modality, the basis of life in the physical arena becomes fear. Power to control the environment, and those within the environment appears to be essential. The need for physical dominance produces a type of competition that affects every aspect of our lives.

This obsession with the five senses and their objects develops into an exploiting tendency that colors all our relationships, from family to community, from sex and love to politics and war.

For this reason, the most basic of Vedic teachings is sacrifice.

Bhagavad-Gita recapitulates the Vedic and Upanishadic teachings by walking us through the development in conscious evolution offered there. In the beginning there is Sacrifice. Sacrifice and work become proper action, or karma-yoga. Sacrifice and a clear understanding of the eternal nature of the self develop into jñāna-yoga. Higher intelligence (buddhi-yoga) is informed by reverence and devotion. The highest form of yoga and meditation combines proper action, knowledge and reverence for the divine, in dedication, or bhakti-yoga. Through dedication to the Personal Godhead,(Krishna)one overcomes the tendency towards the exploitation of the sense objects.

For this reason, Bhakti-yoga has been considered as the strongest and most powerful of the different paths towards the evolution of divine consciousness.

I am not the Supreme Self. Milton’s Satan says it is better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven. This is our position: as individual jivas charmed by the misconception of exploiting material reality we want to play God, we want to rule in our hell of māya. But his is a false reality. I am not the Supreme. It is artificial for me to try to rule material nature. Supreme self is God. Oneness is a misconception. I am not one with God. Nor am I one with material nature. The subject is not equal to the object. Duality exists. Duality means God is different from me. He is supreme. I am subordinate. He is great, I am small. He is infinite, I am infinitesimal. This is the relationship between the Supreme infinite consciousnes and the individual unit of consciousness as explained in the Upanishads.

So because we are infinitesimal, we should concentrate our mind to the infinite, supreme Self.

Whenever we analyse the question, “Who am I?” we must come to the conclusion “I am not alone.” There exists a power greater than myself. This brings one to the natural basis of the Vedic version: sacrifice. If there is some power greater than myself, I must have a role to play in a higher design. This is the basis of all theistic thought and philosophy. Sacrifice is at the core of every religious system contemplated throughout human civilization.

Of course, it may be argued that all this talk about so-called “consciousness” is simply word jugglery. If atheists like Richard Dawkins are right, then “consciousness” is a coverall term that explains nothing. It stands for an interaction of electronic impulses at the neural level within the brain that creates “mind,” and may be a problem for micro-biology, but science will settle these questions once and for all without the need for “Soul,” or “God,” or any such 19th century ideas.

In The Brothers Karamazov, the last and most complex of Fyodor Dostoevsky's philosophical novels, we find the riveting aphorism, "If there is no God -then everything is permitted."

With the twentieth century behind us, many would now contend that these words ascribed to Ivan Karamazov reveal a penetrating truth not to be dismissed.

For Dostoevsky personally - and as a writer and thinker - there was one tormenting question: that of the existence of God. All of his great characters are driven, if not obsessed, by this burning question and its solution.

If God does not exist, if the self does not exist, then everything is meaningless.

All of our values and morals simply become an illusion of the human experience. the only truth to reality is matter and energy, even our concept of truth become illusory. given that our existence has no grounding in an objective being, our understanding of reality is shaped by blind chance.

As Stephen Hawking frames the question, "there is no such thing as truth, only useful truths."

Hawking’s aphorism frames truth in terms of “useful truths,” or in other words, truth is useful when it helps us to control, manipulate and exploit the physical world. Truths that do not aid us in the exploitation of matter have no use, and so are not “useful truths.” But any science based exclusively on exploitation will lead only to the degradation of the human spirit.

Any science that discards truth when it is not “useful” betrays the utilitarian philosophy that underlies it. And science which proceeds from a bias towards utilitarianism is not science at all, but mere technological investigation geared toward exploitation. The consequence of such “science” is not a deeper understanding of the truth, but the development of such monstrous achievements as nuclear arms, weaponized smallpox, genetic engineering and killer drones powered by artificial intelligence. If these are the “useful truths” offered by contemporary science, one must return to Dostoyevsky’s formula: “If God doesn’t exist, then everything is permitted.”

In and through his unforgettable characters, Dostoevsky demonstrates how one's free choice in believing in or rejecting God will have profound consequences of a moral and ethical nature. Thus, the cycle of his famous novels - Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons, and The Brothers Karamazov - is an endless exploration of the consequences of the existence or nonexistence of God. This deepening transformation of the realistic novel of the nineteenth century into an artistic field of religio‑philosophical enquiry gives his rather topical novels a distinctively timeless quality. All lovers of great literature, and those who are keenly interested in precisely these ultimate questions of God, the meaning of life, salvation, and human destiny, will be richly rewarded for spending time and energy on one of his major works.

Dostoyevsky’s work may be seen as a reaction to the times in which he lived. And yet the questions raised over a hundred years ago are still with us.

After all, the nineteenth century witnessed the rise of social, political, scientific, and ideological systems that were implicitly or explicitly atheistic and that have provided the intellectual fuel for generations of thinkers, ending with Dawkins and Hawkings. With a kind of prophetic insight, Dostoevsky envisioned the logical consequences of these systems that ignored or rejected God and the self.

In his time, it was openly stated by the intellectuals of Europe that God, and belief in Him, were relics of the past. Religious faith was a sign of mankind's immaturity, at best a preparatory stage in mankind's progressive liberation from dependence on supernatural assistance. And 19th century Russia was determined to modernize, to leave behind the superstitions of Old Russia.

And so it was that the atheistic humanism of Western Europe enticed and obsessed the Russian intelligentsia. In all of this, Christ was seen in the romantic garb of a humanitarian teacher of moral truths - or a dangerous dreamer.

Marx's famous dictum that religion was the "opium of the people" seemed to capture this revolt against God in a convincing manner. Later in the century, Nietzsche declared that "God is dead." The theories of Darwin and Freud - natural selection and psychoanalysis - further reduced the human person to a product, if not a plaything, of the environment, or to inner impulses and desires.

These theories both fascinated Dostoevsky and filled him with terror. He was convinced that the godless world envisioned by these ideas would eventually become an inhuman world wherein "everything is permitted" against flesh-and-blood human beings not "in step" with the reigning ideas or the reigning party. Dostoevsky saw that the worth of a human being is grounded in the will and love of God, who has created each and every human person in His image and likeness. In the dialectics of Dostoevsky's artistic vision, the human person, once robbed of this spiritual likeness to God, is eventually enslaved by mankind's “liberators.” As the socialist theoretician Shigalev said in Demons: "I started with total freedom and ended up with total enslavement."

So, how do these ideas play out? The consequence of Marx’s ideas as expressed through Leninism and Stalinism led not to enlightenment, but to the total enslavement of the Russian people for more than a generation.

Denial of the self, far from leading to freedom, leads to slavery: the slavery of the senses.

The self that refuses the journey of self-discovery that is the subjective evolution of consciousness is mired in a swamp of sensual illusion, a self-enclosed hell of estrangement from both God and self. The philosophy of “If God doesn’t exist, then everything is permitted,” leads us down a dark path towards forgetfulness of our own true self-interest.

A society which is based on the denial of the soul must be based on exploitation as seen not only in the darkest days of Stalinism with its soul-denying atheism but also in the horrifying exploitation and wars generated by the capitalism of a Trump.

In this demonic view of evolution, “only the strong survive,” and “survival of the fittest” is the law of the jungle.

Our cities resemble jungles, where “might makes right.” This sort of anarchic, bestial public life has been predicted by Thomas Hobbes:

"During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man...To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues.”

"No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."

Where there is no understanding of the self, of the subjective evolution of consciousness, human beings descend further into ignorance, ignoring their own self-interest. This condition is not evolution but corruption.

Therefore the Greeks coined the aphorism, “Know thyself.” Self-examination is essential for spiritual upliftment. But dedication to a higher power is even more important than knowledge of the eternal self.

A transcendentalist should always try to concentrate his mind on the supreme self. Supreme self means Bhagavan Śrī Krsna. The Upanishads say, nityo nityanam cetanas cetananam. He is the supreme eternal conscious being, the supreme living entity. We are individual conscious beings. There is a relationship between the Absolute Supreme Consciousness which is eternal, and the individual conscious unit, which is also eternal.

The whole yoga system is based on the premise of concentrating one’s mind on the Supreme Self and leaving aside the fascination for the objects of the senses.