Can't Understand If Consciousness Is In The Brain Or Not?

[Mert]

Every great teacher says consciousness is not in the brain but brain is in the consciousness and I am sure that's true but what does that actually mean, if someone can explain it to me I would be very appreciated. Also if it is not "my" consciousness or "your" consciousness but one consciousness, how is it that if somebody punches me, I feel that sensation but if somebody punches somebody else in front of me, I don't feel anything. Isn't that mean consciousness is in the body? Why do I only feel what is happening to my body? I know it is not "my" body, just for the sake of argument)  This thing got me confused, what am I missing here?

[Telepresent]

Hello!  I just tried to write a reply to this but it turned into something of an incoherent mess and probably would only be more confusing.  So instead, I'll link you to a series of videos which really, really helped me on some of this stuff.  Enjoy:

http://www.butterfliesfree.com/holographic-universe-workshops/

[Arkandeus]

do you really feel nothing if someone gets punched in front of you? 

ever saw a video of a skater landing on his nuts on a rail or something?these are the types of things that get people feeling the people themselves as onlookers.

 

you also have to keep into account that your senses are dulled and you have a belief system that your conscious is related to your body. 
and what you believe becomes reality. which is why certain people can be ''insensitive'' to others and some are very ''sensitive'' and there's a whole gradient between these. 
if you stop believing in this, you will slowly have experiences that will show to you how your consciousness is everywhere. 

usually after a decent time of upholding a meditation practice you can see the aura of consciousness. 
it is something that I see all the time now personally. it is sort of like a small flickering, it is not colored,its impossible to describe nearly,but once you see it you know its consciousness, but it shows how things are clearly being made right now,nothing is solid. 
a table isn't just made out of wood into a form just to keep its solid form. every second the table is made again and again and again and again and you're the one doing this.
everything happens now

 

 

Edited June 15, 2017 by Arkandeus

[Mert]

@Arkandeus I meant that I don't feel the sensations that person is feeling, but now I have realised as I started writing this, What is even "I don't feel the sensations that person is feeling" mean. That IS my sensation(as a thought). I actually have no idea what that other person is feeling, I am just assuming. Hell, I don't even know that person is living in the same reality as me, I have 0 proof. I understand a little bit more now. Problem is as you said we have beliefs that ultimately has no ground. Experience itself is what is real. Our ideas about experience cannot be the truth because it is still an experience which appers as a voice in the head. So I am just going to keep practising and see if a get any of the insights that you had. (But these insights itself are not gonna be the truth again, they are gonna be just words) I guess consciousness cannot be communicated or intellectualized which is sad to me because I love discussing abstract concepts. I guess I need to shut up and do my meditation. Btw can you recommend few practises for me to grasp consciousness. Thank you very much.

[Mert]

@Telepresent I will definitely check them out. Thanks so much. Peace

[AlwaysBeNice]

See my website.

Also I find more and more than it's indeed closer to the or in the heart and not in the head as some masters have claimed, perhaps it can be made clear by just putting your hands around your heart.

[Telepresent]

@Mert  No worries.  Shout if you want to discuss anything that comes from it: I'm constantly processing it all myself.  In fact, that's my advice to your question

2 hours ago, Mert said:

Btw can you recommend few practises for me to grasp consciousness

Process what you know, but crucially what you don't know, but think you know.  Sounds like gibberish, maybe.  But this is what self-inquiry is.  I hold to the idea of Spiritual Autolysis rather than self-enquiry, but only because it is written down rather than done in the head. 

If you read the book that you find through the link I sent, it discusses this, and what I like is that Davis suggests that the typical self-inquiry question "what am I?" might better be "what am I not?"

As much as you might want to experience things, you might want to meditate and experience a way into enlightenment, that's only part of the journey as I understand it.  An important part, as it helps to separate you from your thoughts, feelings, and (maybe) beliefs, but there's a deeper challenge that faces us which often seems to go overlooked:

If you are trying to understand consciousness, you have to debunk how you think the universe works.

Why is that?  Because how we typically think the universe works is a conceptual model, and is actually quite falsifiable (one of the reasons the Holographic Universe is such a head-fuck is that it falsifies the universe as we think of it, but we don't want to accept that so start making excuses for it).  It doesn't account for the most basic experiential conditions (i.e. the only thing I know for certain is that I have experience, yet by the standard objective-physical-Newtonian model of the universe my lived experience, the qualia which are the only thing I know, are not answered for), and makes massive, massive assumptions to the point that hypotheses are taken as facts.  For example, in your inital post you ask why you can feel your pain, but not the pain of another person.  I suggest you have no way of knowing that the other person experiences anything; that you cannot know that they are not just the shape and sound and feeling of an object that claims to experience, but does not provide evidence.

Bold claim.  But one you have to face.

What does this have to do with Spiritual Autolysis or self-enquiry?  Both are avenues into exploring these questions.  What do we know?  What do we think we know, but actually only believe?  What are we taking for granted?  What are we taking as fact but is in fact a fudged "that'll do" we came up with when we were 10 years old, but doesn't remotely correspond to life, or to our understanding of string theory (for example, as it's my latest thing)?

I recommend Spiritual Autolysis simply because the act of writing forces you to clarify your thoughts, to put them into clear language, and helps you to see the gaps in them.  It can also highlight when you are going in circles, or repeating the same thing over and over again without actually developing your thinking.  Self-inquiry should be able to do the same thing, but it's much, much harder if you keep it all in the head, and (in my experience at least) tends towards asking the same broad, un-specific questions ("Who am I?" "Who is thinking this thought?" "Who is observing this thought?") without any actual progress being made.

(Incidentally, do you see the flaw in all of those questions?  They presume a 'who', which suggests an object, a separated entity, a separation of observation and thought, a limited thing.  It's hard to catch those kinds of hidden assumptions without writing things down, in my experience)

Edited June 19, 2017 by Telepresent

[Arkandeus]

4 hours ago, Mert said:

@Arkandeus I meant that I don't feel the sensations that person is feeling, but now I have realised as I started writing this, What is even "I don't feel the sensations that person is feeling" mean. That IS my sensation(as a thought). I actually have no idea what that other person is feeling, I am just assuming. Hell, I don't even know that person is living in the same reality as me, I have 0 proof. I understand a little bit more now. Problem is as you said we have beliefs that ultimately has no ground. Experience itself is what is real. Our ideas about experience cannot be the truth because it is still an experience which appers as a voice in the head. So I am just going to keep practising and see if a get any of the insights that you had. (But these insights itself are not gonna be the truth again, they are gonna be just words) I guess consciousness cannot be communicated or intellectualized which is sad to me because I love discussing abstract concepts. I guess I need to shut up and do my meditation. Btw can you recommend few practises for me to grasp consciousness. Thank you very much.

yes, as you love discussing abstract concepts a process that helped me was to and even now to some extent always challenging my own thoughts. 
investigate everyone one of your mind's ''insights'' , your mind's ''claims'', your minds ''conclusion'', simply try to everytime prove them wrong. 
 

this pretty much makes you always conscious of  your and over time will lead you to big realizations about your mind and consciousness. 
it is not be a seen as an hostile campaign against your own mind, it is simply always playing the devil's advocate, so that you can adopt several points of view in your mind and always be in touch with the truth. 
it is a very open-minded and neutral approach to be able to constantly consider the viewpoints opposite to the ones you hold and balancing between the two. 

so it would go like this : 

you pick a flower and think to yourself : ''oh what a nice flower!'' 
counter thinking :  ''is it really a nice flower? is it only a nice flower because I rarely see a flower and thus I find this one exotic? 
is it only a nice flower because I don't know much about flowers?''

you think : ''oh I'm intelligent!''
counterthinking: ''am I really intelligent?haven't their been people more intelligent then me, scientists, artists? by what standards am I assuming my intelligence? who's setting those standards?

you think : ''what a bad day today....''
counterthinking: ''is it really a bad day today? aren't there people having proportionally worse days that make this one good? some people have days where they die, how does that make your day look? haven't I had worse days in the past? is it only a bad day because I think it is a bad day? 

''I'm nice''...
''am I really nice? there was that one time where...''

''I'm enlightened!''
''am I really enlightened? argument, argument...'' 

it's best to apply this at big decisions or insights instead of every little thing at first. 

it is one of my major exercises in abandoning thinking and disidentifying with it as I could constantly prove my own thoughts wrong , it is very frustrating at first.
it automatically puts you into the position of being conscious of every single thought you have because you will judge and evaluate every single thought instead of letting them flow freely

Edited June 19, 2017 by Arkandeus

[Telepresent]

43 minutes ago, Arkandeus said:

investigate everyone one of your mind's ''insights'' , your mind's ''claims'', your minds ''conclusion'', simply try to everytime prove them wrong. 
 

this pretty much makes you always conscious of  your and over time will lead you to big realizations about your mind and consciousness. 
it is not be a seen as an hostile campaign against your own mind, it is simply always playing the devil's advocate, so that you can adopt several points of view in your mind and always be in touch with the truth. 
it is a very open-minded and neutral approach to be able to constantly consider the viewpoints opposite to the ones you hold and balancing between the two. 

Yes

[Delinkaaaa]

Well, I have really different oppinion 

Your consciousness is definetly connected to your body, and it is definetly created in your brain. 

Consciousness evolved durring the evolution like everything other. We humans are able to do different things with our consciousness than dogs are, which is because we are a lot different in our DNA. Do you know what consciousness really is? It is an evolurionary advatage. Like legs and arms, blood and sweat.

Thinking that consciousness is something that magicaly appeard out of the blue in the body is silly.

Did you ever go sleep? What is your consciousness doing durring early sleep? It is dissolvig into subconscuouss stream of tired toughts. 

Have you ever been drunk...?  What is your consciousness doing while you have "a window"? And how is that drugs even effects our consciousness at all? These chemicals are messing with our brain and body. That is why consciousness is able to react chemicals in our body - because it is a bunch of chemicals and electric activity.

There is no realy nothing at all magical about consciousness. It is all mater, all biological processes. 

[Egosum]

@Delinkaaaa Both you and OP desperately need to read The Nature of Consciousness by Rupert Spira. Here's a 17 page sample: http://www.sahajapublications.com/assets/pdf/TheNatureofConsciousness.pdf

A relevant quote from the introduction:

"Our world culture is founded upon the assumption that reality consists of two essential ingredients: mind and matter. In this duality, matter is considered the primary element, giving rise to the prevailing materialistic paradigm in which it is believed that mind, or consciousness – the knowing element of mind – is derived from matter.

How consciousness is supposedly derived from matter – a question known as the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ – remains a mystery, and is indeed one of the most vexing questions in science and philosophy today. Strangely, the fact that there is no evidence for this phenomenon is not deemed significant enough to dissuade most scientists and philosophers from their conviction that consciousness is a derivative of matter, although more and more are beginning to question it. Most still believe that, with advances in neurology, the neural correlates of consciousness and the means by which it is derived from the brain will sooner or later be discovered, and this belief is reinforced by the mainstream media.

However, until such time, the hard problem of consciousness remains an uncomfortable dilemma for exponents of the materialist paradigm. Ironically, in all other fields of scientific research such lack of evidence would undermine the premise upon which the theory stands, but in a leap of faith that betrays the irrational nature of materialism itself, the conviction at its heart is not undermined by the lack of supporting evidence, nor indeed by compelling evidence to the contrary. In this respect, the prevailing materialistic paradigm shares many of the characteristics of religion: it is founded upon an intuition that there is a single, universal and fundamental reality, but it allows belief rather than experience to guide the exploration and, therefore, the implications of that intuition.

Some contemporary philosophers go further than believing consciousness to be an epiphenomenon, or secondary function, of the brain. In an extraordinary and convoluted act of reasoning they deny the very existence of consciousness, claiming it to be an illusion created by chemical activity in the brain. In doing so, they deny the primary and most substantial element of experience – consciousness itself – and assert the existence of a substance – matter – which has never been found.

In fact, it is not possible to find this substance on the terms in which it is conceived, because our knowledge of matter, and indeed all knowledge and experience, is itself an appearance within consciousness, the very medium whose existence these philosophers deny. Such an argument is tantamount to believing that an email creates the screen upon which it appears or, even worse, that the email exists in its own right, independent of the screen, whose very existence is denied."

[Mert]

@Arkandeus Oh, that seems like a great practise. I was doing it in daily life here and there especially when I first started doing the self inquiry (like who is looking at the people walking down the street) but now I am going to make this a homework assignment for myself. And also as I am progressing in this work, my resistance increased massively for question my beliefs about the world. For example at first it was easy to do my mindfulness practise for my thoughts because these thoughts were not so much related to my "self" but now I am facing this self righteous thougts like "Oooh, look at all the people who are unconscious, how can you even think there is a "self", people are idiots" so as Leo talked about I think I am going through a purification process. I am seeing the dark side of myself and I have a resistance to put the label of "oh, that's just a thought" Actually this consciousness topic came from me facing myself because I was learning these cool ideas about consciousness but then I had to accept and say to myself "Wait a second, I actually don't know what the fuck is even consciousness means, I mean what is it actually, can I even "know" it?" So as you said questioning or labeling a thought (which is just a voice in the head) without getting lost in the context and not knowing is a very powerful state and I am going to practise this not knowing more. Tbh right now I have no idea what the fuck consciousness is and if it is on the brain or somewhere else and that's okay. I am going to sit with it.

[Emerald]

On 6/13/2017 at 1:01 PM, Mert said:

Every great teacher says consciousness is not in the brain but brain is in the consciousness and I am sure that's true but what does that actually mean, if someone can explain it to me I would be very appreciated. Also if it is not "my" consciousness or "your" consciousness but one consciousness, how is it that if somebody punches me, I feel that sensation but if somebody punches somebody else in front of me, I don't feel anything. Isn't that mean consciousness is in the body? Why do I only feel what is happening to my body? I know it is not "my" body, just for the sake of argument)  This thing got me confused, what am I missing here?

To give you an analogy: the brain is like the computer and the mind is like the internet. The internet is not in your physical computer, is it?

[Mert]

@Emerald But isn't physical computer allows internet to exist, or should we think them as completely different things? I didn't really understand this analogy. Btw I am subscribed to your channel for a long time. Infact this morning I watched your video called "How to Ground Yourself in Your Subjective Experience" exactly because of this topic and all these fancy mental masturbation I do(as I am very good at that) I Absolutely love your content. You talk a lot about the egoic pitfalls of the path and I feel like this is something we need so much in the spritual community and they've helped me a lot personally. Btw I would be friends with the goth Emerald, just so you know  

And again if we return to the question, I've started to think of it this way, idk if that's accurate or not: What does even "my brain" mean? I don't have a direct experience of "my brain". I mean I do but just as words not as context. The only think I have is experience. Doesn't matter if it is a "scientific fact" or a dog shit on the road. So what I think of consciousness is a field that these experiences are occuring in. Funnily enough, all the, what we call right or wrong, ideas about consciousness are also occuring in the consciousness without being judged. I know it is not something to be discussed but to be experienced (I don't even know that's the right word) but I would like to hear your opinion. Do you think this is intellectually accurate enough? (ultimately to fulfill my egoic desires to understand) 

[Nahm]

@Mert 7 billion toasters, one electricity. 7 billion iPads, one wifi source. Etc.

[Mert]

@Nahm Oh, okay that makes much more sense. Thanks

[Emerald]

7 minutes ago, Mert said:

@Emerald But isn't physical computer allows internet to exist, or should we think them as completely different things? I didn't really understand this analogy. Btw I am subscribed to your channel for a long time. Infact this morning I watched your video called "How to Ground Yourself in Your Subjective Experience" exactly because of this topic and all these fancy mental masturbation I do(as I am very good at that) I Absolutely love your content. You talk a lot about the egoic pitfalls of the path and I feel like this is something we need so much in the spritual community and they've helped me a lot personally. Btw I would be friends with the goth Emerald, just so you know  

And again if we return to the question, I've started to think of it this way, idk if that's accurate or not: What does even "my brain" mean? I don't have a direct experience of "my brain". I mean I do but just as words not as context. The only think I have is experience. Doesn't matter if it is a "scientific fact" or a dog shit on the road. So what I think of consciousness is a field that these experiences are occuring in. Funnily enough, all the, what we call right or wrong, ideas about consciousness are also occuring in the consciousness without being judged. I know it is not something to be discussed but to be experienced (I don't even know that's the right word) but I would like to hear your opinion. Do you think this is intellectually accurate enough? (ultimately to fulfill my egoic desires to understand) 

The brain/mind computer/internet analogy isn't perfect. But you get the idea that the internet isn't located in your personal physical computer. Your physical computer just receives the internet. Now, like I said, the analogy isn't totally perfect as the computer is what allows the internet to exist which may not be the case for the brain and mind. But you can get the idea of how it's possible for brain and mind to be separate things. It's our assumption only that makes us think that the brain is the location of the mind. But if we examine that assumption, we'll see that it may not be the case.

To answer you question about consciousness, it's important to be able to see reality as it is without any belief structures that you've learned. We can never truly know if anything is true beyond what we're experiencing in this very moment. This reality could be completely contrived to convince us that scientifically observable facts like "I have a brain." are true, when they may not be. You don't know if your brain exists if you're not experiencing it right now. You just believe it. You don't know if your car exists if you're not experiencing it right now. You don't know if any of your memories really happened, or if reality is tricking you into believing that they happened. That's not to say that these alternatives are true. All of these things may indeed continue to exist even if you're not experiencing them. But we have to realize that we don't actually know anything. This reality could be created for the entire purpose of misleading you individually. Or it could be a mutual reality where many people experience the same thing. But we'll never know. The main takeaway is to accept that you can't know. Then you can let go of searching for the answer once you truly accept that. But you'll probably have to tire yourself out first. Intellectualizing and trying to understand is an addictive thing.

But I'm glad that you like my videos.  Thank you for the kind words!

[Mert]

Yes, exacty! True not knowing is a very powerful state that is highly underestimated. We should try to empty our cups more.

You're welcome