Consciousness is NOT localised inside the body-it's everywhere

[Someone here]

Most of us are under the illusion that consciousness is localised inside the body or the brain or behind your eyes . But that's just simply an illusion. If you study your direct experience carefully enough ..you will realize that consciousness extends to the whole bubble of perceptions that you are experiencing right now .the problem is you identify yourself with your physical body .which is only a small portion of the entire experience. You are the entire experience that you are experiencing right now. So if you're experiencing seeing a tree over there ..you are the tree ..consciousness is localised in the tree itself not in your eyes .you don’t actually see the tree with your eyes ..you see the tree exactly in the place which it is occurring in .

 what you think is the world out there is actually you. The problem is you think there is me here and a world there and me is looking at the world. That's duality. The observer is the observed. And this is meant literally. What you think is a screen right now that is being perceived by you via a medium of perception system (eyes) is actually what you are. You are not looking at the screen right now. You are the screen. And this is the case for any other duality. You and your thoughts are actually one thing. You and your feelings are actually one thing. Meaning there is no you that is feeling feelings.. The feelings are what you are. Evident by when there are no feelings there are no feeler as well. Similarly when there is no perceiver there are no perceptions.  And since there is in fact no duality between the perceiver and the perceived.. There is neither a you nor a world out there.. There is one unbroken actuality. And this is it. In this actuality there is actually no "you" and no "other". If you try to pin point where or what exactly is" you" in direct experience and what is or where exactly is "other" you will fail miserably. Because this boundary is completely imaginary. It's all one thing. There is no you right here perceiving a world out there. It's all here. Here is there. You is the world.  So what you call other people are literally you. The entire actuality of what's showing up in consciousness right now is you. Not just what you are  identified with as your body. The entire field of consciousness is you. From this place there is neither  you nor a world as two separate things. There is only what is. And what is.. Is one unbroken actuality with no divisions.   you are literally the entire world. You are the totality of what is. 

Edited July 26, 2022 by Someone here

[RMQualtrough]

The trick is caused by the sense of where the edges of your body are, I think. It's smart how it meshes tactile and visual senses and constructs a strong feeling of positioning inside the visual image.

Even Richard Dawkins, you can explain this in seconds and he would get it. Everyone knows that the world we see is a product of the mind. Irrespective of whether you think there is a real external stimulus, the actual image itself is purely inside your mind.

[Someone here]

3 minutes ago, RMQualtrough said:

The trick is caused by the sense of where the edges of your body are, I think. It's smart how it meshes tactile and visual senses and constructs a strong feeling of positioning inside the visual image.

Even Richard Dawkins, you can explain this in seconds and he would get it. Everyone knows that the world we see is a product of the mind. Irrespective of whether you think there is a real external stimulus, the actual image itself is purely inside your mind.

Yes we are under the spell that our consciousness arises from within the body and projected out into the "external world "and then reflected back into our sense organs and gives us data about our environment. 

Some materialists even argue that this data is being filtered by the brain and the world as we see it is not how it "actually " is outside of our perceptions.  

Of course that claim has zero empirical evidence. As our consciousness of this particular set of qualia is the only thing that reality is composed of .

[amanen]

I think the main problem with realizing this is in a state of normal consciousness we do not feel like we are sourcing the actions happening outside the body which causes us to identify with only the body, because that is what we feel like we control.

Though if our state of consciousness was altered we could obviously become conscious that we are doing all other actions as well

[Someone here]

44 minutes ago, amanen said:

I think the main problem with realizing this is in a state of normal consciousness we do not feel like we are sourcing the actions happening outside the body which causes us to identify with only the body, because that is what we feel like we control.

Though if our state of consciousness was altered we could obviously become conscious that we are doing all other actions as well

Exactly .

In our everyday awake state of consciousness.. the body is perceived as made of separate organic “stuff”.. and seems to has a clear boundary between itself and the surrounding space. 

But actually..no mathematicallly precise boundary is possible between any object and its surrounding.

It's true ...With psychedelicds.. In some altered state of consciousness the solidness of the body can dissolve and the skin boundary can seem to disappear. You may call such altered state of consciousness abnormal or even delusional. But paradoxically it's such abnormal perceptions that more closely mirror the true nature of reality.

Our so-called normal perception of a material world populated by material bodies more like a functionally adaptive chronically sustained delusion.

[Chrisd]

How to prove it? 

Edited July 26, 2022 by Chrisd

[Someone here]

8 minutes ago, Chrisd said:

How to prove it? 

I already explained it in the post. Re-read it again .

A helpful analogy though is the dream analogy.  Within your nighttime dream.. you always think you are your body and your body is real. When a dream car swerves towards you.. your dream body jumps out of the way to avoid getting hurt. Your dream is created by just One Thing.  Your mind. No one else’s. So it’s just One Thing, creating all these many things. Real things, or at least.. you’re quite certain their real” while you’re dreaming. But then you wake up.. and you see they were just projections from your One Thing.

Your waking dream is no different. “It just seems to be more continuous and last longer,” as Ramana Maharshi said, “but a dream projection, nonetheless.” At the Absolute level.. it’s obvious there is only One Thing.. or more accurately, NoThing. The Unmanifest. The Void. In enlightenment, or what you call ‘transcendence,’ we can get a fragrance of that.

[Razard86]

7 hours ago, Someone here said:

Most of us are under the illusion that consciousness is localised inside the body or the brain or behind your eyes . But that's just simply an illusion. If you study your direct experience carefully enough ..you will realize that consciousness extends to the whole bubble of perceptions that you are experiencing right now .the problem is you identify yourself with your physical body .which is only a small portion of the entire experience. You are the entire experience that you are experiencing right now. So if you're experiencing seeing a tree over there ..you are the tree ..consciousness is localised in the tree itself not in your eyes .you don’t actually see the tree with your eyes ..you see the tree exactly in the place which it is occurring in .

 what you think is the world out there is actually you. The problem is you think there is me here and a world there and me is looking at the world. That's duality. The observer is the observed. And this is meant literally. What you think is a screen right now that is being perceived by you via a medium of perception system (eyes) is actually what you are. You are not looking at the screen right now. You are the screen. And this is the case for any other duality. You and your thoughts are actually one thing. You and your feelings are actually one thing. Meaning there is no you that is feeling feelings.. The feelings are what you are. Evident by when there are no feelings there are no feeler as well. Similarly when there is no perceiver there are no perceptions.  And since there is in fact no duality between the perceiver and the perceived.. There is neither a you nor a world out there.. There is one unbroken actuality. And this is it. In this actuality there is actually no "you" and no "other". If you try to pin point where or what exactly is" you" in direct experience and what is or where exactly is "other" you will fail miserably. Because this boundary is completely imaginary. It's all one thing. There is no you right here perceiving a world out there. It's all here. Here is there. You is the world.  So what you call other people are literally you. The entire actuality of what's showing up in consciousness right now is you. Not just what you are  identified with as your body. The entire field of consciousness is you. From this place there is neither  you nor a world as two separate things. There is only what is. And what is.. Is one unbroken actuality with no divisions.   you are literally the entire world. You are the totality of what is. 

This is correct, I'm trying to figure out how this illusion was pulled off so smoothly the only answer I can see is that as long as your awareness is low you can't feel it. So its interesting from that perspective. 

[Someone here]

@Razard86

Its because we identified with being a separate self that lives somewhere inside the body. More accurately behind the eyes somewhere. But of course that's just an illusion. 

 A helpful way to understand how the brain creates the illusion of the self is to think about perceptual illusions such as the Kanizsa triangle (see the picture below)In this illusion we see a triangle even though no triangle has been drawn, due to the surrounding lines and shapes giving the impression of there being a triangle. Our brain essentially ‘fills in the gaps’. our sense of a self is similarly a hallucination created through the combination of parts. We perceive the self as a result of different regions in our brain trying to combine our experiences, thoughts, and behaviours into a narrative, and in this sense the self is artificial.

our brain naturally create narratives in order to make sense of the world. Essentially, our brains are always thinking in terms of stories: what the main character is doing, who they are speaking to, and where the beginning, middle, and end is. and our self is a fabrication which emerges out of the story-telling powers of our brain.

 

[Razard86]

19 minutes ago, JoeVolcano said:

"Low awareness" is not a thing in itself, so it doesn't explain anything. What you want to find out is exactly what is it that makes awareness seem to be low.

Low awareness is a thing. I don't need to find anything out. What exactly are you looking for?

[Razard86]

35 minutes ago, Someone here said:

@Razard86

Its because we identified with being a separate self that lives somewhere inside the body. More accurately behind the eyes somewhere. But of course that's just an illusion. 

 A helpful way to understand how the brain creates the illusion of the self is to think about perceptual illusions such as the Kanizsa triangle (see the picture below)In this illusion we see a triangle even though no triangle has been drawn, due to the surrounding lines and shapes giving the impression of there being a triangle. Our brain essentially ‘fills in the gaps’. our sense of a self is similarly a hallucination created through the combination of parts. We perceive the self as a result of different regions in our brain trying to combine our experiences, thoughts, and behaviours into a narrative, and in this sense the self is artificial.

our brain naturally create narratives in order to make sense of the world. Essentially, our brains are always thinking in terms of stories: what the main character is doing, who they are speaking to, and where the beginning, middle, and end is. and our self is a fabrication which emerges out of the story-telling powers of our brain.

 

 

I wouldn't say that alone is the full end all be all, because that illusion would fall as soon as the person noticed their thoughts were not them. I believe it has to do with awareness. Their consciousness/awareness is too low. They just aren't in a state that allows them to perceive the illusion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2u5M6tDc5TE&ab_channel=Actualized.org

Edited July 26, 2022 by Razard86

[Someone here]

10 minutes ago, Razard86 said:

I wouldn't say that alone is the full end all be all, because that illusion would fall as soon as the person noticed their thoughts were not them. I believe it has to do with awareness. Their consciousness/awareness is too low. They just aren't in a state that allows them to perceive the illusion.

Of course. We are by default in a "low state of consciousness ". Which is the ego state of consciousness. In this mode ..we operate under the illusion that we are separated from our environment. There is "us" and then there is "the external world ". That's the reason we think consciousness is localised in the body .because we believe we are the body and not the whole experience..from which the body is just a tiny part of .

This does not mean that the illusion of the self is pointless. It is the most powerful and consistent illusion we experience, so there must be some purpose to it. And in evolutionary terms, it is indeed useful to think of ourselves as distinct and personal. There is more of an incentive to survive and reproduce if it is for my survival, and my genes remain in the gene pool. After all, how can you be selfish without a sense of self? If we had no sense of self, and we perceived everything as ‘one’ or interconnected, what would be the point of competition? Perhaps then some important moral lessons can be drawn from the fact that the self is artificial, a construct.

The idea that the self is an illusion is not new.  The philosopher David Hume made a similar point, saying the self is merely a collection of experiences And in early Buddhist texts the Buddha uses the term anatta, which means ‘not-self’ or the ‘illusion of the self’. Thus Buddhism contrasts to, for example, Cartesianism, which says that there is a conscious entity behind all of our thoughts. The Buddha taught his followers that things are perceived by the senses, but not by an ‘I’ or ‘me’. 

[Tyler Durden]

@Someone here I don't see my head in my direct experience. Does that mean I'm actually headless? It's a bit ironic to think that your consciousness is located inside your head when in reality you don't even have it in the first place.

[cetus]

18 hours ago, Someone here said:

Because this boundary is completely imaginary. It's all one thing.

"This is not a shared space. For it to be 'shared' there would have to be two. For here there is not two." -Sadhguru

[VeganAwake]

It's not that you are everything....there just isn't a you, me or them period!

It's not two because there never was a separate you!

There is just what seems to be happening....call it consciousness, infinity, god, absolute.

Reality doesn't care what labels are given to it......it just does its thing without a care in the universe because it is the universe!

It's THIS!!

❤ ? ? 

[Johnny Galt]

If "you" are aware of this, then why communicate this "here", to "other"? What's the motive? 

 

 

[Ramu]

@Someone here I think we all know this already.

[Someone here]

1 hour ago, Ramu said:

@Someone here I think we all know this already.

No .actually the majority of people are buying into the materialist paradigm.  They think that consciousness is an emerging phenomenon from brain activity and they think its located in your head behind the eyes somewhere In the middle of the skull .and not much people know that consciousness is universal or that every object is made of consciousness. 

[Ramu]

@Someone here Yes you are correct.  Most people on this forum don't get it either as evidenced by the questions that are asked.

[Someone here]

@Ramu pardon them .I myself was a hard nosed materialist when I first began this journey towards truth.  And it took me multiple awakening experiences to shake the materialist paradigm off. Leo's videos were the most helpful. Especially his deleted episode on solipsism.