Why is Reality Consciousness?

[AtmanIsBrahman]

I struggle to understand why Leo, along with many other spiritual and philosophical schools of thought, think that reality is essentially mental, or non-physical.

The materialist view is that the universe is made of physical stuff and that our consciousness results from a specific arrangement of matter. This runs into the issue, how do subjective experiences come about from matter that doesn't have subjective experience? This doesn't make sense intuitively.
So it might seem like considering consciousness the most fundamental thing solves that issue. But since most things in the universe are not conscious, at least as far as we can tell, this seems like projection because we are giving the entire universe our human attribute of consciousness. Why is consciousness really fundamental and not just a projection? 

P.S. I ask this genuinely wanting to learn, not just to criticize

[Princess Arabia]

Please watch this video. 11:17mins long. Every part of the Universe is conscious.

[tuku747]

Because, if you honestly examine your experience, you'll notice that everything you've ever known you've only known through experience. Experience comes first. Nobody, no scientist nor mystic has known anything at all except their experience.

For all any of us know, there's only experience.

The world as seperate from experience is an assumption we make on Faith. Nobody has known the world, or even themselves, without also experiencing it. Therefore, experience is the monad, and the world appears as form within our experience.

Experience is Consciousness.

Experience is Life.

Experience is All We Know.

Edited December 19, 2023 by tuku747

[inFlow]

9 hours ago, AtmanIsBrahman said:

I struggle to understand why Leo, along with many other spiritual and philosophical schools of thought, think that reality is essentially mental, or non-physical.

 

Don't mistake God's Consciousness with human Consciousness. You see, all of reality is created out of the Mind of God. It imagines everything into being. Now try to hold an elephant in your mind, but when God thinks of an elephant it materializes into reality just by God's will and infinite intelligence to the atomic level. Because God is intelligent that it knows that it need everything to create that elephant, the blood, the skin, the cells etc. It's such a powerful intelligence that it can do that. You need to experience this for yourself to realize this. When you look at your phone or computer everything is "imagined" on the go. It might seem material and concrete, but it's actually God's mind imagining everything into material being at that moment. Can you imagine that God is holding reality in his "mind" and never letting go of it, that's why reality is perfect.

Leo hasn't talked about it in great detail explaining this like to a 5 year old 

I remember the day when I was meditating, something told me to open my eyes, and I saw the walls of my room being this God's infinite mind, it is so powerful that my JAW DROPPED. Also I looked at my body and understood that God is "thinking" of my body for it to stay in existence. The scope of this intelligence was out of this world. And I dropped to the ground and showed my respect for God, because it's SO POWERFUL! And at that moment I saw material as mind.

If you throw an apple into a wall and it smashes itself into million pieces realize that God has to imagine that. The cause-effect. Even your thoughts are imagined by God, but you don't actually experience that. It might seem like you are doing it, but God has to literally hold everything in his mind, whatever you think of, in reality.

When I go to a concert or I'am being anywhere with a lot of people I try to stay focused and realize that everything that I see God has to imagine on the Go. It blows my mind every time.

Edited December 19, 2023 by inFlow
bonus

[meta_male]

10 hours ago, AtmanIsBrahman said:

But since most things in the universe are not conscious,

Nothing that's being perceived is conscious, not even your body is conscious. YOU are conscious of your body's appearance, your thoughts, emotions, senses, other people.

[Yimpa]

11 hours ago, AtmanIsBrahman said:

But since most things in the universe are not conscious, at least as far as we can tell

Everything is actually conscious when you see consciousness in everything.

The blanket over your body can be conscious of itself as consciousness, but this is obviously beyond human understanding at this point.

Edited December 19, 2023 by Yimpa

[Yimpa]

Think of it: How can God enjoy (or hate) what it’s like to be in a classroom full of students learning if everyone was named God, including the teacher?

[Princess Arabia]

18 minutes ago, Yimpa said:

Everything is actually conscious when you see consciousness in everything.

The blanket over your body can be conscious of itself as consciousness, but this is obviously beyond human understanding at this point.

Beyond yours too, and probably mine, but we don't see consciousness jn everything. That's dualistic. Consciousness is everything. Who is seeing this consciousness. The blanket isn't conscious of itself as consciousness, the blanket is conscious as consciousness. 

[Davino]

This probably is not going to help much but it's the truth. You need an Awakening to see it, to recognize.

It honestly doesn't still make full sense how it all works out the way it does, but when you experience it directly for yourself, again and again for years... well we could say that something changes in you and there is a paradigm shift. 

[Yimpa]

3 minutes ago, Davino said:

This probably is not going to help much but it's the truth. You need an Awakening to see it, to recognize.

It honestly doesn't still make full sense how it all works out the way it does, but when you experience it directly for yourself, again and again for years... well we could say that something changes in you and there is a paradigm shift. 

And just imagine what you’ll directly realize in 84 years:

 

[Princess Arabia]

1 minute ago, Yimpa said:

And just imagine what you’ll directly realize in 84 years:

 

I guess every 85+ year old qualifies. This sounds like such baloney but, hey, what do I know I'm not 84.

[Davino]

17 minutes ago, Yimpa said:

And just imagine what you’ll directly realize in 84 years:

I'll confess that when I saw that video years ago in my egoic state I said: On that full moon I'll take MahaSamadhi... like a badass yeah

[Inliytened1]

19 hours ago, AtmanIsBrahman said:

I struggle to understand why Leo, along with many other spiritual and philosophical schools of thought, think that reality is essentially mental, or non-physical.

The materialist view is that the universe is made of physical stuff and that our consciousness results from a specific arrangement of matter. This runs into the issue, how do subjective experiences come about from matter that doesn't have subjective experience? This doesn't make sense intuitively.
So it might seem like considering consciousness the most fundamental thing solves that issue. But since most things in the universe are not conscious, at least as far as we can tell, this seems like projection because we are giving the entire universe our human attribute of consciousness. Why is consciousness really fundamental and not just a projection? 

P.S. I ask this genuinely wanting to learn, not just to criticize

What does most things not being conscious have to do with how reality would be structured?  Notice - that if reality is consciousness - it is a dream.   Within the dream then, consciousness can dream up whatever it wants.  It could, for arguments sake, dream up a world void of all consciousness.  This wouldn't negate the fact that the structure of the dream was consciousness.  So be careful with what grounds you are setting for your analysis.   

Edited December 19, 2023 by Inliytened1

[Leo Gura]

@AtmanIsBrahman You're not appreciating the depth the problem.

The very notion of discrete non-conscious physical objects is dreamed up by Consciousness.

You are assuming that objects can exist. Like a rock can just exist. But this is impossible. A rock can only exist inside Consciousness.

[Inliytened1]

17 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@AtmanIsBrahman You're not appreciating the depth the problem.

The very notion of discrete non-conscious physical objects is dreamed up by Consciousness.

You are assuming that objects can exist. Like a rock can just exist. But this is impossible. A rock can only exist inside Consciousness.

The materialist paradigm holds.more assumptions then one knows what to do with.  

[AtmanIsBrahman]

14 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@AtmanIsBrahman You're not appreciating the depth the problem.

The very notion of discrete non-conscious physical objects is dreamed up by Consciousness.

You are assuming that objects can exist. Like a rock can just exist. But this is impossible. A rock can only exist inside Consciousness.

I know that it's an assumption, but I don't see why it's wrong. Isn't it also an assumption that a rock can only exist inside consciousness? Or is this just a better assumption?
I'm willing to accept that all we can know for sure is our own consciousness, but why does this mean that everything "out there" only exists when perceived by consciousness? I feel like this is making the mistake of saying, "because I can't know things about physical objects outside of my consciousness, they must not really exist and I must just be imagining them". There's a difference between the epistemological status of things and their actual metaphysical being.

[Yimpa]

Try all you want, but objects can never exit Consciousness. Well, it can also appear as a fire escape door at a bar, but your main focus should be on raising the bar of what Consciousness actually cocktails.

 

[Hojo]

@AtmanIsBrahman

Trying to understand the universe through human is giving it a human bias. When you are not working with human logic you see human is made up. When you are pure conscious you see human was something consciousness was making up. You have it backwards. Pretend enclosed systems contain nothing, a nothing that exists and is an entity in the universe and its conciousness. A human body contains nothing until you open it, when a system is closed it creates an entity that cannot exist in infinite reality this is the observer it is nothing. Every closed system has the same entity and when you die and your closed system opens you go to the largest closed system entity, the entire universe. The crazy thing is literally everything is an enclosed system even without boundaries. A field, a dirty toilet, a wall with moss an acre, 17 pineapples. You can open up all these closed system in your mind and see that literally nothing is happening and you are the ultimate closed system looking in on itself. And you see that you are the entity nothing that exists in all closed systems. Because non existence cannot exist by definition nothing has to exist and it exists but its hiding !

Edited December 20, 2023 by Hojo

[Leo Gura]

5 hours ago, AtmanIsBrahman said:

I know that it's an assumption, but I don't see why it's wrong.

Of course you don't. It requires Awakening.

Quote

Isn't it also an assumption that a rock can only exist inside consciousness? Or is this just a better assumption?

No, it's AWAKENING.

What I am tell you requires a very profound comprehension of the nature of reality. It is not an assumption or a theory. It's a direct insight you are lacking.

Quote

I'm willing to accept that all we can know for sure is our own consciousness, but why does this mean that everything "out there" only exists when perceived by consciousness? I feel like this is making the mistake of saying, "because I can't know things about physical objects outside of my consciousness, they must not really exist and I must just be imagining them". There's a difference between the epistemological status of things and their actual metaphysical being.

What you're missing is the insight that consciousness is infinite. You're missing Infinity.

Once you realize Infinity then you aren't guessing anymore. Infinity is the actual metaphysics of every possible thing.

The problem here is that you're not conscious of what consciousnes is. To become conscious of the ultimate nature of consciousness is Awakening.

Edited December 21, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Davino]

7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

To become conscious of the ultimate nature of consciousness is Awakening.

That seems so paradoxical, like clapping with one hand

Isn't even self reflection lost at this point?