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How Consciousness Creates the World
The Church versus Science
There have previously been two incompatible world-views, the Church based religious one (spiritual) and the Scientific one (secular) in which we live in an objective physical reality.
There was an earlier Church belief that the Earth was the centre of the universe and the Sun went round the Earth. Certainly when one looked up at the sky it appeared that way. However, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) challenged this understanding based on his investigations but was afraid of the consequences if he published his findings. So he waited until his deathbed before releasing them.
Later Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was a key figure in advancing the concept that the Earth and other planets revolve around the Sun. This was based on the use of his telescope that provided observational evidence supporting his theory. However, whilst the Church did not formally charge him with heresy, he was forced to recant his ideas after being tried by the Roman Inquisition. He was then subject to house arrest for the rest of his life.
Such was the power of the Church at the time. Later, however, there evolved a ‘truce’ between the Church and Science. It was agreed that Science would deal with the physical realm and the Church with the spiritual so that there would be no conflict.
The old scientific world-view:
This is based on the traditional view of scientists, physicists, mathematicians, neurologists and psychologists. It is that there is an objective external world arising in space-time made of matter that exists within various energy fields - gravity, electro-magnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces.
The world/universe and all that exists in it is seen as a physical reality that operates in a deterministic, predictable manner following certain laws of nature that science has established and that much of the physical world and universe, along with the forces, can be described by mathematical formulae – known as scientific determinism.
This was based on the Newtonian model that stood the test of time for centuries published in his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687.
However, this worldview was challenged by the discoveries of quantum physics that began to appear at the beginning of the 1900's. In the quantum world things are connected irrespective of distance, information travels faster than the speed of light, matter appears in the presence of an observer and returns to a state of probabilities in the quantum field when not observed, the observer affects how particles manifest eg particles such as the photon or electron can behave as particles or waves depending on how they are measured, events in the present can alter the past etc.
In the conventional world of biology and neuroscience we are seen as physical bodies with a sophisticated brain that has allowed us to think and examine our external world. Our consciousness arises due to our brain function with its 86 billion neurons and all their synapse interconnections. When the body dies so does our brain along with our consciousness and our personal identity.
The old religious non-scientific world-view:
There is a deity or God that is the creator of all things. We are born as physical bodies but there is a non-physical aspect of ourselves that is independent of the body and survives after death. However, the various religions and spiritual systems have different versions of this deity or God and what to expect after death. Often the word 'soul' or ‘spirit' is used to label this non-physical aspect that survives.
The new paradigm:
A growing number of scientists, physicists, cosmologists and neurologists are coming together in a new understanding. The primary reality is now understood to be Consciousness itself. Consciousness with a capital ‘C’ is not produced by brain activity. It’s found to be non-local ie it is not a function of the brain, or even of individuality ie it is universal.
In spite of all the efforts of human biology and neurology, consciousness itself has never been found in the brain (although the functional areas of brain have been mapped and brain processes can be seen using EEG, MRI and MEG technology). Nor is there any theory or understanding of how a complex set of neurons (made of physical matter that communicate via the synapses with electrical and chemical signals) would result in what we call consciousness with all of our objective and subjective experiences.
The subjective experience of love, the smell of a rose or the taste of an apple pie have never been found in the brain. These are known as qualia - the subjective, qualitative properties of conscious mental states that determine what it's actually like as a subjective experience. This is massively frustrating for the world of science, neurology and medicine and is known as the ‘hard problem'.
The materialists insist that our consciousness is purely a brain function. So here’s a paradox. Imagine you are a brain surgeon and need to operate on your own brain. So a mirror is set up so your can see your brain in order to operate. There you are looking at your brain with the scalpel in hand ready to operate. But wait a minute, aren’t you supposed to be just signals inside what you are about to operate on?
In Research News, April 2007, neuroscientist John Lorber wrote the article ‘Is Your Brain Really Necessary?’ Apparently the size of your brain does not determine your intelligence and cognitive ability. John Lorber discovered that some people with virtually no brain can end up at the top of their class. A Sheffield University student who had a measured IQ of 126 passed a Mathematics Degree but had hardly any discernible brain matter at all.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/remarkable-story-of-maths-genius-who-had-almost-no-brain-1.1026845
Through a systematic study of individuals suffering from hydrocephalous (water on the brain), John Lorber found that despite the loss of brain material (the brain loss can be so severe that only a thin sliver remains), many patients suffering from hydrocephalous do not have functional impairment. If consciousness arises from and is dependent on a physical functioning brain one would expect significant cognitive loss in these cases.
Dr Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon, contracted a rare severe case of bacterial meningitis. It was attacking and destroying his brain cortex. He lay in a coma for 7 days and no antibiotics had any effect. The doctors gave him virtually zero chance of survival and said to his family that it would be kinder if he didn’t survive, as he would be massively disabled and need constant care for the rest of his life.
They agreed that he was effectively brain dead and could not have a conscious experience or hallucination of any kind under these conditions. Yet in spite of his brain not functioning, he had an intense and vivid near death experience (NDE) that on his miraculous recovery stayed with him for the rest of his life. On return to his body his brain was so wrecked that he didn’t recognise his own family and had forgotten how to speak English. Yet he completely healed and went on to share his experience in books, talks and interviews.
Consciousness is now understood to be the foundational 'field' of existence itself. Space-time, matter and energy fields are themselves manifestations arising from the ground state of Consciousness and have no reality or existence outside of consciousness. Consciousness has no boundaries or limitations. It is without cause, timeless and omnipresent. It is one indivisible whole from which everything arises.
So what is our personal, or local experience of consciousness? Well of course there are all those things that we experience when in our conscious state, or appear to us when conscious but what is the state like itself. It comes down to two things, an inherent knowing that we exist and are present. We can't say that we don't exist or aren't present or who would be saying it?
So what is the brain’s role in all this? It has been found that the brain has microtubules that allow the brain to operate as a quantum computer using quantum processes.
It is also starting to be believed that the brain is an input-output and processing facility that interfaces between the field of Consciousness and the experience of being a body-mind. The brain acts as a filter on the interactions with the body-mind, or person, to stop it being overwhelmed by the full extent of what is available in the totality of the field of Consciousness. Otherwise it would be like your TV receiving all available channels simultaneously ie overload or chaos.
It is also believed that your entire life experiences that you access as your memories are not stored in the brain either. They are stored in the ‘field' and accessed or downloaded into the brain. Once again the brain acts as a computer does when downloading information available on the internet. It is thought that the brain may act like a holograph in holding the downloaded memories, as memories are distributed and not found in specific locations in the brain.
Rats were taught to run a maze. Then a section of their brain was removed. They continued to run the maze. More of their brain was removed and they still ran the maze. A large part was removed and they still ran the maze albeit in an impaired manner. So memory is distributed.
That memory is not dependent on a functioning brain is also evidenced in many NDEs. It has been found that the brain continues to operate at an enhanced gamma level for a few minutes after the heart has stopped beating. After this phase the body may be considered 'dead' with no heart beat and hence no oxygen supply to the body, and the brain flat lined for a considerable length of time. So there is little possibility of a resuscitation or recovery, yet the person comes back with detailed memories of their experience including knowledge of what was happening in the room with their ‘dead’ body and also outside the room in other areas, that should clearly be impossible.
Not all the available information from the ‘field’ may be downloaded as it is comprehensive. Memories are stored not just as images but all sensory content - sound, taste, smell and touch plus one's inner states of thoughts and emotions that occurred and any dialogue that took place. People experiencing NDEs often find that they can access this aspect of the field even though their brain is ‘off-line' at the time. This information is known as the Akashic records.
A further analogy is that your TV shows a moving picture. If the TV is turned off or breaks down the picture ceases. So you could say that the TV has died. But it had no inherent ability to create the moving pictures, only to translate the incoming signal. The images came through the broadcasted information available for translation by the TV into moving pictures. The transmitter and transmission are completely independent of the TV receiver devices and the other TVs can continue unaffected as before.
In science it is known that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only transform into other states eg as in the famous equation E=mc². Similarly Consciousness can neither be created nor destroyed as it is the foundation state of reality itself. It can only be transformed into transient forms of existence-experience. So the death of the body-mind does not impact Consciousness itself. Consciousness is simply manifested as individualised expressions of experience. Consciousness, being the foundation of reality, inherently transcends whatever arises in it.
As Consciousness is non-local, everything that manifests is an outcropping of this field. So in-spite of appearances, everything is connected as one whole. This is also the conclusion of quantum physics (see entanglement, or spooky action at a distance).
If you look at an image of the universe taken using the normal optical light spectrum you see the moon, planets, stars and galaxies stretching out into infinity. However, if you look at an image of the universe taken using the X-ray spectrum you see that it’s all one interconnected whole with energy filaments stretching across the universe between the stars. In fact every thought (which is a form of conscious energy) ripples across the universe. Hence the ability of focused intention to affect the world appearance including those paranormal effects. This is more powerful and evident when there is a group focusing their intention eg a meditation group or prayer group with a common harmonious purpose.
Over millennia, sages, mystics and spiritual masters have investigated reality through their direct experience in higher states of consciousness. They came to the same conclusions that science has only just come around to in recent decades, although their understanding has been expressed in different ways in their own esoteric language. As a result, they have not always been understood due to the advanced nature of what they tried to communicate and explain, or their message has been corrupted and lost over time. In the East their knowledge was preserved in the ancient Vedic texts.
In these higher states of consciousness (called the Samadhi’s in the Eastern tradition) yogis have been able to directly access what we call the ‘material world’, and manipulate it. These abilities are known as Siddhi powers in the Eastern tradition or miraculous powers.
Today many top scientists, physicists, cosmologists and neurologists are coming together and joining with those with advanced spiritual knowledge and experience to create a new discipline called Noetic Science, eg see -
https://noetic.org/. Here they work together in order to come to a common understanding of consciousness and the nature of reality. There are now international conferences and institutes and universities with significant funding undertaking these investigations eg the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science:
https://www.sussex.ac.uk/research/centres/sussex-centre-for-consciousness-science/.
So the world is now understood to be mind not matter. As science investigates matter and drills down, it disappears into the quantum field where everything is held in potential waiting to be manifested in the presence of an ‘observer’ ie us. So the observer is directly involved in how physical reality manifests. We are conscious agents, expressions of the one universal Mind, interacting through the quantum field that then presents a world for us to experience.
Quotes:
“There is no place in this new kind of physics both for the field and matter, for the field is the only reality. The field is the sole governing agency of the particle.”
Albert Einstein - Theoretical physicist.
“The stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine. Mind no longer seems to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter .... we ought rather to hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter."
Sir James Jeans - Physicist and mathematician.
“The stuff of the world is mind stuff.”
Sir Arthur Eddington – Astrophysicist.
“Quantum physics really begins to point to the discovery that you can’t have a universe without mind entering into it and that mind is actually shaping the very thing that is being perceived”.
Dr Fred Wolf – Quantum physicist and author
“The universe appears as a single, undivided whole whose patterns and forms emerge out of a ground state, are sustained for a time, and then die back into the field".
David Peat – Physicist.
“All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter."
Max Plank - Theoretical physicist.
“In this flow, mind and matter are not separate substances. Rather they are different aspects of one whole and unbroken movement.” Also “Deep down the consciousness of mankind is one."
David Bohm – Theoretical physicist.
“Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms, for consciousness is absolutely fundamental.” Also “The overall number of minds is just one. In truth there is only one mind.”
Erwin Schrodinger – Nobel theoretical physicist
“Science's biggest mystery is the nature of consciousness. It is not that we possess bad or imperfect theories of human awareness, we simply have no such theories at all.”
Nick Herbert – Physicist
“Minds are nonlocal with respect to space and time. This means that the separateness of minds is an illusion, because individual minds cannot be put in a box (or a brain) and walled off from one another.”
Larry Dossey – MD and author
“Space, time and matter are tools of the mind, a way to frame and order what we experience ie the language of consciousness.”
Robert Lanza – Medical doctor and scientist
“Nobody has the faintest idea what consciousness is. I don’t have any idea, nor does anybody else, including philosophers of the mind.”
Stuart Kauffman – Theoretical biologist & complex systems theorist
“The scientific study of consciousness is in the embarrassing position of having no scientific theory of consciousness."
Donald Hoffman - Cognitive scientist
“We have no clear idea how the electrical discharges occurring in nerve cells in our brains are connected with our feelings and desires and actions.”
Freeman Dyson - Physicist
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness."
Max Planck – Nobel physicist
“The All is Mind. The Universe is Mental”
The Kybalion - the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt & Greece.
“As water by cooling and condensation assumes physical form, everything in the universe is thought in material form.”
Paramahansa Yogananda – Self-realised master.
“The world you perceive is made of consciousness; what you call matter is consciousness itself.”
Nisargadatta Maharaj – Self-realised master
“Until there is a credible understanding of the nature and origin of consciousness, the scientific story of the origins of life and the cosmos will not be complete.”
The Dalai Lama - Head of Tibetan Buddhism
YouTube videos
Are our brains antennas for Universal Consciousness?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJANwBZ4Hr8&t=84s
What science is starting to realise about human consciousness:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlwC9D_bETQ&t=5s
Why your consciousness exists outside of your body:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxLkKxi0snM
Consciousness creates reality:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECh7CKjmsfE
Consciousness exists before your birth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmA4HdFJ004
Where is the Universe actually located?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5Tl9_2Pv_8
The Quantum physics and the Vedic descriptions of consciousness are consistent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlF1zYv1UFk
Erwin Schrodinger and the Vedic descriptions of consciousness are consistent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVgTLAfXmo4
Max Planck and the Vedic descriptions of consciousness are consistent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc4sdVTCOhg
From Robert Adams (spiritual teacher)
It’s what you already are:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XyDz2nejBM
From Rupert Spira (spiritual teacher and philosopher):
Consciousness is the ultimate reality
So we might well ask, if consciousness is the ultimate reality of the universe and everything and everyone is obviously that, then how come that this world appears to us as a multiplicity and diversity of discrete and independently existing people, and animals, and things all made up of stuff called matter? How can we reconcile this statement that consciousness is the ultimate reality of the universe when it appears as a multiplicity of objects made up of matter?
I would suggest that infinite consciousness has the ability to localise itself as numerous separate subjects of experience - that is all sentient beings, all people or animals, each of us are localisations of infinite consciousness, in infinite consciousness, made only of infinite consciousness, from whose perspective it views its own activity as the outside world.
So what appears to us as a world made of matter from our localised perspectives is, from the point of view of reality, simply the activity of the one infinite consciousness. In other words in the ultimate analysis there are no discrete or independently existing things or people. There is one infinite, indivisible whole, the unity of being that is only refracted into an apparent multiplicity and diversity of objects and things when the One looks at its own activity through the perceiving faculties of the finite mind.
Final note:
Whilst all of this may appear to be unproven theory, it is in fact possible to directly experience the fundamental reality of Oneness, or Mind, or the Source, or the Self and to know it as one’s ultimate true nature whilst appearing here in limitation as a human body-mind.
It is known as Self-Realisation and by many other names such as enlightenment, awakening and liberation, and has been confirmed by sages and masters for millennia. It is known as Non-duality in the Western tradition and Advaita-Vedanta in the Eastern.
This is available to all as it is your very own nature or birthright as a reflection of the Self. This realisation may appear to occur through spiritual practices such as Self-enquiry, or advanced meditative states and practices (eg the Samadhi's), or arise naturally and without apparent effort - by grace if you will, for how can you not be what you already are?
Some suggested reading:
One Mind Larry Dossey
You are the Universe Deepak Chopra & Menas Kafatos
Nothing being Everything Tony Parsons
Entangled Minds Dean Radin
The Field Lynne McTaggart
The Self-aware Universe Amit Goswami
You were never Born John Wheeler
Consciousness is All Peter Dziuban
Collision with the Infinite Suzanne Segal
The Holographic Universe Michael Talbot
Life without a Centre Jeff Foster
Silence of the Heart Robert Adams
From Self to Self Leo Hartong
Perfect Brilliant Stillness David Carse
I am That Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Book of One Dennis Waite
Already Awake Nathan Gill
Emptiness Dancing Adyashanti
Awakening to Infinite Presence Robert Wolfe
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