THERE ARE NO STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Under the materialist paradigm which presently dominates our world culture, reality is believed to exist independently of mind, and therefore independently of consciousness, the essential nature of mind. From this perspective, matter is the material out of which reality is supposedly made. Mind, which is considered to be derived from matter, is thought to be a limited and distorted view of reality, depending on its state. Consciousness, if it is acknowledged at all, is considered a fleeting and ephemeral quality of mind. Thus, this paradigm starts with the assumption of matter and proceeds to build a model of reality upon it. However, no one ever has experienced, or could experience, matter in the absence of mind, and thus this assumption is founded upon an unverifiable belief.
From the perspective of consciousness, mind is its own activity, never an entity in its own right, and the world is an appearance in and of mind. Thus, from the perspective of consciousness, it is itself the ultimate reality of all experience. From its perspective, no individual mind or world, each possessing its own separate and independent reality, ever actually comes into existence. The world is a condensation in mind, and mind is the activity of consciousness.
Just as a screen never passes through any of the activities or states undergone by a character in a movie, so consciousness never passes through the states of waking, dreaming and sleeping. It is only from the point of view of a finite mind – which believes that it possesses its own independent existence – that a self is believed to move through three states. From the point of view of consciousness, there is no separate, individual self or ego that could transition through any states. Waking, dreaming and deep sleep are temporary modulations of consciousness, which is never itself inherently changed by any of the states it assumes.
Consciousness is to the states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep as a self-aware screen is to emails, images and a blank screen saver, each of which conditions the screen according to its own limitations. Likewise, the three states superimpose their own limitations on consciousness, thereby making consciousness appear in a form that is consistent with their own limitations. And just as the screen is consistently present in the email, image and blank screen saver and never itself undergoes any modification – its modification being one of appearance only – so consciousness remains consistently present throughout the three states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep, and never itself changes.
The three states of waking, dreaming and sleeping are all limited, but consciousness, the underlying reality of the three states, being common to all of them does not share their limits. Even to say that each of the three states is limited is to credit them with too much existence. It is to suggest that each state is a limited object and consciousness its unlimited subject. In fact, each state borrows its apparent existence from the only ‘one’ that truly is, consciousness itself.
As a concession to the finite mind, it is legitimate to say that the three states are limited, and that consciousness is by contrast not limited, or infinite. However, from the perspective of consciousness, the only real perspective, it is the only substance present in any apparent state, so the limitation of any particular state is not a real limitation, only an imaginary one. Thus, the three states are only limited from the limited perspective of one of those states.
* * *
The three states of deep sleep, dreaming and waking are progressive modulations of infinite consciousness, each state revealing or expressing a partial and therefore limited view of consciousness’s infinite potential.
The true waking state – that is, the state in which consciousness is most ‘awake’ to its own reality – is consciousness’s knowledge of its own indivisible, infinite being, which shines in the finite mind as the experience of being aware, and which thought conceptualises as ‘I’ or ‘I am’. The degree to which such knowledge is forgotten, ignored or obscured by any of the apparent limitations of the three states of deep sleep, dreaming and waking is the degree to which it departs from absolute reality.
The only absolutely true knowledge is consciousness’s knowing of its own being, which shines in the mind as the knowledge ‘I am’ or the feeling of being. All other knowledge requires consciousness to assume the form of a finite mind in order to be known. Consciousness can only arise in the form of the finite mind – or can only precipitate the finite mind within itself – by forgetting, overlooking or ignoring its own infinite reality, and thus the knowledge of anything other than itself is, at best, only relative.
It is for this reason that science will never discover the ultimate nature of the universe on the terms under which scientific enquiry currently operates. The more science explores the universe, the less of a universe it finds! Sooner or later, it will discover that there is no universe as it is conceived by thought or experienced by perception. Science consists of a series of perceptions and thoughts. Everything perceived or thought is, by definition, limited. Therefore, science can only know limited knowledge and experience. Although all thoughts and perceptions are made of infinite consciousness, no thought or perception can capture or truly express the nature of consciousness itself, just as the totality of the screen can never appear as an image in a movie.
At some point science will realise that the universe is not a universe, as such. It will recognise that unlimited consciousness is all there is. But who or what could realise that? Only consciousness knows consciousness. Only awareness is aware. Only knowing knows knowing. Therefore, knowledge of the real universe is consciousness’s knowledge of itself. ‘I am’ is the hint in the mind of that knowledge. It is the scent of God’s presence in the heart. Hence the Sufis say that whosoever knows their self knows their Lord, that is, whosoever knows what is meant by the word ‘I’ knows the ultimate reality of the universe.
Until scientists investigate the nature of the subject known as ‘I’, they will never discover the nature of the universe. Ironically, the very mind that would investigate its own nature must itself dissolve, and it is for this reason that there is so much resistance in most people to exploring, let alone facing, the reality of experience. It is not the nature of the world that is a problem; it is our investment in our own separate identities that makes it so difficult to see the obvious facts of experience.
All knowledge other than the knowledge ‘I am’ requires a narrowing, limiting or forgetting of infinite consciousness, and therefore can at best be only relatively true. All relative knowledge is true only to the extent to which it partakes of the absolute truth. From this perspective, the waking state, in which reality appears as a multiplicity and diversity of external objects made out of matter, known by an internal self made out of mind, is a kind of ignoring or forgetting of reality. It is for this reason that in the non-dual traditions the normal perspective of the waking-state subject – the apparently separate self around whom most of our lives revolve – is referred to as ignorance.
To be ‘ignorant’ in this sense is not to be stupid, as the word usually implies in our culture. Rather, it refers to a state of mind in which the reality of experience is ignored, overlooked or forgotten and the corresponding sense of being a separate, finite self, with its accompanying sense of alienation and conflict, seems at its most real. It is in this context that ignorance is, in these traditions, said to be the source of all psychological suffering.
For the waking state to take place – that is, for infinite consciousness to assume the activity of mind and appear to itself in the form of a multiplicity and diversity of objects and selves – infinite consciousness itself must seem to overlook the knowing of its own infinite being and, as a result, seem to become a temporary, finite mind. The body is an image and sensation in the mind of this limiting and localising of consciousness.
The finite mind is infinite consciousness with which the limitations of an apparent body have been mixed. I say ‘apparent’ because the body is not an object that exists in its own right outside consciousness. Infinite consciousness, pure knowing, modulates itself in the form of sensing and perceiving and appears to itself as a body, in which it limits and localises itself as a finite mind.
It is only from the perspective of that finite mind, apparently living inside the body, that consciousness can know a multiplicity and diversity of objects, called ‘the world’. This is what Wordsworth meant when he said, ‘Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting’.* Thus, the true waking up is not to wake up as a body, in a world. It is to wake up as consciousness, knowing its own infinite, indivisible reality alone.
* * *
As we fall asleep, the clarity and precision of the waking state begin to dissolve. Attention or mind starts to sink back into its source and is progressively relieved of its defining qualities and thus its limitations. That is why the laws of physics are looser in the dream state than in the waking state, and why the boundaries and divisions between objects and selves are not so clearly defined.
In fact, we don’t actually fall asleep or enter a dream state. There is no separate, finite entity or self actually present in the dream or waking state. The only entity there is – if we can call it an entity – is consciousness. ‘We’ are ever-present, unlimited consciousness. In fact, there isn’t even a ‘we’ – a multiplicity of selves – in infinite consciousness: ‘we’ are considered to be a multiplicity of separate selves only from the illusory point of view of one of those apparent selves, just as the numerous characters that exist in our night dream only seem to have individual existence from the perspective of the apparently separate subject in the dream. From the perspective of ever-present, unlimited consciousness itself, it is never divided into a multiplicity and diversity of selves or minds.
Just as, relatively speaking, each individual, limited mind takes the form of numerous thoughts and perceptions but always remains a single, indivisible mind, so consciousness takes the form of numerous finite minds but always remains single, indivisible, ever-present and unlimited.
And just as no thought or perception within any apparently individual, finite mind ever acquires a separate status of its own but is always only a modification of the single, indivisible mind in which it arises, so no individual mind ever acquires a separate, independent status of its own within infinite consciousness but is always only an undividing modulation of the single, indivisible consciousness in which it appears and out of which it is made.
There are no finite minds! The finite mind is an illusion abstracted by thought. However, all illusions have a reality to them. The reality of the finite mind is infinite consciousness, just as the reality of an image is the screen.
There is only one ‘I’, the infinite, indivisible ‘I’ of pure consciousness or God’s infinite being, which refracts itself through the activity of its own creativity and appears to itself, in itself, as itself, in the form of an apparent multiplicity and diversity of objects, selves and others. The world is what God’s infinite being looks like when viewed from the perspective of an apparently separate subject.
Consciousness never enters a state or becomes anything other than itself. It simply seems to contract and relax, or, more accurately, to focus and defocus like a camera lens. The states of waking, dreaming and sleeping, and any other states that may be experienced, are varying degrees of this focusing and defocusing. When a camera is fully unfocused nothing is seen through it, but as the lens is progressively focused, objects begin to emerge from the unmodulated image, bringing into view what was already present but could not be seen.
Likewise, everything exists eternally in infinite consciousness, in a way that is impossible for the mind to understand. It is the gradual focusing of consciousness – the activity known as mind – that brings the previously unfocused and therefore inaccessible content of consciousness into apparent existence.
From the point of view of the waking state, it is the ultimate reality and all other states prior to it are less real to the degree to which they diverge from it. Thus, the dream state is considered to be an illusion from the point of view of the waking state. Likewise, the subliminal fields of mind that exist prior to the dream state – the personal and collective ‘unconscious’ – and from which the dream and waking states emerge, are considered, from the limited point of view of the waking state, to be even less real than the dream state.
However, there are no clear lines between any of these states. They are a continuum, appearing in consciousness, known by consciousness and made of consciousness, in which consciousness itself, vibrating within itself, progressively narrows the field of its focus, thereby assuming various forms or states of mind.
As a result of the narrowing of its focus, consciousness seems to become increasingly obscured from itself as the forms of the finite mind become more distinct with the emergence of the waking state, just as a screen seems to be increasingly obscured as an image emerges on it. In other words, there is a price to pay for manifestation. The greater the amplitude and frequency of consciousness’s vibration within itself, the more clearly defined, and thus the more apparently separate, are the forms that it assumes.
The spectrum of states that result from this focusing of consciousness ranges from the subtlest archetypal forms that are shared by all minds in the collective unconscious to the apparently discrete forms of the waking-state mind, in which the sense of separation is at its greatest. However, it is only from the point of view of mind that consciousness becomes increasingly obscured by the narrowing of its focus; from its own point of view there is always only ever its own wide-open being.
In the waking state, the separation and otherness of forms, their ‘not-consciousness-ness’, is at its most persuasive, so persuasive in fact that they seem to be made of an entirely different substance. ‘Matter’ is the name that thought gives to that substance, defining it as everything outside of and other than consciousness. The fact that no one has ever found, or could ever find, anything outside consciousness has not deterred most people in general and scientists and philosophers in particular from believing matter to be the ultimate reality of the universe, although this is now beginning to change.
The waking state is, as far as we know, consciousness’s most contracted or limited form or state, but there is nothing to suggest that there could not be states of mind that are even more contracted than the waking state. We can speculate that if consciousness were to continue to contract beyond the narrow focus of the waking state, the forms in which it appeared would become progressively denser, rendering them completely dark or invisible – a sort of supra-waking state whose contents lie beyond it, just as the contents of the dream state, and the personal and collective unconscious, are prior to it.
* * *
Moving in the other direction, we do not find a clear line between the waking and dream states. The transition from waking to dreaming is a gradual softening or relaxation of the focus of attention. As a result of this softening of focus, the field of possibilities in the dream state is larger than it is in the waking state. Consciousness still needs to localise itself as a body in order to experience the dreamed world, and it is for this reason that we always experience the dreamed world from the perspective of a body in the dream. But in the dream state this self-localisation is looser than it is in the waking state. The world that the dreamed subject experiences is correspondingly less clearly defined and hence there are more possibilities of experience.
In the dream state consciousness has access to a broader segment of its infinite possibilities than it does in the denser, more clearly defined waking state. As consciousness de-contracts, de-localises or relaxes into itself in the transition from the waking to the dream state, the forms that it assumes become less limited, and thus closer to the ‘ultimate form’ of consciousness, which has no limits and therefore no definition.
When the focus of consciousness is relaxed in the dream state, consciousness has access to more of the total field of its own activity than it normally does in the waking state. And yet contents from this broader field of mind are continuously making intrusions into the more clearly defined forms of the waking state, often causing disruptions within it. In their mildest form these intrusions may be felt in a positive way as intuition or a deep sense of connection between people, animals and objects. They can also appear in a negative way, as disturbing emotions that seem to arise from the depths of our being, infiltrating and affecting our thoughts, activities, relationships and behaviour in the waking state in a way that is usually beyond our understanding or control.
A similar relaxation or expansion in the field of mind takes place in meditation, enabling previously ignored or suppressed contents from the broader medium of mind to find their way into our experience. It is for this reason that some people’s initial experience of meditation is not as pleasant or peaceful as they might have expected! It is only when we move beyond these deeper layers of mind, that is, only when consciousness is sufficiently relaxed, that the inherent peace of our true nature, which lies behind or underneath all these movements of mind, begins to shines through the contents of mind, suffusing it with its perfume of peace and joy.
Just as previously inaccessible regions of the broader medium of mind percolate into our experience in the waking state as it either relaxes naturally as we fall asleep or is induced to by meditation, so in time the peace that lies at the heart of consciousness itself begins to infiltrate the mind, permeating it with its tranquillity and contentment and gradually dissolving out of it the residues of unease, conflict and separation. This is usually felt in the waking state first, but as the peace of our true nature penetrates more and more deeply into the medium of mind, in time the dreaming and deep sleep states are also affected.
A mind that is accustomed to returning regularly to its essence in meditation becomes increasingly transparent to its light and is, as a result, gradually deconditioned from the residues of separation which have dominated it for many years. As a result, agitation, fear, neurosis and the sense of separation and lack give way to corresponding feelings of peace, joy and connectedness to other people, animals and the environment, and in time this change shows its effects in our behaviour, activities and relationships.
These feeling of peace, joy and connectedness are not in fact new feelings. They are simply the inherent qualities of our essential nature filtering into objective experience through the previously murky layers of contraction and separation. It is for this reason that we are never motivated to move away from such feelings. They feel like home. They feel like our birthright. They are our birthright! The recognition of our true nature – its recognition of itself – will always decrease our suffering, although the extent to which and the speed at which this happens will be dictated in most cases by the density of our previous conditioning.
The body, being a denser vibration of mind than are our thoughts and feelings, usually takes longer to be permeated by the peace of our true nature, but in time even the body begins to be colonised by the light of consciousness, leading to a profound relaxation and an increase in sensitivity and openness. When a well-known Zen master was asked by one of his students, whilst lying on his deathbed, ‘How is it for you now, Master?’ he replied, ‘Everything is fine, but my body is having a hard time keeping up!’ Although his mind was clear, in his wisdom and humility the Zen master recognised that there were still some residual pockets of experience that were yet to be colonised by the light of consciousness.
The deeper layers of the separate self are laid down as a network of feelings and sensations that permeate the body, imbuing it with a feeling of heaviness, opacity, insensitivity, dullness, depression and, above all, separation from others and the environment. In most cases these feelings of heaviness and separation survive the recognition of our true nature, and a further process is required to expose and dissolve them. Such feelings are immune to rational analysis, and therefore the written word is not the ideal medium for their exploration.*
In meditation the mind becomes sensitive and open; at least, that is the point of view of the individual. It would be more accurate to say that in meditation the activity of consciousness – mind – relaxes, the forms that it assumes become correspondingly less clearly defined, and thus the boundaries between these forms become less obvious and in time dissolve completely. It is for this reason that long-term meditators often develop a degree of sensitivity towards objects, animals and others that expresses itself in loving and compassionate ways.
As meditation deepens, the inherent transparency and sensitivity of consciousness is no longer dulled or obscured by its own activity. People and objects become transparent to the light of consciousness, no longer veiling consciousness but shining with it, announcing its presence and delivering something of its beauty, which is beyond the mind’s capacity to know or grasp.
* William Wordsworth, ‘Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood’, Poems, in Two Volumes (1801).
* I refer anyone who would like to make a deeper exploration of these residues of separation that remain hidden in the body to my collection of meditations, Transparent Body, Luminous World – The Tantric Yoga of Sensation and Perception, published by Sahaja Publications.