Chapter 10: Leap of Faith

 In the previous chapters we came across the most bewildering questions of all times, who or what part of us is experiencing the experiences. To try and answer this question, let us modify the question a bit. Instead of asking who is experiencing the experiences, let us ask who is observing these experiences. Changing the construct from experiencing to observing takes away the enjoying element from the question and makes the experiencer a dispassionate observer. Whether the entity enjoys the observations or not can be taken up as a subsequent question.

One of the probable candidates is our brains, but then we saw that by brain we mean the neuronal masses, with their cell bodies and axonal projections. Assuming the neuronal masses as observing the experiences is difficult to accept, still it remains as a possible candidate from the material reductionist perspective.

There is another candidate from the perspective of eastern philosophy. Let us now try and understand this observer. We understood from previous chapters that one can enter the state of no-experience through one or more techniques of meditation. People who have achieved that state through numerous meditative processes have all said that it is a blissful state and very addictive in nature. One experiences nothing here. If one now tries to realise who is observing this nothingness, without dozing off or introducing thoughts and arguments, then one may start becoming aware of something distinct. At this juncture one should be left with only two entities, the experience of nothingness and the awareness of someone observing that nothingness. At this instant, if the person drops both these entities then it is said that the person will get pointed towards something infinitely vast and profound, calm and blissful. It is something like one becoming aware of one’s face without looking into a mirror. One may not be able to hold onto the reference for more than a second and may not be able to define it as well, but it is what is called by eastern philosophers as the consciousness.

This consciousness cannot be observed or experienced by anyone, or else the recursive question would crop up of who is observing this consciousness. The consciousness is said to be the eternal observer, ever present and infinite in nature. It is same for everyone. It observes the birth, the death and every other experience in between. This observer is a constant, unlike our material universe, which is forever changing, moving from one shape to the other. It existed before the birth of our universe and will exist long after the universe is gone. Finally, they say that our true selves are this consciousness and not the image of ourselves that our brain creates as Ego.

The consciousness only observes the dance of our universe, second to second and eons to eons. It does not enjoy any of our experiences, because the construct of enjoyment is material in nature, while consciousness is non-material. It is like the proverbial screen on which the movie of life is played. The analogy between a screen and the movie being played on the screen is that of the consciousness and our collective experiences called the mind. The mind is a material construct and can be reduced to the parts of the brain, but the consciousness is not a material construct and cannot be reduced any further. It is the only infinity which cannot be broken into parts.

The consciousness is forever same and hence the eternal truth. Anything that changes cannot be considered as the truth. Let us see why. Let us assume the statement that sun rises in the east and sets in the west, is a truth. However, somewhere down the line, billions of years later actually, the sun will no longer exist. The earth would have gone much before that time. Hence, billions of years later, when the earth is no longer there, then the statement that sun rises in the east and sets in the west will not be a truth anymore. Same is true for every human being, for every plant and animal, for every inanimate object from stone to molecules to atoms and so on. All these truths therefore have a shelf life and come with an expiry date. The only thing that remains unchanging for ever is the consciousness and hence it is the only truth.

We had concluded in chapter 8 that our universe is a façade, a lie - Jagat Mithya. We see in this chapter that consciousness is the only truth. Consciousness is also called Brahma in eastern philosophies and hence, Brahma Satya. Thus, the famous proverb, Brahma Satya, Jagat Mithya.

At this juncture, it is imperative to point out that both the candidates that are observing our experiences are difficult to accept. However, we know intuitively that someone or something is observing our experiences and hence no matter how bizarre, one of the two should eventually turn out to be the observer.