When we use the word consciousness, it gives the impression that we are talking about something other than us. It’s not the ‘me’ talking about consciousness, it’s being it. It’s something more like talking from Consciousness than talking about consciousness.
– Adyashanti in The Fluidity of Consciousness
This is one of the reasons I rarely use the word consciousness, although I do in some specific situations to get a point across.
DOWNSIDES OF THE WORD CONSCIOUSNESS
There are at least three ways the word consciousness can be heard and misunderstood.
As Adya suggest, we are used to thinking about consciousness as other. We are this human being, and we have consciousness. Consciousness is somehow seen as an appendix.
When we use the word consciousness, it can seem as something within content of experience, and it’s not.
And it can give us the impression that we know what it is. We tell ourselves we know. This knowing is a story and we may not know in the sense of direct noticing.
WHAT CONSCIOUSNESS REFERS TO
What consciousness actually refer to is what we are.
To ourselves, we are what all our experiences happen within and as. We are this awakeness all our experiences happen within and as.
A word for this is consciousness, and it’s not necessarily a very good word for the reasons mentioned above.
EXPLORING IT IN TWO WAYS
We can examine this logically.
We may think of ourselves as a human being that somehow has consciousness as an appendix. It’s what our culture tells us. And yet, this clearly doesn’t hold up to any closer examination.
We experience through consciousness. To us, all our experiences happen within and as consciousness. Waking life is just like a dream in that sense. And that means that logically, to ourselves we have to be consciousness. To ourselves, we are consciousness that has a body and a human self.
To ourselves we are consciousness that has a body, a human self, a human life in the world, a wider world, and even a whole universe. It’s all happening within and as what we are.
We can also find this through direct noticing.
Through guided noticing, we can find ourselves as capacity for the world, and what our field of experience happens within and as.
We can call this consciousness, but it seems many – including me – prefer to not use that label for the reasons above.
WHEN WE FIND WHAT WE ARE
So we can see through the false idea that we primarily are a human being that happens to have consciousness as a kind of appendix. We can see through it logically. And we can find it through direct noticing.
Seeing through it logically can put us on the right track. And direct noticing is profoundly transforming for how we perceive ourselves and the world, and if we keep noticing and exploring how to live from it, it can be profoundly transforming for our human self and life in the world.