CONSCIOUSNESS | GOD | ENLIGHTENMENT
Would It Be Possible to Be Conscious if Nothing Existed but Your Consciousness?
One of the reasons God cannot possibly exist and the truth that spiritual enlightenment points to
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NOTE: I’m not entirely convinced by my own arguments here. I’m perhaps 90% convinced and doing a thought exercise to explore it as if I was 100% sure of it.
One of the reasons put forward for God’s existence is that the Universe couldn’t have created itself. Something must have created it. Something must have been the first cause before all other causes.
But was this “first cause” conscious? Was the creation of the Universe a deliberate conscious act by a conscious supreme being that already existed?
This would mean that God was conscious before anything else existed. But what was he conscious of? How did he know he was conscious?
Here’s a little experiment for you to try:
Try to find your consciousness. Try to be aware of what it feels like to be conscious.
What do you find?
Anything you become aware of is not consciousness itself but something you are conscious of — sights, sounds, smells, tastes, physical sensations, emotions, and thoughts.
Even black silence is not nothing. Darkness is the perception of the absence of light. Silence is the perception of the absence of sound. Sensory perception is something, even if it’s the perception of its absence.
Consciousness itself has no properties.
Consciousness is the space in which everything we experience takes place. But without things to be conscious of, consciousness itself is nothing.
This seems to be what spiritual enlightenment ultimately points to. There seem to be stages that people go through on the path towards enlightenment.
First, they will say things like, “I am not my thoughts; I am the consciousness that is aware of my thoughts.” This is beginner level spirituality. It is a comfortable spiritual duality where there are ultimately…
