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How Consciousness creates the Material World ?

By Amit Goswami

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Book excerpt: The Philosophy of Monistic Idealism - Mysticism & Religion

Mysticism

Realism grew out of everyday perceptions. In our everyday experiences of the world, evidence abounds that things are material and separate from each other and from us.

Of course, mental experiences do not fit neatly into such a formulation. Mental experiences, such as thought, do not seem to be material, so we have developed a dualistic philosophy that relegates mind and body to separate domains. The shortcomings ofdualism are well known. Notably, ikt cannot explain how a separate, non-material mind interacts with a material body. If there are such mind-body interactions, then there have to be exchanges of energy between the two domains. In myriad experiments, we find that the energy of the material universe by itself remains a constant (this is the law of conservation of energy). Neither has any evidence shown that energy is lost or gained from the mental domain. How can that be if there are interactions going on between the two domains?

Idealists, although they hold consciousness to be the primary reality and thus give value to our subjective, mental experiences, do not propose that consciousness is mind (beware of possible semantic confusion: consciousness is a relatively modern word in the English language. The word Mind is often used to denote consciousness, especially in the older literature. In this book, the distinction between the concepts of Mind and Consciousness is necessary and important.). Instead, they propose that material objects (such as a ball) and mental objects (such as the thought of a ball) are both objects in consciousness. In an experience there is also the subject, the experiencer. What is the nature of this experiencer? This is a question of utmost importance in Monistic Idealism.

According to Monistic Idealism, the consciousness of the subject in a subject-object experience is the same consciousness that is the ground of all being. Therefore, consciousness is unitive. There is only one subject - consciousness, and we are that consciousness. "Thou art that" say Hindu holy books known collectively as the Upanishads.

Why then in our ordinary experience do we feel so separate? This separateness, insists the mystic, is an illusion. If we mediate on the true nature of our self, we shall find, as mystics from many ages and times have found, that there is only one consciousness behind all the diversity. This one consciousness/subject/self goes by many names. Hindus refer to it as the atman. Christians call it the Holy Spirit, or in Quaker Christianity, the Inner-Light. By whatever name it is called, all agree that the experience of this one consciousness is of inestimable value.

[...]

Mystics, then, are hose people who offer testimony to this fundamental reality of unity in diversity. A sampling of mystical writings from different cultures and spiritual traditions bears witness to the universality of the mystical experience of unity:

"My being is God, not by simple participation, but by a true transformation of my being" Christian mystic Catherine Adorna of Genoa (XV^th).

"Our very self-nature is Buddha, and apart from this nature there is no other Buddha" Zen Buddhist Hui-Neng (VI^th)

"Thou art neither ceasing to be nor still existing. Thou art He, without one of these limitations. Then if thou know thine own existence thus, then thou knowest God; and if not, then not" Sufi mystic Ibn al-Arabi (XII^th).

"God...when he has just decided to launch upon his work of creation is called He. God in the complete unfolding of his Being, Bliss and Love, in which he becomes capable of being perceived by the reason of the heart...is called You. But God, in his supreme manifestation, where the fullness of His Being finds its final expression in the last and all-embracing of his attributes, is called I. Kabbalist Moses de Leon (XIV^th).

"But when you finally discover me, the inner naked Truth arisen from within, Absolute Awareness permeates the Universe" Buddhist Yeshe Tsogyel & Padmasambhava (VIII^th).

"In this breaking-through I receive that God and I are one. Then I am what I was, and then I neither diminish nor increase, for I am then an immovable cause that moves all things" Dominican monk Meister Ekhart (XIII^th).

"I am the Truth!" Sufi mystic Monsoor al Halaj (X^th).

"I am reality without beginning, without equal. I have no part in the illusion of I and You,  this and that. I am Brahman, one without a second, bliss without end, the eternal, unchanging truth...I dwell within all beings as the soul, the pure consciousness, the ground of all phenomena, internal and external. I am both the enjoyer and that which is enjoyed. In the days of my ignorance, I used to think of these as being separate from myself. Now I know that I am All" Hindu mystic Shankara (VII^th)

"My father and I are one" Jesus of Nazareth

What is the value of the experience of unity, For the mystic, it opens the door to a transformation of being that liberates love, universal compassion, and freedom from the bondage of living in acquired separateness and from the compensating attachments to which we cling. (This liberated being is called moksha in Sanskrit).

The idealist philosophy grew out of the experiences and creative intuitions of mystics, who constantly stress the direct experiential aspect of the underlying reality. "The Tao that can be spoken is not the absolute Tao, "said Lao Tzu. The Mystics caution that all teachings and metaphysical writings must be regarded as fingers pointing to the moon rather than as the moon itself.

As the Lankavatara Sutra reminds us: "These teachings are only finger pointing to the Noble Wisdom...They are intended for the consideration and guidance of the discriminating minds of all people, but they are not the Truth itself, which can only be self-realized within one's own deepest consciousness"

Alternatively, some mystics resort to paradoxical descriptions. Writes Ibn al-Arabi: "It (consciousness) is neither attributed with being nor with nonbeing...It is neither existent nor non-existent. It is not said to be either the First or the Last."

Indeed, the idealist metaphysics itself can be seen to be paradoxical, involving as it does, the paradoxical concept of transcendence. What is transcendence? The philosophy can only say, neti, neti - not this, not that. But what it is? The philosophy remains silent. Or, alternatively, says one of the Upanishads: "It is within all this / It is outside all this"

Is the transcendent realm within the immanent world? Yes. Is it outside the immanent world ? Yes. It gets very confusing.

The idealist philosophy also remains largely silent in answering such question as, How does the undivided consciousness divide into subject-object reality? How does the one consciousness become many? Saying that the observed multiplicity of the world is an illusion hardly satisfy us.

[...] monistic idealism is the correct philosophy for science in view of quantum physics. The integration of science and mysticism also helps resolve one of the difficult question raised by mysticism.

The integration of science and mlysticism should not be too disconcerting. After all, they share an important similarity: Both grew out of empirical data interpreted in the light of theoretical explanatory principles. In science, theory serves both as explanation of data and as the instrument of prediction and guidance for future experiments. The idealist philosophy, too, can be viewed as a creative theory that acts as an explanation of empirical observations of the mystics as well as guidance for other researcher of Truth. Finally, like science, mysticism seems to be a universal enterprise. There is no parochialism in mysticism. Parochialism enters when religions simplify mystical teachings to make them more communicable to the masses of humankind.