Beyond Science: Radio Stations of Consciousness

There is a growing voice in the scientific community - that can be evidenced on social media and on websites such as 'I fucking love science'  and many others - that is very dismissive of religious and spiritual people. They are regarded as some kind of anachronistic simpletons, living in an age of impenetrable, superstitious darkness that even the bright light of science cannot penetrate.

On these sites there is all too frequently a very arrogant tone - seasoned with a little bit of aggression - that is very distasteful. It reminds me very much of the mentality of many religion zealots and religious cults who believe that they, and they alone are in sole possession of the truth.

Genuine truth-seeking needs openness, humility and boldness. The seeker must be prepared to drop their previous views if they are proved to be wrong and not shy away from something because of fear that it will expose their lack of knowledge.

Unfortunately, the stronger that we are attached to our views, the less open we are to change when those views are threatened and challenged. We tend to defend our position with anger, rather than have the courage to listen with receptivity.

I wonder if those disciples of  Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking and Neil deGrasse Tyson and others have fully investigated the esoteric teachings of the spiritual people they are so quick to dismiss with genuine open-mindedness?

Science and spirituality do not need to live in opposition. They are both searching for the ultimate truth but in different areas. Science is principally concerned with objective external truths, whereas spirituality is principally concerned with subjective inner truths. Why can't we embrace both, wholeheartedly?

Unfortunately, by focusing exclusively on external objective truths scientists fail to understand the nature of inner consciousness and the truth that is available to them through investigating this kind of phenomena.

An article on consciousness in Scientific American from 2009 states:

 'The reason is that we lack a coherent framework for consciousness. Although consciousness is the only way we know about the world within and around us—shades of the famous Cartesian deduction cogito, ergo sum—there is no agreement about what it is, how it relates to highly organized matter or what its role in life is. This situation is scandalous! We have a detailed and very successful framework for ­matter and for energy but not for the mind-body problem. This dismal state of ­affairs might be about to change, however'.

There is actually a very good reason that science does not have a detailed framework for consciousness. According to the inner scientists of the East, consciousness is NOT something that can be seen with our eyes or measured with scientific instrumentation - it is formless. It cannot be photographed or seen by even the most advanced scanning tunnelling microscope. Consciousness does not consist of infinitesimal particles - it has no form whatsoever.

This very fact, that science has a good understanding of matter and energy (form) while having a poor understanding of consciousness, is in itself an indicator that the nature of consciousness is different from that of form.

Mystics and meditators have been talking about the formless nature of consciousness for thousands of years, but, precisely because consciousness is formless and the inner realisation of its nature is subjective and not easy to attain, there is no way to show to another person the truth of this.

They give the definition of mind as: a formless mental continuum, whose nature is clarity and whose function is to cognise objects.

The formless nature of consciousness is not easy to understand. That's just the way it is! We need to look at many examples, engage in meditation for many years and listen to very wise people.

Even though I am not one of those people I would like to give an example from my own experience. Several years ago I had the opportunity to engage in a retreat in which the object of meditation was the mind itself. The idea of the meditation was to gain a direct experience of your own mind; to understand from your own experience its nature and function.

I am reminded of a quote from Shakespeare: 'I could be bound within a nutshell and still be the king of infinite space'.

Mystics say the subtlest level of consciousness is like infinite space. They call it the clear light of bliss. To access this consciousness the meditator focuses their attention on the 'nutshell' of the heart chakra. When we drop our centre of gravity from our head to our heart and our mind dissolves inwards at the very centre of the heart chakra it is like opening a door into the inner world of consciousness.

This is actually a very advanced practice, as relative beginners our main goals where somewhat more attainable: to watch thoughts drift through the mind like clouds in the sky; to allow those thoughts to dissolve back into the mind; to focus on the sky-like consciousness itself and, if possible, try to bring our centre of awareness down from our head to the general region of the heart chakra.

There were four retreat sessions every day, the main body of which was the meditation I have briefly described above.

I engaged in the retreat wholeheartedly, with focus and determination for the entire week and it paid dividends. I had already had some experience of the meditation and the retreat was the perfect way to deepen this experience.

During several sessions I had fairly long periods of almost complete inner silence with just the occasional thought floating through my mind. At such times my mind felt clear and deeply peaceful, like an ocean of awareness, especially in the rare moments I was able to feel my centre of gravity start to descend towards my heart. By the end of the week there was a substantial difference in my experience of my own consciousness.

Directly after the meditation retreat I had to go from the peace and quiet of the meditation room (having said that there was drilling right outside the window for some of the sessions!) to a slightly less peaceful environment - I was helping run a stall at a Fresher's Fair.

There were two of us travelling together by car to the university and the journey was fairly short and as far as I remember without any incident. We unpacked the car and carried our things into the main hall and proceeded to erect our gazebo and set out our stall.

The main hall was one long, high, enormous room and - unless Motorhead were playing an arena gig somewhere on the other side of the world - probably the noisiest place on planet Earth at that particular moment in time. The battle scenes in Braveheart were nothing compared to the absolute melee in front of us as we walked across the hall to our allocated area.

Hundreds of crazed and crazy fresher's were, shouting, squealing, shrieking, running, jumping, pointing, wagging, waving and assembling and re-assembling gazebo's to the beat of several outrageously loud sound systems, all of which - in order to be the most conspicuous - were blatantly infringing on the sound rights of their neighbouring stalls, creating a thundering, thudding mish-mash of incomprehensible mayhem. It was noisy.

To arrive from a week long, almost entirely silent retreat, where I had been focusing on the mind as an infinite ocean of awareness, like vast empty space and then to enter into this cacophonous din, the most contrasting of environments, was actually the perfect way to gauge the effect of the meditation.

From the moment I walked into the hall and for some time afterwards I had a very unique and unexpected experience of the various noises on display.

Normally, if we hear a dog barking in the distance for example, we experience the noise as something separate from us. We are here and the noise is over there, outside of our mind. When I walked into the cacophony of the Fresher's Fare this was not the case. I experienced the myriad of noises inside my mind. The hall was large and some of the noise was forty or fifty meters away and yet it still felt as if it was happening inside my own mind.

By engaging deeply in the meditation retreat my consciousness had extended well beyond its normal parameters. The noises were over there, but so was my mind! I was also able to understand from my own experience the close relationship the mind has with the objects it perceives.

Although from this experience alone I cannot say for certain that the mind is formless, I am willing to entertain the notion. I certainly did not experience the far away noises with something physical. My brain did not stretch to the other side of the room!

Perhaps the main reason we think that consciousness is our brain, is that the location of our awareness is in our head. When we have the experience in meditation I mentioned earlier - that our awareness (our sense of self) is located at our heart and not in our head - then this greatly undermines the notion that our mind is our brain. Again, this is something that is not necessarily easy to do and is not a common experience, but those things do not invalidate the truth of this experience.

This experience is uncommon because it involves a lot of effort and discipline. It is not easy to become a witness to our thoughts. When we first start meditating the idea of inner silence seems like a fantasy and it is almost impossible for us not to follow our thoughts and gain any break from the constant chit-chat going on in our head.

Our mindfulness is very weak and the temptation to follow our thoughts is very strong. Time and time again we forget that we should be focusing on the silent sky-like consciousness out of which our thoughts arise and (if left alone) dissolve and instead get lost in distraction.

However difficult it may seem at first, over time our mindfulness starts to improve and we are able to remember that we should be focusing on our sky-like consciousness and not following distracting thoughts. Whenever we start to follow our thoughts, instead of getting lost in them for minutes, we immediately spot the fact that we have become distracted and return to the meditation. We start to create some distance between our self and our stream of thoughts.

When we are able to witness our thoughts without following them, then we deny them the energy they need to survive and they simple go back from whence they came. To use the sea analogy, thoughts are like waves on the ocean of consciousness which arise then dissolve back into the consciousness itself.

If we continue to improve our mindfulness we will arrive at the point where we are able to abide in a silent ocean of awareness, free from thinking. We are then able to move our awareness out of our head and into the area of the heart chakra. We are able to stay there for as long as we remain in silent awareness. Because thinking is located in our head - as soon as we start thinking we find our centre of awareness back in our head. Thus to move our awareness out of our head we need a considerably long stream of silent awareness and this is difficult to achieve.

As well as being formless, mind is continuous. One moment of mind gives rise to another moment of mind, which in turn gives rise to another moment of mind and so on. Within this continuum there are many different levels. For example, when we fall asleep our mind becomes more subtle and we cognise different objects from the ones we cognise when we are awake.

Looking at dreams helps us to understand the power that the mind has to project a whole functioning universe with time, space and solidity and how that dream world is completely dependent upon the mind. By studying dreams we can understand there are different levels of consciousness and that the mind never ceases.

We can think of the different levels of consciousness as the different frequencies of various radio stations. We can call the waking world Radio 1 and the dream world Radio 2. To experience Radio 1, we need to tune our consciousness to a specific frequency. If we are not tuned to the correct frequency, it will be impossible to experience the waking world. 

In reality, there are many radio stations of consciousness but, unfortunately nearly all of us are only tuned to Radio 1. Of course we also tune to Radio 2 every night, but by the time we have auto tuned back to Radio 1, it is like an old half forgotten blues tune. 

I am reminded of a very well known passage in A Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda, 

Don Juan says that for a sorcerer, the world of every day life is not real, or out there, as we believe it is. It is just a description that has been pounded into us since we were born; it is described to us over and over again until we are capable of perceiving it. In the end, we take this world for granted and have no idea that it is merely one of many descriptions.

It is actually possible to increase our bandwidth and experience different radio stations of consciousness. Some advanced meditators are able to maintain awareness through the whole cycle of falling asleep, dreaming and re-awakening. Although we are not yet able to do this, what we can do is train ourselves to become more aware in our waking and dreaming states. For us lesser mortals lucid dreaming can be a very enlightening experience.

What is a lucid dream? A lucid dream occurs when we are having a normal (usually very vivid) dream and we suddenly become fully conscious - we realise we are dreaming and that realisation propels us into normal awareness. Awareness transforms our dream world into a 'real' world and we are able to make clear, conscious decisions in that world.

To become fully aware in our dreams is mostly a matter of determination. If we repeat to ourselves throughout the day, 'I'm going to become aware in my dreams' with a strong intention to do so, then there is absolutely no doubt we will succeed. In The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda, Don Juan advises him to look at his hands whenever he is generating this determination so that when he is dreaming, he will remember this trigger. I have met a few people for who this has worked.

Suppose we are dreaming that we are walking through a small country village. If our dream becomes lucid, our experience of walking through the village will be practically the same as it would be if we were walking through a 'real' village. We inhabit a solid, three-dimensional world, full of everyday objects and we are able to make choices about what we will do in that world in just the same way as we do in the waking world.

This world exists and functions in just the same way as the real world - it is not just the brain activity of the dreamer! If we say it is, then the normal waking world is also just the brain activity of the waking person, as both are practically identical. 

For as long as we are tuned into Radio 2 the dream world exists. When the continuum of our mind dissolves into another level of consciousness, we tune out of Radio 2 and the dream world and dream consciousness no longer appear to us.

From this point of view the waking world and the dream world are very similar. When we fall asleep our waking consciousness absorbs into a subtler level and for us, the waking world and everything in it simply disappears. Without the mind projecting the world, there is no world.

By becoming aware in our dreams we can understand from our own experience that there are different levels of mind and that the different objects we perceive in our dream depend upon the mind for their existence.

If we really are a scientist and a seeker of truth then we need to examine both scientific and spiritual avenues to their fullest and not be afraid to challenge our current views. The question of consciousness is very important and has massive repercussions. In Tibet they spent 2,000 years investigating the nature and function of consciousness and came to profound conclusions based on personal experience. If we are interested in truth, we need to investigate their claims.