Let us start a story about the most misunderstood thing in this universe. First, let me ask you – what is ‘nothing’ or ‘zero’? Have you ever seen it? Can you imagine it? Please, do, imagine ‘nothing’, imagine ‘zero’.
What do you see?
No … come on … do not try to explain to me ‘zero’ or ‘nothing’, for sure, you will fail. Why? Whatever it was that appeared in your intellect, when you tried to imagine ‘nothing’ or ‘zero’, was something. Something is not nothing.
Confusing; is it not ? Indeed, there is no way for the intellect to imagine or understand ‘nothing’ or ‘zero’. The intellect is a part of your mind; it is designed to deal with data, which means to deal with something. So, do not expect the intellect to deal with what it was not designed to do.
Normally, man cannot imagine what ‘nothing’ or ‘zero’ is, thus they cannot explain it. There are methods to make the intellect understand these terms, I will explain them later.
As I just mentioned, this is a story about the most misunderstood thing in this universe. By the way, you probably know how funny people are. If they cannot understand something, they will create a number of stories and explanations about this thing. They will also give this thing names. This activity is called philosophizing.
Throughout the history of civilizations, the number of stories, explanations and names of the unknown thing will grow and grow. Thousands of years later, when you want to find the truth, you may be very confused, unless you are enlightened.
Have a look at these examples which are some names given to this unimaginable and unexplainable thing:
Nothing, Zero, Vacuum, Dào, Brahman, The Absolute, Nothingness, The Source, Ultimate Reality, Big Void, Pre-Origin, The Unconditioned Ultimate, Big Bang, God, The Universal Mind, The Cause, The Principle, The Universal Consciousness, The Universal Intelligence.
Imagine that while studying, you encounter these and other terms meaning the same thing. Can you get confused? Sure. This is the reason why there is so much misunderstanding in this topic.
I like clear explanations. I do not like to use philosophy to explain things. I prefer clearly explained definitions. In order to avoid confusion, I have decided to name this unimaginable thing: The Consciousness (capital T, capital C).
From now on, whenever I mean this unimaginable, unexplainable thing, I will use only this term: “The Consciousness”, TC is its abbreviation.
What is The Consciousness? Well, normally man cannot imagine or explain The Consciousness but … of course, we can try. Let me talk about it more, so that you might grasp some ideas about TC.
Later, when you will be able to switch your mind to enlightenment, your intellect will be able to comprehend The Consciousness, then you will know. Although you will know, when you will want to explain it to others, they will misunderstand you.
Anyway, let me continue my description. How about a picture? Obviously, The Consciousness cannot be represented by a picture; however, if I insist to show you something as close as possible, what kind of image would I create?
Look at the next page:
What is on that page? You can answer ‘nothing’, ‘black page’ or ‘blank page’. This is the closest I can draw to graphically represent
The Consciousness. In this book, from now on, a black page or background represents The Consciousness; please, remember.
I can imagine that you still do not get my point, what The Consciousness is, so I want to continue my description. This time I choose an example from mathematics, which is logical and easy to understand, I hope.
Look at this diagram.
The X, Y, Z axis can be divided and numbered in many different ways and units, for example: 1, 2, 3 … Whatever measure we use, whatever division we make, the axis start in one specific place which is their beginning, their starting point, their origin. What do we call that point? Of course, it is 0 (zero).
Zero is the foundation of the entire XYZ structure, it is the point from which counting extends to infinity. We could also say that without zero the entire XYZ structure would not exist.
Think about it – zero, which we often call ‘nothing’, is the foundation, origin, beginning of this entire structure. If I wanted to philosophize,
I would say that zero is the origin of the grandiose science of mathematics! Wow! Everything originated from nothing!
Do you understand? No? That’s OK, you may not understand unless you are enlightened, but you can continue reading. ☺
This is how I compared The Consciousness to zero by using a mathematical example. Let us continue further.
Assume that the XYZ axis diagram represents reality or things that exist in life, for example, distance, temperature, weight or amount of money, food, land or degree of understanding, emotions, thinking. All of that can be somehow measured, all of that can be zero, all of that can grow.
If we assume that, then again, we may notice that the beginning of all that is … something that do not exist, nothing, nothingness, zero or, as I have named it, The Consciousness.
The Consciousness cannot be imagined and explained but it is the origin, the foundation of everything.
Now, do you understand? Still not? That’s great! You may not understand unless you are enlightened, but you can continue reading. ☺
If you insist to understand The Consciousness, you need to get rid of your intellectual activity. To be exact, your intellect must become completely passive and all your senses must be switched off. Then, if you do not fall asleep, your intellect will become aware of what The Consciousness is. How to do that – I will teach you later. Let me continue with the explanation.
As I mentioned before, throughout the history of humanity, there were teachers who talked about The Consciousness. When you analyze some ancient scripts, you may find text describing TC.
For example, in the Chinese history, you find Dào Dé Jīng (道德經), where The Consciousness is called Dào ( 道 ). In this scripture, the explanation of TC is very short: 道可道，非常道。
Although there are different translations of this short sentence; in my opinion, it cannot be logically translated to English; a story must be told to explain it.
Although it is impossible for the intellect to imagine The Consciousness, because any such attempt creates limitation, but just for the sake of an intellectual visual exercise, please, imagine something that is not and does not have any:
origin, limit, cause, life, result, light, dimension, space, time, power, energy, knowledge, feeling, emotion, ability, movement or any thing that you can or cannot imagine.
Huh! How to imagine such a thing. Once you start to imagine, it is not that thing. Well, I am aware that The Consciousness cannot be imagined. Nevertheless, let me continue.
As much as it may sound strange to you, The Consciousness is none of the above mentioned things and does not contain them, but at the same time, all of those things originate from The Consciousness. Quite similar to the XYZ axis explained above, all originates from 0 (zero). In other words, we can say that any:
origin, limit, cause, life, result, light, dimension, space, time, power, energy, knowledge, feeling, emotion, ability, movement or any other thing that you can or cannot imagine, originate from The Consciousness.
If you are not completely confused now, I admire you, you are probably an enlightened man or close to.
If you are confused, I also admire you for your persistence to continue reading. Please, read further, you will benefit much, not now, later.
Let me describe the same thing in other words.
The Consciousness is almighty, all-knowing, all-existing, all-originated, and all the other ‘all-’. The Consciousness creates all causes, all life, all matter, all spirits, all processes, all essences. All of these and anything else have The Consciousness in their origins. The Consciousness is everything and nothing that you are able and unable to imagine.
Huh, now I have lost myself – this is philosophizing. Anyway, read more.
I mentioned a few times that it is impossible to comprehend
The Consciousness intellectually. I could compare The Consciousness to
an engineer, and a machine to intellect.
This machine wants to comprehend the engineer who built it, but it does not have any tool which is necessary for thinking. In the same way, intellect does not have any tool capable to comprehend what
The Consciousness is.
Then, what is The Consciousness?
It can be depicted in various ways. Every description of
The Consciousness is false, it is only a depiction of an image in intellect. When you leave intellect and enter intuition, you can perceive
The Consciousness. However, upon returning, you will know that you are not able to grasp and describe The Consciousness intellectually.
Throughout the history of humanity, enlightened teachers who endeavored to explain The Consciousness, were misunderstood. I am aware of that. Nevertheless, from a different standpoint, I want to give you a simplified description. This one may be more graspable.
Imagine an ocean without any limits in space and time. In other words, this ocean is always everywhere. If we assume that there is anything else, that would be in the ocean, of course. To simplify the image, we can also say that everything that exists, is in the ocean.
Now, if you could imagine that you are looking at this ocean, you would know that this ocean is not life, time, space … (all listed above).
However, you would be aware, that all of those things are found in the ocean. We can say that they are able to emerge from the ocean, therefore the ocean would be their origin. The ocean, which is none of those things, can be the source to any of them.
If you are reading with sufficient attention, you noticed that on one hand I explain The Consciousness as nothing or zero, on the other hand I describe TC as everything. You have two mutually opposing descriptions.
Well, be aware that none of these two is correct. Descriptions are attempts to make you grasp the idea, but whatever you imagine that The Consciousness is, you are wrong. However, meditating both descriptions may help you to become closer to comprehending
The Consciousness.
Keep in mind both of this images; later, when we talk about IAM, mind and Life, you will be able to understand deeper.