Brain Landscape of I, Me and Witnessing
There is a sense and feel of duality and hence a confusion, in the expression of I Witnessing Me. There seems a suggestion that consciousness is in layers and dimensions. Even ancient spiritual philosophy accepted that and contemporary science unravels this mystical experience. Science and its neuroscience breakthroughs have deciphered that Consciousness – this very subjective, personal and individualistic sense of ‘I’, as distinct and segregated from all others, is in layers and dimensions. Therefore duality is probably not the appropriate term. This I and Me dualism actually has many shades. Science says, consciousness is in seven layers and this singular term is like a suitcase, which packs so many generic entities associated with personal sense of agency.
Broadly, everyone knows about three layers of ‘I’ – unconscious, subconscious and conscious. Somehow, these three layers are related with three distinct layers of human brain – brain stem, cerebellum and cerebrum. These three layers of human brain are also referred as stem, limbic system and cortex system. Popularly, they are classified as reptilian brain, monkey-mammalian brain and human brain. They are typically assigned the roles of unconscious, subconscious and conscious states of awareness respectively.
The idea of I Witnessing Me, emanates out of this division of the three main parts of human brain, qualifying human brain to be the only organ, which is actually a multi-organ, having three different parts, evolved in different timelines, over millions of years, yet functioning as a wonderful cooperative. Without going into details of pure scientific facts about neural plexuses and their complex functioning, we just need to understand that there are massive unconscious and subconscious processes going on within our brain and body, which we are never aware of. The brain stem and limbic system handles them silently and our conscious self is not even aware of them. However, these silent unconscious-subconscious processes result in many effects, which are perceptible and even explicit. These effects are registered as experiences and their memories. The unconscious-subconscious processes then become available for awareness and conscious registry.
You eat loads of food, they are digested in your metabolic tracts and you are not aware of the complex processes going on inside your body. Science says, the trillions of bacteria in your gut decide what food you like and relish and you shall never accept. The processes of this reality are subconscious. However, many hours later, when you feel the urge and go to toilet; you are aware that your stomach is upset and it had troubles with digestion. You saw something nasty and spontaneously anger took you over. You fought with people. Minutes or hours later, you become aware that this incident could have been averted or handled more peacefully-amicably.
The unconscious-subconscious intentionality (behavior-action) is auto-processes and is not available for immediate and aware registry of ‘I’. However, even in unconscious and subconscious intentionality, there is a definitive ‘Me’, very much involved and subject to their impact on ‘I’ but the ‘I’ does not seem aware and in conscious control over these Me. They become available for awareness and possible control, only after they happen and present themselves in another dimension of reality. This dimension is the landscape of interaction of ‘I’ with external milieus.
Since ages, thousands of years back; humanity realized, as many causalities of subconscious domains are available for actualization and awareness post-intentionality, in terms of experiences; it was possible to witness them, even when they are in pre-intentionality dimension. This possibility emerged and acquired high probability as humanity understood that all processes of causalities, whether tangible-explicit or intangible-implicit; are in some interaction with external milieus and as they interact, their effects or emergent outcomes become available for awareness and conscious registry. They also realized that all such emergent outcomes leave behind some patterns and symmetrical positioning, which can be used to decipher the primary causalities, which engendered them. This cause-effect cyclicality led them to decipher many processes, which were hitherto in unconscious-subconscious domains. The experience-memory structures of brain are designed to witness realities in all dimensions, through non-intuitive cognition.
This I Witnessing Me is structurally embedded in brain states itself and its functionality, though multidimensional, is amenable to patterned understanding. This is science but has larger elements of personal artistry to actualize the optimal potentials of the landscape of I Witnessing Me. This artistry has been elaborated in ancient Oriental traditions of Yoga and Buddhist philosophies. Modern day art of Vipasana is related to this very idea. However, most of these artistries are very restrictive as they have become hugely ritualistic. It is another reality for long deliberation as how democratization of idealism emaciates its shiny verve and renders it to mediocrity of ritualistic pragmatism.
The science and artistry behind the idea and idealism of I Witnessing Me has to be understood in holism, totality and entirety. Science tells us that the unconscious, subconscious and conscious are three different and possibly segregated layers of ‘I’. They are handled by different brain states but as all brain parts and plexuses work in a fine-tuned cooperative mechanism, there is an embedded continuum in the three layers of unconscious, subconscious and conscious. They are linked in a cyclicality, where each affects and shapes other and in turn gets conditioned and altered. That is why this continuum makes it possible to enlarge the domain and landscape of Conscious, to bring more and more spaces of subconscious into it. This artistry is not an auto-process but attainable only after persevered practice of highly aware consciousness, known as Higher Consciousness. This higher consciousness, its science and artistry is very much at the core of the idea and idealism of I Witnessing Me.
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