Consciousness including insights from Albert Einstein, Carl Jung and Ramana Maharshi

We cannot say what consciousness is because it is elusive and defies definition.  There are two ways to approach consciousness. One is the objective scientific view looking outside using the tools of physics, psychology and neurosciences. Most people understand this to be ‘awareness of what is passing through your own mind.’

The other subjective approach is looking inside ourselves using the tools of Self-enquiry and meditation. This is understood as direct experiential knowledge of consciousness.

My search for consciousness, the true ‘Self,’ is inspired mainly by the insights of the imaginative thinker and physicist Albert Einstein, the scholar and psychiatrist Carl Jung and the mystic and sage Ramana Maharshi. Whichever way you look at consciousness you reach the same conclusion.

What follows are thoughts and insights written down immediately after daily experiences of Self-enquiry and meditation. The purpose is to show we can stop thoughts arising to realise we are not the thought content of our mind but that which witnesses it, the true ‘Self.’ The target is to transcend individuality (the ego) to a unifying consciousness, the true ‘Self’ which is directly experienced as a oneness with everything.

My understanding is that consciousness is the unfathomable, invisible fabric of being which connects everything in the universe with meaning by its unifying entanglement. It is how nature works, how we work. Consciousness is us.