The Ultimate Insight: On the Explanatory Power of Absolute Self-Awareness

A recurrent theme on this blog is the idea of Absolute Idealism 2.0, i.e. a contemporary, ‘mathematized’ version of the age-old philosophy of Absolute Idealism, which runs from the ancient Upanishads to the Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus to German and Anglo-American Idealists such as Schelling, Hegel, Green and Royce. Absolute Idealism 2.0 takes over their central insights but develops them in a novel way consistent with modern science, in particular with the central role of mathematics in physics. The following post gives a broad overview of the central principles of Absolute Idealism 2.0. and how these principles enable us to make sense of reality-as-a-whole.
The self-creating power of Absolute Self-Awareness We can provisionally define Absolute Idealism as the philosophical theory that everything exists because it is thought and/or experienced by an Absolute Mind, which in turn exists because It thinks/experiences itself. Thus, on the Absolute-Idealist view, the Absolute Mind constitutes its own existence by thinking/experiencing itself, that is, by being self-aware. The Absolute Mind, then, should first and foremost be defined as Absolute Self-Awareness. The idea that (pre-reflective) self-awareness has a self-creating aspect is most often associated with the German Idealist Fichte and his case for the “self-positing of the I”, but roughly the same idea can be found with other Absolute Idealists as well:

• The Vedantic sages of the Upanishads: “In the beginning this world was only Brahman, and it knew only itself (Atman), thinking: ‘I am Brahman.’ As a result, it became the Whole.” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.10) 

• The Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus: “The One [...] made itself by an act of looking at itself. This act of looking at itself is [...] its being.” (Ennead VI, 8, 16, 19-21)

• The German Idealist Schelling: “it is through the self's own knowledge of itself that that very self first comes into being” (Schelling 1800: 27).

• The American Idealist Royce: “if whatever exists, exists only as known, then the existence of knowledge itself must be a known existence, and can finally be known only to the final knower himself, who, like Aristotle's God, is so far defined in terms of absolute self-knowledge” (Royce 1899: 400).
   

By highlighting this self-creating aspect of Absolute Self-Awareness, Absolute Idealism is very attractive in that it offers a clear-cut and intuitively plausible answer to Leibniz’ famous question: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” According to Absolute Idealism, there is something rather than nothing because Absolute Self-Awareness is self-creating. I call this answer to Leibniz’s question intuitively plausible mainly because of two reasons: (1) we are all self-aware and so we know – with Cartesian self-evidence – that self-awareness exists, indeed it is the only existence we are absolutely certain of, and (2) we have a glimpse of the self-creating power of Absolute Self-Awareness in the (self-)awareness we have of our own free will. This last point needs some elucidation.

Kant and the “unconditioned causality of freedom
Of course, when I talk of the self-creating power of self-awareness, I am not talking of individual human self-awareness. None of us has brought him- or herself and the universe into existence. As empirical individuals we are biologically conditioned, brought into existence by others, subject to time. So how then can I say that our own self-awareness gives a glimpse into the self-creating power of Absolute Self-Awareness?

In a way we do experience a degree of self-causation in ourselves, namely, insofar as we exercise positive freedom, i.e. autonomy. Positive freedom requires a capacity for what Kant called “spontaneity”, the “unconditioned causality of freedom” (Critique of Pure Reason, B561/A533), i.e. a capacity to initiate an entirely new course of action and/or thought ‘out of nothing’, unmotivated and/or uncaused by prior givens. But isn’t such a capacity for radical spontaneity – for initiating something out of nothing – precisely what is needed in order to answer Leibniz’s question, i.e. to explain how reality has lifted itself into existence preceded by nothing?

Insofar as our self-awareness reveals in us this ‘unconditioned causality of freedom’, then, we have all the more reason to take our self-awareness as the key to answering Leibniz's question. It is, moreover, the self-positing nature of self-awareness that explains this unconditioned causality of freedom in the first place. Obviously we aren't self-causing in any absolute sense (since, to repeat, we have not created ourselves), but we are relatively self-causing in that we can at least intervene in the causal order of reality by spontaneously initiating a completely new causal chain of events.

This underscores the difference between empirical, individual self-awareness and Absolute Self-Awareness: what the former has relatively and finitely, the latter has absolutely and infinitely. That is to say: Absolute Self-Awareness has (or is) absolute freedom. The self-evident experience of our own self-awareness gives us empirical access to the self-causation that can answer Leibniz's question, but to make full sense of this answer we have to generalize beyond ourselves. We have to project prereflective self-awareness to something that transcends us, the Absolute, the unconditioned 'thing' that conditions all of reality.

The mathematical unfolding of Absolute Self-Awareness
What then is the precise relation between Absolute Self-Awareness and individual self-awareness as it is found in you and me? To answer this question we have to move from Leibniz’ question to the next question: why is the universe the way it is? We do not just want to know why something exists, we also want to know why this something is the way it is, i.e. why reality has developed into this infinitely complex universe in which we find ourselves. It is especially here that I take the age-old philosophy of Absolute Idealism into a new direction, making it fit for the future by drawing on ideas from modern physics and mathematics. It is here that Absolute Idealism becomes Absolute Idealism 2.0.

Making creative use of some seminal ideas from the American Idealist Josiah Royce, I argue that the recursivity inherent in Absolute Self-Awareness – in short: its awareness of itself, its awareness of that awareness, its awareness of the awareness of that awareness, and so on – establishes an intrinsic connection between self-awareness and the recursively generated natural numbers and even the recursively generated set-theoretical universe of pure sets, which in a way contains the whole of mathematics (more about this here and here). Thus, from this perspective, the Absolute Mind comes out as a deeply mathematical being, generating – through the recursivity of its self-awareness – all of mathematics, and subsequently mirroring itself in those mathematical structures that best reflect its transcendent splendor.

The universe as the mathematical self-image of the Absolute
In my view, the resulting mathematical mirror image of the Absolute Mind is our physical universe (which, as modern physics shows, is indeed thoroughly mathematical in nature). Through mirroring and recognizing itself in this mathematical universe, and particularly in those mathematical structures that emulate intelligence (such as the algorithmic structure of the human brain), the Absolute Mind increases its own self-awareness and thus teleologically realizes its essence. In this way I explain the apparent fine-tuning of the universe, i.e. the fact that surprisingly many of nature’s fundamental constants – such as the ratio of the masses of electrons and protons, the energy density of the vacuum, even the three-dimensionality of space – are “just right” for the evolution of life. This bio-friendliness of the universe follows from the fact that the universe is the mathematical mirror image of the Absolute Mind.

It is, moreover, the self-recognition of the Absolute Mind in mathematical structures (such as the algorithmic structure of the human brain) that infuses these structures with phenomenal consciousness: it explains why the mathematical structure of the brain is “accompanied by an experienced inner life” (Chalmers 1996: xii). In this way I aim to solve the notorious “Hard Problem of Consciousness”. Moreover, as it is the mathematical structure of the universe as a whole in which the Absolute Mind mirrors itself, we must see the entire universe as infused with phenomenal consciousness, thus arriving at a panpsychist view of the cosmos.

This, then, answers the question we raised above about the relation between individual human self-awareness and Absolute Self-Awareness. Individual self-awareness, as experienced by individual organisms, is nothing but the self-reflection of the Absolute in specific mathematical structures, notably in those algorithms that “simulate” intelligent volitional agency, algorithms such as the ones that underlie the functioning of our brains. In this sense, Absolute Self-Awareness is the pre-reflective core of every finite individual form of self-awareness. One could say that each empirical instance of individual self-awareness (human or otherwise) is, as it were, a navel in the physical universe, connecting the latter through a transcendental umbilical cord with the Absolute Self-Awareness that grounds reality as a whole.

Explaining mind-body dualism
This explanation of what individual consciousness is – namely, the self-reflection of Absolute Self-Awareness in the complex algorithm that simulates brain functioning – also allows us to make sense of the apparent duality of mind and matter and, notably, the apparent supervenience of the former on the latter. This is one of the major difficulties faced by any kind of Idealism: if matter is just an appearance in consciousness, why and how then can it seem that matter exists apart from consciousness and, indeed, that (individual) consciousness appears to depend on matter?

From the perspective of Absolute Idealism 2.0, this duality between mind and body comes down to the distinction between, on the one hand, the mathematical structure of the recursive self-unfolding of Absolute Self-Awareness, and the latter’s self-recognition in certain privileged parts of that structure on the other. The mathematical structure in which the Absolute reflects itself is the structure of matter, i.e. the structure discovered by physics. But it is the self-reflection of the Absolute in this structure, the fact that it recognizes itself in it, that – so to speak – infuses the structure with phenomenal awareness. It is this act of self-recognition that explains why the mathematical structure of matter is – as Chalmers put it – “accompanied by an experienced inner life”. This holds in particular for the structure of the brain (human or otherwise), which is the kind of mathematical structure in which the Absolute recognizes most of itself (intelligent and volitional agency); hence the infusion of this structure with individual consciousness.

Hence the duality of brain and consciousness, and the apparent dependence of the latter on the former. The brain as a physical object is simply the underlying mathematical structure as experienced from the outside by another conscious organism (i.e. another brain / individual consciousness), whereas individual consciousness is that very same mathematical structure as experienced ‘from within’, i.e. as an object for the Absolute’s self-recognition. We can call these, respectively, the first-person and the third-person experiences of the mathematical structure of the brain. The fact that individual consciousness appears to be causally dependent on the brain is due to the fact that individual consciousness is ontologically dependent on the mathematical structure in which the Absolute recognizes itself.

The funny thing here is that we, human beings, are in principle capable of both a first-person and a third-person perspective on the mathematical structures of our own brains; for example – to take a rather drastic example – when we open up our skull and use a mirror to look at our own brain. We then experience its underlying mathematical structure in two ways simultaneously: from the inside as the object of the Absolute’s self-recognition, which gives us our individual consciousness, and from the outside, i.e. from a third-person perspective, which gives us this strange lump of grey matter that is supposed to be us. Something similar happens, though less drastically, when we look at a CT scan of our own brain. 

Morality as self-recognition in the other
To repeat: Absolute Self-Awareness is the pre-reflective core of every finite individual consciousness, insofar as the latter is nothing but the self-recognition of the Absolute in the mathematical structure of the brain. Thus, as the Vedanta philosophy based on the Upanishads puts it, we are all in principle capable of discovering the same Self (Atman) as the innermost core of our individual self-awareness. This Universal Self, this core in each of us, is the Absolute Self-Awareness as it reflects itself empirically in the self-awareness of finite organisms in the universe. Thus, the “unconditioned causality of freedom” we detect in our self-awareness really is the unconditioned causality of the self-causing Absolute as the ground of all reality. In that sense the (self-)awareness we have of our own free will does give us a glimpse into the endlessly creative source of the universe.

Insofar as we are capable of this glimpse, i.e. of ‘seeing’ the Absolute as the prereflective core of our own self-awareness, we start to appreciate that the same holds for all living beings. We start to realize that all organisms are essentially nothing but different manifestations of one and the same creative essence, the Absolute, the Universal Self, which senses, thinks and acts through all these organisms. This gives an enormous feeling of connection and love for others. Suddenly you can empathize with others and take their perspective much more easily, because you know they are not fundamentally different from you. You start to experience other beings as different versions of yourself, i.e. of your innermost Self, the creative essence of the universe. It is this empathy with others, through the non-dual sense of cosmic unity, that is the foundation of all sincere morality.

In this way, a kind of self-recognition in others – a seeing of yourself in others – takes place, but the self that is recognized here is not primarily the individual self but rather the Self, the Universal Self, the Atman, the Absolute. One could say that in this way the universe as the mathematical self-image of the Absolute is all the more true to its archetype: just as the Absolute recognizes itself in the otherness of the physical universe, so the universe mirrors this Divine Self-Recognition by evolving organisms that recognize themselves (i.e. their Self) in each other. Through the evolution of this self-recognition among organisms, this “mutual recognition” as Hegel calls it, the universe evolves into an ever improving mirror of the Absolute, thereby contributing to the latter’s essence as self-awareness.       Relation to Enlightenment in Eastern spirituality As the above reference to the Vedanta indicates, this (self-)realization of the Absolute as the prereflective core of our own individual self-awareness has a deep connection to what in Eastern spirituality is known by such terms as "Enlightenment", "Awakening", "(Self-)Realization", and "Liberation". This marks an important difference between Western and Eastern forms of Absolute Idealism. Whereas the Western forms are mostly theoretically oriented, aimed at a purely intellectual understanding of reality, the point of virtually all Eastern spirituality is primarily practical, aimed at a radical existential transformation of human life. Hence the terminological distinction I draw between Western philosophy and Eastern spirituality. It is certainly not the case that philosophical theorizing is entirely absent in the East – quite the contrary, Eastern spirituality contains some of the deepest philosophical thinking ever done. It is just that in Eastern spirituality all theorizing is ultimately subordinated and subservient to the spiritual goal of Liberation: theory for the sake of theory is rejected, because it stands in the way of the spiritual goal. The notion of Absolute Self-Awareness, then, signifies in the Eastern context not just the ultimate nature of reality, it also signifies the individual’s realization of the Absolute as his / her own innermost Self and as such the final Liberation from the suffering inherent in finite human existence. In Eastern spirituality, then, Absolute Self-Awareness is first of all not a theoretical concept (as it is in Western Absolute Idealism) but an experience or intuition, the experience of Enlightenment, the awakening to or realization of one’s true nature, the intuition of the Absolute as the core of one’s being. This is the experience that accomplishes the longed for Liberation from suffering. Here the Vedanta of the Upanishads provided the original template for all later Eastern spiritual traditions aimed at Enlightenment (even if these traditions criticized certain aspects of the Vedanta). For the Upanishadic sages, the key insight “Brahman is Atman” is not just a theoretical insight into the ultimate ground of reality, it is also the liberatory insight into the ultimate core of one’s own self, the realization “I am Brahman”, freeing one from the suffering inherent in finite human life. This comes out clearly in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, which we quoted earlier as clearly pronouncing the basic realization of the self-causing nature of Absolute Self-Awareness: “In the beginning this world was only Brahman, and it knew only itself (Atman), thinking: ‘I am Brahman.’ As a result, it became the Whole.” (1.4.9) This remarkable passage doesn’t stop here: it goes on pronouncing with equal clarity the spiritual significance of this realization: “If a man knows ‘I am Brahman’ in this way, he becomes this whole world. Not even the gods are able to prevent it, for he becomes their very Self (Atman)... He is the one who is beyond hunger and third, sorrow and delusion, old age and death.” (1.4.10, 3.4.2) Here the spiritual significance of Absolute Self-Awareness, the Liberation from the suffering inherent in finite existence, is clearly announced. The ultimate insight that explains everything? What all this makes clear is that the Enlightenment experience has both a theoretical and a practical value, indeed it is the ultimate accomplishment both philosophically and spiritually. Enlightenment is not just the insight that liberates from the confines of finite existence, it is also the insight that provides the ultimate epistemological foundation for the Absolute-Idealist worldview. This implies an extreme form of rationalism, such that in principle everything is explainable for us, finite human beings, because insofar as we are self-conscious beings we have a prereflective intuition of the nature of Absolute Self-Awareness as the self-causing cause of reality-as-a-whole. Looked at from the theoretical perspective, Enlightenment is the insight into the essential core of our own self-awareness as the absolutely free (i.e. self-causing) source of all reality, as the recursive fountainhead of all mathematics and thus of the physical universe as our own innermost mathematical self-image, and as the source of all morality qua self-recognition in others. Enlightenment, in short, is the ultimate insight that allows us to explain everything. But, so a critic might ask, does it even make sense to attempt an explanation of ‘everything’? Isn’t such an all-encompassing notion logically incoherent? I want to finish this post by taking a closer look at this objection and how Absolute Idealism can deal with it. Leibniz’s question, paradox, and self-awareness This objection has in particular been raised by analytic philosophers such as Alfred Ayer and Bertrand Russell: they argue that all-encompassing concepts like “everything” and “reality as a whole” lead to paradoxes of self-reference, akin to the paradoxes of the early ("naive") set theory developed by Cantor, Dedekind and Frege. In my view, however, this self-reference ceases to be paradoxical once we realize that Absolute Self-Awareness is the self-causing cause of reality and that self-reference belongs to the essence of self-awareness. Naive set theory is so-called because it allowed sets that are deemed "too big", such as the universal set: the set containing all sets, including itself. Thus the universal set is self-membered, and this leads – directly or indirectly – to paradoxes, such as Cantor's paradox, the Burali-Forti paradox and Russell's paradox. One could argue that Leibniz's question produces similar paradoxes because, in a way, it totalizes existence. By posing the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?", Leibniz invites us to look at reality as a whole, the totality of what exists, in order to find the cause or reason explaining this totality. But in conceiving this totality, aren't we relapsing into the naiveté of early set theory? Aren't we allowing a set that is "too big"? This was indeed the main objection raised by logical positivism against Leibniz’s question: it is meaningless because it leads to paradoxes of self-inclusion. Thus Alfred Ayer: "Supposing you asked a question like 'Where do all things come from?' Now that's a perfectly meaningful question as regards any given event. Asking where it came from is asking for a description of some event prior to it. But if you generalize that question, it becomes meaningless. You're then asking what event is prior to all events. Clearly no event can be prior to all events. Because it's a member of the class of all events it must be included in it, and therefore can't be prior to it." (Ayer quoted in Holt 2013: 24) Bertrand Russell too noted the paradoxical self-referentiality of the philosophical concept of reality-as-a-whole: “The comprehensive class we are considering, which is to embrace everything, must embrace itself as one of its members. In other words, if there is such a thing as “everything,” then “everything” is something, and is a member of the class of “everything”.” (Russell 1919: 136) Thus Russell was suspicious of all-embracing philosophical concepts such as reality-as-a-whole: “The difficulty arises whenever we try to deal with the class of all entities absolutely [...]; but for the difficulty of such a view, one would be tempted to say that the conception of the totality of things, or of the whole universe of entities and existents, is in some way illegitimate and inherently contrary to logic.” (Russell 1903: 362) With the concept of reality-as-a-whole out of the window, however, Leibniz's question can no longer be posed. If the concept of reality-as-whole is logically incoherent, then the question why that whole exists must be illogical as well. In response to this criticism we only have to point out that the set-theoretical paradoxes are defused by the phenomenon of self-awareness. For what appears as paradoxical in the foundations of mathematics – namely, self-reference – actually is a living reality in the phenomenon of self-awareness. Why then should we reject self-reference as paradoxical, and banish it from the foundations of mathematics, when self-reference is a clearly a bona fide aspect of reality, an aspect of which the existence is attested – with Cartesian self-evidence – by the undeniable phenomenon of self-awareness? Thus it becomes clear how the Absolute-Idealist view of reality as essentially a form of self-awareness – namely, Absolute Self-Awareness – saves Leibniz’s question from Russell's criticism. If we take reality as such to be self-awareness, then the self-inclusion of the totality of what exists ceases to be paradoxical, because such self-inclusion is to be expected of self-awareness. This self-inclusion is the inherent recursivity of self-awareness, which necessarily involves awareness of self-awareness, and awareness of awareness of self-awareness, and so on without end. In other words, self-awareness must include itself as one of the objects of which it is aware. Thus we can compare self-awareness to a ‘magical matryoshka’, a Russian nesting doll that somehow contains itself: if one opens up the doll, one finds the same doll inside… In short, then, the Absolute Idealist conception of self-awareness does not just enable us to answer Leibniz's question, it also enables us to pose that question in a meaningful way. It shows that the self-inclusion of the totality of what exists – a totality presupposed by Leibniz's question – is not a senseless violation of logic, because it belongs to the living essence of reality qua Absolute Self-Awareness. References -Chalmers, D. J. (1996), The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory, Oxford University Press.   -Holt, J. (2013), Why does the world exist?, Profile Books. -Kant, I. (1781/’87 [2009]), Critique of Pure Reason, Cambridge University Press. -Plotinus, Enneads, translation by A.H. Armstrong, Loeb edition. -Royce, J. (1899 [1959]), The World and The Individual, First Series: The Four Historical Conceptions of Being, Dover Publications. -Russell, B. (1903 [1964]), The Principles of Mathematics, George Allen & Unwin. -Russell, B. (1919 [1970]), Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, George Allen and Unwin. -Schelling, F.W.J. (1800 [2001]), System of Transcendental Idealism, translated by Peter Heath, University Press of Virginia. -Upanishads, translation by Patrick Olivelle, Oxford University Press, 2008.

Consciousness: The Key to Non-Duality

“Like clay in the modifications of clay, like gold in the modifications of gold, like thread in woven fabrics, so is the Infinite, the all-preceding, all-pervading Consciousness. It is without origin, without end, unchangeable and present in all phenomena. Ananda is the essence of all happiness flowing from Consciousness, the oceanic bliss in which all creatures are grounded.” (Anonymous, Sarvasāra Upanishad)

“To desire something other than this immediately present Consciousness is like having an elephant at home and still look for its footprints elsewhere... Thus it is that if you do not understand that everything comes from Consciousness, it will not be possible to achieve Buddha-hood... If you do not see that your own Consciousness is actually the Buddha, Nirvana will remain hidden.” (Padmasambhava, Self-Liberation Through Seeing With Naked Awareness)

“Through Her own Will, Consciousness unfolds the universe on the canvas that She Herself is... When this is fully seen, the mind – by turning inward – is expanded and revealed as pure Consciousness... By thus realizing your innate potential, you absorb the entire universe within yourself.” (Rajanaka Kshemaraja, The Recognition Sutras)

Non-Duality and Idealism
As the quotes above indicate, Consciousness plays a central role in the main forms of Eastern non-dual spirituality, namely Advaita Vedanta (first quote), Buddhism (second quote) and Shaivite Tantrism (third quote). Why? Why is Consciousness the key to non-duality? The short answer is: because, according to these traditions, our entire reality – i.e. everything we can experience and understand – exists only in Consciousness. All things, material objects no less than thoughts and feelings, can appear to us only in Consciousness. In this way, Consciousness is all-embracing, the Whole, the “Brahman”, the “One without second,” as the Upanishads say.

If you then realize that you are that Consciousness, that you are the One in which all things appear, you will see that you essentially coincide with the Whole, that you are the all-embracing, boundless space in which everything takes place. Everything is One; and that all-embracing One is Consciousness; and that Consciousness is you at your innermost core. This realization is the seed of Enlightenment, the realization of your true nature and the liberation from suffering. Your essence can no longer be touched by the things and events in the world, because from now on you know yourself as “That” which precedes the world, namely the Consciousness in which the world appears.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

In philosophy, the idea that “everything is Consciousness” is known as Idealism – an idea that is also found in Western philosophy (in philosophers such as Berkeley and Kant and the contemporary thinker Bernardo Kastrup). The opposite view, Materialism, says that ultimately everything consists of matter, i.e. atoms, molecules, quarks, photons, etc. According to Materialism, Consciousness is nothing more than a by-product of material-mechanical processes, such as Darwinian evolution and electrochemical activity in the brain. Idealism, on the other hand, states that what we experience as material objects is ultimately nothing more than that: a bundle of experiences in our Consciousness, sensory sensations that are (mistakenly) interpreted by our mind as objects existing outside of us. So where Materialism says: “Matter produces Consciousness”, Idealism makes the inverse statement: “Consciousness produces matter”.

Materialism: A philosophy of despair and conflict
The debate between Idealism and Materialism may seem abstract and academic, far removed from everyday life, but on closer inspection the opposite is true. From the Scientific Revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries onward, Materialism has steadily grown into the dominant worldview of Western civilization. As such, Materialism has exerted an enormous – and very harmful – influence in our culture. It is not for nothing that the word “materialism” is synonymous with greed and the exclusive focus on material possessions. The most important cultural consequence of scientific Materialism has undoubtedly been modern individualism, an extreme form of the dualistic belief in the reality of the separate ego.

The seemingly separate ego experiences itself as detached from – and at odds with – an indifferent outside world, in which it must struggle to maintain itself. Materialism naturally leads to belief in separation because this philosophy sees Consciousness as a by-product of the brain. In that case, Consciousness is by definition tied to an individual and mortal body, and thus different from individual to individual. In this way, Materialism is in large part responsible for the suffering that the dualistic belief in separation entails: egoism, greed, exploitation, feelings of inferiority, hatred, abuse, violence… These are all thoughts, feelings and behavioral patterns that originate in the conviction that I – as this person, with this body and this mind – am nothing more than this individual being, separate from the other people around me, separate from nature, separate from the Universe, separate from the Divine...

Thus the Advaita teacher Rupert Spira (2017: 2) calls Materialism “a philosophy of despair and conflict, and, as such, the root cause of the unhappiness felt by individuals and the hostilities between communities and nations”. That is why the debate between Idealism and Materialism is not just theoretical and academic: ultimately, the fate of Western civilization is at stake here. The choice between Idealism and Materialism is the fundamental choice we have to make between universal unity and harmony on the one hand and the destructive effects of competitive individualism on the other. This is a particularly weighty choice in the light of the impending climate apocalypse and the continuing hardening of both society and international politics.

Non-duality not an intellectual game
Now, we could put forward a whole arsenal of theoretical arguments in favor of Idealism and against Materialism – for example, the fact that Materialism fails to explain Consciousness (which is known in philosophy as “the Hard Problem of Consciousness”), or the constitutive role of the observer in quantum mechanics, or the old epistemological argument that we cannot know anything outside of Consciousness (an argument found both in Western philosophers such as Berkeley and Kant and in Eastern traditions such as Yogacara Buddhism and Shaivite Tantrism). From a theoretical perspective, such arguments are of course very important and – in my opinion – ultimately convincing.

But when it comes to Enlightenment through non-dual Consciousness, these arguments are less relevant. Non-duality is much more than just theory, and certainly not a purely intellectual game with philosophical subtleties. Non-dual spirituality is primarily about the living realization of Enlightenment by directly experiencing the existential truth behind Idealism, i.e. by discovering oneself as the one Consciousness underlying everything and everyone.

This also indicates the main difference between Western Idealism and the non-dual spirituality of the East. Although both see Consciousness as the ultimate reality, Western Idealism remains stuck in purely theoretical arguments and does not penetrate into the experiential dimension of Enlightenment, the direct intuition of non-dual Consciousness. Whereas it is precisely this redeeming experience that is the central motive of Eastern spirituality. In Advaita, Tantra and Buddhism, philosophical theory and rational argumentation are certainly not lacking, but they are secondary to the practical pursuit of Enlightenment. In his classic book Philosophies of India, Heinrich Zimmer aptly describes this difference between Western and Indian philosophy as follows:

“India [...] has had, and still has, its own disciplines of psychology, ethics, physics, and metaphysical theory. But the primary concern – in striking contrast to the interests of the modern philosophers of the West – has always been, not information, but transformation: a radical changing of man’s nature and, therewith, a renovation of his understanding both of the outer world and of his own existence; a transformation as complete as possible […]. The attitudes toward each other of the Hindu teacher and the pupil bowing at his feet are determined by the exigencies of this supreme task of transformation. Their problem is to effect a kind of alchemical transmutation of the soul. Through the means, not of a merely intellectual understanding, but of a change of heart (a transformation that shall touch the core of his existence), the pupil is to pass out of bondage, beyond the limits of human imperfection and ignorance, and transcend the earthly plane of being.” (Zimmer 1953: 4-5)

The Eastern contribution: Consciousness is not individual
In the following, therefore, I will not go into the many arguments that can be given for Idealism and against Materialism. Instead, I will focus on one specific argument from Eastern philosophy about the fundamental nature of Consciousness – an argument that directly touches on the experience of Enlightenment. It also addresses one of the main objections raised by Westerners when confronted with non-duality. As said, non-duality is about discovering yourself as the one, all-embracing Consciousness underlying everything and everyone. For most Westerners, that’s a rather absurd idea, trapped as they are in the – ultimately Materialistic – belief that Consciousness is always individual, because always tied to an individual body.

For Westerners, the Materialist assumption that Consciousness is in one’s head, and in particular in the brain, is very natural; it’s what they are brought up with. As said, if Consciousness is in the brain, then Consciousness is by definition of an individual nature, tied to an individual body. It is striking to see that even Western thinkers such as Berkeley and Kant have – despite their Idealism – not been able to escape this Materialist assumption of the individuality of Consciousness. In this respect, Eastern philosophy shows a very different and, above all, more consistent picture. For if we start from the plausible idea that the Consciousness necessarily precedes the phenomena appearing in it, then the strictly impersonal, pre-individual nature of Consciousness follows automatically.

After all, everything that characterizes you as you – your body, your thoughts, your feelings, your character, your social position, your country, your culture – all these things are objects perceived by Consciousness and are therefore preceded by Consciousness. Consciousness is not in your head or brain, on the contrary: your head and brain are, as objects of experience, in Consciousness. Everything that individualizes us, everything that makes us into different individuals – bodies, thoughts, feelings, personal histories, etc. – all these things appear in Consciousness, which as such precedes all of them and is therefore not defined by any of them. The entire talk of “individual consciousness” is nonsensical.

It is only through Consciousness that can we see, feel, perceive, think, understand objects. Consciousness itself, therefore, is not one of those objects – that is to say: it is not a thing itself, and in that sense it is a kind of nothing, a “no-thing”. As Nisargadatta puts it: “Resolutely reject what you are not, till the real Self emerges in its glorious nothingness, its not-a-thing-ness.” (2009: 503) By thus realizing the true nature of one’s Consciousness, one ceases to experience oneself as a particular individual, limited in space and time. Rather, one transcends space and time, which are now seen as mere appearances in Consciousness. Thus Nisargadatta again: “In reality time and space exist in you; you do not exist in them.” (2009: 196)

A widely used metaphor in Eastern philosophy is that Consciousness is the Light in which everything can appear. Of course, this is not about light in the physical sense of the word (a stream of photons), but about the ‘spiritual’ Light in which all objects (including photons) become manifest, i.e. perceptible, knowable and understandable. Therefore, Consciousness itself cannot be perceived or understood as an object: the pure Light in which all things appear cannot itself appear as a thing. In that sense, Consciousness itself is completely featureless, indefinite and formless.

Consciousness: a limitless void
Properties are always determined and as such different from other properties. Red is red because it is different from other colors, long is long because it is different from short, warm is warm because it is different from cold, and so on. In philosophy, this is often expressed in terms of Spinoza’s statement that “omnis determinatio est negatio”, that is, every determination (of a property) is a denial (of another property). In that sense, each property is necessarily finite because essentially limited by other properties. But properties can only appear to us in Consciousness, which is why Consciousness itself is without properties: it precedes all of them. Consciousness is therefore not finite as properties are: it is infinite, limitless...

This already shows that all individuals share the same universal Consciousness. We have seen that Consciousness – as a condition for the appearance of objects – must itself be completely indeterminate and limitless, a kind of infinite ‘no-thing’ that precedes all ‘some-things’. But how many of such ‘no-things’ – how many indeterminate and limitless Consciousnesses – can there be? It is obvious that only one can exist. Because suppose there are several. How then do you compare them to each other? How do you compare multiple ‘no-things’? Clearly, this is impossible: these ‘no-things’ do not have any properties that can be used for comparison. Hence: there is only one Consciousness.
 

Put differently: if we were to say that ‘my’ consciousness differs from ‘your’ consciousness, then they must somehow have (different) properties. Our consciousnesses must then be limited in some way, for then there must be some kind of boundary between ‘my’ consciousness and ‘your’ consciousness. But how is that possible if Consciousness is indeterminate and limitless? Of course, you are aware of different things than I am. For example, you eat an apple while I drink a cup of tea; you feel cheerful while I am sad; you think of your grandmother, while I think of the pain in my back, etc. But these differences all concern the objects in Consciousness. That which perceives these objects, i.e. Consciousness itself, is exactly the same for both of us: featureless, boundless, formless... Seen in this way, I cannot distinguish ‘my’ Consciousness from ‘your’ Consciousness. The whole difference between ‘mine’ and ‘thine’ dissolves in the limitless void of pure Consciousness.

The “neti, neti” formula
Let us return to the fact that properties can only be determined in relation to each other, by differing from each other. This accounts for the famous phrase “neti, neti” (“not this, not this”) which traditionally denotes Consciousness in the Vedanta – an expression that is already found in the oldest Upanishad: “With what means can one perceive that through which one perceives this whole world? About this Self one can only say “neti, neti”.” (Brihadaranyaka, 4.5.15)

This double negation indicates that Consciousness is not characterized by any property, therefore not by any property A or by the opposite property non-A (from which A must differ in order to be A). For example, if I merely said “Consciousness is not large”, I would leave open – due to the relational nature of properties – the possibility that Consciousness is small. It is to exclude this possibility that the phrase “neti, neti” is used. Through this phrase it becomes clear that Consciousness is completely beyond the relational dimension of mutually limiting properties – as the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (3.8.8) says: “it is neither gross nor subtle, neither short nor long”, and so on.

Thus, the non-duality of Consciousness does not just mean that there is no longer any subject-object duality (although that’s the main meaning of it); it also means that Consciousness is essentially beyond (or before) the dualities of our empirical, property-determined world. Consciousness is neither cold nor warm, neither large nor small, mind nor matter, male or female, good nor evil, etc.

The “groundless openness” of the space of Consciousness
Clearly, we are reaching the limits of language and conceptual thinking. How can one talk and think about something that has no properties, something indescribable, something ineffable? To meet this exigency, Advaita, Tantra and Buddhism employ various metaphors to indicate the non-objectifiable essence of Consciousness. We have already got to know one of these metaphors, namely the Light in which all objects become visible, but which itself cannot be seen as an object.

A closely related metaphor is that of the empty sky or space in which material objects can find a place. That space necessarily precedes all objects and is therefore not an object itself. In that sense one can say that Consciousness “gives space” to all phenomena – or rather: it is that space, that indefinite and infinite openness in which everything can appear. Enlightenment is about experiencing oneself as this infinite space in which everything happens.
 

Thus Nisargadatta often used to ask his visitors questions like: “Have you ever felt the all-embracing emptiness in which the universe swims like a cloud in the blue sky?” (2009: 330) The Dutch Advaita philosopher Douwe Tiemersma, who also happened to be one of Nisargadatta’s students, aptly spoke of the “groundless openness”, i.e. the boundless and open space of Consciousness that is “groundless” because there is nothing outside of it and that therefore does not depend on anything (it is its own ground, one could say).

Of course, this is not about space in the scientific sense of the word, i.e. not the geometric space of mathematics or the physical space of physics. These spaces are objects in Consciousness, since they can be studied scientifically. As such, they presuppose an even more fundamental space, the space of Consciousness in which they can appear as objects. In that sense, Consciousness is “the space behind space” or “the space around space”, i.e. the indefinite and groundless openness in which the geometric and physical spaces can first come to appearance. This is what the Chandogya Upanishad means with the following remarkable passage:

“As immeasurable as the space around is this space in the Heart, which contains both the earth and the sky, both fire and wind, both the sun and the moon, both lightning and stars… Now, what is called space is that which generates name-and-form (nama-rupa). That in which they are grounded – that is Brahman; that is the Immortal, that is the Self.” (Chandogya Upanishad, 8.1.3 & 8.14)

Consciousness and Enlightenment
The last sentence of the above quote – “that is Brahman; that is the Immortal; that is the Self” – points to the importance of the non-dualistic view of Consciousness for the ideal of Enlightenment in Advaita, Buddhism and Tantra. To begin with, we have to see that this indeterminate and limitless space of Consciousness is our deepest Self, or rather our deepest I. For the third-person form of “the Self” can create the dualistic impression that it is about something apart from us, standing over against us, a divine He, while the point is precisely the non-dualistic insight that we are “That” ourselves. After all, I am aware of all my experiences, feelings and thoughts. I am the observer to whom the world appears. I am the subject to which all objects appear but who can never become an object itself. In short, I am that featureless, boundless Consciousness that underlies and precedes all phenomena.

The seeing of this is what Enlightenment is, Awakening, the liberation of suffering. All experiences, thoughts, feelings appear in Consciousness, but they do not touch Consciousness; it remains featureless, formless, unmoved – just as a theater remains unmoved by the drama that takes place in it, or as a cinema screen is not touched by the film it displays. As the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says, Consciousness is “the one who is beyond hunger and thirst, beyond sadness and confusion, beyond old age and death” (3.4.2).

Although Advaita, Buddhism and Shaivite Tantrism place slightly different accents and use different terminologies, the essence is always the same insight, namely that you are primarily this non-dual Consciousness and not one of the limited phenomena that show up in Consciousness. In a following post I will elaborate on the relationship between Advaita, Buddhism and Tantra. The superficial differences that indeed exist between these traditions should not obstruct our view of the liberating core message they have in common.

References
-Heinrich Zimmer, Philosophies of India, edited by Joseph Campbell, 1953, Routledge and Kegan Paul.
-Nisargadatta, I Am That, edited by Sudhaker S. Dikshit, translated by Maurice Frydman, Chetana, 2009.
-Philip Renard, Non-Dualisme: De Directe Bevrijdingsweg, 2005, Felix Uitgeverij (p. 103 for the Padmasambhava quote).
-Rajanaka Kshemaraja, The Recognition Sūtras, translated and annotated by Christopher Wallis, 2017, Mattamayūra Press.
-Rupert Spira (2017), The Nature of Consciousness: Essays on the Unity of Mind and Matter, Sahaja Publications.
-Wim van de Laar, De Upanishads, translated and annotated by Wim van de Laar, 2015, Uitgeverij Nachtwind.