Ask: Is consciousness God or is God beyond consciousness?

           There is confusion out there in nonduality communities about consciousness (also called awareness or perception) as there are conflicting teachings about whether consciousness is God or if God is beyond consciousness. I’ve written about this often, but as I keep running into this confusion, I revisit it here.

First, I will define consciousness experientially rather than theoretically. Thoughts, ideas, feelings (both emotional and physical), energies, and the entire material universe are appearances and experiences that express consciousness.

To some degree, everyone is aware of an individuated consciousness, or mind. For some more focused on experiences, the mind may seem incidental. But for others, the mind is more important. They may grow their awareness of mind more and more, through study,  meditation, and contemplation. Eventually, they may even become aware that their seemingly individual mind is not in a body (an appearance), but in fact it is the other way around: Experiences and appearances are in the mind. They may become aware of something in the background, often described as a screen, a space, a vastness, or a void in which appearances and experiences occur. If they are aware of this, their consciousness has expanded. They are aware of the whole of consciousness, no longer only an individual consciousness.

They become aware that everything in consciousness is made of consciousness. All appearances and experiences are consciousness. So, there is no difference between consciousness and what appears in consciousness. Everything in consciousness is one. For some, this oneness of consciousness that unites all in consciousness, if not the forms of appearances themselves, means God. This can induce feelings of love and joy.

For those that believe this unity of consciousness is God, ego is an illusion which denies the unity of consciousness and sees appearances as separate from the whole as well as from each other. For them, nonduality refers to the unity of consciousness. There is no good or bad, or right or wrong, because all that appears is consciousness—God.

But for others, of which I am one, there is an awareness that the unity of consciousness in not God because we are aware of a Unity beyond consciousness. This Unity, or the Only One, the Absolute, is indescribable and unlike consciousness in every way. And This we call God.

God comes to us as a blazing Light shining into consciousness from beyond consciousness, revealing consciousness is an illusion. The love and peace and joy this inspires is a dim reflection of God’s indescribable Glory.

For those of us who are aware of God beyond consciousness, nonduality means only God is real. God’s Unity, or Oneness, is God’s Onlyness. Therefore, consciousness, and all that appears in it, is an illusion. In fact, consciousness itself is an appearance, or merely an idea. It has no effect on God.  And ego is the idea and experience in consciousness that asserts consciousness as reality. Ego denies God-beyond-consciousness. So, the assertion that the unity of consciousness is God is an expression of ego.

When you listen to a teacher of nonduality, it can be difficult to discern which approach they take as each uses similar terms (God, oneness, ego, illusion, nonduality) and describe similar experiences (expanded consciousness, for example). And in some cases, the teachers have not yet sorted it out, either.

In any case, which approach is meaningful for you will depend on your own experiences.

 

>>>> 

If you have a question the answer to which you feel may be helpful to others, send it to Liz@acimmentor.com and indicate that you want it answered in this newsletter/blog.

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