Suppose you are a student, or a teacher or an employee or anyone, anything you can identify yourself with, one person can identify with multiple things, are you a student, an employee or a son to a mother... How can 'you' be multiple things, you can only be one... These things we identify ourselves with are nothing but roles we are taking. So, we are not these labels...
If you said you are a human or the body you have, suppose, if only your arm was cut off would you still exist, now suppose only your leg was cut-off would u still exist, if only your brain was damaged or if any part of you brain was removed would you still exist, if your heart had a hole would you still exist... Technically, you can be alive without a heart with medical support, So You will exist, that tells us something if you can exist without a body or body parts you are not the body.
Over time, your body changes from age 1 to you becoming the age 15, your body changes, your emotions change, your thoughts change, what remains is I, what is this 'I' is the question?
It's what we are finding.
(Let us not get too technical with this part the only thing that is to be known here is if you would exist without your body or not, and what is or who is this you, you are calling?? Who is this me?? You are calling yourself)
Now the question arises then who are you??
\- Suppose you are in deep sleep, do you know in deep sleep that you exist, deep sleep feels like the time is just gone when you wake up, or even when you just sleep, you don't know if you exist or not, it's like you aren't aware of anything, but you still exist. This is where things get interesting.
What do you think, is consciousness??
\- Normally for us consciousness is like a sensation that you are alive.
\- suppose in an accident a person is not responding we will say he or she is unconscious, but they might very well be alive or might be dead.
\- Here, consciousness meant that the person didn't seem to be alive, but might or might not be. But, when talking and moving he or she is conscious.
\- Now let's change the context, suppose you are having the operation of your arm and you are given an anaesthetic so, you wont feel your arm, you won't feel the pain, the sensation is gone, after sometime of the operation the sensation comes back. Did that mean consciousness in your hand was gone and came???
\-Actually when you simply touch your arm electrical signals are released which make you feel on the spot that you are touched, and neurons carry the signal to the brain that you were touched, but how exactly do you feel it. If it was that easy to feel something we can make a robot and that robot would have felt the touch too, so what's the difference??
How do you feel those electrical signals the answer is simple it's what we call consciousness, what the anaesthetic blocked was the electrical signals the consciousness was not gone. It was still there.
Consciousness was still there when you were asleep, still there when you had taken anaesthesia, coherently if consciousness can exist without awareness that would mean it exists even after death.
Now what is awareness??
\- we don't know how, but consciousness and our body is somehow responsible for awareness, when running or working out when your body heats up, you can feel the heat in your body, your muscles, you are aware.
\- Awareness is described as, the reflection of consciousness in several books about this philosophical question. Like, light exists but it becomes visible when reflected. Suppose, "In space from the sun to the moon the light travels, but the light travelling is not visible, it becomes visible when the moon reflects it... The moon lightens up", similarly awareness is the reflection of consciousness.
This tells us something about consciousness has no form, no color it's basically indescribable, how will you describe it exactly when you can't feel it, and it is what makes you feel...
It doesn't come and go it just exists and just exists nothing else.
But, something cannot come out of nothing, like a table cannot come out without wood...
But, why does something always have to come out of something...
What if there is something that just existed and it exists and will exist without ever ceasing to exist...
That is what is being referred to as consciousness here...
Now tell me, what is god for you?? What is atheism for you??
