Imagine yourself in a situation where you are reduced to your very last vestiges of thought. You have one thought, one point of awareness in front of you, and nothing else. Is this possible ? There is no value in contemplating such a situation if it is only an abstraction. We can imagine singularity of thought, or one particular thought more or less dominating our consciousness to the exclusion of all else, so let us at least focus on a situation like that – it could be something like a nagging pain, or an obsessive worry, or even a pleasurable anticipation.
So we can imagine the thought, or the moment of consciousness, occupying centre stage in our minds, or in our field of vision. Of course the thought is not entirely exclusive, and has a periphery, with bits and pieces of other thoughts which flow in and out, and so on. But we are simply concerned here with the main thought, not to the exclusion of all else, but rather to see how it works, and what its characteristics are.
And if we exclude the content of the thought – pleasurable or painful or neither or both – we see that what remains, or what is left over when all other factors are excluded, is that the thought ‘matters’ to me – it means something, it affects me, I cannot ignore it, or dismiss it. This is my primal connection to the universe per se.
It is worth exploring some of the implications that flow from this. What if my basic ‘connectedness’ [through its mattering to me] to the perception in front of me were somehow turned off, or reduced ? What if it suddenly, or gradually, didn’t matter to me ? What would happen to the universe ? What would happen to the ‘me’ ? It would surely revolutionise my relationship to existence.
But what can I do with this rather humble insight ? On the face of it, not much. Being able to apprehend the building blocks of human existence does not, of itself, deliver one to a magical ‘higher plane’, but it does begin a slow process of self-understanding which has more substance to it than any meditative state, or state of mind based on wish-fulfilment, or belief.
Last vestige of thought
Imagine yourself in a situation where you are reduced to your very last vestiges of thought. You have one thought, one point of awareness in front of you, and nothing else. Is this possible ? There is no value in contemplating such a situation if it is only an abstraction. We can imagine singularity of thought, or one particular thought more or less dominating our consciousness to the exclusion of all else, so let us at least focus on a situation like that – it could be something like a nagging pain, or an obsessive worry, or even a pleasurable anticipation.
So we can imagine the thought, or the moment of consciousness, occupying centre stage in our minds, or in our field of vision. Of course the thought is not entirely exclusive, and has a periphery, with bits and pieces of other thoughts which flow in and out, and so on. But we are simply concerned here with the main thought, not to the exclusion of all else, but rather to see how it works, and what its characteristics are.
And if we exclude the content of the thought – pleasurable or painful or neither or both – we see that what remains, or what is left over when all other factors are excluded, is that the thought ‘matters’ to me – it means something, it affects me, I cannot ignore it, or dismiss it. This is my primal connection to the universe per se.
It is worth exploring some of the implications that flow from this. What if my basic ‘connectedness’ [through its mattering to me] to the perception in front of me were somehow turned off, or reduced ? What if it suddenly, or gradually, didn’t matter to me ? What would happen to the universe ? What would happen to the ‘me’ ? It would surely revolutionise my relationship to existence.
But what can I do with this rather humble insight ? On the face of it, not much. Being able to apprehend the building blocks of human existence does not, of itself, deliver one to a magical ‘higher plane’, but it does begin a slow process of self-understanding which has more substance to it than any meditative state, or state of mind based on wish-fulfilment, or belief.