Waking, Dreaming, Being

By getting in the habit of doing “state checks” when you’re awake, you’ll eventually remember to do them when you’re dreaming. In this way, you can confirm that you’re dreaming and what you’re experiencing isn’t real.

Western philosophers call this feature of consciousness “reflexivity.”

According to the self-illumination viewpoint, consciousness is self-luminous or self-revealing. The traditional analogy is that of a light, which shows itself while illuminating the other things around it. A light illuminating other things doesn’t require another light to be seen. So, consciousness, in revealing other things, doesn’t need another consciousness to be revealed.

Western phenomenologists call this “prereflective self-awareness,” because it already belongs to the first-level awareness before any reflection or introspection happens.

‘As one desires, so does one become, for the person is made of desire.’

OM is the sound of brahman, the nondual source and basis of the phenomenal universe that’s also identical to the transcendent self, ātman. As one syllable, OM is the self; its constituent phonemes are the states of consciousness, from gross to subtle. “A” expresses the waking state; it’s a rough sound produced by the mouth wide open. “U” expresses the dreaming state; it’s a subtle sound produced with the aid of the lips. “M” expresses the deep-sleep state;

Waking consciousness takes enjoyment in the “gross” objects of sense perception, yet no object holds its interest for long, because attention, motivated by desire, constantly flits from one thing to another. Consciousness in the waking state is restless, dissatisfied, and constantly on the move.

since consciousness has this kind of primacy, it makes no sense to try to reductively explain consciousness in terms of something that’s conceived to be essentially nonexperiential, like fundamental physical phenomena. Rather, understanding how consciousness is a natural phenomenon is going to require rethinking our scientific concepts of nature and physical being.

The organizing principle for this book comes from the Indian tradition. The ancient Indian texts called the Upanishads contain the world’s first recorded map of consciousness.

Instead of trying to seek a resolution or an answer, contemplate the question