Consciousness Unprovoked.

I’m aware that for some time now my perceptions have been concentrating on the bad side of life and the human condition. Heaven knows this blog has been full of it.

I think it should be self-evident, however, that I’m also aware of the good things in life, but now even they are giving cause for doubts and questions. I’m finding lately that every time my sense organs register something which raises my spirits – a selfless act of kindness or rescue, the sight of inquisitive young animals just discovering the experience of being here, the smell of honeysuckle and new-mown hay in early summer – my first response is to appreciate the glorious richness available to us sentient beings who are lucky to be at the top of the evolutionary scale. But then a voice somewhere deep inside me whispers with the certainty of an inner guru that none of it is real. It’s just a dream. And the voice seems to get louder each time it speaks. And so I ask myself the question:

All experience of pleasure and pain is simply my consciousness responding to some stimulus, so is it possible for consciousness to be self-contained – to experience pleasure or pain at will without there being anything to provoke it? And the answer comes back:

Probably.

And would that be the start of what the Buddhists call enlightenment?

Possibly.

So is my suspicion correct that the only thing which is ultimately real is consciousness?

Probably.

And so all manifestations of material existence – even to the vastness of the physical universe – are illusory?

Probably.

I go quiet for a while, but then I have a thought: What about people who suffer baseless fears around certain situations? We call that experience 'neurosis.' And what about people who suffer anxiety and depression when there’s no apparent cause? Are these examples of self-contained consciousness at work – and maybe even enlightenment beginning to take root – and not the mental malaise we think them to be?

I didn’t get an answer to that one. Thinking on.