If you attain knowledge of the Self, the meaning of life will cease to be a mystery. You will clearly understand the why and how of this universe. The purpose and progress in the scheme of things will become clear to you. All the transcendental things will be known to you like the apple in the palm of your hand.

its intense being self aware and stuck in an ageing body

Especially the frontal, cingulate and insular cortex seem to be more centrally involved in our experiences.

Every Individual Is A Seeming Mass Of Changes

Every individual is a seeming mass of changes. His body is changing every minute; so is his mind. Is he then a mass of never ceasing change and nothing more, or, is there in him something permanent? The monistic Vedanta affirms, that beyond both the body and the mind, is the Self, which, it says, never changes.

QFOV

In Brahman there was a Spandan or vibration before the world was projected. This is the Sankalpa of Brahman. He thought or willed: “Ekoham bahusyam—I am one; may I become many.” This vibration corresponds to the bulging of the seed within the ground when it soaked with water. Then the whole world was projected.

The Self, according to the Vedanta, is the real individual and the individual that changes is only apparent. The apparent individual, which is eternally changing, is in reality the unchanging Self, but, through ignorance, forgetting his real nature and thinking himself to be changing, he finds himself to be such. It is possible for him to give up this ignorance and be established in his real nature of unchange. This is the Vedantic doctrine of Self-realization.

Even with our current scientific understanding, we can conclude that all of this activity happens for "existence". The body as a collection of groups of cells is just trying to exist. Each cell is trying to exist. Actually that trying it self is the existence. What we arbitrarily call consciousness is the whole process together. But it is all just one big chemical process. That's it. And then we go to sub cellular, molecular, atomic, sub atomic, energy, nothing... are all levels of existence. And what drives this each and every process is the "bonding". Existence itself is bonding. On a macro level we call it wanting, lust, greed etc. So there is no separate entity as "conscious I". I would be grateful to hear any scientific response to this explanation.

you'd say our 'experience of being' is a function of our being itself? Do other animals have an 'experience of being' or do they remain in a kind of sleep, incapable of meta-thought? No matter what 'I' do, 'my' body will function the way it was intended to, would this mean I not something separate from the body? What produces this feeling of separateness?

Forms and finites are subject to change. The Self, being beyond change, is not a form and not finite; therefore, Self-realization is equivalent to the reaching of a positive state of formless Infinity

Brahman creates this unthinkable universe through his illusive power of Maya with three Gunas for his own Leela (sporting). But these activities do not touch Him in the least. He is Asanga, Nirlipta (unattached) like SPACETIME . This world floats in Him like a log of wood in the ocean.

Man is a finite individual, because he, through ignorance, thinks himself finite. Let him think the opposite way, that he is not finite, and infinite he will be. This is the ‘not this, not this’ method of the Jnana Yogin, who, convinced from the very first of the apparentness of the finite individuality and the reality of the Self, breaks his connection with all forms — tearing himself off from the gross, the fine, the finest, till there remain none to limit him — by the sheer force of the conviction and the thought, ‘I am He, the formless Infinite’, and tries to stand alone in his infinite nature.

Source – Prabuddha Bharata June 1902

When a man dies, he carries with him the permanent Linga Sarira which is made up of 5 Jnana Indriyas, 5 karma Indriyas, 5 Pranas, mind, Buddhi, Chitta and Ahankara and the changing karmasraya (receptacle of works, the actions of the soul) which determines the formation of the next life

AUM

DNR -TLC-ANACLAPAD

Go quiet into the night.

By: Debbie Moore-Black, ICU, RN

“Go quiet into the night” published by KevinMD/Debbie Moore-Black, RN

https://donotresuscitate.ca

2.5 minute read

I know. You’re thinking: cold hearted. Cruel. Heartless.

Am I? Or are YOU?!!

Grandma Lilly is 87 years old. She’s in the ICU. On a ventilator. Wrists restrained to the side of the bed. She can barely see because her eyes are puffy; sclera edema. Her heart races.. 140’s/minute. Her blood pressure is low. She now has bought levophed and vasopressin drips because her blood pressure is dangerously low.

She can’t talk to her family. She phases in and out of existence. Grandma Lilly.

End stage renal Disease=Dialysis.

Respiratory failure=Ventilator.

Brittle diabetic. High blood sugars to low ones. No control. She can’t eat. So we feed her by a tube that goes into her nose and lodges in her stomach.

She’s been on the ventilator too long. Tomorrow she goes for a tracheostomy. Tomorrow she gets a peg surgically inserted to feed her.

She’s bought the ICU package.

Ventilator. Dialysis. Vasopressors. Restraints. Trach. Peg.

And any second of awareness for her is pure brutality.

There is no pretty ending to this torture except to hopefully escape by dying.

Poor Grandma Lilly.

Oh the memories. When we were kids we’d chant for Grandma Lilly. She’d snuggle us up in that rocking chair and read books to us. Let us splash our feet in the puddles after a misty rain. Built sandcastles at the beach. Gave us candy when momma said no.

She was our heart and soul and we wanted her to live forever.

But we don’t live forever.

There’s cruelty in putting an 87 year old with multi system organ failure on a ventilator, restrained, medicated, disoriented .... and wishing for the tunnel to the here-after.

Your memories will live forever.

The ventilator. Churning inspiratory and expiratory breaths.... day after day as Grandama Lilly wishes for death.

Grandpa Joe is two doors away from Grandma Lilly. (They are not related)

He’s going to die also. Ravaged with cancer. But he’s led a good life. And he’s cognitive enough to say he wants to die peacefully with his family and his dog Rufus by his side.

Grandpa Joe is a DNR/DNI and has requested to be “Comfort Care.”

For his excruciating pain from cancer, he is given a morphine drip that flows slowly through his vein.

He breathes slowly. But he’s happy and pain free and surrounded by love.

His room is dimly lit. Music seeps out and fills the ICU hallways. Frank Sinatra,

Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday.

Boy Scout, Eagle Scout. The only one in his family who got a college degree. Campfires, the stories he told, the wisdom and gentle guidance. And here his family sat around him. Good ole’ grandpa Joe. What a life filled with love. They held his hand as they told their loving stories of Grandpa Joe. They laughed and silently wept. Tears of love and happiness and letting go but knowing the pain and suffering of his cancer would be over with soon.

After several rounds of CPR and cracked ribs, tiny little Grandma Lilly died.

Grandma Lilly left this earth tied down like a captured animal.

Grandpa Joe left this earth with quiet whispers of

“I love you”

The choice can be yours.

Go quiet into the night

This is our last dance.

(This story is based on past events but fictional characters were used in compliance with HIPAA guidelines.

It is an example of end stage of life dying and of choices and results that can happen in any ICU across America)

Even liberated masters may allow themselves to live for a time under the partial sway of maya. Thus, Lahiri Mahasaya—who had been anciently liberated—came back wearing the semblance of mortality. Though he sat long in meditation as a child, after growing to manhood he took a job, married, and produced a family. He had reached mature years before he met his guru, Babaji, and received from him once more his enlightenment.

Swami Sri Yukteswar also married, had a daughter, and lived (to outward appearances) as a normal human being before he received enlightenment from his guru, Lahiri Mahasaya.

Paramhansa Yogananda, in his turn, accepted human limitation. During his boyhood he played the ardent seeker instead of revealing himself—and perhaps even before perceiving himself—as he was: a great master from long before who received enlightenment anew from Swami Sri Yukteswar. Yogananda often said publicly, “I REMOVED Yogananda long ago. No one dwells in this temple now but God.”

I once asked him, “Does one who is born liberated come with the full consciousness of oneness with God?” I posed that question because it seemed to me that he, and other masters, had played many human roles that would surely not have been compatible with living consciously in that high state of oneness.

“They never lose their consciousness of inner freedom,” he replied.

MYSTIC JRNY

When you accept existence, the existence accepts you. When you reject, you are rejected. You are echoed by existence. Whatsoever you do with it is done with you.

Remember some moments of your childhood when you had the feeling that life was bliss, that just to be was ecstatic. Just to be, just to breathe, was enough. You didn’t need anything to make you blissful. Whatsoever you were was enough to be blissful.

But look at the human mind. It collects miseries, it collects sufferings, it collects pains. It never collects happy moments. It goes on collecting misery upon misery. Then life becomes a hell. It is your collection; it is your way of looking at things.

Astory about a Sufi mystic, Bayazid, who remained in one village for many years. One day the villagers said to Bayazid, “We have been seeing you and hearing you for at least five years. You were always praying and talking to God. Now we see that you never talk, you never pray. Why this change? Have you become an atheist? Have you lost your belief in the divine? You never talk now, you never pray.”

Bayazid laughed and said, “Before, I was talking and praying. Now God has started talking to me, so I have to be silent and listen. The whole process has changed. Now I need not talk. Now, he talks to me.”

This moment comes. But this moment comes only when your heart is filled with melody and a divine silence has come into you. There is no more noise. Wherever you look you feel the music; wherever you look you feel the unity; wherever you look you feel the one in different forms. Now you have become aware of the sea. Waves have disappeared for you. There are no waves; only the ocean exists. Then, the divine talks to you directly.

It is not a metaphor. Existence speaks to you directly; it is not a metaphor; it is not a poetic expression. It happens! But you have to be ready. And that readiness means a heart filled with music, a heart filled with silence

JUST ONE TICK AT A TIME

The clock master was about to fix the pendulum of a clock, when, to his surprise, he heard the pendulum speak. ‘Please, sir, leave me alone,’ the pendulum pleaded. ‘It will be an act of kindness on your part. Think of the number of times I will have to tick day and night. So many times each minute, sixty minutes an hour, twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. For year upon year…millions of ticks. I can never do it.’

But the clock master answered wisely, ‘Don’t think of the future. Just do one tick at a time and you will enjoy every tick for the rest of your life. ’

And that is exactly what the pendulum decided to do. It is still ticking merrily away.

Some say that this is a bad world as there is much pain, sorrow and temptation. But if you do noble deeds, if you practise Japa and meditation, you can attain eternal bliss. This bad world will become a sweet and lovely paradise for you. Do not blame the world but blame your mind. Correct and educate your mind. You will have a changed vision of this world.

"If we understand the function of the feeling, then we understand the function of the consciousness"

Feeling is an extended form of homeostasis .. WOW

unkown German philosopher around 2008: "Consciousness is the perception of perception"!

In the brain, a physiobiological occurrence responsible for consciousness in the same way that the stomach's responsible for digestion.

Conscious AI or "sentient computers" require the ability to Feel. current AI are like brains that only have a cortex. All data, no feeling. They are not conscious.

consciousness (feeling) comes from the Reticular Activating System situated in the brainstem. Pleasant feeling -- homeostasis maintained, unpleasant feeling-- homeostasis harmed, disturbed.

Consciousness is a natural phenomenon created by neural networks that have become complicated by the evolutionary process.

maybe consciousness is in EVERYTHING and EVERYTHING is consciousness...maybe

Consciousness, feelings, qualia, etc are not scientifically observable properties of anything, including biological brains. Neuroscientists look for "mechanisms", but there is no (observable) mechanism for generating unobservable properties. As far as anyone knows, unobservable properties don't emerge from observable systems. Leibniz understood that 350 years ago. So there can be no causal link under a materialist paradigm. Correlation is another matter...

The idea of death has ever been the strongest motive-power of religion and religious life. Man is afraid of death. In old age he tries to think of God. If he remembers God even from his boyhood, he will reap a rich spiritual harvest in old age. Man does not want to die. He wants to live for ever. This is the starting point of philosophy. Philosophy enquires and investigates. It boldly proclaims “O man do not be afraid of death. There is an immortal abode. That is Brahman. That is your own Atman that dwells in the chambers of your heart. Purify your heart and meditate on this pure, immortal, changeless Self. You will attain immortality.”

Looking for conscious in the brain is like looking for the driver in the structure of a car. My mother had Alzheimer's for 9 years before her passing, scans reviewed that much of her physical brain had degraded, she lost memories, physical functions, conversation. But she was demonstrably the same person, her laugh, her smile, her uniqueness, her essence if you like. I think further research will link consciousness to quantum physics, where the maths suggests there are great mysteries such as extra dimensions.

If you don't think anything, don't perceive anything and don't feel anything, are you not conscious anymore? In the non-dualistic teachings, those things are all just contents of consciousness. In that sense, sensory input, thoughts and feelings are all the same. Being aware is not a feeling, it goes much deeper than that...

Also, I think the argument of consciousness being advantageous to survival because it brings awareness to potential threats to homeostasis is invalid, since most (if not all) behavioral responses are automatic or unconscious and later rationalized. A friend of mine who is a heavy alcoholic put it so poignantly: I destroy myself and all I can do is watch as I do so, like a movie on a screen. However, from my own experiences with mindfulness, there seems to be a feedback loop between awareness and the mind, but it is much slower.

In my opinion, to get real answers, we would have to study why some things are conscious to us while others are not. And also how shifting your awareness works, since it is more like a spotlight that brings awareness to the things it shines on. If we can find out what that spotlight is or what specific mechanism, we might get closer to the answer.
After thinking about it some more, it seems to me as if consciousness works as a filter to bring awareness to the most relevant information, but how it works and what ultimately gives rise to consciousness still eludes me. It stands to reason though, that the structure involved has very limited processing power since it can only focus on a handful of things at a time.

" हरि अनन्त हरि कथा अनंता, कहैं सुने बहु बिधि सब संता"