Your consciousness has the ability to be aware of things that machines can't detect: thoughts and emotions. These objects of consciousness surely exist, but not in what we define as the "physical" world. Our scientists have shown us that the whole universe comes down to energy. Thoughts and emotions are simply energy vibrations at such high rates that machines can't detect them.
Michael A. Singer, 49
Hmm! Most of us are conditioned to believe that the physical world is everything. In order for something to be real it has to prove itself physically there, according to tests used to measure such things. If it doesn't show up on a scientific test...it isn't real , right?
We all know that thoughts and feelings are real. We "feel" them and live in them. Yet there are no tests a scientist can use to prove their reality... no specific measurement of their physicality...or...no part of the body that can be dissected and placed under a microscope to prove their existence within us. So how do we know they are real? What part of us is aware of the reality of thoughts and emotions? Singer explains that the consciousness knows, and is aware of thoughts and feelings.
Consciousness
What is consciousness, according to scientists, then? Well that just happens to be one of the biggest controversies and dividing points in the scientific community right now. There is no way to prove or pinpoint consciousness in physical terms. So many scientists say that because it cannot be proven physically real by scientific means , it doesn't exist. Hmm! Yet these same scientists think and feel everyday and are aware of the fact they think and feel. What part of them is aware? Something is aware of that...that something is consciousness.
Energy?
Scientists will definitely tell us that everything is energy...all matter is energy...a copulation of fast moving electrons in atoms that make up the molecules that form matter. So if everything is energy...thoughts and emotions...consciousness itself...has to be energy, doesn't it?
Singer goes on to say that the reason we cannot yet measure our thoughts and feelings scientifically is because the energetic vibration they are at...the vibration consciousness is at...is just too quick to be measured by our very limited physical means. Yet! Someday scientists may be able to detect them, measure them, and validate their existence on the physical scale.
The Miracle of Observing Our Own Minds
In the mean time...we have to know they are there. We have to see that since scientists can't detect and measure them...maybe we have to be responsible for scientific observation of our own minds....each and everyone of us.
You can think of mind as a very high vibration field of energy in which thoughts can be created. Mind is not your thoughts. Mind is the field of energy in which thoughts are capable of existing. Page 50
Beyond this thinking feeling creation of the mind is what the Buddhist calls "empty mind"...the background of clear blue spacious sky on which the clouds of thought and feeling are formed. Meditation can help us to access that empty mind...to experience its stillness, its quiet and its peaceful energy first hand.
The Physical World
Singer goes on to explain that regardless of how still the mind is , the outside world world exists independent of it. (Now this might contradict some of the teachings of Vedanta....just saying.) The energy of the physical world is denser and heavier than the energy of the mental one. We can, however, be aware of both at the same time thanks to our consciousness. One of the functions of the mind is to let this outside world into our experience through the senses. We are inside, the world is outside...yet because of these miraculous minds we can bring the outside world in. The outside is being reproduced in your mind page 52
The Miracle
The mind is really quite miraculous. It may be formless but it creates amazing form for us to experience.
In truth, consciousness is the most profound miracle. An essence that knows that it knows. Everything else is something you're conscious of-the true magic of consciousness itself. When consciousness is simply experiencing reality as imagined in the mind, that is what we call being in the present moment...The real world is outside, it is being reflected in your mind, and you are aware of the image right in front of you. In this very simple state, you are experiencing what you are meant to experience: the gift of the moment that has been given you. Page 53
So there is the experience and there is you as the experiencer...there is an object and there is you as the subject. The amazing thing is that there does not have to be a distinction between the two. The two can actually become one...and that is what the true essence of yoga is all about. This can be achieved through single pointed concentration. When there is no distraction, no obstacle between the experience and you...you have allowed a merger between subject and object. page 54
How cool is that?
All is well in my world.
Michael A. Singer (2022) living untethered, Chapter 11: Empty Mind. Boulder: New Harbinger/ Sounds True.
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