Borderland
When we humans think we are approaching an explanation of consciousness - whether through research, spiritual or philosophical assumptions - a new question often opens up behind it. Like doors leading to more doors, room after room.
There is something beautiful in just that, considering the privilege of being human for a short moment in the universe's long history.
We get to think, feel, wonder, and sometimes pause before things that are greater than our current understanding.
No matter how we approach it, we seem to meet time and again at the same horizon, where more knowledge turns into even more wonder.
And indeed, the very thought can become quite dizzying - when we study and philosophize about consciousness, consciousness is trying to understand itself. That is where science, philosophy, and spiritual seeking meet; in the same mute wonder before something that none of them can contain alone.
It is almost as if one suddenly discovers a strange loop of thought:
I think.
Then I think about the fact that I am thinking.
Then I start to wonder about who or what it is that is observing that I am thinking.
And quite soon, it feels like the floor is disappearing a bit from under my feet.
I remember such a moment. Nothing big, really - I sat still and the thought came on its own. I no longer wondered what I was thinking about, but who it was that was thinking. That was enough. Something loosened in the habitual.
We are used to directing our attention outward toward people, nature, work, stars, atoms.
But when attention turns toward consciousness itself, something strange happens. The tool that examines simultaneously becomes the one being examined.
It is reminiscent of trying to see your own eyes without a mirror.
Or a flashlight trying to shine on its own source of light.
It is no wonder that philosophers have wrestled with this for thousands of years.
And what fascinates me is that the further one follows that train of thought, the less obvious much of what we normally take for granted becomes.
What is actually a "self"?
Where does consciousness end and the world begin?
Are thoughts something we create, or something we discover?
Why is there an experience of being someone behind the eyes?
Those questions do not belong solely to the spiritual. They arise as soon as a human begins to observe their own experience carefully enough.
And one can end up in the same wonder from completely different directions:
A neuroscientist studying the brain.
A philosopher analyzing the nature of consciousness.
A person who meditates.
Or a child who suddenly asks: "But who is it that is me?"
Different languages. The same mystery.
I have always felt drawn to Socrates. I trust his wisdom almost most of all through the statement:
"I know that I know nothing."
In my world, I translate his way of living something like this:
"Do not believe in anything just because some authority says so. Not even me. Investigate. Reflect. Feel. Be curious. Humble. And dare to live with questions rather than answers."
The most fascinating thing about the mystery of consciousness is that the questions never seem to have a beginning and never an end. The more one understands, experiences, and realizes, the more perspectives open up. It feels like the spiritual search lives in that very movement. In wonder, exploration, and the courage to continue asking even when the answers are delayed.
Here on Earth, we may never be able to grasp the full greatness of the universe, and surely one could think that is exactly why wonder continues to follow us, no matter how far we come - with one foot in what we think we know and the other in what we do not yet understand?
In that borderland.
