Souvenirs

Am I conscious? It sounds like a silly question but actually it's quite profound. At the moment that I ask myself the question, I seem conscious. Afterwards I assume that I am conscious, then I lose myself in thought and innumerable distractions. Consciousness quickly becomes a mere memory, a conceptual reference.

It seems to me that I am not conscious. Whatever consciousness is, it is neither innate nor a product of thought. Human beings may possess an innate potential for consciousness, but that potential remains to be developed.

What is consciousness? We must learn to purge thought from awareness so that we can see clearly what consciousness is. If we pay close attention to physical sensation, the thought process recedes. We are then simply aware of physical sensation. This is one step closer to a clearer understanding of consciousness. Physical sensation itself, independent of any specific object, is an experience of the potential body of consciousness itself. There is an energetic body that we experience directly when we liberate awareness from the chronic thought process.

This book, Souvenirs, has been consolidated into my book The Force of Consciousness.