First Conversation on Consciousness
I have spent the last 20 years of my life volunteering with hospice, grieving children and their families, coaching people who are dying and coaching people helping a loved one die. I have written award winning children’s books on dealing with loss and death and have taught mindfulness as awareness to many. As much as I love working in all of these areas they are all quite challenging and so I try and rotate how and where I work to prevent burnout and to keep my contributions fresh and present.
Inherent in all of my work is the question of consciousness.
Very often I am asked, “What is a conscious life?” and “What is a conscious death?”
What we know for sure is that we are conscious beings and that we are aware. The question is to what degree and how interested are we as individuals or as a society to become more aware?
For the sake of clarity and ease, I use the term “awareness” interchangeably with the word “consciousness.” When I start working with an individual or group, I work with where they are in their own belief system.
The tag line I use with the high school students, is “Are You Aware?”
It is the modern day version of “Know Thyself”. We cannot change something if we are not aware of it.
According to British neuropsychiatrist, Peter Fenwick, “the fundamental question of our time is: what is consciousness?”
And then, that begs the question, where is consciousness located?
Fenwick goes on to explain that at the turn of the century, William James (an American philosopher, psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States) said, “Consciousness was outside of the body and the brain filtered it. This was a rather radical idea and his thoughts were largely ignored by science in favor of consciousness being all a function of the brain.” Today the idea of William James seems more sound.
So where is consciousness?
When I imagine it, I see it as a type of iCloud of consciousness or as a field of consciousness. Others speak of it as a transcendent, cosmic reality in which our personal manifested reality emerges. In these scenarios, consciousness is outside of us and our brains are the mechanism that filter what we want from that field of consciousness or transcendent reality. I would like to add that I believe, like many others, that not only do we take from that field what we want or need but our individual experience of consciousness also contributes to its collective growth.
And it is that dynamic that makes us part of the “Oneness of All.”
To share a contrasting view point, there is a more mechanistic view of consciousness where according to Mr. Fenwick, “Consciousness is secreted by the brain, and therefore is a product of the brain.”
Do I have any definitive answers on the location of consciousness? No, they are more opinions or intuitive feelings and observations. Then why do I bring all of this up?
Well, it is not to try and sound smart as I can get overwhelmed easily in these philosophical discourses and risk melting the very brain cells I need to filter this discussion. It is because I feel the topic plays a key role in understanding what is a conscious life as well as what is a conscious death.
And thus, I have made this the first blog.
So I want to leave you with this question:
Have you ever thought where the data files of your life are stored?
Are they just in your brain and then if so, when you die they die with you?
Or are they in fact part of a greater field of consciousness outside of your body?
And maybe the only thing actually in your brain are the working files?
Play with the idea. Have fun with it.
How you answer this question will in part impact how you view living a conscious life and a conscious death. As we explore the topic on this site, I want you to know I am still a student as much as I am a teacher. And I love being a student.
There is an enormous amount of information available today: books, lectures, and talks from great thinkers all around the world.
I hope you will get curious about what it means to live a conscious life and to have a conscious death and add your awareness to the field of knowledge for the oneness of all. Here are a few suggestions to get you started.