You Are Awareness of the Awareness
Not the limited body-mind
Photo by Jose A.Thompson on Unsplash
With the advent of AI, we have reached a crucial stage in which interest in awareness has gained tremendous impetus. Scientists, technologists, neurologists, engineers, and even the general public are now delving into this mystery.
Humans are progressing in AI technologies with new capabilities being unlocked by the hour. To such a great extent, these machines could now mimic humans, and in some cases, they surpass their human counterparts by flying colours.
AI can do all of these without any awareness. It performs all sorts of transactions without the slightest hint of being conscious. And the modern disciplines still haven’t reached a conclusive answer to what awareness is, and how it is generated?
However, Ancient philosophers, saints, and seers have delved into this subject to an unfathomable depth. They have revealed the mysteries of consciousness through volumes of work in the Vedas, Upanishads, and Suttas.
The core of these revelations boldly asserts that existence itself is consciousness. The reader, the writer, and everything that exists near and far is nothing but that One consciousness. You are the awareness of the awareness. To understand it is thus tantamount to inquiring about the self.
Awareness of the first degree
Awareness is the first-person experience of all our sensory activities, including the mental ones. When we see, smell, taste, hear, or touch an object, we realise we are experiencing it. Even when there is a thought, we have the moment-to-moment knowledge of that experience.
Let’s say you observe a tree. The reflected light from the tree enters your eyes and forms an image. Intelligence compares it with memory to render its verdict of identifying it as a tree. Apart from performing this transaction, the mind also realises its involvement in this experience. There is a first-person experience with regards to allocation of resources, the systematic flow of information, etc., thus giving rise to a feeling of a doer.
An AI camera also operates similarly. The OS or the kernel, which can be referenced as the mind of the machine, has the knowledge and acknowledgement of the activities. It has to coordinate its involvement in the process; otherwise, synchronised functionality is impossible. The machine does all of that without any personal feeling of doership.
The experience as a subject or a doer of the activities is what makes one sentient. In humans, while the mind becomes aware of the activities of the eye and its concerned objects, there is also a simultaneous realisation of the doership. We haven’t developed any mechanisms so far to make the machines realise their doership. Whether it can be artificially built or not is a separate topic of discussion.
Awareness of the Awareness
This can be better understood with an example. Imagine that while working, you got an unpleasant message from your friend. You sat down, and disapproving thoughts started playing in your mind. When you turned your head towards the right, you saw your face in a mirror and acknowledged that it was frowning.
There is a first-degree awareness of the frown on the face, where your attention is grabbed, and you probably start to adjust your expression. Apart from that, there is also a second degree awareness of you becoming aware of your facial expression.
This subtle difference between ordinary awareness and self-awareness becomes accessible when one is mindful. Your mind experiences the facial expressions as a first-person enactment. It is as if the mind is performing the entire act, and you, as a subject, become one with the mind. At that moment, there is no difference between what the mind experiences and you being a subject.
Yet, there is even a subtler experience where you, as a subject identified with the mind, engrossed in the enactment of observing facial expression, are being experienced. The question remains if you, as the subject, are already engaged in experiencing the contents of the mind, then who else is experiencing this subject?
Note: AIs do not have the awareness of the first degree yet, let alone the question of this second-degree awareness.
Thou art you
Advaita Vedanta (non-dual Vedanta) contains the answer to this age-old conundrum. It declares the real YOU, i.e. the subject of all your experiences, is the awareness of the awareness. YOU are the ultimate witness of the secondary you experiencing the contents of the mind and all activities.
This secondary you is nothing but an abstract creation(imagination) of the mind, which associates itself with its creator and its byproduct, i.e. the body. It is an illusory entity deriving its power from the real subject (YOU) and in the process veils it.
YOU are in reality the existence itself. And the nature of existence is consciousness. Whatever exists, YOU are conscious of it. You know everything within eye range, and you don’t know all the things outside of it. But YOU are conscious that you still don’t know about those things. Anything YOU are not conscious of (excluding things already known and not known) doesn’t exist.
YOU are, therefore, existence-consciousness and not the tiny body-mind. YOU are, therefore, the limitless undecaying subject, who is simply witnessing all this drama of the mind(s). YOU are also not many, but the one existence-consciousness that appears to be different entities to itself. The difference only exists at the level of secondary you(s)/egos, once that is transcended, YOU is realised.
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