Consciousness is generally seen as something that arises within our physical being. But what if we turn that on its head, and say that our physical being arises within consciousness?

Consciousness is always primal and central. It's the portal through which everything must pass. Our sensory perceptions, emotions, thoughts, and memories are only made real to us by our consciousness of them.

So you can take it further and say that consciousness is all there is. I'm conscious of being a body/mind entity, but I have no absolute proof that my body or anything else exists as a physical reality.

I operate according to the default assumption - the things I perceive do actually exist, physically and independently of my consciousness of them. But I can't know that absolutely. All I can know is my consciousness of those things.

Thus I would argue that this mystery called "I" arises within consciousness, and not vice-versa. All I can say about myself with absolute certainty is that I am consciousness, and that all appearances of a physical universe arise within this consciousness.

Is it not the same for you? :)

About the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis 2:17) - it probably has nothing to do with good and evil as such. It's generally thought to be an example of merism: the combination of two contrasting words to refer to an entirety. For example: we searched high and low.It's a literary device that pairs opposite terms together in order to create a general meaning, so that the phrase "good and evil" would simply imply "everything."

"I got interested in philosophy because I had broad academic interests in lots of topics ... physics ... economics ... metaphysics ... ethics ... so when I eventually found philosophy that seemed like it, the core field with connections to all the other fields ... getting a better and more detailed understanding of that big picture of philosophy as a whole, and its relation to other fields, was the most interesting part of studying philosophy."


So you've approached philosophy with the same intellectual rigor that you'd use to approach any other academic discipline, and have sought to find in philosophy a "big picture" which integrates it with other disciplines, if I understand you correctly. Perhaps that's commendable, and it's certainly how philosophy's been approached since way back when.

But you also said you're not finding philosophy much fun any more, and actually I'm not surprised. Your approach seems to treat it just as another academic discipline (correct me if I err). Academia can easily rob us of spontaneity, freshness, and fun. Consider a scientist whose whole world exists under a microscope. When he finally makes it out of his lab each day, he fails to notice the simple beauty of nature around him - the warm sunshine, the flowers - because he's so caught up in his intellectual deliberations.

Most people never see the sun, not really. They see a radiant disc in the sky and label it, dismissively, as "the sun". They don't really see it. Not with the freshness and wonder of a young child, anyway.


" ... what is it that constitutes your interest in philosophy, such that you seek out a forum on the topic?"

My interest in philosophy is directly connected with awe and wonder. Awe and wonder at the miracle of my own being, the miracle of consciousness. It's rapt meditation around that most fundamental of questions: "Who am I?", without any attendant need to intellectualise that question. It's the realisation that intellectual pursuits ultimately get me nowhere, when it comes to that deeper journey into the nature of Self.

It's the realisation that "of making many books there is no end, and much study is wearisome to the flesh." (Ecclesiastes 12:12). It's the realisation, when I move beyond intellectual positioning, of "the peace that passes understanding" (Philippians 4:7). (I hold no particular religious convictions, but find much wisdom in scripture.) It's the contemplation of that still, quiet centre which is the essence of my being.

"I think ... the Eye for an Eye principle is not a contradiction of the Golden Rule. I think Jesus misinterpreted the rule in the Sermon of the Mount and carried it into an altruistic direction that we are still suffering confusion from to this day, by mixing it up with his other cheek and love all teachings."


If Jesus was who he said he was, or even somewhat like that, it's unlikely he would have misinterpreted anything. "Turning the other cheek" doesn't contradict "an eye for an eye". It totally supersedes it. That old law was just a transitory phase. An "eye for an eye" is a pretty unsatisfactory arrangement. Too often ego gets in the way - anger, greed - and people will try to take both your eyes for the one they've lost.

"Turning the other cheek" points to a realisation, a step forward in our spiritual evolution, where ego and the need for vengeance no longer have a place. No need for vengeance, no need for any act that gives rise to vengeance. It's pointing to a higher dimension of our being, one that lies beyond ego.

May we all get there one day.

Let's assume, if we can, an unexamined life is not worth living. But, can one truly examine one's life?

This is where the Advaita gurus might say something like, "Who is examining what?" ...in other words, when you talk about "one" examining "one's" life, who is the "one" who does the examining, actually?

It's that old wisdom about how we're deluded into thinking this seemingly separate, self-determining, egoic self is who we are, and how we lose sight of who we really are at the deepest level - the great I Am, non-dual, undivided.

I'd say that if we examine our lives with that higher awareness of the nature of our being as a starting point, everything changes. :)