Why You are not the Brain

You've seen your face in the mirror, you've felt your heart beating, and when you're breathing hard you've even felt your lungs. But it may seem that you've never felt your own brain; the center of what you are according to modern beliefs.

But this is not as it seems.

Everything that you have ever experienced in this life has been the brain activity.

What are you experiencing right now.

So what you thought was your heart beating, or the feeling of your own breath, is actually the experience of brain activity. Certain bits of that activity.

So if the brain is the organ on which this activity is taking place, by what organ do you know the brain activity?

And initially you might question whether the brain could experience itself. Many believe so these days. But isn't this mixing up cause and effect?

If the brain is the medium on which brain activity takes place; the substrate, it's part of the cause.

The activity is the effect.

And then there's a third layer. The layer where there is experience. The activity is experienced.

So the cause cannot know the effect.

When you know brain activity, you do not rely on any external organ, or anything external at all. You rely on this quality of being present and aware.

And whatever you are, it is inseparable from this quality. Because you can imagine having a different body, transferring yourself somewhere else, but you cannot imagine existing if you take away the quality of being present and aware.

So what is it that has this quality of being present and aware? It is you of course.

But what are you?

Now, this is not meant to go against what science is saying.

You see, when science describes the brain, describes different parts of it, it doesn't go so far as to claim that a certain part is conscious and observing the rest of the brain activity. That is still an unknown. It has not been proved where consciousness resides.

But everyone's going around believing that consciousness resides in this body.

Most often now it's being believed it's in the brain. But is this really true? Because all these neurons, individually, do not seem to have the quality of being conscious. They are the substrate, as we've defined, the medium on which brain activity takes place.

And that activity is being experienced. So there is clearly another factor in play here.

And to make this clearer you've got to take yourself out of the picture. Take out your individual self from the picture and then consider.

Say you see a flock of birds flying in the sky. Just consider the flock of birds. Clearly there are different birds there, different brains in there. And each bird has its associated stream of experience.

So, the brain activity in each case is giving rise to a subjective world. And each subjective world depends on the instrument of observation. A bird's world will be quite different to a human world. Birds can see in ultraviolet, so the colors will be quite different.

They can hear frequencies humans cannot hear, so there would be new kinds of sounds. Music. And, of course, the thoughts and range of experience themselves would be quite different.

But underlying all these subjective worlds, there is a common factor. Because it cannot be denied that all these birds in this flock are equally conscious.

That each brain activity is giving rise to a subjective world, or a mind. And it is that world; that mind, being observed.

And that common factor which allows for experience to arise is consciousness. It's a factor that is built into the nature of Reality.

It's not inside any particular body or brain. It is what allows brain activity to be experienced.

But the term consciousness is used in a few different ways, which makes it a bit ambiguous and confusing. There's also consciousness the state; the state where there is experience.

So let's call this common factor, simply, Sentience.

Where there is Sentience, only then there can be the state of experience.

And even if the brain goes to sleep, the activity subsides, and experience is not there, Sentience is still there. Because as soon as the activity begins again, experience re-emerges; is known.

So now, bring yourself back into the picture. What is your role here in this life? Are you not the one experiencing all this?

What you're experiencing is the brain activity.

So you are the Sentience here, quite clearly. And the rest is just what is being observed, through this instrument of this body and mind.

And if you look at it this way, see at the very core of the mind is this sense of being; sense of existence, that's always there as the basis of all experience. The sense that I am.

And that is why it is referred to reverently. When you meditate, or you go around your day, if you put your attention on this sense of being, you're moving closer to the truth. The truth of what you are.

And you're living life in a kind of ease, from a sense of contentment and certainty, a knowledge of your true identity.

It changes the whole game here.

Once you detach from the idea of being this individual body or mind, you are universal. You are filled with love. You see beauty everywhere.

Because now you're looking not through the lens of this particular instrument, but as the Reality behind all these instruments. The Reality that gives them life, that loves and experiences life.

So that is why it is important to understand what Consciousness truly is. What is truly conscious.

And question your beliefs, question the idea that you understand all this, that you are this body or this brain or this mind.

And think for yourself, if this brain activity is what is being experienced, if all these colors here right now, these sounds, these emotions, sensations, all of it is the reflection of the underlying activity, with what instrument are you observing the activity? With what means?

Is it something separate to you?

Is Sentience or Consciousness something separate to you?

Or is it what You truly are, quite clearly and obviously.