“Consciousness” (SB 3.26.3)

TRANSCRIPT:  Srimad-Bhagavatam, Canto 3, Chapter 26, Text 3. “Consciousness.” Alachua – 1997 / (036)

[Text 3]

The Supreme Personality of Godhead is the Supreme Soul, and He has no beginning. He is transcendental to the material modes of nature and beyond the existence of this material world. He is perceivable everywhere because He is self-effulgent, and by His self-effulgent luster the entire creation is maintained. 

Purport by Śrīla Prabhupāda: 

The Supreme Personality of Godhead is described as being without beginning. He is puruṣa, the Supreme Spirit. Puruṣa means “person.” When we think of a person in our present experience, that person has a beginning. This means that he has taken birth and that there is a history from the beginning of his life. But the Lord is particularly mentioned here as anādi, beginningless. If we examine all persons, we will find that everyone has a beginning, but when we approach a person who has no beginning, He is the Supreme Person. That is the definition given in the Brahma-saṁhitā. Īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ: the Supreme Personality of Godhead is Kṛṣṇa, the supreme controller; He is without beginning, and He is the beginning of everyone. This definition is found in all Vedic literatures.

The Lord is described as the soul, or spirit. What is the definition of spirit? Spirit is perceivable everywhere. Brahman means “great.” His greatness is perceived everywhere. And what is that greatness? Consciousness. We have personal experience of consciousness, for it is spread all over the body; in every hair follicle of our body we can feel consciousness. This is individual consciousness. Similarly, there is superconsciousness. The example can be given of a small light and the sunlight. The sunlight is perceived everywhere, even within the room or in the sky, but the small light is experienced within a specific limit. Similarly, our consciousness is perceived within the limit of our particular body, but the superconsciousness, or the existence of God, is perceived everywhere. He is present everywhere by His energy. It is stated in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa that whatever we find, anywhere and everywhere, is the distribution of the energy of the Supreme Lord. In Bhagavad-gītā also it is confirmed that the Lord is all-pervading and exists everywhere by His two kinds of energy, one spiritual and the other material. Both the spiritual and material energies are spread everywhere, and that is the proof of the existence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

The existence of consciousness everywhere is not temporary. It is without beginning, and because it is without beginning, it is also without end. The theory that consciousness develops at a certain stage of material combination is not accepted herein, for the consciousness which exists everywhere is said to be without beginning. The materialistic or atheistic theory stating that there is no soul, that there is no God and that consciousness is the result of a combination of matter is not acceptable. Matter is not beginningless; it has a beginning. As this material body has a beginning, the universal body does also. And as our material body has begun on the basis of our soul, the entire gigantic universal body has begun on the basis of the Supreme Soul. The Vedānta-sūtra says, janmādy asya. This entire material exhibition — its creation, its growth, its maintenance and its dissolution — is an emanation from the Supreme Person. In Bhagavad-gītā also, the Lord says, “I am the beginning, the source of birth of everything.”

The Supreme Personality of Godhead is described here. He is not a temporary person, nor does He have a beginning. He is without a cause, and He is the cause of all causes. Paraḥ means “transcendental, beyond the creative energy.” The Lord is the creator of the creative energy. We can see that there is a creative energy in the material world, but He is not under this energy. He is prakṛti-paraḥ, beyond this energy. He is not subjected to the threefold miseries created by the material energy because He is beyond it. The modes of material nature do not touch Him. It is explained here, svayaṁ-jyotiḥ: He is light Himself. We have experience in the material world of one light’s being a reflection of another, just as moonlight is a reflection of the sunlight. sunlight is also the reflection of the brahmajyoti. 

[5:14]

Similarly, brahmajyoti, the spiritual effulgence, is a reflection of the body of the Supreme Lord. This is confirmed in the Brahma-saṁhitā: yasya prabhā prabhavataḥ. The brahmajyoti, or Brahman effulgence, is due to His bodily luster. Therefore it is said here, svayaṁ-jyotiḥ: He Himself is light. His light is distributed in different ways, as the brahmajyoti, as sunlight and as moonlight. Bhagavad-gītā confirms that in the spiritual world there is no need of sunlight, moonlight or electricity. The Upaniṣads also confirm this; because the bodily luster of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is sufficient to illuminate the spiritual world, there is no need of sunlight, moonlight or any other light or electricity. This self-illumination also contradicts the theory that the spirit soul, or the spiritual consciousness, develops at a certain point in material combination. The term svayaṁ-jyotiḥ indicates that there is no tinge of anything material or any material reaction. It is confirmed here that the concept of the Lord’s all-pervasiveness is due to His illumination everywhere. We have experience that the sun is situated in one place, but the sunlight is diffused all around for millions and millions of miles. That is our practical experience. Similarly, although the supreme light is situated in His personal abode, Vaikuṇṭha or Vṛndāvana, His light is diffused not only in the spiritual world but beyond that. In the material world also, that light is reflected by the sun globe, and the sunlight is reflected by the moon globe. Thus although He is situated in His own abode, His light is distributed all over the spiritual and material worlds. The Brahma-saṁhitā (5.37) confirms this. Goloka eva nivasaty akhilātma-bhūtaḥ: He is living in Goloka, but still He is present all over the creation. He is the Supersoul of everything, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and He has innumerable transcendental qualities. It is also concluded that although He is undoubtedly a person, He is not a puruṣa of this material world. Māyāvādī philosophers cannot understand that beyond this material world there can be a person; therefore they are impersonalists. But it is explained very nicely here that the Personality of Godhead is beyond material existence

So Śrīla Prabhupāda points out that the Supreme Lord is present everywhere. He points out that Brahman means great and that greatness, the greatness of Brahman, is consciousness. So, what is consciousness? In a couple of places Śrīla Prabhupāda points out that the theory that consciousness is a product of matter cannot be accepted. But of course today that... the theory that consciousness comes from matter is very prominent. So, if you analyze, though, our understanding of matter, you can see that it's really very hard to understand consciousness in terms of matter. In fact, in the end, all attempts to do that turn out to be unsuccessful. So an example would be the... that recently a computer was constructed that beat the world chess champion. And people... some people have said, “Well, now at this point only real diehards can continue to maintain that the conscious mind is something nonmaterial.” Because after all, anything that the human mind can do can be reproduced by a computer. In fact, the computer can do more than the human mind.

So one can ask, though, whether the computer that beat the world chess champion was conscious? Certainly, the chess champion was conscious of being beaten. In fact, he was a little bit upset about it. And it's clear that the computer wasn't upset – nobody programmed it to be upset. But could the computer be conscious? One can ask that. There's a bit of a history behind this. It seems that in about 1947, or thereabouts, a British scientist named Alan Turing argued that a computer can think. And he introduced what he called the imitation game. And he said that anything a human can do, a computer could also imitate, to such a degree that you couldn't tell the difference between the action of the computer and the action of the human being. Of course, computers, at least nowadays, don’t look like human beings. 

[10:37]

So, you can imagine a setup in which you have a terminal set up in a room, and you type things into the terminal and you get back answers. And at the other end of the line, either there's a computer or a human being, and the question is: can you decide which is which? And Turing argued that it is perfectly possible that a computer could pass this imitation game, that is, you wouldn't be able to distinguish it from a human being. This is what he argued. So... and people have been arguing this ever since. Of course, the whole idea dates back to earlier times. For example, what is it... a fellow named Mettrie, back in I think the 17th century, wrote a book saying that human beings are machines – the human being is nothing but a machine. And ultimately the human mind is nothing but mechanical action. Quite a few philosophers have supported this idea; but if you look at for example, computers, you can see that there's really no basis for saying that they have consciousness. For example, how did this computer work that beat the world chess champion? Well, we don't know the details but you can understand in principle how it had to work. Basically, it just goes through a series of logical steps. For example, if you have a chess piece on the board, to know if it's being attacked by another piece. If you just apply a series of logical steps. For example, is the other piece a bishop? Well if so, is your piece on a diagonal and are there any other pieces in between? If not, then you could be attacked by the bishop. So that's just... those are just logical steps. 

So you can break everything down to a series of logical steps. And basically, the way the program would have to work is it goes through all the different combinations, that is: “Well, could you be attacked by this piece? And could you be attacked by that piece?” And so, on and it goes through all the combinations of moves that you could make. Well, if you move here, then this move could be made in response. And then if that move is made you could move like this and this other move could be made. And the essence of the computer is it can go through these different combinations very rapidly and apply logic. You can eliminate a lot of combinations that you have to test by logical analysis of positions, which you say, “Well, this is a weak position – we don't want to move this way,” and so on. But basically, it's just a matter of systematically going through all the possibilities. So the computer does this using logic. And the logic, you could say, you can analyze that further: how does a computer apply logic? Maybe it has a mind and it can think like people. That's how it applies logic.

Well, not exactly. In computers you have... the logic is expressed in terms of a language. So, you have statements in the language, if this then do that, and so on. But language is just a matter of symbols. So, that still doesn't tell you what the computer does. Well, the... to analyze it further you have to break down what is called the higher-order language into more steps expressed in the lower order language. It's just like if you say: add two numbers together, say 47 and 23, that's a brief way of saying it on a higher-order level. But then to get into the details you'd say: well, add the 7 and the 3 and you get 10, and you carry the 1, and you go through all the details. So the specific little steps would be the same thing expressed on a lower order and that actually does the addition for you. So in the computer you have lower order steps, such as 1 and 1 gives you 0, and carry the 1 – in binary, for example – and so on. 

[15:03]

So, you have a whole bunch of these steps being carried out. And finally, how are the steps carried out? Well, you have... you represent, say, ones and zeros with electricity flowing through a wire or electricity not flowing through a wire. And then you have little gadgets involving transistor circuit junctions. So that, say, if electricity flows through two wires, then it'll flow through the third wire. But if it's flowing through only one of the two wires, or neither of them, then it doesn't flow. And so that represents the logical operation of ‘and’: A and B gives you C, and so on. So ultimately it comes down to a whole bunch of little circuit elements and electricity flowing through wires. And this expresses all these steps, which ultimately give you the result of beating the world chess champion. That's how it breaks down. And of course, the essence of it is in the details. But the question is: well, where would consciousness come into this whole thing? Well, what is really happening is electricity is going through little wires and circuit junctions. Well, suppose you have some electricity flowing through a wire. Does that produce consciousness? Most people would think that it doesn't. But you might say, just for the sake of argument, just to be really perverse about it, that yes, electricity flowing through a wire somehow produces consciousness. But then there's the question: well, consciousness of what? If you just have electricity flowing through a wire, well, maybe it's consciousness of flowingness or something. It's hard to say what it would be, but certainly not consciousness of playing chess.

So, suppose you have all these little wires and little circuit junctions and electricity is flowing through them in different patterns. So, some electricity is flowing here and some isn't flowing in this wire at the moment and some is flowing over in this one. All this together makes up the whole computer. Why does that combine to create consciousness of playing chess? For example, if I'm playing chess, I know: well, I'm playing chess. And I know what I'm doing, I'm thinking about it, and so on. I'm conscious of that. But the sum total of many little consciousnesses of electricity flowing in wires, whatever those consciousnesses are, why should that add up to the consciousness of playing chess? Now we can see why all the little logical steps add up to the logical result of moving the pieces on the chessboard. That you can understand because you can just follow it out step by step and it's just like adding numbers. You get the end result. So, it works mechanically in that way. But there's no reason to think that there's any consciousness of it. And even that assumption that a wire with electricity flowing in it somehow produces consciousness of flow or something, it's an entirely arbitrary assumption. I mean there's nothing about a wire, there's nothing about electrons, that would in any way justify the idea that consciousness is associated with that. 

In fact, you can analyze fully the complete operation of the computer without even bringing in the concept of consciousness. If you do bring it in, it's a completely artificial thing that you've dragged into the picture. So basically, if you fully analyze what the computer does, you'll see there's no basis for saying that there's consciousness there. So, what about the human? Now we know that, let's say Kasparov, or whatever his name is, was conscious. At least if you ask him, he'll say that he's conscious. Of course, that's a problem. You could program a computer to say that it's conscious. So you type into the computer, “Are you conscious?” And it types back, “Of course I'm conscious. Aren't you?” So, you can program that. But that doesn't mean that it is conscious. So how do we know that Kasparov is conscious? Well, this is not… actually, philosophers have a name for this – they call it the problem of other minds. How can you know that there are other minds? All you know is your own mind. All the other minds are a mere assumption. So you could take the position of solipsism and assume that your mind is the only conscious mind and that all the others are just mechanical, or something like that. 

[20:00]  

But then again, it's reasonable to think that that if I'm conscious and other beings are like me, then they're probably conscious too. It only makes sense. But still we don't understand consciousness. Now the whole analysis that I went through for the computer, you can also apply to the brain, because the general idea nowadays is that consciousness is due to the brain. And in fact, there's a very strong argument that people give for that. They say, “Well, damage somebody's brain and it interferes with the operation of his mind. Wipe out his brain completely and the person ceases to be conscious. So, doesn't that prove that consciousness is caused by the brain?” Seems to definitely prove it. But then again, that's like saying that if you wipe out somebody's hard disk on their computer, and the person is then unable to do things using the computer– they can't operate their word processor anymore and so forth – then from that you could conclude that actually their consciousness resides in the computer, by the same line of reasoning. So saying that brain damage affecting the mind proves that the consciousness is generated within the mind, is just like saying the same thing with regard to the computer. So... and if you apply the this analysis to the brain, that I applied to the computer, you can go step-by-step: break down the brain into neurons, and look at nerve impulses traveling down axons, and so on and so forth. And again, the question is: where do you find the consciousness? Basically, you won't find consciousness anywhere in the brain. But yet consciousness exists. 

So, this is actually a great mystery. What is consciousness? And in what sense does that exist? So the Bhāgavatam, of course, is saying that this consciousness is fundamental and it exists without beginning. It is, of course, this idea of fundamental that is important. The opposite to that is the concept of reductionism. You can reduce your understanding of one thing to your understanding of something else. For example, you could reduce your understanding of addition to the understanding of the specific rules: apply the addition table to this column and then carry the number over it and so on and so forth. So you can reduce that down to something more basic. But some things are irreducible even within physics; for example, you have the idea of the electron, which has electric charge. Well, what is electric charge? As far as the physicists are able to say, electric charge is simply irreducible. It's a fundamental thing – you can't break it down into something less. So similarly, consciousness is actually an irreducible element of reality. So that much you can basically understand by introspection and careful thinking about the operation of material phenomena. Beyond that though, it is stated here that there is a universal consciousness. Now it turns out that people actually have experience of this. Śrīla Prabhupāda said in several places, and also the verse says, that the consciousness of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is perceived everywhere. Of course, many people are in... not in a state of consciousness which enables them to perceive this. But nonetheless, it is possible to perceive universal consciousness everywhere and many people do have experience of this. It requires, actually, for the person to go into an altered state of consciousness. 

Interestingly enough, this can be brought about by disruption of our ordinary material consciousness. For example, there are the out-of-body experiences in which a person has a heart attack or something like that. And they experience entering into this realm of light in which they are surrounded by universal knowledge, so they report. So there are experiences of that nature, and it turns out that many people have these experiences without having to go through some physical trauma; they just spontaneously have the experience. Then again there are yogis who seek this kind of experience by various processes of yoga and so forth. So there is a universal consciousness, which apparently you can tap into, and this universal consciousness is associated with light and universal knowledge. And so that is there, and that is one aspect of God, which is being described in this verse. So those are a few observations. Let's see, I guess I’ll stop there. Are there any questions or comments? Yeah? 

[25:57]

Question:  [unclear]

Answer:  The question is: out-of-body experiences seem to happen to unqualified people and they don't seem to get much out of them on the average. So how can that be explained in terms of the Bhāgavatam, which would certainly assign great importance to realization of universal consciousness and so forth? Well apparently, these kinds of experiences are fairly common and it is more or less our own cultural conditioning that limits our awareness of these things. But research that has been done to investigate different kinds of religious experiences, for example, show that large numbers of people report experience of something that sounds very similar to Brahman. This is paralleled by the out-of-body experiences, which also are reported by large numbers of people. So, it would appear that some degree of access to the Brahman universal consciousness is fairly easy to attain. Now the question though is, well, how do people respond to this? If people are heavily conditioned by the modes of material nature, then what you find is that if they do have some brief transcendental experience, that tends to then be overwhelmed by their material conditioning, and so they fall back into their normal material pattern of activity. So a more exalted person would be one who could take advantage of the transcendental experience and also remain on a transcendental platform on a more permanent basis. 

But even for people who are heavily conditioned, it appears that transcendental experience, at least briefly, is possible. Of course, we see the same thing in terms of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. A person can come in off the street and have an amazing transcendental experience of Kṛṣṇa consciousness in the Temple, let's say, or Ratha-yātrā, or something like that, which might totally transform their life. But then again, they might fall back into material conditional activity again, in some cases fairly quickly. But then again, you may find that there's a lasting effect. Studies have been made of people experiencing these out-of-body experiences and the reports indicate that people tend to become more spiritual, more philosophically inclined, and so forth, after these experiences. For example, there's a psychologist named Kenneth Ring, I think at University of Connecticut, who's done a lot of studies along these lines. So apparently transcendental experience is available to people in general, but how people respond to it depends on how conditioned they are, and how prepared they are to come up to a higher level of consciousness. So, any other questions? Yeah?

[30:01]

Q:  [unclear]

A:  Yes. 

Q:  [unclear]

A:  Well, I suppose there's not necessarily a contradiction there. 

Q:  [unclear]

A:  Oh, he said, he understands the moon is a fiery planet. And Śrīla Prabhupāda said here that the moon reflects the sun. Well, of course, I'm only aware of really one place where Śrīla Prabhupāda said the moon was fiery, namely in the Fifth Canto where he refers to the kuśa grass in Kuśadvīpa, and... which is referred to as being like cool flames. And he refers to cool flames on the moon. But in many places he has referred to the moon reflecting the light of his sun also. So, perhaps both are true. After all he does refer here to the sun reflecting the brahmajyoti and we regard the sun as a fiery planet. So, also it would appear that there are different meanings to the word ‘reflection’ here, because for example, the idea of the moon reflecting the sun is that you have this inert sphere sitting here, and light from the sun is coming here and bouncing off, and then we see the light. But in the case of the sun reflecting the brahmajyoti, it's not that you think that the brahmajyoti is like a flood... searchlight beam and the sun is sitting here, and the brahmajyoti is reflecting from it. Clearly something different is meant there by ‘reflection.’ In fact, how does that work? Why doesn't... since the brahmajyoti is everywhere, why isn't the brahmajyoti reflecting off these walls as brilliantly as it does from the sun, in which case you couldn't even look at the walls? So there has to be some special arrangement for the sun to extract power from the brahmajyoti and radiate that as visible light. So there are different meanings to ‘reflection.’ He also has said in the purport the brahmajyoti is a reflection of the Supreme Person. That seems to be yet another meaning of reflection. So, yeah? 

Q:  [unclear]

A:  Yeah. 

Q:  [unclear] 

A:  Right.

Q:  [unclear]

A:  “How is it that matter has a beginning?” is the question. It would appear that you'd have to interpret ‘matter’ there to mean ‘matter in a fully developed state,’ because matter goes through different stages of development from prādhana to mahat-tattva and so on up to earth, air, fire, water, and ether and so on. So, matter in its fully transformed state has a beginning, but that is that beginning would be the point at which it becomes developed from prādhana. And then again, it can be transformed back into prādhanan again by reversing the process of development. So, matter that is being referred to there would have to be developed matter.