Consciousness is enigmatic at best. It’s easy enough to explain it in self referencing terms, for example, “I think, therefore I am.” But it’s difficult to abstract away from the subject itself to describe what consciousness actually is. I wanted to introduce you to the concept of the record needle.
Imagine for a moment that your life is a record. You are born on the outer edge of the record and you die when the last song plays on the inner edge near the record label. Your whole life is represented by the music across the vinyl.
So what are you?
Are you the record? Yes. But this represents you across all time that you will occupy and have occupied.
Are you the music coming out of the speakers? Yes. But this is really the side effect of your presence.
Are you the record player? Yes, arguably, along with the rest of the universe. You can be seen as both part of the choir and the conductor. Player and played.
But what of your consciousness? Where would this metaphor put your consciousness? The answer is, the record needle.
Your consciousness is actually a tool, or mechanism, through which you are married to the present moment. Your consciousness enables you to experience your life one moment at a time. Without the needle the record would be a collage of random notes and orchestration. You need a linear experience to be able to process and attempt to understand the content.
Without life being presented as a momentary experience, everything would happen at once. There would be a tremendous burst of sight and sound, light and darkness, noise and silence, in an instant and then nothing.
Perhaps that is truly what the big bang is/was/will be. Everything happened all at once. Within that a tool was devised to allow souls to try to understand/experience that flash. How would you try to break down, literally everything, into digestible chunks?
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
Thus comes consciousness, a needle on the record of your life. Allowing you to process this experience linearly.
Namaste,
Kevin