We think that conciousness is an attribute which is special to only living & mentally advanced things. Is it true ?
Let us take some amount of sodium chloride. It is solid. It dissolves in water. It has a peculier identifiable taste. Flame test gives a yellow flame. It doesn't readily react with most chemicals etc. So, we can say that Sodium Chloride is concious of being Sodium Chloride & it beahves accordingly as Sodium Chloride should.
Now, Sodium Chloride is a compound made up of two elements : Sodium & Chlorine. Now let's stop here & think. Though Sodium Chloride is made up of Sodium & Chlorine, it's properties are not a mixture of Sodium & Chlorine. So, we can see that there is no existence of Sodium Chloride beyond this point. Sodium knows how to behave as Sodium & Chlorine also knows how to behave like Chlorine but do they know how their own combination shall behave ? Where was the identity of sodium chloride when it was just a sodium atom & a chlorine atom ?
The properties of Sodium Chloride appear with the formation of Sodium Chloride & not before that. The signature of Sodium Chloride must be available somewhere even before Sodium Chloride is born ... otherwise, it appears that it is appearing from no-where suddenly as soon as Sodium Chloride comes into being. Is it in Sodium or in Chlorine or in Protons, Neutrons, Electrons or in quarks & anti-quarks ? If the conciousness of being of Sodium Chloride is finally held by quarks & anti-quarks, it must contain the conciousness of everything on this earth/universe because everything is finally made of these particles.
Does Sodium knows that it is Sodium ? If it doesn't, then why is it looking for elements (like Chlorine) with which it can share its extra Electron to achieve Inert-gas-configuration ? That means, the conciousness of being Sodium is somewhere which is compelling the Sodium Atom to attain Inert-Gas-configuration. It also means that awareness of the theory of trying to achieve Inert-gas-Configuration by atoms must also be present somewhere. If Sodium knows that it is Sodium, this conciousness must be somewhere inside Sodium. So, let's break Sodium ... we get Protons, Neutrons & Electrons ===> New conciousness of these particles have come into being but there is no trace of conciousness of Sodium. Going upto the last particles (quarks & anti-quarks) known to mankind till date, we come to find that the conciousness is attached with Form. As the Form changes so does the conciousness.
Are we going in the right direction ? We have only two options left : i) Either the last (?) form(s) must have conciousness of everything in this universe or ii) Conciousness comes suddenly with Form & dies with Form. If we select first option, we are saying that the tiny particles (of 10^-19 m size) are packed with infinite conciousness of everything in this universe ... which doesn't appear correct as quarks/anti-quarks are not necessarily the last form (we have not been able to go beyond them because of our own limitations) & also that we are trying to pack in infinitely large into something infinitesimally small which doesn't appear logical. The 2nd option, is obviously illogical because "something is coming out of nothing".
So, both the options lead us to nowhere. Are any other options that we have left ? Yes, we missed the option that Conciousness is everywhere .... that the conciousness is not in Sodium Chloride but Sodium Chloride is in Conciousness .... & similarly, Sodium & Chlorine were in Conciousness & like-wise the fundamental particles are in Conciousness & not the other way round. Once we postulate this theory, the entire zig-saw puzzle of conciousness appears solved. The conciousness of Laws of Nature, the signatures of Sodium Chloride, Sodium, Chlorine, fundamental particles are all the time present everywhere ... everything in this universe is completely soaked in conciousness ... we can't separate this infinite conciousness.
The understanding /knowledge of anything is based upon information collected by our sense organs & processed by our mind based upon matching/not-matching with our earlier experience. The knowledge so gained is only relative knowledge/transient knowledge/incomplete knowledge & conditioned knowledge. In fact, every such knowledge is a relative knowledge which refers to other relative knowledge. There is no absolute reference. So, whenever there is a perceiver & a perceived ... there cannot be absolute knowledge.
Therefore, if the conciousness is separate from a "thing" it can have only a relative knowledge of the thing. But Conciousness must "Know Everything" otherwise there would again be problem of having some knowldege which is not accessible to conciousness .... which cannot be.
Therefore, "thing" & conciousness cannot be two different things .... there can be only one solution to this puzzle ..... there is nothing but "Conciousness" which all Is.
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