What is consciousness?
Consciousness means ‘self-awareness’, being aware both that we exist and being aware of what is going on around us, both internally and externally.
Consciousness is a both a very modern word and a very Western idea. Consciousness is what asks the question ‘who am I?’… and then arrogantly answers it. The answer is usually something like ‘I am someone who knows‘, ‘I am someone wants‘, or ‘I am someone who does‘.
Our modern, Western consciousness is based on an equally modern, Western idea: the ego. Consciousness is the ego saying: I perceive, I know, I want, I act, I do. It says: The things I make are the product my own creativity; the experiences I have of the world are the result of my own ability to understand it.
In his ‘Introduction’ to Bhagavad-gītā, Prabhupad directly contradictions this modern, Western idea, saying,
Material consciousness has two psychic divisions. One is that I am the creator, and the other is that I am the enjoyer. But actually the Supreme Lord is both the creator and the enjoyer, and the living entity, being part and parcel of the Supreme Lord, is neither the creator nor the enjoyer, but a cooperator.
Modern, Western consciousness is an experience of the self as lifeless thing, the object of our intellect. Since it rejects the soul in all its forms, this mind-consciousness an experience of estrangement and alienation. We are homeless, and yet, ironically, we look outside ourselves for our home.
Vaishnavism (and other theisms) offers us soul-consciousness, but leaves the soul as an object of the mind. It lets us understand ourselves as spiritual beings, but does not help us to be spiritual.
In prēma-bhakti, the highest form of the self, consciousness of what lies outside our selves falls away because the only ‘self’ is the soul. There is no self that is not soul, there is nothing outside us or inside us that is not already us in our spiritual form. We are part of the Divine, and the Divine is part of us.
We renounce doing simply because there is nothing to do. By this we mean that there is nothing about the mind that can help us to understand who we are as spiritual beings. This can only be felt, lived, and shared.
We recognise that authentic life has nothing to do with calling upon our minds to act on a material reality that is spread out before us for our pleasure. By living fully in our souls, the world around us unfolds itself in simplicity and pure.
Viewer is a way of being. It’s a way of being fully our soul. It’s not relating-to, but a being in. It’s not a relationship to our soul, but a surrendering to the reality that there is nothing else but soul. And that soul is nothing else but (prēma), divine love.
To live as viewer is not to give up answering the questions of the intellect; it is to realise that there are no questions that are not ultimately answered by the heart. It’s not to abandon the search for beauty, but to realise the beauty in what we already are. It’s not to to give up the longing for truth, but to realise that the truth lies right before our eyes. It’s not to renounce the quest for love, but to realise that nothing is not love.