CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS? AND WHAT'S RESPECTABILITY GOT TO DO WITH IT?
By: Troy Sumrall

The subject of consciousness has, in the last twenty years, entered the consciousness of the scientific community with a Big Bang. Naturally, since it’s a subject close to us, namely us, there has been a growing public interest in the discussion. One might hope that with significantly more insight into the mechanics of consciousness, we get more insight into how our thinking is structured physically. It may or may not lead us to a better understanding of thought. I hedge because so far, breaking down the atom into smaller and smaller pieces has not led to the Theory of Everything. Except to the extent that everything is ultimately nothing, just packets of energy and probabilities. Big deal, the Buddhists have known that for two thousand years. What’s the Buddhist version of, “well, duh?” Maybe the scientists should call it the Theory of Nothing.

The point is that understanding neurons and the flow of neurotransmitters in the brain may not explain consciousness any more than understanding the chemical analysis of the paint explains the Mona Lisa.

Part of what we do in reflecting on our brain and thought has to do with trying to get our mind around consciousness. Maybe a place to start is to think about what we aren’t conscious of, the unconscious. One author, Timothy Wilson, calls it the adaptive unconscious. He defines the unconscious as, mental processes that are inaccessible to consciousness but that influence judgments, feelings and behavior.

He goes on to say:
"The adaptive unconscious is an older system designed to scan the environment quickly and detect patterns, especially ones that might pose a danger to the organism. It learns patterns easily but doesn’t unlearn them very well; it is a fairly rigid, inflexible inference-maker. It develops early and continues to guide behavior into adulthood. Rather than playing the role of CEO, the conscious self develops more slowly and never catches up in some respects, such as in the area of pattern detection. It provides a check and balance to the speed and efficiency of non-conscious learning."

Wilson goes on to point out that the development of our brain, conscious and unconscious, is the result of evolution, not engineering design. As a consequence, it is not a perfect or even nearly perfect design. This is easily understood, evolution can only build on the material that’s already there. There is no new organism. Rather, only out of very gradual modifications and occasional mutations does the latest version emerge, we are a perpetual Beta test.  He continues, “The human mind is an incredible achievement, perhaps the most amazing in the history of the Earth. This does not mean, however, that it is an optimal or perfectly designed system. Our conscious knowledge of ourselves can be quite limited, to our peril.”

(Quotes from: Strangers to Ourselves, Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious, Timothy D. Wilson, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002.)

What’s this got to do with Krishnamurti? Only everything.

Freedom From the Known, 1969 by Krishnamurti Foundation, p. 103

What seems to "work” best, I’m trying to steer away from any how to or method, is constantly questioning the thought. To investigate its validity. Krishnamurti calls it awareness, seeing, looking, in the context of not knowing, wanting to find out Which implies questioning, curiosity, not to achieve, to find out for oneself what is false, and letting the truth emerge.

In dialogue there is a recurring theme, a universal inability to get at the core of thought, the thing behind the thing. A kind of frustration that there’s a sense of something deeper, yet it remains murky and inaccessible. After a while, the tendency is to give up, revert to the comfortable familiar. It seems that in order to move past the sticking point, here comes the tricky part, we must persist without method or motive. Is there such a thing as unmotivated determination? Krishnamurti says passive awareness, let’s go with that.

Perhaps, if it weren’t so simple to fall back into the comfortable. If you’re exploring at home, an hour or so of quiet meditation, even every day, is it a free enough setting to peel through all the layers of conditioning, examine each layer, toss it aside, peel the next. Perhaps if you live alone, and don’t have to show up at work the next day or the day after, or ever.

It’s one reason why many people take retreats, sabbaticals. Not vacations, retreat is not vacation. Lots of things happen in retreat, serious retreat. Everything from childlike giddiness to raw terror when faced with the dropping away of self, staring into the void of non-existence. Is it possible, likely, that the kind of depth of observation Krishnamurti talks about is merely a matter of reading a couple of books and a few hours of meditation? A few Hail Marys and everything is right for a while, until it goes wrong again?

It requires enormous energy, not physical energy, but the energy that has never been wasted. Then consciousness can be emptied and when it is emptied one may or may not find there is something more. It is up to oneself. One may like something more to be guaranteed, but there is no guarantee.

Saanen, 5th Question and Answer Meeting, July 27, 1980, on "Consciousness.”

We can fold back now to the unconscious. That bundle of hidden impulses lurking underneath awareness. There is no method to shed these impulses. It’s impossible to prepare for the unknown, because it’s unknown. What is possible then? To examine, question, be aware, with all that implies, of the certainty of bias, judgment and the ease of self delusion. Tall order. Can there be an insight so powerful that it changes the very unconscious, at the root so to speak?

And to find out for oneself requires enormous energy-the energy to break through all beliefs-which does not mean a state of atheism or doubt. But belief is a very comfortable thing, and very few people are willing to shatter themselves inwardly. Belief does not bring you to God. No temple, no church, no dogma, no ritual will bring you to reality. There is that reality. To find that out you must have an immeasurable mind. A petty, small mind can only find its own petty little gods. Therefore we must be willing to lose all our respectability, all our beliefs, to find out what is real.

Paris, 2nd Public Talk, September 7, 1961

Follow this link for a powerful talk on consciousness and the right and left brain:
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

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