The Ego and Consciousness

Consciousness is a quantum field of potential. It appears to have no movement or direction of its own. The movement and direction are there but so subtle that they appear to be not there. Out of consciousness there arises ego and the ego could be said to be so subtle that although it appears to be there it is not. Where there is a body there is consciousness. All creatures have consciousness and when the body dies so does consciousness. The new-born child without any experience or knowledge knows what it wants. The child wants to be in a state of equilibrium, it wants to be fed, clothed and cared for although it thinks about none of this. Consciousness allows the child to know when these needs are not met and then allows the child to communicate with its parents so that these needs are met. As the child grows its needs change and at every stage of development the needs of the child may or may not be met and they are met or not met to varying degrees. When the child’s needs are not met the child experiences and remembers this as suffering. To compensate for this suffering the child and later the adult begins to deploy a strategy to control suffering. This strategy is usually referred to as desire but I prefer the word ‘want’. Unfortunately this ability to want can also be used to want what we do not want. Wanting something we actually do not want means we want something that we are not in full agreement with. There are many things we can want that we are not in full agreement with such as food when we eat too much or alcohol when we drink too much. What we want is what we have got, not what we wish we had. What we want and what we have is made manifest by consciousness. As I said consciousness is a quantum field of potential; which means that what we want is received by consciousness in a literal sense. We want to eat too much so consciousness allows us to do this the fact that we are not in full agreement with this want means that we will suffer. Suffering is our guide; it tells us what it is we are not in full agreement with. If we observe closely when we suffer there comes a time when we begin to move towards full agreement with what we want. There can be no suffering when we are in full agreement with what we want.