What is so mysterious about human consciousness?

[GliderGuider]

57. A couple of thoughts about meditation

First, let me comment about language. In this area we're all largely making it up as we go along. In our culture there aren't a lot of common words to describe these things yet, so I find we rely a lot on metaphor. Precision of definitions is an idea that belongs to the analytical outer world, not this inner place of experience and synthesis.

Now, on to meditation.

Don’t worry about particular techniques. There are hundreds of ways to go about it, and they all eventually lead to the same place. It doesn't take long to learn the basics - half an hour of teaching will get you started. I prefer a very simple approach that lets me meditate for as long as I have available, pretty much anywhere. It just involves relaxing, turning my attention inward, and simply observing whatever is going on in my body, thoughts and feelings in the moment without trying to change anything (that last bit is really important). Sometimes I close my eyes, but with a bit of practice I don't even need to do that.

Trying to "stop your thoughts" or "empty the mind" can actually be counterproductive. We each have between 50,000 and 80,000 thoughts per day, our brain excretes thoughts like our glands excrete hormones. We can't stop thinking. The state of "Tabula Rasa" is impossible, and trying to achieve it can get you caught in a spiral of expectations and self-blame when it doesn't work.

What I do instead is to imagine that I am standing at a street corner watching the traffic. I see each of my thoughts as a car that pulls up in front of me. I have a choice - I can either get in and let it take me away, or I can let it drive off on its own. I simply watch them and let them all drive off.

And if I don't let one drive off without me - if I notice that I've gotten into a particularly interesting sports car of a thought and I've been driving it around for the last few minutes - when I notice what has happened I simply resume my place on the corner, watching. No blame is attached to that - it's simply a part of being human. It gets easier with time, which is why it's called "a practice".

BTW, some people use the feeling of their breath flowing in and out of the tip of their nose as a focus point, some use repeated phrases called mantras, some focus on visual objects - and some simply sit and do nothing special at all beyond being aware of what they're doing. You'll find what works for you in due course, so don't worry about technique too much at the beginning.

I think your idea of "Universal Relativity" is a perfect entry point to this place.You already have a solid conceptual grounding of how it is.

One of the things I've picked up recently from my reading of disreputable theoretical phycists is that there is in fact no "there" out there (and in fact there's not even an "out there&quot . It's all a quantum field. That means that even our perceptions are just telling us stories about some imagined reality. From that point of view, thinking about the universe and consciousness the way you do seems perfectly reasonable to me.