Take a good look in the mirror
Re: “Atheism requires just as much faith as religious belief”, Have Your Say, March 26.
Veteran philosopher Mr Bahrt wakes up in the morning and, looking in the mirror, sees a tube of toothpaste, complete with cap and wearing a T-shirt that has Eric printed on it. “Ahh, that’s me he thinks, unscrews the cap, squeezes a moment, and seeing in the mirror (required because the orifice is inconveniently located) a pile of goop, thinks, “Oh, that’s mine.” As the goop, comprised of thoughts, emotions, speech, excrement and mucus floats away, he writes, “How can nature, which has no consciousness, have so much wisdom?”
Then he finds proof for his construct by thinking, “If I get punched in the nose it will hurt me.” That goop is mine he remembers and returns to look in the mirror to reassure himself that “Eric” is still imprinted there. “Ahh.”
So, Mr Bahrt, I must ask, are you the goop inside the tube while it remains inside and not the goop when it has left the tube, or perhaps you are only the skin-like tube and cap? Or are you the T-shirt with a name on front?
Your wonderment at nature is well placed, but you have got the wording confused when you say, “Nature has no consciousness.”
Nature arises in consciousness like the illusory, tubey you that appears in the mirror. Every aspect of the always-changing natural world appears in the mirror of consciousness, which itself never changes. Thus consciousness has no nature. Or, in other words, you are not the body-mind self, not the tube, the goop, or the shirt; you are the witness of all, the mirror of consciousness itself.
This is an ancient understanding and does not conform to the categories of atheism, theism or agnosticism, but rather stands alone and is revealed as self-evident to those who would carefully examine the features of existence.
Michael Setter
Chon Buri
