The Core Truth of Mysticism

Why subjective idealism is key to understanding the theology of mysticism

The most fundamental and basic thing we have knowledge of is that of our subjective experience, our point of view, our perspective on the world. Every sight, every sound, every feeling, every thought, every emotion—all of these experience our done from a particular subjective perspective. This subjective perspective is what we mean by “inner experience” or “consciousness.”

The scientific dogma of materialism/physicalism/naturalism says that consciousness is either “generated” by matter, “emerges from” matter, is identical to matter, and/or is a function of matter. In the most extreme theory, which I used to believe, materialists will say consciousness doesn’t exist at all, and that there is no such thing as “inner experience”—it’s matter all the way down. The key point of this worldview is that matter is the fundamental ontological primitive and consciousness is derived out of matter and or is just a complex arrangement of matter.

In contrast, the core truth of mysticism from across all spiritual and religious traditions is precisely the opposite: consciousness is the fundamental ontological primitive and matter is a manifestation of consciousness.

This does not mean that my limited perspective on the world as seen from my eyeballs and heard from my ears is the foundation of the universe. That is solipsism.

Rather, the claim is not there is an impersonal, universal, all-pervasive Consciousness that is the ontological foundation of not just my personal consciousness but your personal consciousness as well, as well as all the “little” consciousnesses that exist in the universe, and indeed, is the ontological foundation for all of matter and energy that exists.

To use a common metaphor, this impersonal, universal, eternal, all-pervasive Consciousness is a Giant Dreamer and all the multifaceted particularities of the universe, including individual personal consciousnesses and all the particularities of tables, chairs, rocks, and trees, these are all dreams in the Great Mind of the Universal Consciousness.

Another common word to describe this Great Mind, this Giant Dreamer, is God.

Just as when we dream at night, we dream up vast dream worlds with space and time and multifaceted particularities, so too the Universal Consciousness dreams up a vast dream world (“the universe”) which includes many places, people, and things. This vast dream world includes the personal worlds of our own inner experience.

The secret wisdom of the Perennial Philosophy, the Great Truth of Spirituality, is that we ourselves, in our deepest, truest Self, is absolutely identical to this great Universal Consciousness. Indeed, there are, ultimately and at the absolute level, not two things: the Universal Consciousness and little ole me. There is only one true reality: Universal Consciousness.

The whole path of spirituality is slowing removing our ignorance wherein we cognize ourselves to be distinct from this eternal, Universal Consciousness that is all-pervasive. And since it is all-pervasive that means I am all-pervasive. It means that I am the same as you. The same as my dog. As the tree in my yard. As the entire night sky. 

When we remove the ignorant belief that we are separate from everything else we come to a startling realization: We are this Universal Consciousness, and so is everything else. And thus, in conclusion, we can conclude that all is One. And what is the nature of this One True Reality? It is pure consciousness, which has always existed and always will exist. In removing this ignorance and realizing our true nature as The One Universal Consciousness, we realize we lack absolutely nothing for we are absolutely everything, and thus we realize true peace, true bliss.

But where is this Universal Consciousness? The Church of Science says: can I measure it? Can I touch it? Can I point it out as a “thing” or “kind of stuff” in the way that I can point to the various objects in my experienced world?

This is a fundamental category mistake. Since Universal Consciousness is inner experience in its purest form, and by its very nature inner experience is not an object that can be grasped or cognized like we can grasp and cognize about trees and rocks and other objects, we cannot grasp or cognize Universal Consciousness as if were just another object or another “thing.”

It is not a thing. It is that which experiences things. It is not an object. It is that which experiences objects. It is not a kind of stuff. It is that by which the very experience of stuff is possible.

To use an analogy, consider your eye, which sees. This act of seeing involves a perspective, a point of view. Can the eye look at itself? No, it is that which makes looking possible. But can’t you see your eye in a mirror? When you look at a mirror, you are seeing a reflection of your eye, but you are not seeing the eye itself looking at the reflection as you look at the reflection. To use Alan Watt’s famous phrase, it is like asking the teeth to bite themselves. 

Since “inner experience” by definition involves a point-of-view, a perspective, it is subjective. But for subjectivity to exist, there must be a subject for whom there is something-it-is-like to be a subject, something-it-is-like to have an experience. In other words, in order for there to be consciousness, there must be a conscious subject that experiences the experience. But the subject is not an object. You can’t point to a subject the same way you can point to a thing. The subject is the experiential awareness that lights up the object of experience.

So asking, “Where is this Great Univeral Consciousness? Point it out to me.” is a category error. When someone says that, they are having a thought. Consciousness is that which thinks the thought. When they are looking around for the Universal Consciousness in this or that place, consciousness is that which is experiencing the looking. When they place their ear to the ground to listen for Consciousness, consciousness is the subject that hears. 

And since The One Truth says that the Universal Consciousness is all that exists, that entails that ultimately, all of reality is inside. All of reality is inner experience. What we think of as the “objective world outside of our heads” is in fact an appearance inside the Great Mind of the Universal Consciousness. To use the dream metaphor, the “objective outside world” is in reality an experiential reality inside the dream-world of the Dreamer. The fundamental “stuff” the world is made of is subjective. The world is not made of “matter.” It is made out of consciousness itself!

But how can we account for the regularity of Nature? How can we account for the idea that if my friend and I are both looking at the sunset, the regularity and objectivity of the sun is independent of whatever beliefs or opinions either one of us has about it?

This is tricky to realize, but just because the fundamental stuff of reality is the inner conscious experience of a Great Universal Mind that thereby doesn’t entail that the “dream world” of this Great Mind has no “inner logic.” Just as our own dreams have a kind of inner logic, the “inner logic” of the Great Dreamer’s Dream that is our universe has a regularity and logic that corresponds to precise mathematical and logical beauty.

However, because reality is ultimately a Dream in the Mind of a Great Dreamer, we have far less trouble accounting for the mind-boggling mathematical elegance of reality of the world we experience. On the materialistic worldview, it is difficult to understand why blind, dumb, random matter would have the perfect, Platonic, mathematical elegance that not only brings physicists and mathematicians to tears but also makes the mathematics of music perfectly awesome in its beauty. It is not surprising that Plato’s theory of Forms was inspired by the mathematics-cult of Pythagoras, who saw the mathematical perfection of music as evidence for divinity. 

Bernardo Kastrup uses the metaphor of whirlpools in a stream. My subjective point of view from this body is one whirlpool in the stream of the Great Mind and your subjective point of view from your body is another whirlpool in the stream. Each whirlpool is a “localization” of the overall stream and is made out of the same “stuff” as the stream itself. When I look at your brain I do not “see” your subjectivity just as you cannot “see” my subjectivity.

This is because your physical brain is how your inner experience appears to me from the second-person perspective. Similarly, if I were to open up my own skull and look at my brain with a mirror, I would not “see” my own subjectivity, my subjectivity is what allows me to see the brain in the first place.

But what about the idea of mind-independence? Does this imply that if nobody is perceiving the moon that it would disappear? No. For the Moon is never independent of the mind of the Great Dreamer. And just as when I look at a tree, the greenness of the leaf is subjective quality or “qualia” of my experience, the “Moonness” of the Moon is a subjective quality in the experience of the Great Mind.

Similarly, since the core mystical truth says that my truest Self is identical to the Universal Consciousness, that means that my experience of the greenness of the leaf is the same as the Universal Consciousness’ experience of the leaf. My subjectivity is the Great Mind’s subjectivity. My point of view is the Great Mind’s point of view.

As Meister Eckhart says, “The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.”

But if the Great Mind’s point of view is all-pervasive, extending through the entire universe, why does “my” subjectivity seem so limited? Why does it seem as if I am merely look out from the particular vantage point of the eyeballs in my head, and not some universal perspective on the entire universe?

This is what Indian sages call maya or ignorance. It is merely a forgetting of my true nature that makes me identify with the limitations of my bodily and mental processes, which include those of my eyeballs perceiving from their limited vantage point. From my bodily and mental vantage point, I can only see the laptop I am writing on and all the various items on my desk.

But all these various particularities and limitations of perspective from the Universal point of view are a kind of ignorance. If I could see truly the deepest “layer” of reality, I would see that underlying all my bodily sense impressions, and underlying all my mental perceptions and categorizations, there is but One Single True Reality which is what Vedanta calls Pure Existence-Consciousness-Bliss.

It only seems as if there are all these various distinct items on my desk. In reality, they are all One singular reality: Universal Consciousness, God. It only seems as if I am distinct from all these items on my desk. In reality, the items and my desk are the same.

Sages and mystics from across history and culture have said that it is possible to experience nondual perception such that one’s mind does not make a distinction between me, the subject, “in here” and all those objects, not me, “out there.” With nondual perception the subject-object distinction collapses and the true nature of reality is perceived. That true nature of reality is Ultimate Oneness. Oneness in the great universal, eternal, all-pervasive light of Universal Consciousness. Mystics usually describe these nondual experiences as involving a kind of union with the Absolute or a union with God or a union with the Cosmos.

It is difficult if not impossible to capture what-it-is-like to experience nondual perception in ordinary language, which necessarily by tricks of grammar requires us to think in dualistic categories. I myself have had experiences like this on a handful of occasions, usually thanks to the help of psychedelic drugs such as mushrooms, LSD, and sometimes cannabis. Other mystics say they experience these states of nondual perception during deep states of meditation.

Other mystics describe similar states of nondual being just happening spontaneously, perhaps in response to being out in the awesome wonder of Nature, or in the rapture of love making. In most cases, the experience of nonduality is fleeting. Usually, our dualistic, cognizing mind kicks back into gear and starts to generate the ignorant feeling of “me” in here being distinct from “not-me” out there.

One thing that is helpful to remove this veil of ignorance is to continuously remind oneself that everything is divine and that you are no different from anyone else. This is actually a very pragmatic methodology, for if you are in a traffic jam and some jerk cuts you off, reminding yourself that not only is that person fully divine but that at the ultimate level there is no difference between you and them because you are both One with Ultimate Consciousness, it goes a long way towards instilling a sense of compassion and loving-kindness.

I think this is why Jesus connects the command “love your neighbor as yourself” to the first statement of the Jewish Shema, which says “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Mark 12:29). Recognizing that “the Lord is one” deep in our core will inevitably result in a natural outpouring of ethical behavior.

This works not just with people but with everything. Suddenly you realize that mindlessly treating the Earth as if it was just dead, lifeless matter is a mistake for all the reality is lit up in the Light of Universal Consciousness.

There is no doubt that all of what I am saying is highly non-intuitive thanks to us being steeped in our materialist culture, where we are so used to the idea that our experience is nothing but brain activity. It takes got a lot of “forgetting” to forget these wrong ideas and settle into the deeper truth of nonduality, the deeper truth that ultimately, at the deepest level reality is “made of” the same stuff as our own inner experience, but when we get to the ultimate level of reality, “we” are identical with the Great Universal Mind. Thus, there is no such thing as “my” inner experience, there is only the inner experience of the Great Mind dreaming a vast dream.

In Kastrup’s language, this vast dream of the Great Mind involves a “localization” or dissociation from the universal, all-pervasive perspective which is beyond the limitations of space and time. The Great Dreamer dreamt of creatures having bodies and brains and these brains act as localizing “filters” which filter out the vast universal Consciousness into the particularities of egoic consciousness, which we experience as our limited points of view.

Kastrup also points out that numerous empirical findings in the neurosciences are converging on the idea that when brain activity turns off or is minimized, the “filtering” mechanism gets turned off as well and “we” experiences ourselves as our true nature: a transpersonal universal mind. This is the source of all great mystical experiences. These findings are hard to reconcile with the neural reductionism of materialism, which predicts that the more “dazzling” and varied one’s conscious experience, the more brain excitation one would expect. But in reality, we find that our deepest, most colorful, and more experientially powerful experiences happen when there is the least amount of brain activity.