My journey to understanding the nature of reality began as a rebellious teenage crusade against religion. At sixteen, filled with passionate certainty, I declared myself a militant atheist. Growing up in a Hindu household, I couldn’t fathom how intelligent people could accept what seemed like superstitious thinking about souls, reincarnation, and divine consciousness. I dismissed these ideas as comfortable fictions for those unwilling to face hard truths.
Naturally, I gravitated toward science. Its methodology of systematic doubt and empirical verification promised to reveal the true nature of reality. I dove deep into physics and neuroscience, certain these disciplines would answer the fundamental questions that religion had failed to address: What is the nature of consciousness? What is the relationship between mind and matter? What is reality itself?
But a curious thing happened along the way. Through my explorations of altered states of consciousness - from the dissolving of self in flow states to the reality shattering insights of psychedelic experiences - I encountered phenomena that didn’t fit neatly into the materialist paradigm. These weren’t just interesting psychological effects; they were direct experiences that called into question my most basic assumptions about the nature of reality.
The more I explored these states, the more I became troubled by a glaring blind spot in Western scientific thought. While science had made remarkable progress in understanding the physical universe, it seemed to stumble when confronting consciousness itself. The Hard Problem of Consciousness - how physical processes in the brain could possibly give rise to subjective experience - remained stubbornly resistant to scientific explanation.
This puzzle led me back to the Eastern philosophical traditions I had once dismissed. But this time, I approached them differently - not as religious doctrines to be believed or rejected, but as philosophical frameworks for understanding consciousness and the nature of reality. What I discovered was revolutionary: these traditions weren’t offering supernatural explanations but rather pointing to something so fundamental that I had overlooked it entirely.
Eastern philosophy suggested something radical: What if consciousness isn’t created by the brain? What if consciousness is the foundation of reality itself, and everything else - including brains, bodies, and the physical universe - appears within it? This perspective seemed nonsensical when viewed through my Western scientific lens. But as I learned to temporarily set aside that lens, I began to glimpse a profound truth that would transform my understanding of existence itself.
This essay is an invitation to explore that transformation - to examine the assumptions that shape our perception of reality and to consider a fundamentally different way of understanding consciousness and existence. It’s a journey that will challenge our most basic beliefs about the nature of reality, the self, and consciousness itself. What emerges is not a rejection of science, but a more complete understanding of both the power and limitations of the scientific worldview.
The insights I’ll share aren’t meant to be accepted on faith. Instead, I’ll encourage you to examine your own direct experience, to look carefully at the nature of consciousness itself, and to consider the possibility that what we take to be obvious truths about reality might be more mysterious and profound than we imagine.
Language is reality
The journey to understanding Eastern philosophy requires us to examine something so fundamental, so deeply embedded in our experience, that we rarely even notice it.
Consider this simple sentence: “I see a tree.” In that ordinary statement lies an extraordinary assumption about the nature of existence itself.
This simple sentence contains within it the entire Western worldview: a subject (“I”) separate from an object (“tree”), connected by an action (“see”). It’s more than just grammar; it’s a profound metaphysical claim about the nature of reality. It tells us that the world is made of distinct, separate things that interact with each other across a divide.
The power of this linguistic framework lies in its invisibility. Like fish unaware of the water they swim in, we move through life completely immersed in these assumptions. They feel like obvious, unchangeable truths rather than what they really are - a sophisticated conceptual map we’ve inherited since childhood. Of course there must be a separate “me” observing separate “things”! Of course there’s an inner world of thoughts distinct from an outer world of objects! These seem like direct observations of reality rather than interpretations of it.
But here’s what transformed my understanding: these supposedly self evident truths are actually a kind of invisible lens through which we view everything. This lens doesn’t just passively filter our experience - it actively shapes every thought we think, every sensation we feel, and every way we try to make sense of our existence. Our very attempt to understand reality is defined by the conceptual tools we use to grasp it.
Eastern philosophy offered something radical: a completely different set of foundational assumptions about the nature of reality. But to access this alternative perspective, you first have to recognize the lens you are presently looking through. Only by becoming aware of these deeply embedded patterns of thought can you begin to peek beyond them and glimpse a profoundly different way of understanding existence.
Cogito Ergo Sum
The Western struggle with consciousness and self finds its pivotal moment in 1620, when René Descartes embarked on one of philosophy’s most famous journeys of radical doubt. Like many of us who’ve questioned the nature of reality, he found himself wrestling with a profound uncertainty: How could he trust his own perceptions? After all, our dreams feel absolutely real while we’re in them - so how can we be certain we’re not dreaming right now?
In his pursuit of certainty, Descartes questioned everything until he believed he’d found an unshakeable truth - something that simply had to exist. His famous conclusion, “I think therefore I am,” seemed to offer solid ground. The mere presence of thoughts, he reasoned, proved the existence of a thinker.
But in this moment of apparent triumph, Descartes fell into a subtle trap that illustrates the Western mind’s blind spot. He missed something crucial: the assumption that thoughts require a thinker is itself just another thought.
The thinker is actually another thought.
Had he pushed his investigation further, he might have noticed something revolutionary: the “I” he believed he’d proven was itself just another appearance in consciousness. What’s actually happening in any moment isn’t “I think,” but “thinking is occurring” or more precisely, “awareness of thoughts is present.”
This points to something profound: there’s a field of pure awareness within which all experiences - thoughts, sensations, and perceptions - simply appear and disappear. This awareness requires no thinker, no self, no “I.” In fact, the very idea of a separate self is just another appearance within this field of consciousness.
Science dissolves the ground
This insight doesn’t just challenge our personal sense of self - it transforms our understanding of reality. And modern science, in its own way, has been on a parallel journey of dissolving what once seemed solid.
Newton’s view of reality was a world of solid objects moving through absolute space and time. It matched our everyday experience and seemed fundamental. But Einstein shattered this framework, revealing that space and time are not rigid gridlines but fluid and mysterious spacetime. There is no universal clock; the order of events is relative.
Then quantum mechanics pushed further. Particles aren’t solid blocks of matter; they are probability waves that only manifest upon measurement. The physical world became an ephemeral dance of possibilities. Quantum Field Theory took this even further: particles and forces are excitations in continuous fields - ripples in a vast ocean of energy.
Each time we think we’ve reached bedrock, it dissolves into something more fundamental.
Eastern philosophy takes this process to its ultimate conclusion: no matter how refined our scientific understanding becomes, every conception of reality - particles, waves, fields, spacetime, even consciousness itself - is an appearance within consciousness.
As the Tao Te Ching says:
The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
Reality cannot be captured by thought because every thought is an appearance within consciousness.
This doesn’t diminish science; it contextualizes it. Science maps relationships between appearances within consciousness. Eastern philosophy points to consciousness itself.
The brain, the chicken, and the egg
The most challenging shift came when I confronted the belief that the brain creates consciousness. It seems undeniable: damage the brain and consciousness changes; therefore, the brain must produce consciousness.
But what exactly is the brain?
When we look closely, the brain is a collection of experiences within consciousness - images, concepts, sensations. A neuroscientist looking at a brain through a microscope experiences visual sensations and thoughts about neurons. Every piece of evidence that seems to prove the brain creates consciousness is itself an appearance within consciousness.
This means we’ve had things backward. The brain appears within consciousness, not the other way around.
Thought experiments like “the brain in a vat” collapse under this realization. The brain, the vat, the scientists - all are appearances within consciousness. The experiment takes place within the consciousness it tries to explain.
Every theory of consciousness ends up assuming consciousness to explain consciousness.
The implications are staggering: consciousness isn’t created by anything - it’s the fundamental reality within which everything else appears.
Infinite regress, beyond awareness
We often object: “Surely some things must exist outside consciousness. The physical world must exist independently!”
But when you think about things existing “outside” consciousness, notice that the idea itself appears within consciousness. Even imagining unperceived objects happens within consciousness.
Try imagining something outside consciousness. Whatever you imagine appears within consciousness. Even imagining consciousness being produced by something outside consciousness happens within consciousness.
Nothing can be outside consciousness because the concept of “outside consciousness” appears within consciousness.
This isn’t nihilism; it’s a profound observation about the structure of experience. Every thought, perception, sensation, doubt, and objection appears within consciousness.
Weaving reality with thoughts
Every moment holds something miraculous: the seamless emergence of an apparently solid world. As I paid attention to direct experience, I noticed how effortlessly consciousness weaves concepts into a coherent world: language, meaning, identity, time, purpose, beliefs, memories.
Driving one day, I noticed how seamlessly this tapestry forms: the sense of being a self, the feeling of movement, the recognition of others, the purpose of going somewhere, the entire socio cultural web - all arising as a coherent display.
Understanding this doesn’t make the world less real; it makes it more astonishing. The world isn’t an illusion to be dismissed but a creative appearance within consciousness.
Consciousness isn’t just the stage; it’s the substance of experience itself.
Two sides of the same coin
At first, holding this understanding felt incompatible with everyday functioning. But the tension dissolved when I realized I didn’t have to choose between perspectives. I could move fluidly between them.
In daily life, I function like anyone else. But there’s a spaciousness - a recognition that the story of “me doing things” is appearing within something vast.
It’s like being absorbed in a great film. You’re fully engaged, yet you know it’s a movie appearing on a screen. The screen doesn’t oppose the story; it makes the story possible.
The search for spiritual insight dissolves here. What we’re seeking is what we are: consciousness itself.
Living as consciousness
This shift isn’t just philosophical. It’s experiential and practical.
Meditation revealed itself as the art of noticing what’s already here: the awareness within which all experience arises.
Certain experiences highlight this vividly:
- The moment before falling asleep, when the sense of self dissolves but awareness remains.
- Flow states, where the doer vanishes but activity continues effortlessly.
- Nature, where conceptual boundaries drop away and there’s just seamless experiencing.
- Psychedelics, which expose how radically different reality appears when conceptual frameworks fall away.
With practice, both perspectives can coexist - the conventional world and the recognition that it’s all appearing within consciousness.
Life becomes light, vivid, mysterious.
The End of Seeking
The journey from militant atheism to this understanding wasn’t linear. It spiraled, returning to the same truths with deeper insight.
The deepest truths aren’t hidden in complex theories. They’re in the simple act of examining our own experience. The answer to “What am I?” is here: the aware space within which all experience appears.
Science and spirituality, once adversaries in my mind, now appear as complements: science maps appearances; philosophy points to consciousness itself.
This perspective requires no belief. It asks only that we look directly.
Consciousness is not something we have; it’s what we are. It’s not something we find; it’s what allows finding to appear.
Consciousness is the only thing that exists. Consciousness is the foundation.