You wrote: “We can’t under-stand consciousness because we can’t get beyond it until we’re dead and then there’s nothing subjective left to know.”

But will there really be nothing after the death of the physical body? I don’t know, because I am not dead. However, to say that there will no longer be awareness seems to be a problematic idea, because it cannot be said with certainty. I have read countless books on past lives, NDEs, and reincarnation and have listened to the research garnered by the University of Virginia’s Department of Perceptual Studies. The researchers provide a lot of good evidence, however, it may still be argued that the recollection of past life experiences is an erroneous conclusion borne of some artifact that we cannot prove. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

I have personally undergone hypnosis and experienced an existence as a soldier in the American Civil War. By way of hypnosis I was able to glean my name and rank, as well as the place of a particular battle, what I was thinking on the eve of battle, and then my ensuing death. All of this was quite clear during the session. Still, I cannot ignore that the information, images, and sounds that were experienced by me may have been related to some mental phenomenon that I am unfamiliar with. I just don’t know. But I also do not know that I wasn’t experiencing a past life.

I have also had more than a thousand out of body experiences over the course of my life and have experienced all the senses in this state despite my physical body resting in bed or on a sofa. Though I have always been a skeptic, I cannot ignore that there is indeed awareness that exists independent of the physical body. This makes it possible for me to entertain that life after death is a possibility, but again, I cannot say with certainty because I am not dead.

Death is perhaps the ultimate mystery. It causes fear , insecurity, and confusion for most people just to think about, so there’s a lot of motivation to invent the idea of life continuing after physical death. On the other hand, there are many phenomena, including psychic abilities, that defy scientific explanation, so it’s safest for me to say I don’t know one way or another.

Next, you wrote, “If only we ponder hard enough, we think, we might have a conceptual breakthrough — or not, in which case we may never know in full what we really are.” From my experience, the very obstacle to knowing in full what we really are is thought itself. It’s the wrong tool, because it is limited to information and knowledge. That which we really are precedes thought; thought arises out of, or after, what we really are.

And you wrote, “If the brain is comparable to a computer, the mind must be like software running on the machine.” This is a big “if,” because from my experience, it is consciousness, which is the totality of thought, action, ideas, feelings, phenomena, forms, and expressions, that conditions the brain/mind to create the sense of self. To realize this takes an inquiry into the sense of self, and this inquiry involves observation and not thought. Thought is of the past and cannot uncover what is beyond it or in the absolute present.

I’m familiar with most of what you’ve written about the mind and brain studies, and I have reported them in my books. However, I contend that scientists trying to ascertain or explain a state of awareness or realization by way of the scientific method is futile. They can measure effect but not cause in the same way that they have observed the effect of photons in the double slit experiments.

My basic premise here is that we are not robots limited to the input of information by consciousness. We are that which precedes thought and consciousness. We can sit in meditation and watch thoughts come and go and the question arises: Who is it who is watching the thoughts? More thoughts? The brain? Consciousness in totality?

I’d like to add one more idea to this discussion. I have heard many people speak of detachment from one’s self and others associated with some mythical enlightened state. However, I see it as quite the opposite: There is not detachment, but rather full engagement. When one realizes that he/she is the totality then this is a realization of the whole of life and not fragments, which leads to feelings of separation or detachment..