I have trouble seeing our intangible consciousness as being one and the same as the concrete universe. What am I missing?
Here is an analogy. Lets say last night you had a vivid dream in which where mountains and streams, trees and people, much travel to the moon and thriving relationships. Was anything really concrete? Did any of it happen outside of you? Or was it all, the stage and lights, the actors and the audience all simply consciousness? I mean where did the "concrete" sense of phenomena start and the "intangible" watching consciousness end? Was there any real separation at all? Though multi faceted universes are seemingly created and observed in our dreams there is really only one thing at play: The light of Consciousness. What I am trying to express is very much like this. Very much like this.
The difference in what I am saying and the way we normally look at things is: normally everything seems concretely fragmented through out a canvas of space and time. The other way of seeing is through the eyes of Oneness, in which only One thing (really a non-thing) is at play.
If you look into the eyes of an infant, one that does not yet know words, you will experience a wonderful thing. Unconditioned consciousness. The child looks deep within your eyes with total nonjudgmental openness. The baby does not yet know of the concepts of you and me, or me and other. As fare as the child is concerned there is no boundaries, no separation. The child has no idea where it ends and you begin. You can see it. You can feel it. It's quite beautiful really. This is love, when boundaries dissolve. In time however, the child will be programmed and conditioned, and probably blinded forever to it's innate oneness. However, i
n the silent heat and earnestness of desire for Truth we can fall back into the arms of this same experience. You look upon a tree, and the tree is not a tree. There are no words or labels that say "tree", a thing separate from me. There is instead the beautiful dance of color and sensation, all of it extremely intimate and in no way separate or apart of who, or what I truly am (what you truly are).
We all can experience this. It is very much our true nature. It's just that we give attention and focus to thoughts, ideas, concepts and beliefs instead. And in these mental constructs there is automatically a sense of contraction and separation because that is just the way the mind works within the confines of thought and language. There is nothing wrong with this, it's just that we drown in it believing it is our ultimate and true reality -- which it isn't.
" I find myself wondering if what you are saying is that before things come into existence, they already have feelings of needing and thriving on our attention? If so, how would they have feelings before they even exist?"
Perhaps I worded it in a way that made it seem there are many different components interacting together. This is not the case.
As far as "man" being creator of the universe, I would say absolutely no. Man, is a concept, the combined belief that I am a separate entity from the rest of the universe. When the "me" is seen clearly as a false identity it becomes transparent, loses it's seeming grasp and power and there is beheld nothing but God/Source/Awareness.
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