Questioning the realness of this reality

 We are living in this universe, but is it real. If it is real how can one prove it ? The current scientific understanding tells us that the universe is made of space which is filled with matter and the matter is made of atoms with nuclei, electrons. The matter as we know is occupies mostly of empty space as the ratio of the volume of the nuclei to the volume of atom is 10^-15. The matter itself is made of sheer space, empty space. The physicist Max Tegmark tells that the mind or the consciousness as we know, cannot be explained by any currently existing scientific theories. There as to be new theories invented to explain them. The problem of not being able to understand consciousness is the hard problem and is still unresolved in the field of Artificial Intelligence.

What is real ? (Morfeo-Morpheus by Gullermo CC BY-SA 2.0)

What is reality ?

The closest point the Hollywood movies went to explaining it is in the movie "Matrix", where Morpheus explains "What is real? How do you define ‘real’? If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.". He captures just one level of the reality by the physical brain processing all the signals being inputted to it. If there is brain, then this world is real. The entire world or universe that we see, smell, taste and touch all exist in our brain. If there is no brain, there is no universe. But the brain exist in the universe and is a part of the material existence. This is the first level, the material plane. All the scientific exploration is in this plane and stuck in it.

Mind Plane

You can reason that, there is a dead body. It has brain, but it cannot function and experience this universe. So, brain alone is just a tool, some life force has to there to operate it otherwise its just a dead gooey substance. Then all of a sudden, the our mind comes into the picture. Our mind processes all the thoughts and emotions. Our minds can exist without a brain. This seems puzzling, but there are many ghosts without body taking out revenges and haunting places. There are also out of body experiences by people around the globe. The mind doesn't need any tool to accomplish its desires. It makes it own tools. It creates the brain and body to have fun and fulfill its desire. This seems way too illogical, because we see everything from the material plane. There is brain and there is mind inside the brain and this body of ours.

But let us for a moment see from our experience. Right now, do you feel that your body is experiencing the mind, or the mind experiencing the body. All of us from experience feel that our mind is experiencing everything including the body and the brain (and the universe!). The brain doesn't have any sensory input, so we don't normally feel the brain. But during headache or fatigue we indirectly feel the groaning and tired brain. So, the brain, body and everything present, the entire universe is in our mind Without mind, nothing exist. In the dream, the entire dream world, dream people and dream cookies are created by your brain. It vanishes the moment you wake up. The mental plane is the second level of reality, as we go higher, the air get thin, it is difficult to breath and understand the concepts. It is bizzare but hold on, we will get there.

Consciousness plane

This is very difficult to explain and understand as we go one level beyond the mind into the thoughtless and emotionless space. It is just the pure choice-less awareness. The awareness that which holds your mind. Our little mind is like a software that is booted up in this invisible hardware call the awareness or consciousness. The consciousness precedes mind, because it can exist without the mind like in the deep meditation and deep sleep. But the mind cannot exist without consciousness. You have to be conscious or be aware to experience the mind.

In the deep sleep, we are conscious without the mind. After waking up we know that we had a deep sleep. While having deep meditation, we have no thoughts, feelings or the existence of the body. In that state we experience pure consciousness. Your consciousness is self-proved because you don't ask yourself whether you exist. You just know that you exist because of your awareness. There are many researches being conducted in the mental plane. Even small discoveries in the mental plane would bring significant useful changes to the society. The discovery in the conscious plane would make one internally renounce everything. As, he discovers that everything is just a illusion created by the mind, nothing else.

Finally

As consciousness precedes the mind which in turn precedes the universe. So, the consciousness is the primary reality. Everything exist in consciousness and is consciousness. You are that consciousness and the entire universe exist because of you and in you. It seems far fetched but it is following logical thought pattern. I was very curious about consciousness and was searching more on the detailed understanding of it. I stumbled upon many resources that explained them explicitly in great detail are this Youtube playlist lecture explaining non-duality and this short book Ashtavakra Gita by Byrom. They helped me in understanding consciousness. But realizing it and experiencing this concept is what everyone must strive to achieve in this lifetime.