I have never wondered before, until recently. It measures the height of my ignorance, or…or its absolute depths. I’ve looked at the stars ever since I could remember. And wondered. Racking my brain with its untold mysteries. Is there life? perhaps a new home for us? The hidden potential in that blanket of glitter way above me was infinite. But I never looked within, within my own mind.

Consciousness was just a familiar term. I always thought it was my mind. My brain. It took a lifetime to realise that it was not just the myriad of neurons, nerve centres and what not. It was much more. Was it a miniature version of that vast intelligence, which created and nurtured the cosmos, which the ancient Greek philosophers labelled the “Logos”? Is it my own Logos that lords over the cosmos of my physicality? Once the idea took hold it spread, it flourished. There was no turning back.

I kept seeing things that I always saw, but never knew. Never bothered to know. It was my own epiphany. The thing most central to me that I never befriended. That thing which is me, but more than me. And external to me? Perhaps. Maybe it exists outside my mortal coil. It may perish with me, or it might not. I remembered the Wow! factor. That which followed a movie night out with my family. Perhaps after a concert. I begin rummaging through my grey cells, my actual brain now. What caused the Wow? Was it the movie? having my family next to me? that Thai we had just before? The cast? The atmosphere or the ambience at the theatre? Do I know? I don’t. Now, here’s the thing.

What if I replicate the same next week? Let’s say similar movie, cast, same or better Thai, my family next to me. Can I command my brain to give me the same Wow.  I know I can’t. I’m a passive recipient of what my consciousness makes of it. It knows best. But I can dictate how precisely I spend the next couple of hours on my personal finances. I can decide its outcome, when and how. As an author I have spent ages looking at a page with nothing on it. Imagination is its own master. Then there is the explosion, the flash flood. The unstoppable torrent of inspiration, several chapters in a flash. And I can only commit to the current. I don’t have to paddle.

I’m more comfortable now to call it consciousness. The same essence that invents our passions. One a writer, an artist or another a physician. Once again we are at its nod. This is my true identity. I am what my consciousness tells me. We are one, but somehow it hovers above me. I am in awe and I will devote more and more time to embrace it with whatever time I have left. At least make some effort to understand who I am. I owe it to myself.

Copyright @ 2023 Jude Perera