Agree! And as such they are one and the same.commonsense wrote: ↑Tue May 08, 2018 12:40 am I know there is only one reality. Accordingly, there can be only one consciousness.
Pretty closecommonsense wrote: ↑Tue May 08, 2018 12:40 am There’s one reality, one consciousness, for all individuals collectively, not individually. In other words, individuals are a part of the whole, i.e. a part of all reality, all consciousness.
Parts of the whole cannot own the whole. An individual cannot be individually conscious because he cannot own consciousness as a whole.
Only that consciousness is not for individuals (not even collectively), individuals are consciousness.
This is a subtle, but still substantial difference as one view highlights individuals, collectively making up/creating the whole, whereas the other point of view (the non dual understanding) is that there is only consciousness and individuals are only appearances in it (and as such never real in the ultimate sense)
An individual can be (or rather is) an acquired, conditioned thought pattern.commonsense wrote: ↑Tue May 08, 2018 12:40 am But I want to know what an individual can be. Partially conscious? That is to say an individual is only conscious of a segment of reality. But this infers that there can be partial consciousness when consciousness is universal.
The individual is as such never conscious, not even of a segment of reality - the individual is only a collection of thoughts/ideas/beliefs and thoughts are not conscious, they are known by (appear in) consciousness.
There is no partial consciousness, all parts are mind made.
You can look at it like you would at a dream. In the dream you believe you are the dream character. You see, hear, think, feel... There is a whole universe around you. But in reality You are the dreamer and as such the whole dream. The character is just as much part of the dream as the car, the tree... whatever appears in the dream. Looking at a dream it is obvious that the dream-character itself is not conscious - he is not the dreamer/knower - You are.