Consciousness: Beyond the Brain

October 17, 2024

Consciousness isn’t just an emergent property of the brain—it’s much deeper. Here’s how I see it:

The soul is an individual, indivisible singularity, infinite in nature, private, and always striving for connection with other souls. The body serves as the medium through which the soul connects to others, using the shared space of the physical world. The mind is an energy field that emerges around and through the body, acting as a bridge between the soul and the physical world.

In this framework, consciousness is the process of convergence. It’s when the mind collects bodily experiences—senses, emotions, and thoughts—and funnels them into the soul. This is where awareness arises, as the soul receives and processes that input. In essence, consciousness is the soul becoming aware of bodily experience through the mind.

But it’s not just a one-way street. Consciousness is part of a dynamic system. Will flows the other way, from the soul outward, as the mind channels the soul’s intentions into the body and out into the physical world.

In this way, consciousness isn’t simply awareness or self-awareness. It’s the soul experiencing the world through the mind and body. It’s not a product of the brain, but rather a process between the soul, mind, and body.

○

BODY

The Living Boundary

Your body is not one boundary. It’s boundaries all the way down.

○ is body as interface. It’s the place where inside meets outside, where you open and close, where you breathe in air, take in food, receive touch, absorb experience. It is not a wall. It’s a selective membrane—alive, responsive, and always in motion.

Try This

Close your eyes and feel where your body ends and the air begins. Notice how many tiny sensations are being woven into that one felt “edge.”

Explore: Φ Mind • Soul ⊙ The Whole

Φ

MIND

The Field Between

Φ is mind as field—the living medium between center (•) and boundary (○). It’s the whole relational space where signals from the body come in, where awareness from the center flows out, and where the two blend into conscious experience.

Try This

Notice your body breathing by itself. That’s ○. Now notice that you’re noticing. That reflective awareness is flowing from •. Then feel the space in which both are happening. That’s Φ.

Explore: ○ Body • Soul ⊙ The Whole

•

SOUL

The Aware Center

• is soul as center—not a substance lurking somewhere inside you, but the point of view from which everything is seen. It is the structural center of the whole circumpunct.

Bodies change completely over a lifetime. Memories blur, identities shift. And yet, there’s a sense that the one who was there then is the same one who is here now.

Try This

Close your eyes. Notice your breath. Then, gently, turn attention back toward that awareness itself—not the objects in it, but the fact that knowing is happening. That’s •.

Explore: ○ Body Φ Mind ⊙ The Whole

⊙

CIRCUMPUNCT

The Whole You

⊙ is the circumpunct: a circle with a point at the center. The circle is the boundary that holds everything that is “you” as a single system. The point is centeredness—the soul that experiences from within.

Instead of thinking, “I have a body, I have a mind, I have a soul,” you can think, “I am ⊙: a whole being whose body, mind, and soul are three faces of the same process.”

Try This

Feel your body as one shape (○). Notice the space of awareness in which thoughts arise (Φ). Sense the quiet center that’s aware of all of this (•). Then soften your attention to hold all three at once. That’s ⊙.

You are not on your way to being ⊙. You are ⊙, right now.

Explore: ○ Body Φ Mind • Soul