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The nature of consciousness in impersonal
Question:
When suffering is caused by misidentification with thoughts and emotions, what is it that identifies with these thoughts and emotions? Identifying sounds like doing something but you are not the doer. Somehow it sounds like consciousness loses itself in its own fantasy and therefore suffers itself, while I have an image of consciousness being completely neutral. I must be overlooking a subtle thing. Also, that consciousness plays a game sounds like consciousness is a doer.
Answer:
Just like when a child gets so engrossed in a game that it becomes serious and forgets it is just a game, consciousness gets engrossed in playing a game of limitation. In this game, it pretends to be various characters and because of its total absorption in each character, a sense of a separate doer seemingly arises in the mind. This temporary 'forgetting' of its true nature and identification as a separate person means, however, that it is at odds with the natural world and results in friction, a.k.a. suffering. However, when consciousness stops playing this game its true, impersonal nature is 'remembered' and the sense of doer-ship (which was just part of an imaginary game) vanishes, along with the suffering that went hand in hand with it.
You are spot on to say that consciousness loses itself in its own fantasy. This is why we use the term spiritual 'awakening'. Consciousness is dreaming and, as with a night-dream, everything appears real until you 'wake up'.
The sticking point here is the belief in a personal doer, whereas, as you rightly say, consciousness is neutral. In being neutral it is by nature impersonal and thus plays its game as effortlessly as it beats your heart and breathes your lungs. So really we can describe consciousness either as the great doer or that it does nothing; either is fine. It is in noticing its impersonal nature that the truth of the matter lies.
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