Successful Relationships Reading Corner

I, Phil, wrote about how to reach union in your relationship in this week’s blog, and found it hard to find good links. Maude is the link-finding expert! A couple of these are on consciousness, which is for me a perennial fascination.

Healing Relationships Through Compassion and Connection “When we choose to make our relationship with our partner a spiritual practice, we enter a sacred journey of ever-deepening love and freedom. The path is challenging, yet with purity of intention and clear attention, the very circumstances that threaten to drive us apart can open the gateway to the blessings of communion.”

Consciousness: Who’s at the Wheel? is one of a series of conversations; here they discuss the idea that our sensory experience is necessarily coupled with the world: “You’re leaving something rather large out of the equation. In the case of pressing the button, for example, you’ve forgotten the button. In the case of John’s kiss, you’ve forgotten Mary’s lips. You are speaking as if the brain were entirely separate from what is outside our bodies.”

How Does The Human Brain Create Consciousness? “Does the brain create consciousness? I’m not so sure. At the very least, I know that no neuroscientist has caught the brain “red-handed” in the act of creating consciousness. The standard materialist position is that consciousness is tied up with the brain. There is plenty of evidence that the brain influences consciousness (and vice versa!), ranging from studies of brain damage to the well-known effects of mind-altering chemicals. The problem with going any further than this correlational fact is that no one knows how to define consciousness from an objective, third-person perspective. We only have access to one consciousness: our own.”

Tell your friends!