"consciousness is all"

What a phrase, what a phrase!

Sets some minds literally on fire - "That's IT!"

Sets some minds into blank stares - "Huh!?!"



Some, apparently those with minds already "set afire", actually start careers, in the public sector no less, telling other people, essentially, that "consciousness is all", and then spend the next 30 minutes, or 30 pages, or 30 years, explaining "what the hell they're talking about", usually to other people whose minds were already "set afire." (You apparently can't light up a mind with "just words" unless that mind is already lit to some extent. Probably for the same reason, that you can't get someone turned on about soccer, unless they've already got a "thing" about kicking balls around.)



Anyway, what is it about that aforementioned phrase, that so "inspires" (if that's an acceptable word) so many? What really is going on, that otherwise normal people find nothing more enjoyable and entertaining, than discussing the meaning of those three little words? (Hey, he said, "three little words" - and we all know what that phrase conjures up, eh? Many so-called artistic-types, seem to find similar enjoyment becoming mentally, if not even emotionally, "intimate" with that one, too... maybe there's a connection?!?)



Anyway, "consciousness is all" is certainly power-packed, ain't it? ("How was it for you?") But, really, what's going on? Are not those people simply trying to define one word they don't understand in the slightest, with other words they don't understand either?



No one "knows" what "consciousness" means.

No one "knows" what "is" means.

No one "knows" what "all" means.

(Beyond the hyper-simplistic dictionary definitions available even to 6 year-olds.)



They are just, three little words, the sight or sound of which stimulate some few neurons in their brains, that a very few in the grand-scheme of humanity alive at any one time, feel almost compelled to talk about further, as if talking about those three little words (words they have absolutely no prior understanding about), will make them >>understand<<.



But, it's a trick of mind. People are made to think about everything, from soccer to samadhi, for a hidden, secret reason, that almost no one ever gets nose-to-nose with. Never! (Well, almost never... ok?) But, when they do get nose-to-nose with it, that phrase not only loses it's apparent power over them, they discover what the power was/is all along.



Then, the conversation undergoes a somewhat mysterious transformation, or at least alteration. Silence becomes more communicative than Talking. Vagueness takes precedence over Clarity. And "knowing" loses the lifelong attractive force it has for most others.