With great power comes great responsibility.
As I said earlier, it all boils down to the question, ‘Who am I?’ for the simple reason that that question has one unambiguous answer — consciousness, or that which knows, in other words, subject. It cannot be seen, heard, or touched in any way — it’s that which allows all observations in the first place, resembling an eye which, too, cannot see itself directly — yet, it’s what we really are, it’s where our sense of identity originates, and to which we are taught to affix the name “I”.
Upon closer inspection one can see that consciousness is not defined by any attributes. They all appear as if outside of it, as objects to be aware of, even though all phenomena are merely perceptions living in our (observed) minds, be it a rendering of the universe while awake, fantastic sceneries of dreams, or awareness of absence as it happens in deep sleep or during meditation. Thus, consciousness is identical wherever we suppose it to “reside”.
Notwithstanding the question how could billions of unique brains produce something unobservable and completely identical, the implications become even more serious in the light of consciousness being that which enables the regulatory feedback loop influencing the arrangements of phenomena. In other words, it’s obvious that (what we call) animals must be conscious since their perceptual world, which we are able to decode, has to need consciousness to make that world aware to itself (even if the process itself remains “unconscious” for the particular being). So, one may also ask whether e.g. trees are conscious, too.
As you can imagine, neither of these concerns would be foreign to our ancient ancestors. Thus, instead of reinventing the wheel of spiritual knowledge, we should concentrate on drawing parallels. Then we can see that modernity ended only relevance of particular misinterpretations of God.
How is fate or karma (literally meaning action) any different from causal nature of universe where each action, no matter how random, is a cause for subsequent effects and is recorded within current state of the system as one of the compounds of momentary outcome occurring to consciousness that is always the same? How hard is to see inevitable rebirths of individuals with particular circumstances (down to subtle mental “self-perpetuating” programs) shaped by previous events, individuals whose life will be known by the same identical unknowable knower who is to be known in order to answer the fundamental question, ‘Who am I’?
When you know that it will always be ‘I’ who will be aware of this world, and although it’s the pinnacle of selfishness, the only rational response is to be compassionate, which, however, may have as many forms as there are beings. From “interest in art” to baking a perfect bread just for the sake of it.
