Consciousness and Ego

Abstract

Our journey towards an understanding of consciousness is beset with a number of difficulties. There are dark as well as gray areas which give only marginal insight into the nature of consciousness. However, in recent decades the subject has attracted the attention of physicists, biologists, psychologists and philosophers with equal enthusiasm. Yet, none of the recent data from any of these sources, as we examine it in depth, provide convincing evidence which may enable us to formulate a single unified theory of consciousness. In spite of this, sufficient information is now available which may help us carve out a path, tentatively at least, which can bring us closer to a judgment about consciousness and thus implicitly of religious experience as conceived by Iqbal. In his lecture on: The Human Ego– His Freedom and Immortality, Iqbal presents a candid analysis of human consciousness within which, as we examine it carefully, is wrapped his philosophy of ego (self). Unfortunately, for a pure physicalist (monistic materialist), there may be no joy in this verse. For him material is the beginning and material is the end. There is no room for soul or ego in his lexicon, especially the manner in which it occupies a central place in the activity of life as understood by dualists, and as unfolded in the revealed knowledge. Yet, there is plenty of room for the psychologists to ponder over it and seek evidence for the Divine time and space in the domain of religious experience (mysticism).