A new concept of consciousness

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Consciousness is not seen fully through intentionality, as modern philosophy suggests; but it can be clearly understood by using special methods of interior meditation, especially through prayer of the heart, which provides us with means of transcending and becoming free from the fragmented activities of the psyche.

When prayer transcends the activities of the psyche, consciousness is directly experienced in the combination of self-awareness with the absence of any changing content. This not only proves that awareness can survive a lack of changing activity - the existence of something beyond change and content - but in doing so it forms in us the first component of a sense of Self through which, in this deep stillness or hesychia, we may become aware of a non-sensory reality.

In time this makes it visible as a triad known in Indian thought as consisting of experience, experiencer, and a medium of experience.

This slowly helps us to see ourselves as separate from the activity of mind and body, and from the forms and states of the body; from our thoughts, feelings, sensations and all kinds of physical states and activities. It brings into question the modern philosophical concept of intentionality, and when this is experienced and understood it makes the assumptions of the neurosciences that the seat of consciousness will one-day be found in the brain - and even in a specific location within the brain - appear highly improbable.