What is the true nature of our existence? Surprisingly, the answer is knowable. In fact, it’s so well-known it’s referred to as the perennial philosophy. All the great religions tell us that at the core of our being, we are One.

This may seem like nothing more than religious wishful thinking, but it’s actually philosophically sound, scientifically well supported, and personally verifiable; how it is that we are here.

Religions often symbolize our condition with a circle or a tree, because a circle has one center, and a tree has one base. The perennial philosophy is more like a mountain with many paths leading to one summit, but the purpose is the same: to point out the nondual side of ourselves. Many of our scientists and philosophers have said the same thing…in their own way…under their breath.

A human being is a spatially and temporally
limited piece of the whole…an optical
illusion of his consciousness. The striving
to free oneself from this delusion is the
one issue of true religion. –Albert Einstein

The answers to the big questions are knowable because the source of the world happens to be what we are (consciousness). Waking up to this in a physical body is the goal of evolution, and we are something of a transitional species in this regard.

Why are we here?
Where do we come from?
Where are we going?

Answer:

There is an infinite, changeless reality
beneath the world of change.
This same reality lies at the core of
every human personality. The purpose
of life is to discover this reality
experientially—that is, to realize
God while here on earth.
-Eknath Easwaran

---

An argument for the perennial philosophy.

Starting with what can we be most certain about: There is something, and not nothing.

What is it that breathes fire into the
equations and makes a universe for
them to describe…Why does the universe
go to all the bother of existing?
–Stephen Hawking

Why is there something rather than nothing? Something must have caused this something, because nothing ever comes from nothing.

Maybe the universe did balloon out of a singularity 13.8 billion years ago, but the lights are still on today; all the physical constants are functioning nominally. Something must be sustaining the quantum fields that gives rise to our physical world.

What can we make of this? Something outside of time and space is causing this spacetime. Consider this ancient quote that seems ahead of its time:

Time, nature, necessity, accident,
elements, energy, intelligence—none
of these can be the First Cause.
They are effects…
-Shvetashvatara Upanishad

Actually, we need to clarify what the something is that we can be so certain about. The only thing we can be absolutely certain about, is that we are conscious. That is to say, information from our mind and sensory perception is less reliable. Our human senses provide only a limited view of the world, and our perception of them is less than perfect, but we can always be certain that we are witnessing it.

I am, I exist, is necessarily true
each time that I pronounce it,
or that I mentally conceive it.
–René Descartes | Meditation II

This is already enough to draw conclusions. Whatever caused this conscious experience, it must transcend causality and include consciousness. Let’s call it God, for short. This is the perennial philosophy, and was the view of even Western science for 2,000 years; until the 1700’s, when materialism became popular—when Parmenidean monism and Plato’s forms were replaced by matter itself being most fundamental.

Of course, if you think consciousness is just a random anomaly of matter, then this conclusion would not satisfy you. But, if you think of consciousness as a fundamental property of nature, then this explains everything. Let’s explore consciousness.

How does something as immaterial as consciousness arise from something as unconscious as matter? -David Chalmers

The fact is, conscious awareness is fundamentally different from everything else in the world. And it’s not just different from mass, energy, space, and time, but also from thoughts, feelings, intuitions, and memories (conceptualization). Those are things that happen in consciousness. Without consciousness what good is thinking? In the West we conflate consciousness with thinking because we misinterpret Descartes. He didn’t mean, I think, therefore I am. He meant, I’m thinking, therefore I must be an entity that thinks.

Our level of awareness is clearly a function of our human brain, but consciousness itself is still quite a mystery to science. And it’s what we really are. What are we when we’re unconscious? Our mind and body are just earthly accumulations, and we are the conscious witness behind it. When we meditate (look toward consciousness) we find that it’s behind everything.

It takes some understanding to distinguish
between awareness and conceptualization.
It is said that the scope of
conceptualization is very limited,
whereas awareness pervades all that exists.
-Gen Lamrimpa

We can’t assume the brain causes it because we see conscious behavior in organisms that that don’t have a brain. Also, science can’t explain how life started on earth, but they know it started as soon as conditions became available. So, given that everything is caused by something, and that consciousness is so distinctly different from everything, isn’t it possible that it has its own unique cause? Why isn’t that still a reasonable consideration?

I think that modern physics has definitely
decided in favor of Plato. In fact the
smallest units of matter are not physical
objects in the ordinary sense; they are
forms, ideas which can be expressed
unambiguously only in mathematical
language. –Werner Heisenberg

---

Where are we going? Nowhere, until we can see past Materialism.

Every man takes the limits of his
own field of vision for the limits of
the world. –Arthur Schopenhauer

Today, we have scientific materialism, which sees the world from only the body side of Descartes’ mind/body dualism. Philosophically arguing from just the one side, they are unable to explain a great many things—like the probabilistic nature of Quantum Mechanics, or how the universe is relative instead of objective, or conscious free will. In its purest form, Materialism must argue that consciousness itself can’t exist. But again, that’s because they are interpreting the world from just the one side of the dualism. In addition, a great point of confusion is that Descartes’ dualism is not actually between mind & body, but between mind-body & consciousness.

The materialist view is the common sense view of physical determinism; that matter is fundamental, and consciousness is caused by the brain, which was caused by the physical and chemical chaos unfolding from the Big Bang. And since time only began flowing as a result of the Big Bang, there is no chance of finding a First Cause.

Modern science is based on the principle:
‘Give us one free miracle and we’ll explain
the rest.’ -Terence McKenna

However, we now know that matter is not fundamental, but arises out of quantum probability fields, which never fully become particles, even when they are observed. Kant’s noumena are not physical, or even in spacetime.

Science long ago discovered that consciousness causes the world to manifest by collapsing quantum states into physical reality.

Mind no longer appears to be an accidental
intruder into the realm of matter…
we ought rather hail it as the creator
and governor of the realm of matter.
–Sir James Jeans

Therefore, the brain can’t cause consciousness, because consciousness causes the brain.

To make of the brain the condition on
which the whole image depends is in
truth a contradiction in terms, since
the brain is by hypothesis a part of
the image. -Henri Bergson

Meanwhile, materialists have spent decades not advancing science, and not being able to figure out how consciousness is made in the brain. It’s regarded as an epiphenomenon. One favored theory is that it’s an emergent phenomenon caused by the vast integration of information in our large electro-chemical brains. But then why do organisms without complex brains behave consciously?

The philosophy of the perennial philosophy is actually ontological idealism, which is well supported by modern physics, yet we still think scientists should be Materialists. For an in-depth look, consider this 2-hr YouTube of an Ontological Idealist interviewed by a famous Materialist:

Bernardo Kastrup on the Nature of Reality: Materialism, Idealism, or Skepticism | YouTube 2:14:21

---

If we are all One, then why don’t we know it? Answer: Because we don’t meditate.

Brahman cannot be realized by those
who are enmeshed in life’s duality.
-Tejobindu Upanishad

Delusion arises from the duality of attraction and aversion. -Bhagavad Gita 7:27

Desire and aversion blind you to Suchness.
-Xinxin Ming

Born into a world of individual bodies, we learn to see ourselves as separate. By the age of three we develop an ego, and learn how to fulfill our egoic desires within the hierarchy of egos around us. This process is necessary for living in the world, but it hides our true nature, like clouds obscuring the sky.

Our condition is described in the story of the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve lived in the Garden, they knew themselves to be God; both immanent and transcendent. But after living as individuals for some time, they forgot their transcendent nature, and began to identify only with their body and its egoic desires (symbolized by eating fruit from the tree of duality, and suddenly becoming self-conscious).

Forgetting their transcendental nature, they lost their Oneness with God, the garden, the animals, and found themselves in a world of separateness. That is our condition, and meditation is the cure.

The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says it most clearly: Separateness arises from identifying the Self with the body. The story of the Garden of Eden is meant to remind us of our true nature—that we are not just our mental and physical accumulations, but the Self. This realization is like being born again, but it’s not the egoic self that wakes up. All the true religions are really just about this one thing.

There is only one Self in all creatures.
The One appears many, just as the moon 
appears many, reflected in water.
-Amritabindu Upanishad

As long as we think we are the ego,
we feel attached and fall into sorrow…
When you realize that you are the Self…
you transcend the duality of life
and enter into the unitive state.
-Mundaka Upanishad

Brahman is all, and the Self is Brahman.
-Mandukya Upanishad

Consciousness is the Self.
-Shiva Sutras

I say, ‘You are gods; you are all
children of the Most High.
-Psalms 82:6 | NLT

Don’t you realize that all of you together
are the temple of God
and that the Spirit of God lives in you?
-1 Corinthians 3:16 | NLT

Tao is your very nature.
Seeing this, everything is clear –
you walk free and undisturbed as Tao.
-Xinxin Ming

Remove the veil.
You will find your beloved within.
In every heart the Lord dwells.
Therefore, speak no bitter words.
The one who listens within you
Also listens within everyone else.
-Kabir

God dwells within you as you.
-Swami Muktananda

That one God who shines within everything,
Who is formless like the cloudless sky,
Is the pure, stainless, Self of all.
Without any doubt, that is who I am.
-Avadhuta Gita

I am not the mind. I am not the intellect or
intelligence. I am not the ego, nor am I a
deeper self or soul…I am Absolute
Awareness of Eternal Love and Bliss.
-Atma Shatakam

You are the Solitary Witness
of All That Is, forever free.
Your only bondage is not seeing This.
-Ashtavakra Gita

Lord! I’ve never known who I really am,
or You. I threw my love away on this
lousy carcass and never figured it
out: You’re me, I’m You. All I ever
did was doubt: Who am I?
Who are You? –Lal Ded