Embracing the idealist worldview.
What does it mean to say the substance of the world is conscious?
Is idealism just an interesting philosophical theory with no practical relevance?
Or does it turn our view of the world inside out, and illuminate the path to a fulfilling life?
The dynamic life of consciousness
Consciousness is a dynamic substance, continually in motion. It chooses to flow towards some things and avoid others. It’s alive to the world, acting and reacting in a reciprocal dance.
The force that moves consciousness is will. Like a vector, consciousness has both momentum and direction. It has the power to produce effects in the world, but it also has intention, it moves towards a goal.
The will isn’t something separate from consciousness. It’s not a mechanism that moves some other thing called consciousness around.
Will is the inherent movement of a dynamic substance.
When we choose to focus our consciousness on particular things, we filter out everything else and limit the world to our chosen parameters. We focus on some things and ignore others. We pursue our chosen goals and ignore others. We constantly make these choices.
This is the dynamic life of consciousness.
Our aim is towards joy
We have a limited amount of power, and we prioritise where it flows. Our first priority is survival. We do whatever is necessary to stay alive. This sustains our existence, but the fulfilment of that existence is joy.
We want to enjoy our activities.
We need food to survive, but we want enjoyable food. No one wants to eat gruel every day. We need air to breathe, but we want clean, fresh air, not foul, polluted air. We want an occupation that pays the bills, but we also want it to be an enjoyable and meaningful pursuit.
Mere survival is of no value if that existence is full of suffering and drudgery.
The deeper focus, the direction of our existence, is towards joy. The fulfilment of consciousness is joy. We continually focus on what we think will bring us joy, and then move in that direction.
Like a compass always pointing north, consciousness always points towards joy.
Is the world an object or a subject?
In our search for joy, we treat the world as an object we can dominate and control with the power of our will. But if consciousness is the substance of reality, the world is a subject, not an object.
And we treat objects and subjects very differently.
If we wake up early and make a cup of coffee, we don’t worry about the inconvenience to the kettle. But we try not to disturb other people.
We don’t treat people as objects, we acknowledge their will and desires. We consider the effect our actions have on them, and then adapt our behaviour. We don’t leave our dirty dishes in the sink if we know it annoys our roommates.
With these simple acts of consideration, we’re surrendering our will to theirs. This surrender isn’t a loss of our free will, but the act of harmonising two divergent wills.
Keeping the room clean so others can enjoy it is a simple acknowledgement of their rights as people with a will of their own. Ethical actions are based on this acknowledgement.
But beyond our ethical duties, the highest form of surrendering our will is love. We move beyond harmonising our separate wills, and our wills become entwined. Our desire is to please our loved ones. We’re pleased when they’re pleased.
The joy of our loved ones becomes the source of our joy.
Entering the idealist mindset
According to idealism, the substance of reality is conscious. This works the same way our consciousness works. Just as the source of our movement is our will, the source of the world’s movement is the universal will, the will of God.
This is what God as the first mover means. It’s not referring to the first in time or a creation event in the past. First means the source of all movement at every point in time.
In the modern world, we’re accustomed to thinking the world moves by the power of insentient mechanisms. The laws of nature are written in the language of mathematics. But these laws only describe the surface of reality, not the substance.
When we view the world as an object, we’re ignoring its inner subjectivity.
We can do the same thing with a person. We can describe their objective features by measuring things like their dimension and their mass. We can describe their behaviour as a movement through space, without referring to their will as the motivating force.
Describing a person as an object is accurate as far as it goes, but it’s incomplete. By only including the outer features, we ignore the inner person. This is the same mistake we make when we treat the world as an object.
To enjoy an object, we manipulate it according to our will. But relationships between people harmonise divergent wills.
Moving in harmony with the divine
If we exist within the universal consciousness of God, then the world is a subject. God is he in whom we live, and move, and have our being.
If we treat the world as a subject, we surrender our will to accommodate God’s. This is the ultimate aim of spirituality and religion – union with God. Union with God is when our will is aligned with God’s will. We’re completely focused on pleasing God, and we move in harmony with his will.
By doing this, we’re immersed in the reality of God, and we fully participate in God’s overflowing love and joy.
This union with God isn’t a temporary burst of emotion that eventually dissipates. It’s a quiet, abiding joy that pervades our very being. This joy is the background and foundation of our existence, it’s there regardless of changing circumstances.
Participating in joy
The dynamic nature of consciousness means we don’t exist on the surface of a static world, we participate in the movement of the world. We choose the terms of that participation by choosing what aspects of the world to focus on, and the goals we pursue.
And because the world is conscious, it reciprocates with our movement and moves in harmony with our will.
We all grasp at things we believe will bring us joy, but they can only give temporary satisfaction, and they’re inseparably mixed with suffering.
Objects can’t fully satisfy us. We can find greater fulfilment in relationships with other people, but complete union is only possible with God. It’s only God in whom we live, everything else is external to us. Objects and people can evoke certain states of consciousness within us, but God is the absolute, nothing exists outside of him.
Any joy we experience is God’s joy. The joys of the material world are a shadow of the real thing. They’re the outline of joy. They have the shape, but none of the substance. So they contain no real satisfaction.
Are you focusing on the substance or the hole?
If the substance of the world is joy, and we aren’t experiencing joy, then we aren’t absorbed in God. We’re not in the spiritual world, we’re immersed in the material world.
In Hinduism, the material world is called maya. Maya is often translated as illusion, but it literally means “what-is-not”. Not-spirit, not-divine, not-God.
According to idealism, matter is an idea, a state of consciousness. It’s not a substance that exists independently. Matter is a hole within the divine realm, a shadow covering the sun.
Holes and shadows exist, they’re real, but they’re not substances. They’re the absence of substance. They’re the outline, the outer shape, but they’re hollow.
To be absorbed in the material world is to be absorbed in a shadow. Matter is the absence of consciousness of God. We ignore God and treat the world as our object.
And so we suffer, because we aren’t absorbed in joy, we’re ignoring joy.
We focus on enjoying life without God. We treat the world as an object that exists for our personal enjoyment, and each of us pursues our own interests. We think our will is independent of God, and we can exist without him.
But the world isn’t our object, it’s alive and responsive to us. It’s only through communion with joy that we experience joy. Right now, we’re communing with matter. Dying, insentient, soulless matter.
Matter is only the outline, so it can only produce the illusion of joy. The removal of dissatisfaction momentarily feels like satisfaction. But once the dissatisfaction is gone, so is the illusion.
A cool breeze on a hot day feels pleasurable, but only because it removes the unpleasant experience of excess heat. If you’re hungry, it feels good to eat, but if you’re overfull, eating is painful.
Material pleasure is the removal of a negative, which gives the illusion of a positive. But since the illusion depends on the existence of the negative, it only lasts while the negative experience is present.
This is why all joy in the material world is indissolubly mixed with suffering.
This seeking of joy where there is none to be found means we exist in a perpetual state of frustration and disappointment. We run off on wild goose chases. Maybe a new car, a new house, or a new lover is the way to find lasting satisfaction and joy.
We never stop to think the problem is we’re lost in mere shadows of joy. We feel the shape of our dissatisfaction, but nothing in the material world can fill the void.
To commune with joy, we need to focus on God’s enjoyment, not our independent enjoyment. Every action needs to aim towards pleasing God in a harmony of wills. This unites us with joy in an exchange of love.
How can we know God’s will?
It may seem unrealistic to think we can know the will of God, but the various religious traditions give us plenty of clues.
In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says, “Abandon all varieties of religion and surrender to Me directly. I will protect you.” (18.66)
He gives us practical advice on what this surrender consists of – “Fix your mind on Me, devote yourself to Me, worship Me and offer your respects to Me. By doing so you will certainly come to Me. I promise you this because you are very dear to Me.” (18.65)
In the Bible, Jesus tells us the first and greatest commandment is “Thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” (Mark 12.30)
In Matthew 7.21, Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” And in Matthew 16.25, he says, “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.”
He also gives us practical advice when he says, “Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” (Matthew 19.21)
In Luke 14:33, he says, “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”
It’s not that we lack the information, it’s that we don’t want to hear it.
It’s an inconvenient truth that the solution to suffering is renouncing everything that is not-God, and dedicating ourselves heart and soul to God.
As G.K Chesterton said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”
We think we’re being asked to give up something valuable, to sacrifice a comfortable life. Religions make big promises and give no guarantees. We’ve been cheated so often in our quest for joy, it’s natural to be sceptical.
So we take the safe and comfortable path. We choose to be satisfied with the temporary scraps of joy we can control. But it’s a cheap imitation, a shadow without substance.
It’s easier, it’s cheaper, but if we want the authentic product, we have to pay the price.
Intention is the essence
At first, it seems we’ve been given an unachievable solution. We’re asked to give up everything and surrender to God. But our intentions are the essential catalyst.
Intention is will, and will is the power that moves the world.
We already know this in the realm of ethics. When we judge what’s ethical, we judge intention. Accidental killing isn’t wrong, but intentional killing is murder.
The same principle applies to our offerings to God, our intention is the essence. God doesn’t need whatever object we offer. If a child offers a mud pie, the parent is pleased. The pie is useless, but they relish the love that motivates it.
God wants a loving relationship with you, he wants your heart. He wants to entwine his will with yours in a loving embrace.
This is the call to surrender we’re asked to make. It’s so daunting that few people attempt it. But the ideal is there, and the ideal is clear.
It’s not a goal to be achieved once, and then the trophy is left on a shelf, accumulating dust. It’s a goal we constantly hold above our heads, and even on our darkest nights, it illuminates our path to joy.
Prudence Louise 