Consciousness is a singular of which the plural is unknown.
It is not possible that this unity of knowledge, feeling, and choice which you call your own should have sprung into being from nothingness at a given moment not so long ago; rather, this knowledge, feeling and choice are essentially eternal and unchangeable and numerically one in all people, nay in all sensitive beings.
The conditions for your existence are almost as old as the rocks. For thousands of years men have striven and suffered and begotten and women have brought forth in pain. A hundred years ago, another man sat on this spot; like you he gazed with awe and yearning in his heart at the dying light on the glaciers. Like you he was begotten of man and born of woman. He felt pain and brief joy as you do. Was he someone else? Was it not you yourself?
- Erwin Schrödinger, as quoted in by Ken Wilber in One Taste
July 27th, 2006 at 4:16 am
“Was it not you yourself?”
Obviously it was, since those very thoughts run through the consciousness that I with profound awe and humility call me.