Is my iPhone Conscious?

   After reading, Is my iPhone Conscious?, made me highly appreciate the fact that you were open-minded enough and took the time to see things from a different perspective than that of your personal opinion.  I consider myself to be very open-minded which made it easy for me to have personally attempted to see things from the opposing philosophical point of view.  Due to my strong beliefs that make perfectly good sense to me and fit in well in my life, this just does not fit in with anything that I have believed in my entire life.  However, I do fully respect it and admire such an intellectual point of view.  I like digging deep for a more in depth explanation of certain things, it makes a given subject much more interesting.

     I agree that culture plays a significant role in the interpretations of inner experiences. If we have been brought up with certain beliefs and opinions regarding religion, consciousness, science, and social interactions, it is very difficult to curve the way we think and what we believe in.  Like with anything or anyone else, I, personally don't need to know everything about Jesus to know that he exists.  In general, we will never know everything there is about a person, place, or thing.  We learn as we go, take in what our hearts and minds accept to be true, and practice what fits our manner of living.  I am very open-minded and accept difference in opinions without further questioning or challenging a person's way of thinking.  I do not for one second believe that if you don't accept the truth of Jesus Christ you will end up in eternal hell.  What my truths are may not apply to the next person's truths, such is life.  The fact that I don't know what Jesus looked like does not mean that He does not exist.  I have great-great grandparents that I have no idea what they looked like and that does not mean they didn't exist.  We are taught in school that dinosaurs roamed the earth at one point, we have never seen them in person and that doesn't mean that they did not exist. 

     Although there is a general definition of consciousness and all that entails, every individual's personal definition or perception of consciousness varies from person to person. The general definition of consciousness found in dictionaries is the state of being conscious; awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc as well as awareness of something for what it is.  One person's perception of consciousness may just be the state of being awake, to another it might be to be aware of something, and so on.  I don't believe that our state of consciousness determines the validity of something.  For example, it is stated in the readings that a mystic is "better off" than a believer because a mystic  gets firsthand experiences of alternate realms of consciousness not descriptions of them as believers do since they only read but never engage in technical spiritual practices.  The mystic is said to know a different state of consciousness and they interpret it based on their cultural or religious background.  I wouldn't say that one is "better off" than the other, but rather that they are just the same because both point of views are based on their individual interpretation.  Personally, I see consciousness as being aware of my environment as well as my beliefs.  The fact that I believe in God does not make me "unconscious" because I've never actually seen Him, it is purely my own conscious interpretation.  At the same time, I also believe that our minds are very capable of "tricking" us into believing certain things are one way when they really aren't, but does this have to do with our consciousness or could it simply be that my brain had its own interpretation of what was before me and it received the wrong message?  This is an example of The Chandian Effect.  When Faqir Chand found himself in a state of desperation and fearing for his life because he realized that the enemy would have the upper hand if they didn't receive the ammunition they needed in a timely manner, he believed he saw the Holy form of Hazur Data Dayal Ji appear and tell him not to worry and to not waste their ammunition on the enemy since all they wanted was to take away their dead soldiers.  Experiencing that and then receiving the ammunition he had asked for, was enough to give him courage and make him feel safe.  This says to me that our minds are very capable of "tricking" us and making us think, hear, see, and feel a certain way - it is our interpretation of things and it does not determine our level of consciousness.