(Principles are basic truths that, when applied, cause success to come to you easier and quicker.)


A useful analogy for this is the old fish/water story. They say a fish cannot ‘understand’ what water is because it has been born into it and lived its entire life enveloped by it. The fish does not sense the distinction between itself and the ever-present background of water.

So it is with the background of consciousness. We live our lives as experiencers of thoughts and things. If we can’t measure ‘it’ in space and time, whatever ‘it’ is, it doesn’t exist. It’s not real. And yet…

We have experiences that we cannot measure with a scale or a ruler. Sudden solutions to previously intractable problems. Bursts of artistic creativity. A thought about someone rarely thought of … and they ring your phone. A welling-up of love at the mere sight of a sunset or child or a simple memory.

Classically, scientifically, we’re told these experiences are generated by us. From within us. Products of chemical and electrical activity. In that model, they say that consciousness is a product of matter.

The niggling problem with that is that modern science, reaching down to the smallest pieces of matter, is showing us that at that tiny scale matter is composed of some sort of energy. Not smaller things; a no-thing-ness. It seems all that matters isn’t matter. It is a busy field of nonphysical energy. Consciousness is one of the names for this nameless background.

Unless and until we personally experience this background and come to know the distinction between it and ‘us,’ we are to it as the fish is to its forever watery background.

Coaching Point: What benefits do you think you could gain from directly experiencing the background of ever-present consciousness?


Copyright 2025 Steve Straus. All rights reserved.