Some fanatical materialists claim, “Matter is all that exists — the idea of consciousness is an illusion.”

However, their very assertion of this claim proves its falsity. How? Whenever we say something is an illusion, we naturally come to the question — whose illusion? Who is perceiving this as an illusion?

There has to be someone conscious who is put into illusion. Without consciousness, we would have no experience at all — and that would mean no experience of reality or illusion. Our very ability to argue about consciousness non-reality demonstrates the reality of consciousness. The Bhagavad-gita (16.08) outlines the mentality of the demoniac who deny the existence of God and of any higher truth. The next verse (16.09) states the consequence of such denial: they destroy their own souls — that is, they end up denying their own self-existence.

Rather than fallaciously reject consciousness’ reality, we can intelligently invest it in understanding what consciousness is. Gita wisdom explains that consciousness comes from the soul, a full-fledged spiritual person. And this person is an eternal part of the Supreme spiritual person, God, Krishna. When we strive to act as his parts by learning to love him through the diligent practice of bhakti-yoga, we realize that consciousness is our defining reality – it defines who we really are, in contradistinction to the unconscious matter existing all around us.

The mistake of materialists is their uni-dimensional devotion to matter and their unwillingness to face the reality of their conscious experience. By letting Gita wisdom introduce them to the reality of consciousness and letting bhakti-yoga grant them access to the bliss of pure love for Krishna, they can uproot their illusion. Thereby they can relish gradually and increasingly the sweetness and richness of their consciousness when it is absorbed in the highest reality, Krishna.

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