The Importance of Consciousness

When one goes into silence and meditates for weeks or months at a time, not speaking, reading or writing, one has experiences that are generally unavailable to people who have not undertaken a similar practice. For some states of consciousness, a phrase like boundless love does not seem overblown. Most traditions of spirituality also suggest a connection between self transcendence and living ethically. Not all good feelings have an ethical valance, and pathological forms of ecstasy surely exist. I have no doubt, for instance, that many suicide bombers feel extraordinarily good just before they detonate themselves in a crowd.