and was rereleased last september:

www.amazon.com/exec/obido...042-3110512

Self-Consciousness seems to me to be an epiphenomenon of the more common ("animal-level") Consciousness. It is an uncommon secondary effect of regular awareness.

In other words, dogs are aware of their environment and others in it, but as far as we know, they aren't too worried about the so-called "afterlife" They don't think about thinking, they just think. They don't bark about barking, they just bark.

Humans, on the other opposable-thumbed hand, have evolved a massive frontal lobe capable of complex symbolic language and an excrutiating awareness of time. How, Why, and When this occurred, I don't know... I wasn't there when it happened.

So, anyway... Here's my answer: Since Self-Consciousness is an emergent property of Consciousness, shouldn't the awareness of Self dissappear when awareness dissappears? Each individual is like a rain drop -- complete and whole unto itself --- until the drop hits the ocean and dissolves into the great Oneness of Being.

To quote Mr. Morrison (from an interview with The Pulse):

So based on my own experience, I've come to the conclusion that the individual human body is no more, no less than one of the billions of skin cells we lose every day. Each of those cells was once bursting with youth and health before it lived its allotted span, shriveled and then fell as dust. Now, if a skin cell became conscious and forgot that it was only a temporary and recyclable part of a much larger living body, it too would no doubt feel the same existential trauma experienced by all living, sentient creatures. It would fear its own demise as we do, because it would have forgotten its purpose and function within a larger context and become trapped in the illusory yet painful cage of individuality.

Like skin cells or perhaps more like immune cells, we as individuals are all part of one immense intelligent living creature which has its roots in the Cryptozoic era and its living tendrils - including us - probing forward through the untasted jelly of the 21st Century. The body of this vast and intelligent lifeform - the biota as it's known - is still in its infancy and still at the stage in its life cycle where it must consume the planet's resources like a caterpillar on a leaf. What looks like environmental destruction to us is, I believe, the natural acceleration of an impending metamorphosis; just as a caterpillar gorges itself to power its transformation into a butterfly, so too does the biota consume everything in its path, in preparation for its own imminent transformation into adult form.

Quite soon now, possibly within ten years even, the infant creature in the body of which we are all merge cells will awaken to its true nature, the concept of individuality will vanish overnight, as the imaginary walls separating our minds collapse, we will realise there is only one mind, and our mega-maggot will metamorphose, leaving the planetary cradle and the four dimensions of spacetime to be born at last as a fully-formed adult creature designed for existence in a higher dimension fluid continuum or informational supermembrane. As immune cells inside this gigantic, living, tree-like body that's currently huffing and puffing its way towards maturity, it's our job to do everything we can to keep the larva healthy and developing normally. That's if we want to be born as adults into hyperspacetimelessness and quite frankly, I fancy the idea.

That's my religion and it didn't come from a book and it's not based on my blind faith but on my own direct experience of and conversation with my "God." "Grant" is an immune cell in the body of "God" - the biota - does its thinking and its sensing through tiny, self-replicating cell-creatures like me and you and all the other examples of life on earth. All life is the same life. All thoughts are the same thought. No one dies at all, except in the way that a baby has to "die" for a child to be born and the child has to "die" for the adult to be born. That's all death is at every stage - scary transformation. And, although individual "bodies" seem to wither, fall away, and be lost, consciousness remains as a function of the biota.

YOU CAN FOLLOW ME IF YOU LIKE. I'VE GOT MY OWN CULT AND EVERYTHING.