The Power Of Consciousness/Meta-Awareness | Mufti Abu Layth

I did want to say some words on on consciousness just to expand on that slightly. Because in many ways the story begins that we see with Adam alayhis salaam.

That in the Quran there is an indication to that this forbidden fruit and what follows from it is a greater self-awareness. That they have that they suddenly become more conscious, more self-conscious, more self-aware.

And this journey kind of in many ways begins with that. And when we think about it what is being conscious? And there's an aspect I want to kind of draw in on. And that is the glance.

You see, because the power of the glance is incalculable. Being in the glance of someone what it does is it makes us aware that somebody's aware of us. And there is a kind of meta-awareness that emerges.

Because not only am I aware of things, but I'm aware that you're aware of me. So me experiencing awareness is as a subject. But I suddenly become conscious of me being the object to your awareness. And what that does is it changes my behavior.

Because the moment I realize the glance is on me I react to it. You can condition someone entirely by the glance. Social media just for the glance, just for the views to be seen.

You see, to be the object subjectively. It is immensely deep and profound as a as an understanding. And in many ways this is like an idea is when you've got Jeremy Bentham when he suggested the Panopticon the prison where which would be this kind of cylinder where the cells would all kind of face each other and the prisoners would be in the

glance of one another thereby not needing the guards because he proposed that just being in the glance would create this hyper-vigilance which would then not allow people to they they would just be more self-conscious. Obviously it wasn't then authorized or sanctioned to to to be commissioned the the prison experiment that he but you can Google it the Panopticon.

But this thought and what it does to us how we want to be perceived as an object and we are all this we are all part and parcel of this. And it's interesting that even at the quantum level you reduce reality down to the subatomic parameter

and even there being conscious of it gives rise to it in a different way. See in the double-slit experiment you shoot the electron through the double slit it will go through both of them simultaneously and create a wave.

It's so it's not going as a particle, it's going as a wave. But the moment you try to become conscious of which one is it going through it behaves differently. Behaves just like a particle. Changes the pattern. If you haven't seen this I implore you go to YouTube, watch the double-slit experiment.

So even at a quantum realm we become by be by becoming conscious we influence reality in at least one of its manifestations. And then you think about us when we think we're being watched when we put ourselves we create this profile of us on social media and how then that dictates us.

It is a profile of us dictating us. It's amazing. How the the power of the glance. Allah says in the Quran wa shaahidin wa mashhuud. Allah wa samaa-i zaatil buruuj wa shaahidin wa mashhuud.

Allah takes an oath by the witnesser, the witnessing and the one witnessed, do you see? As the subject and the object. Cuz it changes. And in light of that see this hadith we discussed it on one of our mind traps.

Al-mu'min mir'atul mu'min. See because we become conscious I mean we are conscious but we become meta-conscious through the other being conscious of us. It heightens our self-awareness. People are looking at me, have I got my okay, am I It changes our state of consciousness.

That the believer is a mirror to the believer. And as some have said that al-mu'min here is the divine cuz it's one of the names of Allah. That the believer you see that mirror that alters consciousness is our realization

that we are in the glance or in the watch of Allah. And this is exactly the hadith of ihsan. An ta'bud Allah ka'annaka taraahu. That what if you could be in a state of worship and worship I one way is actual ritual worship, but it could be much bigger than that.

It could mean in a state of mindful devotion. In your everyday you could be walking and being in that state of heart. That as though you can glance cast your glance and are have a your attention on the transcendental divine through his creation that you can do it.

But how could you do that? So fa in lam takun taraahu if you can't do it, then you at least know that God is watchful of me. Allah because it's that being that I'm in the glance of someone that heightens our own self self-awareness.

Because the journey initially began with that self-awareness. So what could be a better way of at least developing or attempting, it's a lifelong struggle, but attempting that the glance I'm in the watch that I'm under is that of God, the glance of God.

That Allah watches over. As a default, not in a not in a fear way, not in a Allah is trying to punish me or trying but being watched. See, because what's interesting is this one can often assume that being watched is a tense state.

Which it can be. It can be a tense state. Can be. But often statistically, people perform surprisingly better when being watched by an audience. You see, so you've got that altering. So, yes, it is it produces One angle is it produces tension.

A person thinks I'm being watched. And it doesn't have to be people watching you. It doesn't have to be that like a a fiery scary, but it just because it alters the state, it makes a person nervous. But that is the same as being excited on many levels. And yet, despite that, people often perform better when being watched.

So, if that default state of attention if it could be ultimate goal is in a blissful blissful way to understand that to be God. I think that would be the peak of that mark on.