The Neuroscientist Who Says Consciousness Creates Reality

Hi everyone. I'm Ky Dickens and I'm thrilled to welcome you to the Talk Tracks. In this series, we dive deeper into the revelations, challenges, and unexpected truths from The Telepathy Tapes. The goal is to explore all the threads that weave together our understanding of reality, science, spirituality, and yes, even unexplained things like SI abilities.

If you haven't yet listened to season one of The Telepathy Tapes, I encourage you to start there. It lays the foundation for everything we'll be exploring in this journey. We'll feature conversations with groundbreaking researchers, thinkers, nonspeakers and experiencers who illuminate the extraordinary connections that may defy explanation today, but won't for long.

Today on the Talk Tracks, we're joined by Dr. Tony Nader, neuroscientist, author, and global leader of the Transcendental Meditation Movement with an MD from Harvard and a PhD in brain and cognitive science from MIT. Dr. Nader spent [00:01:00] years studying the nervous system only to arrive at a radically different conclusion.

The brain does not create consciousness. Instead, consciousness creates everything. In this episode, we'll dive deep into what consciousness actually is, why Dr. Nader believes it's the true foundation of reality and how transcendental meditation can give us direct access to a universal field of intelligence, something ancient traditions.

Have claimed for thousands of years, and modern science is only beginning to explore. We also connect the dots to themes from season one, like how non-speaking individuals may be tuning into this field in ways that most of us forgotten and why moments of telepathy, intuition, and spontaneous genius aren't magic at all.

They're just natural. Dr. Nader offers not only a theory. A roadmap, a gentle invitation back to the self, the deepest self, the one that knows we are not separate, that we are all in his words, waves in the [00:02:00] ocean. And here's Katherine Ellis, one of our team's producers who's helping with this interview. Well, welcome Tony.

Thank you so much for being on the podcast. I'd love if you could give our listeners a brief introduction and background on who you are and what you do. I'm a medical doctor, uh, trained in psychiatry and neurology, and also a researcher. I have a PhD in brain and cognitive science from MIT and I was at the same time interested in the mind, the body, uh, relationship and what is primary consciousness or matter.

And I have tried to find the answers through physiology because I thought that's how it works, that there is this nervous system and that it's so developed and advanced that it creates. What we call a higher states of experience, but then I looked at it philosophically and scientifically from all perspectives and came [00:03:00] to the conclusion that actually consciousness is primary, and that what we see as physical is also only an expression of consciousness.

So I wrote a book called Consciousness is All There is. Can you explain how you got so heavily involved in this and how it relates to consciousness? First, I learned transcendental meditation myself when I was in pre-medical school, and it helped me to focus, helped me to be clear. Helped me to face pressure and challenges and be resilient.

Mm-hmm. So I mm-hmm. Got interested in it. But my vocation was to complete my medical studies and do research and get specialized. You know, this is what you do and you are. The direction. But at the same time, I kept practicing transcendental meditation and I took a sabbatical and went to Switzerland, uh, where the founder of the technique was, uh, Maharishi Magi.

And I learned how to [00:04:00] become a teacher of transcendental meditation. And then I continued my research and degrees and study. And one day I was called by Maharishi to India. Where he was, and he asked me to work with him for a few days. At that time, I was very highly involved in medicine and science and research, so I thought I'd be there for a couple of weeks maximum, and then it became a month and then two months, and I had to give all my, uh, patience to my colleagues, my friends.

Uh, and then I had to sell my house and sell my car, and I had even a plane. I'm a pilot and I had to sell it. And, uh, just the time kept going and the two, three weeks became my whole life because I delved and went deep into that. And so at the end of the journey, Maharishi asked me to take care of his [00:05:00] activities from a scientific perspective, because he wanted.

The understanding that consciousness is scientific, that these technologies of the mind are for real. Yeah. Can be understood and they can be, uh, practiced. And so he was very strong on having a scientific angle to that. Can you talk about the scientific angle? Like how do you marry consciousness being the basis of reality with the science that's available?

It's, uh, based on, uh. Different rational possibilities. So we have consciousness and we know it's not physical, it's not material, it's not the mechanical material thing, even though it changes with different circumstances of life, but. We have that sense of continuity of the self. Even as we grow, we change the looks, the physiology changes, the jobs change.

The relationships change. We have that sense of self that continues with us very [00:06:00] intimately. And so we have that thing we call consciousness and we have that physical body, which we call material, but then also physical, which means beyond matter. It's also energy. So there is some energy that collapses into particles and then becomes molecules and cells and nervous system, et cetera, and the whole universe on a physical level.

So we have these two aspects and. The logic is whether these two aspects are completely separate, and here we have, um, the dualism, which means two values. The problem with dualism is that how these two things which are completely different, interact with each other. Also, the aspect of dualism that doesn't work anymore is that we know that whatever happens in the mind.

Is reflected in [00:07:00] the physiology and also what is happening in the physiology is reflected in the mind. So now we, we come to the idea of, okay, are they the same thing? If they are the same thing, there are two possibilities. One is that the physical energy is primary and the other is that consciousness is primary.

Mm-hmm. If the physical. Energy material values are primary then how they lead to this consciousness, reality that is the challenge. Yeah. And so far, scientists for, uh, as time can, can go, have not found any solution to that. Not even a close proxim. Some talk about maybe it's quantum mechanical. We create a quantum mechanical effect, but then quantum mechanical means that consciousness is quantum mechanical and takes us to a different perspective.

The other challenging aspect is to say that consciousness is primary, [00:08:00] and then the challenge here is how consciousness appears as matter. If it is the reality. How can physicality appear as matter? Yeah, this is the problem that those who believe that consciousness is primary, uh, they have not solved it.

So I've spent time on it. So this is, uh, the background of how it is now, how consciousness appears as matter is, uh, long story, but. It's not too complicated. See, everything we experience, we experience through consciousness. This is one level. Without consciousness, we have nothing. You know, imagine you're in coma, then nothing means anything.

You know, not your life, not your friends knowledge, loved ones, or whether you are the most loved person in the universe or the wealthiest or. Whatever. If you're not conscious, there is no meaning to [00:09:00] anything. But do you think that when you're in a coma, you're still on some level, like maybe your higher self is still there and still conscious?

Yeah. Very good. My definition of consciousness is not just human-like waking state of consciousness. My definition of consciousness is anything that can sense, detect, interact, feel, respond to anything else, which means consciousness now has a spectrum. It's no more. Just humanlike consciousness. Mm-hmm.

Consciousness is on a large spectrum from a very tiny, small level of consciousness to a more advanced, broad, higher perspective in consciousness. So when a person is. In anesthesia. They are not conscious in a wakeful state, but their body is conscious. Even if the person is completely [00:10:00] asleep, the body reacts, the blood pressure rises, the heart rate starts going higher.

So consciousness in this case has not disappeared. It just has been filled. Hmm. But couldn't you argue that that's actually just physical reaction alone and not. Consciousness. My argument is that this physical reaction is also consciousness. Okay? It's consciousness. On a limited level, you can be conscious and awake and alert.

You can be conscious, but be drowsy and not so alert. You can be dreaming, and that's a state of consciousness. You are conscious, but in a different way when you're asleep. A deep sleep without dreaming or waking. Your body is also alert to certain things. It is a mer is lesser consciousness than alert state of wakefulness, but it's also consciousness.

So [00:11:00] consciousness is on a spectrum from very little to much higher. And this is what we are talking in humans. But when I take it to animals, for example. It also there in a different way. You can take it to a tree. I see a tree as a conscious being. Mm-hmm. But not like humans. It's not in the same way. This is what people, uh, where people get mixed up.

They imagine that being conscious is just being conscious like a human being. It's not the case. I mean, we, this is what we call anthropomorphic view of reality, which means viewing reality from the perspective of humans. Humans decide if you're not conscious like me. You are not conscious at all, but that's on the biased state of understanding because we imagine everything should be like us, right?

But consciousness goes all the way to even particles. You know, if you take a stone and drop the stone, the stone reacts to [00:12:00] gravity. Now I'm calling this, the stone is responding. To gravity, and that itself is a minimal level of consciousness. It has nothing to do with human consciousness, almost nothing to do, but still it responds to gravity, which means it interacts with something else that.

Attracts it. It doesn't have a choice to fall or not to fall. It doesn't know past, present, and future. It doesn't have feelings. It doesn't have ideas about self. It doesn't think it exists or it doesn't exist. It's just response to gravity. This response to gravity is a very minimal, tiny, meager level of recognizing or responding to.

Another entity, which is, let's say the earth, the stone just mm-hmm. Responds and has no choice. It responds to gravity and it falls, [00:13:00] but this response is a meager, minor level of consciousness. Now you keep adding these more complex levels of consciousness. You get a tree. Now the tree, for example, can respond to the sun, can respond to the humidity and the earth.

Mm-hmm. Trees can connect with each other. They can help each other even. Uh, there are many studies that are amazing about that. So all of these are more complex phenomena of consciousness.

It makes me think that everything that we see that exists is all part of the same collective consciousness, all from the same source, but that it's manifested in different levels of physicality. Would you. Agree with that? Absolutely. This is my whole thesis. I've been talking about this since the, the 1990s and Maharishi Yeah.

Who [00:14:00] is the founder of transcendental Meditation, has said this many, many times even before. And the ancient traditions of Veda and yoga have been saying this. So there are many philosophers who said that? Lato has said it. Spinoza said it. To sharpen how believed in something more profound that is less not physical and all that.

The problem is that there was no connection between how this consciousness appears as physicality. This is what was lacking, and I feel this ancient Vedic tradition. As hinted to that, and with my research and work with Maharishi, I developed the idea and the logics of the sequence of how physicality can appear to emerge or.

Emerges actually from one field. From conscious. Right, exactly. We have to start from the beginning. We can start from the field. There is a field. A field is something that is non-local. So when you say electromagnetic [00:15:00] field, it's something that is not just contained in a box. It's something that is everywhere.

So one way to to imagine it, because you know, imagining and, and metaphors, they help to understand sometimes more than even logic. So imagine like an ocean. There is an ocean, a big, huge ocean. And imagine that this ocean has no boundaries. It's infinite. It's beyond space and time because it's all and everywhere.

Now, this ocean, we are saying is an ocean of consciousness. It's not a material ocean. It's not a physical ocean. So it's just pure consciousness. We could call it love. We could call it power. We could call it energy. We could call it anything. We are calling it consciousness. Because it has a nature, it has a quality, and it's only one quality is to be conscious.

So we are gonna now to see if consciousness is primary. [00:16:00] How we build from consciousness, all the other things, the logic, the universe, the laws, choice and freedom, determinism, pain and suffering and intuition and you know, all of these things we have to build from. So what does it mean to be conscious? To be conscious means that there is some entity being aware of something.

I am conscious of the flower. It means I am the observer, the flower is the object, and I am observing the observed. And also there is a process that connects me to the flower. So there is the silent observer. The conscious observer, and it's what we call. Reflecting on itself, self referral. This is important.

It reflects on itself to be conscious and to have the quality of consciousness you have to reflect on something. But since it's the only thing that there [00:17:00] is, it's reflecting on itself, it turns back onto itself. So what we have here is three values. Within the one consciousness we have the knower, the knowing, and the known.

This is where diversity starts in the field of oneness. So oneness is always there, but reflecting on itself, it has these three flavors. I can see myself as an object of my observation. I can see myself as the one observing, and I see that in order to observe, I have to have a dynamic process that connects me to.

Myself as an observed. Mm-hmm. This is where the three value comes. Now, these three values can have an infinite number of ways to look at each other. That is what is a key point also, is that I can look at myself from so many different ways as a broad perspective of [00:18:00] infinite observer. Or a slightly hidden observer who knows something but doesn't know much.

It's like the imagination flowing. And when you imagine something, it's still in the unmanifested. It's like an author who imagines characters. So that consciousness, that ocean of consciousness held within it, you can see like an author. That imagines characters based on how wide is their consciousness, how broad is their imagination?

Now imagine that if you have an infinite consciousness, how much your imagination can be fertile. So in that field of consciousness. We are saying a field that is only one field, but it has within it all possible imaginary, non imaginary things that can ever be imagined or thought or created. Mm-hmm. So it imagines [00:19:00] all of these things Now.

This is a key point that I get asked a lot. Why is then manifestation happening? This is where physicality will come and materiality will come, and all of that. We have to ask to be logical and complete. Why would this ever happen? Why this ocean of consciousness? Which is infinite and bounded, imagining everything actually end up appearing as you and me, and the tree and the dog and the cat and the planet and this, all of these things.

And the answer is based on its nature. What is its nature? Its nature is to be conscious and it wants to be conscious in every possible way. It looks at itself and it sees all these ways of being conscious. It knows them on an imaginary level. What it does not know is what it is like to be Catherine.

What it is like to be Tony, what it is like to be, [00:20:00] uh, David, what it is like to be. Whatever, a tree, what it is like to be a cat, what it is like to be a planet, what it is like to be the sun, the moon. See, when the actor tries to embody a certain role, for example, in a movie, they have to forget to some extent who they are.

And fully put themselves in the shoes of the role they are playing. So if you are a very happy, wealthy person and want to play the role of, uh, somebody who's working hard and trying to make a living and like that and want the people to believe you, but also you want to see how it feels, you have to somewhat forget your nature.

And step into the nature of the role you are playing. Mm-hmm. And the more you actually forget and embody fully. The nature of the role you are playing, the more [00:21:00] you actually embody it and experience it as real, the more you actually know it. So what it is like to be happy, satisfied, and enjoying something and having pleasure of eating or living or experiencing something grand and beautiful Consciousness in its unmanifest level imagines it.

But it doesn't know it firsthand, right? So what it does is hides its own nature and experiences from a limited perspective, and then it knows truly what it is like to be Tony or Catherine or whatever. So. All what we see as manifest universe are different ways of being in a limited perspective, limited vision.

Mm-hmm. Now, when you say the, those who have autism, they have somehow removed the barrier. If you say, you know, if those not everyone remove that barrier of [00:22:00] limited perspective and they have pierced through the secret and they know that they are the ocean. Otherwise, when you are the wave and you want to experience the wave as such, you are bound on the wave and you have to keep your vision on the limited wave you don't see.

Mm-hmm. And you see all the other waves have different from you. So you experience the wave. You are the wave. You embody the wave, you live the full value of the wave. But to get liberated from that, you have to dive deep and know that you are the ocean. Now, this is what transcendental meditation actually does.

It's not that it produces autism, but allows you, while remaining yourself. Allows you to pierce through the secret and experience who you truly are. You are the ocean. You are the ocean playing this role or playing that role, putting yourself in this shoes of this uh, person or that [00:23:00] person. And that's the beauty of it, is that we are all the ocean.

We are all the ocean. Mm-hmm. That's what brings deep unity to our existence, to our life, to our understanding, because we truly are the ocean. Everyone is myself. Everyone is yourself. Everyone is that reality. And when you transcend, it means transcendental meditation. It means you go beyond the surface understanding of who you are and you experience the depths of.

Being the depths of who you truly are, and that's what we call pure consciousness. So you transcend the surface value and you experience consciousness by itself without any other thoughts or feelings or impressions that are there. That's why we call it transcendental. Transcendental means to go beyond.

You go beyond all surface values and you [00:24:00] transcend and transcend beyond and beyond until you transcend everything and you find you are consciousness, you are pure being. See, this is one of the arguments I use in my logical explanation, that consciousness is primary. There are many, many arguments, so it's a combination of.

Intersecting converging arguments from different, different angles, even from physics that discovers what we call a unified field from mathematics, from logic, from reasoning, from philosophy. From experience experiential, like what happens when you transcend, how you transform the body and how you experience that collective value from the experiences that you are talking about.

Even though I didn't mention those in the book, but I mentioned some of those experiences similar about people feeling connected, feeling one with [00:25:00] everybody, and that's very real. It's beautiful. It is the reality of our essence.

So if we come here, you know, as, or if we're manifested as humans in a physical form, intentionally forgetting that we are the ocean, is it then a bad thing to realize that we are, does that defeat the purpose of. Forgetting? No, actually the all purpose would have already been achieved and now you go back to the full realization.

That's why we call it this realization, a state of self-realization. You realize who you truly are to the contrary, it gives you all energy and all blessings and all wellbeing and good health and good happiness, and feeling well. Mm-hmm and peaceful and all that. So there is a past. And once you've gone through the past, you reach to a point [00:26:00] where you have gone through the past and you reach the goal.

The goal is to go back to the self. So you have done the story. Now you reach the goal, that is where you get fulfillment and the nearer you are to the goal. The higher is the ability to be happy and to be fulfilled because you are discovering more and more who you are, which means you are growing more and more.

So it's not having more, it's being more. That is important. Mm-hmm. And as we become more and more and we realize we are absolute, everything that consciousness would say, okay. Through Catherine, I have drawn through that path and discovered what it is like to be Catherine. And now I discover what it is like to be an enlightened Catherine, and I know what it is like from Catherine's perspective to experience that wholeness and to experience that being.

And that is the greatest fulfillment actually, and that is what brings [00:27:00] greater happiness and and wellbeing. You're saying the point is to return to yourself and to have this self-realization, well, why do I keep, why do I keep living this life then? Because you still have to see from different perspectives, things that you have not yet fully accomplished or that you want to do.

Mm. And then once you are accomplished yourself. What you want is your other selves also to be. So that's why you are creating this podcast, for example, because, uh, subliminally, without knowing, you want to spread the knowledge of I am myself. Yeah, you come on guys. You don't see it. Come on. It's like, because yourself is one aspect, Catherine, but yourself is also others, is George and Tony and Mary and, and whatever.

Adrian. And, and, and all of these are yourself. And once you have accomplished yourself, you want everyone of your other selves also to kind of come and [00:28:00] experience how beautiful it is to know the self. Yeah. That's really beautiful. Thank you for that. Um, I wanna quickly return to what you mentioned about the nonverbal autistic population.

We mentioned in season one of this podcast, you said something along the lines of, these individuals may have the ability to see past the veil, or like recognize that we're all the ocean or we're all one, and that they can break the illusion. Many of them seem to be really tapped into this collective consciousness, even knowing things that have never been taught, like different languages.

And then I think. About people like savants who without ever having been taught, are able to masterfully play the piano or paint with perfect precision. Um, do you have a theory as to how or why these things are possible or happening? Yeah, it's very simple. It's the same field is a field of all possibilities.

We said, you know, the ocean of consciousness reflecting on itself sees an infinite way of being conscious. And infinite means [00:29:00] infinite, which means all possibilities. And so those are different ways of being conscious also. So there is the way of, uh, person who is a doctor. There is a way of a person who's an engineer.

There is a way of a painter, there is a way of a pilot. There is a way of. Of, uh, you know, a healthy, uh, person or there is a way of somewhat, uh, less healthy or more complex situation that happened. And there is a way which has these, uh, insights, yet they have these limitations, but it doesn't mean you have to have the limitation in order to have, to have the insight.

So these are ways, and they are beautiful. And, uh, you know, they are great and what they live themselves may be more happiness or joy and more, uh, truths sometimes. Uh mm-hmm. That's why we have to be humble in terms of what we define as. As [00:30:00] intelligence or what is normal, what is abnormal? I also love what you said, that you don't have to be autistic or nonverbal to experience what they're talking about.

It's like if you're able to transcend and return to yourself, it's like really anybody could. It does seem like something like transcendental meditation where you are transcending the self is almost a. Way to open that up for you. Yeah. It's a nice way to fi to finish the thought, which means that there is a technology because people will ask, okay, these are nice ideas and all that, what do I do about it?

So I think that's what you probably were leading to, and that is mm-hmm. Uh, that us who are like, not so, uh, extraordinary, uh, insights. They have a technique, a technology of consciousness that allows us to dive deep within and experience that and live it while being functional and, um, [00:31:00] productive in society.

And that is where, mm-hmm. Technologies of consciousness come. That is why we teach transcendental meditation to allow people to have both values. See, that is in the tradition sometimes misunderstanding that if you want to experience this elevated level of awareness and consciousness, you have to re, you know, get away from the world.

You have to be remote, uh, you have to go into, you know, uh. Seclusion and reclusion and all of that, and you know, it's either this or that, but the reality is not like that. The reality is that even productive daily active people can also have this value within themselves. So you can have these both values together, and we have names for it, like it's because it's, we've studied it scientifically with electroencephalography and brainwaves and effects even on society.

Because we [00:32:00] say that there are three major states of consciousness, sleeping, dreaming, and waking. But there is a fourth state, which is transcendental consciousness that is scientifically different physiologically and mentally than the other three. But when you have this ability, even during activity, to be in a state of pure consciousness, we call this a state of cosmic consciousness where you are at the same time experiencing that wholeness.

But being, being outwards and active and, and looking at the outside world from a platform of inner hired being and inner sense of self and wellbeing and collectively connected to everything, yet engaged on the outer value. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. It's like staying grounded in your physical form, which is the nature of your existence right now, but still remaining aware of that higher self.

Beautiful. Thank you so much, Tony. This has been so insightful and wonderful. [00:33:00] Thank you. Wonderful to be with you, and congratulations on your podcast and what you're doing. And if you're interested in reading Tony Nader's book, consciousness is All There is. We've included it in this episode's description.

That's it for this episode of the Talk Tracks. But new episodes will now be released every other Sunday, so stay tuned as we work to unravel all the threads, even the veiled ones that knit together our reality. Please remember to stay kind, stay curious, and that being a true skeptic requires an open mind.

Thank you to my amazing collaborators. Original music was created by Elizabeth Pw, original logo and cover art by Ben Korra, design the audio mix. And finishing by Sarah Ma, our amazing podcast coordinator, Jill Paches, The Telepathy Tapes coordinator in my right hand, Catherine Ellis. And I'm Ky Dickens, your writer, creator, and host.

Thank you again for joining us.

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