1. How does the AP Framework define Consciousness? Explain in your own words. The AP Framework describes consciousness as the relation between the ego and its object. This is a binary duality: one cannot exist without the other. The ego cannot exist without its object, and the object, meaning the psychological object, cannot exist without the ego. The thinning of the ego and the refinement of consciousness is the aim of spirituality in the AP Framework. 2. How does Neuroscience define Consciousness, and how does it fundamentally differ from the AP framework? In my childhood, in 7th or 8th class, we were taught the difference between living and non-living things. A living thing is one that grows and multiplies, that is, one that has the ability to reproduce. This was taught in biology. Neuroscience also says that living things can think and imagine, and have systems like respiration, and these exist at the cellular level too. This is how neuroscience describes life. But the AP Framework deals only with the ego, which is the subject of all objects and leads to the relationship with objects. Whatever life is, it is due to that ego, that consciousness, alone. 3. According to Acharya Ji, what is Free Will? Share an instance from your own life where you felt you were exercising free will. Upon closer observation, was it genuinely free? According to Acharya ji, free will is the ego's decision not to remain, to thin itself down. This is the only free will there is, and it belongs to the ego alone. Otherwise, there is no free will. There is not even a will, because nature, the Prakriti, is the doer. The ego itself claims to be there, and claims to be the doer. So the ego sees itself as the doer, a choice-maker with free will, but it has no free will. The ego is a collection of tendencies. The body, society, and coincidences are what the ego is made up of. The only choice the ego has is whether to identify or not to identify with these things. In that sense the ego is sovereign and has a choice, though it does not really exist as it claims to. And if the ego does not see itself, it will not decide by free will. It will only be conditioned. So whenever the ego is there, there is no free will. Free will exists only in the ego's decision about its own remaining or not remaining. 4. In yesterday's Bodh Pratyusha session, Acharya Ji stated that not even the ego, but 'suffering' itself is fundamental. What did you understand from this? Write in brief. Acharya ji said that the ego is the suffering, and the ego is the sufferer. But to describe its nature and its characteristics, we call it the ego, which causes suffering. The fundamental thing, though, is suffering itself. To describe the ego, we have to describe the whole world. We search for happiness, pleasure, newness and adventure, and we search for all of it in order to reduce our suffering. Even if we describe self-consciousness, or self-ism, it is due to the ego, but the fundamental is suffering alone, because suffering drives all the work the ego does and all the choices it makes. All of it is for the sake of reducing one's suffering.
