Abstract

This paper addresses the phenomenological givens of all experience: first-personal givenness, reflexivity of consciousness, and unity of experience in space and time. The discussion so far has focused on pure consciousness, the ground of being in many Eastern spiritual teachings, and the illusion of an individual self. I contend that this does not fully account for these phenomenological givens and propose an individual consciousness through which pure consciousness expresses itself. I relate this notion to Western notions of soul.