Thank you for the response. I feel that I am a bit closer to an understanding.
Presupposing (as I do), that the brain is merely a receiver for consciousness, conscious awareness cannot be experienced without the presence of hadaya vathu, which means that neither can citta (including seven universal cetasika) be experienced. If this is correct, I got this far.
Since the gandhabba (manomaya kaya) combined with pasada rupa, are ON all the time, can I assume that this is the MEMORY circuit (so to speak)? AND that this memory circuit’s function is isolated to each individual person preserving who we perceive we are.
Is then, this gandhabba/pasada rupa THE thing…the thread that becomes activated when a person regains consciousness, such as with a comatose state?
If the brain does not produce consciousness (which I do not believe it does), why am I still me when I wake up in the morning or when a person who has been in a coma for 10 years regains consciousness and is the same person as before the coma?
Is the gandhabba directly responsible for this? If not, what is? I understand that the gandhabba may be like a memory storage device, and that it is always ON, but like a computer, the memory stored within it is of no use unless the ON switch is activated.
Let’s assume that consciousness is a field and the brain receives a consciousness signal. the gandhabba/pasada rupa keep track of who and what we are, BUT what is the link…the thing…that keeps us tethered to a specific ghandhabba/ pasada rupa?
I hope these questions are making sense.