TheExaltedRonin

What does awareness mean?

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To notice things without continually thinking of them?

 

I personally believe awareness is the most straightforward and simplistic road to wu Wei and peace.

 

How does one gather awareness? Process the thought or "no thought"?

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"There is much difference between awareness and witnessing. Witnessing is still an act; you are doing it, the ego is there. So the phenomenon of witnessing is divided between the subject and the object.

 

Witnessing is a relationship between subject and object. Awareness is absolutely devoid of any subjectivity or objectivity.

 

There is no one who is witnessing in awareness; there is no one who is being witnessed. Awareness is a total act, integrated; the subject and the object are not related in it; they are dissolved. So awareness doesn’t mean that anyone is aware, nor does it mean that anything is being attended to.

 

Awareness is total – total subjectivity and total objectivity as a single phenomenon – while in witnessing a duality exists between subject and object. Awareness is non-doing; witnessing implies a doer. But through witnessing awareness is possible, because witnessing means that it is a conscious act; it is an act, but conscious. You can do something and be unconscious – our ordinary activity is unconscious activity – but if you become conscious in it, it becomes witnessing. So from ordinary unconscious activity to awareness there is a gap that can be filled by witnessing.

 

Witnessing is a technique, a method toward awareness. It is not awareness, but, as compared to ordinary activity, unconscious activity, it is a higher step. Something has changed: activity has become conscious; unconsciousness has been replaced by consciousness. But something more still has to be changed. That is, the activity has to be replaced by inactivity. That will be the second step.

 

It is difficult to jump from ordinary, unconscious action into awareness. It is possible but arduous, so a step in between is helpful. If one begins by witnessing conscious activity, then the jump becomes easier – the jump into awareness without any conscious object, without any conscious subject, without any conscious activity at all. This doesn’t mean that awareness isn’t consciousness; it is pure consciousness, but no one is conscious about it.

 

There is still a difference between consciousness and awareness. Consciousness is a quality of your mind, but it is not your total mind. Your mind can be both conscious and unconscious, but when you transcend your mind, there is no unconsciousness and no corresponding consciousness. There is awareness.

 

Awareness means that the total mind has become aware. Now the old mind is not there, but there is the quality of being conscious. Awareness has become the totality; the mind itself is now part of the awareness. We cannot say that the mind is aware; we can only meaningfully say that the mind is conscious. Awareness means transcendence of the mind, so it is not the mind that is aware. It is only through transcendence of the mind, through going beyond mind, that awareness becomes possible.

 

Consciousness is a quality of the mind, awareness is the transcendence; it is going beyond the mind. Mind, as such, is the medium of duality, so consciousness can never transcend duality. It is always conscious of something, and there is always someone who is conscious. So consciousness is part and parcel of the mind, and mind, as such, is the source of all duality, of all divisions, whether they are between subject and object, activity or inactivity, consciousness or unconsciousness. Every type of duality is mental. Awareness is nondual, so awareness means the state of no mind.

 

Then what is the relationship between consciousness and witnessing? Witnessing is a state, and consciousness is a means toward witnessing. If you begin to be conscious, you achieve witnessing. If you begin to be conscious of your acts, conscious of your day-to-day happenings, conscious of everything that surrounds you, then you begin to witness.

 

Witnessing comes as a consequence of consciousness. You cannot practice witnessing; you can only practice consciousness.

 

Witnessing comes as a consequence, as a shadow, as a result, as a by-product. The more you become conscious, the more you go into witnessing, the more you come to be a witness. So consciousness is a method to achieve witnessing. And the second step is that witnessing will become a method to achieve awareness.

 

So these are the three steps: consciousness, witnessing, awareness. But where we exist is the lowest rank: that is, in unconscious activity. Unconscious activity is the state of our minds.

 

Through consciousness you can achieve witnessing, and through witnessing you can achieve awareness, and through awareness you can achieve “no achievement.” Through awareness you can achieve all that is already achieved. After awareness there is nothing; awareness is the end.

 

Awareness is the end of spiritual progress; unawareness is the beginning. Unawareness means a state of material existence.

 

So unawareness and unconsciousness are not both the same.

 

Unawareness means matter. Matter is not unconscious; it is unaware.

 

Animal existence is an unconscious existence; human existence is a mind phenomenon – ninety-nine percent unconscious and one percent conscious. This one percent consciousness means you are one percent conscious of your ninety-nine percent unconsciousness. But if you become conscious of your own consciousness, then the one percent will go on increasing, and the ninety-nine percent unconsciousness will go on decreasing.

 

If you become one hundred percent conscious, you become a witness, a sakshi. If you become a sakshi, you have come to the jumping point from where the jump into awareness becomes possible.

In awareness you lose the witness and only witnessing remains: you lose the doer, you lose the subjectivity, you lose the egocentric consciousness. Then consciousness remains, without the ego. The circumference remains without the center.

 

This circumference without the center is awareness. Consciousness without any center, without any source, without any motivation, without any source from which it comes – a “no source” consciousness – is awareness.

 

So you move from the unaware existence that is matter, prakriti, towards awareness. You may call it the divine, the godly, or whatever you choose to call it. Between matter and the divine, the difference is always of consciousness."

 

-Osho

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So I would like to thank you for the reply. How does one become conscious?

 

For example would one be conscious of his surrounding, then witness the birds singing and the wind blowing, then one would achieve awareness? Correct?

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Are you interested in Buddhism? Taoism? Meditation? To become conscious I would start with some kind of meditation. Finding a Teacher or Master is also an option. I'm afraid I don't have the answers you seek.

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Taoism. And frankly I am my teacher. There is no one I can turn to except this site and myself.

 

I enjoy self learning anyways but I always have questions.

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.......................How does one become conscious?

For example would one be conscious of his surrounding, then witness the birds singing and the wind blowing, then one would achieve awareness? Correct?

 

Yes, one would be conscious of his surrounding by witnessing the birds singing and the wind blowing to achieve awareness. While one is walking, one should be aware of the immediate environment with the five senses to detect any signs of danger.

1. Use the sense of vision to see what is ahead of the road. What or who is coming toward and away from you? Observe if any obstacles in front of you?

2. Use the sense of hearing to listen what is behind you. How far is the moving object, if any, behind you?

3. Use the sense of smell to detect is there any offensive gaseous odors which might harm you?

4. Use the sense of feeling to sense the ambient temperature which might be harmful to the body?

5. The sense of taste may not be applicable but one may use it with one's own discretion.

 

A good cultivator would be conscious of his surrounding to be alert and vigilant with awareness of danger for his safety.

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hmmn, is awareness a mirror or a flashlight?

Huh. I'd say it's an internal flashlight. The quickest way to become aware is to turn the eyes inward, and just observe.

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One does not achieve awareness. It is Mind. This is your nature. Consciousness is you.

 

But I can see where this is coming from perhaps~ achieving awareness is being seen as something outside of ordinary consciousness. Ordinary consciousness is habitual, unskillful use of Mind. Awareness (as it seems to be used in the context of this thread), is direct perception of reality as is.

 

Fair enough.

 

What does awareness mean?

To notice things without continually thinking of them?

I personally believe awareness is the most straightforward and simplistic road to wu Wei and peace.

How does one gather awareness? Process the thought or "no thought"?

 

Yes… it is an awesome question.

 

Awareness is your own mind. It is not like anything, nor does it mean anything. It is not thought. Mind has no mind. It is just awareness, open, still, sensitive, effective, selfless, empty of emptiness. Inconceivability of the first water— it's you.

 

Awareness is itself no words without beginning (to be most direct). It is what is life itself, yet it does not exist as it has never fallen into the created. That it is your own mind without you yourself knowing that it is (your) selfless, unborn, brilliantly miraculous nature is indicative of the degree of conditioned concretions of the intellectual apparatus that obscures it.

 

It is also indicative of its absolutely non-reflecting characteristic of selfless pervasion without bounds. No inside or outside~ what could there be to reflect? This is awareness aware without being aware of itself because it has no self. This is our true nature. Selflessness is not a moral injunction— it's impersonal. it is uncreated …when you see this, that lazy fart god gets another unemployment check. hahaha!!

 

Awareness in terms of the essence of human consciousness is all one can discover. We must never forget that there is that which is beyond even the Tao. Awareness is not the Tao; when we actually see Mind as our true selfless uncreated essential identity, we realize for the first time that it has always been thus and no one is not just this aware, living potential uncreated unified energy.

 

It is your own mind before you think good or bad. There is absolutely nothing to gather. The gathering spoken of in the classics of spiritual alchemy is in terms of spontaneous adaption to ordinary affairs effecting impersonal response by not thinking~ because it is a matter of knowledge inherent in the situation itself. It is not a matter of deduction and reaction by one's own power.

 

Knowledge is unequivocal, like how cool water feels when you drink it. You might even say that knowledge came from water in this instance. That in no way involves the intellectual process— it is immediate, surpassing deliberation. Knowledge is immediate, coming from experience itself. Taoism says Water produces Metal. Water is undifferentiated conscious awareness; this is where real knowledge comes from. Knowledge is wordless, issuing from your own mind, which is the Unborn.

 

So water producing metal is the same as saying wordless immediate knowledge issues from nondifferentiated selfless fathomless awareness.

 

This is Power itself; not one's own. Attaining the essential virtue of the capacity of one's own spiritual potential is penetrating the Way. The Way is unknowable; its power is Virtue. By clarifying the mind, one enters the Way and operates power selflessly by virtue of the Way.

 

So, though awareness doesn't mean anything, its effect is inconceivable.

 

 

To notice things without continually thinking of them?

 

If you can develop the habit of noticing thoughts as soon as they appear without following them unawares, they evaporate on the spot.

 

 

I personally believe awareness is the most straightforward and simplistic road to wu Wei and peace.

 

The nature of awareness is the nature of wu wei. It is your own mind right now. What are you if not just this?

 

 

How does one gather awareness? Process the thought or "no thought"?

 

We already know there is no gathering or process in terms of mind, because it is uncreated. Process is the realm of creation, the matrix of karmic evolution.

 

It is possible to observe "no thought" but this is just the temporary emptiness of the psychological spirit— not to be confused with the shining mind. Those that mistake this thief in the midst of meditation states are legion.

 

Awareness is itself our direct link, our essential nonpsychological capacity of immortal spiritual potential.

 

It is your own mind right now.

 

Those that get this can become wizards.

 

 

 

 

 

ed note: typo 2nd paragraph

Edited by deci belle
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Wuh!!

 

I believe Stosh is a wizard!!

 

 

 

 

ed note: Change" Wuh?" to "Wuh!!"

Edited by deci belle

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What does awareness mean?

 

 

To notice things without continually thinking of them?

 

I personally believe awareness is the most straightforward and simplistic road to wu Wei and peace.

 

How does one gather awareness? Process the thought or "no thought"?

 

It means none of these things.

 

Awareness (aka Consciousness0 is the subject of all objects.

 

The best definition of it that I've ever come across is "that which is reading these words"

 

If you want to explore consciousness further you might start with trying out the Headless Way experiments of Douglas Harding - don't get caught up in anything else there though :)

 

(As for "mind" - that's simply the current thought appearing to consciousness :) )

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Awareness (aka Consciousness) is the subject of all objects.

I think you hit it there. The subject of the object. Indeed.

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Wuh!!

 

I believe Stosh is a wizard!!

 

 

 

 

ed note: Change" Wuh?" to "Wuh!!"

Im glad you like my concise demonstration concerning the meaning of awareness. It is rather wizardly if I do say so myself and so I congratulate my random idea generator. :)

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Objects don't exist; awareness is uncreated.

 

Please try again, sir.

Speaking to me, love?

 

Sorry, not interested.

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Objects don't exist; awareness is uncreated.

 

Please try again, sir.

What object?

But anyway , if there is differentiation between awareness and unawareness , then which would be which, is a matter of perspective ,, ( as in being a man dreaming he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was a man)

Your turn. :)

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So, to get back ON TOPIC, if the recreational philosophy students don't MIND…

 

What is conveniently passed over by the intellectualists on this forum is so because an habitual dependence on the thinking apparatus has no affinity for nonpsychological content.

 

This is because awareness is unattributable.

 

Object/subject dialectics are dual. Awareness is simply the identity of unified selfless potential which has never admitted knower or known.

 

There is only selfless immediate knowing which is unborn now and forever, and this is itself the basis of objectless knowledge constituting the real. And this is your nature, should you ever manage to discover it yourself.

 

Taoism and buddhism is a spiritual transmission of enlightening being. Self-realized illuminates have left behind clues (such as the Tao Te Ching) for those with the affinity with the reality before your eyes beyond words in order to keep the knowledge alive.

 

Those who feel the need to proclaim an ignorance of this affinity are bound by the conditioned human mentality to do so because of a lovingly-groomed dependence of ego's thinking apparatus for the purpose of perpetuating the false identity in order to keep the organism ignorant of the celestial design which not separate from karmic evolution.

 

Ignorance is simply blindness to the unified totality of one's being. Ignorance is thus bound to the rounds of karmic evolution of life and death. Those with the potential is a phrase which does not exclude anyone. Those that have the great good fortune to stumble upon this and can refine it into the seed of sages, saints, wizards and buddhas are no different than those who endeavor to proclaim the conceit of ignorance.

 

I don't care about those who's only interest in a subject beyond their ken is to poke holes in the inconceivable as a last act of defiance.

 

I only speak to those who already have an affinity with their own wonder.

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What is conveniently passed over by the intellectualists on this forum is so because an habitual dependence on the thinking apparatus has no affinity for nonpsychological content.

 

This is because awareness is unattributable.

 

Object/subject dialectics are dual. Awareness is simply the identity of unified selfless potential which has never admitted knower or known.

 

I recall reading Sartre who replaced Descartes "I think, therefore I am", with : "I am a thinking thing... I am a substance whose nature is to think, and that my principal attribute is thinking".

 

Replacing duality with another duality may improve the philosophical position for some but it nonetheless makes one less aware; they are clearly just hostage to the framework of the mind.

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Pure awareness isn't a thing. Miraculously aware, the selfless is nonoriginated, what could remain?

 

Awareness has no direction. It has never moved. There is no relative aspect.

 

No inside, nor outside.

 

There is no distance. It has never begun.

 

There is no substance or inclination to the formless; it has no name.

 

Chi has already fallen into the created.

 

It cannot be named. It is your own mind right now.

 

What is it?

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