Awareness

[Trillium]

Ive been a Vipassina practioner for years.

Recently I'm having more of a sense of the Awareness thats holding all fourm,thoughts,emotions. I came to realize its always there no matter the mood or situation. I also remember a teaching regarding "Just try not to be Aware" Later explaining that this is not possible because you are this Awareness.

Any thoughts? What about sleeping and day dreaming?

Trillium

[Todd]

What is awareness before you go to your mind?

 

Or more simply, what is awareness?

[Ian]

Ive been a Vipassina practioner for years.

Recently I'm having more of a sense of the Awareness thats holding all fourm,thoughts,emotions. I came to realize its always there no matter the mood or situation. I also remember a teaching regarding "Just try not to be Aware" Later explaining that this is not possible because you are this Awareness.

Any thoughts? What about sleeping and day dreaming?

Trillium

 

I think you'd enjoy Sailor Bob at this point. See separate thread by that title.

[mat black]

What is awareness before you go to your mind?

 

Or more simply, what is awareness?

Being attentitive to the knowing that you are, in whatever state you are presently in.

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi uses this analogy:

"When the harmonium is being played there is a constant note that is called sruti. Along with that, other notes also come out. If the ear is fixed on this note that is constant, then, while listening to the other notes, that original note cannot be forgotten. Actually, that first note gives strength to all the other notes. So, the principle to understand is that the first note is the adhistana [ substratum ] while the other notes represent worldy activities. During worldy activities , if [ awareness of] the note of the adisthana is continuous , whatever is spoken is then done with the authority of this adhistana note. But an ordinary man does not keep his attention on the first note , the adhistana. He merely listens to the subsequent notes . The jnani keeps his attention on the first note . Sukdev [ a sage of ancient India ] used to keep such attention and maintain his awareness of Brahman. When the attention is fixed properly on the first note , the effect of the other notes will not be felt."

Edited April 21, 2008 by mat black

[freeform]

There is the awareness in your belly - which is ever-present and infinite, it's incapable of being anything other than everything! so it's infinite and is incapable of any finiteness, any individuality or separateness...

 

Then there is the mind wich is capable of finitness but incapable of grasping anything even approximating the infinite (to the mind, the belly-awareness seems like a frightening void (death?))

 

Then there is the heart - it's in between the infinite and finite and allows the mind and the belly to play together. The heart is like an intermediary, helping the two parties from drastically different backgrounds communicate together.

 

To use the microcosmic orbit as a functional 'metaphor' - all awareness starts in the belly level of awareness then starts moving up the back, progressively gaining form and individuality and finiteness, reaches the heart and is expressed through sensations (that's how the heart talks) and eventually reaches the mind where it becomes an abstract idea or thought...

 

This idea eventually dies by going down the front - progressively losing its individuality and finiteness and distinct 'separateness' - it then joins in the heart where it takes on the guise of sensation and eventually returns back down to the belly-awareness where it becomes infinite again - then the cycle starts up again...

 

Most adults now only have awareness at the mind level - they only notice the thoughts and then attach to them like 'truth'... so rather than letting the thought die and move down the front, the mind holds on to that thought as 'the truth' - eventually (through early childhood) creating an inter-connected, rather complex, illusory structure of 'truths' that we call the ego... The ego then stops us perceiving the level of the heart and the level of the belly, because that would destroy its (illusionary) precious kingdom constructed out of golden nuggets of 'truth'...

[Xienkula1]

 

Most adults now only have awareness at the mind level - they only notice the thoughts and then attach to them like 'truth'... so rather than letting the thought die and move down the front, the mind holds on to that thought as 'the truth' - eventually (through early childhood) creating an inter-connected, rather complex, illusory structure of 'truths' that we call the ego... The ego then stops us perceiving the level of the heart and the level of the belly, because that would destroy its (illusionary) precious kingdom constructed out of golden nuggets of 'truth'...

 

When we become hara awakened, we are not attached to anything, and the thoughts die one after the other, when we have achieved full ego freedom, then we no longer participate ourselves and the world with a conceptual framework and the world/we comes undone, dissolves in the breath, and in the pulsing of the body. Even when one open's one's eyes, the world of vision is dancing with golden specs of light, and cannot be separated into distinct thoughts...I am the sun, I am the trees, I am the breath, I am the body, I am the hara, I am the ego and yet "I" am not these things and yet these are just ineffectual words trying to describe an experience, that can be sought only within, and there is so much more beyond.

Edited April 21, 2008 by Xienkula1

[steve]

Ive been a Vipassina practioner for years.

Recently I'm having more of a sense of the Awareness thats holding all fourm,thoughts,emotions. I came to realize its always there no matter the mood or situation. I also remember a teaching regarding "Just try not to be Aware" Later explaining that this is not possible because you are this Awareness.

Any thoughts? What about sleeping and day dreaming?

Trillium

Very cool - notice that Awareness. Keep coming back to it when you get distracted. Then ask yourself - what is that awareness? Where does it come from? Is it me? Is is inside my skin? If so, where? If not, where? What is beyond or before it? What or who is aware of being aware? Investigate that but also just spend time being in it/with it without analysis.

 

I think that we are certainly aware during day dreaming and night dreaming. We are simply aware of the world of our thoughts rather than our senses. The interesting and, for me, more important question is - are we aware during the deepest, dreamless part of sleep? Sri Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj have interesting perspectives on what transpires then. They firmly believe consciousness remains in dreamless sleep.

- "That which is not present in deep dreamless sleep is not real." -Ramana Maharshi

 

It's not difficult to postulate continued awareness during dreamless sleep once you accept non-duality because consciousness is continuous and pervasive and infinite. Yet to ask the question of the individual organism is what we normally do and it's a very difficult question to answer from the perspective of duality.

 

You may enjoy the ongoing thread here as it will be addressing these very issues: http://www.thetaobums.com/Ramanaand39s-40-...lity-t5270.html

[forestofsouls]

Trillum,

 

 

I have some questions for you, because I have been in a similar place. First, what Vipassana method are you using?

 

Second, are you sure its not something else, such as a feeling, a mental image, etc.?

 

Third, does it change? For example, when you are tired or dreaming, is there a difference in clarity, vividness, etc?

 

 

 

 

Ive been a Vipassina practioner for years.

Recently I'm having more of a sense of the Awareness thats holding all fourm,thoughts,emotions. I came to realize its always there no matter the mood or situation. I also remember a teaching regarding "Just try not to be Aware" Later explaining that this is not possible because you are this Awareness.

Any thoughts? What about sleeping and day dreaming?

Trillium

[Trillium]

Very cool - notice that Awareness. Keep coming back to it when you get distracted. Then ask yourself - what is that awareness? Where does it come from? Is it me? Is is inside my skin? If so, where? If not, where? What is beyond or before it? What or who is aware of being aware? Investigate that but also just spend time being in it/with it without analysis.

 

I think that we are certainly aware during day dreaming and night dreaming. We are simply aware of the world of our thoughts rather than our senses. The interesting and, for me, more important question is - are we aware during the deepest, dreamless part of sleep? Sri Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj have interesting perspectives on what transpires then. They firmly believe consciousness remains in dreamless sleep.

- "That which is not present in deep dreamless sleep is not real." -Ramana Maharshi

 

It's not difficult to postulate continued awareness during dreamless sleep once you accept non-duality because consciousness is continuous and pervasive and infinite. Yet to ask the question of the individual organism is what we normally do and it's a very difficult question to answer from the perspective of duality.

 

 

Thanks Xuesheng,

I find your input very helpful. Good questions too.

[voidisyinyang]

Then there's bird migration consciousness:

 

http://arxivblog.com/?p=370