Posts Tagged ‘Consciousness’
Scientists like to explore the idea of consciousness as if it’s something that a physical being has. You know, people have a consciousness and when hit in the head, can lose consciousness. Rocks don’t have a consciousness. They have a physical existence, but presumably no conscious awareness of their own existence. Pysicality is taken to be primary and consciousness is taken to be some sort of optional secondary manifestation that may or may not arise from physicality. What causes consciousness? Perhaps it’s a chemical reaction in the brain, a product of our biology… it’s somehow a functioning of physicality.
This is further evidenced by the fact that we can seemingly lose consciousness, and we even go unconscious when we sleep at night. Clearly our bodies still exist, and other people can confirm this for us, but we have no sense of self-awareness, and so it seems like physicality comes first, while consciousness comes second. If anything, the body, as temporary as it is, seems more continuous and experientially permanent than consciousness. From this perspective, it’s only natural that we perceive ourselves to be this physicalized being. At the same time, there’s “my” consciousness and “your” consciousness.
I’m sitting here reading through a copy of I Am That by Nisargadatta Maharaj and he just brought up something (Chapter 18) which shot right through the heart of a deep confusion and misunderstanding within me and triggered a big ‘aha’. In the book a questioner sits down with Nisargadatta and brings up the points and enters into a dialogue about this subject.
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Alright, so today I’d like to address a point about consciousness.
In ego-land, we see ourselves as a being with consciousness, someone who has consciousness. If we get knocked in the head, we can lose consciousness. If we get on the spiritual pathway, we can raise our level of consciousness and become more conscious. There is my consciousness and your consciousness and they see different things. Heck, there are even people who are deemed unconscious, spiritually speaking.
Looking at this wording, we notice that in every situation, the word consciousness is used to point to something other than what we are. Consciousness is something we have, something that changes over time, something that can come and go. It is variable. It is something we want to develop, something to get more of, something to expand or improve.
It gives us a target to reach for, somewhere “out there” to arrive called a “place of higher consciousness” or whatever. Yet another goal in the future. We want to attain a certain level of consciousness. From this perspective, we are given something to seek and we can see that we are not there yet.
Now given all this, I would like to talk about pure consciousness itself, that which is ALREADY HERE AS IT IS.
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Today I’d like to share with you some of the tweets that I’ve been posting on twitter. It’s a wonderful way to verbalize ideas without having to write up a whole post about it. 
You can follow me at @ArielBravy. 
Awareness
-Notice how it takes zero effort to be, for awareness to be aware.
-I am no-thing pretending to be something. No one is looking out through these eyes. It’s just pure awareness.
-No-thing. It is everywhere. It manifests as everything. I am that.
-Mindless looking. Pure awareness. Awareness witnessing awareness.
-Look. Don’t label things or name them. Just look.
-Mental processing may happen. Watch it. Watch it drop away. Pure awareness.
-Consciousness looks within and returns to the Unmanifest. The world is the Unmanifest made manifest. *I* am All That Is.
-I look at “myself” and see nothing, for there isn’t one. I see nothing and everything, both more and less than I used to.
-No one is seeing, yet seeing happens. No one loves, yet Love Is.
-What always is here appears as it is.
-What is This? God? Consciousness? Nothingness? Freedom? Infinite? Unity? It’s nameless, but all these pointers are valid.
-I am not that, AND I am that. What a beautiful paradox.
No self
-With no self, there is no self-esteem. No one to defend and no one to improve. Just be as you are. Simple. Stunningly radiantly simple.
-Personality can be changed, but improvement is an illusory judgment of mind. Besides, it’s not you!
-Basking nowhere, here and now.
-”There’s only one of us.” There’s not an us here to be one! There’s just the One!
Surviving and Living
-The need to survive is ego. Your true, eternal, unborn self has no concern regarding death. Thus there’s nothing for it to transcend.
-Your true nature doesn’t give death a second thought.. or even a first. 
-Everybody has one thing in common: we are nothing pretending to be something.
-This is kinda fun… I’ve always wanted to play life on God mode! 
Life is Already Nondual
-The collapse of duality happens in the mind. It’s a mind game. Consciousness is already nondual.
-Nondual tweets. This tweet is just as much you and not-you as is the body you’re using.
-The human body is a space suit, allowing consciousness to “enter” a world of space and time.
-This body/mind keeps oscillating between silence, amazement, and causeless side-splitting laughter.
-Awakening.. What a delightful cosmic joke!
-Nondual is just another pointer to the unnameable isness.
-”To be or not to be.” There is no “not to be.” There is only being eternally. Be.
-I know nothing. I’m very intimate w/ nothing. When & if I need2know something,it just arises into awareness, then it leaves. Like breathing.
-I’m not young enough to know all the answers.
-Grace happens. Shift happens.
Come Say Hello
Follow me on Twitter @ArielBravy and Facebook at You Are Truly Loved.
I’d also recommend following @zeerakkhan, @Catalyst303, @tomstine, and @AshRuiz to find some more nondual pointers.
Who would you recommend following? Share your suggestions in the comments area.
Clara Llum is a spiritual teacher who found herself going through a process of spontaneous enquiry very early in her life, revealing the Self as the Unlimited One back in the 1970′s. Since then she has explored most eastern traditions, become familiar with many approaches to awakening to Truth, and begun delivering Satsang in 1986.
Today we will be sharing this interview where I asked her a whole bunch of questions about awakening.
Interview Topic Highlights
· What is Enlightenment?
· Misunderstandings about Enlightenment
· The value of Beliefs on the way to Realization
· Brief visits to the Self vs. Full Realization (non-abiding vs. abiding awakenings)
· The Law of Attraction and choosing better feeling thoughts
· Quieting vs. Silencing the mind
· The role of the mind
· Not knowing vs. doubting
· The most important thing to know to reach Enlightenment
For the sake of clarity, my questions will be italicized while Clara’s responses will be in bold.
Our conversation begins with us noticing how animated and alive we often are when we express ourselves.
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It’s interesting when past lives start to be remembered spontaneously.
It’s like consciousness can project itself into that life and experience it just as real as “this” life. My friend Davidya recently wrote a very fitting article on this topic which makes me laugh due to its alignment with my own experiences.
The dream world at night has the same level of (un)realness to any life, including this one.
All content is just an imaginative dream that arises within the context of awareness.
The I Am That I Am is everpresent throughout all space and time, here and now.
I Am infinite and eternal, able to call forth any aspect of myself for viewing and experience, as if the universes’ experiences were my own personal collection of movies.
I Am, here, living this human experience.
I am the watcher of the movies, not the character in the movies.
Yet the duality between the observer and the observed somehow are collapsing as well into simply just Isness.
There is the arising of Life as an expression of the I Am.
What is the I Am?
It is what I am. It is what You are. It is what All is.
There is only one true I that is. Pure beingness itself.
The I Am that you feel is the same exact I Am that I feel. That is the link that unites us.
You and I don’t have a life. You and I can’t lose our lives. We ARE Life itself.
There is One Life, flowing into and through itself. There is nothing but Life with which Life can interact with.
All mental ideas and things are but expressions of the One Life that is.
This lifetime you’re experiencing in this moment, any of your past lifetimes, the life experienced by other people, the lives lived by other conscious and unconscious beings… they are all equally dreams arising within consciousness.
You are the eternal undamageable Presence that is not subject to space and time nor anything that arises within it, the Presence that is in this world, but not of it.
I love me. I love you. I love life.
It is all One. Here and Now.
One Life, One Love, One Me, One You, One Us.
This awakening of mass consciousness that we’re seeing in humanity today, let’s put it into a larger context so that we can see where this fits. Enlightenment is not the final stage in our journey as spiritual beings, not by a long shot.
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Question:
Hey Ariel,
I just read your last post about losing your sense of identity and your memory, and it made me wonder…how do you function in the world right now?
I mean, I’m pretty scared of experiencing what you talk about, simply because it seems that this would mean being unable to fulfill life’s obligations, like finishing college, or doing your job or being there for your family. Do you know what I mean? How does everything work out for you in your current state? I mean stuff like finances and relationships or doing sports, whatever…Does it all happen synchronistically or what?
Ariel’s Response:
Great questions! These are among the questions that seem to arise the most, both from others as well as my own mind when I bring up this topic.
Let’s put it like this…
What if I told you that you could allow yourself to do what feels natural and right without worrying about how things will turn out. Would that be liberating or frightening?
What if you one day found out you were a chronic over-thinker and, simply due to habit and comfort, you thought more than you actually needed to. You had simply told yourself, innocently but incorrectly, that all this thought was actually necessary. What if it turned out that your life unfolded much more effortlessly when you weren’t busy tripping over yourself all the time. 
What if I told you that you could act in the moment without second-guessing yourself or second-guessing your actions?
If I told you that you didn’t have to constantly be worrying about the “what if’s” of life and could simply be yourself in every moment, AND that you would be totally supported in everything you did and that everything you needed would come exactly when it was necessary, would you believe that this is a viable and practical way of life?
This is a relaxation into the loving embrace of God, a surrendered trust into the arms of Creation.
Let’s look at a few topics more specifically.
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No, they exist in a subject-object relationship.
The one who watches a play is different from the one who is up on stage, acting.
Consciousness is what witnesses the mind. Without consciousness, thoughts would simply be floating in a sea of nothingness. The mind is not aware of itself, nor can it be aware of itself. Consciousness is aware of all, including the mind. Thoughts within the mind are just thoughts which arise within the sea of Consciousness.
There can be a thought that arises such as “I exist,” but it is really Consciousness which is noticing that thought, not the mind.
You are the one who is aware of the mind, not the one who thinks.
When thinking ceases for a moment in meditation, you don’t cease to exist.
When thoughts bounce around from one subject to another, you still continue to exist just the same.
Before you learned to think and speak in the english language, you existed. You are not the verbalized thoughts in your head.
You are the one who exists independently of the mind. It is Consciousness itself that is what your true nature is, not the mind. You are not the mind. The mind is something the conscious you observes, just like everything outside of you in physical reality. You are the one who sees.
Similarly, it is said that you are a Creator. Thought has no power to create whatsoever. It is consciousness/awareness focusing upon thought that leads that manifestation. Awareness is the Creator. Thus it is said that what you focus on expands. That which you think about you will experience, not because thought itself is creative, but because thought is an object upon which awareness, which is the engine of Creation, can be focused upon.
Thought is the object. Consciousness is the subject. You are Consciousness.
