What Is Life?

[Mondsee]

Ok, so there is eternal consciousness, it has, and always will be there... but what is life? Specifically, what is human life?

 It's really a weird thing... it is as if a portion of consciousness decided to go blind for a period of ca. 80 years, just because! (Unless the human gets enlightened, of course).

Any thoughts?

Edit: in other words, why did consciousness adopted the form of life?

Edited June 18, 2017 by Mondsee

[Prabhaker]

@Mondsee

LIFE is an opportunity. You can use it, you can misuse it, or you can simply waste it. It depends on you. Except you, nobody is going to be responsible. Responsibility is of the individual.

Once you realize this then you start becoming alert, aware. Then you start living in a totally different way. Then, in fact, for the first time you become alive.

Otherwise, people live in a sort of dream – half-asleep, half-awake… just somewhere in between consciousness and unconsciousness. That life is not really a life. You exist – but you don’t live.

Existence is given to you. Existence is a gift. Life has to be earned. When existence turns upon itself, it becomes life. Existence has been given by the whole; you have not done anything for it.

It is simply there, a given fact. When existence becomes life… the moment you start existing in a conscious way, immediately existence becomes life. Existence lived consciously is life.

Life is a great challenge, an adventure into the unknown, an adventure into oneself, and adventure into that which is. If you live an unconscious life, if you simply exist, you will always remain afraid of death. Death will always be just somewhere near the comer, hanging around you. Only life goes beyond death.

Existence comes, disappears. It is given to you, taken away. It is a wave in the ocean… arises, falls back, disappears.

But life is eternal. Once you have it, you have it forever. Life knows no death. Life is not afraid of death. Once you know what life is, death disappears. If you are still afraid of death, know well – you have not known life yet.

Death exists only in the ignorance – in the ignorance of what life is. One goes on living. One goes on moving from one moment to another, from one action to another, completely unaware what one is doing, why one is doing, why one is drifting from this point to that point. If you become a little meditative, many times in a day you will catch hold of yourself completely drifting unconscious.

The whole effort of spirituality is to make you aware of your existence. Existence plus awareness is life eternal – what Jesus calls life in abundance, what Jesus calls the kingdom of god.

That kingdom of god is within you. You have already the seed within you. You just have to allow it to sprout. You have to allow it to come in the sunlit world of the sky, to become free, to move in freedom, to move higher and higher, to touch the very infinity. It is possible to soar high – but the basic thing is awareness.

-Osho

From Nirvana: The Last Nightmare, Chapter 9

[Mondsee]

29 minutes ago, Prabhaker said:

Only life goes beyond death.

[...]

But life is eternal. Once you have it, you have it forever. Life knows no death. Life is not afraid of death. Once you know what life is, death disappears.

Does it really? Put in these terms, if life is eternal it means that, if you get conscious while "existing", thus starting to "live", you will still be conscious after death?

Is Osho saying life is an opportunity for consciousness to become aware of itself?? This is confusing.

Thanks for sharing @Prabhaker

[Prabhaker]

6 minutes ago, Mondsee said:

Is Osho saying life is an opportunity for consciousness to become aware of itself?? This is confusing.

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.

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.

12 minutes ago, Mondsee said:

if life is eternal it means that, if you get conscious while "existing", thus starting to "live", you will still be conscious after death?

If a man can die in the state of consciousness, for him death exists no more. In other words, if a man can manage to remain conscious at the time of death, he finds he never died at all: death appears just a delusion to him. Death proving to be a delusion does not mean, however, that death remains in some form as a delusion. Rather, when a person dies fully conscious, he finds there is no death at all. Then death becomes a falsehood.

 

[Martin123]

4 hours ago, Mondsee said:

What is life?

Leo dont Huurt me

dont huury mee

no more.....

[Bob84]

6 hours ago, Mondsee said:

Ok, so there is eternal consciousness, it has, and always will be there... but what is life? Specifically, what is human life?

 It's really a weird thing... it is as if a portion of consciousness decided to go blind for a period of ca. 80 years, just because! (Unless the human gets enlightened, of course).

Any thoughts?

Edit: in other words, why did consciousness adopted the form of life?

A concept in your mind that you mentaly mastrubate about couse your bord? 

[Shin]

What is life ?

 

 

[Natasha]

@Mondsee What is life? Each form will give you a different answer.

My answer is to share, experience, and celebrate existence. Better done with a sweet friend at your side 

[Deep]

11 hours ago, Mondsee said:

Ok, so there is eternal consciousness, it has, and always will be there... but what is life? Specifically, what is human life

Edit: in other words, why did consciousness adopted the form of life?

Life is an illusion created by the mind. It's an ego game. We can speculate till the moon turns blue, but we'll never know why consciousness adopted the form of life.