An argument AGAINST the inifnity of awareness

[Leo Gura]

Think of it this way: if you went to a college calculus lecture where the professor was talking about integrals and derivatives, but you were a 2nd grader who didn't even understand negative numbers, fractions, decimals, long division, algebra, polynomials, geometry, and trigonometry -- you would be so lost that it would seem to you like the professor was talking nonsense and just writing scribbles on the wall. You might even think the professor is insane. And any questions you asked would be coming from such a deep place of ignorance and inexperience that there would be no way to easily explain to you the error of your understanding, because each answer would only raise a dozen more questions. Because complex and nuanced topics require a deep foundation of prior experience.

Asking questions about consciousness or infinity without at least a few years of meditation experience is as silly as a 2nd grader asking about calculus.

[robdl]

14 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Think of it this way: if you went to a college calculus lecture where the professor was talking about integrals and derivatives, but you were a 2nd grader who didn't even understand negative numbers, fractions, decimals, long division, algebra, polynomials, geometry, and trigonometry -- you would be so lost that it would seem to you like the professor was talking nonsense and just writing scribbles on the wall. You might even think the professor is insane. And any questions you asked would be coming from such a deep place of ignorance and inexperience that there would be no way to easily explain to you the error of your understanding, because each answer would only raise a dozen more questions. Because complex and nuanced topics require a deep foundation of prior experience.

Asking questions about consciousness or infinity without at least a few years of meditation experience is as silly as a 2nd grader asking about calculus.

I'd also use the analogy of asking a million questions about how to ride a bike, expecting that an intellectual framework of theory for how to ride a bike will allow you to understand what/how it's like to ride a bike.  No answer to any question would actually satisfy or help.  The only way you truly can grock it is to actually get on a bike and practice and get a "feel" for it.  Spending 10 years in a classroom learning about bike riding theory won't get you there.

Edited March 19, 2018 by robdl

[Dino D]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Think of it this way: if went to a college calculus lecture where the professor was talking about integrals and derivatives, but you were a 2nd grader who didn't even understand negative numbers, fractions, decimals, long division, algebra, polynomials, geometry, and trigonometry -- you would be so lost that it would seem to you like the professor was talking nonsense and just writing scribbles on the wall. You might even think the professor is insane. And any questions you asked would be coming from such a place of ignorance and inexperience that there would be no way to easily explain to you the error of your understanding, because each answer would only raise a dozen more questions. Because complex and nuanced topics require that one builds a deep foundation.

Asking questions about consciousness or infinity without at least 5 years of meditation experience is as silly as a 2nd grader asking about calculus.

100% agree, so it is about any advanced topic, or evan any topic, you need the knowledge/understanding to be able to debate...

But evan from a lover level we should not accept dogmaticaly someone that is above... If Einstein and Tesla would talk to me, I still should not belive them everything, and very often second greaders can spot out something that makes no sense, so wait professor...

however I shouted out all of my bortgering mind problems on this and other post, I needet it, it helped me to let go of them and find a bit of peace and go do ,,the work"  thx for the free effort  

(I dont admit or give up on some my points/critic thought, but I'm done for now and I expained my self why I did it, and finally i hope you still can see my big grattitude for your work evan if I criticized a lot theese days  ) T H A N K  Y O U

[Joseph Maynor]

Here’s a good question to begin these kinds of discussions:

What do we mean when we say that Awareness is Infinite?

Otherwise we’re gonna get everything plus the kitchen sink brought into these kinds of debates.  

// 

Alternative formulation:

What is Awareness?

What do we mean when we say Awareness is infinite?

 

Edited March 19, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[Faceless]

Meditation practices are finite approaches to capture the infinite. 

These practices are designed to serve the ego and it’s function. Any movements of the center what so ever are always moving in the other direction away from the absolute. 

So to say meditation practices and experience must be acquired to grasp the absolute is a joke.

Its obvious that any direction of thought ‘time’  can never lead to the timeless ‘truth’ 

Hilarious though?

 

 

Edited March 19, 2018 by Faceless

[abrakamowse]

5 minutes ago, Faceless said:

So to say meditation practices and experience must be acquired to grasp the absolute is a joke.

What would you say is necessary to grasp the absolute? Being quiet?

[robdl]

13 minutes ago, Faceless said:

Meditation practices are finite approaches to capture the infinite. 

These practices are designed to serve the ego and it’s function.

 

 

If the subtle identity of "meditator" is bolstered, yes, you're correct --- service of ego.  If the identity of "meditator" is dissolved, you are incorrect.

Edited March 19, 2018 by robdl

[robdl]

I like the analogy Leo gave.  You can't control the lightning, but you can go stand on high ground with a lightning rod, and create the best conditions you can for the lightning to strike.  Such is meditation.  Individual effort takes you only so far, and the rest is handled by the absolute.

What does standing on a hill with a lightning rod signify? It signifies dis-identification/silencing of the mind.

Edited March 19, 2018 by robdl

[UDT]

46 minutes ago, Dino D said:

@UDT do you see what kind of explonation Leo gave, he didnt, he said you didnt understand it and you need to meditate more. That is not really an answer.

And thats much more lickly to be the truth, Leo is probbaby right, but he didnt answer or explained your (and mine) critic and questions...

Thats how all of mine hard questions get ,,answered" i wrote about this in other topics also, and i will prapare a post on this, with those questions.

I will also increase the work (meditation and other) and I hope i will ,,get there."

All this non duality questions can only be answered trought experience, not with words, so we cant talk about it, we have to meditate, and experience it deeply  peace

Yes I feel you in that sense. It might be that the experience of highly altered consciousness (as with e.g. 5MEO) gives you experiences which then answer some questions better than language can.

Taking Leo´s  "Awareness is precisely NOT the thing being awared." Of course, the question is, how is it possible to know that consciousness is infinite and not finite. Answer: The "I" which is asking this question, can never grasp infinity as it itself is a finite body-mind. If nothing is there to be awared, Its just nothingness (which might be awareable in different stages of consciousness). Even darkness or objectlessness is something, thus not nothing.

[Faceless]

11 minutes ago, robdl said:

If the subtle identity of "meditator" is bolstered, yes, you're correct --- service of ego.  If the identity of "meditator" is dissolved, you are incorrect.

Is your identity dissolved? 

Unless it is, it’s an assumption that it is possible. 

Movements of meditation which is concentrated thought that excludes other aspects of thought/the center is a movement of time. The ego can not be dissolved by such a finite movement. 

The meditatior is the meditated. This is a very simple fact that most don’t like to admit. 

 

 

 

Edited March 19, 2018 by Faceless

[Faceless]

17 minutes ago, abrakamowse said:

What would you say is necessary to grasp the absolute? Being quiet?

I wouldn’t even ask that question. That very question is in itself a movement in the other direction. ?

i know it’s interesting to discuss though. Carry on friends??

Edited March 19, 2018 by Faceless

[robdl]

4 minutes ago, Faceless said:

Is your identity dissolved? 

Unless it is, it’s an assumption that it is possible. 

Movements of meditation which is concentrated thought that excludes other aspects of thought/the center is a movement of time. The ego can not be dissolved by such a finite movement. 

The meditatior is the meditated. This is a very simple fact that most don’t like to admit. 

 

 

 

You seem to be parroting Krishnamurti with every post you make, without actually grocking him. Perhaps you do, but since you use his language verbatim, it's hard to tell.

Edited March 19, 2018 by robdl

[UDT]

3 minutes ago, Faceless said:

 [...] The ego can not be dissolved by such a finite movement.

 

 

 

There is no Ego to be dissolved in the first place. Its the snake on the road which turns out to be a stick. Just look, can you find the location of your ego? is it constant? no? Well than its not you.

[abrakamowse]

@Faceless Ok... thanks.

[Faceless]

17 minutes ago, robdl said:

You seem to be parroting Krishnamurti with every post you make, without actually grocking him. Perhaps you do, but since you use his language verbatim, it's hard to tell.

I have just recently been introduced to Krishnamurti by @Shanmugam and I do in most cases agree with what he says from my own personal experience.

Most this stuff I realized on my own without use of knowledge. And I am very careful with what I take in. 

I like both Krishnamurtis as far as there explaining is concerned. But I wouldn’t say I am a follower of them. I haven’t even read any of there books or ‘any’ books in that case. I am a constant observer of myself and that’s where I learn about this stuff. Through self inquiry/self observation. 

The observer is the observed is a fact. No matter if Krishnamurti said that or not it’s still a true never the less. 

I saw this without the help of anyone else. To me it just happened. 

Edited March 19, 2018 by Faceless

[robdl]

5 minutes ago, Faceless said:

I have just recently been introduced to Krishnamurti by @Shanmugam and I do in most cases agree with what he says from my own personal experience.

Most this stuff I realized on my own without use of knowledge. And I am very careful with what I take in. 

I like both Krishnamurtis as far as there explaining is concerned. But I wouldn’t say I am a follower of them. I haven’t even read any of there books or ‘any’ books in that case. I am a constant observer of myself and that’s where I learn about this stuff. Through self inquiry/self observation. 

The observer is the observed is a fact. No matter if Krishnamurti said that or not it’s still a true never the less. 

I saw this without the help of anyone else. To me it just happened. 

Would you describe self-inquiry as a form of meditation? You described meditation as “concentrated thought”, which isn’t really how I’d consider self-inquiry.

[Faceless]

I do like mediation being a martial artist. But it has nothing to do with the absolute.

[abrakamowse]

Right knowledge? That's the path of "union" with the absolute?

[Faceless]

1 minute ago, robdl said:

Would you describe self-inquiry as a form of meditation? You described meditation as “concentrated thought”, which isn’t really how I’d consider self-inquiry.

I like to think of my self inquiry as watching without a motive. Not moving in any particular direction as means to alter what is actually going on. 

When I say meditation being ‘concentrated thought’ I mean premeditated meditation,  which is an act of volition and can not lead to emptiness. 

[Faceless]

12 minutes ago, abrakamowse said:

Right knowledge? That's the path of "union" with the absolute?

I would say that knowledge is finite and can never lead to anything but more knowledge. 

Thought in its very nature creates this disharmony and prevents union with the absolute. But then we try and use thought to find our way in that direction. Both the motive and the knowledge ‘movements of volition’ are all part of the stream of thought. 

Edited March 19, 2018 by Faceless