Isn't Awareness A Thought Too?

[Samuel Garcia]

I just did the guided meditation Leo's Spiritual Enlightenment Part 3 video. When doing the meditation (which actually felt great but difficult at the same time), I felt that just being aware of my senses may also be thinking. For example, feeling the the floor on my feet surely is a thought as I have recognised that there is a sensation there. Am I wrong here?

[Bizarre]

@Samuel Garcia Yep. You got it. Being "aware of something" is an object.

What is illumining experience itself?

That's awareness.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with you, or your personal Witnessing consciousness.

The reason you can be "aware" of it now, is because I have pointed it out to you. Which is indirect knowledge.

It's only the intellect that can capture now what you are not. 

That's self inquiry.

When your I thought identifies with this awareness and the knowledge is firm, that's enlightenment.

 

Edited November 15, 2016 by Bizarre

[Anton Rogachevski]

@Bizarre

I would like to add to your already wonderful reply that knowledge serves as the framework onto which the enlightened experience lands.

So if without knowledge i get it i might think i'm god almighty or something.

[Prabhaker]

14 hours ago, Samuel Garcia said:

I felt that just being aware of my senses may also be thinking. For example, feeling the the floor on my feet surely is a thought as I have recognised that there is a sensation there. Am I wrong here?

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. 

Awareness is total – total subjectivity and total objectivity as a single phenomenon – while in witnessing a duality exists between subject and object. Awareness is nondoing; 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. 

14 hours ago, Samuel Garcia said:

Isn't Awareness A Thought Too?

No, 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. 

 

Edited November 16, 2016 by Prabhaker

[Prabhaker]

@Samuel Garcia

What is awareness?

Awareness is not a commitment to something. awareness is an observation, both outer and inner, in which direction has stopped. You are aware, but the thing of which you are aware is not being encouraged or nourished. Awareness is not concentration on something. It is not an action of the will choosing what it will be aware of, and analysing it to bring about a certain result. When awareness is deliberately focused on a particular object, as a conflict, that is the action of will which is concentration. When you concentrate - that is, put all your energy and thought within your chosen frontiers, whether reading a book or watching your anger - then, in this exclusion, the thing you are concentrating upon is strengthened, nourished. So here we have to understand the nature of awareness: We have to understand what we are talking about when we use the word awareness.

- J krishnamurti

 

[Bizarre]

@Samuel Garcia

Awareness is not a state of no mind guys. It's the self . The substrate of all manifestation. The only reason you need to know what awareness is, is so you can break identification with the objects.  Then you understand that the objects are you, but you are not the objects (you don't suffer from their dynamics). This is what non duality means. Non duality is just recognising you are the same jerk you were before, but that you're also free from it. 

All states belong to samsara, obviously, because all states are subject to change.

 

[Leo Gura]

On 11/15/2016 at 1:42 PM, Samuel Garcia said:

feeling the the floor on my feet surely is a thought

No, it's not.

You can feel the floor without any thinking whatsoever. Notice that when you stop thinking for 3 seconds, the floor doesn't disappear.

If thought was required for awareness, the entire universe would cease to exist in between each of your thoughts.

A thought is just one kind of arising WITHIN awareness. Awareness is required for thought, but thought is not required for awareness.

[Samuel Garcia]

On 11/16/2016 at 11:51 AM, Prabhaker said:

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. 

Awareness is total – total subjectivity and total objectivity as a single phenomenon – while in witnessing a duality exists between subject and object. Awareness is nondoing; witnessing implies a doer.

 

I don't think I have accessed awareness then. Will lots more meditation help me access awareness or am I actually able to access this now? Because even in those few seconds of 'no-thinking' which occur during mediation, there is still seems to be a divide thus witnessing not awareness.

On 11/17/2016 at 5:29 PM, Leo Gura said:

You can feel the floor without any thinking whatsoever. Notice that when you stop thinking for 3 seconds, the floor doesn't disappear.

If thought was required for awareness, the entire universe would cease to exist in between each of your thoughts.

A thought is just one kind of arising WITHIN awareness. Awareness is required for thought, but thought is not required for awareness.

Isn't feeling the floor only acknowledged with thought? So without thought, don't I lose the awareness so that is why the universe doesn't exist?

What is awareness beyond thought? What is awareness without thought? Or am I being too logical here questioning this this?

[vizual]

It's not the ego, or the body, that has awareness. The ego and the body appear in awareness. You also can not become more or less aware, you can only realize that there is only awareness. If it is possible to become more or less aware it implies that there is a separate awareness within the body hidden somewhere, which there is not.

A sensation appears, just as a thought appears, an image appears etc. All within one consciousness. And this one consciousness can not be objectively found within manifestation because awareness is the totality of the manifestation. Just like a mirror, you can only see the reflections that appear within the mirror, you can never see or imagine the mirror without the reflection.

[Leo Gura]

5 hours ago, Samuel Garcia said:

I don't think I have accessed awareness then. Will lots more meditation help me access awareness or am I actually able to access this now? Because even in those few seconds of 'no-thinking' which occur during mediation, there is still seems to be a divide thus witnessing not awareness.

Awareness is EVER-PRESENT! Right now!

You cannot not access it.

Try right now to not be aware. It's impossible. You're always aware (unless perhaps in deep sleep).

5 hours ago, Samuel Garcia said:

Isn't feeling the floor only acknowledged with thought? So without thought, don't I lose the awareness so that is why the universe doesn't exist?

What is awareness beyond thought? What is awareness without thought? Or am I being too logical here questioning this this?

Feeling is acknowledged with thought, yes, but notice that feeling must happen before thought can acknowledge it. There must be something first to acknowledge.

Notice that you can think whatever you want and the feeling of the floor doesn't change from that.

Do this in your experience right now. Stop theorizing about it.

[Exping]

Awareness isn't a thought. But I think you mean does the brain create awareness/consciousness.

[Bob84]

23 hours ago, Samuel Garcia said:

What is awareness beyond thought? What is awareness without thought? Or am I being too logical here questioning this this?

Awareness is awareness. It comes before all. Without awareness there is no thought.
Even if that would not be the case its pointless to consider as you wouldn't be aware of the thought in the first place.

[Lisaya]

depends on how you define awareness. i would say awareness is the base for thought rather than a though itself