How Consistent Is Your Awareness?

[Acharya]

What is the span of time in which you can be UNINTERRUPTEDLY aware.

I am not talking about how much time you recall your attention on being aware during your meditation habit. For example i may do 1 hr of SDS, and focus on being steady, observant; and eventually when I'm not doing this to make a refocus on this process.

But for how long you can be aware without falling off-track? Personally I would say that my uniterrupted stream of awareness doesn't lasts even a full minute.

Edited January 8, 2017 by Acharya

[key]

2 minutes ago, Acharya said:

Personally I would say that my uniterrupted stream of awareness doesn't last even a full minute.

Well first, what do you consider a "uninterrupted stream of awareness" to be? 

[Acharya]

6 minutes ago, key said:

Well first, what do you consider a "uninterrupted stream of awareness" to be?

I don't mean concentration, but being clearly observant of whatever you are experiencing. Simple observation so to speak in an uninterrupted span of time.

Edited January 8, 2017 by Acharya

[Dodo]

23 minutes ago, Acharya said:

What is the span of time in which you can be UNINTERRUPTEDLY aware.

I am not talking about how much time you recall your attention on being aware during your meditation habit. For example i may do 1 hr of SDS, and focus on being steady, observant; and eventually when I'm not doing this to make a refocus on this process.

But for how long you can be aware without falling off-track? Personally I would say that my uniterrupted stream of awareness doesn't lasts even a full minute.

My opinion:

I think this is a misconception. If you have to give effort, then it is not the truth we are searching for, right? You should be yourself effortlessly. It's like you are trying to climb a mountain, while in fact you are already on the mountaintop.

You are always uninterruptedly aware, when you find you are awareness itself, it will be silly to claim otherwise. However, you have no free will and the bodymind is like a machinebox for pleasure and pain that you are also allowing to be and mistakenly take yourself to be, so now you practise, trying to become what you already are. 

In fact all you do is being aware, everything else is God's will that you experience  (When you take it for your own will - that's where suffering stems from).

Edited January 8, 2017 by Dodoster

[Acharya]

@Dodoster I'll put it into other words, the substance doesn't change: how much time you can be open to awareness without the ego trying to interfere.

5 minutes ago, Dodoster said:

You are always uninterruptedly aware, when you find you are awareness itself, it will be silly to claim otherwise.

That may be true for someone already enlightened. Sounds like the newagers telling "we are all one, there is only love, vibrations" kinda stuff without the actual realization.

And if you are enlightened, come down from the mountain sometimes 

Edited January 8, 2017 by Acharya

[Dodo]

12 minutes ago, Acharya said:

@Dodoster I'll put into other words, the substance doesn't change: how much time you can be open to awareness without the ego trying to interfere.

That may be true for someone already enlightened. Sounds like the newagers telling "we are all one, there is only love, vibrations" kinda stuff without the actual realization.

And if you are enlightened, come down from the mountain sometimes 

Awareness can only communicate with awareness through Ego. When all is one, we can never have a conversation as we are having now. This Ego is not 'Enlightened' and no Ego can ever be. Ego can only be purified, and no, this Ego is far from purified and it is flawed as fuck, but the realisation is simple - the word enlightenment should be banned, because it makes the realisation into something you have to work really hard for, but it's the prerequisite to starting to live IMO and the start of the real purification process.

As Buddha put it : Enlightenment is no suffering. Suffering stems from desire ( For me it's better to say that suffering is resistance) . When you really get that you are not in control and it's all god's will and all you do is be aware of God's will and surrender to it, you are going to live without suffering. Your mind will be at peace and the game will unravel as it always would have, but without the mind's resistance to it which causes the suffering.

Edited January 8, 2017 by Dodoster

[Acharya]

11 minutes ago, Dodoster said:

Awareness can only communicate with awareness through Ego. When all is one, we can never have a conversation as we are having now. This Ego is not 'Enlightened' and no Ego can ever be. Ego can only be purified, and no, this Ego is far from purified and it is flawed as fuck, but the realisation is simple - the word enlightenment should be banned, because it makes the realisation into something you have to work really hard for, but it's the prerequisite to starting to live IMO.

As Buddha put it : Enlightenment is no suffering. Suffering stems from desire ( For me it's better to say that suffering is resistance) . When you really get that you are not in control and it's all god's will and all you do is be aware of God's will and surrender to it, you are going to live without suffering. Your mind will be at peace and the game will unravel as it always would have, but without the mind's resistance to it which causes the suffering.

I already understand these things intellectually. Here we are talking about the existential experience and practice. 

Do you have a meditation habit?

Edited January 8, 2017 by Acharya

[Dodo]

25 minutes ago, Acharya said:

I already understand these things intellectually. Here we are talking about the existential experience. 

Do you have a meditation habit?

I guess yea if you want to experience that you are awareness, so to know it 100% without a doubt, then you have to do something - The bodymind has to practise - but what sort of practise. If your goal is to see you are awareness, you can only do it right now. So you choose to practise, even that you are aware of - you are not the bodymind that seemingly is doing the choice, but are the one that notices the bodymind making a decision and acting it out. The bodymind is within you and you are within the bodymind.

I do have a meditation habit and exactly in one of those sessions I notice this shit that was so obvious all along - I am aware of mind, I am aware of sensations, I am aware that I am aware. Who is aware? I am awareness and it's only identification with thoughts and believes that tell me who I am from past conditioning that make me suffer - but I acknowledge they are thoughts and beliefs and see that I am aware of even them, I am beyond them, so they are now all of a sudden easily crushed by the light of the new understanding. 

You do have existential experience even now - do you not? You don't need a 'Mystical' experience to know that you are and you always are, never changing, emptiness behind every experience. You've never been not that . Normal experience, Dream experience, Mystical experience - It's all experience!!!!! Experience is all you need to have to know you are that which allows the experience to be. Without your awareness(you), this experience will not be one, it will be 0 and it will not be an experienced at all, so will be skipped, until you show up again and allow another experience to be.

Your mind seemingly has a choice : Suffering or Peace of Mind. Suffering is resistance to what is, Peace of mind is acceptance of what is. You can never not accept, if you are that which always  accepts everything, even resistance - what is that entity? Awareness, you. The mind can learn to accept or fail to learn to accept, but you will accept either option, as it is God's will and life will unfold as it should. Your only job ever is to be aware of it and you are doing it effortlessly.

Edited January 8, 2017 by Dodoster

[Acharya]

@Dodoster Man, don't get me wrong. In the things you wrote you presuppose that I don't know about them, as if i have asked lacking the necessary awareness on the topic. Well, it is not the case.

As I said these are things that are obvious to me and should be to everyone that visits this forum. What I wanna say is that most people completely UNDERSTIMATE the shift from logical knowing to real existential knowing. 

And this derives from practice, as far my experience is concerned. Don't be too attached to the words that I use, rather see what I am referring to.

Edited January 8, 2017 by Acharya

[Dodo]

8 minutes ago, Acharya said:

@Dodoster Man, don't get me wrong. In the things you wrote you presuppose that I don't know about them, as if asked lacking the necessary awareness on the topic. Well, it is not the case.

As I said these are things that are obvious to me and should be to everyone that visits this forum. What I wanna say is that most people completely UNDERSTIMATE the shift from logical knowing and the real existential knowing. 

 

Let me get this straight, you currently have logical knowing and seek experiential knowing. You see my post which shows you that you have experiential knowing right now and always had, as another piece of logical knowledge that you don't need because you already know it? That seems like you are in a loop and stuck in identification with the mind. It's your ego right now that you gotta shake off a little bit - the mind is telling you that you need something extra-special to make that shift from logic to existential knowing, where in fact you are doing it all the time.

Sorry yes, my ego also hates when people tell it things it already knows, but we gotta be aware that this is part of the problem. Maybe from things you already know you can still learn something new by getting it in your present moment awareness. Like revisiting an old book. 

Edited January 8, 2017 by Dodoster

[Acharya]

6 minutes ago, Dodoster said:

the mind is telling you that you need something extra-special to make that shift from logic to existential knowing, where in fact you are doing it all the time.

What's the need of 5-MeO then? 

And all the other techniques of meditation?

They may all be an illusion, but still a stepping stone as far as realization is concerned.

Edited January 8, 2017 by Acharya

[Dodo]

14 minutes ago, Acharya said:

What's the need of 5-MeO then? 

Would guess it's an amazing experience. It is still an experience however. It has a beginning and an end - I have no authority to talk about that, because I haven't tried it. But from where I stand, it is not experience one should be seeking, but the question - who is experiencing this? Then maybe the experience of infinity will come on its own. 

For me it's simpler to think about enlightenment as the end of suffering and not as the experiencing of God, because if it's meant to happen, you will experience God(infinity) in due time. But any specific experience has beginning and end, and we have to be looking not for extraordinary experience, although if we can get them - THATS AWESOME, but for the right here and now and how we can be satisfied and happy in the present moment right now and in this "ordinary" life experience. 

One has to see that the ordinary is also extraordinary. 5MeO is conditional and not everyone has access to it, but who you are, you always have access to that and always are that, even when seemingly in illusion.

Edited January 8, 2017 by Dodoster

[Acharya]

2 minutes ago, Dodoster said:

It is still an experience however

I know how it is "bad" to seek experiences, I have studied in depth about the hurdles in the way to dropping the ego. Ego cannot attain enlightenment, in fact enlighenment starts where the ego drops.

Good stuff, but when the rubber hits the ground the ego strives for experience, and it cannot comprehend directly what you are intellectualising. That's a fact.

[Dodo]

1 minute ago, Acharya said:

I know how it is "bad" to seek experiences, I have studied in depth about the hurdles in the way to dropping the ego. Ego cannot attain enlightenment, in fact enlighenment starts where the ego drops.

Good stuff, but when the rubber hits the ground the ego strives for experience, and it cannot comprehend directly what you are intellectualising. That's a fact.

It doesn't need to comprehend, it needs to relax. Actually if it wants to comprehend it all, it will do the opposite of relax and accept... It will be striving for and resisting being 'unenlightened'

[Acharya]

16 minutes ago, Dodoster said:

It doesn't need to comprehend, it needs to relax. Actually if it wants to comprehend it all, it will do the opposite of relax and accept... It will be striving for and resisting being 'unenlightened'

You give too much importance to the words I am using.

However, yes, it needs to relax, but it doesn't wants to. This is the phase where experience through practice becomes important. Although they are mere experiences some understanding comes through them. And you can try to integrate them when you are back in the senses, then maybe the ego would have an "AHA" moment and surrender. 

But just by knowing intellectually how the things function, is nothing but more ego. And not even at the subtle level.

 

Ego doesn't care about logical understanding, it goes on working as it always did. 

Edited January 8, 2017 by Acharya

[Dodo]

12 minutes ago, Acharya said:

You give too much importance to the words I am using.

However, yes, it needs to relax, but it doesn't wants to. This is the phase where experience through practice becomes important. Although they are mere experiences some understanding comes through them. And you can try to integrate them when you are back in the senses, then maybe the ego would have an "AHA" moment and surrender. 

But just by knowing intellectually how the things function, is nothing but more ego. And not even at the subtle level.

 

Ego doesn't care about logical understanding, it goes on working as it always did. 

But like what i am trying to do is point to you through logical understanding the experiential understanding. 

Im trying to tell you that ANY experience is good enough to follow it to it's root and find that you are there, silent, not judging,  definitely not the body, definitely not the mind.

You can get there from any experience, because if it is not ever present and unchanging it is not you.

Im speaking from experience here, everyone that knows me knows I am pretty bad at learning things. If i didnt have the present moment experience of that, i wouldnt be able to talk about it.

 

[Acharya]

@Dodoster Notice that I have never said that you were not speaking from experice. What I was saying is that sometimes people tend to confuse and think that they have attained by reading books, by becoming more acknowleged. And the tricky thing is that you can deduce answers when someone talks about the nature of reality, without yourself knowing it.

 

Anyhow, my question was very simple and direct, and the topic wasn't about discussing the nature of ego  

[Acharya]

22 minutes ago, Dodoster said:

But like what i am trying to do is point to you through logical understanding the experiential understanding. 

Ego is also the irrational part of you, that one functioning through the reptilian brain. For it nothing logical can help.

[Soulbass]

My wish for 2017, more awareness.

Edited January 8, 2017 by Soulbass

[WaveInTheOcean]

How does one know how long he can be aware?

Because if he is suddenly not aware, does he then really know that?

If you know you're suddenly not aware, then that is the same as saying that you are indeed aware.

But ...

If you believe to be fully aware, while there are in truth still many unconscious "processes" (happenings/actions) happening within you (subconsciousness) -- which you are not aware of (hence: we say it's in the "unconscious field") -- are you then really aware? Only partly, right?

To be FULLY (like 100%, or beyond 100%) aware of EVERYTHING that is going on within you  -- & arround you -- is utopia and not something we as human beings can EVER achieve. Yet, it is something to strive for, and I guess you could say it can be approximated. To really be FULLY Aware is to fully BECOME (in heart) that which you really ARE (Awareness) which is the same as saying "to become God".

 

What does it in the 'wisest' sense mean to attain higher degrees of awareness? In my humble view that is happening when one gains a larger, and larger understanding of what governs them (= what have governed them in the past/logic/casuality/law of actions leading to according results). The larger understanding of what governs ones body, the more "free" the Awareness attached to that body becomes (and more free = it gets closer to its true self/itself/Awareness, and further away from social loops/conditoning/unconscious ego). The larger understanding of what governs one, the more free a person is to actually take a truly "Self"-governed choice (TRUE unconditioned desires)... Because with the understanding of what has governed a person in the past, the person can see that that which has governed him were not of his/her own will, but of other's will (social/cultural loops)... Thus the larger understanding one gains of the social loops one has been stuck in / still stuck in (= no free will), the larger degree of more "True free will" one gets, because the person has attained a greater understanding of how casuality works = can make better decisions that are in accordance with his/her true nature/true desires and not in accordance with false desires/attachments/social conditioning/other's will. ... and also "better decisions" in the sense that the person is able with greater degree of accuracy to predict what will happen when a given action is taken/"chosen" (because of the great logic attained/great understanding of casuaulity has played out in the past).

Wow im rambling:D just stream of thoughts Im coming up with as I think about it. Great topic to ponder about.

Edited January 8, 2017 by WaveInTheOcean