Grasping this: consciousness is fundamental

[Mixcoatl]

Hello everyone.

I found in my journey this information about nonduality and ancient beliefs that comprise the idea of the consciousness being the most fundamental substance of reality. Although for me it is a very logical conclusion I cannot grasp it. So here is the problem: when I meditate and focus my attention on my awareness I notice that in fact I'm being aware through my senses. I can hear, I can feel, etc. But I still can't be aware of my awareness without my senses (I don't even know if it is possible) and it makes me feel that my body is more fundamental than my awareness. the problem lies on that point: if I am aware through my senses, it makes me think that awareness is only through my body. How can I leave my senses aside to feel awareness indeed? And the other question is: if awareness is the immutable substance of the whole, what happens when I'm not aware, let's say in a deep sleep? Or, in other words: if awareness is everywhere. Why it seems that my body is always attached to the "same part" of awareness? Why I am always aware that this awareness is always the same? I mean, I moved from Mexico to California and I still feel that I am I. The same part of  the whole consciousness.

Of course there's a lot of information out there in the world but I don't want to just believe it dogmatically. I want to grasp it because if not, it is only a bunch of information that only confuses me

[LastThursday]

5 hours ago, Mixcoatl said:

Why it seems that my body is always attached to the "same part" of awareness?

Ask yourself if you need eyes to see. How do you see in dreams when you eyes are closed in a darkened room?

[Mixcoatl]

3 hours ago, LastThursday said:

Ask yourself if you need eyes to see. How do you see in dreams when you eyes are closed in a darkened room?

Thanks for the answer! I think it confuses me a little bit. Yes, I don't need my eyes or senses to be aware of a dream but it seems that the dream occurs in my mind, not in anyone else's mind. Therefore, it makes me think again that I need my own mind to have my own dreams.

Today I meditated pretending that I was born one second ago in order to fade away any meaning of my experience. i.e. if I hear a dog barking I still don't know what a dog is, hence, I don't know that the sensation I'm having comes from a dog. And it was crazy to notice that the only thing I had was awareness! Not even a body, because I still don't know my body. But I started to have a sense of the space that my sensations were occupying. Again, I felt that the awareness I was experiencing was just limited by the information that comes from my senses that in time, are inside of my mind. I cannot be aware of the senses that, let's say, Lady Gaga or you are having at this moment.

[WelcometoReality]

11 hours ago, Mixcoatl said:

Of course there's a lot of information out there in the world but I don't want to just believe it dogmatically. I want to grasp it because if not, it is only a bunch of information that only confuses me

That's good work. You're observing your own experience and making your own conclusions based on it. It's also good to not believe anyone else dogmatically but also be open to the possibilty that there's more to it than how you're currently experiencing it.

When you meditate can you observe your thoughts and feelings, seeing them come and go? 

[RMQualtrough]

You can't be aware of awareness directly became awareness is absolute literal nothingness. You have to use sensory input as a mirror to reflect back at what's observing them. Then you find nothingness.

[LastThursday]

6 hours ago, Mixcoatl said:

but it seems that the dream occurs in my mind, not in anyone else's mind.

If you experienced someone else's mind, would it be their mind or your mind or both?

[Tim R]

16 hours ago, Mixcoatl said:

if awareness is everywhere. Why it seems that my body is always attached to the "same part" of awareness?

Awareness is not only everywhere, it is also nowhere. 

I know, it's a really sticky and persistent illusion that awareness is sort of "attached to the body", it seems that you always carry it around with yourself, perhaps inside your head, behind your eyes and between the ears. 

The body is "inside" awareness. When I say "inside", I don't mean that in a literal, spacial sense, or that awareness is somehow "outside" of your body. Awareness both contains and is your body - and everything else, for that matter.

It's like when you look into a mirror, whatever you see "in there" is the mirror, but the mirror itself is not the image, the mirror hasn't changed, unlike the color and shapes that you see in the mirror. The mirror is that which is always "behind" everything that's going on. The image you see inside the mirror is the mirror, but the mirror is not the image. 

Just in the same way as it would be absurd to say that the mirror is attached to or dependent on the reflections inside it, so it is with awareness. It is not attached to the body - and your body is also not attached to it. Awareness contains everything in the same way as the mirror does. 

[Tim R]

Imagine there was a person who was raised in front of a mirror. All he ever knows is the reflections inside of this mirror, but he doesn't know anything about there being a mirror (or "reflections"), he just sees the image and that's it. And he thinks that's reality.

How would you make him see the mirror itself? If all that he can see is the images?

The funny thing is of course, that he is and was looking at the mirror all along. There never was anything but the mirror, but he didn't / doesn't see it. 

What needs to happen, is that he breaks the hypnosis that he was raised with, which is the attachment to the image in the mirror. 

When he stops clinging to the forms in the mirror, he might notice that there is something "underlying". Something that never changes, that doesn't stick, that is nowhere, everyhwere, without color or shape, which doesn't interfere, which is neither in the background nor in the forground, which is infinitely subtle and yet the most present thing there is. 

You see, in a sense, the reflections are the only way for him of becoming aware of the mirror.

For without them, what would there be? 

 

Consciousness is like a mirror that doesn't only reflect colors and shapes, but that reflects absolutely everything that you can be aware of, all sensory input. It contains everything and therefore is nothing - and everything.

It's a lot more tricky for you to become "aware of awareness". You can't really turn awareness around to look at itself - but you don't have to. Because you are it!! 

Your reflection in the mirror doesn't have to try to look at the mirror. It is it! You see?

The mistake would be to look for more reflections. To look for more content. Let the content go. Let the body go. You are the mirror.

[RMQualtrough]

@Tim R Saved. Thank you.

 

[Tim R]

@RMQualtrough ???

[Mixcoatl]

9 hours ago, Tim R said:

Awareness is not only everywhere, it is also nowhere. 

I know, it's a really sticky and persistent illusion that awareness is sort of "attached to the body", it seems that you always carry it around with yourself, perhaps inside your head, behind your eyes and between the ears. 

Oh man. I think you got my point. I feel like awareness is not only inside my head but also in my whole body and, in a sense, outside my body but only in my closest space, let's say the space where I can hear a sound from. But some piece is missing on my puzzle. How can I realize through my experience that awareness is everywhere. Rather than that, how do I know that consciousness is more elemental than matter. Or, in other words: how can I conclude that awareness is ever present? Or: why just can't be a "space" or "something" without awareness. What is the grounding of awareness?... Maybe this is ungraspable

I'm just trying to deconstruct my materialistic idea of the universe not for the sake of nonduality but for the sake of my own truth but I still feel trapped on this idea that consciousness come from the interaction between matter... Something like pansychism...

I've been doing meditation and I think that this is a very powerful tool to approach little bit into truth. 

[Mixcoatl]

10 hours ago, LastThursday said:

If you experienced someone else's mind, would it be their mind or your mind or both?

Oh! I guess it would be also my mind. But that's the point. Why I can't be aware of every infinite aspect of my body? Awareness is here in my body. Isn't it?  

20 hours ago, LastThursday said:

Ask yourself if you need eyes to see. How do you see in dreams when you eyes are closed in a darkened room?

If I don't need my eyes to experience in a certain level, let's say, in dreams, why my eyes exist? From my experience I can say that I need my ears to hear a sound. I need my eyes to see. If I take em from my body, I cease to see. Where this visual awareness goes? If I die today, can the awareness still be able to see and hear?

[Nahm]

On 1/24/2022 at 11:40 AM, Mixcoatl said:

How can I leave my senses aside to feel awareness indeed?

Leave the “I” and “my” thoughts aside. Notice the senses are exactly the same wether thought to be “mine” or not. 

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if awareness is the immutable substance of the whole, what happens when I'm not aware, let's say in a deep sleep?

If there were the direct experience of not being aware… notice, there would inherently have to be awareness of… not having been or not being aware.

Run is dualistic. There’s running, and there’s not running. Awareness is not dualistic. There is no such thing or experience as no awareness. You are eternal. 

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Or, in other words: if awareness is everywhere. Why it seems that my body is always attached to the "same part" of awareness?

It’s attachment to the thoughts. Replace the thought “body” with unicorn… and notice perception does not change whatsoever. Likewise, the thought ‘part’. You are infinite, and thus have no, there is no, parts (sans the thought, ‘parts’). 

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Why I am always aware that this awareness is always the same?

Because awareness / consciousness is always the same. There are no parts, types, degrees, levels, states, ownership, attainments, etc, etc. That’s all thoughts / thought attachment / beliefs / believing thoughts. 

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if I am aware through my senses, it makes me think that awareness is only through my body.

It’s like fish in water… if you add that “fish” is a thought… the water being awareness / consciousness, and there not actually being “fish”, just the thought “fish”. 

Rupert Spira’s movie & screen analogy might be insightful as well. The screen being the I, and the movie, which the screen is appearing as, being the thoughts and senses. 

Maybe a great contemplation for ya… “if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?”

Also, the Disney movie Soul talks a lot about this in a light, funny & approachable way. Might like it.  

@RMQualtrough Perfect gif! ? 

[Mixcoatl]

Today I listened to a video where Gura makes this analogy of Lego bricks and how the ego identifies itself with the body. It really helped me a lot. Now I understand that the body can be also unattached to the true self. I just got this insight where every particle on this reality is made of these little bricks of consciousness that in time are made of literally nothing. Isn't that beautiful that consciousness doesn't cease to exist when the body dies? Isn't that beautiful that consciousness is not delimited by the body? Wow! I'm literally amazed 

 

Thank you everyone for your words and for helping me. I mean, there is a lot of things to learn but these primary insights are very necessary to keep discovering

[LastThursday]

15 hours ago, Mixcoatl said:

Why I can't be aware of every infinite aspect of my body? Awareness is here in my body. Isn't it?  

There's so much I could say about infinity and concepts and so on. Ok, how about seeing it the other way round: your body is in awareness?

15 hours ago, Mixcoatl said:

If I don't need my eyes to experience in a certain level, let's say, in dreams, why my eyes exist?

Awareness is like a fluid that can take any shape it likes. It can take the shape of sight and the shape of sound or the shape of feeling. 

You have an awareness of your eyes. You can look in the mirror and see them, or poke them with your finger, or just close your eyes. Your eyes only exist as an awareness of sight (mirror) and touch (finger).

So it seems like you need an awareness of sight to know you have eyes!

All you have is correlation. In other words every time you blink your vision changes at the same time. But the blinking and the vision are both just in awareness. You can't be certain that one is causing the other. In fact blinking is not causing vision. Hopefully you see the problem.

[Mixcoatl]

On 25/1/2022 at 11:10 AM, Nahm said:

 

Maybe a great contemplation for ya… “if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?”

That's exactly the problem that I'm trying to solve. If there isn't anybody to listen to the sound of a tree, then nobody experiences the sound, but it doesn't change the fact that there is a sound, waiting for someone to be heard.

Let me explain little bit more: let's say I'm grabbing a stick of wood. From the materialistic point of view, my brains generate consciousness inside my body. There isn't consciousness in that stick since it doesn't have a brain. Then, when I grab this stick, some nerves tell my brains something is being touched by my hand. Then the brains generate this experience in my consciousness, which sounds plausible for me. From the nondualistic point of view, both "I" and the stick are made out of consciousness. So, when I grab the stick I have the experience of having something on my hand, which is also plausible for me!! 

But it seems that the prerequisite for the statement "consciousness is ever-present" to be true is that the same statement is true (also happens for the materialistic point of view). Let me explain why I think this way: if I grab that stick, in order to have the experience of feeling that stick, it has to be true that consciousness is ever-present. But think on this: let's suppose we have a stick outside consciousness, nothing and nobody knows that there is something outside consciousness because nothing can experience it, (unless the materialistic point of view is true!), but it doesn't change the fact that there is something outside consciousness. Therefore, either consciousness is not infinite or consciousness must be infinite in order to be infinite... It's like saying that the Bible tells the truth just because the Bible says that it tells the truth.

Please don't think I'm trying to argue against nonduality teachings, in fact this understanding seems more possible for me than the materialistic understanding... But I need to have all the pieces of my puzzle. Thanks

Edited January 27, 2022 by Mixcoatl
I wanted to add some more comments

[LastThursday]

4 hours ago, Mixcoatl said:

But think on this: let's suppose we have a stick outside consciousness, nothing and nobody knows that there is something outside consciousness because nothing can experience it,

This is dodgy logic. Who is doing the supposing? Why aren't they included?

[Nahm]

7 hours ago, Mixcoatl said:

That's exactly the problem that I'm trying to solve. If there isn't anybody to listen to the sound of a tree, then nobody experiences the sound, but it doesn't change the fact that there is a sound, waiting for someone to be heard.

But that’s precisely what it indicates. That ‘fact’ would be an assumption. It’s like saying ‘if there isn’t anyone to see a unicorn, it doesn’t change the fact that there is a unicorn’. 

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Let me explain little bit more: let's say I'm grabbing a stick of wood. From the materialistic point of view, my brains generate consciousness inside my body. There isn't consciousness in that stick since it doesn't have a brain. Then, when I grab this stick, some nerves tell my brains something is being touched by my hand. Then the brains generate this experience in my consciousness, which sounds plausible for me. From the nondualistic point of view, both "I" and the stick are made out of consciousness. So, when I grab the stick I have the experience of having something on my hand, which is also plausible for me!! 

But it seems that the prerequisite for the statement "consciousness is ever-present" to be true is that the same statement is true (also happens for the materialistic point of view). Let me explain why I think this way: if I grab that stick, in order to have the experience of feeling that stick, it has to be true that consciousness is ever-present. But think on this: let's suppose we have a stick outside consciousness, nothing and nobody knows that there is something outside consciousness because nothing can experience it, (unless the materialistic point of view is true!), but it doesn't change the fact that there is something outside consciousness. Therefore, either consciousness is not infinite or consciousness must be infinite in order to be infinite... It's like saying that the Bible tells the truth just because the Bible says that it tells the truth.

Likewise, ‘suppose’ really means ‘let’s assume there is something outside of consciousness’. But direct experience dictates there isn’t. There is the thought that there is, and consciousness is conscious of the thought (assumption). 

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Please don't think I'm trying to argue against nonduality teachings, in fact this understanding seems more possible for me than the materialistic understanding... But I need to have all the pieces of my puzzle. Thanks

If there are pieces of a puzzle, but no one putting them together, are there really pieces of a puzzle?  ?