Questions about consciousness and reality outside it

[Seeker_of_truth]

I'm reading "The Direct Path: A User's Guide" by Greg Goode and I think this book is stupid. Still I'd like to you know if this makes sense from any higher consciousness point of view.

First it is trying to disprove "Representative Realism" through direct experience. In Representative Realism there is a physical object that exists in the world. A person perceives it though his senses and his mind shows him an image of the object. Now the experiment is to see if we can see the perceive both the physical object and also the mental object - only then we can prove that there are two separate things - physical object and mental image. Since we only see one object and not two it says that Representative Realism is false. This is such a stupid experiment because the person can only see whatever the mind shows him, there is no way for the person to see the physical object. He seems to be wanting to prove that there exists no reality outside what we are conscious of. Is there really no reality outside of what we are conscious of? If that is the case how do you answer the questions below.

Related to the above, he tries to disprove that awareness is contained in the body and he himself raised a few questions which I don't think he answered in the book:

•  I know that I am awareness and everything is awareness, but why can’t I see your thoughts?
•  Yes, there is nothing outside of awareness, but then why can’t I see the Great Wall of China?
•  You and I are looking at a tree. Are we seeing the same tree (thing?)?
•  You and I are looking at each other. Who is appearing to whom?

If there is nothing outside consciousness, how would they answer this ^

 

The only answer that seems possible to me is if Representative Realism is false and I imagined my whole life and all the people in it. Since these are imagined people I can't be aware of their thoughts. Or Representative Realism is true and there exists a world outside my consciousness.

 

Edited February 28, 2022 by Seeker_of_truth

[Leo Gura]

It works exactly like a dream.

Stop making it complicated.

You understand how dreams work. No need to puzzle that out.

Consciousness has no outside.

[Shambhu]

@Seeker_of_truth

1 hour ago, Seeker_of_truth said:

I'm reading "The Direct Path: A User's Guide" by Greg Goode and I think this book is stupid. Still I'd like to you know if this makes sense from any higher consciousness point of view.

First it is trying to disprove "Representative Realism" through direct experience. In Representative Realism there is a physical object that exists in the world. A person perceives it though his senses and his mind shows him an image of the object. Now the experiment is to see if we can see the perceive both the physical object and also the mental object - only then we can prove that there are two separate things - physical object and mental image. Since we only see one object and not two it says that Representative Realism is false. This is such a stupid experiment because the person can only see whatever the mind shows him, there is no way for the person to see the physical object. He seems to be wanting to prove that there exists no reality outside what we are conscious of. Is there really no reality outside of what we are conscious of? If that is the case how do you answer the questions below.

Related to the above, he tries to disprove that awareness is contained in the body and he himself raised a few questions which I don't think he answered in the book:

•  I know that I am awareness and everything is awareness, but why can’t I see your thoughts?
•  Yes, there is nothing outside of awareness, but then why can’t I see the Great Wall of China?
•  You and I are looking at a tree. Are we seeing the same tree (thing?)?
•  You and I are looking at each other. Who is appearing to whom?

If there is nothing outside consciousness, how would they answer this ^

 

The only answer that seems possible to me is if Representative Realism is false and I imagined my whole life and all the people in it. Since these are imagined people I can't be aware of their thoughts. Or Representative Realism is true and there exists a world outside my consciousness.

 

I actually liked this book, and I have worked with Greg in the past.  I have also borrowed a great deal from the lineage of Sri Atmananda Krishna Menon, which is the source material for this book.

The main thrust of the book is to provide "experiments" so that you can see from your own direct experience, that you never experience anything other than Consciousness.  Since representation realism (RR) is the most widely accepted theory of perception, it is addressed directly.  You don't even need these experiments to doubt RR.  If your experience was actually representative of reality, then it should always appear the same, but it doesn't.  A building changes size as you approach it or move away.  A stick in a glass of water looks bent, but outside the glass looks straight.  These are all long standing problems in philosophy with RR.  The more important aspect of this book is to see that you never experience anything outside of Consciousness and that what is experienced is nothing other than Consciousness.  You never experience an "outside world."

The questions that Greg raised, such as "why can't I see other's thoughts?" is addressed, but not in a direct way.  You have to thoroughly grasp the difference between what he calls the "Opaque Witness" and the "Transparent Witness" to get the answer to those questions.  

Now, Greg's view is not solipsistic.  It does give room for other MINDS to have their own experience, but all minds ultimately resolve into Consciousness.  The main problem I find in these forums is the confusion between mind and Consciousness. 

[Someone here]

Physicalism doesn't actually imply realism and vice versa. You're talking about realism--the belief that there are things (whatever their nature) external to oneself. That would be ontological realism, and then epistemological realism is that we can know (either in an acquaintance or at least a propositional way) the things that are external to oneself

[Seeker_of_truth]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

It works exactly like a dream.

Stop making it complicated.

You understand how dreams work. No need to puzzle that out.

Consciousness has no outside.

If everything is inside consciousness, then am I (as the person in the dream) being somehow restricted from being aware of other people's lives? Like an artificial outside that is there that only god can break through?

[Seeker_of_truth]

3 minutes ago, Shambhu said:

@Seeker_of_truth

I actually liked this book, and I have worked with Greg in the past.  I have also borrowed a great deal from the lineage of Sri Atmananda Krishna Menon, which is the source material for this book.

The main thrust of the book is to provide "experiments" so that you can see from your own direct experience, that you never experience anything other than Consciousness.  Since representation realism (RR) is the most widely accepted theory of perception, it is addressed directly.  You don't even need these experiments to doubt RR.  If your experience was actually representative of reality, then it should always appear the same, but it doesn't.  A building changes size as you approach it or move away.  A stick in a glass of water looks bent, but outside the glass looks straight.  These are all long standing problems in philosophy with RR.  The more important aspect of this book is to see that you never experience anything outside of Consciousness and that what is experienced is nothing other than Consciousness.  You never experience an "outside world."

The questions that Greg raised, such as "why can't I see other's thoughts?" is addressed, but not in a direct way.  You have to thoroughly grasp the difference between what he calls the "Opaque Witness" and the "Transparent Witness" to get the answer to those questions.  

Now, Greg's view is not solipsistic.  It does give room for other MINDS to have their own experience, but all minds ultimately resolve into Consciousness.  The main problem I find in these forums is the confusion between mind and Consciousness. 

I see... I have caught myself attributing some qualities of mind / object to the witness, maybe there is more that I'm still unconsciously attributing it to, causing this confusion... Thanks for the clarification.

[Shambhu]

38 minutes ago, Seeker_of_truth said:

If everything is inside consciousness, then am I (as the person in the dream) being somehow restricted from being aware of other people's lives? Like an artificial outside that is there that only god can break through?

@Seeker_of_truth You, as Consciousness, are limitless, but knowledge takes place in the mind, and therefore can be limited.  If you take yourself as a mind, or try to attribute qualities of the mind to Consciousness, this type of confusion will be inevitable.  

[Leo Gura]

57 minutes ago, Seeker_of_truth said:

If everything is inside consciousness, then am I (as the person in the dream) being somehow restricted from being aware of other people's lives? Like an artificial outside that is there that only god can break through?

No, your consciousness is Absolute.

You imagine other people's lives.

What God breaks through is the idea that things exist outside its mind. You are imagining things beyond your mind. Which is just your mind.

When you are sitting on the toilet, all the exists is that toilet and the room it is in. That's what reality is: a room with a toilet in it. The rest is your fantasy. The room and the toilet is also your fantasy, but on a deeper level.

[Leo Gura]

52 minutes ago, Shambhu said:

The main problem I find in these forums is the confusion between mind and Consciousness.

It's not a confusion. They are ONE.

[Seeker_of_truth]

30 minutes ago, Shambhu said:

@Seeker_of_truth You, as Consciousness, are limitless, but knowledge takes place in the mind, and therefore can be limited.  If you take yourself as a mind, or try to attribute qualities of the mind to Consciousness, this type of confusion will be inevitable.  

What? Mind is where knowledge takes place? I thought consciousness was the knower!

[Consilience]

25 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

No, your consciousness is Absolute.

You imagine other people's lives.

What God breaks through is the idea that things exist outside its mind. You are imagining things beyond your mind. Which is just your mind.

When you are sitting on the toilet, all the exists is that toilet and the room it is in. That's what reality is: a room with a toilet in it. The rest is your fantasy. The room and the toilet is also your fantasy, but on a deeper level.

So much to unpack here, my guess is it would takes most beings lifetimes to understand. 

[Consilience]

4 minutes ago, Seeker_of_truth said:

What? Mind is where knowledge takes place? I thought consciousness was the knower!

Relative, relational knowledge is a function of cognition (mind), cognition (mind) is a function of consciousness. Knowing of actuality is the most authentic, trustworthy knowledge as it leaves 0 room for epistemological debate. Relative, relation knowledge, by virtue of its building blocks on a multitude of ontological scales, is never fully true or false, and therefore cannot be absolutely true. 
 

[Seeker_of_truth]

2 minutes ago, Consilience said:

Relative, relational knowledge is a function of cognition (mind), cognition (mind) is a function of consciousness. Knowing of actuality is the most authentic, trustworthy knowledge as it leaves 0 room for epistemological debate. Relative, relation knowledge, by virtue of its building blocks on a multitude of ontological scales, is never fully true or false, and therefore cannot be absolutely true. 

I don't really understand most of those words ^^`.

What I think you saying is that logical knowledge (building blocks) is not true knowledge and experience is (knowing of actuality). Is that what you are saying?

[Shambhu]

@Seeker_of_truth

11 minutes ago, Seeker_of_truth said:

What? Mind is where knowledge takes place? I thought consciousness was the knower!

Yes, consciousness is the knower when knowledge is appearing to it.  Even this can be somewhat misleading.  What is really being communicated is that Consciousness is the light by which any object is revealed, so you will hear words like "knower" or "seer" or "witness" ascribed to it.

[Shambhu]

@Leo Gura

39 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

It's not a confusion. They are ONE.

They are one in the same way that the wave and ocean are one.  However, even though the wave is nothing other than the ocean, the ocean is not limited to being any wave.  One is a modification of the other, or conditioned by the other.  Mind is dependent upon Consciousness, but Consciousness is not dependent upon mind.

[Seeker_of_truth]

4 minutes ago, Shambhu said:

@Seeker_of_truth

Yes, consciousness is the knower when knowledge is appearing to it.  Even this can be somewhat misleading.  What is really being communicated is that Consciousness is the light by which any object is revealed, so you will hear words like "knower" or "seer" or "witness" ascribed to it.

Hmm. So are you saying that consciousness is the seeing but the seer is the mind?

[Seeker_of_truth]

1 minute ago, Seeker_of_truth said:

Hmm. So are you saying that consciousness is the seeing but the seer is the mind?

No that doesn't sound right... This is confusing, I guess I just need to self inquire more.

[Shambhu]

@Seeker_of_truth 

22 minutes ago, Seeker_of_truth said:

Hmm. So are you saying that consciousness is the seeing but the seer is the mind?

 

19 minutes ago, Seeker_of_truth said:

No that doesn't sound right... This is confusing, I guess I just need to self inquire more.

When you see colors, the eye is the seer and the colors are the seen.  The colors are many but the eye is one. 

The mind is the seer of the eyes, and the eyes then become the seen.  There are are many types of vision (clear, blurry, etc), but the mind is one. 

It is Consciousness that sees the mind, and the mind becomes the seen.  The mind has many states, but Consciousness is one. 

Nothing is needed to "see" Consciousness; it is self-illuminating.  It is always one and unchanging.  

[_Archangel_]

3 hours ago, Seeker_of_truth said:

•  I know that I am awareness and everything is awareness, but why can’t I see your thoughts?
•  Yes, there is nothing outside of awareness, but then why can’t I see the Great Wall of China?

to say that there is nothing beyond experience means that you are removing the bounderies of the context of experience.
What happens in the content of experience (ex. having certain limits)  is irrelevant and doesn't disprove the above. 

Your notions of inside/outside, can/can't, are appearing inside Awereness. 
 

 

3 hours ago, Seeker_of_truth said:

•  You and I are looking at a tree. Are we seeing the same tree (thing?)?
•  You and I are looking at each other. Who is appearing to whom?

The is only one experience, in this case taking the form of: an identity(You) thinking that there exist a world and other beings out of itself that can look at a shared object at the same time. <----------- THIS IS A FANTASY. PRODUCED BY AND MADE OF CONSCIOUSNESS/AWERENESS ®

@Seeker_of_truth