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[gatito]

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Edited November 30, 2015 by gatito

[Jadespear]

Before one attempts to assign and identify what has come to perplex everyone as unidentifiable, could not a simple line of questioning based in fact, reason, and logic help to clear falsity, untruth, and illogical assumptions to eventually illuminate that which is?

 

What exactly is the story of all that exists? All that carries an awareness, or consciousness? Isn't the simple timeline of birth, sustenance, and death one that all that exists goes through?

 

What is consciousness beyond the simple state of being aware? Is the universe aware? Have you ever sensed or had an experience that would lead you to begin investigating into the fact of the existence of a super sensible universe? One that is aware of itself and that functions as such?

 

I have. People may refer to it in different names, but I have experienced many things which lead me down that line of questioning.

 

" the Tao that can be named, is not the eternal tao."

[EarthDragon]

Insightful and thought provoking.

 

In my experience I have felt moments of clarity, musical serendipity, or when I was younger "God's Spirit". Whenever having one of these "divine" moments I always feel the Ego slip away and when it returns I "land" back in my body again.

 

The Ego slip always gives me the feeling of a universal whole because I forget "I".

[Adia]

Don't be so egotistical. Life is simple.

[FmAm]

Maybe the key to consciousness is universal and impersonal (all conscious beings are composed from the elements of the universe, after all, and the functioning and the action of a conscious experience is defined by whole universe, not by an individual). But consciousness, when it appears, is always personally experienced. At least I haven't heard of impersonal consciousness. All the stories I have heard and read have been told or written by someone and experienced by someone. So when the universe "experiences itself", the experience is always spatial and temporal and personal. (?) This view might be closer to buddhism.

Edited January 15, 2015 by FmAm

[FmAm]

It would be great to know how Advaita defends itself against solipsism. I have read some essays about this topic, but none of them has defended the theory of the impersonal Consciousness succesfylly.

[Jetsun]

The mind will always try to insist that consciousness is personal because otherwise the separate personality can't exist. But the mind may just be operating out of a survival instinct rather than the truth.

 

What arises within consciousness is usually localised to individual body-minds so what is gong on in my body at all times is differenf from you, yet what that content arises within can't be said to have a location or an identity separate from anything else. In that space the non personal universal experience can be had.

 

I'm not sure the mind can ever really get it or if it can be grasped intellectually but it can be experienced. Experientally if you are no longer identifying with the content of experience and are the space in which it arises then you can look at a thing or even another person and see you. It can actually be quite frightening and disorienting.

[FmAm]

The mind will always try to insist that consciousness is personal because otherwise the separate personality can't exist. But the mind may just be operating out of a survival instinct rather than the truth.

 

That's possible. But the problem of duality remains in the experience. Even if pain, for example, was not identified with a body or ego, it still would be dual and separate. It isn't experienced by "other channels of individual consciousness".

 

I think that duality has to exist. And so does non-duality. They go hand in hand and are inseparable. Neither is fundamental. Non-duality is duality, duality is non-duality. One leads to another.

[Marblehead]

I wasn't going to post in this thread but I must repeat this:

I think that duality has to exist. And so does non-duality. They go hand in hand and are inseparable. Neither is fundamental. Non-duality is duality, duality is non-duality. One leads to another.

Okay. Back to silent mode.

[GrandmasterP]

I wasn't going to post in this thread but I must repeat this:

 

Okay. Back to silent mode.

 

LOL

[gatito]

It would be great to know how Advaita defends itself against solipsism. I have read some essays about this topic, but none of them has defended the theory of the impersonal Consciousness succesfylly.

 

Because there's nothing other than Advaita the question is meaningless in this context.

 

Why do you imagine that Advaita (Impersonal Consciousness) would need defend itself against anything? (That's rhetorical BTW).

 

If you can't grasp the points made in the OP video then you're wasting your time with a Direct Path approach and you need to prequalify yourself by following a Cosmological Path first.

Edited April 2, 2015 by gatito

[vonkrankenhaus]

Re:

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"So when the universe "experiences itself", the experience is always spatial and temporal and personal. (?) This view might be closer to buddhism."

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When the Universe experiences itself - this is what is happening when the infinite expansion of the Infinite Universe bumps into itself and creates "polarity". These polarities spiral together and create "phenomena", which are areas of such polarization that will eventually resolve and return to One. They are like illusions, and all made of the same "thing".

 

What I see being discussed as consciousness looks more like personal ego. The ego is a temporary convenience that allows issues to be addressed as/for/by one "individual" thinking being. If it is cold and I feel cold but you do not, we do not act together to make me warm. What happens is that "I" feel "my own" coldness and "I" act to cover up with a blanket. We are the same thing, and all connected, but different manifestations. This is the difference between consciousness and ego.

 

Going the other way, notice that the "environment" is also definitely involved in my being cold. My ego separates from that and develops a false but convenient "separatist" viewpoint as "me" and "environment", but in terms of consciousness the environment is completely implicated in my getting cold and doing something about it. So environment is a major part of "consciousness", but seems separate from it to "ego".

 

-VonKrankenhaus

[FmAm]

 

If you can't grasp the points made in the OP video then you're wasting your time with a Direct Path approach and you need to prequalify yourself by following a Cosmological Path first.

I was just wondering. Nothing else. I'm not following or going to follow any path. And don't worry, my time can't be wasted.

[FmAm]

My ego separates from that and develops a false but convenient "separatist" viewpoint as "me" and "environment", but in terms of consciousness the environment is completely implicated in my getting cold and doing something about it. So environment is a major part of "consciousness", but seems separate from it to "ego".

Ego separating things is the reality in action.

[gatito]

I was just wondering. Nothing else. I'm not following or going to follow any path. And don't worry, my time can't be wasted.

 

Yes, I saw that, which is why I didn't waste my time with your ostensible question(s).