Getting a feel for "awareness" to achieve it: what's the difference between the state of "awareness" and "quiet mind"?

[uhapy]

Hi! This is a question and a bit of an introduction. The question is stated in the title.

 

'I' figure that awareness is reality. It can only be experienced when the ego is inactive. So the goal is the undo this 'ignorance' blocking awareness. 'I've' Been reading the words of Ramana Maharshi and the self-enquiry method feels like it is the best, and Ramana says it is the best while all others are less direct.

 

Having done vipassana it is less effective and slower than self-enquiry, at least at getting the mind quiet. Self-enquiry can be done all the time so it seems superior to meditation. This is learned from Ramana, who said he would not lie to an aspirant.

 

Now am just not sure if it's become aware or "subtler". The mind was restless like a monkey and now it's a lot more "silent", lot more focused, and breathing slow and easy. But it is typing now, so it is still active and creating thought, no feeling of 'oneness' with the surroundings ('I' assume that's "awareness".) Am worried that this is deceitful, that my practice is faulty. Like the mind is still subtly very active, only seemingly "quieted" yet remaining outside of "pure awareness". Still seemingly am identified with the mind-body but feel like it has had moments of "mixing" with the surroundings.

 

Is this awareness, more calmness, or active imagination? How does one distinguish between them?

 

Would like to "abandon all knowledge" and begin practicing well for as long as the body lives. 

[RiverSnake]

Awareness just "is".

 

-Keep practicing. 

[dwai]

Hi! This is a question and a bit of an introduction. The question is stated in the title.

 

'I' figure that awareness is reality. It can only be experienced when the ego is inactive. So the goal is the undo this 'ignorance' blocking awareness. 'I've' Been reading the words of Ramana Maharshi and the self-enquiry method feels like it is the best, and Ramana says it is the best while all others are less direct.

 

Having done vipassana it is less effective and slower than self-enquiry, at least at getting the mind quiet. Self-enquiry can be done all the time so it seems superior to meditation. This is learned from Ramana, who said he would not lie to an aspirant.

 

Now am just not sure if it's become aware or "subtler". The mind was restless like a monkey and now it's a lot more "silent", lot more focused, and breathing slow and easy. But it is typing now, so it is still active and creating thought, no feeling of 'oneness' with the surroundings ('I' assume that's "awareness".) Am worried that this is deceitful, that my practice is faulty. Like the mind is still subtly very active, only seemingly "quieted" yet remaining outside of "pure awareness". Still seemingly am identified with the mind-body but feel like it has had moments of "mixing" with the surroundings.

 

Is this awareness, more calmness, or active imagination? How does one distinguish between them?

 

Would like to "abandon all knowledge" and begin practicing well for as long as the body lives. 

 

My experience and understanding on this matter is as follows - 

 

Ramana Maharshi's way (or Nisargadatta Maharaj's way) is to turn the mind back onto the source. Self-inquiry is an intellectual process. But really, what it is leading up to, is to turn the mind back onto the witness, who is ever present and witnessing events unfold. When the mind is able to focus on this witness, it becomes empty, just like the witness itself. That is what is meant by Pure Awareness. There is no sense of time as in past or future. There is only the present moment.

 

There is a clarity that results in the mind resting in the witness (I am), free of objects, opinions, etc. Initially it will still flutter and waver. But gradually it loses its hold (i.e. ego loses its hold). It is hard to do much when the mind is empty (at least for me). So there is a constant context switching between empty mind and active mind (to do mundane things like writing this note etc).  But there is still a sort of subservience of the mind to the Pure Self in such a case. The Self is always aware...whether the mind is active or still/empty. It is just that when the mind was previously active, we deluded ourselves into thinking that "I AM the Mind...I AM the Body...etc". When the "I am" is apparent and mind rests on it, it pre-eminence of that one is clear. Then the mind becomes nothing more than a tool with which to navigate this material world. 

 

My 2 cents worth...

[Jetsun]

You can do both meditation and enquiry, they aren't contradictory rather they can compliment and empower each other. Ramana prescribed enquiry for some yet he said the best thing is to be in the stillness, to marinade in it. While we can no longer be in Ramana's presence where the stillness was most palpable and obvious it doesn't mean we can't still access it, which can be done through meditation or there are other living people who can bridge it.

[Boy]

You are awareness. The mind, quiet or not, is an object in you.

[uhapy]

Update:

 

I said meditation was inferior but tried vipassana again with the plan to do 30 minutes (before I was doing hours) and forget about time (before I kept thinking of the future and past). Now I can see its good for focusing and maybe when I can do it properly for longer it will be a way to dissolve the mind and get into awareness.

 

But I still don't understand how meditation can get you awareness because you have to focus on breathing.

 

 

 

Update: Because I have found the two practices I'll be doing I'm going to leave the forum. It would be nice if my account were deleted. I cannot log out.

Edited November 9, 2016 by uhapy

[Kar3n]

Update:

 

I said meditation was inferior but tried vipassana again with the plan to do 30 minutes (before I was doing hours) and forget about time (before I kept thinking of the future and past). Now I can see its good for focusing and maybe when I can do it properly for longer it will be a way to dissolve the mind and get into awareness.

 

But I still don't understand how meditation can get you awareness because you have to focus on breathing.

 

 

 

Update: Because I have found the two practices I'll be doing I'm going to leave the forum. It would be nice if my account were deleted. I cannot log out.

 

***Mod Team Reply***

 

We do not delete accounts on TDB.

​You never know, you might want to come back one day.

 

Good luck with your practices.

 

************

[silent thunder]

don't do

don't try

 

just be

[uhapy]

Update:

 

I did meditation and learned this.

 

The stage of awareness I was in when I wrote that original post was not "pure awareness" but a "quieter" mind very close to being "quiet". 

 

I was asking for more specific replies.

 

There is a noticeable difference between "quietness" and "awareness". The struggle to make the transition between the two is caused by thoughts that are active subconsciously. These thoughts cannot be stopped without effort but then the effort must stop to be in the state of pure awareness. Since it is so easy to get the mind "calm" but difficult to get it "quiet" (thoughtless even at a subconscious level) - this looks like the only reason people do not achieve the "awareness" state by just calming down, it is just about stop having subconscious thought. 

[joeblast]

Update:

 

I did meditation and learned this.

 

The stage of awareness I was in when I wrote that original post was not "pure awareness" but a "quieter" mind very close to being "quiet". 

 

I was asking for more specific replies.

 

There is a noticeable difference between "quietness" and "awareness". The struggle to make the transition between the two is caused by thoughts that are active subconsciously. These thoughts cannot be stopped without effort but then the effort must stop to be in the state of pure awareness. Since it is so easy to get the mind "calm" but difficult to get it "quiet" (thoughtless even at a subconscious level) - this looks like the only reason people do not achieve the "awareness" state by just calming down, it is just about stop having subconscious thought. 

Awareness is simply likened to the focus of awareness.

 

Habituation is the method by which the awareness can be trained to focus for longer periods of time.

 

Breathwork is the method by which the neurology is tamed -  by "shutting off" the olfactory nerve, you are stopping its 40 cycles/sec resonance firing into the midbrain and giving it a near constant stream of feedback about airflow.  "Any detected signal" can be treated as excitatory.  Since the subsystems overlap and communicate with each other, an increase in perceived airflow at the olfactory nerves will trigger increase heartrate.  Movement will stimulate the vestibulocochlear nerve; harsh, heavy or herky jerky breathing will stimulate the vagus; looking and paying attention to sights will stimulate the 4 eye cranial nerves; facial or tongue movement will stimulate the trigeminal and a couple others. 

 

And so forth.  These signals all aggregate in the midbrain, logically speaking.

 

Quiescence comes from the habituated streamlining of all those signals.  So while breathwork will at first be full of effort and focus on physical things and not just one-pointed-awareness (like what happens as a downstream result of having done the breathwork to a significant degree,) it is the gongfu of breathwork, that when achieved, directly conveys quiescence to the mind. 

 

From the neurological and breathwork studies I've done, there are many logical loopings in the midbrain that helps a human's decision making process, but this is in effect also the vehicle by which random thought manifests.  Idle energy that is not directed....well, let me back up just a bit, because it is the habituation of the breathwork itself that harnesses this idle energy to begin with, and when one starts asserting control over the neurological inputs, that is necessarily training a new path of least resistance as far as the nerves are concerned.

 

The brain builds its neural networks based on habit and experience.

 

Ergo, the act of mastering anapanasati is also the practice of mindfully altering the brain's neural networks, enhancing bandwidth in certain directions and attenuating signal where it is not desired.

 

When the cranial nerves are all tamed, the sensate inputs are basically turned down to zero by habituated, mindful, efficient intention onto the in-the-moment, every moment action.

 

So the process is to make all the physical parts work in a constructively amplifying fashion, but only the parts needed to move for efficient breathwork - this necessarily says dont move certain things so as to not generate additional undesired signal.  One of the biggest keys in what I teach on breathwork, I've never seen anyone write or speak of -  dont use the airways to facilitate the movement of air through them!!  The preponderance of the work done to move air should be all diaphragm, with the perineum and abdomen assisting in a maximally efficient manner....but the airways, if used to move the air, simply add to the signal perceived by the olfactory nerves, and this basically thwarts the entire point of using streamlined physical mechanics to achieve this quiet mind.

 

 

 

Anyway...once this is habituated...random thought forms as a thought-bubble in the very center of the midbrain, and like effervescence in a glass of soda detaching from the side of the glass and floating to the top, random thought will similarly form a spontaneous bubble, and off it goes and rides the neurology chain.  

 

But its a pretty interesting thing when you've gotten past watching it form and take off, and instead feel the bubble begin to form, and...turn it around into the light at the niwan, absorbing the arising thought-form-energy potential before it truly bubbles and gains the potential to detach from the midbrain, ride its way up into higher brain centers, and then you observe yourself thinking something.

 

 

So all that neurological wiggling that happens....now you've habituated shutting it off for an hour....2 hours....4 hours every evening...

 

What happened to all the energy utilized by those processes?

 

Gung.     But dont get discouraged by the notion of so many hours - you shut off those signals, and you shut off your connection to time while there...

[Boy]

You lost me at "simply likened".

[[email protected]]

My experience in this case was like this:

- silent mind si just you see the picture of a world everytime without evaluating it

- awareness is like you are in the conditon as you "understand" yourself every moment... it is not empty looking, like you are filled with some energy or field/ aura or smth like this

 

Ilya

[awaken]

If you want to have a pure awareness without thoughts

 

Go deep into Hun dun and open the emptiness

 

In emptiness, you will know what is pure awareness