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Post by inavalan on Jan 19, 2024 2:52:04 GMT -5
I can't imagine what you mean by not-knowing that you exist. How could you be aware if you don't exist? Probably we use some of these words with different meanings. Anyway, that's okay. Regarding the " void" ... In earlier times I experienced such a void, that I didn't know what it meant. It happened, sometimes, when I regressed / projected between lives. More recently, this void morphed into a "black" space with many many lights, like stars, that I could zoom into, and they became realities, and versions of realities, that I could experience at a level I could choose, from witnessing them to participating in them. The explanation provided to me was that it is a matter of threshold of perception, and of focus. That's pretty darn cool. I have cultivated the capacity to focus attention very intently, it comes naturally to me. Depending on what my attention is on, would also determine whether there is a sense of knowing I exist. And it's also possible that this knowing is lurking there, but I don't always know it, though that raises the question of whether we can say that something is known...even when it's not experientially known! Are you familiar with the idea of 'qualia'? Someone on the forum introduced my to the idea many years ago now, and it's a word that I can relate to my experience quite well. If you consider the experience of eating something with intense flavor, or experiencing an emotional state very purely and directly....is the knowing there, during those moments? I am not familiar with "qualia", and a quick look up wasn't enough. I can't interpret what could mean "I don't exist", in an absolute sense. Maybe I will eventually. As I wrote recently, the "I am" with no assumptions is for me analogous to the asynchronous logic unit of a processor, without memory, or register, just performing operations in the present with no idea what it is, just that it is, is aware, nor what it does or did. |
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Post by andrew on Jan 19, 2024 3:04:14 GMT -5
That's pretty darn cool. I have cultivated the capacity to focus attention very intently, it comes naturally to me. Depending on what my attention is on, would also determine whether there is a sense of knowing I exist. And it's also possible that this knowing is lurking there, but I don't always know it, though that raises the question of whether we can say that something is known...even when it's not experientially known! Are you familiar with the idea of 'qualia'? Someone on the forum introduced my to the idea many years ago now, and it's a word that I can relate to my experience quite well. If you consider the experience of eating something with intense flavor, or experiencing an emotional state very purely and directly....is the knowing there, during those moments? I am not familiar with "qualia", and a quick look up wasn't enough. I can't interpret what could mean "I don't exist", in an absolute sense. Maybe I will eventually. As I wrote recently, the "I am" with no assumptions is for me analogous to the asynchronous logic unit of a processor, without memory, or register, just performing operations in the present with no idea what it is, just that it is, is aware, nor what it does or did. I also don't recall experiencing a knowing that is specifically.... 'I don't exist'....though it is possible that I have done, because I went through an unpleasant phase many years ago in which I felt like a ghost in the world. If I test that memory out, it could be a sense of 'I don't exist'. I don't experience that 'ghost sense' these days. But if you look for a sense of 'non-existence', could you find that? |
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Post by Gopal on Jan 19, 2024 4:06:32 GMT -5
Perceiver of this reality/thought. To whom everything appears. It's very clear, yes? Well. My view is that we are more than that. And in another way, much less. So while I don't disagree with your words/expression (I don't think you are wrong)...... I would rarely express those words myself. That's great. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jan 19, 2024 9:44:01 GMT -5
8 hours ago inavalan said: I can't imagine what you mean by not-knowing that you exist. How could you be aware if you don't exist? Probably we use some of these words with different meanings. Anyway, that's okay. That's pretty darn cool. I have cultivated the capacity to focus attention very intently, it comes naturally to me. Depending on what my attention is on, would also determine whether there is a sense of knowing I exist. And it's also possible that this knowing is lurking there, but I don't always know it, though that raises the question of whether we can say that something is known...even when it's not experientially known! Are you familiar with the idea of 'qualia'? Someone on the forum introduced my to the idea many years ago now, and it's a word that I can relate to my experience quite well. If you consider the experience of eating something with intense flavor, or experiencing an emotional state very purely and directly....is the knowing there, during those moments? I am not familiar with "qualia", and a quick look up wasn't enough. I can't interpret what could mean "I don't exist", in an absolute sense. Maybe I will eventually. As I wrote recently, the "I am" with no assumptions is for me analogous to the asynchronous logic unit of a processor, without memory, or register, just performing operations in the present with no idea what it is, just that it is, is aware, nor what it does or did. I was going to reply to the copied part above, this seems a good place. "Analogous to the asynchronous logic unit of a processor" and "just that it is, is aware" don't seem to go together. I was going to reply concerning what " not-knowing that you exist" is like. For sdp this is while operating on autopilot. This occurs much of the day, in a daydream or *absentmindedly*. Absentmindedly is a good descriptive word. Many things we have learned, have formed a conditioned feed-back loop in which the activity does not require ~our~ attention, it doesn't require our awareness or consciousness. Riding a bicycle is a good example. Or, possibly, you wake up from sleep, go to the bathroom, use the toilet, take a shower, get dressed; or after p & p, eat breakfast, brush teeth, then take a shower, then get dressed. But I bet you do it pretty-much in the same order every morning. But the point is, it's a habit, you do it absentmindedly, you do it on autopilot. The activity doesn't require ~you~ to be there, your attention, it becomes like riding a bicycle. For sdp that's a form of "not-knowing that you exist". And that's just one example. You can drive to work, and do it literally on autopilot. Say it's a 25 minute drive. You can drive for five minutes at a time, and completely go to La La Land, you consciousness completely absent. Now, something can pull consciousness, back in, immediately, a ball could roll in front of your car. Or, possibly while your brain has gone on a mini-vacation, your boss could pop in and ask how are things going, and this snaps you back into the real world, instantly. But the point is, there are periods throughout the day, could even be in the midst of actually working, that do not require the active participation of one's attention, or consciousness, IOW, ~you~. And when that occurs, ~you~ don't know that ~you~ exist. So, I replied to this post because of your analogy, which, for sdp, contains a contradiction. An asynchronous logic unit of a processor, almost by definition, can't-know it exists. But then you add, it just knows "just that it is, is aware". But I won't belabor that point, just what's above, how much we can function, in life, absent-awareness of the doing. But you have to catch yourself, absent, after-the-fact. Because if you were present, in the present, you couldn't be absent, and so couldn't catch yourself having been absent. I first began noticing this, while driving, as it was pretty frightening to realize I had driven for fifteen minutes, absent. I had-not-even-been in the car, my mind was busy elsewhere. I became very interested in this, you could almost say it became my life's work. Again, you can't catch yourself absent. You can only catch yourself having-been absent. OK, one last thing, there is a HUGE difference between self-reflexive thought, and being aware that you are aware. Being aware that you are aware requires no thinking, whatsoever. sdp is after being aware of awareness, which almost virtually requires being absent thought. To a very great extent, the ego is formed from thought, awareness isn't. Why are these examples of not-knowing you exist? Because your sense of who-you-are can shift from the thinking-ego self to simply awareness, which is silent. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jan 19, 2024 10:45:25 GMT -5
I am not familiar with "qualia", and a quick look up wasn't enough. I can't interpret what could mean "I don't exist", in an absolute sense. Maybe I will eventually. As I wrote recently, the "I am" with no assumptions is for me analogous to the asynchronous logic unit of a processor, without memory, or register, just performing operations in the present with no idea what it is, just that it is, is aware, nor what it does or did. I also don't recall experiencing a knowing that is specifically.... 'I don't exist'....though it is possible that I have done, because I went through an unpleasant phase many years ago in which I felt like a ghost in the world. If I test that memory out, it could be a sense of 'I don't exist'. I don't experience that 'ghost sense' these days. But if you look for a sense of 'non-existence', could you find that? I would suggest that it's-not-possible to know that you don't exist. You can only know that you didn't exist, after-the-fact (see post above). But I understand your past sense of feeling like a ghost in the world. That was my year of being lost, March 1975-March 1976. My life had lost all meaning. It was only when I found meaning, that I started to function (somewhat) normally again. |
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Post by zendancer on Jan 19, 2024 10:48:59 GMT -5
8 hours ago inavalan said: I can't imagine what you mean by not-knowing that you exist. How could you be aware if you don't exist? Probably we use some of these words with different meanings. Anyway, that's okay. I am not familiar with "qualia", and a quick look up wasn't enough. I can't interpret what could mean "I don't exist", in an absolute sense. Maybe I will eventually. As I wrote recently, the "I am" with no assumptions is for me analogous to the asynchronous logic unit of a processor, without memory, or register, just performing operations in the present with no idea what it is, just that it is, is aware, nor what it does or did. I was going to reply to the copied part above, this seems a good place. "Analogous to the asynchronous logic unit of a processor" and "just that it is, is aware" don't seem to go together. I was going to reply concerning what " not-knowing that you exist" is like. For sdp this is while operating on autopilot. This occurs much of the day, in a daydream or *absentmindedly*. Absentmindedly is a good descriptive word. Many things we have learned, have formed a conditioned feed-back loop in which the activity does not require ~our~ attention, it doesn't require our awareness or consciousness. Riding a bicycle is a good example. Or, possibly, you wake up from sleep, go to the bathroom, use the toilet, take a shower, get dressed; or after p & p, eat breakfast, brush teeth, then take a shower, then get dressed. But I bet you do it pretty-much the same every morning. But the point is, it's a habit, you do it absentmindedly, you do it on autopilot. The activity doesn't require ~you~ to be there, your attention, it becomes like riding a bicycle. For sdp that's a form of "not-knowing that you exist". And that's just one example. You can drive to work, and do it literally on autopilot. Say it's a 25 minute drive. You can drive for five minutes at a time, and completely go to La La Land, you consciousness completely absent. Now, something can pull consciousness, back in, immediately, a ball could roll in front of your car. Or, possibly while your brain has gone on a mini-vacation, your boss could pop in and ask how are things going, and this snaps you back into the real world, instantly. But the point is, there are periods throughout the day, could even be in the midst of actually working, that do not require the active participation of one's attention, or consciousness, IOW, ~you~. And when that occurs, ~you~ don't know that ~you~ exist. So, I replied to this post because of your analogy, which, for sdp, contains a contradiction. An asynchronous logic unit of a processor, almost by definition, can't-know it exists. But then you add, it just knows "just that it is, is aware". But I won't belabor that point, just what's above, how much we can function, in life, absent-awareness of the doing. But you have to catch yourself, absent, after-the-fact. Because if you were present, in the present, you couldn't be absent, and so couldn't catch yourself having been absent. I first began noticing this, while driving, as it was pretty frightening to realize I had driven for fifteen minutes, absent. I had-not-even-been in the car, my mind was busy elsewhere. I became very interested in this, you could almost say it became my life's work. Again, you can't catch yourself absent. You can only catch yourself having-been absent. OK, one last thing, there is a HUGE difference between self-reflexive thought, and being aware that you are aware. Being aware that you are aware requires no thinking, whatsoever. sdp is after being aware of awareness, which almost virtually requires being absent thought. To a very great extent, the ego is formed from thought, awareness isn't. The illusion is that there's a "you" who is sometimes present and sometimes absent. What the word "awakening" is pointing to is penetrating that illusion, and discovering the truth beyond the consensus paradigm. This character's final existential question dealt with this issue. "I" knew that there had been periods of time when the sense of "me" completely disappeared. This happens in NS, in a CC, and any time one falls "into the zone." I thought of those periods of no-self as periods of "unity consciousness." Because I always seemed to fall back into a sense of "me" after unity consciousness ended, I began to wonder how it might be possible to remain in a unity conscious state of mind permanently. This existential question arose spontaneously and it was the only existential question that interested me. After four days of hiking in the mountains doing ATA-T, the sense of being a SVP--a "me"--suddenly vanished, and it then became obvious that my question had been based upon a "me"-centered illusion. What was discovered that day is that there had never been a "me" who sometimes entered unity-consciousness states of mind and then fell out of those states. All that there had ever been was Reality, or THIS, manifesting as a particular human, that had been under the illusion of being a SVP. There had never been anything other than unity consciousness because THIS is what experiences everything rather than a separate "me." THIS is what looks out of every set of eyes and thinks every thought. THIS is what falls into NS, has CC's, and falls into the zone. All of those states seem special because of the illusion that there is a "me" who experiences them, but no such "me" exists. ITSW, THIS is what drives a car when the intellect is daydreaming, and THIS is what drives a car when there is no daydreaming. There is no "other" and this truth can be definitively realized by THIS. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jan 19, 2024 11:10:47 GMT -5
8 hours ago inavalan said: I can't imagine what you mean by not-knowing that you exist. How could you be aware if you don't exist? Probably we use some of these words with different meanings. Anyway, that's okay. I was going to reply to the copied part above, this seems a good place. "Analogous to the asynchronous logic unit of a processor" and "just that it is, is aware" don't seem to go together. I was going to reply concerning what " not-knowing that you exist" is like. For sdp this is while operating on autopilot. This occurs much of the day, in a daydream or *absentmindedly*. Absentmindedly is a good descriptive word. Many things we have learned, have formed a conditioned feed-back loop in which the activity does not require ~our~ attention, it doesn't require our awareness or consciousness. Riding a bicycle is a good example. Or, possibly, you wake up from sleep, go to the bathroom, use the toilet, take a shower, get dressed; or after p & p, eat breakfast, brush teeth, then take a shower, then get dressed. But I bet you do it pretty-much the same every morning. But the point is, it's a habit, you do it absentmindedly, you do it on autopilot. The activity doesn't require ~you~ to be there, your attention, it becomes like riding a bicycle. For sdp that's a form of "not-knowing that you exist". And that's just one example. You can drive to work, and do it literally on autopilot. Say it's a 25 minute drive. You can drive for five minutes at a time, and completely go to La La Land, you consciousness completely absent. Now, something can pull consciousness, back in, immediately, a ball could roll in front of your car. Or, possibly while your brain has gone on a mini-vacation, your boss could pop in and ask how are things going, and this snaps you back into the real world, instantly. But the point is, there are periods throughout the day, could even be in the midst of actually working, that do not require the active participation of one's attention, or consciousness, IOW, ~you~. And when that occurs, ~you~ don't know that ~you~ exist. So, I replied to this post because of your analogy, which, for sdp, contains a contradiction. An asynchronous logic unit of a processor, almost by definition, can't-know it exists. But then you add, it just knows "just that it is, is aware". But I won't belabor that point, just what's above, how much we can function, in life, absent-awareness of the doing. But you have to catch yourself, absent, after-the-fact. Because if you were present, in the present, you couldn't be absent, and so couldn't catch yourself having been absent. I first began noticing this, while driving, as it was pretty frightening to realize I had driven for fifteen minutes, absent. I had-not-even-been in the car, my mind was busy elsewhere. I became very interested in this, you could almost say it became my life's work. Again, you can't catch yourself absent. You can only catch yourself having-been absent. OK, one last thing, there is a HUGE difference between self-reflexive thought, and being aware that you are aware. Being aware that you are aware requires no thinking, whatsoever. sdp is after being aware of awareness, which almost virtually requires being absent thought. To a very great extent, the ego is formed from thought, awareness isn't. The illusion is that there's a "you" who is sometimes present and sometimes absent. What the word "awakening" is pointing to is penetrating that illusion, and discovering the truth beyond the consensus paradigm. This character's final existential question dealt with this issue. "I" knew that there had been periods of time when the sense of "me" completely disappeared. This happens in NS, in a CC, and any time one falls "into the zone." I thought of those periods of no-self as periods of "unity consciousness." Because I always seemed to fall back into a sense of "me" after unity consciousness ended, I began to wonder how it might be possible to remain in a unity conscious state of mind permanently. This existential question arose spontaneously and it was the only existential question that interested me. After four days of hiking in the mountains doing ATA-T, the sense of being a SVP--a "me"--suddenly vanished, and it then became obvious that my question had been based upon a "me"-centered illusion. What was discovered that day is that there had never been a "me" who sometimes entered unity-consciousness states of mind and then fell out of those states. All that there had ever been was Reality, or THIS, manifesting as a particular human, that had been under the illusion of being a SVP. There had never been anything other than unity consciousness because THIS is what experiences everything rather than a separate "me." THIS is what looks out of every set of eyes and thinks every thought. THIS is what falls into NS, has CC's, and falls into the zone. All of those states seem special because of the illusion that there is a "me" who experiences them, but no such "me" exists. ITSW, THIS is what drives a car when the intellect is daydreaming, and THIS is what drives a car when there is no daydreaming. There is no "other" and this truth can be definitively realized by THIS. We might be getting closer. Did you read my last paragraph? sdp is very interested in living with the *me* absent, the small s self absent. That's only what I've tried to point out for 15 years, here. But I'm not sure what is (now always) ~present~ for ZD. The small s self is the automaticity, the conditioned thingy, it's just-conditioning. Correct, it isn't a self. Correct, to attribute self-ness to-it, is what's imaginary. That's what the Focus thread is about, exposing the con artist. The imaginary self is just a series of loosely linked neural-linked-programs, that's the false self. The conditioned-programs exist, they're the rope, it's the self that doesn't exist, the snake/(self) doesn't exist. But I'm asking because I get the sense that it doesn't matter to "ZD", if awareness is present, or not. You see, that's all that matters to sdp, is for awareness to-always-be-present (and therefore for the small s self to be absent). For sdp, practice means the maintaining of awareness of awareness, that's basically practice in a nutshell. That's exactly what Cheri Huber means by practice. I called it on the Focus thread, collecting attention. Attention and awareness are similar, but not the same. Attention is like a spot light (sees one area), awareness is like a flood light (sees a whole area). The state of the small s self is one's attention being identified with anything and everything, except awareness-(in and of itself). Where awareness is (in and of itself), the small s self can't-be(there). You could say, practice is awareness collecting attention. And that is like a two-way mirror, the small s self is trapped in the 'interrogation room', it can only-see its own reflection in the mirror. Awareness collecting attention can see both the interrogation room, and the observation room, it can-be aware of itself. (Assuming you're seen a few cop shows). The small s self is trapped, can never get outside of itself, and that's pretty-much the definition of hell. The small s self, the conditioning, can never see itself, that's the meaning of sleep, the so-called (normal) awake state, it's really a form of sleep. Being awake, is being-on both sides of the two-way mirror. |
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Post by zendancer on Jan 19, 2024 11:56:25 GMT -5
The illusion is that there's a "you" who is sometimes present and sometimes absent. What the word "awakening" is pointing to is penetrating that illusion, and discovering the truth beyond the consensus paradigm. This character's final existential question dealt with this issue. "I" knew that there had been periods of time when the sense of "me" completely disappeared. This happens in NS, in a CC, and any time one falls "into the zone." I thought of those periods of no-self as periods of "unity consciousness." Because I always seemed to fall back into a sense of "me" after unity consciousness ended, I began to wonder how it might be possible to remain in a unity conscious state of mind permanently. This existential question arose spontaneously and it was the only existential question that interested me. After four days of hiking in the mountains doing ATA-T, the sense of being a SVP--a "me"--suddenly vanished, and it then became obvious that my question had been based upon a "me"-centered illusion. What was discovered that day is that there had never been a "me" who sometimes entered unity-consciousness states of mind and then fell out of those states. All that there had ever been was Reality, or THIS, manifesting as a particular human, that had been under the illusion of being a SVP. There had never been anything other than unity consciousness because THIS is what experiences everything rather than a separate "me." THIS is what looks out of every set of eyes and thinks every thought. THIS is what falls into NS, has CC's, and falls into the zone. All of those states seem special because of the illusion that there is a "me" who experiences them, but no such "me" exists. ITSW, THIS is what drives a car when the intellect is daydreaming, and THIS is what drives a car when there is no daydreaming. There is no "other" and this truth can be definitively realized by THIS. We might be getting closer. Did you read my last paragraph? sdp is very interested in living with the *me* absent, the small s self absent. That's only what I've tried to point out for 15 years, here. But I'm not sure what is (now always) ~present~ for ZD. The small s self is the automaticity, the conditioned thingy, it's just-conditioning. Correct, it isn't a self. Correct, to attribute self-ness to-it, is what's imaginary. That's what the Focus thread is about, exposing the con artist. The imaginary self is just a series of loosely linked neural-linked-programs, that's the false self. The conditioned-programs exist, they're the rope, it's the self that doesn't exist, the snake/(self) doesn't exist. But I'm asking because I get the sense that it doesn't matter to "ZD", if awareness is present, or not. You see, that's all that matters to sdp, is for awareness to-always-be-present. For sdp, practice means the maintaining of awareness of awareness, that's basically practice in a nutshell. That's exactly what Cheri Huber means by practice. I called it on the Focus thread, collecting attention. Attention and awareness are similar, but not the same. Attention is like a spot light (sees one area), awareness is like a flood light (sees a whole area). I understand, but from this POV awareness is always present. Sometimes there's awareness of thoughts and at other times there's awareness of what can be called "the actual"--the world directly experienced through sensory perception. The character called "ZD" is sometimes engaged in silent awareness and at other times it thinks about ways of pointing other people to THIS. It no longer matters where attention is directed or focused because there's no felt sense of a "me" controlling or directing anything. There's acceptance and equanimity regarding whatever is happening because it became obvious that THIS is what does everything. There was concerted practice for 15 years, but after it was seen that THIS is what does everything, there was no longer the illusion of a "me" that needed to practice anything. ATST, THIS, in the form of this character, often sits in silence listening to universal sound or watching the breathing process, and it routinely does ATA-T because those activities became a habit. I've had people tell me that I was a very disciplined driven meditator, but that's because they don't understand what's going on. In retrospect it became obvious that no effort was ever involved even though it seemed like it at the time. THIS, as this character, simply did what it thought it had to do in order to resolve or find answers to the existential questions that it was curious about. I've had people say to me, "You were willing to meditate like crazy for years in order to discover what you wanted to discover, but I don't have that same kind of willpower." I usually respond by saying something like, "Willpower is an illusion and has nothing to do with this. You have everything I have right now. There is nothing to get. There's no need to make any kind of effort. You are already THIS. This is IT. You effortlessly see what is in front of you; you effortlessly hear these words, and everything else that's happening is equally effortless. This would become obvious if the illusion of a "me" collapsed. Who you think you are will never be free, at peace, or do anything because who you think you are is imaginary. Who you really are, right now, is already free and at peace. All that's necessary is discovering what is hearing these words, and what that IS cannot be imagined. It can only be what it IS." |
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Post by inavalan on Jan 19, 2024 12:22:16 GMT -5
I am not familiar with "qualia", and a quick look up wasn't enough. I can't interpret what could mean "I don't exist", in an absolute sense. Maybe I will eventually. As I wrote recently, the "I am" with no assumptions is for me analogous to the asynchronous logic unit of a processor, without memory, or register, just performing operations in the present with no idea what it is, just that it is, is aware, nor what it does or did. I also don't recall experiencing a knowing that is specifically.... 'I don't exist'....though it is possible that I have done, because I went through an unpleasant phase many years ago in which I felt like a ghost in the world. If I test that memory out, it could be a sense of 'I don't exist'. I don't experience that 'ghost sense' these days. But if you look for a sense of 'non-existence', could you find that? No. I don't. Looking for something implies already some assumption you read from a memory. Also, feeling like a ghost implies that you exist and feel something, which is again read from a memory. Maybe this discussion goes the wrong way: trying to identify an absolute sure, to peel off layers ... Should I keep this, should I drop that? Is this basic enough? I think that it is better to focus on finding, in some way, what you should do now, knowing that it is a hypothesis, a work in progress, with elements that will need to be adjusted or dropped. Postulating "existence" is not as much about what you keep, but more about that everything else being assumptions, layers upon layers, none of them absolutes, immutable truths. |
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Post by inavalan on Jan 19, 2024 12:30:41 GMT -5
8 hours ago inavalan said: I can't imagine what you mean by not-knowing that you exist. How could you be aware if you don't exist? Probably we use some of these words with different meanings. Anyway, that's okay. I am not familiar with "qualia", and a quick look up wasn't enough. I can't interpret what could mean "I don't exist", in an absolute sense. Maybe I will eventually. As I wrote recently, the "I am" with no assumptions is for me analogous to the asynchronous logic unit of a processor, without memory, or register, just performing operations in the present with no idea what it is, just that it is, is aware, nor what it does or did. I was going to reply to the copied part above, this seems a good place. "Analogous to the asynchronous logic unit of a processor" and "just that it is, is aware" don't seem to go together. I was going to reply concerning what " not-knowing that you exist" is like. For sdp this is while operating on autopilot. This occurs much of the day, in a daydream or *absentmindedly*. Absentmindedly is a good descriptive word. Many things we have learned, have formed a conditioned feed-back loop in which the activity does not require ~our~ attention, it doesn't require our awareness or consciousness. Riding a bicycle is a good example. Or, possibly, you wake up from sleep, go to the bathroom, use the toilet, take a shower, get dressed; or after p & p, eat breakfast, brush teeth, then take a shower, then get dressed. But I bet you do it pretty-much in the same order every morning. But the point is, it's a habit, you do it absentmindedly, you do it on autopilot. The activity doesn't require ~you~ to be there, your attention, it becomes like riding a bicycle. For sdp that's a form of "not-knowing that you exist". And that's just one example. You can drive to work, and do it literally on autopilot. Say it's a 25 minute drive. You can drive for five minutes at a time, and completely go to La La Land, you consciousness completely absent. Now, something can pull consciousness, back in, immediately, a ball could roll in front of your car. Or, possibly while your brain has gone on a mini-vacation, your boss could pop in and ask how are things going, and this snaps you back into the real world, instantly. But the point is, there are periods throughout the day, could even be in the midst of actually working, that do not require the active participation of one's attention, or consciousness, IOW, ~you~. And when that occurs, ~you~ don't know that ~you~ exist. So, I replied to this post because of your analogy, which, for sdp, contains a contradiction. An asynchronous logic unit of a processor, almost by definition, can't-know it exists. But then you add, it just knows "just that it is, is aware". But I won't belabor that point, just what's above, how much we can function, in life, absent-awareness of the doing. But you have to catch yourself, absent, after-the-fact. Because if you were present, in the present, you couldn't be absent, and so couldn't catch yourself having been absent. I first began noticing this, while driving, as it was pretty frightening to realize I had driven for fifteen minutes, absent. I had-not-even-been in the car, my mind was busy elsewhere. I became very interested in this, you could almost say it became my life's work. Again, you can't catch yourself absent. You can only catch yourself having-been absent. OK, one last thing, there is a HUGE difference between self-reflexive thought, and being aware that you are aware. Being aware that you are aware requires no thinking, whatsoever. sdp is after being aware of awareness, which almost virtually requires being absent thought. To a very great extent, the ego is formed from thought, awareness isn't. Why are these examples of not-knowing you exist? Because your sense of who-you-are can shift from the thinking-ego self to simply awareness, which is silent. "After the fact" implies that you rely on something you access from a memory. Everything you think that you experience in the moment is actually what you read from a memory. The present has no size. You don't experience the present moment. But, as I just replied to andrew , this discussion points in the wrong direction of interest. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jan 19, 2024 13:01:48 GMT -5
8 hours ago inavalan said: I can't imagine what you mean by not-knowing that you exist. How could you be aware if you don't exist? Probably we use some of these words with different meanings. Anyway, that's okay. I was going to reply to the copied part above, this seems a good place. "Analogous to the asynchronous logic unit of a processor" and "just that it is, is aware" don't seem to go together. I was going to reply concerning what " not-knowing that you exist" is like. For sdp this is while operating on autopilot. This occurs much of the day, in a daydream or *absentmindedly*. Absentmindedly is a good descriptive word. Many things we have learned, have formed a conditioned feed-back loop in which the activity does not require ~our~ attention, it doesn't require our awareness or consciousness. Riding a bicycle is a good example. Or, possibly, you wake up from sleep, go to the bathroom, use the toilet, take a shower, get dressed; or after p & p, eat breakfast, brush teeth, then take a shower, then get dressed. But I bet you do it pretty-much in the same order every morning. But the point is, it's a habit, you do it absentmindedly, you do it on autopilot. The activity doesn't require ~you~ to be there, your attention, it becomes like riding a bicycle. For sdp that's a form of "not-knowing that you exist". And that's just one example. You can drive to work, and do it literally on autopilot. Say it's a 25 minute drive. You can drive for five minutes at a time, and completely go to La La Land, you consciousness completely absent. Now, something can pull consciousness, back in, immediately, a ball could roll in front of your car. Or, possibly while your brain has gone on a mini-vacation, your boss could pop in and ask how are things going, and this snaps you back into the real world, instantly. But the point is, there are periods throughout the day, could even be in the midst of actually working, that do not require the active participation of one's attention, or consciousness, IOW, ~you~. And when that occurs, ~you~ don't know that ~you~ exist. So, I replied to this post because of your analogy, which, for sdp, contains a contradiction. An asynchronous logic unit of a processor, almost by definition, can't-know it exists. But then you add, it just knows "just that it is, is aware". But I won't belabor that point, just what's above, how much we can function, in life, absent-awareness of the doing. But you have to catch yourself, absent, after-the-fact. Because if you were present, in the present, you couldn't be absent, and so couldn't catch yourself having been absent. I first began noticing this, while driving, as it was pretty frightening to realize I had driven for fifteen minutes, absent. I had-not-even-been in the car, my mind was busy elsewhere. I became very interested in this, you could almost say it became my life's work. Again, you can't catch yourself absent. You can only catch yourself having-been absent. OK, one last thing, there is a HUGE difference between self-reflexive thought, and being aware that you are aware. Being aware that you are aware requires no thinking, whatsoever. sdp is after being aware of awareness, which almost virtually requires being absent thought. To a very great extent, the ego is formed from thought, awareness isn't. Why are these examples of not-knowing you exist? Because your sense of who-you-are can shift from the thinking-ego self to simply awareness, which is silent. "After the fact" implies that you rely on something you access from a memory. Everything you think that you experience in the moment is actually what you read from a memory. The present has no size. You don't experience the present moment. But, as I just replied to andrew , this discussion points in the wrong direction of interest. This is really not that complicated. When one is present, aware in the present moment, no memory is required (in fact, being present is what makes memories). If you care to understand, read what I wrote, again. I'm going to discuss this further in reply to ZD. What I said was there are times when we function only-through the conditioning (that exists as what we call self). This, is actually your 'asynchronistic logic unit of a processor'. Functioning on autopilot requires zero attention, because it is a programmed response. When (any)one is functioning in this manner, this is 'being absent'. (Example, when you are driving your car, where you drive regularly, that's important, and you go to La La Land, that is, you 'disappear' from behind the steering wheel, that is, not your body, but your awareness). And, again, you only recognize having- been-absent, when you are now-present, that is, after-the-fact. In fact, sometimes you can remember 'what you were thinking/daydreaming', when absent. But more than likely, you can't remember, it becomes like a dream upon awakening, which just vanishes from memory. |
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Post by andrew on Jan 19, 2024 13:15:52 GMT -5
I also don't recall experiencing a knowing that is specifically.... 'I don't exist'....though it is possible that I have done, because I went through an unpleasant phase many years ago in which I felt like a ghost in the world. If I test that memory out, it could be a sense of 'I don't exist'. I don't experience that 'ghost sense' these days. But if you look for a sense of 'non-existence', could you find that? I would suggest that it's-not-possible to know that you don't exist. You can only know that you didn't exist, after-the-fact (see post above). But I understand your past sense of feeling like a ghost in the world. That was my year of being lost, March 1975-March 1976. My life had lost all meaning. It was only when I found meaning, that I started to function (somewhat) normally again. I sort of agree that it's not possible to 'know' that you don't exist. It can only 'seem' as if you don't (or in this case, as if I didn't). I think there's a relevant qualitative difference between the experience of 'seeming' and the experience of 'knowing'. |
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Post by andrew on Jan 19, 2024 13:20:56 GMT -5
I also don't recall experiencing a knowing that is specifically.... 'I don't exist'....though it is possible that I have done, because I went through an unpleasant phase many years ago in which I felt like a ghost in the world. If I test that memory out, it could be a sense of 'I don't exist'. I don't experience that 'ghost sense' these days. But if you look for a sense of 'non-existence', could you find that? No. I don't. Looking for something implies already some assumption you read from a memory. Also, feeling like a ghost implies that you exist and feel something, which is again read from a memory. Maybe this discussion goes the wrong way: trying to identify an absolute sure, to peel off layers ... Should I keep this, should I drop that? Is this basic enough? I think that it is better to focus on finding, in some way, what you should do now, knowing that it is a hypothesis, a work in progress, with elements that will need to be adjusted or dropped. Postulating "existence" is not as much about what you keep, but more about that everything else being assumptions, layers upon layers, none of them absolutes, immutable truths.
Very much agree with the bolded. Do you experience a 'knowing' that you exist without looking for it, or when you look for it? Or given your analogy of the processor, is it that you accept 'existence' to be an unquestionable self-evident fact, rather than something that you experience a 'knowing' of? |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jan 19, 2024 13:21:28 GMT -5
We might be getting closer. Did you read my last paragraph? sdp is very interested in living with the *me* absent, the small s self absent. That's only what I've tried to point out for 15 years, here. But I'm not sure what is (now always) ~present~ for ZD. The small s self is the automaticity, the conditioned thingy, it's just-conditioning. Correct, it isn't a self. Correct, to attribute self-ness to-it, is what's imaginary. That's what the Focus thread is about, exposing the con artist. The imaginary self is just a series of loosely linked neural-linked-programs, that's the false self. The conditioned-programs exist, they're the rope, it's the self that doesn't exist, the snake/(self) doesn't exist. But I'm asking because I get the sense that it doesn't matter to "ZD", if awareness is present, or not. You see, that's all that matters to sdp, is for awareness to-always-be-present. For sdp, practice means the maintaining of awareness of awareness, that's basically practice in a nutshell. That's exactly what Cheri Huber means by practice. I called it on the Focus thread, collecting attention. Attention and awareness are similar, but not the same. Attention is like a spot light (sees one area), awareness is like a flood light (sees a whole area). I understand, but from this POV awareness is always present. Sometimes there's awareness of thoughts and at other times there's awareness of what can be called "the actual"--the world directly experienced through sensory perception. The character called "ZD" is sometimes engaged in silent awareness and at other times it thinks about ways of pointing other people to THIS. It no longer matters where attention is directed or focused because there's no felt sense of a "me" controlling or directing anything. There's acceptance and equanimity regarding whatever is happening because it became obvious that THIS is what does everything. There was concerted practice for 15 years, but after it was seen that THIS is what does everything, there was no longer the illusion of a "me" that needed to practice anything. ATST, THIS, in the form of this character, often sits in silence listening to universal sound or watching the breathing process, and it routinely does ATA-T because those activities became a habit. I've had people tell me that I was a very disciplined driven meditator, but that's because they don't understand what's going on. In retrospect it became obvious that no effort was ever involved even though it seemed like it at the time. THIS, as this character, simply did what it thought it had to do in order to resolve or find answers to the existential questions that it was curious about. I've had people say to me, "You were willing to meditate like crazy for years in order to discover what you wanted to discover, but I don't have that same kind of willpower." I usually respond by saying something like, "Willpower is an illusion and has nothing to do with this. You have everything I have right now. There is nothing to get. There's no need to make any kind of effort. You are already THIS. This is IT. You effortlessly see what is in front of you; you effortlessly hear these words, and everything else that's happening is equally effortless. This would become obvious if the illusion of a "me" collapsed. Who you think you are will never be free, at peace, or do anything because who you think you are is imaginary. Who you really are, right now, is already free and at peace. All that's necessary is discovering what is hearing these words, and what that IS cannot be imagined. It can only be what it IS." I tried to emphasize earlier, did you read the last paragraph? An earlier post. Self-reflexive thinking, is memory. We're on the same page, there. But aware of awareness has nothing to do with thinking or self-reflexive thought. Yes, you write about awareness and how we are always aware, of something. I don't care about that. What it is "that is unable to explain what he himself really is" (more easily referred to as sdp), is interested in awareness of awareness. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ {[(For sdp, this is the meaning of ~consciousness~. What most people are referring to as consciousness, is merely the 3 functions, thinking, emotions/feeling, and bodily-sensing and bodily-actions)]}. |
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Post by inavalan on Jan 19, 2024 13:59:55 GMT -5
No. I don't. Looking for something implies already some assumption you read from a memory. Also, feeling like a ghost implies that you exist and feel something, which is again read from a memory. Maybe this discussion goes the wrong way: trying to identify an absolute sure, to peel off layers ... Should I keep this, should I drop that? Is this basic enough? I think that it is better to focus on finding, in some way, what you should do now, knowing that it is a hypothesis, a work in progress, with elements that will need to be adjusted or dropped. Postulating "existence" is not as much about what you keep, but more about that everything else being assumptions, layers upon layers, none of them absolutes, immutable truths.
Very much agree with the bolded. Do you experience a 'knowing' that you exist without looking for it, or when you look for it? Or given your analogy of the processor, is it that you accept 'existence' to be an unquestionable self-evident fact, rather than something that you experience a 'knowing' of? I am not specifically looking for it. This is is more of an exercise now, that is mostly intellectual. My existence is more primary than my experience, and my knowing anything. If I didn't exist, I wouldn't experience. Existence doesn't require memory; experience and knowing do. I was saying that this discussion goes in the wrong direction, because it is an intellectual effort (no matter what someone would believe to experience as a realization or such) to find a basis to build on. I think that such an approach is doomed to fail due to inherently faulty assumptions. I think that a better way is to turn 180 degrees from looking for a basis, an origin, and rely on intuition to move from here forward. Intuition functions like a gestalt: gives you the result you need, not relying on elements that might be faulty, as intellect works. |
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