Awareness Precedes the Person

[karen]

BTW it dawned on me a while ago that from an experiential point of view: awareness absolutely proceeds the person.

Is awareness a complex byproduct of the brain? What's a product or byproduct? Brain? What's a brain? We really have to do stuff like this to get to this brain product/byproduct argument.

Now if I can only believe this in my bones...

[zendancer]

Nisargadatta has a great quote about this in "I Am THAT". As soon as I can find it, I'll post it.

[question]

This argument, that one has to use thinking in order to be able to classify awareness as a byproduct of the brain, doesn't convince me. It seems to me like it's more of a wordplay than when we use logic. I feel like it's an empty argument, because it's not operational, there's nothing one can do with it other than shut up and pretend to not know.

But I agree that awareness preceeds person. To me experientially not because awareness is some infinite whatever, but simply because person and awareness are entirely incomatible.



The other interesting thing you mentioned about the difference of consciousness and awareness. In German we have several different words. The word for awareness we almost never use.

Consciousness: "Bewußtsein". Meaning: "knowledge-being", "known being".
Awareness: "Gewahrsein". Hard to translate word for word, but it should be something like "truth-being".

[karen]

The argument is totally logical and reasonable because I have started with the premise that all that matters is my subjective experience. Starting there, it's completely rational. Now if I were to expect proof out there somehow, then it wouldn't track at all for sure!

And it doesn't lead me to shutup and *pretend* to not know. It gets me to shutup for real and not know period.

But I would be pretending if I were to say it lasts more than a few seconds then all the mentation comes back. And I'd be lying if I said I acted throughout the day with that premise: that my subjective experience is all that matters. That's why it's a continuing thing. It's gotta be continuously renewed in-spite of my ham handed actions throughout the day.

I've yet to find the A-bomb that will slay me for good. Maybe there is no such thing/experience in my cards. I don't know.

[question]

Oh I agree that, in itself, it's logically solid. But I'm not sure that it has a logical primacy. And I have doubts that it's not a mental activity aswell, because for me it requires a strong mental effort to try to stay in such mental abeyance.

[karen]

It is a mental activity for me yes. But only when I'm mentally active. But the supposed truth it's pointing to does not take mental effort since the experience precedes mentation: like with a newborn.

[zendancer]

Mar 12, 2010 11:25:55 GMT -5 karen said:

It is a mental activity for me yes. But only when I'm mentally active. But the supposed truth it's pointing to does not take mental effort since the experience precedes mentation: like with a newborn.

At first, there is the appearance of concentrated mental activity. We feel as if we are making a strong effort to shift attention away from thoughts. Later, there is effortless abidance in silence. Silence is our natural state, but this is only realized after it has been attained.

[guest is the best]

To me it seems:

that "is"nes definitly is
that we precive "is"nes acording to ours conditioning
that ours conditioning can be: drunk, druged, present-still...
that consciousness is in "is"nes and that consciousness is in the brain (the way the brain works)
(there exists egokiller drugs wich goes in to brain and than user seas "god" in everything - castenada style; description of those expiriences 100% matches descriptions of enlightenment experiences)
that spirtual teachings should be focused on "how to get "there"", and not "how does it looks like once you are "there""

of course that all just seems to me, it may be right or wrong and i know it may be right or wrong - spiritual talk