Requesting A Guide

[ach07]

Well I am confused now :-D
Yes, I am awareness.
The thoughts, emotions, the self, everything is happening and there is an awareness about it.

[ach07]

Well, I am confused now.
Yes, I am awareness.
For every experience, every thought, every occurrence of self, there is an awareness present which knows it all.

[itstopshere]

Cool. Get a good deep sense of your experience right now. The sights, scents, feelings, sounds, tastes, emotions, thoughts, whatever may be happening. Take a moment to check it all.
Can you experience them without consciousness?
Have you ever experienced any of them without consciousness? (or awareness)
Have you ever in your life, experienced an experience without awareness being there?

[ach07]

All the sights, scents, feelings, thoughts etc. resides in my consciousness. I can not experience them without consciousness. But it doesn't cover everything, Consciousness holds only a few things at a time, for example when smelling, focus on other senses is compromised. Anything that is outside the awareness will not get experienced, so it is uncertain to comment about it.

Listening is happening almost all the time, even when sleeping( but how can I know?), but for the most part, I am not experiencing it as I am not aware of it or it is not in the consciousness.

It seems impossible to experience anything without being aware of it. For example, to experience breathing, it has to be in the awareness, otherwise it is just that I have learnt that body breathes 24/7, but I can't experience it. To "know" I am breathing , it has to be in my awareness. How else could I know?

Similarly , many thoughts are playing around in the mind, but to experience the thoughts, awareness is required.
But it is like they change their pattern when comes under scrutiny/awareness. Hey! But how can I know they have changed the pattern if they weren't under scrutiny before. Is this awareness always present but at different levels of it? Because without its presence I can not sayy anything about anything.

[itstopshere]

So in your last sentence you said that without awareness you cannot say anything about anything.
You also agree that you have never found any experience outside of consciousness. You just assume there is such a thing like an external world, maybe also because science tells us that.

Now why do you, for example, think you see a chair?
You think there is a 'you' watching. Now you think it's consciousness, before you thought it was a person.
You think there is seeing going on.
And you think this you, that is "doing seeing", sees something in the external world called a chair.

To confirm a seeing of a chair in the external world, we would first have to find the chair unseen (or unheard, untouched, etc.). Once we find the chair unseen (unexperienced), we can then conclude that this is the chair that we are seeing in our experience. We can compare them side by side, so to speak.
However, we never find a chair without experience of a chair. Without "consciousness" of a chair. Or do we? Have you found a chair without the consciousness of the chair?

[ach07]

Seeing is happening, then awareness about seeing is happening. Then awareness that there is an awareness is happening.

[ach07]

No I cannot find a chair without the awareness of it. It comes automatically whenever there is an experience of chair. If awareness is not there when we experience anything, then we will essentially be robot. Won't we?

[itstopshere]

No I cannot find a chair without the awareness of it. It comes automatically whenever there is an experience of chair.

So, what is your direct experience of there being 1) a consciousness, and 2) a chair?
You say you never find a chair without there being consciousness.
Have you ever found consciousness without an experience?
If we never find consciousness entirely on it's own, or experience/objects entirely on it's/their own, how do we know either exists independently?

Could it be that there is no one watching, but just an experience knowing itself happening? No consciousness, no objects, just experience?

[ach07]

No I cannot find a chair without the awareness of it. It comes automatically whenever there is an experience of chair.
So, what is your direct experience of there being 1) a consciousness, and 2) a chair?

It is like chicken and egg problem. But it seems now that first experience happens, then comes awareness.

You say you never find a chair without there being consciousness.
Have you ever found consciousness without an experience?

No, there will be some kind of experience. It may be the experience of experiencing awareness. So maybe awareness itself is an experience.

]If we never find consciousness entirely on it's own, or experience/objects entirely on it's/their own, how do we know either exists independently?

Experience can be known only through awareness. So I can not know whether it exists independently or not.
And consciousness itself is an experience. So maybe they can exist independently.

Could it be that there is no one watching, but just an experience knowing itself happening? No consciousness, no objects, just experience?

It may very well be. But experience knowing itself is consciousness, right? It would be much simpler if this experience is not able to know itself happening.

[ach07]

*they can not exist independently.

[itstopshere]

It is like chicken and egg problem. But it seems now that first experience happens, then comes awareness.

Look.
We are not going for 'seems'. Seems is thinking. Just look at what happens. Is one before the other, or is your experience that they arise together?

Experience can be known only through awareness. So I can not know whether it exists independently or not.

That would be blatantly untrue, wouldn't it?
What you mean by "experience" is that you are have a conscious knowing of what is happening. That is what experiencing is, is it not? So then, you know experience cannot exist apart from consciousness.

However, if you pose the possible existence of an external world, outside of consciousness, we get into an interesting debacle. We need to go down the rabbit hole for this though. Are you up for that?

If you are, I would like to start with this very simple question, that I would like you to answer from your direct experience and not from thought:
- Let's take a cup. Put it in front of you. It's just an everyday cup, nothing special. Is this cup, in your experience, separate from or melted together intimately with the consciousness of the cup? Do the exercise, and don't think. You only need to look to find the answer.

[ach07]

Hi Ricardo,

I m not getting the time. I will reply tomorrow. :-)

[itstopshere]

Any news? :)

[ach07]

We are not going for 'seems'. Seems is thinking. Just look at what happens. Is one before the other, or is your experience that they arise together?

Everything happening arises in consciousness. For experiencing anything, consciousness must be present.

Experience can be known only through awareness. So I can not know whether it exists independently or not.
That would be blatantly untrue, wouldn't it?
What you mean by "experience" is that you are have a conscious knowing of what is happening. That is what experiencing is, is it not? So then, you know experience cannot exist apart from consciousness.

Yes, if "experience "is being conscious of something, then there is no point of it being without consciousness.
but if we consider a pebble, water flowing over it is happening, something which it can not experience because of the lack of consciousness, but we can experience it but only from our point of view. Where's the rock's experience?

However, if you pose the possible existence of an external world, outside of consciousness, we get into an interesting debacle. We need to go down the rabbit hole for this though. Are you up for that?

Yes, as a seeker, everything till the truth be learnt. :)

Let's take a cup. Put it in front of you. It's just an everyday cup, nothing special. Is this cup, in your experience, separate from or melted together intimately with the consciousness of the cup? Do the exercise, and don't think. You only need to look to find the answer.

I did the exercise. I want to be clear on one thing first. Suppose I have an experience. To write it back to you I have to think about it, I will have to explain it with the help of thinking, there is no other way, right? Thoughts will definitely come as I have experienced something. Like, ok, this experience happened, this and this happened, I felt this and this way. But those thoughts will not be able to correctly explain the experience itself because they are not direct and are just an interpretation of the experience.

Yes, they are very much inseparable. If cup is in the consciousness, then cup is experienced. If anything else is experienced, that will be in the consciousness. No experience is found without consciousness of it.

[ach07]

Hi,

I haven't heard from you for a while. Is everything alright? :)