Are there no obstacles to yoga?

Yoga Discussion General Yoga
#1

[QUOTE=Bentinho Massaro;22632]
…what state is there to describe and go to? All states are simply appearing and disappearing in awareness. We can all recognize awareness because it is what we are and it is beyond all the states you can cultivate by means of meditation or being a monk, or following yoga or any other system of states. All can equally realize awareness in every situation simply because awareness is beyond both and it is everyones nature equally without devision.
[/QUOTE]

What exactly are these superfluous “states” that can so easily be dispensed with? Yes and every piece of carbon has the potential to become a diamond.

#2

@Asuri
I’m a bit confused as to your Modus Operandi.
I see several posts that you appear to have started and each has a quote from Bentinho. It would be much easier to follow these if they were kept within the context of the original post. Additionally, splitting them up pushes other posts on the board.

#3

[U]@InnerAthlete:[/U]

Nichole contacted us about how many threads in which I posted a response to the topic escalated into a discussion between myself and others. So she advised us to make individual topics to keep the conversation on topic. However, I still understand your confusion about his modus operandi even with the knowledge I just mentioned. Let’s see where it goes.

[U]@ Asuri:[/U]

Well test it out for yourself and you will soon see that no matter what state or situation you are in, you never change, you are always there.

[U][B]So try this:[/B][/U] Take the situation you are in right now for example, probably sitting behind your computer reading what I write. Notice how there is something about you which is aware of this entire situation. That something which knows that you are sitting behind the computer reading right now, that knowing is awareness. That something which knows you exist; which knows you [I]are[/I], is awareness.

Now take a little walk trough you apartment if you will, and notice how there is something that knows you are walking. It knows your movements, it is right there with whatever it is you are thinking at that moment. That something which enables you to know the situation you are in and the way you respond internally, is awareness.

Next go to a mirror. Look in the mirror and notice how there is something about you which knows you are looking in the mirror through the human perceptions of a body. That something is awareness, you.

If you do this a couple of times while actually being open to the possibility, to the present openness of awareness, than you will see that [B]as you go into meditation[/B] for example, [I]regardless of the state you are in[/I], you can again notice that there is something looking, something knowing the state. This proves that you are not the state, you are that which knows the state.

So even if you experience deep bliss and contentment by concentration or meditation, that state is not ultimate in any way, it is simply an altered perception within that same knowing awareness. In this light it is equal in value to that of any other state of experience; it is just an experience within awareness.

[U]After experimenting with this, ask yourself:[/U] [I]“Is that awareness, which knows that I am walking, different from the awareness which knows that I am having a completely still mind? Does the awareness that knows me looking in the mirror now, differ in any way from the awareness that knows my experience of ecstasy?”[/I]

You will see that the ability to notice that there is something knowing the situation is equally accessible in any situation since that awareness is always the same whether you are a murderer or a monk. No matter what goes on within awareness, awareness itself is always unaffected by the appearances and states that pass through itself.

[B][I]If you will actually do this yourself[/I][/B] you will see how awareness is immediately accessible to anyone and in any situation. Even when facing death you can choose to notice and become aware of that which knows you exist; that which knows the experience. If that something would not be there in depression but only in samadhi, then what is it that knows you are being depressed? You would not be able to know anything if there was no awareness in that situation. Awareness is equally knowing and comprehending all states and experiences.

Hope this clarifies my statements you questioned about.

Love,
B.

#4

“This proves that you are not the state, you are that which knows the state.”

Benhito – I am not yet convinced that the experiments you propose give evidence against the idea that a person is both the state and that which observes – is all three, a broken bone, some pain, and the awareness that pain is happening.

PS – I agree with the format of taking tangential discussions like this to a new thread; I hope as this is practiced more I remember to use the “>” in the starting quote to review the thread that inspired the tangent. (he, he – and I’m curious to notice how often it helps or does not help.)

#5

Hello there Techne,

“This proves that you are not the state, you are that which knows the state.”

Benhito – I am not yet convinced that the experiments you propose give evidence against the idea that a person is both the state and that which observes – is all three, a broken bone, some pain, and the awareness that pain is happening.

If you are not sure yet that the proposed practice is evidence of awareness being forever beyond any situation, you simply have not yet experimented enough with it. Sooner or later, through recognizing awareness in many different situations, one will inevitable come to this conclusion on a level of definitive knowing. Definitive knowing simply means that you know something without the need to think about it. It is experiential knowing. That will be a more powerful knowledge than any sort of evidence can be.

Just keep recognizing/identifying awareness regardless of how you feel, what you see, what you think or in what state you are. You will gradually see in your own experience how awareness is right there with/as you in all situations equally. Your ability to recognize it will no longer be dependent on any sort of state. You realize that awareness never changes even if the states seem to do so.

I do not fully understand you last sentence in the quote above though. It is a question? What exactly do you mean? Please rephrase.

Love,
B.

#6

Ok, I’ll try it this way:

I agree that awareness is beyond any situation and is constant through a person’s many states. However, I claim your quote "this proves that you are not the state . . " is, so far, untenable.

“I am awareness” does not negate “I am a body with a broken bone.” Both can be true.

#7

“I am awareness” does not negate “I am a body with a broken bone.” Both can be true.
Oh my friend, but both are true indeed. If you got the impression that what I share means that you are not the body and the broken bone, you have misinterpreted me or I was not clear on that part.

Let me put it in such a way that it feels most accurate according to my experience:

‘I’ am not necessarily my body and the broken bone, rather; The body and the broken bone are ‘me’. They are an appearance of me (awareness), and they are an appearance within me. We do not have to negate any appearance, yet we are none of them individually. But they [I]are[/I] us… In addition to being true, this understanding helps to avoid misidentification. If I would say for example: “Yes you are the body but you are also awareness”, things can get complicated and intellectual. If on the other hand you start to see more and more how ‘you’ are not the body but the body is (within) ‘you’, things get simpler and unity becomes less difficult to comprehend and experience.

[I]Like clouds arising in the sky. [/I]The sky is not necessarily that one cloud, but that one cloud [I]is[/I] an appearance of, and exists solely within sky.

We do not have to deny or negate any appearance whatsoever, We can simply know that we are the awareness which constitutes them and maintains them. But the more our perception starts shifting to the perception-less being/understanding of awareness, the more the appearances are not even like clouds within the sky anymore, they become more like ‘pieces’ of space within space. No definitions, no lines, no separations. Uncatchable, undefinable and without a nature or implication of their own. Awareness within awareness, never two parts, always one.

Does that make sense?

Love,
B.

#8

Some, so far. I’d like to draw out more about this phrase:

“without a nature or implication of their own.”

How does this not negate the appearance, if the appearance does not have a nature or implication of its own?

#9

[quote=Techne;22786]Ok, I’ll try it this way:

I agree that awareness is beyond any situation and is constant through a person’s many states.
[/quote]

I would not agree. It is clear for me now, that an awarness what cannot bridge the gap of sleeping, is not Awarness, yet. Thus, awarness with little a, needs to grow up to become Awarness, with capital A. And that’s why we do yoga, or other spiritual disciplines, to extend and deepen our awarness about every aspect of our lives, including sleeping, and even death, what is just another kind of falling asleep.

#10

Hubert, I would say it is your brain that does not remember or recognize the awareness while sleeping. We are conscious and aware when we sleep, for example, incorperating outside noises or events into dreams. does awareness need to grow up to become awareness or is there a certain part of you that does not fully recognize awareness. does awareness have to get in touch with you, or do you have to get in touch with awareness?

hope all is well brother
Neil

#11

[quote=Techne;22788]Some, so far. I’d like to draw out more about this phrase:

“without a nature or implication of their own.”

How does this not negate the appearance, if the appearance does not have a nature or implication of its own?[/quote]

It does not negate appearances because it does not try to reject them, push them away or replace them with better or purer appearances. It allows them all to exist evenly and in harmony with each other, just as they are. This is done naturally because awareness sees all appearances as being an expression of itself, existing of nothing other than itself.

It does not negate anything, is simply is, everything is allowed to be as it is. There is no rejection or acceptance needed of anything, if there is nothing with an individual nature to be judged. It’s just non-dual wide-open freedom.

I hope this expresses what you meant, if not please rephrase your question. Or just let everything be as it is for a moment or two and see for yourself whether this negates anything or not :).

[U]@Hubert:[/U]

Hello dear friend. It sounds like you came to a conclusion! I could respond to your conclusion, but I must say Justwannabe has pointed out pretty much everything that I would have said. Perhaps I would have used half a page to say it, but this works just fine too, maybe even better :).

Love,
B.

#12

OK, so try this one out (I’m borrowing a bit from another of B’s posts in another thread to synthesize this; and this is an exercise in communication – I do not assent to this.)
Everything we try to accomplish with the striving and the purifying of yoga is to realize that we are something that transcends the experiences and appearances. In fact, one works against this realization by striving and purifying, because we always have been and always will be something that transcends the experiences and appearances. As we strive and purify, we work with the experiences and appearances, and generally do not notice our transcendent selves.
Is that a fair representation, Benhito?

#13

Dear Techne,

Yes that is a very good representation in my vision.

The most important aspect of the realization you described above, is that we often forget to notice what we are when we are doing these practices out of a belief that it will gain us something. That’s like trying to wake up from a dream by studying books that further describe that dream. We then start practicing dream-meditation so we can experience altered states of dream-substance. but all of that will not wake us up by itself. Dream is just dream no matter in what form or state it is expressed.

Sooner or later it may lead you to a point in which you realize that all effort is futile and you might have some sort of breakdown after which you will see the simplicity of truth, but that can happen also without believing for decades in the journey of effort and achievement. That freedom can happen to you right now as you start to realize more and more that nothing ever escapes awareness. All in included. There has never been an object, state of mind, thought or other experience that was separate from awareness. You were always there seeing everything. Like the sleeping dream never happened outside of your mind.

[U]Let me state something significant now which may help you to realize the always present freedom of awareness in your direct experience:[/U]
[I]

Every single one of your experiences starts in and with awareness.

[/I][I]-----------------------------------------------------------------------[/I]----

You can start seeing this easily for yourself. Every single thought, emotion and appearance, starts with and within awareness. It can never be any other way.

[U]Let’s take the example of embarking on a journey of Yoga.[/U] What happens is that we start to project certain ideas that basically say:

[I]“Pure Awareness is over there somewhere on the other side to reach. I am here on this side. In between are many obstacles I must cross, alter and control in order to reach the other end of the line, where awareness is.”[/I]

Whenever you feel such thoughts and beliefs arise in you, ask yourself this: [I]What is it[/I] that makes you able to experience the fact that you exist in the first place? What is it that allows you to know the path of yoga, to study, read and listen to teachings lecturing about yoga, reflect on it, decide to take that path, decide to do something to reach it? How can you have the thought that says : “Oh I need to be more aware, I need to meditate more, do more of this and that, or else I won’t reach awareness!”

That very thought appears right here in perfectly pure awareness!

What allows you to know these thoughts, what sees them? So you see even when we feel immense struggle and frustration because we feel we are lacking something and need to do more to find that pure godliness, that entire feeling with all its thoughts and stories simply appears and disappears within your knowing awareness!

Ask yourself these questions a few times and you will have to come to the conclusion that that very notion, idea of needing to do something in order to become awareness, is presenting itself within awareness!! :smiley: So what is there to find if all our efforts to finding something are already happening within that which we try to find and is already here throughout our every effort to reach somewhere?

[U]Awareness is here already and there are no obstacles on your way.[/U] The only ‘obstacle’ one could say that limits our experience of our true nature, is that we believe in this idea, this notion of what we are and what we need to do about it in order to reach something. That’s why I say we should stop believing in all our concepts and beliefs and notions just for a moment. Again and again throughout our days. Just noticing all these thoughts and realizing that they present themselves in awareness right now. Skipping not one single day of recognizing that awareness is already here.

Re-establish this connection, this recognition that [I]all we truly wish to find is already here trying to find itself through belief in thoughts and concepts.[/I] In fact, [I]that which we desire to find, is that which starts thinking it should seek itself out[/I]. It all happens withinn itself, never affecting its space. Like planets do not affect the space in which it arises, exists and dissolves.

All appearances arise and dissolve in awareness, it’s as simple and truthful as that. Just shift your recognition from the [I]contents[/I] of your experiences to the recognition of [I]that which is aware of them[/I].

[U]So every time you notice that you feel bad because you don’t feel complete yet[/U] and you feel you have to do something about it in order to get there, spontaneously see right there and then, that that which your thoughts make you seek out, is right here knowing these thoughts and seeing them arise and dissolve back into it’s own spaciousness.

Yoga is not something we reach at the end of a line, it is not something we create by human effort. It is that which includes and surrounds all human effort. Awareness is something that is always here, regardless of what we do or think in order to create or realize such a state. Awareness is that which sees all of those states. And it’s power to see depression is just as clear and simple as its power to see a state of bliss/ananda samadhi. There only seems to be a difference between depression and bliss [I]in the thought[/I] that says: “There is a difference.” If you [U]simply stop believing[/U] in that notion/idea and simply see that it is a thought arising and going within your already restful presence of awareness, you will see that freedom is equally present in and as depression as it is in and as bliss and ecstasy.

Love,
B.

#14

This does not happen during sleeping but in the moment when we wake up. Dreams do not develop in time, they are only created in those moments before we awake, in that very short transition process. Proof ? Think of someone who has an elaborate dream about hunting and the dream ends when he is being shot by a fellow hunter, and he wakes up. Than he realizes, that what he has expereinced in his dream as a gunshot, was in fact a very loud noise created by a book falling to the floor of his bedroom. From this, it is clear that the whole dream was built upon this first sensorial expereince, in the moment of awakening. Thus, we can say, that most dreams are only such plays of our minds, no matter how colorful, vivid and wonderful … anything sensorial about them is just created in those moments when our consciousness returns. I just gave this explanation because you linked dreams to the outside noises.

But if one is honest with himself, one cannot say, as you do, that one is aware while sleeping. That the body is there, the senses are there, and if disturbed, we awake, (if we would not do that, we would have become for long extinct) cannot be a proof for us being actually aware. That only means that we have to possibility to become aware of ourselves by waking up.
Awarness, just as Massaro rightly asesses, either is there, and does not need any proof, or it is not there. This is a basic personal experience for every one of us, both our waking consciousness, and our lack of it while we are sleeping.
Yoga philospophy makes the difference between various states of sleeping. In that state of dreamless sleep they talk about, there is a total lack of consciousness, and awareness for most human beings. I undertsand that this might be an ucomfortable realization, but to not see it would be blindness.

does awareness need to grow up to become awareness or is there a certain part of you that does not fully recognize awareness. Does awareness have to get in touch with you, or do you have to get in touch with awareness?

Ordinary awareness cannot be separated form our consciousness. It still requires the expereincer, the experinced, and the process of experience.
Massaro’s awareness ought to be Self awareness, or at least that’s how it appears to me, and that makes it worthy for the capital A, given that it is real. But real Self awareness cannot cease to exist, neither in sleep nor in in death. If it ceases, than it was unreal, just as the yogis say - what does not exist before and after, cannot be really existing inbetween. So simple is this. Or is it … do we accept only black and white ?

Now, it is far from me, to discredit Massaro’s work. Awareness is important, it takes us to Self Awareness, under any conditions, thus takes us form the unreal to the Real. To this method, I give the credit that it makes sense, and it can work - after all, if you want a muscle to become stronger you make it work, if one wants ones’s awarness to deepen, one tries to be more and more aware, using discernment, detachment and continuous self remembrence. Because this is what awarness takes, not identifying with the transitional fleeting states of mind, but with the base on what all this happens. Indeed, in my personal struggle with his presentation, I did arrive to accept it as a way in it’s own right. I think, no teacher can expect any more than this …

My only isue is, that while it states the What, it is scarce about the How. For example … my teacher gave very down to earth advise in form of exercises how to develop our ability to extend our awareness to this terra incognita of sleeping. Too bad that they are quite hard to perform … and I always fall asleep. :slight_smile: A kind of reversed donkey of Nasreddin. Do you know the story ?

[I]One day, Nasreddin decided that he will teach his donkey the art of surving without any food.[/I]
[I]A few weeks pass, and he is asked about his success, to what he laments: I was unlucky - my donkey died before having mastered the art.[/I]

#15

OK, so that’s why what you say doesn’t fit for me – I’m not striving to transcend my experiences and appearances. I’m trying to gather a set of experiences and appearances that meet particular criteria that I, in my awareness, have chosen.
So your story about why a person does yoga,
"“Pure Awareness is over there somewhere on the other side to reach. I am here on this side. In between are many obstacles I must cross, alter and control in order to reach the other end of the line, where awareness is.”"
That’s not my story. I’m willing to wager a 5-minute backrub that there are several people on the forums who also have different stories. I begin to anticipate that any personal frustration I feel from your posts comes from suspecting that you have decided we all have this story that you have chosen.
(oh, and here’s how my internet backrub wagers pay off: if I lose, I give a backrub to the person of my choosing; if whoever accepts the wager loses, (s)he gives a backrub to the person of their choosing. The winner gets to live in a universe that has been made better by a well-considered backrub.)

#16

Hey Techne,

Well I just gave a general notion of someone embarking upon a journey with the desire to become (more) free or enlightened. For that is the general purpose of Yoga is it not? If that is not your notion or goal than that is of course perfectly fine.

I am not imposing anything upon you, you are free to choose whatever it is you desire. But the same principle as I have explained above, works for every desire. Now why would you want to apply that recognition of awareness that includes your every experience as it is in that particular moment? Simply because no attainment will bring you your desired satisfaction and sooner or later you will, or you may not, reach a point in which you choose for yourself that you want freedom and ultimate fulfillment.

What is it for example that you hope to attain from “gathering a set of experiences and appearances that meet particular criteria”?

That is a question we could ask ourselves. Or we could just be completely content with our desires for gathering certain appearances. That too is fine. But even if that is the case, your life can become much more powerful, fulfilling, free and gracious in your experience when you start to recognize awareness. So the goal is not necessarily to transcend your experiences and appearances, for it is not something you do. What I am saying is simply to recognizing the fact that awareness, even if you feel like shit, is still beyond any of these experiences.

So if this message does not connect with you at this time at all, than - like you said - it does not fit you at this time. I am not suggesting how you should live your life. That choice is entirely yours. As you know :).

Love and thanks for sharing,
Bentinho.

#17

Haha, funny story Hubert.

Well the thing is, awareness is in fact there throughout any state, including dreams and sleep. But just like we cannot recognize it sometimes when we are in the heat of an emotional state, so too can we sometimes (most of the times) not recognize it while in a sleeping state.

But you are missing something crucial, and you gave your own example for it: [I]If the book falls on the ground and makes a noise, how could you wake up from sleep, if there was no awareness during sleep?[/I]

How could you ever wake up from a sound or someone shaking your body when you are vast asleep, if there is no awareness in sleep?..

:slight_smile: You see, there never is no awareness. Every experience is proof of awareness’s existence. Even the experience of having no experience (sleep), is still an experience. The fact that you know you have slept, or sometimes even feel that you have had a good night sleep, or a rough night sleep, along with the ability to wake up from sounds, is solid proof for awareness being there even if you do not recognize it. Would you agree? or rather: can you deny?

You see the more you start to recognize it, the less you can deny it’s presence. And that’s the beauty of it and that’s where the blessing comes in. You just put a little consistency in recognizing awareness always being there equally throughout all states of experience, and within no time it shows itself to you because you cannot deny it’s presence as being all-pervasive and ever-present anymore. Any philosophical ideas or inquiries you may do will simply fade away in front of this obvious, all-permeating experience of awareness being always the case. Every experience you are having is simply proving awareness’s existence as being who you are!

So the trick is to shift one’s recognition to that subtle level of awareness being aware even of your unawareness. But this is what starts happening naturally as soon as you get more familiar with recognizing awareness as being beyond any state. So too soon will you realize sleep is merely another state within awareness. Does that mean you will recognize this at all times at first? No. Like I said before, I do feel I am aware during the night, especially afterwards, I can feel in retrospect the presence of awareness all the time, but while in the state of sleep itself, I am often still blindsided by it. Occasionally I am aware like I am now, but not all the time. It is naturally increasing though.

Just like when you are in the heat of a fight, you do not recognize you are awareness. Afterwards looking back on the situation, you realize you have been aware all that time. you just were not aware of it. Likewise I can see how awareness is vividly present during sleep states, but while in the states themselves, it is still vague and I often do not recognize awareness. But as I said, there is no effort anymore, I know this will come naturally as it starts coming already.

Love,
B.

#18

[QUOTE=Hubert;22809]This does not happen during sleeping but in the moment when we wake up. Dreams do not develop in time, they are only created in those moments before we awake, in that very short transition process. Proof ? Think of someone who has an elaborate dream about hunting and the dream ends when he is being shot by a fellow hunter, and he wakes up. Than he realizes, that what he has expereinced in his dream as a gunshot, was in fact a very loud noise created by a book falling to the floor of his bedroom. From this, it is clear that the whole dream was built upon this first sensorial expereince, in the moment of awakening. Thus, we can say, that most dreams are only such plays of our minds, no matter how colorful, vivid and wonderful … anything sensorial about them is just created in those moments when our consciousness returns. I just gave this explanation because you linked dreams to the outside noises.

But if one is honest with himself, one cannot say, as you do, that one is aware while sleeping. That the body is there, the senses are there, and if disturbed, we awake, (if we would not do that, we would have become for long extinct) cannot be a proof for us being actually aware. That only means that we have to possibility to become aware of ourselves by waking up.
Awarness, just as Massaro rightly asesses, either is there, and does not need any proof, or it is not there. This is a basic personal experience for every one of us, both our waking consciousness, and our lack of it while we are sleeping.
Yoga philospophy makes the difference between various states of sleeping. In that state of dreamless sleep they talk about, there is a total lack of consciousness, and awareness for most human beings. I undertsand that this might be an ucomfortable realization, but to not see it would be blindness.

Ordinary awareness cannot be separated form our consciousness. It still requires the expereincer, the experinced, and the process of experience.
Massaro’s awareness ought to be Self awareness, or at least that’s how it appears to me, and that makes it worthy for the capital A, given that it is real. But real Self awareness cannot cease to exist, neither in sleep nor in in death. If it ceases, than it was unreal, just as the yogis say - what does not exist before and after, cannot be really existing inbetween. So simple is this. Or is it … do we accept only black and white ?

Now, it is far from me, to discredit Massaro’s work. Awareness is important, it takes us to Self Awareness, under any conditions, thus takes us form the unreal to the Real. To this method, I give the credit that it makes sense, and it can work - after all, if you want a muscle to become stronger you make it work, if one wants ones’s awarness to deepen, one tries to be more and more aware, using discernment, detachment and continuous self remembrence. Because this is what awarness takes, not identifying with the transitional fleeting states of mind, but with the base on what all this happens. Indeed, in my personal struggle with his presentation, I did arrive to accept it as a way in it’s own right. I think, no teacher can expect any more than this …

My only isue is, that while it states the What, it is scarce about the How. For example … my teacher gave very down to earth advise in form of exercises how to develop our ability to extend our awareness to this terra incognita of sleeping. Too bad that they are quite hard to perform … and I always fall asleep. :slight_smile: A kind of reversed donkey of Nasreddin. Do you know the story ?

[I]One day, Nasreddin decided that he will teach his donkey the art of surving without any food.[/I]
[I]A few weeks pass, and he is asked about his success, to what he laments: I was unlucky - my donkey died before having mastered the art.[/I][/QUOTE]
awareness could have known beforehand that the book was going to fall, so the dream cound have occured in time, rather then a brief moment, or it could have occured in a moment, I am open to that. I have had dreams that followed what was happening on tv, a show was on about drilling oil and my dream revolved around that. awareness of senses while sleeping, take a piece of tissue and tickle someones nose, do it lighty and they will not awake, do it some more and they may awake. now maybe there is a state where all awareness ceases in sleep.
hope all is well brother
Neil

#19

Both Bentinho, and jutwannabe takes the [B]possibility of becoming aware[/B], to [B]being aware[/B] itself. They simply missed my point. You also seem to not see the difference between the support of any awareness, what is the self (capital S or not). Our self is not aware of itself while sleeping - why is that so hard to accept as true ? Next thing will be saying that we can survive without any food, like Nasreddins donkey. Of course we can, just not in this physical body. But that is already theory for most, and what I say about sleeping is a practical fact. One might spend a lot of time with fancy imaginations and intellectual theories - but they are worthless to the measure they are unable to relate to one’s own personal everyday life.

You both BELIEVE in an all encompassing awarness, without actually expereincing it. And you betray this (not that it would be a shame) by the fact that you try to prove it’s existence even when you are clearly not able to witness it. I never said awareness is not possible during sleep, I just said, it is not there for most, because of their inability to maintain it.

Thus, your arguments are the expression of another form of belief. I respect all beliefs, because they take you from one stage to another. We all need to believe in many things, because we do not know everything. On the other hand, one can have an intuition of truth, reality, Awareness, something more than an intellectual theory and yet, not being the ultimate experience. So I do not deny any result or advancement you two or others who think like you, have made, not at all, but it is important to discern what that is, how it relates to the whole of our existence.

Let me adress Bentinho’s answer in detail because it will be educative.

[quote=Bentinho Massaro;22812]
Well the thing is, awareness is in fact there throughout any state, including dreams and sleep. But just like we cannot recognize it sometimes when we are in the heat of an emotional state, so too can we sometimes (most of the times) not recognize it while in a sleeping state.

[/quote] This is intellectualizing the existence of awarness when we are clearly not able to have it. Awarness needs no proof. Either it is there, or, it is not.

But you are missing something crucial, and you gave your own example for it: [I]If the book falls on the ground and makes a noise, how could you wake up from sleep, if there was no awareness during sleep?[/I]
How could you ever wake up from a sound or someone shaking your body when you are vast asleep, if there is no awareness in sleep?..

You mistake here the Self, what is the basis or support of awareness, to awareness itself. The Self of course must be existing “somewhere”, otherwise we would need to admit that we are a born again as a new being every morning. But self awareness is clearly missing while we are sleeping. We wake up, because some external stimulus brings our self awareness back to the sensorial world and to our waking consciousness. This does not prove that we are self aware while sleeping, but only shows the possibility to recover from lacking it.

:slight_smile: You see, there never is no awareness. Every experience is proof of awareness’s existence. B.

No, I do not see it, and neither do you. What you have done is intellectualizing the problem, providing an apparently reasonable line of thoughts, what as I tried to show, it only appears to be reasonable and does not stand the test of a more in depth analysis.

#20

Dear Hubert,

How could you possibly wake up if there is no awareness in sleep? It is just not possible. You cannot create awareness to suddenly wake up. Nothing would be able to wake you if there would not be awareness in sleep in the first place to receive that waking signal. It is awareness which hears the sound of your alarm even while you are in the deep sleep state (Delta). This is not intellectual if you do not make it so for yourself, it is simply true and undeniable when you start experiencing awarenes as truly being beyond any form or state.

Just stop thinking about it for a moment, if you will, and see the clarity that’s right there. Then as thoughts come storming in again trying to figure out something, start to recognize how that clarity and presence of awareness which was there when you stopped thinking for a moment, is still there as the knower of these thoughts and feelings. It never goes anywhere, we are just distracted by the appearances that appear within the knower. This is because we believe in what it is we believe in. Just stop believing for short moments :). You will not gain that which you are seeking by thinking about it. It is just not possible. Maybe you feel that thinking about it is the way of understanding, but true understanding comes from directly recognizing that which contains and starts every thought. That space in which everything appears and disappears is your true nature.

Be the ground or space of everything again and again and you will see there is nothing to analyze in order to reach something beneficial :). The most beneficial ruler of every single appearance is already here. And the best thing is, you have never not been it. You only believed for a while you were the thoughts and sense of self. But you can start to see now how that entire sense of self with all thoughts and emotions and understanding, was/is simply an appearance and disappearance within this space as well. Just a temporary process of believing in these things; a temporary process of identification took place within all-encompassing awareness. You will see that awareness was there even in your most unaware and dark moments. How else could you know these moments?

It is just that simple: Awareness is always there. We just think too much about it. If we just acknowledge it again and again there will be nothing more obvious and natural than that; than being who you are.

Love,
B.