Are you really, really sure you are consciousness?

[Cantando]

I think there is a major misconception amongst many in equating the essential "I", which is you, with consciousness, and also in the belief that all is consciousness.

I do not believe that I am consciousness. I have consciousness, which is a state of awareness, a field of perception I operate in, in order for me to interface with the world. I am conscious but I am not consciousness.

I am only conscious when there is something to be conscious of. It cannot be proven otherwise.

The true "I" is beyond consciousness, and like God, is virtually impossible to define or describe.
I think the Buddha and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali have it right in saying that this 'self' which we think we are, is just a temporary composite of body, ego, mind, and yes, consciousness. When we release attachment to all of this, we stand as we truly are, but I wouldn't advise it just yet, as you may physically die!

Various saints and mystics throughout history (e.g. St John of the Cross) achieved divine union with God through prayer and contemplation, but when they returned to everyday consciousness, they found it very difficult to describe. In fact, they were hardly able to remember any of it, since, in this state, they were outside of consciousness.

It can really only be described (in language form anyway) in a limited way by using parables and analogy.

If you believe you are consciousness, then, like with any other attachment, you may be setting yoursef up for a fall later on.

[Spiritual]

You have some good points, and we get to a point where it is hard to discuss, since as you said so yourself, we can only use analogies and global words, which often have big connotations.

I think we have the physical body consciousness, but also the "feeling" consciousness. This feeling consciousness is the sense of space around "us", it's hard to describe. But if you sense within you'll notice that there is no limitation to what you feel, you're not feeling the limitation of your physical body, there are no boundaries to your feeling.

Hope this makes sense...

I wonder though Cantando, what do you believe will happen after we die? And if we are not the consciousness, and we lose consciousness after death, what will still remain of us? How will "life" look like then?

[Cantando]

Originally Posted by Spiritual

I wonder though Cantando, what do you believe will happen after we die? And if we are not the consciousness, and we lose consciousness after death, what will still remain of us? How will "life" look like then?

Well, I can't say I know for sure, and I still have an open mind about it. I tend to think that we carry over some of our wordly consciousness, beliefs and memories. It depends on how attached we are to this life. I think there are many planes of life 'above' and 'below' this one.

Ultimately, it is an individual decision as to how much of our old self and consciousness we wish leave behind in order to become more realized in our true, spiritual self.

I find it interesting reading some accounts of saints and mystics, who declared before their death that they would voluntarily continue to help people on earth by still maintaining a conscious connection with them, instead of passing higher into total union with God (beyond consciousness).

[Spiritual]

I've seen some of the mystics say that when they got "enlightened", their old self got washed away and a new being was boring, without any previous reincarnations and history. I wonder what's that about in practical sense.

Also you talk about the union with god. I think a lot of "spiritual" texts refer to this as coming back to (the) source. How do you think this will be like?

Why would someone choose to completely dissapear into the source? What makes that such a good choice?

[BladeRunner]

Consciousness is just a word.

There are no words inside consciousness.

Consciousness doesn't require words.

But the word implies a connection.

Forget about trying to be sure you're conscious.

Forget about if anyone else is conscious.

Focus yourself (no need for words now) to see if you are consciousness.

Find the connection inside yourself.

Unfortunately OR fortunately, the answers are always inside you.

Dex

[Cantando]

Originally Posted by Spiritual

I've seen some of the mystics say that when they got "enlightened", their old self got washed away and a new being was boring, without any previous reincarnations and history. I wonder what's that about in practical sense.

Also you talk about the union with god. I think a lot of "spiritual" texts refer to this as coming back to (the) source. How do you think this will be like?

Why would someone choose to completely dissapear into the source? What makes that such a good choice?

If a mystic claimed to be enlightened and then said it was getting boring, then I would suspect he wasn't really spiritually enlightened, but possibly in just some kind of detached mental state.

I think we can only experience higher levels when we are ready to experience them, so it is a gradual ascent.
Perhaps there is no utterly total union with God (as God is infinite), but just a rising up through planes of existence as far as we wish to go, becoming more and more happy and fulfilled.

I'm not sure if we would completely disappear into source. Perhaps we would still have enough free will and a sense of being oneself to emerge from heavenly bliss if we wished to adopt consciousness again, to switch it on and off at will. Perhaps we are just living in one of many cycles of existence and creation - we experience consciousness, creation and destruction, then return to source, then emerge again to start a fresh cycle.

[Cantando]

Originally Posted by BladeRunner

Consciousness is just a word.

We use words to communicate. They have meaning, they refer to things and ideas. Consciousness means : a state of being conscious or awake or aware.
I am not a 'state'. I may have consciousness, I may be in it, but it is still not me.
If you think you are consciousness, then you are limiting yourself. You are assigning the true "I" to something you are focusing on.

[Spiritual]

Very interesting conversation!

Cantando I never said a mystic said he became enlightened and then got bored. I said their being would completely be gone and a totally new being would become who they were.

Even though enlightenment is something we are all right now, there still seems to be some kind of experience before the new identity is taken. Ofcourse enlightenment is not the experience, and like you said it's not a state. But I do not see conscioussness as a state, it just IS, and can not be defined.

For me personally this analogy works: when someone is blind, deaf and all physical sensing capabilities are removed, there is still "something" that notices the nothingness of what the person experiences.

But why would ascending to God mean that we get happier? Why are God and being Happy linked with each other?

[Cantando]

Originally Posted by Spiritual

For me personally this analogy works: when someone is blind, deaf and all physical sensing capabilities are removed, there is still "something" that notices the nothingness of what the person experiences.

But why would ascending to God mean that we get happier? Why are God and being Happy linked with each other?

Right, there is still "something" that notices the nothingness, ie. you are only conscious when there is something to be conscious of (even if it is nothingness, or just being conscious of being conscious). But, you are still your essential self before you are conscious. You, as spirit, precede consciousness. You may have experienced, whilst deep in meditation, that you have 'travelled' somewhere beyond consciousness. But then something pulled you back into consciousness - a sound, an itchy nose, or whatever. Something prodded your senses and you, as spirit, decided to switch your consciousness back on.

I believe that God is infinite love, joy, happiness, goodness, compassion, etc, so I naturally want to have more of that (fruits of the spirit?). It is part of my, and everbody else's, birthright. If I remain static, then I get bored.
If I moved in the other direction - towards infinite pain, misery and suffering, then I would not be a very happy bunny!

[Spiritual]

Interesting again.

But when consciousness is "off", what point is there, how can we still be something? It makes no sense, to be something without consciousness. Ofcourse we are not "something", etc etc. But let's talk practical here. You do you know you are something else, when you are not consciouss of that something else?

And why would God be only one side of the spectrum (ie. joy/happiness)?

[Cantando]

Originally Posted by Spiritual

Interesting again.

But when consciousness is "off", what point is there, how can we still be something? It makes no sense, to be something without consciousness. Ofcourse we are not "something", etc etc. But let's talk practical here. You do you know you are something else, when you are not consciouss of that something else?

And why would God be only one side of the spectrum (ie. joy/happiness)?

Spiritual, you are right. I am at a loss for words when it comes to describing the spirit, and yes, there may not seem any immediate practical value.

The point of my OP is that the word consciousness has been bandied about for the last 40 years or so, with many saying that they are consciousness. I am questioning that. As we investigate and try to understand the spirit, the word consciousness (to me anyway) begins to appear outdated and not very meaningful.

To say I am consciousness or that all is consciousness, for me anyway, is a well worn, rather trite statement. I believe there are hidden mysteries to the spirit which we have very little knowledge of.

From a practical perspective, all I can offer is - once we realize that we are spirit, eternal and connected by love to each other and to God, we can (hopefully) rise above and transcend our worldly problems of disease, suffering, pain, etc.

When consciousness is 'on', we are interacting with our bodies, minds, others and this world, the primary purpose of which is to help ourselves and others by realizing that we are spiritual beings. I think it is our true nature to be loving, happy and joyful. Yes, there is pain and suffering but we can work through it - it's just part of the journey. There is always joy at the end of it (unless we give up and sink into despair).

When consciousness is 'off', however, I cannot give you much information. I have read accounts of mystical union with God's love and the imparting of special graces to the soul, but that is far from me to comprehend or explain.

I would be interested to know who first stated that we are consciousness.

[Anagogy]

Originally Posted by Cantando

The point of my OP is that the word consciousness has been bandied about for the last 40 years or so, with many saying that they are consciousness. I am questioning that. As we investigate and try to understand the spirit, the word consciousness (to me anyway) begins to appear outdated and not very meaningful.

To say I am consciousness or that all is consciousness, for me anyway, is a well worn, rather trite statement. I believe there are hidden mysteries to the spirit which we have very little knowledge of.

From a practical perspective, all I can offer is - once we realize that we are spirit, eternal and connected by love to each other and to God, we can (hopefully) rise above and transcend our worldly problems of disease, suffering, pain, etc.

When consciousness is 'on', we are interacting with our bodies, minds, others and this world, the primary purpose of which is to help ourselves and others by realizing that we are spiritual beings. I think it is our true nature to be loving, happy and joyful. Yes, there is pain and suffering but we can work through it - it's just part of the journey. There is always joy at the end of it (unless we give up and sink into despair).

When consciousness is 'off', however, I cannot give you much information. I have read accounts of mystical union with God's love and the imparting of special graces to the soul, but that is far from me to comprehend or explain.

I would be interested to know who first stated that we are consciousness.

I sympathize with your attempt to divide the essential "I" from the things you feel are ultimately contained within that "I". However, I must respectfully disagree with the perspective that we are something different than consciousness. Allow me to explain.

I think you are focussing on the trick language plays when we talk about something and the words we use to describe it show ownership or posession.

When you talk about something, like a body part such as your arm or your leg, the statement implies that it is one "thing" and you are another "thing". In reality though, the leg or arm is a part of you, not a posession of you. There is a huge difference between "being" something and "posessing" something. Posession implies a boundary between the posessee and the posessor. In reality, there is no boundary between you and any aspects of you. Show me the red dotted line separating "your arm" from "you". Upon examination, you will find that indentities are actually shifting collections of subjective perceptions.

Probing deeper, we find that perception and consciousness are all that we can actually know. Awareness is the realm of knowing. You can't know something you are not aware of. Knowing is an example of awareness. If (a) = (b) then (b) = (a). All things are perceptions, including the perception of "I". Therefore, it too, is an object contained within the field of awareness. In otherwords, you can't separate consciousness from "I" because it would no longer be in the realm of possible knowledge.

[BladeRunner]

Originally Posted by Cantando

.I would be interested to know who first stated that we are consciousness.

We are this.

We are that.

I'm conscious.

You're not conscious.

I believe in this, I believe in that, I want this, why isn't it working.........

CT,

Why do you ask a question that no one can answer for you?

What are you looking for?

When we ask a question about life, we want someone to tell us what is really happening, but the answers are never 100% completely satisfactory.

Why?

Because we are always asking the wrong person.

Dex

[Cantando]

Originally Posted by BladeRunner

We are this.

We are that.

I'm conscious.

You're not conscious.

I believe in this, I believe in that, I want this, why isn't it working.........

CT,

Why do you ask a question that no one can answer for you?

What are you looking for?

When we ask a question about life, we want someone to tell us what is really happening, but the answers are never 100% completely satisfactory.

Why?

Because we are always asking the wrong person.

Dex

???
Er, this is a forum about spirituality and consciousness. I am just raising a few questions about these subjects and hoping to generate some interesting discussion.
I'm sorry if you have a problem with that.

[Cantando]

Originally Posted by Anagogy

I sympathize with your attempt to divide the essential "I" from the things you feel are ultimately contained within that "I". However, I must respectfully disagree with the perspective that we are something different than consciousness. Allow me to explain.

I think you are focussing on the trick language plays when we talk about something and the words we use to describe it show ownership or posession.

When you talk about something, like a body part such as your arm or your leg, the statement implies that it is one "thing" and you are another "thing". In reality though, the leg or arm is a part of you, not a posession of you. There is a huge difference between "being" something and "posessing" something. Posession implies a boundary between the posessee and the posessor. In reality, there is no boundary between you and any aspects of you. Show me the red dotted line separating "your arm" from "you". Upon examination, you will find that indentities are actually shifting collections of subjective perceptions.

Probing deeper, we find that perception and consciousness are all that we can actually know. Awareness is the realm of knowing. You can't know something you are not aware of. Knowing is an example of awareness. If (a) = (b) then (b) = (a). All things are perceptions, including the perception of "I". Therefore, it too, is an object contained within the field of awareness. In otherwords, you can't separate consciousness from "I" because it would no longer be in the realm of possible knowledge.

AG, I appreciate what you're saying, but I still have some reservations.

For example, you say 'In reality though, the leg or arm is a part of you, not a posession of you'. So what happens if lose a leg? Have I lost part of my true self? If I focus my consciousness on my arm, does that mean I am truly and essentially my arm?

The way I see it, is that in this life, I don't just have a body, I have a body of consciousness, which includes my physical body, mind, ego and everything I perceive and experience. What we normally think of consciousness is just ego consciousness, which is transient. In fact, it sounds suspiciously like Subjective Reality!

When the body dies, we pass from this existence into a new one, into a new body of consciousness, where we adopt another body (albeit more subtle and refined) and a new set of senses and experiences.

The "I" passes from one body of consciousness to another. The "I" may carry memories and aspects of its former consciousness to the next stage of existence.

Spiritual mentioned earlier what was the practical value in all of this?
Well, if we are too attached to, or identified with, our ego consciousness in this life, when we die, we may have a hard time making the transition, and death may become a very scary, traumatic experience. The one thing ego consciousness dreads is annihilation.

You say, 'All things are perceptions, including the perception of "I"', but who is doing the perceiving?
There may be things to know, perceive and be conscious of, but behind all of that is the fundamental, spiritual potentiality which is you - the silent witness.