Thread: Is awareness impossible?

Are we still talking about awareness, here?

Originally Posted by BohmaN

That's quite beautiful. A first hand experience?

One of the best things in life, as I mentioned in the other thread

The way there has its dangers, however. I was all but paralyzed with the inability to act for a good six weeks, barely eating and doing little to see to my continued shelter, when the unity of all things first became a present and unavoidable reality. I got stuck in what amounted to a kind of euphoric nihilism. Eventually I recovered some basic impulse to survive, and when a friend threw me a lifeline, I took it and buried myself in mundane routines, almost afraid to practice. It took years to come to a more balanced view, where the eternal was not overwhelming the particular, neither negating the other.

Originally Posted by Robot_Butler

Are we still talking about awareness, here?

What else? The OP was using "awareness" synonymously with "mindfulness," and now we're talking about where mindfulness takes you.

Well, I guess now we're talking about whether we're talking about awareness Way to meta everything up, RB.

The way there has its dangers, however. I was all but paralyzed with the inability to act for a good six weeks, barely eating and doing little to see to my continued shelter, when the unity of all things first became a present and unavoidable reality. I got stuck in what amounted to a kind of euphoric nihilism. Eventually I recovered some basic impulse to survive, and when a friend threw me a lifeline, I took it and buried myself in mundane routines, almost afraid to practice. It took years to come to a more balanced view, where the eternal was not overwhelming the particular, neither negating the other.

I had a similiar experience, although less intense, and quite depressing of nature. After philosophing about nihilism, meditating, and reading reputed spiritual books for about 2 months, I started turning into a vegetable, where everything that happened to me was translated nihilistically, causing me to become depressed, not euphoric. I didn't phenomenologically realize the unity and emptiness off existance, although I comprehended it intellectually. I guess I was on my way, but due to being slightly depressed and actually unable to function properly in the real world (due to my inward journey), I decided to quit all thoughts on the subject and try getting back to real life. After a couple of weeks I was normal again, but I had left spirituality for a great while... It's only 'til now that I'm getting back to it. I'm now much more grounded, so I suppose that would keep me from losing it totally (or maybe that's the point, I dunno).

Slightly off topic here, but it's important ;D. What's the difference between becoming depressed and euphoric when chasing these realizations?

Originally Posted by BohmaN

Slightly off topic here, but it's important ;D. What's the difference between becoming depressed and euphoric when chasing these realizations?

The difference is either realising that 'nothing matters' is a good thing, or letting your ego decide it is a bad/depressing thing.

As Don Juan from the castaneda books once said "There is no survival value in Heightened Awareness."

Well I wouldn't say that's true. Depending on what you mean by that. If you mean being more enlightened, then probably not. But you might live longer coz you'll be less stressed. But if you mean just being more aware. Then there is. You could hear/see predators/dangers better than other people.
As well, you don't have the thinking going on constantly. Think how many people die in car crashes simply because they aren't paying attention; they are thinking about something. I almost did it the other day lol.

Tommo, Castandea /and or/don Juan didn't mean exactly that by heightened awareness - although it's possible to see a schematic link, in his philosophy, between that kind of awareness and ideas like second and third attention; both of which are, fundamentally, un-orthodox perceptual states. Although, it's also clear that don Juan does in fact see surival benefits in heightened awareness - at least for Nauguals. (Although discrepancies in don Juan'sthinking are oft cited as evidence that he was manufactured, I actually think it indicates a much more organic thinker - like a real person,be that Carlos himslef or don Juan - who sees things from multiple perspectives depending on context.)

One of the figures who is never, or rarely mentioned in these discussions, and yet is the primary fore-runner of the idea of false conscousness in Western thought, and a fundamental influence on figures like Tolle and possibly Castaneda (assuming he did make it up - not saying he did), and indeed on all of us when we discuss these ideas, is Karl Marx. Marx posited the idea that people are held in false consciousness by the powers that be - an idea taken up much more fundamentally by continental neo Marxist thinkers such as Marcuse and Althusser - and that 'revolutionary consciousness' occurs when people realise the truth of their situation.

That begins to tell you just how political and ideological ideas on awareness are, even when framed in 'spiritual' contexts. For example, what do you become are 'of'? Everything? Abstract perceptions of the world? Capitalist oppression? Does 'be here now' re-direct you from achieving revolutionary consciousness by directing you away from examining political realities and instead totally focussing on the hedonism of personal experience? And if that were so, is Tolle just another layer of control - just another tool being used to prevent you from focussing on what is really going on?

Or is it the Marxists who are using it as a means of control? After all, it's easy to say that anyone who doesn't agree with you isn't 'aware' - that they don't have the same 'level' of consciousness as you. That excuses you from having to listen to their ideas or treat them as valid. You can simply treat the 'holders' of those ideas as incapable of seeing the truth, rather as if they had a mental illness, because their 'awareness' is merely that of their masters, like a beast.

And many 'spiritual' people use that idea too - the idea that if a person doesn't agree with their schema, they're not simply wrong, they're 'spiritually unaware', or brainwashed by the establishment, etc. One idea constantly re-iterated - incorrectly in my view - is the idea, or versions of the idea of Castaneda's 'foreign installation' as a Marxian layer of state/system brainwashed in to you way of looking at the world. That's a very similar idea to Marx's. Unfortunately, it's not what Castaneda/don Juan meant. They meant something much more complex - that even your sense of self, of who you are, of even being named and placing a label on the series of events that that label refers to 'creates' a self which is at once both the core mechanism of your self awareness, and a system installed by society and the world around you.

So which 'thing' is it that's aware? You? The state? The you the state created? And what is it that it's 'best' to be 'aware of'? Now? Then? What will be? Yourself? Your own silence?

Awareness - a tricky thing indeed!

Fuck my post just got deleted. Can't bothered now.

I agree with this

Does 'be here now' re-direct you from achieving revolutionary consciousness by directing you away from examining political realities and instead totally focussing on the hedonism of personal experience? And if that were so, is Tolle just another layer of control - just another tool being used to prevent you from focussing on what is really going on?

Reading other people's thoughts is a hinderance to enlightenment.

I find that awareness is realizing the dreamlike state of the waking world. It is possible, but difficult- it is too easy to sweep back into the usual state of being off. But there is no need to battle thoughts or the like, or consciously do everything, but like in a lucid dream, to realize the dreamlike state of the world.

However, you can be aware of other things- the birds in the garden, the patterns on the quilt, the cars in the road. That is all awareness to. But as an answer to thread title, to sustain all kinds of awareness for all of the waking hours, that is impossible.

Nope, Im pretty much aware when i want to be.