If the “limited consciousness “ (me, you) ends whatever is there will be there. Any ‘desire’ for this ending is the self itself. The desire itself for something other than what is insures that the self, ego stays firmly in place. And ‘invisible’ for the most part. I think the power of the ego to keep itself intact does not vary with how the ego, self manifests: whether sociopath or saint. The same energy force holds its illusory structure together. Only ‘awareness’ it seems, is the way to reveal its almost constant presence.
K said that consciousness is it’s ‘content,(psychological thought, ego etc)
He also said that consciousness without this content might be something entirely different. However, while we see and act from this content, it is useless to speculate about what it might be without it.
It sounds like a good plan. Can we leave it aside and simply be attentive just for the sake of it? It is a paradox but, otherwise, it won´t work.
Anonimiry , why do you call that a plan instead of a realization of the fact?
Rather a blunt way to end a discussion on what probably is one of the most important aspect of K’s teaching. On ending of sorrow, on the realisation of common consciousness of humanity, even on a hint of leading to something sacred.
Because realizing a fact as fact brings about its own action, otherwise, it is just a thought we like to enjoy because it brings about a feeling of comfort, that´s why when we are asked if we can leave it aside and simply be attentive, we consider the question as a blunt way of ending it.
On the other hand, we don´t understand consciousness through awareness and then put aside its content to understand if there is anything beyond it. We start by attending to what is going in consciousness, its content as well as its functioning. At the very moment we see that thought divides itself as the thought and the thinker, that the thinker isn´t but thought and that anything we do as the thinker to put order in the disorder (thinking one thing, talking another thing and doing something else), it is disorder too, we just observe without interfering or running away from it. This observation, attention or attentive, apparently passive observation is itself awareness which is beyond consciousness already. No need to go to the moon to find it out. From the point of view of us as the observer, this observation appears to be passiveness but it is not, it has its own action, it is it what brings about order and clarity enough to go on deepening till, according to K, we reach a point at which we ask ourselves if there is something beyond that.
As for love, paying attention which is the same as caring without any intention, hope, etc. behind, it is love itself. No need to go the moon to find it out either.
But don´t know, after reading so many comments in this site and also in this thread, maybe all of you are right and I´m completely wrong. That´s why I always ask, can we simply be attentive? Maybe then we can talk and discuss.
If you see the danger of nationalism or racism do you plan to put it aside or the very realization has dropped the racism in you. Because you see the fact changes. In the same way if you see the danger of greed, anger ,competition,comparison ,which is the content of consciousness what happens ?
The problem is that we have become oblivious to danger.
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Yes, and that seeing is awareness which is beyond consciousness, so you don´t ask if there is something beyond consciousness. A cage with open door is still a cage?
Oblivious and blind which leads us to self-destruction and to destroy this world.
Sorry, not sure I understood this rghtly. If you mean that the fact changes because it is seen, no, I don´t think so. It is just that awareness is not affected or conditioned by the fact nor, therefore, its action which is driven by intelligence or it is intelligence acting, unlike consciousness which action is rather a reaction triggered by knowledge, memory as long as it is not seen as for what it is. But this is consciousness trying to understand awareness, it can´t. It is awareness what understands consciousness, not “us” as consciousness through awareness so, can we simply be attentive?
No,there is nothing beyond thought. Thought thinks there is something beyond !like intelligence,God, love or what ever but it is still thought projecting.
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Is it? Can I be aware if I’m unconscious?
Isn’t consciousness the context, and awareness the content?
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This statement makes too much of thought. It is a survival tool. It asks ‘why’ things happen so it can avoid dangerous situations and approach positive ones. God in heaven explains it all simply. Thunder and lightning occur when the ‘gods’ are angry. Makes sense. Science has found different explanations. But thought can’t know what is ‘beyond’ it? If anything.
Not necessarily or not for everyone. To me it´s ok.
No, obviously.
As long as “awareness” remains as a word or concept ,yes, absolutely, just like a cold shower if you have never taken one, which probably is not a nice analogy either. I´m not a poet, sorry.
So be it.
Thank you for your replies, to me it´s been very useful to put all of this into words. I´m not trying to convince anybody of anything.
I am not here to negate what people say . But I am here to find the truth about things for myself.
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But awareness is not just “a word or concept”. We all know what it is to be aware, and we can’t be aware if we’re unconscious, so it seems to me that it isn’t true to say that “consciousness is awareness caught in certain limits, but awareness is…not limited”.
Awareness is always limited to one’s senses and one’s interest in sensitivity, whereas there’s no awareness at all without consciousness.
I think it is the other way around Inquiry. Obviously, this depends on how broadly we define awareness.
The body has its own intelligence. Even in deep dreamless (slow-wave) sleep the essential functions of the body are maintained. I would call this a form of awareness. If there are external sounds or noises that require one’s attention, then one will wake up. For instance, one can sense when to turn the alarm clock off before it goes off, even when one is deeply asleep.
Dreaming is a form of awareness, as is what has been called the unconscious (which is not separate from consciousness).
And of course consciousness - which is its contents - is a form of awareness (fear, desire, pleasure, suffering, etc). If there were no awareness, then the contents of fear, pleasure, hurt, etc would just be insentient movements of electro-chemical activity. But fear has a taste, a feeling, a quality about it (whether it is created by thought or by an actual physical danger). And this qualia of fear (or pleasure, hurt, etc) is a form of awareness.
The intuition I have is that awareness is objective, impersonal, like space; and that my body, the senses (or at least one’s experience of the body) - including my conscious, personal awareness, which is structured by thought - is subjective. This is an intuition, and so cannot be proved, but it is as good as any other intuition.
Anyway, the point is not to make this into an ideology, but to experiment with awareness. There are those who get caught in thinking and limit themselves to that; and there are those who experiment with seeing, listening, perception and awareness. Krishnamurti’s teachings can be interpreted as giving the green light to either of these approaches; but for me thinking, thought, etc is just obviously limited (which K is absolutely definite about) - so I am more interested in the latter.
For some orthodox K folk, it is a heresy to actually experiment with awareness and perception. Such people - for me - have unwittingly created an idol out of ideation and live there because they feel most comfortable in thought. They also neglect to take seriously everything K said about observation, awareness, perception, seeing, listening, etc.
Thought is only a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, small part of what is there to be experienced, touched, tasted, explored. So to limit oneself to that is - for me - to fixate on thought at the expense of one’s obvious capacity for being aware.
Is deep sleep a form of awareness or is it that in deep sleep there is awareness regardless of brain being completely still, without content to be aware of, i.e., without being self-conscious which is not the same as being unconscious, otherwise, we wouldn´t say when we wake up “I slept like a log”, don´t know if you have this expression in English. Brain still can register or rather awareness is in contact with brain during deep sleep. To be unconscious is usually associated to some trauma or illness in the brain, not the same as not being self-conscious which points out to the absence of thought and movement of thought in a healthy brain. Not sure, but I seem remember K. talking somewhere about an “awake deep sleep” or something like that.
I was only talking about the body’s awareness when one is in deep dreamless sleep.
There may be of course some deeper activity of awareness that takes place in deep sleep, which K has talked about quite often. K talks about a meditation in deep sleep in which there is a form of wakefulness that is not conscious (which sounds like a paradox, but isn’t).
K even goes so far as to say that all true meditation is unconscious. He used to say how he would wake up (from dreamless sleep) already in meditation; which implies that some form of awareness or attention was active while the conscious mind was absent.
This inclines me to think that awareness includes and transcends the ‘unconsciousness’ of deep sleep.
Thank you. Yes, this is in a dialogue I heard, part of a series of which someone called “Wim” made the transcription recently. I got the link posted in this site, so now I can listen to all the dialogues. Google subtitles are a bit crazy. Great job, btw. Much appreciated.