Self-identity

It is obvious that thought has taken its root into the very DNA of human existence, and pervades in human functions, since it gained its importance inadvertently in human civilizational journey. Thougt is flowing like a blood in the human body.

Expectation or optimism to remove this root from in mass proportions is impossible.

The only solace one can find is not to be part of mass meaning do not contribute to the chaos, live once life like other species - which acts, learns, acts and perish with no sign/any signs of existence metamorphosised into its origin(cosmos - earth, sky, universe).

I am reminded of the SETI explorer who speculated that very very advanced life forms might be hard to detect because they might have become so integrated with their environment as to become indistinguishable from it.

Also I am reminded of early cyanobacteria that destroyed 90% of all other lifeforms on Earth merely by breathing out (and creating) oxygen.

Interesting.

My accumulation of knowledge is zero specially from external sources( books). These are my observations watching the species.

If it’s possible to be aware of my conditioned response as it reacts, I am free of it, but I am still bound by its habitual nature. Freedom begins with awareness of what imprisons, binds, and enslaves, but one isn’t completely free until this awareness is acted upon by refraining from what perpetuated the blinding, binding behavior.

The seeing is the doing when it includes the remedial response, but awakening to the whole problem without getting out of bed, so to speak, is just more dreaming. This is why psychedelics are so promising, and so disappointing.

Hello Dev and all. Yes, I see things this way too. We can observe how awarenesses is transformative on a daily basis. For example, if I’m talking to someone and I become aware that the person is very sad, that awareness of “the truth” will transform my interaction, possibly deepening the communication. If I’m not aware of this person’s sadness, the interaction will be different.

Of course, we can’t set out to be aware. Maybe it’s something like the window of the mind being open - if we’re lucky, the breeze of awareness might enter. Does this make sense?

In a way the less occupied the brain is with self the more open it is to its environment?

The awareness that sees the truth - is the truth it self. Cause, what can see the unlimited other than the unlimited ?
The “non-memory based awareness” (Dev’s words) is the truth acting as seeing (“It is the truth that will set you free”….K).

Do you mean that when/if one tends to be more aware, less distracted than usual, the change is unintentional?

Would you say that one has not “set out to be aware” if the intention to be more aware is unconscious?

Hi Dan and Inquiry. Thanks for responding and I hope you’re both managing to survive the freezing weather that seems to be affecting much of North America at the moment.

Awareness was surely at the very heart of K’s teachings but I don’t think we understand it well. I think that there is truth in what you both said about awareness above. Does awareness come about unintentionally? Do there have to be certain conditions in place for awareness to be present? Some people seem to be much more aware than others - why is that?

Water, energy and other things tend to flow when there are no blockages. Is the flow of awareness blocked by the activity of the self and other factors? How do you two see this?

I don’t think of awareness as something that flows, but as something like light, illumination. If I find all that light too much to bear, I can wear dark glasses and see no more than I care to or dare to. I can be as aware as I choose to be, which will always be less aware than is possible. Or, I can be curious and interested enough in what is actually present to remove my dark glasses and live with what the light of awareness reveals.

As I see it Sean, awareness rarely if ever includes and reveals the illusion of the ‘me feeling’? There is an undeniable ‘feeling’ of being but that sensation is dwarfed by the illusory sense of ‘me’ existing? The “bundle of memories “ as K called it. Or the “known”. Freedom is the awareness of the ‘nonexistance of the ‘me’?

I have no idea of what freedom or the “the nonexistence of the me” might be, if anything, so I don’t think in those terms. Why not keep it simple and stay with what you can honestly think about instead of entertaining wild speculations?

It’s not “wild” at all. Awareness of the ‘non-entity’ that you are, is freedom from it.

If you know you’re a non-entity, you’re free of the illusion of entity, and free of K’s teaching.

That’s just ‘you’ speculating about somebody else. Why not find out for yourself?

I have found out that you’re convinced you’re nothing and nobody, and there’s no use trying to disabuse you of your conviction, so I’ll play along.

I question whether intellectual understanding has any value at all. Does intellectual understanding actually just hinder?

I don’t want you to “play along”…this is serious business.

No it’s the first understanding. “You are nothing (not-a-thing)”. Your ‘you-ness’ is being called into question. “You don’t exist “… Is it true? That’s the basic message K has brought. True or false? Find out, it is up to each of us interested to find out. It’s difficult but Not impossible.

Where does this understanding reside? Is it the self, the ‘you’ that you(the you that is when the self is not) refer to that understands?

Where does this statement come from? The self? Or the you that is when the self is not?