Nisargadatta on Awareness and Consciousness

 One morning, when I had paid my respects to Maharaj and sat down, I found that there were only two other persons present. Maharaj suddenly said: What is the difference between 'awareness' and 'consciousness', if any? When something like this happens, one does not really know whether he expects an answer, or whether he is merely thinking aloud. One hesitates to answer for fear of breaking the flow of his thoughts. But then, he might also say: Why don't you answer? Have you been wasting my time, listening to the talks all these days? This morning, however, he carried on without waiting for an answer.

He observed that awareness is of the Absolute, and, therefore, beyond the three Gunas (Gunatita); whereas consciousness is something fed by, and limited by, the food-body. When the food-body is destroyed, consciousness also disappears. Mind you, no one dies -the body, made of the five elements mingles with the elements when it is lifeless, and consciousness, which is subject to the three Gunas, becomes free of the Gunas. Awareness is the primordial original state, prior to the concept of space-time, needing no cause, no support. It simply is. However, the moment the concept of consciousness arises on this original state of unicity, the sense 'I am' arises, causing a condition of duality. Consciousness is with a form, a reflection of awareness against the surface of matter. One cannot think of consciousness apart from awareness; there cannot be a reflection of the sun without the sun. But there can be awareness without consciousness. In deep sleep, for instance, there is no consciousness (it is resting) but awareness is certainly there, because, on waking, one is aware of having slept; but only on waking.

~Ramesh Balsekar

Six Degrees of Self

i.

Everything is appearing in myself, even you.

This is no individually manufactured consciousness talking.

The universe appears in universal consciousness and not vice versa.

ii.

The world is unreal. That’s why it’s so believable.

Only the unidentifiable self is real. Atman is brahman.

Note to self: stop objectifying brahman and quit personifying atman.

footnotes

In other words, Jesus is saying my neighbor is appearing in myself. This is why it’s love your neighbor as yourself and not as if yourself.

It’s prajnanam brahma, not prajnanam incorporated. (I saw the best hearts of my generation destroyed by materialism.)

The universe is god the child. Universal consciousness is god the parent. And I am the wholly absolute. In the names of.

All beliefs are conspiracy theories. It’s like the big bang out there every day. This virtual frontier is beginningless! Like maya, not coincidentally.

The allure of any ufo is its unidentifiability. Game recognizes self.

All sounds appear in silence. The forest is not the ground. There is no tree. All of the above.

The Four Paramahavakyas

Consciousness is not a fruit of the material world. Consciousness is the absolute ground. In other words, prajnanam brahma.

The body-mind at best is a consciousness transistor. Prana in, prajna out. Consciousness is the power. And tattvamasi.

A material universe is not the big bang of an unknown god. This consciousness is the universal manifestation of the supreme godhead. Atman is brahman.

Not only is consciousness the manifestation of the absolute, I am the absolute. If one can’t know the unknown, be the unknown. Aham brahmasmi.

footnotes

1. the great turning. that sudden unconditioning of conditioned consciousness. turn, turn, turn.

the face in the mirror

suddenly seeing

one is not this human face

but that mercurial quicksilver space

in which it is appearing,

that is,

my original face

that a material universe appears in universal consciousness is a dream called avidya.

call this dream samsara.

that universal consciousness appears in absolute awareness is a dream called maya.

call this dream nirvana.

believing i'm not brahman is the pill of my conditioning. 

thinking i'm a sinner in the hands of an angry god is its subsequent hallucination.

endnotes

consciousness is not a neuroscience.

are we not body-minds? we are kensho. d.e.v.o.

the day that dreams the night appears within the night that dreams the day.

relax. self-awareness already happened.

apocalypse notes

consciousness cannot be defined by thought. thought is defined by consciousness.

pro tip. before questioning everything, question that in which everything appears. in other words, who am i?

if self-awareness is the manifest, maya is the hyphen.

thought has no beginning. any beginning is just another thought.

genesis notes

that which sees through thought is netinetisan.

like question belief and love consciousness. this is like the practice.

you cannot put out a fire. you can only help a fire put out itself.

if thought appears in universal consciousness and consciousness appears in absolute awareness, the satguru is appearing in your thoughts, wo/man.

more

as consciousness is the expression of the absolute, and divine imagination is the expression of consciousness, spontaneous revelation is the expression of divine imagination. this is my poetics.

The Joy of Non-duality

"This bliss of Brahman cannot be conceived by us. It is so unlike all our joys! All our joys have a negative side. They relate to some object of desire. Desire means some felt deficiency; and every deficiency is painful. Desire thus makes for disharmony and restlessness. Our whole life is full of active and incipient desires, and it is therefore full of the pain of existence. When a desire is temporarily fulfilled, a state of painfulness is removed. This removal of pain is felt by us as an inner expansion and joy. There is nothing positive about it. The removal of pain does not add a value to our being. It merely leads to the re-manifestation of that joy which is natural to our inner being and which was hidden by desire. Real joy is therefore different from a bubbling joy or a joy that creates a new kind of restlessness. It is characterised by equanimity, poise and peace. It is a state of desirelessness. There is no enjoyer in it, and nothing enjoyed. It is the joy that more nearly approximates to the joy of non-duality.

The joy of Brahman is qualitatively different from all other joys. It has no negative side. It is purely positive. There is no desire and no fulfilment of desire. It is the joy of being. Being itself is bliss. There are joys which are the products of inner pressures and outer fortune. The bliss of Brahman is different from them all. It is the own nature of Brahman. To know Brahman is therefore to know It as blissful. If we presumably know Brahman, but do not feel the bliss of Brahman, it is not genuine knowledge of Brahman at all. Knowledge and bliss are here inseparable."

~Malkani

Unborn Imagination

A universe divided is samsara.

The universe as it is is maya.

Leaves fall. Trees return to the ground.

Dreams only happen in a dream.

Self-awareness is the primal dream.

Even red giants return to the black whole of brahman.

Consciousness is the stuff of self-awareness as the stuff of the self is being.

Brains do not manufacture consciousness. Prajnanam brahma.

Leaves fall, trees return, planets die, suns are unborn.

footnotes

Samsara undivided is maya.

Remember, the manifestation of samsara is nirvana.

If a leaf falls, does the ground hear it?

It’s not what you dream, but that you dream, which is worthy of inquiry.

If awareness is brahman, self-awareness is maya-brahman.

Like a cat's cradle, there's no damn wave, and no damn particle.

Consciousness is the stuff of self-awareness as the stuff of the self is being. Consciousness is that unmodified being within which dream-worlds like metaphors appear.

Brains do not manufacture consciousness. Prajnanam brahma. This is like mahavakya one.

If zeno, mu. If maya, aum.

endnotes

Get your myth together.

If consciousness is the expression of the absolute, divine imagination is the expression of consciousness.

Forgetting is like the hypen in self-awareness. Another name for this forgetting is materialism.

Belief is the foundation of materialism.

There is no difference between scientific theory and religious dogma.

Myth is pre-modern deconstruction.

Nonduality is like lofi myth.

The worst kind of nonduality is this kind of nonduality which doesn't know that nonduality is myth unplugged.

In nonduality, a trinity is awareness, consciousness, and mind.

Myth is positive deconstruction, is it not?

Manifesting Silence

One cannot know the Great one. One can only be the Great one.

Brahman is not an object to be known by a pseudo-subject.

Awareness is the only intelligence. Consciousness is the only knowledge. The mind is the only known.

Identification with the mind is like living in the past. And the past is just a fiction.

Silence isn’t golden. Ignorance isn’t bliss. Silence is bliss.

After the satisfaction of a particular desire, there is this temporary bliss. That is silence.

If atman is brahman, consciousness is awareness, knowledge is intelligence.

If silent knowledge is knowing being, it’s only manifestation is self-awareness.

old footnotes

Being the unknown is intuitive. Do not overthink it.

As the attempted usurpation of the noumenon by some phenomena is resulting in the great samsaric war.

The ignorance of body-mind is the great turning in the reflexive universe of self-awareness.

This ignorance is like a carpenter identifying with its saw.

No name for silence; silence is not an idol. In fact, samsara is the anti-bliss.

After the negative has been undone in space-time, there’s this non-abiding zenlike zero called kensho.

Bliss isn’t what you think it is. Bliss is default. You can’t handle the truth. This self is great. This prana is prajna. This great intent is self-awareness.

Self-awareness is the manifestation of absolute awareness. An evolutionary universe is the manifestation of self-awareness. Samsara is the manifestation of this universe. Nirvana is the manifestation of samsara.

Malkani on Pure Awareness (cit)

 Thought is intelligent, the ego is intelligent, the mind in general is intelligent, not of themselves, but because of their relation, the relation of false identity, to the pure intelligence, which is the only true knower. This knower knows, but is never itself known.

...

To sum up, when I know x, x is the object and I am thek nower. When I know this knower (pramana), the knower is the object while that which knows it is pure awareness. This pure awareness or pure intelligence is the ultimate term in all knowledge.

...

The conclusion is inevitable that there is a superficial subject and a real subject. The latter is of the nature of pure intelligence. It is the ground of all appearances, both objective and subjective. It is the ultimate metaphysical reality. There is no other.

...

Pure awareness is no object of any kind. It is different from all objects. Its reality is in a class by itself. To know it, we must have a different kind of approach. It must not be an objective approach. Objectively, it will just not be there. Hume's analysis of the self is quite revealing on this point. He could not find a permanent self. Can anyone find pure awareness? Any such attempt is doomed to failure. The more we go within ourselves, the farther does the self retire from our view. If we could fix it, it would cease to be the self it really is. The self as it really is refuses to oblige a secular gaze."

~Malkani

Malkani on Brahman and Being

 “All creation is within being, not creation of being.”

“Brahman is the Great. The Great is that beyond which nothing can be greater. A measure of its greatness is provided by the world. The world which is limitless in time and limitless in space is still contained within Brahman.”

“Things are nothing without being, their pervasive ground. Take away being, and things are reduced to nothing. The same cannot be said of being. Things contribute nothing to being. The dependence is therefore essentially one-sided. It is things that are adjectival to being…”

“Adjectival existence is not real existence. It is dependent and illusory. Thus being is the reality of all things. And so the Upanisads declare, ‘Verily all this is Brahman.’

This does not mean that things are brahman, or nature is brahman, or there is an equivalence between Brahman and the world. It means that Brahman alone is, not the things. Or in other words, things are negated in brahman.”

~G. R. Malkani, ‘Metaphysics of Advaita Vedanta'

Psycho Brahman

Reality is not phenomenal.

Consciousness is reality.

A physical psycho is appearing in consciousness!

You are not the psycho, people. You are not the snake, rope.

Consciousness meet consciousness. 

Self meet brahman.

footnotes

reality is not phenomenal. phenomena is emptiness.

consciousness is reality. prajnanam brahma is the first paramahavakya.

a physical psycho is appearing in consciousness! the dream cries maya.

you are not the psycho, people. tattvamasi.

you are not the snake, rope. you are not the scene, seer.

consciousness meet consciousness. seer meet the seer.

self meet brahman. this is the third paramahavakya.

that i am brahman is unsaid.

to recap the paramahavakyas being said tonight. 1. consciousness is the absolute. 2. TATTVAMASI 3. the self is the great one.

"this was brahman in the beginning. it knew itself only as “i am brahman.” therefore it became all. it is the same with seers and the same with all people. to this day, whoever knows the self as “i am brahman,” becomes all this."

~brihadaranyaka upanishad (tx-aumdada).

the four paramahavakyas are bigger than the four agreements.

the four paramahavakyas are not a secret but almost no one knows them.

one. prajnanam brahma,

i.e. consciousness is foundational,

in parentheses, the body-mind does not manufacture consciousness, materialist;

transistorizing prana to prajna happens in consciousness

and what happens in consciousness stays in consciousness, awareness.

2. that y'all be, tattvamasi, fool.

3. atman is brahman. universal consciousness is absolute consciousness. individual consciousness is maya.

4. i am brahman. let there be light.

Prajnanam Brahma, Tat Tvam Asi, Ayam Atma Brahma, Aham Brahma Asmi.

The truth of faith or of belief is thus practical only. Knowledge alone is primarily and literally true.

We contend that in the absence of knowledge, we naturally support an intellectual attitude to super-sensible reality through belief or faith. But this is bound by its very nature to be a transitory state. No-one can permanently rest in faith. Faith demands to be transformed into knowledge and is only justified by knowledge. Till this justification is forthcoming, there is bound to remain in faith an element of doubt. Doubt is indicative not only of inadequate knowledge, but also of the subjectivity of it. The truth of faith or of belief is thus practical only. Knowledge alone is primarily and literally true. As long as knowledge has not arisen, the truth of belief is necessarily in doubt. It is therefore a necessity of our intellectual life that we must rise above the subjectivity of belief to the objectivity of truth. Advaita Vedanta enables us to do so.

~G.R. Malkani