Thief
Rogue Theologian
And what better pronouncement at the moment of 'genesis'?
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What came before the Big Bang?
- Thread starter yoda89
- Start date
And what better pronouncement at the moment of 'genesis'?
IDK I'm skeptical it is a literal word. I go with the tao to answer your question and the source is called nameless. Once something manifests from the source then it can be named.
See but self awareness is different from just plain awareness.
I hope that by Self Awareness you mean pure awareness stripped of association with any object whatsoever. By plain awareness probably you mean "I am this body" awareness. If my assumptions are correct then I agree with your observation.
Yes thats sort of what I mean but the opposite. Self awareness is concerned of the self, awareness looking in a mirror so to speak. Plain, pure awareness is not concerned of the ego, is beyond it. Any hoo to the question, "I am" is concerned with ego and such an entity as god is beyond such labels.
Okay. But " I am" is not ego since it is not associated with body, mind, or life and is actually distinct from and has no "I am this" feeling.
I suppose this is the source of many confusions that cannot be overcome until one Sees the 'deep sleep infinite homogeneous state' as a Seer. Till then, one should have faith in scripture, in AUM or in "I am" as the manifestation of the ineffable God.
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If "I am" is recognizable then I tend to disagree that it isn't ego. Pure awareness wouldn't recognize self, it would be beyond it. I am says I am a thing and is duality, a separation that doesn't really exist.
godnotgod
Thou art That
Like itself, for example? Do you dance in order to end up on a particular spot on the dance floor, or do you dance in order to dance?
godnotgod
Thou art That
You are confused. I do not deny 'I Am", but I do negate the self-created illusion that is "I".
You have also missed the point. Of course the post is ridiculous; it is a joke. I am poking fun at Thief's childish assumptions being stated as Truth.
godnotgod
Thou art That
No. 'I Am' is a statement of pure Being alone, without a 'be-er'. It is not self; it is not ego; it is not a thing; it is not a duality; it is not an object of knowing. It is knowing itself outside of space and time; outside of history and memory.
Contrast this with Descartee cogito:
"I think, therefore I am"
..which is a statement of an entity called "I" that exists in space and time. It places the individual in history and memory.
I can understand it that way but thats not how some suppose it. Then the words are misleading but some say god spoke.
gnostic
The Lost One
"I am" has nothing to do outside of one's body or mind, or outside one's ego.
And "self-awareness" has to do with looking at one's self, including his or her ego, not outside of one's self.
I don't know why idav and godnogod are twisting these definitions outside of an individual, to some imaginary "pure being".
...but then again, I have always not understood these flip-flop abstract philosophies, where up means down, left mean right, or black mean white, because they tends to give me mother-of-all migraine. :faint:
And "self-awareness" has to do with looking at one's self, including his or her ego, not outside of one's self.
I don't know why idav and godnogod are twisting these definitions outside of an individual, to some imaginary "pure being".
...but then again, I have always not understood these flip-flop abstract philosophies, where up means down, left mean right, or black mean white, because they tends to give me mother-of-all migraine. :faint:
godnotgod
Thou art That
I am (no pun) twisting nothing. My reference are the words spoken by Yeshu:
John 8:58
Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am."
Clearly Yeshu is speaking about his being as existent in the PRESENT, and not as a product of history, as Abraham is; not subject to birth and death, as Abraham was. Nor can he be referring to 'I Am" as being of his body or mind, both of these existing in time and space. Yeshu is referring to his eternal consciousness, that is unborn, and deathless. 'I Am' is not referring to the personal consciousness of the "I" which IS born and which DOES die, because it is temporal.
Thief has taken this and not only equated it with Descates cogito, but is using it to put words into God's mouth, ie: 'And God spoke and there was light', etc. He's just making things up to make the tail wag the dog.
The nature of Yeshu's statement is mystical, so it appears as a paradox, or even nonsense to you, but it is the mystical experience that perfectly mirrors nature. Paradox arises when the rational mind makes the attempt to understand nature.
godnotgod
Thou art That
Again, Thief is putting these words into God's mouth, making things up. The Bible is a mixture of allegory, myth, and bits and pieces from the real teachings of Yeshu. 'I Am' is part of Yeshu's original mystical teaching, but that God spoke and there was light, etc. is part of the allegory.
It is a common mistake to think that the statement "I Am" is referring to the "I" self; the ego; the personal self. It is not. It refers to eternal ego-less essence alone. The use of the word "I" is purely as a matter of convention, but meaning: "this statement is coming through this body-mind, not from it"
Why do you say so?
You mean to say that some impure awareness is the cause of recognition of "I" awareness in you?
.....
All this confusion is due to mis-application of Vedanta and Buddhism together.
In Buddhism, an atta is denied for the ever changing phenomenon but an existence-awareness is not denied for the unborn, which is awareness in us too. One cannot throw away the baby with the bath water.
Similarly, in Hinduism, the Atman-Brahman is meditated by a process called Neti Neti. Not this. Not this. One may refer to Vivekachudamani of Shankaracharya or "Who Am I?" Of Ramana to learn more, if one has any interest.
When through Neti Neti, all graspable 5 organs of knowledge such as eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin and 5 organs of action such as hands, legs, organs of generation and defecation, tongue (as a tool of word production), and the breathing and the brain are examined and found to be not the "I", what remains? That which is aware that all these listed items are not 'Me'. One is just this pure awareness. These organs and functions are falsely superposed on pure awareness, and The I is confused with these perishable things.
Shankara gave one example of a red hot iron ball to explain the concept of superposition. In a red hot iron ball, an ignorant may think that nature of heat is solidity and in this a double superposition is involved. The solidity of the iron is imposed upon heat and heat is confused to be a property of iron.
In shallow minds that have not examined and not experienced the pure ungraspable 'awareness' distinct from the instruments of conditioning such as eyes etc., this double superposition goes for the philosophy of non dualty. In such cases, the source and the products are clubbed together to claim advaita. In this process the MAyA products are claimed as real as Brahman, the source. Or, the indivisible Brahman is imagined as a conglomerate of many separate discrete things.
The Vedantic non duality is not that. First though a process of discrimination of Self and Non Self, the products are stripped away from the real "I", the source of all objects and the source of all illusion too. But once, the true object-less awareness is experienced as the Self, the Immortal Brahman is known.
The "i am" awareness is constant. In absence of this awareness, one would not be same person after waking up. One would not know that one slept peacefully.
I have repeated it enough times that this awareness is not known in sleep, because of lack of a second person, second sound, second color etc. etc. The awareness is not known to mind because it is contrast-less and homogeneous. It is timeless and bliss. It contains all seeds of sprouting that takes place in dreams and in waking.
Practise of meditation involves unravelling this indivisible awareness in fully awake condition.
The position of Vedanta is that this indivisible Self-Atman must be known. Knowing it theoretically is not knowing.
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godnotgod
Thou art That
False statements like this one is what is the source of confusion, which is your personal ax-grinding.
There is no separate Hindu or Buddhist realities that conflict with one another; such conflict exists purely within your own mind. The fact of the matter is that there is only One Reality, and it is neither Hindu nor Buddhist nor of any other doctrine. Only Zen is the purest teaching, which is a doctrineless doctrine, a 'finger silently pointing to the moon, but is not the moon itself.'
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I agree. Where can one find the source of all awareness, if not within one's own "I am"?
If the aware Being was outside oneself, then dogs would have eaten that long back.
Man, it is very revealing to find that one without a second brahman finds that atanu is grinding an axe.
Kindly examine your locus. Are you making all these posts as Brahman, which you claim to be the sole truth, even while exhibiting all symptoms of being situated in and acting from a dualistic mode?
(There is no axe to grind, man. That's fertile imagination).
godnotgod
Thou art That
I agree. Where can one find the source of all awareness, if not within one's own "I am"?
If the aware Being was outside oneself, then dogs would have eaten that long back.
It has been thoroughly eaten, as there is no such inside or outside.
I am arguing the term "I am" is misleading and I would personally avoid it. The term sounds like a personal type god or pan-en-theism.