--- In [email protected], "Rick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Here is something from Shvetashvatara Upanishad IV.6:
>
> "Two birds of beautiful plumage, comrades Inseparable, live on the
> self same tree. One bird eats the fruit of pleasure and pain; The
> other looks on without eating."
FWIW, originally that's from Rgveda I 164 (asya-vaamasya-suukta,
"Rco akSare"; prolly one of the coolest suuktas in RV), verse 20:
dvaa suparNaa sayujaa sakhaayaa samaanaM vRkSham pari Shasvajaate |
tayor anyaH pippalaM svaadv atty anashnann anyo abhi caakashiiti
|| EN{1}{164}{20}
Literally, 'pippalaM svaadv atti' means something like
'eats the sweet fruit of the sacred fig-tree'
>
> It seems that awareness is necessary for thoughts to happen but
> thoughts are not necessary for awareness to happen. Awareness
> without thinking is still awareness of something, only there are no
> thoughts. Can't really think about it but I'm sure we have all
> experienced it.
>
> Rick Carlstrom
>
>
>
>
> --- In [email protected], "authfriend" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
> > --- In [email protected], "Patrick Gillam"
> > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > > > > off_world_beings wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Can anyone advise me on what to do when
> > > > > > I am arguing with myself?
> > >
> > > > > Patrick Gillam wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Eckhart Tolle ... was consumed
> > > > > by the thought that he couldn't stand himself (or a
> > > > > sentiment to that effect), which prompted a follow-up
> > > > > thought: if I cannot stand myself, it suggests there's a
> > > > > part of me that's observing that disagreeableness.
> > >
> > > > authfriend wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Wait. The silent aspect of his awareness
> > > > was observing his behavior, but was it also
> > > > making the judgment that his behavior was
> > > > disagreeable?
> > >
> > > Hmmm. I see what you mean, Judy. How's this:
> > >
> > > The Witness can discern whether thoughts are green
> > > or grey, pleasant or boorish. Discernment is different
> > > from judging.
> >
> > I've never been clear how the Witness can
> > discern, or discriminate, or differentiate.
> > That seems like a mental function to me.
> > I thought the Witness just *be's*.
> >
> > > The key point is, a witness exists.
> > >
> > > Not having the book here, I can't quote it. But here's a
> > > related thought, from Amazon's peek into _The Power of Now_:
> > >
> > > "The beginning of freedom is the realization that
> > > you are not the possessing entity -- the thinker.
> > > Knowing this enables you to observe the entity.
> > > The moment you start *watching the thinker*
> > > [emphasis his], a higher level of consciousness
> > > becomes activated."
> >
> > Mmmm...I'm still confused.
> >
> > > An aside: the non-judgmentalism of the witnesser may explain
why
> > purportedly
> > > enlightened people can be assholes. They have no motivation to
> > change because their
> > > relative personalities, jerks though they may be, are fine to
> the
> > non-judgmental Self.
> >
> > Well, but their relative personalities might
> > engage in self-criticism just as anyone's does.
> >
> > > As I unpack this notion, I suppose it's wishful thinking to
> ascribe
> > Off World's internal
> > > arguments to the dynamic Tolle describes. What about it, Off
> World?
> > Is your mental dialog
> > > nascent awakening, or schizophrenia?
> >
> > Can it only be either? Most people have mental
> > dialogs like this at times. Seems to me Tolle
> > bounced off a very common experience to come to
> > his realization. What's unsual is what he got
> > out of the experience, not the experience itself,
> > no?
> >
> > > - Patrick Gillam
> > >
> > > P.S. You just have to believe Rumi had some eloquent poem about
> how
> > each of us is two
> > > people, the thinking mind and the silent witness who takes it
> all
> > in. Can anybody here cite
> > > such a verse?
> >
> > No, but here's a famous passage from St. Paul that
> > hints at the same dichotomy, albeit expressed as a
> > magnificently messy tangle:
> >
> > For that which I do, I allow not: for what I would, that do I
not;
> > but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not,
I
> > consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I
> that
> > do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that
> is,
> > in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with
> me;
> > but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good
> that I
> > would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now
if
> I
> > do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that
> > dwelleth in me.
> >
> > I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present
> with
> > me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I
> see
> > another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind,
and
> > bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my
> members.
> > O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of
> this
> > death?
> >
> > I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind
I
> > myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
> >
> > --Romans 7:15-24 (KJV)
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