Comments interleaved below. > > > Stein: > > > > > > 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*. > > > > Gillam: > > > > Initially, yeah, which is why we don't notice it. > > But with all this meditating and sidhis-doing, > > the mind cultivates the ability to entertain activity > > along with the silence. > > Stein: > > Yeah, but that's activity *along with* > the silence, not activity *of* the silence, > at least in terms of TM's CC.
And activity along with silence is fine. Here's my take, couched in TM language: When the mind is infused with Being, as Maharishi used to say, it functions as an extension of Being, or pure consciousness. It is Being made lively. Such a mind would be able to undertake the activity of discernment without judging. When does the mind judge? Keep reading. > Stein: > > I mean, when you get into Ramana-type self- > inquiry, that can be something bigger, but > garden-variety identification and judgment > of feelings and behavior--Why am I such a > disagreeable bastard?, as with Tolle--isn't > anything special (except in the sense that > it's *all* "special," which is what he > apparently realized). What intrigues me about Tolle's realization is something along these lines: Part of me recognizes another part of me as being a disagreeable bastard. But if I were entirely a disagreeable bastard, there would be no contrast, and I wouldn't see myself as such. A disagreeable bastard sees another disagreeable bastard as just an ordinary person, with no identifying marks. Because consciousness is at its source healthy and life-supporting, it provides a ground on which to discern that which is not so. Now, what's the source of the disagreeable bastard part of the mind? It's what motivated this thread at the start: the ego needs to prop itself up by generating thoughts about itself: I'm better than others, I'm a victim of others, I'm right, I'm a loser, I'm a disagreeable bastard, I'm a nice guy. What's important is not the quality ascribed to me, but the I-ness -- the illusion that I exist. The ego is illusory, created by the mind, and the mind is its tool. So it's like in the three days' checking notes: thought has two sources. One is this stress I'm calling the ego, and the other is the impulse toward growth. > > > Stein: > > > > > > 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? > > I'm not putting down Tolle's realization, > just for the record. The story didn't do > anything for me, but I'm guessing you got > a little whiff already, right? I'm trying to comprehend this dual nature of the mind, one part driven by the ego and the other by consciousness itself. I'm thinking Tolle's experience, for all its mundanity, hints at something profound for all of us, which is this: the mere fact that I can reflect upon my failings suggests I'm perceiving them from a standpoint that's blameless. > > > Stein: > > > > > > here's a famous passage from St. Paul that > > > hints at the same dichotomy > > (That particular quote is not what I'd call > an example of "the glory in Paul's thoughts," > except maybe insofar as he was willing to > show his messed-up side for the sake of others > who might think they were alone in their own > struggles. From that perspective, it's pretty > poignant.) Perhaps perceiving the poignancy is to perceive the glory. - Patrick Gillam P.S. This notion that the qualities of consciousness color perception explains why the decades go by so fast. We perceive time in our awareness, but awareness is timeless, so anything perceived against a ground of eternity will seem puny. 1 over googoplex is effectively zero, for you numerate types. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
