Irmeli: It puzzles me also, why people, when they stop identifying the 'I' with an image of one's personal self, say there is no 'I' anymore.
Peter:Because no "I" or psychological sense of "me" is present. It can't be found. When people (in avidya) say "me" they are refering to a sense of separate individuality. An abstract, felt-sense of "me-ness" that is private and distinct from others' "me-ness". Irmeli: The `I' is the subject, who feels, sees, interprets and evaluates situations, makes meaning, uses concepts like enlightenment in communication, relates to others, is in dialogue with others. Peter: Yes, this is all true in avidya. It is a phenomenological reality. "I" exist, "I" think, "I" feel, "I" interprate and evaluate, "I" make meaning. There is always, except in deep sleep, this underlying sense of "I". Irmeli: The fact that something is being perceived is based on subject/object dualism. The perceiver is subject, the perceived is object. The `I', the subject, cannot see itself. If it can, there is an error in perception. Peter:All this is true in waking state/avidya. Irmeli: The subject can see only something that is object to itself. In enlightenment this error vanishes. And another error seems to appear, the idea that there is no `I'. Peter: No, it is not an error. You are extending waking state logic into realization and it falls apart there. In realization no individuality or sense of "me" can be located. There is thought, there is feeling, there is everything just like waking state, but there is no "I" or "me" present. It just can't be located! People say your name as if refering to a "you," but there is no "you" present. This "I" is a delusion created by the identification of pure consciousness with bound mind. Consciousness projects into and identifies with a subjective object and assumes the limitations of that object. Patanjali's metaphor of the crystal gem assuming the color of whatever it is placed on works well. The crystal appears to be colored. I mean, damn boy, I can see that it's colored! That's the phenomenology of waking state. But consciousness is not bound by any object even when it appears to be bound (hence the you're already enlightened rap). The initial stage/condition of liberation is this cessation of projection/identification of counsciousness with objects of experience. Once counsciousness "pulls back" into itself there is no longer any identification occuring and hence no boundary or relative limitation to consciousness. Full awareness, but no "I" to lay claim to be doing anything. There is nobody home, but all the lights are on and everything is working just fine. That sense of "I" is just a very subtle thought. Self-inquiry will reveal this. Irmeli: If you are enlightened, I clearly am not, because I have difficulties to understand you. I have never felt a glimpse of the kind of reality you are speaking about and don't miss it either. Are you meaning that enlightenment means to you another state of consciousness like waking state, dreaming and sleeping. You just have one more state appearing on daily basis: enlightenment? In TM doctrine it had an other name I just now cannot recall. I have referred to enlightenment as a permanent stage of awareness, that includes waking state, dreaming and sleeping. Following our birth we humans evolve through different stages of awareness. When a higher stage unfolds the qualities of the old one are not lost, they are included in the new one. The new stage is just more encompassing. What was ultimate in the earlier stage is not anymore. A new more encompassing ultimacy has appeared. Some aspects and structures that earlier were embedded in the `I' and hence unseen to it, can now be looked at, and is available as a tool to work with. Yes and this all appears just in the relative, but more and more subtle and powerful aspects of the relative unfold to us this way not only in the area objective science, but also in the subjective structures of the mind as tools and capacities and as cognition. I claim that everything we can feel and be aware of appears in the realm of the relative. The concept of the absolute is an intellectual cognition of the mind. I have come to the conclusion that people tend to call absolute some experienced states that are very subtle relative to their predominant waking state. When you get more familiar with those more subtle levels, you see that it is full of life and evolving also. I also claim that everything that appears to the cognition is cognised only because there is a subject who is capable of feeling the unbounded experience. In states that have not become permanently lived stages it appears as if there is no `I', because it is so subtle compared to the `I' of the prevalent stage. For me as long as we in communication need the concepts I, you etc., it is a serious error of intellect to claim there is no `I' in one's subjectively lived reality. We are in no way separate or isolated entities from each other. We cannot live isolated from connections to others gross or subtle. The `I' not to be there could be true in a culture only, when there not in the language exists the concept `I'. The reality of animals comes close to it. In this scenario there is of course the problem, that how to define the lowest stage on the ladders of consciousness evolution, that you could call enlightenment? When our scientific age began, it was called the age of enlightenment. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/JjtolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! 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