emptybill, re your first paragraph: imo continuous mental recollection is NOT witnessing because recollection suggests that the object of awareness has occurred in the past. Witnessing is ongoing. I equate consciousness with awareness and agree with Maharishi that attention is a beam of such.
As for objectified, as soon as we begin talking about consciousness or awareness or Self, we turn them into objects. Such is the limitation of speech. But I would agree that even pure consciousness is intentional, engaged and objectified. I would add that it is at the same time, without intention, only virtually engaged and not only the object, but also the subject! On Friday, May 30, 2014 11:31 AM, "emptyb...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> wrote: Mindfulness is just a form of continuous mental recollection of the field of subjective experience – whether sensations or mentations, whether body, senses or mind. It can be quite exhausting as you suggest and probably is exhausting for many beginners. As a method for repeated refocusing of attention, mindfulness is an attempt to replicate the actuality of the witnessing value of awareness. The problem with that approach is that fundamentally, awareness is already witnessing every fluctuation of the mind (antah-karana/chitta), senses and bodily activity. That means awareness is awake to each experience as it arises, presents itself and perishes, although in itself awareness is uninvolved. Awareness is the who in “who we are” although we habitually and ignorantly identify ourselves as a body-mind personality. Something to note is the difference in meaning between the words “awareness” and “consciousness”. Awareness = vigilant or watchful; closely observant, alert or attentive Consciousness= the state of knowing an external object or a subjective perception Etymology: co/con/com (= with) + scîre (= to know) + ness (= state, quality, condition) By definition, the word consciousness means an “object-defined” attention - whether that object is material, sensory or mental. The word therefore signifies attention that is not only object oriented but inherently “objectified” by its own operations, functioning and nature. Thus the obvious question what is “pure consciousness” (i.e. without an object). Is it the opposite of impure Consciousness? If indeed “impure consciousness” means attention to an object, then any attention to a mantra is “impure”. If the adjective “pure” is added to the word “consciousness” to signify a type of simple or unmixed consciousness, then by definition it still signifies a consciousness that is intentional, engaged and objectified. The rest is just bullshit, bullshit, swaha.
