| Subject: How exactly am I Consciousness? |
Author:
Chris
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Date Posted: 13:41:16 03/23/01 Fri
In reply to:
Chris
's message, "Do you ever experience perceptual fusion with phenomena?" on 12:56:34 03/23/01 Fri
Consciousness = Identity + Relatedness
The Identity of Consciousness transcends but includes the feeling of me-ness that characterizes the indiduating soul identity.
Consciousness stands prior to the feeling of me-ness, because I am aware of my soul-nature as the feeling of me-ness, and in this sense it is distinctly locatable within the all-pervading field of Consciousness.
If the soul identity is the feeling of me-ness, then Consciousness is the sense of am-ness: of being here AS everything: "everything is here" ("and I AM everything").
So there is a fundamental distiction to be made (along the unbroken continuum of Consciousness) between the feeling of AM-ness, which is Consciousness, and the feeling of me-ness, or Chris-ness, which is my soul-self.
AM-ness transcends and includes me-ness. This is the difference between Consciousness and the soul-nature.
AM-ness is not an object to my awareness: it is the inherent feeling of my awareness itself, and this feeling of AM-ness, or this feeling of Being, becomes increasingly self-evident and recognizable to itself without ever becoming an object to my awareness.
"Perceptual fusion with phenomena" is experienced as a direct connection with the lamp on the table in the field of unbroken AM-ness (rather than in the field of individuated me-ness).
This feeling of AM-ness that is the field of Consciousness is the field of Identity itself.
The raw, actual "content" of Identity is Conscious Awareness.
Question: If Identity is Consciousness, wouldn't Consciousness contains a feeling of being a person, of being a being, of being here with all the awareness that constitutes our sense of having a living personal self?
OR: Is the sense of having a living, personal self in fact an attribute of the individuated soul nature?
Question 2: Is the field of the personal the field of individuating me-ness?
OR: Is Consciousness personal, in the sense that it is where I find myself to exist in my central self, prior to my lifetime history and memory?
This is where I stumble: in distingishing if Consciousness is always this sense of personhood, or if personhood is one of the things that manifests within Consciousness, but Consciousness shines beyond even that (I suppose as the White Heat?).
These question are important to me in determining precisely how I am the Self of Consciousness, and in what manner I am continuous with phenomena. If I say that phenomena are myself, am I saying that they are continuous with my Conscious Identity, or am I saying that they are continuous with my soul nature? This is important, because saying "myself" seems likes it's ambiguous, depending on the context in which I'm saying it. It can mean either the Identity of Consciousness or it can mean the soul's individuated "I".
Another question: Is the feeling of me-ness the same as the feeling of Identity at its root?: do the two share the exact same Identity, with the difference simply being that the soul-self is Consciousness identifying with the body?
(I hope so.) If so, then the personal quality of Consciousness I have (the personality) would an attribute of the conscious psyche, and not Consciousness per se.
Which means that Consciousness by itself is not personal.
Being conscious itself is not the same as having a personality, a sense of "Chris" with the life of Chris. Having a personality and being a person altogether are attributes of the whole body-mind-psyche-Self.
So if Consciousness is impersonal, then what does it mean to be Conscious?
WHY THESE ARE SUCH CRUCIAL QUESTIONS FOR ME:
As a broken soul, I have discovered that in order to survive my early life-wounds, I related to others without a self, hysterically mirroring the other. Now, as I sink into total exhaustion, I find my self to be hiding in this exhausted space, where I feel myself to be here, as an individuated self relating to others.
Clarifying what exactly makes Consciousness Conscious is so crucial for me because I am at the same time locating my reality as a self. And I have to know exactly who I am as a self, as for so long I have orbited my body selflessly to survive the world and my terror of the other.
What is this self I am discovering? Is it my entire body-mind-psyche-Self that feels so present? I suppose it is. But how do I account for my conscious identity? That is itself impersonal, but continuously non-separate with my very personal body.
My indivudated, personal soul-self to date is a broken soul: I developed a way to survive being here by not engaging others with a feeling of having a self. I orbited my body and numbed my core, which from early on was surrounded (and protected) by layer upon layer of absorbed rage and terror.
In my exhaustion, I am discovering a continuity of selfhood that is rooted, complete, whole, and real. Well, I really don't know quite how to read this feeling of selfhood: is it more an aspect of Consciousness, or is it my whole organism gelling in Consciousness? I suppose it's both, but I have to articulate this question.
I've suddenly found I have a self, but it's so unfamiliar that I don't know what it is I've found. It's a native confidence in my own selfhood, but it seems so foreign in a way, and I'm secretly afraid it will be taken away (though a lot less afraid then I was six months ago).
I want to know if this feeling of selfhood is more Consciousness or more Chris: Identity or me-ness.
And I want to know if that state of perceptual fusion with phenomena in which the lamp felt like my long-lost relative was my dreaminess or an actual sensation.
Love,
Chris
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