Alex's journey to the source of consciousness

After an encounter with the unborn source of all things in May 2010, everything that I sense, feel, perceive or think is now clearly seen as a display of consciousness arising within consciousness. And this "I" cannot be found anywhere. To the most, it is a diffuse sense of existence.

Many tend to assume that this state is final. But it is only the first step. The real goal is to settle on a permanent basis at the very source of consciousness, beyond birth and death.

This thread will be dedicated to my exploration of the source of consciousness.

"
After an encounter with the unborn source of all things in May 2010, everything that I sense, feel, perceive or think is now clearly seen as a display of consciousness arising within consciousness. And this "I" cannot be found anywhere. To the most, it is a diffuse sense of existence.

Many tend to assume that this state is final. But it is only the first step. The real goal is to settle on a permanent basis at the very source of consciousness, beyond birth and death.

This thread will be dedicated to my exploration of the source of consciousness.

"

Awesome! And congrats!

Hi Alex,

This is great, I look forward to it. I guess some more about your encounter will follow.

"Many tend to assume that this state is final. But it is only the first step."

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Alex! I'm thrilled you'll be posting here frequently. Your is a voice that brings an authentically different perspective and that is a very welcome thing.

Best!

Hey Alex

I look forward to more. This level of discussion is one that is of the highest value. Please continue.

Adam.

It also appeared to be the very source of consciousness. And it seemed that I had always been That. This impersonal unborn source had projected countless beings living their lives through countless incarnations. Paradoxically, it was also clear that nothing had every happened.

Finally, I also realized that the sense of being, this very presence of awareness, was its first manifestation. At this point I really understood that the seeker is the sought. The whole spiritual path looked so simple and obvious that I couldn't stop laughing at my own stupidity. All these years, I had been like a fish crying for water in the middle of the ocean.

Eventually, it started fading down on the next day, but I knew that my ordinary consciousness was an emanation of the absolute, which was enough to know that it couldn't be lost. And a few days later, it clicked as a permanent state. Since then on thoughts and emotions stopped to stick as they used to and everything is seen or understood as being nothing more than appearances within consciousness. It has become a natural default state, even if the stress of everyday life may obscure it temporarily from time to time.

Thank you all for your kind comments.

To start with, I should maybe try to explain what I mean by the Source. To cut a long story short, I could say that I was totally absorbed in the fundamental koan "if you knew that absolutely nothing could possibly help you to gain enlightenment, then what do you do?"

At a point, I felt completely trapped. I could neither solve the riddle, nor could I back up and forget about it. My mind was is a bright state of unknowing. Then, I received an email from Alan Chapman (who had been coaching me through this) asking me "what's wrong with right now?" And it just hit me like an arrow. It then felt as if awareness was getting detached from its content and life started flowing on its own like a film. It was just like being pure experience, pure knowing, without an experiencer nor anything to experience.

At a certain point the totality of my experience felt like a projection from a deeper origin. This deeper place was apprehended as a pure potential beyond being and non-being, beyond time, beyond birth and death.

"
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Hi Alex,

Having just had a similar recent experience of perception shifting (so far) permanently to seeing everything being nothing more than phenomena arising and passing away within awareness itself where emotions and thoughts, formation of sense of self etc don't stick anymore and have nowhere to land, I was wondering, coming from more of a Theravada view point myself, is what you are describing something you would also term, 4th path/arahtship? Or is it something more to do with 3rd gear and making that a permanent state of being, or both?

Thanks,

Nick

I am very excited to see you starting this thread Alex. I think we will all benefit from your experience and your Zen background. I would imagine that you would have a slightly different interpretation of this event "Seeing your origional face" than the more Therevada "done is what needs to be done." They look very similar from the outside although some of your language is different. I would imagine this truly feels more like a beginning... completely off topic I have read you post about being in China I just have to bring it up cause I lived there from when I was 13 till when I was 18... Mostly in Beijing... : ) Its a cool place sans pollution, thanks to that dharma though I know that wherever I am is home ; )

"At a certain point the totality of my experience felt like a projection from a deeper origin. This deeper place was apprehended as a pure potential beyond being and non-being, beyond time, beyond birth and death."

Yes. I just described this at a meeting I had with two of the other posters on this site. My version of what you said above was couched in language I relate to as an IT person, but this source, a sort of singularity, is the core processor, the CPU, of mind. When it is not presented with some thing to chew on it can then become aware of itself and that is what we here have been calling non-dual awareness. "Pure potential" as a way to describe that recognition is similar, I think, to recognizing it as pure processing, waiting, without an object to process. I find it very interesting to see how various people describe this and comparing the versions is fascinating.

Thanks.

Nikolai-congratulations, wonderful! What I am describing as the Unborn source seems to be described in the Pali canon. The description of Nibbana as the unborn in the Udana VIII.3 comes to mind "there is, monks, an unborn -- unbecome -- unmade -- unfabricated'¦"

However, I only found practical information about what I am after these days in the teaching of Ramana Maharishi and Nisargadatta Maharaj. If the first stage of liberation (where we are now) has to do with non-dual awareness, the second and final step goes beyond consciousness (non-dual or not), dreaming and deep sleep (including cessation). More on this later'¦

Thanks Clayton. What I was describing as the unborn or the source seems to be related to the 8th stage of the Zen ox-herding pictures called "forgetting self and ox". It is followed by "returning to the source" (stage 9), which is what I called the natural state. The first non-dual experience called 'kensho' in Japan (seeing nature) is traditionally related to the 3rd stage "seeing the ox", where non-dual awareness is still seen as an experience somehow separated from our everyday reality.

However, returning to the source is only the beginning of the Bodhisattva path that will ultimately lead us to Buddhahood. What I understand is that the first momentary shift to the absolute leads to a state of abiding awakening, but it is only the beginning of genuine Ch'an practice-realization if we are to follow the tracks of the great masters of the past.

Nice to head to you know China so well. I will be in Beijing in two weeks and will then move down to Chengdu in Sichuan where I hope to be able to visit Linji's monastery.

Thanks Chris. Interesting. In the Mahayana they call it the Alaya-matrix. The CPU of mind is The Matrix ;-

Morpheus: "the Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth..."

In the room of the 5th Zen Patriarch, Huineng said something like "who would have thought that the Mind is the source of the myriad things" (Ming canon version of the Platfom Sutra).

Hi Adam. Nice to see you here. I often think about you my friend.
I am now presenting the background of what I am after, but more will follow.

Alex, I'm happy to see that you've started this discussion. I know that I will benefit from it tremendously.

It's so fascinating to me that what many consider to be the "end of the road" is really just the beginning. It isn't easy to find words to explain the process, but you seem to have a knack for it

Here's to staying on the path!
~Jackson

Thanks Alex - appreciate the warm welcome!

Adam.

Thanks Jackson. Yes, I am starting to discover that the real natural state stands beyond non-dual awareness, cessation and deep sleep. It's truly fascinating.

Non-dual awareness is total consciousness. This also will be gone at the time of death. But what we are is prior to consciousness. We cannot look for it because whatever we seek is necessarily an object of consciousness within consciousness.

But we don't have to look for the source because we are that already. All that is required is to investigate the totality of consciousness as a passive observer. Sinking deeper and deeper within our being, we gradually start to abide as its unborn witness. Even if we will never be able to see it, this cognizing emptiness is the source. Unborn and uncreated it cannot be destroyed.

"Non-dual awareness is total consciousness. This also will be gone at the time of death. But what we are is prior to consciousness. We cannot look for it because whatever we seek is necessarily an object of consciousness within consciousness."

Hi Alex.
We've been discussing life after death in Antero's thread. When you say "what we are is prior to consciousness," do you feel that you've been able to confirm, through your own experience, the existence of some kind of deathless ground of being? In other words, you came to this statement, not as a result of prior reading/study/conceptualization, but as a direct experience?
One of the questions that haunts me--I know that it shouldn't, because being haunted by questions is a distraction--is whether we can ever draw conclusions about reality based on our interior experience. I had always assumed that we could, and that the coming together of Eastern mystical traditions and Western science represented an optimal situation. Then I got into a long dialog with a materialist friend who argued that you can never make any judgments about reality based on your experience. He sees no value whatsoever in meditative inquiry if the purpose is to understand the nature of reality.
He said, "With perfect knowledge of neurobiology, we could induce all interior experience" and cited deja vu (said to be a clearly understood memory glitch) and the wild conclusions people draw when under the influence of hallucinogens, as examples of how our interior experience often leads us to false conclusions. I guess I'm asking you to settle "the controversy," however, which might not be fair!

Hi Joel,

You raise a very interesting issue. I must tell you that the fear of death has been a major drive that brought me to spirituality 22 years ago. Yes, it was a direct experience of what felt like the deathless ground of being (see point 5. above). Since then, the existential fear death seems to have left. But that is very personal and will never convince a scientist. To the most, these insights provide us with a kind of serenity towards to inevitable. Others might gain it through other means.

In a way, I am more on the side of science in the sense that I don't think that consciousness survives death. But on the other side, I am getting convinced that our core essence is beyond matter and consciousness.

I am also aware that if science has become the new universal religion providing meaning and material comfort in our lives since the industrial revolution, we must keep in mind that what was the absolute truth for the best scientists 100 years ago is now considered either naive, or plain wrong by today's scientists. Their claims must also be taken with a pinch of salt: if drugs can generate altered states of consciousness, but don't seem to produce saints, yogis and sages.

Ultimately, death itself will solve the controversy. But here also we will only get personal answers.

Thanks, Alex. Your point is an interesting one--you aren't asserting that "consciousness" is the ultimate IT.
Sloppy takes on this question, which I've been guilty of, will include references to a "universal consciousness" or some such. You can hardly blame a scientist for pointing to the clearly understood role the brain plays in all facets of our personal mind. I think Ramana Maharshi used the analogy of the radio--you can destroy the radio, but the signal is still present.

That's the idea, yes.

Hey Jeff

I have sympathy for the materialist argument. It is true that inference from personal experience is irredeemably problematic. See Bertrand Russell, English philosopher; not to mention mental illness; cognitive bias; errors in reasoning and attribution; problems in sensory perception etc.

I don't find the materialist argument compelling. Current science as we publicly know it has no proof of an intelligent order to things. However, that may not be true for the more abstract mathematics and indeed possible non-mainstream science coming out of Russia and military funded stuff. Who knows. Perhaps science as it currently stands is not sophisticated enough to detect that order. Perhaps one day science will. So there is no physical proof that we know of. Is that the only kind of proof we value? What epistemology are we operating from? Even if you could prove the existence of God or some intrinsic order and perfection to reality it more than likely would not result in personal enlightenment. In the end we would still need to directly realize it for ourselves. Right? We'd just be believing the good news and not tasting it for ourselves.

The absence of proof is not positive proof of a negative, right? As you have likely seen. Once one does see, one knows directly and irrefutably. That is enough. Having seen there is no compelling need to convince others. It is science and its epistemology or operational paradigm that feels the need to prove to others as part of its system of justifying knowledge - in order to meet its defining criteria for being able to call it knowledge. But we as mystics don't need to play that game - that's their game. Different paradigm.

In the end there can be no substitute for the real thing - direct recognition.

In kind regards,

Adam.

Amongst common popular superstitions that seem to be shared by a relatively high amount of hardboiled scientists is the belief that death will be like dreamless sleep. The problem is that the brain is still awake and active during deep sleep (non-REM sleep). This tends to validate the teachings of Buddhism and Vedanta according to which deep sleep would only be a particular state of consciousness characterized by blankness, dullness and the absence of memory.

Investigating the nature of deep sleep and '˜cessation', it appears that momentary cessations of consciousness are just blank states hiding (or revealing) a deeper reality.

What if deep sleep (or cessation) was just like the blinking of the Mind's eye? Why did the Buddha '˜blink' to demonstrate Treasury of the Eye of the True Dharma and Wondrous Mind of Nirvana?

To explain what I am after these days, I am actually trying to abide permanently beyond wakeful consciousness, dreaming consciousness and deep sleep.

Most Advaita teachers consider that the natural state of presence is final, but this is actually not the case, at least not for real Jnanis such as Ramana Maharishi or Nisargadatta Maharaj. The state where one stands naturally as pure consciousness beyond thoughts, emotions, feelings and sensations is only the first liberation.

From this wonderful state of non-dual awareness (or oneness), one must then take the totality of consciousness as an object to become its silent witness. This can be done during everyday life as well as during sitting practice. When consciousness itself starts to be witnessed as an object, it feels as if we are completely out of the game, abiding as a vast non-local emptiness cognizing the totality of consciousness within oneself.