Links' lounge

[Links]

Welcome to my lounge (ok journal if you prefer), feel free to visit and stay a while, even to join in the conversation if you wish, or just chill and read. 

 
I just saw this post from Phil and it brought up some ideas that've been rolling round in my mind these last few months. 

"Levels & states of consciousness is rhetoric and in this case conjecture." 
 
https://community.actualityofbeing.com/topic/60-my-thoughts-of-leo-and-actualizeorg-what-do-you-think/page/66/
 
It all started back in December in another forum far away, when I had a little exchange with Phil. I'd rather unfairly commented that a post of his was a little cryptic and proceeded to explain my studies into Diana Winston's Spectrum of Awareness practice with its 3 different types of awareness. Naturally, he came right back at me calling my ideas cryptic and confusing. 
 
 I deserved that of course (sorry @Phil ), but ever since I've been contemplating by observing the structure of my awareness. I mean, schools of meditation often describe different qualities of awareness like attention, focus, unfocus. Diana calls it focused awareness, choiceless awareness and natural awareness. Or Culadasa (John Yates) in The Mind Illuminated: focussed attention and peripheral awareness. I still see that as a correct and useful perspective; I can pay attention to something as a part of my field of awareness, such as the breath, the words on the page, another person etc. That's a way of creating the distinctions within the whole field of consciousness which create 'things'. When I pay attention to reading the text (holding it in the centre of my vision), the rest of the room fades out of focus into the background, the periphery.  
  
I have also made some posts about 'pointing', where words point to the object of their meaning. Bringing these together, I had a sudden observation that my awareness is in fact often structured with a directionality. Call it states if you like, but when I think thoughts of me, inner self, mind, consciousness, subjectivity etc, then awareness is pointing inwards. Conversely, when I think thoughts of the world, physicality, others, the outer, objectivity, etc then it's awareness pointing outwards.  Is this the difference between object/subject?  

 

When awareness is not pointing either way, then it's in the nondual or mystical state of wholeness. As this is still a work in progress, I've not yet had a clear view of awareness pointing in both directions at the same time. I'm not yet sure if that's possible or not, or whether it rapidly alternates to create the illusion of a separation between self & other, but I'll keep looking.

Edited May 13, 2022 by Links

[Faith]

1 hour ago, Links said:

Welcome to my lounge (ok journal if you prefer), feel free to visit and stay a while

 

Hey, thanks!