Everpresent consciousness?

[Greg Goode]

At 11:10 PM 11/11/97 -0800, Jonathan Bricklin wrote:

>Nanda Kumar, like almost everyone, I imagine, says:
>
>"In deep sleep even the conciousness is absent."


>Is there anyone else out there who has had the experience of feeling like
>they were wrapped in a deep sleep except for the consciousness of staring
>at blackness?


Does this happen all the time in deep sleep, or only some nights?

> A week of this led me to question, as I did in a previous
>post, whether all blackouts, including deep sleep, are not actually
>black*ins*, in which the memory of all but the last moment is remembered.

I don't understand, could you please rephrase this one?


   "black*ins*, in which the memory of all but the last moment is remembered."


>At any rate I wonder if consciousness can ever be said to be truly absent.


Some teachers, such as Nisargadatta, use the words a bit differently.  He'd
say that awareness is always there, but consciousness comes and goes with
deep sleep, etc.  Awareness being that which watches the coming and going
of consciousness, even the creation/dissolution of universes.  These word
usages took some getting used to, but I'm now comfortable with the
Nisargadatta way of looking at things.  It's clear that for Nisargadatta,
awareness is Brahman.

Om!

--Greg