Everpresent consciousness?

[egodust]

Ram Chandran wrote:
> Jonathan Bricklin <brickmar at EARTHCOM.NET> 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? ......................
> > At any rate I wonder if consciousness can ever be said to be truly absent.
> > Regards,
> > Jonathan Bricklin
>
> Greetings Jonathan:
>
>  The answer to the question depends on our definition of consciousness.
> We experience deep sleep in most of the nights without we noticing it!
> Who is the experiencer? It is not by body, mind or intellect? Hence the
> question is beyond intellect!  What Nanda Kumar really says is that the
> intellect is completely absent during the deep sleep time. The presence
> or absence of intellect does not negate the consciousness! On the other
> hand any negation of the intellect confirms the presence of
> Consciousness!
>
> Regards,
> RamChandran
>

I agree unequivocally.

The last statement may be difficult for some to understand in terms
of how or whether the consciousness *independently* survives upon
negation of intellect.  What can possible negate intellect except
intellect itself?  Even though it always has consciousness as its
substratum, nevertheless its process of negating can be logically
considered to yet uphold its own existence because nothing other
than itself is really acting; and thus remains functional.  This
really relates to the phenomenon of the witness, and the fact that
it is perrenially rooted in relativity.  How so?  Consider:
Whatever conceivably relates to the relative plane is arbitrary,
expendible, and subject to change.  Upon careful analysis,
the capacity to witness, on any conceivable level, is seen to
fall into this category.  Therefore the presumed witness cannot
be itself the brahmajnani, but rather a projection that emanates
from it.  Thus it may be referred to as the sagunabrahmajnani,
in the same sense as is the egocentric jiva, or any other
name/form in spacetime.

This is why contradictions can be found among jnanis.  Because
whatever may be asserted about a given thing--especially with
respect to philosophical ideas re characteristics of awareness,
limits of knowledge, or states of being--is invariably a polarity
and therefore a relative projection, and consequently limited.

Namaste.

_______________________

"There are no answers
       because
there are no questions."
_______________________

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