Greg Goode: A Walk thru Embodiment

Here starts our investigation on the reality of embodiment:

Greg:

The notion that awareness is embodied or contained "here" versus "over 
there" is very persistent. We have thousands of years of conditioning 
on this, stretching back to the very roots of Western culture. So 
it's no surprise that a few e-mail messages wouldn't thoroughly 
address the issue. Often times, one must deeply examine the body 
itself and see how it is actually made out of sensations and 
perceptions and beliefs, which we could call thoughts or arisings. 
Because the body is experienced in this way, it too is made out of 
awareness.



Once you are able to experience the body as arisings within awareness, 
this turns things around. This begins to free you from the grip of 
the traditional model of awareness, according to which it functions 
inside an organism. That model is OK for biology class, but in 
self-inquiry one looks to see if it makes sense with our experience. 
And even biologists might be talking differently in few decades from 
today, who knows?



Experiencing how the body is made of feelings and sensations that 
arise to awareness, you can taste that awareness is not contained in 
the body. The normal model will have been set on its head. Awareness 
will be understood not to be experienced as being contained, not to be 
partitioned off into separate bubbles.



Experiencing the body as sensations and feelings (arisings in 
awareness), you will realize that an arising in awareness cannot 
partition awareness any more than a wave cuts the ocean in two. One 
can get a taste that awareness cannot be anything other than global 
and universal.



Let's dig into it a bit!



Question:


Advaita (nonduality) teaches that my true identity is Awareness. In 
this Awareness that I am, there is Awareness of certain thoughts 
occurring. There may also be Awareness of a Greg character or a Ken 
character telling me his thoughts. But there is no Awareness -- from 
right here -- of an actual thought of Greg or Ken.



So from the perspective of "this" Awareness, where "I" am sitting, the 
only thoughts that appear are what I call "my" thoughts. So to whom 
or what do the thoughts called Greg's or Ken's thoughts occur? What 
reality do they have?



Greg:


The main insight is this - all there is to Michael or Greg is a 
thought, feeling or sensation. Michael doesn't experience, he is 
experiencED. A thought cannot have thoughts. A feeling cannot have 
feelings. So Michael, as a thought, isn't the kind of thing to which 
thoughts can arise. Neither is Greg or anyone else. There are no 
separate "places" where thoughts occur. This is because these 
separate places themselves are nothing more than thoughts. And THAT 
to which thoughts occur is this sweet, global, clear, silent, loving 
background of witnessing awareness. This impersonal awareness is 
uncontained. Awareness can't be split up into pieces. What kind of 
substance would be used? What would fill up the gaps between the 
different parts of awareness? Certainly not skin and bone and air... 
Awareness, if it is anywhere, is everywhere.



This can be looked at in more detail.



If your identity is awareness, what is the relationship between 
awareness and you? Does awareness arise within you, or do you arise within awareness? And of course this awareness we're 
talking about is what the nondualist and Advaitin calls consciousness, 
or the I-principle. It is one single awareness, which is the sum and 
substance of all things.



Let's check the experience itself.

When a thought like:



"Mmm, chocolate ice cream!

"

arises, does the thought announce that it is arising to Michael? Does 
the thought carry a Michael(tm) logo or brandmark that claims where it 
comes from? Do you actually witness Michael serving as the owner of 
that thought?



Or does the thought arise to the silent background of witnessing awareness?
Of course there might be a subsequent thought such as



"The chocolate-ice-cream thought occurred to me."



This second thought seems to be making a claim about the ownership of 
the first thought. It seems to claim that the first thought was 
embodied. But was the embodiment of that first thought actually 
experience as the thought occurred? Do you directly experience the 
second thought's claim to be true?



And the second thought itself - when it arises do you experience this 
thought's being embodied? Or does it also arise to a background of 
clarity and silence?



This background or clarity and silence is the impersonal awareness to 
which all things arise.



So what is the relationship between me and this witnessing 
awareness, which is the background of clarity and silence?



So let's look at two possibilities, (A) and (B).



(A) Awareness arises within me.



If awareness arises within me, then it would make sense to say 
that it arises within Ken and Greg too. This is the usual story that 
we learn in school and soak up through growing up.



But if we look into the situation very closely, we'll find a few 
absurdities that aren't in accord with your direct experience. If 
awareness arises inside of a Michael-container and a Greg-container, 
then in a sense these containers would have to be outside of what they 
contain. This leads to the conclusion that in a sense Michael and 
Greg would have to be outside awareness. But how could anything be 
outside of awareness? And can anything even be experienced as outside 
of awareness? The very experience itself would prove that claim to be 
false. Because what is experienced is always within awareness, as 
awareness. Experience is another word for awareness.



And here's something like a sanity check for the notion that awareness 
is contained within personal containers:



If awareness were contained by the person, it would be contained 
inside a physical thing. Yet awareness is not physical! So how can 
the non-physical be contained within the physical?



In biology class and physiological psychology class, the (A)-model is 
used, but in self-inquiry it comes up for examination, and proves not 
to be proven by experience.



So let's look at (B).


(B) This person I am arises within awareness.

There are times when this person Iseems to be arising as an experience in 
awareness. When this entity is the object of the current thought, or when 
my memories are arising, or my values, goals and desires 
are arising. Or when I am shopping for clothes and looking at a 
new winter jacket in the mirror. Notice how this person does arise - as a 
thought or sensation or feeling. But these thoughts and sensations 
and feelings are not permanent. They come and go. Sometimes none of 
them is present!



As Sri Atmamanda says in Chapter 6 of Atma Darshan, from the very fact 
that the seemingly embodied self can arise to memory, it follows that 
its original seeming "embodiment" was merely witnessed in the first 
place! Embodiment is itself a witnessed thought, arising to awareness.



So there are times this "person" is present as an arising, and times when 
this "person" is not present.

That is, there are lots of times when "this person" is not experienced. 
Think of those times of being in "the zone" or of being totally 
immersed in a beautiful sunset. Or meeting another in love. Or 
beauty. Or deep sleep. These experiences are easy to see as times 
when this "person" we seem to be is not present, but awareness is not absent. Awareness 
is the silent clear loving background to which these things arise. 
Even though awareness isn't the kind of thing that can come and go, we 
can say that



--If this "person" arises in experience, awareness is there as the 
background to this experience.



--If "this person" does not arise in experience, awareness is nevertheless 
there as the background.



Awareness is never not there. And even if awareness were experienced 
to not be there, what is it that would know this or experience this? 
It would have to be awareness anyway!



So between (A) and (B), which seems to agree with your experience more fully?

In (B), awareness is prior to the person. The person is an arising or 
a thought within awareness. An arising can't have thoughts, nor is it 
our experience to ever witness an arising having thoughts. So the 
question of Michael's thoughts versus Greg's thoughts can come up only 
if we think that a thought can think....



Love,



--Greg