fresco wrote:Sorry, Ifeelfree, but that last post is pure speculation bordering on religiosity. Evidence may lie in the eye of the beholder but the consensus is that neither you nor anybody else is "self aware" during most of the night and that "the self"is often dissipated or (unaware) during much of the day!
To the extent that my words are based on my experience, they are more than speculation. The experiences may not persuade you, but since they are my experiences they are convincing to me. However, I agree that most people exhibit little self-awareness (during night or day). It takes a certain spiritual maturity to maintain consciousness of the inner Self during activity.
Quote:I have experienced "heightened awareness" in meditational states and they are characterized by loss of ego, not "self-awareness".
Loss of ego is the same thing as self-awareness. Ego is the identification of self with the body, mind, emotions, etc. Self-awareness is the dropping of that identification through experience of the higher Self, the undifferentiated absolute state of consciousness. So, your experience sounds right to me.
Quote:Claims for attaining "higher selves" familiar to readers of some esoteric systems tend to be tainted with spiritual elitism and are more likely to be the modus operandi of pyramid type cult structures rather than being reflective of "transcendental reality".
There are false claims by misguided individuals in the religious and spiritual literature, and there are certainly organizations which exhibit cult structures (to a greater or lesser degree). However, the experience of a heightened state of awareness and freedom from ego is not all that uncommon. There are many accounts of people who experienced this state as a result of tragic loss at some point in their lives. As a result of losing everything, or faced with the likelihood of their imminent death, they are left with nothing. Everything drops away and they are left with nothing but a sense of a sacred Presence, a silent Witness. However, it is not necessary to have such an extreme experience for this to happen. In deep meditation, or other spiritual practice, this experience can come spontaneously. I have practiced meditation for 33 years and I can tell you that I have had profound experience of pure consciousness, deep bliss, and awakening of the higher energy centers, or chakras. There are many others who have had these experiences, and more.
The error that skeptics make is that they deny the reality of these experiences because the experiences are subjective. They cannot be verified objectively, aside from looking at physiological correlates such brain waves, metabolism, etc., which is ambiguous. Nevertheless, the experiences are real. The analogy that I sometimes make is that it is like falling in love -- you don't need others to agree on the reality of your experience. You know that it is real. In the case of "falling in love", most people would not be skeptical because they know that such an experience exists and have probably had it at some points in their lives. In the case of spiritual experiences, they are less common, so that people are more likely to be skeptical.
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