Originally posted by Thusness:
Embrace arising and subsiding. Embrace conscious, pre-conscious and
unconscious. When we hold to the understanding at the conscious
level, we cannot see the workings of pre-conscious and unconscious
level. By so doing, we discriminate unknowingly. We divide the
undivided.
There is no way to pin our nature into a certain state. Neither
conscious, pre-conscious nor unconscious is it. To experience the
beauty when the conscious isnt there, be it. To have insight
into our nature is to be whatever and whenever condition is
Just simply thus. The cognizing mind cannot know, only Thus come
and go alone knows. 
Hi all, just sharing an article:
Constant Consciousness
Constant Consciousness
By: Ken Wilber
"That which is not present in
deep dreamless sleep is not real." -Ramana Maharshi
Sitting here on the porch, watching the sun go down. Except there
is no watcher, just the sun, setting, setting. From purest
Emptiness, brilliant clarity shines forth. The sound of the birds,
over there. Clouds, a few, right up there. But there is no "up," no
"down," no "over," and no "there"-because there is no "me" or "I"
for which these directions make sense. There is just this. Simple,
clear, easy, effortless, ever-present this.
I became extremely serious about meditation practice when I read
the following line from the illustrious Sri Ramana Maharshi: "That
which is not present in deep dreamless sleep is not real."
That is a shocking statement, because basically there is
nothing-literally nothing-in the deep dreamless state. That was his
point. Ultimate reality (or Spirit), Ramana said, cannot be
something that pops into consciousness and then pops out. It must
be something that is constant, permanent, or, more technically,
something that, being timeless, is fully present at every point in
time. Therefore, ultimate reality must also be fully present in
deep dreamless sleep, and anything that is not present in deep
dreamless sleep is not ultimate reality.
This profoundly disturbed me, because I had had several kensho or
satori-like experiences (glimpses of One Taste), but they were all
confined to the waking state. Moreover, most of the things I cared
for existed in the waking state. And yet clearly the waking state
is not permanent. It comes and goes every twenty-four hours. And
yet, according to the great sages, there is something in us that is
always conscious-that is, literally conscious or aware at all times
and through all states, waking, dreaming, sleeping. And that
ever-present awareness is Spirit in us. That underlying current of
constant consciousness (or nondual awareness) is a direct and
unbroken ray of pure Spirit itself. It is our connection with the
Goddess, our pipeline straight to God.
Thus, if we want to realize our supreme identity with Spirit, we
will have to plug ourselves into this current of constant
consciousness, and follow it through all changes of state-waking,
dreaming, sleeping. This will: 1) strip us of an exclusive
identification with any of those states (such as the body, the
mind, the ego, or the soul); and 2) allow us to recognize and
identify with that which is constant-or timeless-through all of
those states, namely, Consciousness as Such, by any other name,
timeless Spirit.
I had been meditating fairly intensely for around twenty years when
I came across that line from Ramana. I had studied Zen with
Katigiri and Maezumi; Vajrayana with Kalu and Trungpa; Dzogchen
with Pema Norbu and Chagdud; plus Vedanta, TM, Kashmir Shaivism,
Christian mysticism, Kabbalah, Daism, Sufism... well, it's a long
list. When I ran across Ramana's statement, I was on an intensive
Dzogchen retreat with my primary Dzogchen teacher, Chagdud Tulku
Rinpoche. Rinpoche also stressed the importance of carrying the
mirror-mind into the dream and deep sleep states. I began having
flashes of this constant nondual awareness, through all states,
which Rinpoche confirmed. But it wasn't until a few years later,
during a very intense eleven-day period-in which the separate-self
seemed to radically, deeply, thoroughly die-that it all seemed to
come to fruition. I slept not at all during those eleven days; or
rather, I was conscious for eleven days; or rather, I was conscious
for eleven days and nights, even as the body and mind went through
waking, dreaming and sleeping. I was unmoved in the midst of
changes; there was no I to be moved; there was only unwavering
empty consciousness, the luminous mirror-mind, the witness that was
one with everything witnessed. I simply reverted to what I am, and
it has been so, more or less, ever since.
The moment this constant nondual consciousness is obvious in your
case, a new destiny will awaken in the midst of the manifest world.
You will have discovered your own Buddha Mind, you own Godhead,
your own formless, spaceless, timeless, infinite Emptiness, your
own Atman that is Brahman, your Keter, Christ consciousness,
radiant shekinah-in so many words, One Taste. It is unmistakably
so. And just that is your true identity-pure Emptiness or pure
unqualifiable Consciousness as Such-and thus you are released from
the terror and the torment that necessarily arise when you identify
with a little subject in a world of little objects.
Once you find your formless identity as Buddha-mind, as Atman, as
pure Spirit or Godhead, you will take that constant, non-dual, ever
present consciousness and re-enter the lesser states, subtle mind
and gross body, and re-animate them with radiance. You will not
remain merely Formless and Empty. You will empty yourself of
Emptiness: you will pour yourself out into the mind and world, and
create them in the process, and enter them all equally, but
especially and particularly that specific mind and body that is
called you (that is called, in my case, Ken Wilber): this lesser
self will become the vehicle of the Spirit that you are.
And then all things, including your own little mind and body and
feelings and thoughts, will arise in the vast Emptiness that you
are, and they will self-liberate into their own true nature just as
they arise, precisely because you no longer identify with any of
them, but rather let them play, let them all arise, in the
Emptiness and Openness that you now are. You then will awaken as
radical Freedom, and sing those songs of radiant release, beam an
infinity too obvious to see, and drink an ocean of delight. You
will look at the moon as part of your body and bow to the sun as
part of your heart, and all of it is just so. For eternally and
always, eternally and always, there is only this.
Material in this column appears in One Taste: The Journals of Ken
Wilber, from Shambhala Publications Inc., Boston. Copyright Ken
Wilber, 1998.
Constant Consciousness, Ken Wilber, Shambhala Sun, January
1999.
