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Jay asked: And as we become aware,
what do we do then?

Jan provided: The top-ten of
enlightened activities:
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1: Set up a website
2: Give in to every subtle desire as
all desires have
become enlightened.
3: Invent a crunchy jargon to impress both lays and
seekers.
4: Start teaching to non-existing "others".
5: Write books to help non-existing "others".
6: When not married, marry as it will add "naturalness,
maturity and credibility" to the realization.
7: Only when the above fails, take a try at moksha,
unless at 40+ age.
8: When even that fails, appoint yourself as Sat Guru for
the world at large.
9: Continue to live "normally" as if nothing happened.
10: When even lays start recognizing "bliss radiating
from you", blame it on Reiki practice; it's better for
both peace and business.

Phil adds (with blessings): Who needs to know?
Jay does not become aware, has never become aware, will
never become aware. It is in Awareness that "Jay" appears
to become this or that.
"What do we do then?" --We-- is a very awkward
expression and not really precise. "We do" is really "I
do" but you do nothing. When "you" is seen as fiction
the appearance of doing may or may not persist, but it is
seen as more like impersonal functioning.

Dan says: Nonmoving infinitely deepening movement is the
"reasonless reason" for human being, for "apparently
individual" nonindividual awareness. In fact, it is so
much the reason, that we can't help doing it. We all are
involved in this deepening nonmoving movement.
To see this is to see beyond thought, although thought
can still function (and does).

In fact, all that we consider "our experiencing" is
past. How
far past, how long ago? Who can say? Only the Word is
infinitely
present. And in that Word is life. Music, art, stories,
lives - all
from, of the Word. Our lives are stories of the Word.
Our nonverbal
awareness, our feelings, are as much from the Word as are
our thoughts.

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. There is nothing new
under the sun.
And that is the beauty of our lives. Only the Word is
new, and it
is ever-born, this moment. Awareness, thought, and
meaning "come together" in this Word.

Pain has a function in life, as does pleasure. It is the
psychological
attachment/identification with painful and pleasurable
images that
leads to bifurcation in consciousness. The body staying
alive
until it doesn't is no problem, and pain and pleasure
play their
part in that. You are merely talking about a pin here,
but stick
your hand in a Waring Blender and you will withdraw it.
Then,
intellectualizing about no pain being felt will be "seen
through" ;-)
The pain is felt, the body reacts, yet no one has an
existence as the
separate experiencer of pain. As pain and pleasure are
sensations,
and as movements occur resulting from these sensations,
pain and
pleasure have a relative reality and function. As pain
and pleasure
don't infer an existent entity, reality is ultimately not
definable
in terms of pain/pleasure or the body-mind system.
Awareness as
reality is in no way constrained, involved, or attached
into the
body-mind's reactivity and constellations of internal
images.
The inside/outside dichotomy is interpretive, is
definitive
in a conditional sense only, not "ultimately" definitive
of reality,
including "mind-body" reality.

The body-mind system can function without interpreting a
being
in here opposed to separate other things "out there".
The point
where inside/outside meet is the point where each defines
the
other. It is at this "point" that identification with/as
body-mind
image constellations ends. All of these constellations
are
organized around a hypothetical center that is inside
observing
out. Without identification, the body-mind can function
as
"programmed" - live out its life. Awareness simply isn't
attempted
to be located "in" it.

What seems from here to cloud the viewing of awareness is
not just
intellectualization. It's emotional reactivity
based on images of threat and images of something
desired.
Deep-rooted experiences of hurt and threat are associated
with
these images. So, from here, it appears that simply
"ending one's identification" with
intellectual thinking, even with conceptualization,
allows
awareness as such an "opening". Full expression of
awareness (without
being "caught" in dichotomized images) further involves
resolution of
the image-associated identifications that involve
reactivity.

Said simply, memories of shock, hurt, violence,
intrusion,
etc. formulate into images that seek avoidance and
self-protection.
As I see it, this is a "natural human process," not
merely
intellectualization. I believe it occurs prior to
intellectual
cognizing, quite possibly with birth and even in utero,
and continues after and with intellectual cognizing.
Of course, such bifurcating process of consciousness can
easily occur
(in "rarified form") along with pursuit of a "spiritual
path"
(as long as there is the identification with avoiding
undesired states and
outcomes, and to have idealized states and outcomes). To
relinquish these
(generally unconscious) formulations around pain, threat,
self-assertion
and self-protection involves work of awareness "at its
depths"
(or whatever metaphor you prefer).

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