2009.01.27 19:00 - Is Consciousness Pure?

Tarmel Udimo was the Guardian on duty. the comments are hers. Several members came to the session along with some newbies. After the introductions, we started to talk about sensations vs feelings.

Tarmel Udimo: hi Celleon
Celleon Aboma: Hello Tarmel
Tarmel Udimo: how are you doing
 Tarmel Udimo: hi neela
Tarmel Udimo: have you been to PaB before
Neela Blaisdale: Hello Tarmel and Celleon, nice to meet you
Celleon Aboma: Nice to meet you too
Neela Blaisdale: Oh yes, I am a guardian also, just haven't ben around very much recently
Tarmel Udimo: ohh sorry...
Tarmel Udimo: yes we must attend different sessions
Neela Blaisdale: np, there's many of us now and many meetings so hard to keep up
Tarmel Udimo: yes
Tarmel Udimo: celleon's new
Neela Blaisdale: Welcome Cel
Neela Blaisdale: Are you familiar with the PaB exercises?
Celleon Aboma: Thank you. Its good to be here for a visit
Celleon Aboma: Not yet
Neela Blaisdale: Did you get the note from the information sign?
Celleon Aboma: Yes, I did
Tarmel Udimo: celleon's not new to meditation just new to PaB
Neela Blaisdale: well I think of the exercisies as using meditative techniques but with a different framework if that makes sense
Tarmel Udimo: can you say more about how you do this?
Neela Blaisdale: well when I mediate, I don't have a specific focus but when I do the PaB exercise, and by the way I'm still doing the basic 9 second of seeing as looking and then seeing as Being
Neela Blaisdale: I wouldn't exactly call it a focus but I am concentrating on the feelings and sensations of Being. Which is different in that I don't usually try to concentrate on anything when I meditate
Tarmel Udimo: hi susi
Tarmel Udimo: welcome
Neela Blaisdale: Hello Susi
Susi Alcott: sry I'm so late
Tarmel Udimo: there is no late in PaB :-)
Neela Blaisdale: Hello Doug
stevenaia Michinaga: hello
Celleon Aboma: Thank you Neela. we'll have to continue next time as I'm about to leave
doug Sosa: soorry for lateness.
Tarmel Udimo: hi doug and steven
Susi Alcott: Hello Tarmel, Celleon, Neela, dong and stevenaia
Neela Blaisdale: Hi Steve
Neela Blaisdale: Bye Celleon, nice to meet you and welcome
Neela Blaisdale: Hey Ade
Tarmel Udimo: hi ade
Adelene Dawner: Hiyo :)
Susi Alcott: hi Ade
Tarmel Udimo: how is everyone tonight
doug Sosa: i am fine but just finished a rush of things, powerpoint, get the fire lit, printing, and finished a painting..
Tarmel Udimo: gosh superman
stevenaia Michinaga: would love to see both
doug Sosa: i wish :)
stevenaia Michinaga: hi Ade
stevenaia Michinaga: :)
Tarmel Udimo: humm fire nice
doug Sosa: yes, and its cold and i let it go out as i was finishing up things.
Tarmel Udimo: :-)
Tarmel Udimo: neela do you mind if I share what you said about Pab earlier with the group?
Neela Blaisdale: Can't wait to see!
Neela Blaisdale: Sorry mixed an IM, no not at all
Tarmel Udimo: (Neela Blaisdale: well I think of the exercisies as using meditative techniques but with a different framework if that makes sense
[19:17] Tarmel Udimo: can you say more about how you do this?
[19:19] Neela Blaisdale: well when I mediate, I don't have a specific focus but when I do the PaB exercise, and by the way I'm still doing the basic 9 second of seeing as looking and then seeing as Being
[19:20] Susi Alcott is Online
[19:20] Neela Blaisdale: I wouldn't exactly call it a focus but I am concentrating on the feelings and sensations of Being. Which is different in that I don't usually try to concentrate on anything when I meditate)
doug Sosa: is there a difference between feelings and sensations?
Neela Blaisdale: well I think some difference, in that sensations I think of as related to the senses seeing, hearing etc but feelings as being more encompassing and also related to emotions
doug Sosa: thanks.
doug Sosa: I'd been thinking about it. Difference between feeling and emotion.
Tarmel Udimo: and what did you discover
doug Sosa: that was clearer to another than to me. he wanted it that feelings were active whereas emotions are something that more happens to us.
Tarmel Udimo: did you mean sensations = feelings?
Neela Blaisdale: I think of feelings as being more general- they can be sensations or emotions or even thoughts. Emotions = mad,sad, bad or glad and sensations = taste, sight, hearing etc
doug Sosa: tamel, nope.
Tarmel Udimo: one is automatic and the other emotions are generated by thoughts I think
doug Sosa: sensations, feelings, emotions.. gad how weak our vocab for such important stuff.
Neela Blaisdale: :)
Tarmel Udimo: yes not very clear unless put in context
Neela Blaisdale: of course one can also take the approach of why label any of it and try to strive for just being in the moment
Tarmel Udimo: :-)

We were then joined by a new comer and the discussion switched to the various meanings of God. 

Tarmel Udimo: hello blue welcome to PaB
Susi Alcott: Hi Blue
Neela Blaisdale: Hello Blue
Tarmel Udimo: is this your first time?
Blue Taurus: Hello all
stevenaia Michinaga: here, is this your first time here?
Blue Taurus: yes here
Tarmel Udimo: okay i will give you a note card and speak to you in IM so the group can keep chatting
Blue Taurus: Thank you
Tarmel Udimo: blue is happy to participate in our discussions
doug Sosa: we can at times be quiet. that kind of discussion too :)
Tarmel Udimo: smiles
Tarmel Udimo: susi's favourite :-)
Blue Taurus: Is this group based in vedic concepts?
Tarmel Udimo: how would we describe our group?
stevenaia Michinaga: it has been
Blue Taurus: I'm referring to "Play as Being". That's what we're really doing in RL too.
stevenaia Michinaga: we explore the nature of reality through our 9 second meditations
Tarmel Udimo: yes
Blue Taurus: I understand
stevenaia Michinaga: but we have discussed vedic concepts amoung others from time to time
stevenaia Michinaga: it all relates
Blue Taurus: I beleive in the idea that we are the "One" having the dream of the "Many"
doug Sosa: or, wonderfully, just about anything, trying to keep aware of the aware, so to speak.
Tarmel Udimo: in fact its funny that you asked becuase this morning I was looking up Adi Shankara, an Indian philosopher who consolidated the doctrine of Advaita Vedanta, a sub-school of Vedanta.
Tarmel Udimo: smiles at doug
doug Sosa: blushes
Blue Taurus: I'm familiar with that, but have been reading Balsekar
Tarmel Udimo: I was searching for a definition of 'god'
Blue Taurus: A Duet of One
Tarmel Udimo: yes
Blue Taurus: Pure Consciousness
Susi Alcott: _/!\_
doug Sosa: i don'd those guys much. too much "vocabulary" gets in the way of normal broadened awareness. Personal strategy.
stevenaia Michinaga: is there another kind?
doug Sosa: don't read...
Tarmel Udimo: okay
Tarmel Udimo: another kind of 'Pure Consciousness'?
Blue Taurus: If God were the Ocean, we are waves on the ocean
doug Sosa: pure consciousness to me is like space after water vapor has left..
stevenaia Michinaga: another kind of Consciousness? impure?
Blue Taurus: Destined to merge back into the ocean
Adelene Dawner: I was just about to ask that, Steve. ^.^
Squee: Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.
Blue Taurus: Pure consciousnes is the "I Am" realization
stevenaia Michinaga: there is just Consciousness, there is just Being
Tarmel Udimo: yes i guess i was looking for another description besides the ocean one
stevenaia Michinaga: there is just love
Tarmel Udimo: which is neither pure or unpure
stevenaia Michinaga: seems to be so
Susi Alcott: I 'got it'; this 'pure consciousness' to mean Love...
Tarmel Udimo: consciousness = love is a way for human's to connect emotionally with a state of being which is essentially emotionless
Susi Alcott: hm...may I disagree ...
Tarmel Udimo: please do susi ;-)
Blue Taurus: the path of love, or Bhakti, is a doorway to the Maha experience
Susi Alcott: what you was speaking about is not love...
doug Sosa: feels to me like algebra, A=B, which it doesn't or baby=aaay
Susi Alcott: it's other kind of 'thing'....
Neela Blaisdale: Sorry, I need to leave, good to see you all,
doug Sosa: I am being gracelessly mischievious tonight.
Neela Blaisdale: Bye all
doug Sosa: bye
Tarmel Udimo: nice talking to you neela
Tarmel Udimo: bye
Susi Alcott: _/!\_
Blue Taurus: nice to meet you
Tarmel Udimo: mischievious is gd
Blue Taurus: I like to think of myself as a container to be filled with God
Blue Taurus: sometimes I'm not so open, others more so.
Blue Taurus: It's hard to talk about, because I only have that experience when my mind is quiet
Tarmel Udimo: so it could be more a matter of already being filled with god
Tarmel Udimo: and learning how to stay open to that reality at all times
Tarmel Udimo: whether being quiet or not
Susi Alcott: imo there is always motion that connects people; no matter how light...
Blue Taurus: right, because in our most natural state..in silence and the unmanifested we are closest to God
Tarmel Udimo: not sure what you mean susi?
Blue Taurus: did you mean me?
Tarmel Udimo: sorry I understood what you said blue, i was trying to think of a response, it was susi I didn't quite understand
Susi Alcott: Tarmel Udimo: consciousness = love is a way for human's to connect emotionally with a state of being which is essentially emotionless
Blue Taurus: I think it can only be understood in meditation
Tarmel Udimo: yes?
Blue Taurus: If you mean emotions that are connected to ego... true
Susi Alcott: imo love is not the way...
Susi Alcott: the way is movement
Susi Alcott: sure I may miss now something for my lag in english
stevenaia Michinaga: say more about movement
Blue Taurus: what we think of as "love" here in this plane, is only a faint shadow of the real thing
Tarmel Udimo: yes I think that was my point that we all have different pathways to discover the reality of what is, for some it is what we call love - an emotion that eventually transcends and becomes devotion and then actual merging with the one bliss.
Susi Alcott: of the real love you mean ?
Blue Taurus: I think of bliss as a kind of sweet ecstasy
stevenaia Michinaga: but isn't bliss a state of body, where love is beyond the body
Susi Alcott: as I understood your sentence so that you ment the movement, which makes people to connect each other for motions
Susi Alcott: missing to be with
Susi Alcott: for example
Tarmel Udimo: yes?
Susi Alcott: will to take care of
Susi Alcott: will to help
Blue Taurus: I think our sensation of that has an effect on neurochemicals to make us "high" with love
Susi Alcott: those motions are not love
Susi Alcott: love does not either take to high = imo
Susi Alcott: grace, joy, happyness, delight
Blue Taurus: I think it is hard to talk about these concepts without first defining things to everyone's satisfaction
Tarmel Udimo: okay
Susi Alcott: they are devine motions that makes us 'high'
Susi Alcott: ah
Tarmel Udimo: yes we all seem to agree on that
Blue Taurus: I'm going to leave you all to your conversations, have a pleasant evening
Susi Alcott: dont take my words so huge serious
Tarmel Udimo: okay blue, well it was nice of you to drop in
Susi Alcott: sry
Tarmel Udimo: hummm I thought that's what we were doing, defining things :-)
Susi Alcott: ...that's how I thought too...
stevenaia Michinaga: well I must go as well, a nice snow storm coming
stevenaia Michinaga: and I must watch its beauty
stevenaia Michinaga: ty Ade
Tarmel Udimo: sounds lovely - and I must go out into the sun
Susi Alcott: _/!\_
Adelene Dawner: ^.^
Susi Alcott: so we can share the beauty of both
Tarmel Udimo: yes
stevenaia Michinaga: didn't want to launch you into the fountain when I got up
stevenaia Michinaga: :)
Susi Alcott: traveling with both of you with mind :)
stevenaia Michinaga: night all see you tomarrow night
Adelene Dawner: ^.^
Tarmel Udimo: thanks susi, i take you with me....
Susi Alcott: _/!\_
Tarmel Udimo: bye steve
Susi Alcott: ty Tarmel