Interestingly, neither of you addressed my point about Xeno's paragraph, much less refuted it.
Xeno is obviously not a TM-TB. When he describes his own experience, he's clearly not "rehashing" Maharishi's teaching. But the paragraph I quoted from his post (below) is an instance of "Knowledge is different in different states of consciousness," the corollary to "Knowledge is structured in consciousness." ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <curtisdeltablues@...> wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <punditster@...> wrote : On 5/17/2014 8:11 AM, authfriend@... mailto:authfriend@... [FairfieldLife] wrote: The first paragraph here is a good example of what Maharishi meant by "Knowledge is structured in consciousness." > If a person is not conscious, there would for him be no knowledge of any kind, philosophical, religious, or scientific. This is not a matter of debate because everyone already knows it to be a fact of common experience. C: Agreed. This is the obvious part that makes the statement a circular definition like "awareness is being aware." R: If consciousness was just an epiphenomenon of the brain and the nervous system it would not be a fundamental of nature - it would just be an effect, not a cause. C: Yes and we have a lot of evidence for our awareness being affected by chemicals, so it is not primary to the brain's function. R: But, in the ancient Indian view, everything that exists - matter and material - arise from the field of consciousness. The brain is a product of consciousness, not vice-versa. C: This is where Maharishi's teaching gets squirrelly. He basically claims that both are true depending on his audience he emphasizes one or the other. To impress scientists he sounds like a materialist, to sound more woo woo for his followers he emphasizes consciousness. In symposiums he would often get caught in the middle of his attempt to run both views with embarrassing results. R:"This duality, which consists of subject and object, is a mere vibration of consciousness. Pure consciousness is ultimately objectless; hence, it is declared to be eternally without relations." - Mandukya Karika IV.72 C: I don't find that conceptually meaningful although it is nice poetry. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <anartaxius@...> mailto:anartaxius@... wrote : While alive, everybody has experience, consciousness. So 'something' is making the content of experience visible. There is always a 'witness'. The mind's interpretation of what this so-called witness is changes with practice (whichever one or ones are being used). The 24/7 kind of inner witnessing is one of those stages of change that many experience. My experience is that it basically evaporated, almost like it became a mist and soaked into the world of outer experience as if the outer world was a sponge and just vanished, that is, the so-called witness becomes identical with all other experience, with thought, objects, and action. So one cannot say 'I' am witnessing. At this point witnessing has no centre, no location, it is no longer like a receiver of experience, like an homunculus, like a little man in your head watching stuff. Descriptions and models of consciousness completely break down at this point, they are of no use because it is not possible to formulate a model that includes everything; the only thing that makes it intelligible in some way is the experience itself.
