Nisargadatta is using the words awareness and consciousness in specific, technical ways. In his view consciousness is a sub-property of awareness. Awareness is pure being, and consciousness 'emerges' from that. Much in the same way M said 'when pure consciousness becomes conscious', or something like that anyway. So whatever definition you might have in your head, to read Nisargadatta, you need to scope out how he is using the words in his context. You have to be conscious to notice awareness, but consciousness is dead without awareness, awareness is the essential aspect or property of being. Consciousness is the expressed character of awareness. When you become Brahman, this is what you experience, you cannot know this before then. In speaking this way, dividing experience into such layers, Nisargadatta, like any teacher, is getting the student to attempt to enquire more deeply into their own experience to see if this is so, or not so. If you see it is so, you do not need to think about it any more for your own use, because it is a teaching fiction designed to clarify the intellect during enquiry.
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <noozguru@...> wrote : You can't have awareness without consciousness. Without being conscious there is nothing to be aware of. On 03/19/2015 11:19 AM, Duveyoung wrote: Q: But when you look at yourself, what do you see? Nisargadatta: It depends how I look. When I look through the mind, I see numberless people. When I look beyond the mind, I see the witness. Beyond the witness there is the infinite intensity of emptiness and silence. Edg: This is the constant teaching of Nisargadatta throughout his talks: awareness is not consciousness.
