Theos-Talk Archives (October 1998 Message tt00148)

[DALLAS:]
>Consciousness to me implies awareness of "other" 
>as well as awareness of "self."   Awareness implies 
>"difference."  It also implies a separation that is able 
>to see correspondence and allegory or similarity -- 
>as well as differences.

The awareness of self and other is called dualistic consciousness
and this is what we experience in the cosmic planes of manifestation,
which the Mahayana call maya. This dualism is especially noteable
below the Abyss, which is to say on the four lower planes and 7 lower
Globes. Its a characteristic of the human mind. But this kind of
consciousness/awareness can be transcended. It disappears, for
example, in non-dualistic consciousness where self and other merge
into one. 

Awareness "of" something implies difference because the "of" is
always either the self or I or the not-self or not-I.  But whatever we
are aware "of" (and this constantly changes over time) awareness 
itself always remains. We are always aware. What we are aware
"of" depends on what plane we are functioning on. While our
sense of identity and our sense of world constantly changes, 
consciousness itself remains the same, unchanged, undiminished, 
eternal. 

In a Jungian sense, we are normally focusing consciousness
through the lens of the ego (dualism) or other complex and only 
rarely do we focus it through the archetypal Self (non-dualism). 
But even Jung had trouble with pure consciousness itself. It is 
not brain-dependent or chemical-dependent although its 
Contents are. Patanjali calls it the Seer. It has lots of names but
modern psychology is still grappling with it.

Jerry S.