To No 66: U.G. Krishnamurti’s statement that ‘any ‘freedom’ is an illusion’ is a statement based on his own illusionary freedom and merely goes to show that he has yet to find a non-illusionary actual freedom – a freedom from one’s social conditioning as well as one’s genetically-encoded instinctual passions.

No 45: She does not discus the statement. The statement is ‘A priori’ wrong. It in not in the line of actual freedom. <…> At least U.G is authentic, speaks out of his experience and not out of believing, because if I had never taste sugar and I am saying that is a nice thing, means I believed somebody else.

Tell me, what is ‘‘a priori’ wrong’ about saying that U.G. Krishnamurti’s statement that ‘any ‘freedom’ is an illusion’ is a statement based on his own illusionary freedom? You yourself say U.G. Krishnamurti ‘speaks out of his experience’ and he himself called ‘any freedom ... an illusion’. I simply pointed out that contrary to U.G. Krishnamurti’s belief that ‘any ‘freedom’ is an illusion’ that a way has now been found to an actual freedom from the human condition, something that surpasses any illusionary freedom of any kind of altered states of consciousness for the simple reason that this freedom is actual.

What many people don’t seem to like about an actual freedom is that in order to get onto the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom one has to actively roll up one’s sleeves and irrevocably change oneself and for many that is too much of a shift from their present comfortable belief that ‘I only need to stop desiring freedom and then I will at least not have to be bothered doing anything at all about my unhappiness, let alone my acrimony’

Don’t you see how illusory your actual freedom is? How fabricated? Don’t get me wrong... I think you should give it your best if it makes you happy. But it’s still an illusion.

Ah, but from the point of view that you keep presenting to this list – you called it once ‘Advaita land’ – there is no such thing as an objective reality, objective reality is at best an assumption. According to this point of view everything – one’s own thoughts and feelings, including the world of things, events and people – are nothing but an illusion and the only thing that is not an illusion is one’s own capital-A Awareness. For you to state that actual freedom is illusory or that I am living in a bubble is merely a reinstatement of your belief that everything is Maya.

Given that you posted a definition of consciousness with a link to the ‘Course in Consciousness’, your definition of consciousness and ‘capital-C Consciousness’ apparently is in accord that of Stanley Sobottka, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Virginia. Mr. Sobottka starts with the following hypothesis –

The assumption of an external reality is the assumption that there is a real world that is external to our individual minds and senses, and that it exists whether or not we as observers exist, and whether or not we are observing it. This assumption cannot be proved because all of our perceptions, without exception, are mental images, and we have no means to go beyond our mental images. (…) Without this assumption, there would be only the thoughts and images of our own mind (which would be the only existing mind) and there would be no need of science, or anything else. In addition to the assumption of an external reality, we also make the assumption that this reality is objective. (…) 1.1. The assumption of objective reality

How a Professor Emeritus in physics who presumably has devoted his life to study the physical world can propose that this material physical world he touches, smells, sees, hears, tastes and lives in is only an assumption which ‘cannot be proved’ is beyond my comprehension. His hypothesis implies that, for instance, the very keyboard he writes his thesis on is an assumption that ‘cannot be proved’, that his senses perceiving his keyboard and the senses of his readers seeing the pixels of his thesis appear on their monitors are only perceiving ‘mental images’ – and yet apparently Professor Sobottka assumes without questioning that his readers, all of whom he perceives as being mere ‘mental images’, are in fact reading the words he has written on their assumed monitors that he typed out on his assumed keyboard. It does beg the question as to why he would bother to write to other human beings informing them that he cannot prove that they are anything other than mental images arising out of his own perception.

Given that Mr. Sobottka starts with these solipsistic assumptions that ‘all of our perceptions, without exception, are mental images’ it is no wonder that he then moves on to the ancient wisdom of Eastern sages and mystics such as Nisargadatta Maharaj whose definition for consciousness he adopts –

‘In the great mirror of consciousness, images arise and disappear, and only memory is material – destructible, perishable, transient. On such flimsy foundations we build a sense of personal existence – vague, intermittent, dreamlike. This vague persuasion: ‘I am so and so’ obscures the changeless state of pure awareness and makes us believe that we are born to suffer and to die.’ Nisargadatta Maharaj 9.4. Objectification, the body-mind organism, and the primacy of memory

Apparently Mr. Sobottka has no qualms in taking Nisargadatta Maharaj’s word for it that a ‘changeless state of pure awareness’ does in fact exist – presumably this is an assumption that can be proved – and from this assumption it is only a hop and a jump to the following conclusions –

The only mind whose existence we can perceive is our own. The existence of other minds, like the existence of any objective reality, is a purely metaphysical concept and cannot be verified. However, if other minds do exist, each must consist of its own individually perceived world. If so, there is still only one Awareness, but there are multiple worlds within Awareness. Furthermore, neither You nor I are a mind because We are the Awareness that is aware of all minds. But because Awareness has identified with each mind separately other minds do not appear in it. (…) 9.3. A new concept of objective reality

Because most scientists of all types are mentally wedded to a belief in objective reality, they are unable to see an alternative picture. In particular, they are unable to see that Awareness, rather than objective reality, is the fundamental Reality. Thus, they persist in attempting (and in failing) to create an objective theory of subjective experience. When the contents of Awareness try to objectify Awareness, it is like a puppet trying to speculate about the puppet master a picture on a movie screen trying to imagine the actors or a shadow striving to understand its object. This problem has been labelled the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness by David Chalmers. (The so-called ‘easy problem’ is to explain the functioning of the brain in terms of objective concepts.) In fact, there is no hard problem for those who are aware. 9.5. The ‘hard problem’ in consciousness

And from these conclusions that ‘Awareness … is the fundamental Reality’ he reaches the following solution … and it comes to no surprise that this solution is the ancient-old recipe of disidentification and dissociation –

Section 9.1 showed that all objects depend on the concept of separation. But since separation does not exist, neither does the I-object or any other object. Thus, you cannot be the doer because you do not exist. Since identification with the I-concept, which produces the illusory I-object, is the fundamental cause of all suffering, a practical remedy for any suffering is to see that you do not exist. The essential practice for this is to look and see that There is no I.

This means that: You are not a doer. You have no choice. You have no responsibility. 21.2. The use of clear seeing to disidentify from the ‘I’

Or to say it in Mr. Sobottka’s spiritual teacher’s own words –

Self-enquiry is the direct path to Self-realization or enlightenment. The only way to make the mind cease its outward activities is to turn it inward. By steady and continuous investigation into the nature of the mind, the mind itself gets transformed into That to which it owes its own existence. Ramesh Balsekar, A Net Of Jewels

All emphasis added. All quotes from – science http://faculty.virginia.edu/consciousness/

‘That to which it owes its own existence’ is another way of saying that I as Awareness am the creator of the ‘external’ world of people things and events – Awareness is all there is and the objective, i.e. physical, world is but an illusion, at best an assumption that ‘cannot be proved’.

This is what ‘capital-C Consciousness’ is according to the Advaita teachings.

Given that you said that –

‘It is my opinion that capital-C Consciousness and capital-A Actual are in fact the same thing. But only if one doesn’t get wrapped around the axles with certain terminology.’ Re: A Second Question, 7.5.2004

– I would appreciate if you could explain to me how you come to believe that this ‘capital-C Consciousness’ is ‘in fact the same thing’ as an actual freedom from the instinctual passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire or is ‘in fact the same thing’ as the ongoing direct, as in non-affective and non-imaginary, experience of the actuality of the physical material world when the identity in toto, ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul, has ceased to exist.