Why "being at the eye center" isn't possible

In my preceding post, "Joan Tollifson on the Imaginary Vantage Point. Brilliant observations," I shared quotations from one of her books that clearly demonstrated why it makes no sense for a person at one of her talks to claim that they were able to concentrate their mind at a vantage point that enabled them to be aware of the world from a detached distance that they considered to be positive for them.

Just a bit of clear thinking illustrates why this couldn't actually be the case. Meaning, this person wasn't really concentrating their mind at a certain point in their consciousness. All they were doing was thinking or believing that this was happening, and that thought or belief provided them some comfort.

Awareness, or consciousness, is the only way we know anything about the world inside and outside of ourselves. Absent awareness, there's no world for us. And so far as anyone knows -- neuroscientists, mystics, meditators, anyone -- awareness is singular, not plural, for every individual. Meaning, you and I don't have several independent awarenesses or consciousnesses. 

Sure, split brain patients do have their awareness divided in a certain sense, because if the connection between the two halves of the brain is severed, each half has a somewhat different perception of the world. Since language is primarily in the left half of the brain, if a image is presented to the right half, the patient won't be able to describe that in words.

But my understanding is that the split-brain patient still has a single consciousness that enables them to live pretty much normally. Meaning, they have a split brain, but not split consciousness. So says a 2017 research study.

So Tollifson is on solid ground when she points out that any notion of being aware of awareness, or of being conscious of consciousness, or of having a mental vantage point to observe the mind, is just conceptual thinking, not anything real in the brain/mind. This makes a large share of religious and mystical teachings a bunch of bullshit.

For example, the religious group I was a member of for 35 years, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), taught that meditation should be practiced by concentrating at the eye center. You know, that supposedly sacred spot in the forehead between the eyes, often termed the Third Eye.

This is similar to the person Tollifson engaged with believing that they could focus their mind at a vantage point. The problem with this is the same problem with believing it's possible to concentrate at the eye center. Since awareness is singular, not plural, everything we experience is as that singular awareness. Repeat, everything. 

You can't focus your mind at the eye center. There's no such thing as the eye center. That's a concept within awareness. Again, you can believe you're focusing your mind at the eye center, or fantasize you're doing this. But that believing and fantasizing is occurring within awareness, as is everything else you experience. 

If it was possible to be aware of awareness, obviously there would have to be (1) awareness, and (2) another awareness that's aware of the first awareness. Of course, if we then wanted to be aware that we were aware of awareness, we'd need a third awareness that's aware of the awareness that's aware of the other awareness.

The problem with this is that it leads to a never-ending cascade of multiple awarenesses, something that doesn't exist, since I've just shown that awareness is singular, not plural. The same problem arises with believing that it is possible for the mind to be focused at the eye center. Who or what is doing the focusing? Another mind? 

Sam Harris, who has a Ph.D. in neuroscience and a wealth of experience with meditation, primarily of the Dzogchen variety, speaks on the guided meditations in his Waking Up app about this issue. He'll frequently ask if it seems that consciousness is inside the head, which is much the same as it seeming that consciousness is inside the eye center.

Harris points out that the sensation of consciousness being inside the head is part of the contents of consciousness. In other words, each of us is simply conscious. We're conscious, or aware, of many different things. One of those things is that consciousness appears to be inside the head, that we're looking out at the world from a vantage point that seems to be at the eye center or forehead.

But again, this sensation of a vantage point is part of the contents of consciousness. Thus Harris agrees with Tollifson that any sense of awareness or consciousness being localized, here rather than there, is within awareness or consciousness. Meaning, we can't look at our awareness or consciousness as an object that can be manipulated, like an apple or rock. 

Awareness or consciousness is how the world is experienced. There's no "we" or "me" outside of awareness. A simple true idea with profound implications. Tollifson writes:

We imagine "me trying to merge with the flow, or be in the flow, or understand the flow. But actually there is only flow. There's no way in or out and there's nothing separate to be in or out. But it doesn't seem that way because the very nature of thought is to divide up and freeze what is actually indivisible and fluid. 

Comments

[sant64]

I'm revisiting some of the Da Free John books I read many years ago. For all the controversy about this guru's actions, I believe he was one of the most perceptive critics of religion, ever.

One of Free John's critiques of traditional Eastern religion touches on your theme: The general technique of these yogas is to isolate consciousness in an unnatural and largely unsustainable way. That's because, according to Free John, these yogas are methods of seeking, and the nature of seeking is always dissatisfaction. By being "yogic," one is simply overlaying another activity or project of dissatisfaction over the dissatisfactions of ordinary life.

I believe Free John's critique of yoga makes sense. and I'd say it jibes with Toffisons' view. But where I differ is how Toffison's view is presented as an absolute or practical, i.e., actually practicable. That's why I intemperately dismissed them as high-sounding gibberish.

To wit: "We imagine "me trying to merge with the flow, or be in the flow, or understand the flow. But actually there is only flow. There's no way in or out and there's nothing separate to be in or out. But it doesn't seem that way because the very nature of thought is to divide up and freeze what is actually indivisible and fluid."

Who in the world goes through life thinking this way? Perhaps if one lives in a forest monastery, they can wander around the grounds musing on how all is flow and there is no me...but this is not a practical strategy for living a normal life. It's more of the typical neo-advaitist philosophy that made a tiny splash in the 1990s and went nowhere, except to make a few people wealthy.

And so, while I think Free John and T's critique of traditional yoga methods that isolate consciousness has some truth, and some merit, I completely disagree with the notion that it's in any way practical or possible to live in the "no-me" way you and T are so enamored of.

I also think it's clear that isolation of consciousness via yoga techniques has relative merit. Simran and an attitude of seva seems a hell of a lot more practical than trying to live life as if you don't exist. The neoadvistist "I don't exist" project is as unnatural as extreme guru bhakti. The "I don't exist" project takes just as much daily reinforcing as does living life as a satsangi in some yoga org.

Perhaps the main issue is this tendency for people in or out of Sant Mat to view everything in absolute terms. When they were in RSSB everything about RSSB and their guru was absolutely correct, and all other Sant mat groups were absolutely wrong. Then when Gurinder came around, suddenly everything about RSSB was absolutely wrong (except the guru they took initiation from, who will ever remain on a pedestal). I may be wrong, but their views seem more polemical than reasoned.

[Ron E.]

Whether Toliffson is talking about awareness, consciousness, mind, spiritual or everyday issues, her writings not only accord with the non-duality literature and teachings Zen and Chan along with the present-day teachers and writers who embrace this subject, she has the knack of putting it in a way that renders it clear and understandable.

Not that the foregoing topics lend themselves to being understood by thought – thought generally being a process of presenting mind created concepts and explanations – but more in the vein of clearing the conceptual ground to perhaps enable a less cluttered sense of present moment reality, a reality that thought necessarily divides and overlays with its own self-maintaining agenda.

As Brian ends this post: “Awareness or consciousness is how the world is experienced. There's no "we" or "me" outside of awareness. A simple true idea with profound implications." Tollifson writes:
"We imagine "me trying to merge with the flow, or be in the flow, or understand the flow. But actually there is only flow. There's no way in or out and there's nothing separate to be in or out. But it doesn't seem that way because the very nature of thought is to divide up and freeze what is actually indivisible and fluid.”

[Tim Rimmer]

“Any notion of being aware of awareness, or of being conscious of consciousness, or of having a mental vantage point to observe the mind, is just conceptual thinking, not anything real in the brain/mind. This makes a large share of religious and mystical teachings a bunch of bullshit.”
Holy Toledo Brian you’re definitely firing some broadsides with this one, quite ballsy imo.
De-mystifying and contesting a notion held for thousands of years and a key ‘symbolic?’ pillar of many yogic paths, even religions such as Hinduism and to a lesser extent Buddhism? Many faiths often depict saints/sages with halos, which I’ve always equated with the holiness stemming from an ‘opened third eye’. And of course the whole basis for the meditational approach espoused by Sant Mat - everything starts at the eye centre. I was trying to get my head around this in a post here back on May 10th. Point being that it seems to me Sant Mat (as RSSB), when compared to what Tollifson says, is an outlier. A ‘separated’ soul gets back to God, through a process of meditation involving realisation of subtler and more expansive ‘planes of consciousness’ combined with full on devotion to the Guru.
You are saying this is all bullshit? Another way of putting it, is that all these planes of consciousness are essentially mental creations, as you say ‘contents of consciousness’ - when viewed from an approach such as Tollifson’s.
These days I’m inclined to agree with you. What appeals and makes sense to me the most is the apparent simplicity of Joan T’s approach which on the face of it is somewhat (fundamentally?) different to that in teachings as given by RSSB. Why so? As I said in the May 10th post Tollifson and the likes of Nisargadatta never mention the ‘third eye’ - why?

I still think there is a difference between awareness and consciousness (also pointed out by the likes of JK and Nisargadatta). Awareness is prior. Tollifson also says this in one of her outpouring essays -
“Awareness is not separate from the movie of waking life, but it is not entangled in the movie or trapped in the drama…. Awareness is that which beholds the play of consciousness without being caught by it.”
As I see it - awareness=truth/basis of reality. Consciousness=the whole drama of body/mind/world. This is basically thought and thought in action and keeps the veil present.
As Tollifson writes: [The] “very nature of thought is to divide up and freeze what is actually indivisible and fluid.” Or as Ron E well puts - “clearing the conceptual ground to perhaps enable a less cluttered sense of present moment reality, a reality that thought necessarily divides and overlays with its own self-maintaining agenda.”
This blog helps with getting to grips with and gaining perspective on such things. These topics are getting down to the nitty gritty imo.

[Appreciative Reader]

I'm not sure how exactly RSSB teaches the (alleged) mechanics of the eye center thing; but this AIUI is how it is from a chakric perspective (which, I think, would be the mainstream perspective, as far as these ideas):

We have these chakras, starting from the mooladhar and going up to the sahasrar. The sahasrar is at the top of the crown. The eye center is the ajna chakra.

Stuff (allegedly) happens when you activate your chakras. How you activate chakras is by bringing your kundalini up to the relevant chakra.

And that activation of the chakras can happen spontaneously; or by your guru's grace; or "grace from above" not necessarily channeled via a guru (ref. Aurobindo); or else by forcing it (the Kundalini) up via pranic practices; or else by resting your focused attention at the specific chakra you're going for.

My point is: I'm happy to be corrected on this, given my sketchy knowledge of RSSB teachings, but I'd guess that the idea is to activate the ajna chakra by focusing one's attention on that chakra. That is, it is not a question of centering your entire consciousness at this one vantage point at all.

(Unless you/Tollifson/RSSB meant that metaphorically. With "consciousness" standing in for 'attention', and "entire" standing in for 'focused'. But in that case this critique won't apply.)

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I'm not defending or endorsing the chakric schema, by the way. Sure it is BS, in as much as objective evidence hasn't shown it to be true. It is at best speculation, at best a valid subject for experimentation and research. But what I'm saying is, this particular critique of it does not quite hit home, as it stems from a misunderstanding of the chakric schema, at least AIUI.

(There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to focus your attention on one part of your body, after all. The dicey part here is in the claim that chakras exist, but that is not what the critique amounts to.)

(Like I said, this misunderstanding/ disagreement with the mainstream chakric worldview AIUI, might well be RSSB's official line, I wouldn't really know about that. Whether that literal bringing up of consciousness to that one vantage point is indeed what RSSB teaches, rather than my idea about focusing one's attention on different chakras, including in this case the ajna chakra between the eyebrows, that is a different [and smaller, more focused] discussion. Those better versed than I am in RSSB teachings can settle that smaller, more focused discussion among yourselves if you like.)

[umami]

For the record, RSSB taught not to bother with kundalini, pranayam or lower chakras. Also nothing about crown chakra that I recall.

Ever seen spleen chakra in illustrations? Theosophists writing in the late Victorian invented it. They recognized that sacral chakra would be too upsetting, so they sidestepped it for moral neutrality.

[Karim W. Rahmaan]

"..since I've just shown that awareness is singular, not plural.."

Mr. Hines,

This only sounds like another theory to me. Since you know what you're aware of. When you're aware, or unaware engaged in unconscious lucid dreaming.

But that's true for you, and could be bs for me. Why?

This Joan Tollifson you've been bringing up.
https://www.joantollifson.com/writing38.html
I found she was like you with the psychedelic experimentations. So her Zen study probably doesn't even know that Zen is Buddhist sect. that lost a lot of the original text.

So I'd be weary of these holes in their discourses. But you yourself, you were smart enough to uncover Yogiraj marking prices up, and not giving due credit to Maharaj Ji Charan Singh. I mean you confronted Yogiraj and then corrected your error following him and took initiation from who really deserved the credit for impressing and teaching him. That was pretty smart to me, you found a decent Spiritual Master in Maharaj Ji.

But today, you do the same mistake as Yogiraj and give Maharaj Ji Charan Singh NO, NONE, NADDA, ZERO, ZIPPO, credit.

Hmm.

Perhaps you jumped to a hasty conclusion on his successor? When Baba Ji was only a pupil like yourself.

You know, at RSSB we're not only taught to focus at a point. We are taught how to not be hypocrites. Every religion teaches that if you start becoming hypocritical yourself. God will know, of course IF there is a God.

Cheers!

[Appreciative Reader]

Okay, understood, umami. Thanks for clarifying that.

But again, even if the lower chakras aren't part of RSSB's teachings/technique, even so: The between-the-eyebrows thing generally corresponds with the ajna chakra. Since different lokas correspond to different chakras (in kundalini yoga), maybe the idea in RSSB is that one starts directly from the ajna chakra (rather than working one's way up to it); and thereafter traverses "upwards", across lokas, by accessing the higher chakras, even as one does not touch the lower ones?

(There are schools that do teach chakras higher even than the sahasrar. Chakras that go beyond even the crown. But those teachings wouldn't be mainstream. Mainstream teachings end at Sahasrar.)

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In any case, umami: Even if it is the case that RSSB does not deal with any "center" other than between the eyebrows, not even the higher ones: even so, that they pick the position between the eyebrows does indicate that they may be talking about the ajna chakra. Which to me suggests that they want to you to focus your attention at the center between the eyebrows; and then let the fireworks show begin.

Let me give an example, from (Eastern) Christian Hesychasm. The heart prayer involves a physiology very similar to what corresponds to the Anahata chakra. Now obviously Hesychast teachings and practices do not teach Kundalini and Chakras: but even so, the technique itself does involve gently and prayerfully focusing your attention at the heart. ...So, I was wondering if the technique of RSSB meditation does not, actually, similarly involve simply focusing your attention at the point within between the eyebrows. Instead of this thing about literally moving your consciousness to that point between the eyes.

And like I said, if after considering this carefully, you're sure that they literally teach bringing up the consciousness up to the vantage point between the eyebrows, rather than alluding to what I suggested: then I'm happy to defer to your knowledge of RSSB specifics. In this comment I only want to make sure that my point, and my question, are clearly conveyed, without any misunderstandings about these important details of it.

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And finally, just to emphasize one more time: I'm not holding up kundalini teachings and chakras as factual --- at best those are subjects for investigation, as so many other speculations might be. I'm only comparing these different teachings, and wondering if [one part of] RSSB teachings corresponds to the more mainstream kundalini teachings, and whether it is therefore a subset and a spin-off from those more mainstream teachings; or if the similarity (the precise eye-center position) is merely coincidental. That, and what the technique specifically entails, and whether Tollifson's critique applies to it; or if that critique of hers, as it applies to RSSB, is a non sequitur arising out of a misunderstanding about the technique and the teachings.

[umami]

"maybe the idea in RSSB is that one starts directly from the ajna chakra (rather than working one's way up to it); and thereafter traverses "upwards", across lokas, by accessing the higher chakras, even as one does not touch the lower ones?"

AR,
What you wrote sums it up, I would say.
"Ajna chakra" same as "eye center," but the thrust of RS literature was always, "You've tried the rest, now try the best!"

[Appreciative Reader]

Ah. So then it would seem that my larger argument, about the inapplicability of this specific critique, does hold.

[777]

"I don't exist" project is as unnatural"

. . . but not when you suddenly ARE your Master
and see where His Dhyan is pointed on

777

[Karim W. Rahmaan]

(New video: Charan Singh Maharaj Ji)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w18wq7Vjz2k

It seems impossible. But just like in this new video RSSB gurus say that being at eye center isn't impossible. And with practice and the right tutelage, detachment can be done.