Is enlightenment an illusion?

I think, it does. Perhaps consciousness is like the field of vision, focussed on some, seeing/feeling other things hazily. Being aware. Being aware of what all things? That is the degree of consciousness. Different people may have different ranges of field of vision.

All this happens in the field of consciousness. All changes, activities. Everything known. Every experience including the experiencer. The notion that it grows or you can expand it, is a concept occurring within consciousness. All sense of time is created within consciousness through memory and thought. All sense of a self, subject/object, take place in this field.

Just at this moment, neither the facet of my consciousness called alertness nor my consciousness itself is up to the challenge of considering this this.

levels of perception!KK

What? At 11.54? You returned late last night? Heavy on booze? 'Shwan nidra', that is what is recommended in India. You should have been up and about.

Perception takes place within the field of consciousness. Perceiver/perceived. Yes?

Yes everything does,as you know,but Nick's comment about waking up & noticing things is perception of things through the senses.KK

But Nick doesn't want to engage in observing what is called consciousness, or so he says.

Since the thread is called 'Is Enlightenment an Illusion', I thought it might be interesting to further define what consciousness is. The common idea of raising consciousness, developing deeper levels of perception, higher states of mind and the plethora of 'mystical' experiences (cosmic consciousness) all take place within consciousness and are all available to be experienced. Perhaps this is the illusion since no activity in consciousness has anything to do with enlightenment and even less ability to produce it.

Or would it be easier to look at what Consciousness is not in order to define what it is?


KK

Doesn't it? I think it does. I think that experience, sensation, perception can be enlightening. I also think that it can be deadening. Much of the world's mass-market entertainment, for instance, is deadening.

Anyway, if you find out anything else about my conciousness, do let me know

The mother of all substrata, upon which foundation, as you say, everything appears to occur.

Like scando said, alertness, is not C. Degrees of alertness, ok, determined by the depth of interest in an event, a thing.. but C. is nonetheless present and undiluted all the time, whatever may be the degree of alertness.

Still, that leaves the central mystery of consciousness untouched and as few know next to diddly squat what consciousness actually is - explaining it in terms of the functional aspects of the brain gets us no further in understanding how or why we have qualitative experiences in the first place.

Consciousness only appears to unfold more and more, by degree so to say. Previously we may have been led to assume that the only process that trumps all others is evolution, which goes beyond what went before. Yet with evolution depth seems to have become exponential. Whatever depth a particle has, an atom is deeper, a molecule deeper yet, cells have more depth than molecules, plants more than cells, primates more than plants and so on.

Its just that depth has gotten deeper, and since depth is everywhere because there is no bottom, consciousness is everywhere. And that it is at some sort of end, i doubt.

Maybe this illustrates That..

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When one looks at the famous gestalt image of double meaning, initially we see only one aspect at a time. But nothing is done to the lines of the drawing when we see the other aspect. The possibility is already there, we are simply recognising it.

Any way you come to this is fine with me.
Because there is psychological conflict and pain in all human beings, it is natural to try and find a way of ending it, resolving it. The problem is that all attempts at resolution, all explanations of what is happening, all experience is happening in consciousness and we ARE that consciousness, not separate from it. No action is possible that is apart from this movement. No thought, insight, or, observation can affect a resolution to this seeming conflict and separation we all feel. This understanding (not sure what to call it) of our situation hints at something much more profound. Some call it god. I don't know what to call it. I just know it's the end of me.

Nick, I think we are talking about 2 different things here. You are talking about interpreting different experiences according to value. I am talking about all experience including the interpretation of it. You are taught to interpret experience as desirable and not desirable. Your body doesn't say this is deadening. Your thinking says it. The content of your thinking is memory, past experience. All of this takes place in the field of consciousness. Most of us are lost in the content of our thinking.