How do I know myself as Consciousness?

[Goldcup7]

Lovely posts. It's so simple but we make it so complicated sometimes.

[Maisy]

I think paying attention to (identifying with) the "talking" in our heads is so habitual and the "normal" way to be, so ingrained in us from years and years of doing it/being it that the "simple" thing is just to keep doing it. Even if we get into various "spiritual" type ideas...the talking in our heads drives it. Paying attention to the talking in our minds continues well far down even a "spiritual" path we may think we are on.

I think it is simple as it takes no effort at all, no doing anything is required, it is always at all times available to us, but to realize the talking in our minds is not us, and to stop focusing our attention there, what prevents such a simple thing?

Maybe thousands of incarnations playing these roles and the roles of these bodies. We slip into a new life so easy, because our attention is so easily captured by the thought stream in the head. To just be... one has to have a value there I think or it will never willfully or consciously happen.

One life trying to be a famous musician, the next trying to be self realized, what is the difference? Maybe none. But a life where one is not trying for anything, maybe that's the truly different life and a step upward for consciousness. To take the attention off the thought stream, one has to be aware one's attention is on it.

[J_A_S_G]

Originally Posted by Maisy

I think paying attention to (identifying with) the "talking" in our heads is so habitual and the "normal" way to be, so ingrained in us from years and years of doing it/being it that the "simple" thing is just to keep doing it.

Here's my experience from meditation. I was never aware of the absolutely colossal and continuous amount of fragmented and chaotic thinking bubbling up from the subconscious until I started paying attention to breath. By directly attending breath I indirectly became more and more aware of the thought process, from the first wispy fragments bubbling up from the subconscious, to the patterns they begin to form and eventually a fully formed thought train exploding into consciousness, with all the values and meanings of past experience dredged up from memory, ripe for judgement and reaction.

In effect the process takes advantage of neuroplasticity, laying down new pathways that begin to incorporate that heightened awareness into daily habit and not just while sitting in meditation.

Long story short, basically what you said in closing - To take the attention off the thought stream, one has to be aware one's attention is on it.