Consciousness expanded by NAR rituals

[sylvan]

Consciousness can get expanded throughout life (or it can lie dormant, stagnant in other words, but that's no fun to talk about.)
NAR rituals and even 'mystical encounters' can create a growth spurt of consciousness--well, maybe not immediately because then perceptions can be a bit scrambled, but given some time to assimilate whatever happened. :eek:

My question is
'What quality of experience is it that expands consciousness,'
and if not evident within that answer, 'why is it that rituals (artificial constructs of experience) can do it so effectively? '

[perfectbite]

It isn't consciousness that gets expanded because consciousness itself is a set quality or quantity. For instance; the consciousness that a family pet possesses is the same consciousness that Albert Einstein possessed, that we all possess.

It is the awareness of consciousness that gets expanded and through learning or being open to awareness that is the means by which such awareness grows and flourishes and the flourishing of such awareness is enabled by consciousness.

[Lógos Sokratikós]

Vague.

It depends what aspect of consciousness.
It depends what "rituals" and what you mean by that word.

"Artificial constructs of experience"? As far as I know, a ritual is a ceremony.
http://www.answers.com/ritual
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/504688/ritual#tab=active~checked%2Citems~checked&title=ritual%20--%20Britannica%20Online%20Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual

[perfectbite]

What is it that is vague? The question or the answer to the question?

If the question was about the spiritual then the answer I gave wasn't vague at all.

There are too many definitions of consciousness flying around here and the medical idea of being conscious as in an EMT asking someone they are attending to 'Do you know your name or what day is it?' are indicators of a person's awareness of their surroundings and are used to determine if such person is awake and is not unresponsively unconscious or confused and has nothing to do with the consciousness that one can become more aware of through heightened awareness that can be the result of singular meditation or group religious ritual.

Jiminy Christmas, talk about being vague. Straighten those terms up.

[aupmanyav]

I too think that the question if vague. But the three rituals among hindus, Sacred Thread Ceremony (Yajnopavit, Navjot among Zoroastrians), Marriage, and Death Ceremony, are very detailed. The first two take three days, the third extends to twelve days. In the marriage ceremony, there are so many steps, each one of which fortifies the union, going around the fire, taking the vows, stepping on coins or stones, etc. Each ritual tells us that the union is for life and how we will need to act through life. The death ceremony asks the son to repeat the name of the father and their relationship 108 times. My father and myself had our differences, but the ceremony dissolved them all, and placed our relationship in proper perspective, in a line extending from our forefathers to the generations to come. In other rituals also starting with cleaning the ground to consecreting it, cleaning the body, cleaning the mind, calling the deities one by one, welcoming them to the ritual, sending them off after the ceremony (all mentally) does make a difference. Therefore, though I am an atheist, I will advise rituals for all people. They do perhaps expand our consciousness.

[sylvan]

Thank you, perfectbite, for your gracious answer.

Thank you Logos S,
I was trying to speak atheistically when I referred to 'artificial constructs of experience.' But I appreciate the links to the definitions of 'rituals' which were able to explain without referring to beliefs in their definitions. They called them 'social traditions' instead. And now aupmanyav has provided an example of how his father's death ceremony was effective regardless of aupmanyav's beliefs.

So the discussion is all logically unfolding as it should , and I as usual am gratefully learning. :-)

[aupmanyav]

The hindu rituals are, so to say, very exact. One has to mention his name, his father's name, his grandfather's name, his great-grandfather's name, his geneology (Gotra - the Gotra also can be a compound name, e.g., mine is simply Bhoota Upamanyu, meaning the older Upamanyu. But then the Gotra of my mother's people is 'Mitraswamin Kaushikasya', i.e., in the line of Mitraswamin who was from the line of Kaushik), the city where the ritual was taking place (Jambudwipe Bharata Khande Rajasthan Rajye, Jodhpur Nagare - in the continent of Jambu Dwipa, in the country Bharata, in the State Rajasthan, in the city Jodhpur), followed by the Tithi (date by Lunar month), Paksha (Increasing moon or waning moon), the day, the month, the position of sun corresponding to the equinoxes (Uttarayana and Dakshinayana), and the Zodiac, and who is brahmin conducting the ritual.

[Yeshi]

My question is
'What quality of experience is it that expands consciousness,'
and if not evident within that answer, 'why is it that rituals (artificial constructs of experience) can do it so effectively? '

what perfectbite said, and additionally -

awakening needs a mind to mind transmission from an awoken mind, either directly or through a conduit. The rituals that do it are Abhisekhas or Initiations. Other rituals are there to refresh this experience.

It is a question of recognition.

[Lógos Sokratikós]

What is it that is vague? The question or the answer to the question?

If the question was about the spiritual then the answer I gave wasn't vague at all.

There are too many definitions of consciousness flying around here and the medical idea of being conscious as in an EMT asking someone they are attending to 'Do you know your name or what day is it?' are indicators of a person's awareness of their surroundings and are used to determine if such person is awake and is not unresponsively unconscious or confused and has nothing to do with the consciousness that one can become more aware of through heightened awareness that can be the result of singular meditation or group religious ritual.

Jiminy Christmas, talk about being vague. Straighten those terms up.

Woah there, partner.
I was talking about the OP. Breath in, hold, breath out, "peace", breath in, hold, breath out, "peace". Repeat as necessary.
Actually, I liked your answer.

[Agrajag]

Many aspects of consciousness can be strengthened such as attention, others can be refined such as the ability to recognize and avoid counterproductive trains of thought or emotions, whilst for some, like memory, tricks and tools can be learned to improve performance.

Combined with the other many aspects of consciousness these make the mind less prone to being caught in obsessional loops and more able to organize, recall, discriminate and sort experience, and by virtue of this (perception being an act of interpretation) the awareness of being becomes richer, more detailed, complex and nuanced.
As often happens the complexities and subtleties of this are glossed over through the use of general terms and it is called an expansion of consciousness.

As for what quality of experience expands consciousness, well that really depends upon the aspect of consciousness one is working with. For instance attention is frequently strengthened through unwavering concentration upon a sensation (mindfulness), imaginatively through maintaining an imagined symbol or scene (visualization), or cognitively through bearing factors in mind whilst new factors are introduced (loading). The first two are common enough in many meditative traditions, but the latter is a technique I've only found used by G.I. Gurdjieff.
Speaking of Gurdjieff I think that he best summarized this by saying that any faculty of mind can only truly be developed, first by recognizing that one can work on oneself in this way and then by straining beyond one's comfort zone, which he termed 'super efforts'.

[aupmanyav]

Hindu rituals do this kind of unloading and then loading, without our realizing that something is being done. So to say, automatic, comes on with the rituals.

[perfectbite]

Woah there, partner.
I was talking about the OP. Breath in, hold, breath out, "peace", breath in, hold, breath out, "peace". Repeat as necessary.
Actually, I liked your answer.

I was rushed and had to leave it as it was, breathless grammar and all. I had to catch the daylight because I was doing what I thought would be a straightforward electrical job (installing a 120VAC dimmer lightswitch) that turned into an over a week long 4 or 5 hours every other day swamp that was bedevilled by problems (classic mistakes and wishful thinking and more than one mistake that was possibly life threatening like exposed bare metal fridge hinges that lit up my tester at 24VAC tramp voltage because the outlet wasn't grounded) that maybe were put there from either a remodel done half a century ago or were put there or were compounded by remodel work done 20 years ago. It was horrible and it wasn't helped by my friend telling me that she intuitively thought that if the power to one switch was off that the power to the other switch in the same wall switch plate location would also be off when each swith was on a separate circuit and one of the circuits was live but she had seriously told me that both switches were unpowered and were definitely off and I believed her until I tested them.

I stopped listening to her copious, intuitive electrical declarations and didn't believe a word she said until I checked it out for myself.

With reference to the OP, although our consciousnesses were of equal value, our awarenesses were very different.

As I said, it was horrible.

[Lógos Sokratikós]

No problem. It happens to everyone.

[Trout]

Man.....this is too hard. Can't I just try again in my next life?

[perfectbite]

Man.....this is too hard. Can't I just try again in my next life?

What if this is your next life?

[Lógos Sokratikós]

:rolling:

So true.
People ("we" −I include myself) are always leaving things for later. Maybe it's lack of discipline.

The problem with later is that later is always... later!