Lesson 5: Overlays

[A reminder: these lessons are meant to be slow reads. You want to experience the things talked about, not just store neat new ideas in the mind.]

In the last lesson, we focused on the awareness through the senses, mainly eye consciousness. This lesson suggests you, again, try to "just see" without engaging the sixth consciousness (the part that thinks, evaluates, judges, complains, labels, remembers, and so forth). Practice this a bit until you are personally satisfied that you can see without automatically adding material from the sixth consciousness, or at least be able to tell when the sixth consciousness adds something.

One way to do this is to just sit and stare at something until you get it. It's not all that hard or particularly exotic, though you may look funny to others if you do it in a public place.

We almost always experience a combination of the pure sense consciousness and material added by the sixth consciousness. The sixth overlays the pure sense consciousness with its own creations. Furthermore, the overlay is mixed with the object of our perception so that we think the overlay is actually a quality inherent in the thing we perceive.

An overlay isn't just an opinion or a label. It can also be a feeling. You can, for example, look at something and feel a pleasant feeling. This makes you think that the thing itself is pleasant or good. On the other hand, you might look at something and feel revulsion and think that the feeling is intrinsic to the thing you see.

In a nutshell, if you project the feeling onto the thing itself, you introduce a basic error about what that thing is. You might feel you are separate from the universe if you can’t see your role in creating your universe. It is if you are separate from it, which is not the case.

You can also overlay things with labels. The downside of labels is that concepts usually connect with other concepts (by virtue of their similarities or connected story line). This can add even more layers of overlay because these connections can pull in lots of material from your memory banks (via the sixth consciousness).

I was on a walk with my wife. I was in a simple naked-awareness state when I came upon a child's sock pinned to a tree. Because the sixth consciousness was dormant at that moment, I had no reaction. I saw the sock, it registered, but I didn't have any thoughts about it or any views about why it was there. I was just nakedly aware of it. I just “knew” it.

Much later, I had a delayed reaction and thought "sock on a tree! What the heck is that about?" and immediately began to connect with all sorts of thoughts, such as "Who did it belong to?" "Was the mother looking for the sock? "Was this a prank?" and so on. These connections came through the label of "sock on a tree." Labels can act like connection points into all sorts of mental associations.

People generally think that you need labels to know something. However, when you directly know things, you perceive them without any concepts. For instance, you can put your hat on in the morning without thinking any word-thoughts about it. If you are present and attentive to what you are doing, you will be in a naked awareness state. You just silently know what you are doing.

I think you get the point: we see a combination of the pure sense consciousness and the output of the sixth consciousness. When the sixth consciousness overlays our experience, it can transform or even distort perception by combining with it. When the sixth consciousness overlays are really thick, we are “lost in illusion.”

People flawlessly act in accord with what overlays are operating. Here's an extreme example (one that I actually witnessed) that illustrates the point: a mentally ill person might be waving his arms trying to brush away the birds flying too close to his head, but no one else sees the birds. His actions are exactly appropriate for his experience because he is hallucinating the birds. They are real to him, but to no one else. We all do that to some degree, but most of the time the distortions aren't as extreme.

For most people, overlays are added automatically and unconsciously. We don't realize that it is happening, and so we are at the effect of them. With knowledge of overlays, we can practice naked awareness and notice how it improves our connection with reality.

Our overlays play an important role in our relationships with others. When we have overlays in common, we feel more connected. When our overlays conflict, we feel like we are in separate realities, less connected. Shared opinions make a shared reality. The shared reality is a powerful component of our sense of belonging or being a part of a group.

When you start to let go of overlays, you might feel conflicted because it seems as if you are dropping out of the reality that binds you to others. These reactions can be a barrier to becoming nakedly aware. Be careful not to get caught by them.

Synopsis:

• Experiencing life from pure sense perception is a form of naked awareness.
• Pure perception is often obscured by creations from the sixth consciousness.
• We usually don't notice when the sixth consciousness overlays perceptions.
• People often feel connected with others when they share the same overlays, or separate when their overlays don’t match.
• People are often reluctant to drop their overlays because it can make them feel separate from others.

There is still more to understand about the six consciousnesses, overlays, and naked awareness. Carry on!