A Powerful Lesson

Originally Posted by Moondance

In a profound kensho shift (of just over twenty years ago) I became utterly convinced of the incomprehensibility of separation. At that time I had no interest in spirituality and had never heard of non-duality or Advaita and was therefore free of any spiritual conditioning. The kensho ‘incident’ didn’t come with a ’all is consciousness/subjective’ or ‘all is energy/objective’ option. It was simply the sense of the absoluteness and sovereignty of THIS, this something-ness (whatever THIS might be.)

Now I’m not necessarily disagreeing with what we might speculate as the fundamental ‘essence’ of reality - I don’t really know. So I’m fairly neutral about it - I’ve found that when we deeply dig into it, our concepts eventually start to fail us. Take consciousness for instance. What do we mean by it. Is there a difference between consciousness and the patterns/forms/manifestations it presents? Or is it of One Taste? If it’s the first then it is clearly not non-dual. If it’s the second then where is the basis for insisting it is consciousness (as opposed to what??)

Can you see what I’m getting at here. If all is of One taste - if it’s just SO - then to call it EITHER consciousness (OR energy or whatever else) is arbitrary - it simply IS.

Here’s a kind of koan to ponder: Imagine that everything in the cosmos is yellow. Every object, form, process and event is yellow. Every thought, memory, idea and story is yellow. EVERYTHING is yellow with no exceptions…

There would be NO yellow.

If everything is consciousness… there is no consciousness.

There is just ______________________

I understand. It fails before language. It fails before conceptualization. It fails when one goes beyond simply Being. To conceptualize It, to label It, to even make an attempt diminishes It. Brings It into the finite.

From our perspective, our anchor in what we experience as objective reality, there is experience. Pure experience. Detached. Dispassionate. Empty. I'd 'label' that awareness or consciousness.

However it does seem to me labels are a necessary means of teaching, instructing or relating in a meaningful manner before a concept is understood and assimilated.

Hence the plethora of paradoxes that discussions like this about It brings to the table.

I started reading a book titled "The Seven Great Untenables" which examines the "discussions" over the nature of maya between the Advaitins and Visistadvaitins. This goes to your musings about conscious and it's relation to objective reality and two opposing views. At this point it's too deep from a Vedantic philosophical perspective for my understanding so I put it aside. I'll return at some point in the future when my understanding is further developed.

Originally Posted by Unseeking Seeker

***

Let us not look at consciousness as static.

Recognise it as a vibration, a pulse, in incessant dynamic stillness.

***

From a spiritual perspective I am satisfied with It just Is.

From a materialist perspective Orch OR is intriguing and it's possible Penrose and Hameroff are on to something, even if their hypothesis is flawed. It's a very radical interpretation of collapse of the wave function, positing collapse isn't caused by (conscious) observation but in fact is an objective reduction caused by the structure of space-time and results in an instance of consciousness which is then superimposed via quantum entanglement within microtubules.

It's a staggeringly bold and creative hypothesis regardless whether it's ever verified or falsified via observation. Hmm, observations on observation. LOL!

[Moondance]

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

From our perspective, our anchor in what we experience as objective reality, there is experience. Pure experience. Detached. Dispassionate. Empty. I'd 'label' that awareness or consciousness.

However it does seem to me labels are a necessary means of teaching, instructing or relating in a meaningful manner before a concept is understood and assimilated.

I totally agree with this. Awareness or consciousness (alongside other designations such as being, reality, THIS, tao, source etc.) are simply placeholders for what is ultimately inexplicable - and yet utterly obvious.

[davidsun]

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

I get it all to well. You reject the cosmos and settle for crumbs and hang it all on your treatise. That's fine for you but I'm not interested in that debate or attempting to convince you otherwise.

I 'get' that you, among others (although hopefully not everyone reading thread), are not 'interested' and so choose not to entertain and discuss the Life-related (IMO) issues that I raise here.

Requoting a relevant (I think) passage from my book (which predates my treatise by 20 years - I mention this so you and others know that this is a function of a Life-long 'calling' to address the causes of our current 'human condition'):

"Many who consider themselves ‘true followers’ of Vedic teachings therefore proceed quite myopically, for example, not appreciating, not availing themselves of, and not sharing with others Life’s true richness and beneficence. Just as would happen if college-aspiring youngsters decided not to be involved with what was offered in their school curriculum because they judged it ‘inferior’ to ‘higher’ learning, such individuals fail to obtain and dispense educational benefits, accessible in their present context, which are prerequisite to further growth and development. (If you are one such, take the following to heart: 'This phenomenal creation, which is both ephemeral and eternal, is like a tree, but having its seed above in the Highest and its ramifications on this earth below…. When the Supreme Lord enters a body or leaves it, He gathers [the] senses together and travels on with them, as the wind gathers perfume while passing through the flowers. He is the perception of the ear, the eye, the touch, the taste and the smell, yea and of the mind also; and the enjoyment of the things which they perceive is also His.' The Bhagavad Gita, 15:1-10.)"

[davidsun]

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy
From our perspective, our anchor in what we experience as objective reality, there is experience. Pure experience. Detached. Dispassionate. Empty. I'd 'label' that awareness or consciousness.

However it does seem to me labels are a necessary means of teaching, instructing or relating in a meaningful manner before a concept is understood and assimilated.

In my view, all Being, or Soul, hence Presence of Life, is a Mind-and-Spirit generated 'wave' which is 'made up', or 'created', by a combination of 'consciousness' and 'motivation', hence conscious-motivation.

In my view, everything/everyone is motivated by Spirit, which motivation (in relation to other 'waves') may either be 'positive' or 'negative' or (deliberately or otherwise) 'neutral'. Even in the latter case of of 'neutrality', however, this does not reflect an real 'emptiness' or absence of spirit (IMO, there can be no such thang!) but rather a passionate preference for not engaging either 'positively' or 'negatively' with whatever 'wave' of Life one is ex-peer-iencing, i.e. perceiving, at the moment.

Characterizing such 'neutrality' as 'pure' (implicitly characterizing any 'positive' or 'negative' [u]responsive[/U[ness as 'impure', emotionally-loaded, hence questionable, is white-washing psee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitew..._(censorship)] propaganda, IMO.

In my view, 'waves' of Life may be 'surfed' in whatever 'direction' one wishes (chooses, elects, etc.) one's own 'wave' to travel in.

Of course, one may deliberately choose not to 'surf' on (i.e. to just be 'neutral' in relation to) any particular 'wave' that comes one's way. But to do so as a matter of principle/philosophy in relation to any and all 'waves' that come one's way is to abdicate and miss out on the opportunity that being a 'wave' in the context of the multiplicity of 'wave' opportunities that 'incarnation' provides us (our souls) with to developmentally move in 'positive' and away from 'negataive' directions - again, this is as seen in my view.

Such an election, if and as persevered in, will result in one's soul stagnating and, ultimately, atrophying if one is unlucky enough not to have Life's exigencies 'bust' one out of such static directional-immobilizaton - or so my logic leads me to think, believe and feel.

From my book in this regard: "I have deliberately not used phrases like ‘reaching Godhead’ and ‘getting to Heaven’, though what I am advocating is exactly that, because they erroneously imply an end‑destination. In terms of Life, this is a false concept. In case, having found Life’s mode of flux upsetting, you are one who has fallen prey to the temptation to set your sights on an illusion of some sort of utopian finale, let me disabuse you of the notion. The best, ultimately most glorious and joyful attain*ment is not a place or state that one arrives at and stays in. Staticity of any kind, if prolonged, leads to stagnation. In terms of Creativity, it is death! The ecstatic ‘peak’ such terms refer to is really not a final attainment or accomplishment, as many naively believe. Rather, as the words ‘Eternal Life’ clearly indicate, it is ever-ongoing creative process!"

Originally Posted by davidsun

"Many who consider themselves ‘true followers’ of Vedic teachings therefore proceed quite myopically, for example, not appreciating, not availing themselves of, and not sharing with others Life’s true richness and beneficence.

That's just an opinion and couldn't be further from the truth. That's not to say some don't fall into that trap, but it is to say if they do they have wandered off the path. It's no different than Christians, Muslims, Buddhists or followers of any other faith misinterpreting the tenants of their faith and leading themselves astray.

[davidsun]

Originally Posted by Unseeking Seeker

Let us not look at consciousness as static. Recognise it as ... incessant dynamic stillness.

Make white black and black white with the wave of your mind-wand - magic trick?

[davidsun]

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

That's just an opinion and couldn't be further from the truth. That's not to say some don't fall into that trap, but it is to say if they do they have wandered off the path. It's no different than Christians, Muslims, Buddhists or followers of any other faith misinterpreting the tenants of their faith and leading themselves astray.

Yes, it is an opinion. Your opinion is that my opinion is far from 'the truth'. I agree with your comment about Christians, Muslims, Buddhists etc. misinterpreting tenets of truth and going and leading others astray. I think this is true of most faith-followers, BTW.

I am waiting to see if you and Unseeking Seeker are exceptions in this regard - or not. I can't tell based on your and his communications to date. Do relate to 'the truths' I speak about at some point, if not for my then for others' sakes.

[davidsun]

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

I get it all to well. You reject the cosmos and settle for crumbs and hang it all on your treatise.

You say that, maybe because that is what you (wish to?) 'see'.

Here are the first three and a half paragraphs from my (freely downloadable) book, titled Godspeak 2000, which belies your attribution of such 'rejection' to me (IMO).

What are you doing with your Life? Could you do better with it? What is Life all about anyway? And just how do you fit into it? The extent of your creative fulfillment depends on how honestly you answer such questions, and the degree to which your judgments and decisions are guided by the truth.

Whether you are young or old, male or female, black, white or color between; whatever your particular features and talents; whichever set(s) of people you ‘belong’ to; and whoever or however many you may be allied with— in ultimate terms, these are relatively minor factors and insignificant distinctions. Primarily and most fundamentally, you are a 'child' of the Universe, sustained and governed by dynamics much greater than your own or those of any human grouping. You may like what you want and attempt what you will, but you will effectively prosper and succeed only insofar as you identify and navigate the vital currents that surround and include both others and yourself, for, in the final analysis, we are all but little fish in Life’s much larger stream.

If you wish to be more than just a bouncing ball, pointlessly ricocheting off and between others around you; if your life is to amount to more than a ripple that simply dissipates as it traverses space and time—it is crucial that you understand and appropriately utilize the opportunity inherent in being an aspect of vibrant energy within a much greater, infinitely creative flow of energetic vibration.

Your life is a part of all Life, much the way the movement of a molecule in its membrane is an integral component of a drum’s total excitation. What you know as Life‑on‑Earth is the conjoint response of our global ‘drumhead’ to a cosmic ‘drumbeat’, ...

The rest of the book explores the implications of what's said in these paragraphs if you are interested.

Originally Posted by davidsun

You may like what you want and attempt what you will, but you will effectively prosper and succeed only insofar as you identify and navigate the vital currents that surround and include both others and yourself, for, in the final analysis, we are all but little fish in Life’s much larger stream.

Using the stream analogy we aren't little fish in the stream, we aren't the stream nor are we the ocean the stream eventually reaches. We are water.

Water = Cosmos. Little fish, brook, stream, river, even ocean = crumbs.

That's the underlying theme of non-dualism. Other analogies are clay and pot, gold and jewelry, wood and table. If you really want to drive it down all the way find the tiniest microcosm at the tiniest scale and everything is in fact the one thing there only in different manifestations. The delusion or ignorance is thinking one is a pot and not clay, jewelry and not gold, table and not wood.