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#3638 - Friday, August 28, 2009 - Editor: Jerry Katz
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
This poem is fun read out loud:
Gone A Godhead
Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha!
--The Heart Sutra
Journeying onward thru
Rainbow roads of Soma-Psy
Surely enlarges the territory
But I yawn of chemical cease
Yearning pure hyper release—
Gotta greet death at dawning
Of my Absolute-Atman.
Simply have me
Be let loose
Like an untied
Blue Balloon
Escaping this carnival
To forget foe/flower fields,
Raise into the fair faces
Of higher frequency.
Pieces of my lil’ jiva-self
Have been nibbled away
As I’ve cast my Dharma
Into the Dhyana pond,
“I” have popped beneath
The glassy surface
Like a crimson-gold bobber
Being played by a bait fish.
This age, is the final stage
For this danglin’ puppet heart
Charred by molten madness
Of Kali Yuga corruption—
To be swallowed whole
By flower petaled whale jaws;
Have this squawkin’ ego
Rest blissfully in the belly
Of Brahman-Dharmakaya
Dissolving into No-Body of No-thing.
Now off to finish
The only true duty;
Wetting a nadi line
In forgotten Purity Pond
For what…
Baits of words & lures of logic
Have not, cannot ever grasp,
Being happy heady bobber
Of no reappear, yes disappear
Line snapped:
Gone.
Andrew Brunt
Francis Lucille
http://networkedblogs.com/p10156788?ref=nf
Question: Francis, Chris pointed me in your direction, and suggested I ask some of my questions to you. I honestly don't know what, or how, to ask because I have heard, and learned so much about Advaita that I already know what the answers will be. It's unfortunate, I know, and I'm extremely frustrated with it. I've looked within, and asked reapeatedly, "Who, or what am I?", and it stops within my mind, meaning that, as far back as I can trace myself, I seem to be in the mind... looking outward. I cannot grasp the concept that the mind is contained within me, not the other way around. I understand what is said, but cannot move past this obstacle of self-limitation. Honestly, I feel trapped, and I want there to be something I can do to get out, but everywhere I look, I'm told there is nowhere to go and nothing to do. Any advice you have would be immensely appreciated. Thank you, Mike
Dear Mike,
Forget whatever you have been told. Let's take a fresh start.
The core of your question is: "I cannot grasp the concept that the mind is contained within me,". We need to clarify the meaning of two words you are using : "me" and "mind".
1. "me": let's define "I", or "me", or "consciousness", or "awareness" as that, whatever that is, which is seeing these words right now and understands them.
2. "mind": let's define "mind" as the set of all of your perceptions: thoughts, memories, dreams, sensations in the body, feelings, external sense perceptions your "human experience" is made of.
It follows from these definitions that the reality of mind is the experience of perceptions of all kinds, "mentations" appearing in awareness. These mentations have no other place to exist in than the consciousness in which they appear. We are absolutely certain that there is an element of reality attached to them, since we experience them. However each of these mentations could in and by itself be an illusion, as evidenced in the case of our dreams which reveal their illusory quality as we wake up. Since each of them taken separately could be an illusion, their reality must be the awareness in which they appear. The mind is contained within me as awareness, and I am the ultimate reality of the mind.
A few additional remarks for the philosophically enclined:
1. A clear distinction has to be made between mind and brain.
Brain is an organ belonging to the physical universe, made of
particles dancing together the refined choreography of this human
body. Mind is an experience. It doesn't belong to the physical
universe, therefore it doesn't belong to the body or to the
brain, although there is a correlation between mind and brain.
This correlation which is established by numerous experiments in
neuroscience is incompatible with the dualistic, Cartesian view
which sees mind and matter as two separate realities. The
materialist view according to which mind and consciousness would
"emerge" from the brain, and therefore from matter on
the one hand denies reality to the experience of consciousness
-an experience the reality of which we are certain of beyond the
shadow of a doubt, and on the other hand leaves open the
question of the reality of matter. The idealist view according to
which world, body and brain would be mere thoughts appearing in a
human mind is childishly anthropocentric and solipsistic if it
denies the reality of other minds and, if it doesn't, leaves open
the question of the ultimate reality that encompasses all the
minds and connects them. The nondualist view is flawless:
if there is only one reality, the reality of our
experience, consciousness, must be this reality, and
therefore be universal, infinite and beyond space and time. If we
investigate whether it is possible for consciousnes to be
universal rather than personal, we will be surprised to discover
that there is in fact not a single piece of evidence that
precludes this possibility.
2. At that stage we are left with a view of the world, mind and
consciousness which is simple and free from paradoxes, doesn't
conflict with modern science, and which is in accordance with the
totality of our experience. Does this make it true? Certainly
not. This view is also at odds with the dualist belief systems
currently prevalent in most cultures, religions and philosophies.
Does this make it false? Certainly not, for Truthland is not a
democracy where truth gets decided in the voting booths. What
then? How do we decide the truth of non-duality? What can we do?
It may seem at that stage that we have run out of resources and
that our investigation cannot go any further. And that is true of
the intellectual, theoretical aspect of it: we have reached the
end of that street. However there is a new, infinitely rich and
promising direction our investigation can take, the experimental
path. If it is true that consciousness is the reality of the
universe, which restores love, intelligence and beauty at the
core of it, there must be numerous implications, many of which
can be experimentally tested. The outcome of these tests may not
be phenomenal in nature, or, if it is, it may be subject to
several divergent interpretations or it may not meet the
scientific thresholds of repeatability or of verification by
independent observers. However, it may have an absolute
convincing power similar in that sense to the inner experience of
being conscious, an experience which cannot be in anyway
scientifically validated and has nevertheless absolute convincing
strength. Let's take as an example our social interactions. It
may make a difference whether, in our relations with a fellow
human being:
1. we believe to be a separate consciousness interacting with another equally separate consciousness, or
2. we are truly open to the possibility that we are universal presence interacting with itself, talking to itself, listening to itself, understanding itself.
We may as a result observe different outcomes, both at the phenomenal and at the non-phenomenal levels, depending on the stand we take (1 or 2). We may notice that in order to conduct this type of experiment there is a prerequisite: we must be genuinely convinced of the possibility of the non dual hypothesis. Many other similar experiments can be designed regarding our connexion with the world and its events, with the body and its sensations, the decisions we take, the way we think, feel perceive, etc...In fact every moment of our life can be envisioned as such an experiment. Just as the physicist, by conducting experiments, establishes a dialogue with nature, asking questions and awaiting outcomes (nature's answers), we may open a similar dialogue with absolute Reality itself, provided we are open to that possibility. Reality is waiting.
Best regards,
Francis