How Do You Square This Paradox With Truth?

[Joseph Maynor]

You are both a limited perspective and everything that exists at the same time.

[Nahm]

@Joseph Maynor Great question. Everything that appears to exist is your illusion. That is all useless to know though,  if it’s not relative to what you want. Unless you want nothing. But then, you wouldn’t be doing this ultra-convincing impression of Joseph, would you? - cause you were already nothing. Still are. 

[zazed]

There is no contradiction, because you are talking about two different definitions of you.
The first you is what we consider our selves, as sentient beings, our mind, body, self. The second you is a different you that has no self, this you is everything. It includes the first you, because it is limitless.

The first you in your question can never become everything. it will always be a limited perspective.
There is no transformation or change the first you can do to become everything. A character in a storybook cannot become its author. The author is the author.

[SOUL]

In the same way I resolve the paradox that we are made of stuff that comes from stars and look at them at the same time....... I smile and enjoy the 'view'.

[Nahm]

@zazed There is no transformation or change the first you can do to become everything.

How do you know?

I think maybe you’re elaborating on what Jo is presenting. I think he’s looking for the resolve, or ‘how it is these two are in fact one’? Let me know if I’m wrong about that @Joseph Maynor

@SOUL How is that a paradox? 

[zazed]

11 hours ago, Nahm said:

I think maybe you’re elaborating on what Jo is presenting. I think he’s looking for the resolve, or ‘how it is these two are in fact one’? Let me know if I’m wrong about that

Yes. I am pointing out that they are not one. And that perhaps thinking of them is detrimental on the journey.
By thinking they are one, the self is trying to reach enlightenment. But enlightenment already is, and the self is like a veil in front of it.

11 hours ago, Nahm said:

How do you know?

This is a complex question . Learning, logic and practice. It's what Rupert Spira or Paul Hedderman are almost literally saying. It is also my conclusion during self-inquiry and what i experience at times during meditation. I think it is so, because after everything i learned about the properties of enlightenment, it can only be so.

A character on a movie screen, can never step outside the screen, to sit on the couch watching the movie with you.
But you can remember you are not a character on a movie screen, but just enlightenment sitting on the couch, watching this character.
Here again, there are two you's. In the movie, and watching the movie.

If you do self inquiry, this becomes obvious after a while. As a mind you can be aware of yourself, this can be called mindfulness. But who is aware of mind being aware of self? No matter what you do, you can keep peeling of layers of this onion. As a self, you can only realize the final question, "what is aware of this onion peeling activity I keep doing?". 
The selfish part of us may like to call enlightenment a "higher self", but enlightenment is not a state of self. This attachment to keeping our identity is so enormous, that is requires a kind of dying, it's hard to let your entire life behind.

In my experience, when meditating, there are sometimes brief flashes of self dissolution, where i can accept and understand this intuitively. 
At that point there is no self, there is the experience of experience. Depending on how you remember this after, it may be described as being one, being nothing, nothing exist, we are god. But that is just a memory of the mind, of something that can only exist in the Now and never be a memory, and i have poor memory.

It is why we get flashes of enlightenment. During meditation, or experiences using drugs. If we really became enlightened during these experiences, we would keep that state.  But it becomes all so fuzzy during normal life. We try to integrate these experiences. But basically this integration is an illusion, it is the lower self trying to grasp at something it is not. It can never be more than a memory to our minds, we cannot reach the absolute Now using our memories of the p

ast.
 

6 hours ago, Mighty Mouse said:

You're not looking from a perspective, you're looking at a perspective.

Well put. Enlightenment is that which is looking. This is my point maybe, the perspective being looked at, can never look at itself. Our self is the perspective.

 

11 hours ago, Nahm said:

@SOUL How is that a paradox? 

@SOUL Have you reached a point of total time dissolution? Multiple stars exploding as  supernova a billion years ago, forming the entire solar system from its scattered dust including our earth and sun, is your stardust in the Now.  Its not a paradox really, it just took a whole lot of time to cook higher elements from Hydrogen in the nuclear fusion furnaces of ancient suns.

11 hours ago, SOUL said:

I smile and enjoy the 'view'.

But this is the ultimate realization yes, and it is a good point to make.
Tho i would say:  "realize you are not this self, let go, smile and enjoy the 'view'."
But i enjoy using more words in my view... 

[SOUL]

@Nahm I was just being poetic in expressing the infinite and the finite observing itself, any description we use may seem lacking the ability to express the true nature of it.

@zazed Even 'before' the big bang unfolded time and space for the manifest to exist there 'was' now and when we be present  now in awareness we can observe the unmanifest existence.

 

Edited January 21, 2018 by SOUL

[Nahm]

6 hours ago, zazed said:

Yes. I am pointing out that they are not one. And that perhaps thinking of them is detrimental on the journey.
By thinking they are one, the self is trying to reach enlightenment. But enlightenment already is, and the self is like a veil in front of it.

I would offer that they are indeed one, and that’s the joy of the path - the ‘realizing’ of they are, in actuality and absent of deception of believing in the illusion, one. 

This is a complex question . Learning, logic and practice. It's what Rupert Spira or Paul Hedderman are almost literally saying. It is also my conclusion during self-inquiry and what i experience at times during meditation. I think it is so, because after everything i learned about the properties of enlightenment, it can only be so.

A character on a movie screen, can never step outside the screen, to sit on the couch watching the movie with you.
But you can remember you are not a character on a movie screen, but just enlightenment sitting on the couch, watching this character.
Here again, there are two you's. In the movie, and watching the movie.

I would say it does appear complex, but when realized, it’s hilariously obvious and the simplest possible scenario. Do you have the possibility that one of these is an illusion and one is real, leaving One, not two? And further, that this can be “embodied” or real-ized transcendent to concept / thinking?

If you do self inquiry, this becomes obvious after a while. As a mind you can be aware of yourself, this can be called mindfulness. But who is aware of mind being aware of self? No matter what you do, you can keep peeling of layers of this onion. As a self, you can only realize the final question, "what is aware of this onion peeling activity I keep doing?". 
The selfish part of us may like to call enlightenment a "higher self", but enlightenment is not a state of self. This attachment to keeping our identity is so enormous, that is requires a kind of dying, it's hard to let your entire life behind.

Yet, that’s exactly what is required to experience it. Best “movie” ending ever though!, (to use your analogy). 

In my experience, when meditating, there are sometimes brief flashes of self dissolution, where i can accept and understand this intuitively. 
At that point there is no self, there is the experience of experience. Depending on how you remember this after, it may be described as being one, being nothing, nothing exist, we are god. But that is just a memory of the mind, of something that can only exist in the Now and never be a memory, and i have poor memory.

Do you see any possibility that this experience you’re describing, (with practices & psychedelics) , goes far beyond something needing remembering? Everything experienced radically differently, to the point of hilarity in effort to “remember”, or put another way, it becomes super funny because there is nothing to remember.

It is why we get flashes of enlightenment. During meditation, or experiences using drugs. If we really became enlightened during these experiences, we would keep that state.  But it becomes all so fuzzy during normal life. We try to integrate these experiences. But basically this integration is an illusion, it is the lower self trying to grasp at something it is not. It can never be more than a memory to our minds, we cannot reach the absolute Now using our memories of the past.

Are you stating this from an experiential standpoint (maybe roughly 10 incremental trips until the big breakthrough, on top of proper - maybe a few years - of daily foundational practices) or conceptual? Or maybe a pointer of another way to say this is, that the psychedelics themselves are of the nothing fabric of the illusion, and not a physical thing in a physical reality. 

I would look into conflation. Might be freeing. Leo called me out on it a while back and everything changed after I contemplated that. I mean literally everything, not just a sentiment or my concepts.  It lead me to experiencing that most of my concepts were beliefs, and way off. Actually i would say all of my beliefs were concepts, as the whole of reality was seen as the illusion that it is, so anything within that was also of that / is that.

 

Well put. Enlightenment is that which is looking. This is my point maybe, the perspective being looked at, can never look at itself. Our self is the perspective.

Just words of course, but,  God is looking, enlightenment is the realization of this, the unifying, the realization and perceptual flip in how life is experienced. That for the experience of One, one of the two has to go, and it’s not going to be the truth, as it is absolutely true, and so truth obliterates the falsity of the “other”, revealing it was illusionary. In that vein, this is where the  ‘everything changes’ though everything is the same is realized, referenced with the chopping word & carrying water.
 

 

 

 

[zazed]

@Nahm For some reason it is hard to see what i wrote and what you added.

I don't really see you disagreeing with what i say. You are talking about the end result, while i am talking about the process.
I agree there is only one you in the end, from the perspective of the second you, the first you is an illusion.
When @Joseph Maynor says, "we are a limited perspective", this is the self that is not releases yet, and thus there are two selves still. 
As long as that belief exists, i say this limited perspective will not become an unlimited perspective. This you is not the enlightened you, it is the lower self.

23 minutes ago, Nahm said:

I would offer that they are indeed one, and that’s the joy of the path - the ‘realizing’ of they are, in actuality and absent of deception of believing in the illusion, one. 

Yes the illusion is the separation. I don't disagree, but i still offer that they are different in flavor. And the difference can be helpful to consider.
The first you is the mind, the ego, the world of the senses. As long as we identify with that lower self they are two separate yous.
As soon as you identify with the second you, you are not limited to the first you, but the second you also is the first you. The first you does not become the second you however. You always truly were the second you.

 Seeing them as seperate, and thinking the first you cannot become enlightened is helpful on the path. Because to think the first you can become enlightened is an ego trap. It is not the self that becomes enlightened.
This is just playing a mind game for the first you, obviously. But this mind game is belief destroying, allowing the first you to detach from the enlightenment practice.  If that makes any sense, its more a tool, than an absolute truth 

29 minutes ago, Nahm said:

I would say it does appear complex, but when realized, it’s hilariously obvious and the simplest possible scenario. Do you have the possibility that one of these is an illusion and one is real, leaving One, not two?

The one watching the screen is the truth, yes. But for everyone who is not fully enlightened, they think they are the character in the movie screen.
This is the illusion. But also the trouble, because if we play the ego game, we end up as characters in movie screens trying to get out of the screen.

 

31 minutes ago, Nahm said:

And further, that this can be “embodied” or real-ized transcendent to concept / thinking?

I dont know. Perhaps it can, perhaps it cannot. 
It can, in the sense that we are talking about it. It cannot, in the sense that we will never fully explain it to each-other, even we are saying the same stuff. It can be embodied at least, in that it shines trough and leaves a residue on the workings of the mind.
By saying, can be embodied, or realized into thinking. You are talking about the the first You i was talking about 

33 minutes ago, Nahm said:

Do you see any possibility that this experience you’re describing, (with practices & psychedelics) , goes far beyond something needing remembering? Everything experienced radically differently, to the point of hilarity in effort to “remember”, or put another way, it becomes super funny because there is nothing to remember.

Yes it can be funny, in a relaxing sort of way, like a burden dropped.
There is no purpose in remembering the exact mechanisms of it, unless you want to teach or talk about it.
 

35 minutes ago, Nahm said:

Are you stating this from an experiential standpoint (maybe roughly 10 incremental trips until the big breakthrough, on top of proper - maybe a few years - of daily foundational practices) or conceptual? Or maybe a pointer of another way to say this is, that the psychedelics themselves are of the nothing fabric of the illusion, and not a physical thing in a physical reality. 

From experience. I don't take psychedelics or drugs anymore.
I meditate daily, and am increasing my duration. 

 

37 minutes ago, Nahm said:

I would look into conflation. Might be freeing. Leo called me out on it a while back and everything changed after I contemplated that. I mean literally everything, not just a sentiment or my concepts.  It lead me to experiencing that most of my concepts were beliefs, and way off. Actually i would say all of my beliefs were concepts, as the whole of reality was seen as the illusion that it is, so anything within that was also of that / is that.

Ok, i will look into it. Sounds fascinating.
I am basically making the point against beliefs. In the sense that the first You has beliefs, the one we consider our self when we are not enlightened. And that we are not that first self, nor these beliefs. If we can detach from the expectation of becoming enlightened, we can go into it without beliefs.
Enlightenment will become us.

44 minutes ago, Nahm said:

Just words of course, but,  God is looking, enlightenment is the realization of this, the unifying, the realization and perceptual flip in how life is experienced. That for the experience of One, one of the two has to go, and it’s not going to be the truth, as it is absolutely true, and so truth obliterates the falsity of the “other”, revealing it was illusionary. In that vein, this is where the  ‘everything changes’ though everything is the same is realized, referenced with the chopping word & carrying water.

Yes. I like to use enlightenment, being, consciousness and god as synonyms.
This perceptual flip is what i am talking about. When you stop identifying with the first you, there is a perceptual flip as you realize you were the second you all along. Then only one you remains. Until that flip happens, whenever someone is talking about becoming enlightened, one is talking about the illusion becoming enlightened. And this is not possible. 
 

Perhaps it makes no sense from your framework. For me, the desire of wanting become enlightened i realized was holding me back.
So my mind came to the conclusion, that it would not become enlightened. Since we consider our mind our true selves, as long as we are not enlightened. I find it helpful to consider what we think of as "me" cannot become enlightened. 
Something can transcend this, but then we are no longer just our mind, and we have reached it fully. Or rather, it has reached us.
Thus i say there are two selves in the original question :D, because if you phrase the question in that way they are in the question.

[Joseph Maynor]

I FOUND A DOGMA IN NON-DUALITY THEORY -- AND WHY THAT'S NOT A PROBLEM

How Do You Square This Paradox With Truth?  You are both a limited perspective and everything that exists at the same time.

I think it comes from the 'everything is one' thesis combined with the need to incorporate other beings into that oneness.  We are all made of the same emptiness but have unique perspectives.  Ok, but this is still belief though.  Nothing in my senses confirms this.  This is one of the dogmas of non-duality.  

Nobody wants to admit that we have no way to know how to regard other minds through experience alone.  You can parrot 'everything is One' like a bird all you want, but that doesn't mean that you confirmed it through experience.  You can't!  Experience also doesn't confirm that Solipsism is true, because that's a conceptualization too.  'All is One' is a conceptualization not the Truth.  It's a mental-construct, a belief.

Now, why this dogma in Non-Duality theory is ok.  The point of Non-duality theory is to put you in touch with Existential Truth.  Conceptual truth if mistakenly taken as Existential Truth is always going to self-contradict eventually, as it must.  Non-duality theory is no exception to this.  'All is One' is a counter-weight paradigm to be held against the paradigm that we are all separate and distinct individuals.  Neither one of these Paradigms can be proven by Truth, so they are both to be arms-lengthed and not clung to tightly.  That's the insight.  

In Conclusion: Being emotionally affected by conceptual contradiction implies the Rationalist Paradigm is being accepted implicitly.  The conclusion is not that I conceptually know -- it's that I conceptually don't know!  Just be in the Now and stop trying to conceptually know.  Conceptual Truth is not the filet mignon of Truth as the Mind thinks it is -- it's actually observation in the moment that is.  One of the worst traps of the Ego/Mind causes us to believe is that conceptual truth is Existential Truth.  This is our worst trap!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_other_minds

Another reading on point:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism

Video on point to watch.

PARAPHRASE OF CONTENT IN EMERALD'S VIDEO (BELOW):

Potentially it could be just as true that Paradigm A and Paradigm B are true.  They are both equally beliefs.  The point is not to debunk basic fact based beliefs.  The point is not to get to another belief.  The point is to open yourself up and getting yourself to a state of receptivity and get you to realize how little you conceptually know about reality.  When you realize the illusory nature of beliefs you can put them down and get in touch with Existential Truth, the truth of the moment.

Knowledge is not wisdom and wisdom is not knowledge.  Wisdom is always there, it doesn’t need to be acquired; however, wisdom can be blocked.  Only keen-awareness can reveal full wisdom in the moment.  Wisdom contains everything you need to know in the moment.  The Ego is the dam that restricts wisdom from entering the conscious mind.

Edited January 29, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[Joseph Maynor]

AN INSIGHT ABOUT ENLIGHTENMENT -- LOOSEN THAT GRIP ON BELIEFS ABOUT REALITY

The point of Enlightenment is to get you to detach from conceptual beliefs about reality, including the attachments of the Ego.  You can use beliefs in the moment as needed, but err on the side of avoiding thinking that truth is to be found via belief.  Ground yourself in Existential Truth, surrender to reality fully, and be what is fully, without clinging to any beliefs.  You want to live with an empty cup of beliefs not a full cup of beliefs.  Do not let the Mind fool you that conceptual truth is Existential Truth.

Being emotionally affected by conceptual contradiction implies the Rationalist Paradigm is being accepted implicitly.  The conclusion is not that I conceptually know -- it's that I conceptually don't know!  Just be in the Now and stop trying to conceptually know.  Conceptual Truth is not the filet-mignon of Truth as the Mind thinks it is -- it's actually observation in the moment that is.  One of the worst traps of the Ego/Mind causes us to believe is that conceptual truth is Existential Truth.  This is our worst trap!