Experience is never direct

[raphaelbaumann]

When studying the teachings of Peter Ralston, he often describes this:

Our perception / experience of reality is never direct and that perception cannot provide your true nature or the true nature of anything.

The average Non-Dual teacher, like Rupert Spira, Mooji and Eckhart Tolle, points out to recognize our true nature as Awareness which is by their definition, that which is aware of our experience. 

However Peter points out that becoming directly conscious of what something is, is not to be confused by being aware of something.

Being conscious: Directly grasping what something IS (direct)
Being aware: being aware of experience / perception (non-direct)

What's your understanding of that? If anyone has directly grasped what something is , for example a cup , how did it differ from being aware of it? 

Edited August 31, 2020 by raphaelbaumann

[Gesundheit]

Can you link some videos to make the point clearer?

[Mu_]

4 hours ago, raphaelbaumann said:

When studying the teachings of Peter Ralston, he often describes this:

Our perception / experience of reality is never direct and that perception cannot provide your true nature or the true nature of anything.

The average Non-Dual teacher, like Rupert Spira, Mooji and Eckhart Tolle, points out to recognize our true nature as Awareness which is by their definition, that which is aware of our experience. 

However Peter points out that becoming directly conscious of what something is, is not to be confused by being aware of something.

Being conscious: Directly grasping what something IS (direct)
Being aware: being aware of experience / perception (non-direct)

What's your understanding of that? If anyone has directly grasped what something is , for example a cup , how did it differ from being aware of it? 

This often happens in spiritual teachings.  Words don't always mean the same thing when used by each teacher.

Being aware of "that" which is aware of experience is the same as directly grasping what something IS. 

[WaveInTheOcean]

It's a useful distinction Ralston is making (the difference between being aware and being conscious).

See, it's a distinction, made up by him. That's what it is. Use it for what its worth.

"What's your understanding of that? If anyone has directly grasped what something is , for example a cup , how did it differ from being aware of it? "

You can be aware of something, i.e. your visual field, a cup, your breathing, a sound w/e. This awareness is a subject-object-perception. You - as a conscious observer/self - are perceiving 'an object'.

And then you can become conscious that this something (visual imagary, breathing-sensation, sound w/e) is your pure imagination as God. That's direct actuality. See, here is no subject-object-duality anymore, because whatever is happening (visual sight, breathing-sensation, sound, thought w/e) IS what is. It IS you. It is YOUR dream (imagination). There is no I, self or w/e that attaches itself to perceiving it. You have stopped creating the illusory self.

You are God. And God dreams. You are dreaming. Wake up.

[traveler]

There is no need to know what a cup is, a cup is the appearance of a cup which we label cup. There is in reality no need to grasp anything, everything already is what it is and it can not be known as a solid thing, because it is not a solid thing. There is no separation between a cup and the seeing of a cup, everything is differentiated one/not two/unknowable isness. The individual separates everything by being real in it's own dream.

 

 

 

[Leo Gura]

It's mostly rhetorical confusion.

The word experience is used for lack of a better word. Technically experience is dualiatic because it implies an experiencer. When the expeirence and expeirencer merge into one, what remains is Being, which is Absolute Truth. But it looks just like experience.

The way Ralston frames it is needlessly confusing.

What is really being pointed to is experience minus the experiencer.

Teachers use the same words in different ways.

[raphaelbaumann]

@Gesundheit

 

[Dodo]

11 hours ago, raphaelbaumann said:

When studying the teachings of Peter Ralston, he often describes this:

Our perception / experience of reality is never direct and that perception cannot provide your true nature or the true nature of anything.

The average Non-Dual teacher, like Rupert Spira, Mooji and Eckhart Tolle, points out to recognize our true nature as Awareness which is by their definition, that which is aware of our experience. 

However Peter points out that becoming directly conscious of what something is, is not to be confused by being aware of something.

Being conscious: Directly grasping what something IS (direct)
Being aware: being aware of experience / perception (non-direct)

What's your understanding of that? If anyone has directly grasped what something is , for example a cup , how did it differ from being aware of it? 

Is it not Ralston's direct experience that he is aware? If we ask him: "Are you aware?" and if he was perfectly honest, he would have to say "Yes, I am aware". This means it is his direct experience that he is aware. What's all this non-direct nonsense he is on about? Maybe he is saying that you are aware not of objects, but of the knowing or awareness of the objects. But there are no objects there, there is only the awareness, so his other point about consciousness in that case is mute. You can't be conscious of a cup. You can be conscious of your knowing of the combinations of sensations and perceptions that we call cup. 

Edited August 31, 2020 by Dodo

[Gesundheit]

25 minutes ago, raphaelbaumann said:

@Gesundheit

 

That's just the other way around of saying you are everything. Here it's saying you are nothing, which is the same thing as everything.

[Someone here]

This is the truth. 

The only reason you can't see it is because it's fucking everywhere.  Same reason why people are searching for mystical experiences and can't realize the mystical experience that's happening right fucking now. 

[raphaelbaumann]

1 hour ago, WaveInTheOcean said:

There is no I, self or w/e that attaches itself to perceiving it. You have stopped creating the illusory self.

Ok I realized the most basic Non-Dual truth aka Noself and I get that there is no "I" experiencing anything. I get also that Awareness never encounters anything but is Beingness itself (nothing more to experience than Awareness)

But after realizing Beingness my experience didn't change. It was more like a recontextualization. So I was wondering like why he's saying "indirect" when it has always been direct from the beginning. @WaveInTheOcean

 

59 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The word experience is used for lack of a better word. Technically experience is dualiatic because it implies an experiencer. When the expeirence and expeirencer merge into one, what remains is Being, which is Absolute Truth. But it looks just like experience.

Yes that's what I would say aswell. It 's just like I don't get why he emphasizes alot that perception isn't direct and is more like radar of what's there and not actually what's there. As after the realization that consciousness is also all form the seight of an apple is exactly the same as before the realization. Not anymore direct than before.  Rather a recontextualization? @Leo Gura

 

 

 

 

 

 

[raphaelbaumann]

45 minutes ago, Dodo said:

Is it not Ralston's direct experience that he is aware? If we ask him: "Are you aware?" and if he was perfectly honest, he would have to say "Yes, I am aware". This means it is his direct experience that he is aware. What's all this non-direct nonsense he is on about? Maybe he is saying that you are aware not of objects, but of the knowing or awareness of the objects. But there are no objects there, there is only the awareness, so his other point about consciousness in that case is mute. You can't be conscious of a cup. You can be conscious of your knowing of the combinations of sensations and perceptions that we call cup. 

I really don't know dude what Peter is about here..

[Leo Gura]

46 minutes ago, raphaelbaumann said:

I don't get why he emphasizes alot that perception isn't direct

Perception isn't direct because it is dualistic. "Perception" is a very loaded word here. You have to understand that when he says that perception isn't direct, he does NOT mean that you will discover some new thing behind perception, like some sort of "truer" version of reality. What he means is, everything will stay the same, but you will realize that perception is actually Being by collapsing the subject of perception into the raw data of perception. Perception will get radically recontextualized, but all the raw data, so to speak, will stay exactly the same. If you saw red before, you will keep seeing red during awakening. But now red will be recognized as RED! -- an absolute, rather than a function of some biological human brain process.

I explain all this very well in my videos: What Is Perception? and What Is Actuality?

Being = perception minus ego

RED = red minus a perceiver

[Dodo]

@Leo Gura but isn't red simply the perceiver hallucinating red? Im a bit confused ? are you saying red exists objectively? 

[Leo Gura]

9 minutes ago, Dodo said:

@Leo Gura but isn't red simply the perceiver hallucinating red?

No.

Not in the way you think.

The hallucination itself is an Absolute.

Quote

Im a bit confused ? are you saying red exists objectively? 

Yes, red exists Absolutely. All the raw data you see around you exists as an absolute. The problem is that when ego looks at anything absolute, it contextualizes it as "my subjective experiences". But without an ego, your experiences would stop being "yours" and they would even stop being "human experience happening in a brain".

"These are my subjective human experiences" << is a conceptual context which the ego-mind projects/imagines in order to create a sense of self.

Go re-watch my videos on What Is Perception? and What Is Actuality? and What Is Truth?

It's all explained there.

Or just take a psychedelic and see it for yourself.

[Dodo]

@Leo Gura I might get it, let me see if I understand. The Perceiver is hallucinating an objective Red and since the perceiver is empty, we can actually say the hallucination is objectively there and there is no subject (since the subject is empty we can equally say there is no subject ).

But still I would want to say that the only reality of those "objective hallucinations" is the "subjective emptiness" that knows and unifies them.

Not necessarily talking about human subjective experience, but the subjective knowing of this very moment itself. That empty " thing " which connects all objects of experience such as the colour red and sound of a bird. Those two objects might have objective existence but they are both happening in one field of awareness (me) otherwise they would not be known to me and would not have that existence. Its almost like the subjective is allowing the objective to be objective!? Im getting a slight mindfuck brb

I'll check those videos for clarification. Btw im taking psychedelic no-fap-dmt hahaha!

Edited August 31, 2020 by Dodo

[Leo Gura]

7 minutes ago, Dodo said:

@Leo Gura The Perceiver is hallucinating an objective Red

To make it really simple, there is no perceiver. There is only the RED perceiving itself.

Everything is self-perceiving. The chair perceives itself. Ego takes credit for it.

[Forestluv]

25 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

To make it really simple, there is no perceiver. There is only the RED perceiving itself.

Everything is self-perceiving. The chair perceives itself. Ego takes credit for it.

Is that another way of saying perceiver and perceived are the same?

[Leo Gura]

25 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

Is that another way of saying perceiver and perceived are the same?

Of course.

ONENESS!

When you see a chair across the room, you ARE that chair.

[Dodo]

50 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

To make it really simple, there is no perceiver. There is only the RED perceiving itself.

Everything is self-perceiving. The chair perceives itself. Ego takes credit for it.

Ok but hang on because chair perceives itself, and table perceives itself and a musical note perceives itself but in so called direct experience all of those happen in the same space. This space must exist then, so it also perceives itself like all other things that exist, but can't perceive itself as an object... Couldn't this space be the perceiver/subject? This space is definitely not the Ego self, since the ego self is also an object within that space, which perceives itself like the Red and the Chair and the musical note. 

To me it seems you are saying here that there is no true self... Or I am not fully understanding.

Edited September 1, 2020 by Dodo