Non existence vs existence as "ground"

[Adamq8]

So i've been contemplating the issue of existence vs non existence.

And scouring over thousands of pages of different traditions and philosophy etc, mostly they say the same thing.

That existence in one way or form is the only possibility and that non existence is an illusion.

But here comes the contradiction in this day and age.

Take for example, Frank Yang claims non existence is the case upon death.

Leo claims existence is the case and non existence is impossible.

How do you reconcile this?

GOD realization is a true comprehension that eternity is what the case is, there is no death other then the illusory self construct. 

But GOD is not a finite thing or " no thing" 

Thats why I find a contradiction in Frank from my point of view, he is teaching GOD and Universe but that can cease to exist, how does infinite conciousness cease to be? 

Other then deluding itself to experience this.

How can GOD/Being be finite and cease to exist?

Where would it go?

@Synchronicity this might also be a question for you as well.

But @Leo Gura how do one actually reconcile this?

This is the biggest differences between the traditions.

It is the same as in philosophy today, idealism vs materialism.

Materialism = non existence upon death.

Idealism = core subjectivity is what reality is and "experience " or dreaming will never cease because nature does what it does because it is what it is.

Not to be conflated with the ego self but with pure awareness. 

And I do really question if this really is a semantic difference, i think it is more than that. 

Take advaita vedanta vs theravada buddhism, almost the same thing

[Someone here]

"non-existence" doesn't exist. By definition. 

What you are confused about is nothing vs something. 

Form is formlessness. Formlessness is form. 

[Leo Gura]

Death is imaginary. It never actually occurs.

God has existed forever. It cannot not exist since God imagines non-existence.

You're not really awake unless you're perfectly conscious that death will never occur.

Infinity cannot die because it literally has nowhere else to go. Infinity exists in all places at once, including no-place. Anywhere you imagine Infinity might go to upon death, it's already there!

[Adamq8]

14 minutes ago, Someone here said:

"non-existence" doesn't exist. By definition. 

What you are confused about is nothing vs something. 

Form is formlessness. Formlessness is form. 

Yes I agree with that.

Non existence cannot possibly be.

But I guess it depends on the definition people are using, to me non existence is that which is not and cannot possibly have anything to do with this right here.

Infinity does not really include non existence because non existence would swallow infinity as it never was, and that would by definition already have happened but yet here we are.

Or here infinity is.

Those two are mutually exklusive.

 

[Someone here]

6 minutes ago, Adamq8 said:

Yes I agree with that.

Non existence cannot possibly be.

But I guess it depends on the definition people are using, to me non existence is that which is not and cannot possibly have anything to do with this right here.

Infinity does not really include non existence because non existence would swallow infinity as it never was, and that would by definition already have happened but yet here we are.

Or here infinity is.

Those two are mutually exklusive.

 

Yes. Non existence cannot exist. Notice the contradiction.  If non existence existed .. It would be existence. Lol 

Reality can dissappear into a black void or something like that.. But it would still exist as that black void.  You  can't escape from existence. Whether you exist as a form or as formlessness. 

[Adamq8]

10 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Death is imaginary. It never actually occurs.

God has existed forever. It cannot not exist since God imagines non-existence.

You're not really awake unless you're perfectly conscious that death will never occur.

Infinity cannot die because it literally has nowhere else to go. Infinity exists in all places at once, including no-place. Anywhere you imagine Infinity might go to upon death, it's already there!

Agreed.

Just like I said to @Someone here , infinity and non existence is by definition totally exklusive since non existence is what it is by definition, non existence.

It has nothing to do with the nature of infinity.

If conciousness would cease when the body dies, then we can conclude that the imaginary brain is responsible for conciousness exactly as materialism has been saying.

But that is not really the case, not according to logic, evidence , awakening, intuition etc.

So I would say that to even speak about non existence is wrong, we can't point to it, because it is not real.

To me your metaphysics makes sense and i've experienced a exact correlation with it, GOD realization is the most radical thing that there is, not only does it effect you but it effects everyone who is near and around you to the degree that it is completly realized that GOD is everyone and there is only the ONE and it has never ever been born to begin with. 

ETERNITY is not just a word game but actually the case.

 

[Leo Gura]

Remember, the definition of an Absolute is that which has no opposite.

So whatever you consider the Absolute to be, it better have no opposite, otherwise it ain't Absolute.

If Truth is the Absolute, then it cannot have a falsehood alongside it.

[Adamq8]

@Nahm I also like how you explain this topic, with the notion of how it feels to actually "think" that non existence is real, it is not in accord with the feelings the body is telling you.

It is false according to the feelings, non existence is not real. 

 

[Leo Gura]

6 minutes ago, Adamq8 said:

So I would say that to even speak about non existence is wrong, we can't point to it, because it is not real.

Correct

But it's sorta even more radical. Non-existence exists as a concept. That's what non-existence is. Non-existence is a child of existence.

The mistake here is to assume that non-existence could be its own thing. It can't be its own thing. Nothing can be outside of existence since existence is all things.

[RMQualtrough]

I personally like non-existence because I find consciousness to be nothing, and I think that's the source.

I understand that when all distinctions break down nothing and something are one and the same. Existence always exists, but I think non-existence (total void nothingness) is packaged with it... The void acts as awareness, when there is something to be aware of. Which there always is.

What does one call an existent nothingness? It's such a contradiction.

[Adamq8]

16 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Yes. Non existence cannot exist. Notice the contradiction.  If non existence existed .. It would be existence. Lol 

Reality can dissappear into a black void or something like that.. But it would still exist as that black void.  You  can't escape from existence. Whether you exist as a form or as formlessness. 

Yes it is limitless in that way, it can be however it wills to be.

Through my own awakenings, i've noticed the horror of the actual implication of what existence really is.

There is no getting out, and that can be freakish but also liberating at the same time.

 

[Adamq8]

35 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Correct

But it's sorta even more radical. Non-existence exists as a concept. That's what non-existence is. Non-existence is a child of existence.

The mistake here is to assume that non-existence could be its own thing. It can't be its own thing. Nothing can be outside of existence since existence is all things.

Yes indeed!

Non existence relatively happens within existence,  and Absolute Non-existence is not real whatsoever

[Adamq8]

57 minutes ago, RMQualtrough said:

I personally like non-existence because I find consciousness to be nothing, and I think that's the source.

I understand that when all distinctions break down nothing and something are one and the same. Existence always exists, but I think non-existence (total void nothingness) is packaged with it... The void acts as awareness, when there is something to be aware of. Which there always is.

What does one call an existent nothingness? It's such a contradiction.

It depends on how we like to define non-existence, nothing is existence but pure and true non existence is not even nothing in my definition.

No thing ness is not non-existence, the void still exists or how we like to put it.

Pure non-existence would be akin to not nothing, not anything,  not void, not fullness, not awareness,  not anything , not even that.

But perhaps because non-existence is not, then everything else is.

It is paradoxical as f*ck.

Non-existence is eternal unchanging, and by definition not existing.

And if this came from non-existence then it is not a true non-existence. 

The term non existence should not even be a word in the dictionary because it contradicts everything.

 

[Gesundheit2]

Well, one thing that people tend to take for granted is awareness.

In the existence terminology, it's already assumed that whatever you're aware of right now is existence. So, since you're aware, it's assumed that you exist. This assumption is usually taken to be as truth rather than an assumption or learned knowledge.

But what's the relationship between awareness and existence? After all, inanimate objects apparently don't have an awareness, and yet they somehow exist. And at the same time, countless other beings apparently have, and many of them claim to have an awareness, but I don't have any way to access them and confirm.

How do we cope with this paradox?

For me, I just surrender the whole inquiry, because apparently there's no way to answer it. I think people are overly confident about their insights regarding this topic. And I think the whole point of the inquiry is to surrender it rather than to arrive at an answer. But perhaps some people get way too enthusiastic and lose track of the original goal. For me, the original goal is not an intellectual insight. Rather, it's an emotional state that I was seeking. Once I get that state, really not much matters after that.

[LastThursday]

Existence and non-existence are a duality. Every moment you've ever experienced no longer exists. We're sat on a knife edge between existence and non-existence. You could even say the two are synonymous. The sensation of existence is an illusion.

[Breakingthewall]

15 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

Existence and non-existence are a duality. Every moment you've ever experienced no longer exists. We're sat on a knife edge between existence and non-existence. You could even say the two are synonymous. The sensation of existence is an illusion.

There are no moments that you have experienced that no longer exist, there is only present, but seems that is changing because the apparent experience, like watching a movie. what there can be is the end of the apparent experience, that is, the end of the content, with the death of the body. without the sensory and mental content that remains? the pure being, so pure existence, that does not pass, which is what it has always been. this cannot not be, or go from being to not being. It is out of time, it is the emptiness by definition.

Edited September 8, 2021 by Breakingthewall

[Adamq8]

23 minutes ago, Gesundheit2 said:

Well, one thing that people tend to take for granted is awareness.

In the existence terminology, it's already assumed that whatever you're aware of right now is existence. So, since you're aware, it's assumed that you exist. This assumption is usually taken to be as truth rather than an assumption or learned knowledge.

But what's the relationship between awareness and existence? After all, inanimate objects apparently don't have an awareness, and yet they somehow exist. And at the same time, countless other beings apparently have, and many of them claim to have an awareness, but I don't have any way to access them and confirm.

How do we cope with this paradox?

For me, I just surrender the whole inquiry, because apparently there's no way to answer it. I think people are overly confident about their insights regarding this topic. And I think the whole point of the inquiry is to surrender it rather than to arrive at an answer. But perhaps some people get way too enthusiastic and lose track of the original goal. For me, the original goal is not an intellectual insight. Rather, it's an emotional state that I was seeking. Once I get that state, really not much matters after that.

Great inquiry.

But we should be able to reach some kind of consensus in what existence entails.

Can we say that existence is the feeling/knowing that one is?

I can't deny the obviousness in me writing these words etc.

I can't deny that I am concious right now.

We could say that I assume you also have the same experience of the things i said above. 

But that might as well be an illusion. 

I can't read your thoughts but I suppose that you have thoughts, or how else would you wrote what you wrote, but that can as easily be a dream ofcourse and I am imagining right now that you exist.

But can not the paradox be solved in saying, existence or this right here is all that there is or ever will be, therefore a notion of something that is called non existence is entirely an imaginary thought. 

It is the notion of non existence that gets us into the paradox, but the paradox would dissappear if we recognize that existence is that which is the case and that time as we think it is, does not exist at all.

 

 

[LastThursday]

3 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

There are no moments that you have experienced

Agreed. To re-iterate, existence and non-existence are the same. Unfortunately I have to use language to get my points over.

I would say that content is experience, there is nothing outside of content. That sensation of pure being or pure existence, is still content.

[Breakingthewall]

3 minutes ago, Adamq8 said:

Can we say that existence is the feeling/knowing that one is?

existence does not know or feel anything, it just exists. pure existence, no more. the infinite emptiness that is. Feeling or knowing is apparent, it is what seems to be happening in the current experience of having a body. existence only exists, is everything 

5 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

That sensation of pure being or pure existence, is still content.

Yeah more or less. or rather it is my deduction of what remains if you delete all the content of the current experience

[Adamq8]

25 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

Existence and non-existence are a duality. Every moment you've ever experienced no longer exists. We're sat on a knife edge between existence and non-existence. You could even say the two are synonymous. The sensation of existence is an illusion.

A fictional duality in that, non existence is that which is not.

Illusion presupposes that something or no thing is aware of it as an illusion.

But in contrast to what is it an illusion?

This moment is what is, and it is an illusion that the previous moment somehow dissapeared into oblivion. 

This moment is what is , and has always been, but through the appearence of moving through space and time it is creating the illusion that the previous moment went to non existence and that we move from 1 point to another.

Reality is static but appears to be moving.

It is fluid but hard as a rock