Why do we think nothingness is black?

[Someone here]

When we hear the term "emptiness " or "nothingness " or even "non-existence " we can't help ourselves but to imagine a black scene.  It has to be black .not any other color .but why ? It should qualityless .meaning it has no shape or form or even color .yet it's associated in our minds with a specific Color which is black .but why black and not red for example?  Can you see that it's completely arbitrary. Yet we can't help ourselves but to think of nothingness as having a black color . I'm simply asking why is that case ? I mean I get it ..we can't imagine colorlessness because all we ever see is color . But why the color black specifically to represent nothingness rather than white or any other color? ?

[Loba]

I've heard that the nothingness that people experience after death is actually both black and white.  Not only is it one or the other, but both and at the same time.

[Someone here]

@Loba if you become infinitely conscious you will realize that death is something you are imagining. 

Death is at best a belief. There Is no actuality to it whatsoever. That's why you have no direct experience or memories of being born also .because birth and death are illusions at the highest levels of consciousness. 

Though that's another topic for another day .

[LSD-Rumi]

It has no color. It is nothing after all. No color, no shape, no limits and no boundaries. It is like colorless vapor or fog, so light and imaginary. It is free from any limitations or musts.

[AtheisticNonduality]

This is just a problem of you not being directly aware of what it is. It's not black: people just think of it as black because that's what they might see when they close their eyes to sleep at night, which they associate with the idea of nothingness or unconsciousness or a void. But the real thing is complete colorless and infinitely unqualifiable Emptiness.

[Someone here]

1 hour ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

This is just a problem of you not being directly aware of what it is. It's not black: people just think of it as black because that's what they might see when they close their eyes to sleep at night, which they associate with the idea of nothingness or unconsciousness or a void. But the real thing is complete colorless and infinitely unqualifiable Emptiness.

And why do we associate sleep with nothingnes?  You still didn't solve the problem. 

If you say we see black during sleep you are wrong ..because we dont see anything (talking about deep dreamless sleep ). And why associate the sleep state with the void and not the waking state unless there is some truth to the proposition that during sleep we lose consciousness..and unconsciousness' color is black 

[AtheisticNonduality]

@Someone here Black is like nighttime: it's the unknown, the unseen, the shadows, the invisible, the out-of-consciousness.

At night, everything is more difficult to see under a lens of obscurity.

When you lose contact with all of the outside world by shutting your eyes and not really viewing anything, you see a black screen or shifting behind-eyelids colors or whatnot (maybe you'll have visions).

That's why people associate blackness with night, shadows, sleep, closed eyelids, and since people have a difficult time becoming aware of actual Nothingness, they're left with this pseudo-Nothingness, they think of the closest thing they have to Nothingness (sleep) but have a hard time thinking about what sleep actually is (because deep dreamlessness is something they can't truly be aware of); so they associate it with the next closest thing (falling asleep or looking behind your eyelids so that you are effectively but not technically blind).

 

 

 

If you want to actually "see" Nothingness, since we're using the traits of various colors, try analyzing all of your visual field, all of the colors. Then move to your peripheral vision. Then move outside of your peripheral vision! You'll notice that there's Nothing there, just a Void. And hopefully you'll be able to recognize that that same Void is inside your visual field as well and is the substance of all of reality.

[Sincerity]

Probably because black is actually absence of color, not color itself. So it's not COMPLETELY arbitrary.

It also reminds of the vast empty space in the cosmos.

You can't imagine what is unimaginable so you imagine black or white or whatever.

Quote

@Loba if you become infinitely conscious you will realize that death is something you are imagining. 

Death is at best a belief. There Is no actuality to it whatsoever. That's why you have no direct experience or memories of being born also .because birth and death are illusions at the highest levels of consciousness. 

If you become infinitely conscious you will realize that your beliefs and intellectual insights about death are not IT.

Belief that death is a belief is at best a belief. 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Sincerity

[Vibroverse]

A few weeks ago I listened to a philosopher and his 10 yo daughter talk about nothing, and the girl was referring to nothing as pure white and it sounded interesting to me, because I also think of it, when I try to think of it, as pure black. 

[AtheisticNonduality]

@Vibroverse It's not black or white or even gray. It's just Nothing, total transparency, devoid of all sensation in a transcendent realm, while still permeating all forms as the formlessness which fits in all of them.

[Vibroverse]

12 minutes ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

@Vibroverse It's not black or white or even gray. It's just Nothing, total transparency, devoid of all sensation in a transcendent realm, while still permeating all forms as the formlessness which fits in all of them.

Sure, but I'm talking about how it feels to me, not what "it" actually is. 

[AtheisticNonduality]

Just now, Vibroverse said:

Sure, but I'm talking about how it feels to me, not what "it" actually is. 

What it feels like should ideally be based on some direct awareness, but, yes, once awareness has contacted it, interpretations and feelings may vary. It could be a luminous series of beams like from an omnipresent white sun or the shining darkness of an ocean outside of the island of sensory light one is grounded on. Any color you add to it is just another part of the dream, as opposed to the deep dreamlessness that exists outside and inside the dream at all times, timelessly and boundlessly yet simultaneously in time and space. It's the Emptiness that transcends but which is inseparable from Everythingness, but all qualities (like white sunlight or an oceanic darkness) we ascribe to it are more properly referred to as pieces of the Everythingness that we use analogically to consider the properties of the Empty and transcendently free Void.