Is nonduality the absolute or a contingent knowledge?

[Carl-Richard]

14 minutes ago, Strannik said:

The formlessness you are talking is accessible to direct experience,

It's not accessible to it. It is it. It is isness. Whether isness is accessible or not does not change the fact that it is. This isness is in its most fundamental state boundless formlessness.

Edited December 10, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[Strannik]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

It's not accessible to it. It is it. It is isness. Whether isness is accessible or not does not change the fact that it is. This isness is in its most fundamental state boundless formlessness.

Well, isness is accessible, we all experience isness/presence directly. Isness is not different from awareness because for us to know isness is the same as to be aware of it (sounds like a tautology). But what makes you think that isness is the "Ultimate Truth" and not simply an aspect of some more fundamental reality that may "be" in a totally different way inconceivable to us and different from the "issness" that we know from our experience? Or what makes you think that isness is the most "fundamental"? "Fundamental" is only a concept, an idea.

I guess, we can continue talking over each other heads and blame each other that the other party is "lost in concepts". But the only thing I'm saying is that whatever we can know conceptually or experientially (and there is no other way for us to know anything), we have no way of being sure that what we know or directly experience has anything to do with the "Ultimate Truth" (it may or may not, but there is no way for us to prove or disprove it).

 

Basically, this discussion is about a topic that Buddha debunked 2300 years ago when he critcized both the extremes of "eternalism" and "nihilism" (claiming that something "exists" or "does not exist"). In Leo's case the claim is that the "Ultimate Truth" exists and "you are That". Buddha was pointing that the very existence (of the "Ultimate Truth" in our case) is a mental fabrication, an idea. What we actually know in our direct conscious experience is only a flow of qualia inseparable from the "isness/presence" and conscious awareness of them. Everything else beyond this simple experiential fact (such as any assumptions about what is "fundamental" or "True" or "Absolute" and what is not, what is a "subject" and what is an "object" etc) is only a result of conceptual fabrications. This simple realization is Zen. 

Edited December 10, 2022 by Strannik

[PigeonPark]

If "my" conciousness is the only thing that exists what about other Gods? Aren't "you" Leo just another God from a different reality? Isn't that the same as saying that there are different conciousnesses out there? Help me understand this, I feel like I don't. 

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Strannik said:

What you fail to realize that it is only your belief (idea) that there is nothing that exists beyond Consciousness. The fact that all you can ever know or experience is only the content of conscious experience does not mean that there is nothing beyond what can be consciously experienced

Keep dreamin, kid.

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Strannik said:

Well, isness is accessible, we all experience isness/presence directly. 

You're speaking of "direct experience" as if it's a limitation. It's not. Something can only be limited in the realm of form. For example, I can't read your thoughts or see the back of my own head, because that is the limitations of these forms. But that doesn't mean that formlessness is limited. Formlessness is what makes something "be", and its potential is unlimited. It's the ground of all things.

When I "experience" formlessness in a mystical experience, that is not me as a human creature experiencing formlessness. That is me as formlessness temporarily divesting myself of the limitations of the human form and seeing myself as I have always been and always will be. The body that I experience, the thoughts, the sense of existing in space and time, disappears, but I still exist, because those things are not essential to me.

My essential nature is unlimited, ultimate and absolute. There is nothing inside or outside of me. Only when I take a formed existence, you can speak of limitations.

Edited December 10, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[Strannik]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

You're speaking of "direct experience" as if it's a limitation. It's not. Something can only be limited in the realm of form. For example, I can't read your thoughts or see the back of my own head, because that is the limitations of these forms. But that doesn't mean that formlessness is limited. Formlessness is what makes something "be", and its potential is unlimited. It's the ground of all things.

When I "experience" formlessness in a mystical experience, that is not me as a human creature experiencing formlessness. That is me as formlessness temporarily divesting myself of the limitations of the human form and seeing myself as I have always been and always will be. The body that I experience, the thoughts, the sense of existing in space and time, disappears, but I still exist, because those things are not essential to me.

My essential nature is unlimited, ultimate and absolute. There is nothing inside or outside of me. Only when I take a formed existence, you can speak of limitations.

When I "experience" formlessness in a mystical experience,  I go beyond what you described: there is no "myself as I have always been and always will be". Any such interpretation of mystical experience is a result of mental fabrication about "my-self" (or "my-Self" with capital "S") that always "be". As Buddha would say, it is "eternalism", it is believing that you exists as some eternal "Self" (it does not matter whether you associate it with your human body or identity or not). These are all just ideas. Granted, this interpretation is fueled by our sense of self, sense of "I", but we need to inquire into this sense until we discover that it is only an idea. A way to do that is to go further and experience a state where the is no any sense of "I" left. In such core formless mystical experience there is actually only aware-presence now, there is no "be", no "will be", no "I", no "self" or "Self". When forms appear, there is the same aware-presence just present with forms, but still no object, no subject, no "I", those are just ideas that are simply part of the same flow of phenomena. Adding anything to that simple direct experience of aware-presence with no forms or aware-presence with forms, such as that the aware-presence is "I", that it is "fundamental", "ultimate and absolute" is only throwing a bunch of mind-fabricated ideas and interpretations on top of what is actually directly experienced. 

When we do the exploration, we realize at some point that our association of our sense of self with human body or mind is only a conceptual idea that we have subconsciously subscribed to, and so we go beyond that and now associate our sense of "I" with the formless presence. That is definitely a progress, but many get stuck at this stage and believe that they arrived at the "Ultimate Truth" and there is nothing else to discover. However, there is still a way beyond this stage where it is possible to realize that even the sense of "I" and the "Ultimate Truth" are only mind-fabricated ideas that we simply subconsciously overlay on our direct conscious experience which is only a flow of qualia inseparable from the "isness/presence" and conscious awareness of them, just like before we overlayed on it the mental image of the "external world", "subjects and objects", "me as a human" etc. So, we are kind of peeling away layers after layers, and the point is not to stop peeling until we get to the bare core of our direct experience and direct experiential knowing of reality as it is given here and now. At that point we discover that there is actually no "I", no "Truth", no "fundamental", no "Absolute" and no "Ultimate" (apart from just fleeting ideas about them), there is only "this" - your direct conscious experience present and awared here and now. We can call it a "bare Zen", even though that would be just another mental label.  

 

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Keep dreamin, kid.

Keep sleeping in your religious fairy tale, kid 

Edited December 10, 2022 by Strannik

[Strannik]

I mean, there is nothing wrong with getting stuck in this "I am the Absolute Truth" state. It is definitely much more advanced compared to an ordinary state of a confused and suffering human who identifies themselves with human mind and body and believes in the reality of the external material world. It may be good enough for you, you already broke free from human psychological suffering, and that can be enough from the pragmatic perspective. But if you are really on the quest of the inquiry into the reality, then there is no reason to stop here.   

And it is understandable that the realization that "there is actually no "I", no "Truth", no "fundamental", no "Absolute" and no "Ultimate" (apart from just fleeting ideas about them), there is only "this" - your direct conscious experience present and awared here and now" - can be very disorienting, scary and uncomfortable, just like it was disorienting and scary when we let go of the idea of our little human separate self. So, that quest is not for lighthearted, and there is no obligation to go that way anyway, you can perfectly keep blissing out in the "I am the Absolute Truth" state. It's just that if there is anyone who wants to go beyond, I'm just showing the way. Just like the Heart Sutra says: 

Gate Gate Pāragate Pārasamgate Bodhi Svāhā - Gone gone, gone beyond, gone utterly beyond, Enlightenment hail!

(that is what actually the Enlightenment was meant to be in Buddhism)   

Edited December 11, 2022 by Strannik

[Girzo]

36 minutes ago, Strannik said:

At that point we discover that there is actually no "I", no "Truth", no "fundamental", no "Absolute" and no "Ultimate" (apart from just fleeting ideas about them), there is only "this" - your direct conscious experience present and awared here and now.

All this stripping of labels is uneccessary. Obviously in an Enlightened state there is no self, no Self, etc., but there still is THIS. Something that is nothing. And I am not in that state right now. No-one is, communication in that state is impossible. So we are not in the state, right? So we can use the powers of the mind to create appropiate labels. And I don't know about you, but in my opinion Absolute F####g Truth is a pretty good label for THIS. Ain't it?

[Strannik]

31 minutes ago, Girzo said:

All this stripping of labels is uneccessary. Obviously in an Enlightened state there is no self, no Self, etc., but there still is THIS. Something that is nothing. And I am not in that state right now. No-one is, communication in that state is impossible. So we are not in the state, right? So we can use the powers of the mind to create appropiate labels.

There is nothing wrong with making and using labels, I'm not saying that we need to be stripped of any labels. In the Enlightened state any ideas or labels can be present (or absent), including the ideas of "I", "self", "Self", "Absolute", "Infinity" etc. There is just a clear realization that these are simply labels, contingent ideas, and none of them are true or false in any absolute sense. So, what needs to be "stripped" is the belief that any idea or state or realization can be "ultimately true". Or, more precisely speaking, realizing that the "belief that an idea or state or realization is "ultimately true"" is itself just another belief, just another idea that can never be proven to be "ultimately and absolutely true" (including the state of realizing just "THIS").

 

Quote

And I don't know about you, but in my opinion Absolute F####g Truth is a pretty good label for THIS. Ain't it?

Well, yeah, you can label "THIS" with anything you want, it's just a word game after all, but it seems to me that when it is overloaded with labels like "l", "God", "fundamental", "Infinite", "Absolute Truth" and stuff like that which Leo loves to do, it really confuses people and confuses the matter by making associations with meanings that have nothing to do with "THIS". Why not then call it a "flying spaghetti monster"?

Edited December 11, 2022 by Strannik

[Girzo]

9 minutes ago, Strannik said:

the state of realizing just "THIS"

I assume you mean being a state in which there is nothing and just THIS, where there was a computer a second ago, but now is nothing. Using my mind right now not being in that state I can say that there were still sights and sensations, but I know they were't really there and it didn't feel like anything being in that state, other then bliss, but that's also a description added now, not coming from that state.

But that would be a pretty passive type of state. There are more active states like this spiritually dull one where I am also creative and talkative and eager to read your posts.

I think that Leo's argument is that THIS can reconfigure into such state where it's both very clearly THIS, but also active and from this superior "position" make an absolute judgement about itself being God. And other insights. They are not stated by dull Leo character, they are made by THIS itself, while THIS is absolutely itself.

I stay open to this not having experienced it ever, the same as I stay open to your ideas.

[Girzo]

31 minutes ago, Strannik said:

Why not then call it a "flying spaghetti monster"?

Because God is a wisely created, accurately pointing label.

Just as you wouldn't get Enlightened by browsing Pornhub instead of learning about and applying spirituality, you wouldn't grasp what THIS is by contemplating about flying spaghetti monster instead of God.

I don't think that God is an overloaded label in serious spiritual circles. It might be in the common person's mind, I agree.

Edited December 11, 2022 by Girzo

[Strannik]

35 minutes ago, Girzo said:

Because God is a wisely created, accurately pointing label.

Just as you wouldn't get Enlightened by browsing Pornhub instead of learning about and applying spirituality, you wouldn't grasp what THIS is by contemplating about flying spaghetti monster instead of God.

I don't think that God is an overloaded label in serious spiritual circles. It might be in the common person's mind, I agree.

"God" typically implies "Absolute Truth", which is already an overload, a pointer to a layer of belief. In spiritual practice what is practically important is using precise pointers to where a person should continue enquiring. If a pointer is confusing or ambiguous, that can easily be an impediment for people. That's how most people in common religions get stuck in their beliefs. If you can figure out that "God" is actually pointing to just "THIS", then good for you, but most people are not so lucky. As I said, part of the realization of "THIS" is that nothing can be "absolutely true" other than a bare experiential fact of a simple aware presence of "THIS" here and now, not even a belief that there is nothing else other than "THIS". That is quite far from a common meaning of the word "God" as far as I now. Again, looking at the example of Buddhism, there is a practical reason why the Buddhists avoid using the word "God", not exactly because they are atheists, but because they know that the label "God" is too imprecise, confusing and overloaded with a baggage of wild beliefs to be used as a good pointer in spiritual practice.

Edited December 11, 2022 by Strannik

[Devin]

11 hours ago, Strannik said:

“Infinite Absolute that encompasses all there is and all that can possibly be” is only an abstract idea. It is in principle impossible to have a factual raw experience of the actual infinity of “all there is”, no matter how much DMT you take. The content of any conscious experience is always finite, it's an undeniable fact of our direct conscious experience, even though there are no limits to it that can be experientially found. But the absence of limits is not the same as the actual infinity; the former is the fact of experience, the latter is an abstract idea.

yes, that's all 'an abstract idea'/ 'conceptual', that's not 'being' or 'infinity'. Consider time being a concept

[Strannik]

1 hour ago, Girzo said:

I assume you mean being a state in which there is nothing and just THIS, where there was a computer a second ago, but now is nothing. Using my mind right now not being in that state I can say that there were still sights and sensations, but I know they were't really there and it didn't feel like anything being in that state, other then bliss, but that's also a description added now, not coming from that state.

OK, let's go back. Here is how I tried to describe "THIS" in one of the posts (again, this description is only a pointer):

"What we actually know in our direct conscious experience is only a flow of qualia inseparable from the "isness/presence" and conscious awareness of them."

So, "THIS" is not a state necessarily absent of any forms, labels or ideas. The forms (sensations, feelings, imaginations, thoughts that include labels, beliefs, ideas etc) may or may not be present, and it does not really matter whether they are present or not. So, any our state, including your state right now looking at the computer, is actually already "THIS". The difference of the "enlightened" way of experiencing THIS vs. non-enlightened way is that in the non-enlightened way we unconsciously interpret THIS "through a lens" of a certain layer of beliefs. For example, a common human interprets it through the belief that he is a "perceiver-self in the center of the world looking at the external material world of separate objects and subjects" etc. This interpretation is so persistent that people actually "see" and "feel" themselves and those objects in the "world out there" as absolutely real. A more spiritually advanced person may interpret it through a different belief that all that is happening appears in the "Absolute Formless Consciousness" (aka "God"), in the "Absolute I" that is aware of all fleeting phenomena. But that is just another interpretational layer. But the funny thing is: all these interpretational layers and beliefs are simply part of THIS, of the experiential "flow of qualia inseparable from the "isness/presence" and conscious awareness of them". All these interpretation layers, beliefs, labels, ideas, no matter how good or bad, true of false they are, are all automatically included in "THIS", but none of these beliefs are true or false in any absolute sense. So, there is in fact the "I" or "Truth" or "a computer" as an idea, as a phenomenon of experience included in the flow of THIS. And as phenomena they are all "real" in a sense that we actually experience them as thought-forms. But when we say that there is no "I" or "Truth", it really means that there is no independent reality of "I" or "Truth" other than simply them being just the content of those thought-forms. As the Buddhists would say, they are "empty" of independent existence (empty of existence as some actual entities like "I", "God" or "a computer" other than just our thought-forms about them).    

Now, you can go rather far in your spiritual practice and experience a state absent of any forms. It is actually quite useful and helps to realize that all our beliefs and ideas are only thought-forms that may be removed from THIS, as well as added to THIS. When I practiced dream yoga, I once had an experience of lucid deep sleep where there was actually nothing at all, not even any sense of any "I", but there was still conscious experiencing of this nothingness (absent of any conceptual understanding of it). It was quite revealing, but that is not what the Enlightenment is, it's just a useful experience that may (or may not) help on the way. If you never had such experience, don't worry, it's not a prerequisite.

Edited December 11, 2022 by Strannik

[Strannik]

20 minutes ago, Devin said:

yes, that's all 'an abstract idea'/ 'conceptual', that's not 'being' or 'infinity'. Consider time being a concept

sure, of course time is a concept, as well as any "being" or "infinity".

 

The thing is, people are unconsciously trying to find and hold on to something firm, something existing in the absolute sense. If it is not "human me", then find it in the "I", or "being", or "God", or "Absolute Truth", or "Formless suchness", or "Formless Awareness", or "Infinity", you name it. Of course, they try to ground it in their spiritual experience in order to have experiential certainty in addition to just having a belief. It is really scary to let go of such "absoluteness" which we could  hold on to and to experience reality as a bare Zen of "THIS", as it actually is present here and now in our direct experience: an ultimately uncertain bare flow of qualia/phenomena where there is nothing to hold on to, where nothing absolute, fundamental or ultimately true can be found.   

Edited December 11, 2022 by Strannik

[Devin]

22 minutes ago, Strannik said:

sure, of course time is a concept, as well as any "being" or "infinity".

 

The thing is, people are unconsciously trying to find and hold on to something firm, something existing in the absolute sense. If it is not "human me", then find it in the "I", or "being", or "God", or "Absolute Truth", or "Formless suchness", or "Formless Awareness", or "Infinity", you name it. Of course, they try to ground it in their spiritual experience in order to have experiential certainty in addition to just having a belief. It is really scary to let go of such "absoluteness" which we could  hold on to and to experience reality as a bare Zen of "THIS", as it actually is present here and now in our direct experience: an ultimately uncertain bare flow of qualia/phenomena where there is nothing to hold on to, where nothing absolute, fundamental or ultimately true can be found.   

i promise I'm not trolling you; consider 'people' as a concept, i don't mean what you're experiencing isn't real. Try to find where one person ends and another begins, and contemplate why/how you determine that border/boundary where one person ends..

[Strannik]

22 minutes ago, Devin said:

i promise I'm not trolling you; consider 'people' as a concept, i don't mean what you're experiencing isn't real. Try to find where one person ends and another begins, and contemplate why/how you determine that border/boundary where one person ends..

I know, I've done this before. Sure, you can apply this line of reasoning and arrive at a logical conclusion that there are no actual personal boundaries and therefore there is only one "Cosmic Consciousness" in which all our conscious experiences arise. Yet, those would only be concepts based on logic and reason. But what makes you think that reason and logic can lead you to the Absolute Truth? We humans developed our logic and reason as practical cognitive tools based on the observations of correlations in the flow of our conscious phenomena.  What makes us think that the same logic and reason applies to the reality as a whole on its very fundamental level (if there even is such level)? Also, mathematicians found that there is a countless variety of logics in addition to the classical Aristotelian one, some of them being quite bizarre. How do we know which one actually applies to the "Ultimate Reality" (if there even is one)? Logic and reason are only sets of abstract ideas, they turn out to be practically useful in describing what reality/nature does and how it behaves, but there is no reason to believe that it can be applicable to what reality actually is. 

Edited December 11, 2022 by Strannik

[Devin]

4 minutes ago, Strannik said:

I know, I've done this before. Sure, you can apply this line of reasoning and arrive at a logical conclusion that there are no actual personal boundaries and therefore there is only one "Cosmic Consciousness" in which all our conscious experiences arise. Yet, those would only be concepts based on logic and reason. but what makes you think that reason and logic can lead you to the Absolute Truth? We humans developed our logic and reason as practical cognitive tools based on the observations of correlations in the flow of our conscious phenomena.  What makes us think that the same logic and reason applies to the reality as a whole on its very fundamental level (if there even is such level)? Also, the mathematicians found that there is a countless variety of logics in addition to the classical Aristotelian one, some of them being quite bizarre. How do we know which one actually applies to the "Ultimate Reality" (if there even is one)? 

well, i would say i covered this in my first post, it's less like saying this is true and more like saying everything else is obviously not true. see my first post again on 'no-ing'

[Strannik]

37 minutes ago, Devin said:

well, i would say i covered this in my first post, it's less like saying this is true and more like saying everything else is obviously not true. see my first post again on 'no-ing'

what if nothing we can know is absolutely true other than a simple and bare given experiential fact of:

"What we actually know in our direct conscious experience is only a flow of qualia/phenomena present here and now inseparable from the "isness/presence" and conscious awareness of them."?

Anything we can know can still be true in a relative, contingent or practical sense. Some ideas can still be more useful or practical than others. In that sense the idea of "Absolute Infinite Consciousness" may be practically useful for many people in helping them to dismantle their previous belief system of naive realism. Again, I understand that what I'm saying here may be hard to swallow for many people, but there is no obligation. There is actually nothing wrong with having beliefs in some absolute truths, that's what the vast majority of people do anyway, and there is nothing we can do about that. But if anyone wonders what the "Enlightenment" actually is (at least in the Buddhist sense), then having beliefs in some absolute truths unconsciously hidden in one's blind spot is just not that.   

 

Edited December 11, 2022 by Strannik

[Carl-Richard]

4 hours ago, Strannik said:

When I "experience" formlessness in a mystical experience,  I go beyond what you described: there is no "myself as I have always been and always will be". Any such interpretation of mystical experience is a result of mental fabrication about "my-self" (or "my-Self" with capital "S") that always "be". As Buddha would say, it is "eternalism", it is believing that you exists as some eternal "Self" (it does not matter whether you associate it with your human body or identity or not). These are all just ideas. Granted, this interpretation is fueled by our sense of self, sense of "I", but we need to inquire into this sense until we discover that it is only an idea. A way to do that is to go further and experience a state where the is no any sense of "I" left. In such core formless mystical experience there is actually only aware-presence now, there is no "be", no "will be", no "I", no "self" or "Self". When forms appear, there is the same aware-presence just present with forms, but still no object, no subject, no "I", those are just ideas that are simply part of the same flow of phenomena. Adding anything to that simple direct experience of aware-presence with no forms or aware-presence with forms, such as that the aware-presence is "I", that it is "fundamental", "ultimate and absolute" is only throwing a bunch of mind-fabricated ideas and interpretations on top of what is actually directly experienced. 

When we do the exploration, we realize at some point that our association of our sense of self with human body or mind is only a conceptual idea that we have subconsciously subscribed to, and so we go beyond that and now associate our sense of "I" with the formless presence. That is definitely a progress, but many get stuck at this stage and believe that they arrived at the "Ultimate Truth" and there is nothing else to discover. However, there is still a way beyond this stage where it is possible to realize that even the sense of "I" and the "Ultimate Truth" are only mind-fabricated ideas that we simply subconsciously overlay on our direct conscious experience which is only a flow of qualia inseparable from the "isness/presence" and conscious awareness of them, just like before we overlayed on it the mental image of the "external world", "subjects and objects", "me as a human" etc. So, we are kind of peeling away layers after layers, and the point is not to stop peeling until we get to the bare core of our direct experience and direct experiential knowing of reality as it is given here and now. At that point we discover that there is actually no "I", no "Truth", no "fundamental", no "Absolute" and no "Ultimate" (apart from just fleeting ideas about them), there is only "this" - your direct conscious experience present and awared here and now. We can call it a "bare Zen", even though that would be just another mental label.  

I or no I, I've had it. There is no me = I am everything. Same shit, just different ways of speaking.

Edited December 11, 2022 by Carl-Richard