In response to a YouTube comment:
Thinking itself is not the clouding, rather, the act of believing in and valuing the content that thinking imagines and tries to solidify is clouding love, peace, joy.
Belief
Time and Nouns
In response to a statement that said ‘when thoughts stop, time stops.’
Thoughts don’t need to stop to see that time doesn’t exist. The act of believing in (trusting) particular thoughts is responsible for this mistaken assumption that time exists. Those particular thoughts are any of the kind that tries to freeze any activity of appearing into an event that happened. There are no nouns in reality. That trusting energy emerges from timelessness. When that trusting energy ceases focusing on conceptual nouns as if they were actualities. that trusting activity (love) is freed from its self-imposed curse – the seeming imprisonment in seeming time frames.
Verbs and Nouns
A statement, made in a comment by a person with the name ‘Tantra tcc’ (on a video by Rupert Spira):
‘All experience requires an experiencer and that folk’s “is” duality :)’
De’s Response:
That’s what our minds believe. That belief is also an appearance of undivided Being.
In the tantric tradition, you find many beautiful hints regarding this,
particularly in the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra (Shivaism).
Practically speaking, loving can trigger the insight that there is no-one perceiving what’s happening.
Let’s stick to verbs, not nouns.
As soon as we divide the act of experiencing into nouns – ‘experience’ and ‘experiencer’ – then,
yes, with believing in nouns comes the illusion of duality. The noun ‘no-one’ is the only real noun.
All appearing is expressing this.
‘It is obvious’
Hello Freinds,
‘Existence’ is a term that tries to consolidate the activity of appearing into a noun. The activity of ‘happening’, ‘appearing’ never ends up as a genuine noun. The term ‘existence’ is, so to speak, a fake term. Form is, as an appearing phenomenon, in that category if it claims to be real via a mental activity of believing that it is real.
The inherent substance in appearing and disappearing forms is emptiness. (The term ’emptiness’ implies that phenomena do not have an independent substance.) The only substance there is is unboundedness. Some call it ‘freedom’, Jim Newman may call it ’empty space’, Tony Parsons may call it ‘unbounded energy’. They don’t want to call it ‘awareness’ but they say ‘it is obvious’.
That sense of obviousness is only possible when the facts a ‘lit up,’ enlightened. ‘Enlightened or Enlightening awareness’ are terms they reject because there is no one to own such an awareness. Nevertheless, unboundedness is ‘obvious’ (quoting). That claim (that unboundedness is obvious) can only arise within the universal light of clarity – that could be called enlightened awareness.
These terms do not point to something special. They point to the obviousness of timeless ordinariness. These terms are only misconstrued by concepts that arise from a time-bound view. To prevent such misinterpretation, Tony et al. avoid them. At least, that is my explanation of why they avoid these traditional terms like poison.
Cheers
Dietrich
The Reality of Awareness
In response to a video with Richard Sylvester
The term ‘real’ when applied to ‘what’s happening’ explains that we can’t deny the appearing and disappearing of specific phenomena. They are as real as mirages. We can’t grasp any phenomena. But the perceiving of mirages cannot be denied. If we apply the term ‘real’ to the capacity of perceiving, rather than to the fluctuating colours, sounds etc, then we give credence to the fact that there has to be a capacity to perceive so that perceiving can happen. Perceiving requires alertness. Alertness is just another word for awareness.
I understand that a term such as awareness can be a trap by triggering the belief that there is a separation between awareness and the perceived phenomena. Nevertheless, awareness is fundamental for any descriptions, statements, claims, perceptions. There is no harm in realising that what’s happening is fluctuant (subject to coming and going) and that the capacity to perceive is neither coming nor going. There is no harm in realising that the sense of ‘no-me’ is that undefinable space without measure in which phenomena arise and disappear. Let’s call it awareness. It is the capacity of perceiving.
The ‘Born-Apparent’ Nisargadatta
Hello Friends,
Here is another small sequence of comments, should it be of some interest.
Comments in response to a YouTube audio with quotes from Nisargadatta:
Dietrich
The ‘born apparent’ cannot be led to its True Unborn Self. However, the recognition of the True Unborn Self reveals that the born is only apparent and therefore is not. Something that is not will never see what is.
daisilui
Dietrich, The ‘born apparent’, let’s call it the body-mind is the starting point that believes it can do something to arrive at the Self. Whether led by grace or by own persistence [or both], it must start from somewhere to get nowhere and to disappear at arrival in the realisation that it never actually moved. The mind is the only tool that leads one to the realisation that it doesn’t exist.
Dietrich
The term ‘mind’ is a broad term. The ‘born apparent’ is a specific application of mental activity that miraculously convinces awareness to believe that it is a separate entity. That believed-in, fake, separate entity is unable to see that it does not exist, that it is imagination only. The questioning of this belief is a mental act, guided by intuition. Thoughts can point in the right direction but the waking up from the illusion is a non-mental realisation. The same applies to creation as a whole. It does not exist; it only appears to exist. It only seems real to the believed-in ‘born apparent’. Both are unreal. They continue as Lila (light-hearted play) once Maya has been exposed as being an appearance only without any independent substance.
Two ways of experiencing
In response to a question in a video with Rupert Spira:
Dietrich
One way to deal with this question would be to distinguish between experiences that include the act of believing in a reference point (‘me’) and experiences without such a reference. Without such a thought-based, believed-in reference point, it would be clear that the knowing happens happily in a referenceless, centreless field of awareness. That’s why most ‘teachings’ question this reference point first. The recognised absurdity of such a believed-in separate entity naturally reveals the boundless nature of awareness in which all appearances come and go. The ocean is aware of itself – with and without waves. Thinking that we are a separate wave is obviously silly. In that case, God plays being silly.?
mrnibelheim
An insightul observation, thank you Dietrich! How would you distinguish between experiences which have and do not have a reference point? Could you maybe give me some examples to inquire into for myself??
Dietrich
Experiences with and without a reference point (me) are perceived by the same consciousness that everyone is. However, the (self-imposed) identification with the action figure ‘me’ distracts from this fact. Once the distraction has lost its attraction, this fact is clear. So the difference is clear seeing versus blindness. The experiences may be similar in both cases (say washing dishes). In the first instance, it is seen that boundlessness expresses itself in the act of washing dishes whereas in the second scenario an independent entity is believed to wash the dishes. In the first case, there is fulfilment, both regarding the sensing of boundlessness and regarding the perceiving of a playful expression as a fleeting flavour of boundlessness. In the first case, everything is fused with love, in the second case, experiences contain domineering elements of desire and resistance (I’d rather go to the movies) because of the inherent frustration of relating everything to a limited, seemingly disconnected me.
mrnibelheim
Yes, thanks Dietrich, this makes very good sense, and I would say that in imagination I have been able to see this mind-body “me” as an expression washing the dishes – another expression – and those moments have felt “genuine” in the sense that I did not have to make too many concessions to conventional reality. But if pressed too far, the experience can become somewhat threatening to me because it becomes non-conceptual and “things,” including “me,” feel as if they are falling apart, which I suppose is not a bad thing, according to teachings such as Rupert’s, but I can’t say I find it rewarding just yet, though I can see how it could grow on me. Does this ring a bell for you? And if so, have you found that you were gradually more able and willing to go along with the apparent meaninglessness of events??
Dietrich
There may be an element of fear in the sense of ‘falling apart’. Falling apart is not rewarding for what falls apart. It knows that it’s doomed to expose itself as being non-existent. It just appears to exist. The activity of believing in it keeps its momentum. It’s not a question of ‘I should allow the falling apart’. It is more an issue of seeing what is truly the case. Allow resistance – to the sense of falling apart – to show up as much as it likes. Just see it when it shows its scary face (like a clown) without doing anything about it. It can’t stand the light of truthful exposure so it will go away by itself. Consequently, me’s absence reveals your authentic presence that is not scary at all. (Only the idea of ‘no me’ is scary to me – for obvious reasons.)?
mrnibelheim
A most helpful response, thank you very much! I find your sentence “It knows that it’s doomed to expose itself as being non-existent” comforting in a weird way, I suppose because in that view there is no “me doing or allowing” anything – a welcome relief from all the mental gymnastics which so many meditation teachers suggest.?
Dietrich
The sense of relief is a reliable indicator. It confirms a clear seeing that mental gymnastics are performed by ‘what you are not.’ Therefore, there is a natural letting go of interest in mental gymnastics. In that relaxation (relief) is the presence of what does not need to be acquired. It is already so. (It will never be acquired via gymnastics. Any attempted movement towards it is actually another misleading strategy of blindness to perpetuate itself.)?
mrnibelheim
Thanks for that confirmation, Dietrich. I have of late been able to see, as you say, that any movement towards relaxation pushes it into the future, and that turns it into an endless mission – the dangling carrot tied to a stick above the donkey’s head!?
Dietrich
The relief realises that the chase after the carrot keeps the donkey appear real.?
mrnibelheim
Yesss!!!
Dreaming to be the dreamt
In response to a video by Paul Hedderman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R8S4MoHvfY
A question of morality
In response to a YouTube video by Rupert Spira:
What we have available to verify any statement is consciousness. If we, as consciousness, identify with the belief to be a separate self, then trouble is generated as outlined in the video. If we, as consciousness, do not identify with such a hoax belief, then consciousness is aware of its formless nature, even while engaging in the dreamworlds of form and time. That’s why I can’t verify the statement that ‘infinite consciousness knows (=is aware of) only itself’ – meaning without perceptions. It continues perceiving via the senses and it perceives the flow of thoughts without sacrificing universality. In this case, the hoax of being a separate entity is absent. The dreaming is exposed to be a dreaming only, and its fleeting happenings are perceived with ‘benevolent indifference’ (Francis Lucile). Some call it universal love. Universal love is active in the middle of dreaming. The questioner’s aversion against violence is understandable but it undermines the questioner’s capacity for universal love in the name of morality. Consciousness, identified as the action figure, say the child offender, is driven by a conditioning that would have caused anyone with the same conditioning to be violent as well. Benevolent indifference is much more potent than a judgemental attitude that implies that ‘we are better than others’.
