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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2014 15:06:57 GMT -5
Consciousness and the Absolute.
Translation by Jean Dunn.
February 12, 1981
"Nothing in the world is of any use to me. That very identity with which you try to understand everything is unreal. Daily you have to convince yourself about yourself. You have to carry out your life, first of all assuring yourself that you are. Nothing has happened except the knowingness, only a pin-prick of knowingness against the background of your innate nature of no-knowingness, and this is of no help at all."
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That's succinct.
It is. But unless it is seen directly, it remains ungraspable. Do you mean, unless it is lived, it's just words on a page? |
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Post by laughter on Aug 14, 2014 15:11:15 GMT -5
No. Thats not right. The Witness is prior to beingness. Again, it cannot be grasped intellectually. It has to be seen. Niz gives an excellent prescription on how that can be accomplished. Be with your sense of being to the exclusion of everything else and it will become clear what he is going on about. I'm just talking about the words. If witness is prior to beingness, then beingness is form? And he talks about being as transcendent, so being must be formlessness? It's a very confusing use of terminology. The distinction at issue is one that is really subtle: between the sense of being and the witness. (From Chapter 78 of "I AM THAT", "All Knowledge is Ignorance")
seeker: One what side is the witness? Is it real or unreal? Niz: Nobody can say, "I am the witness". The "I am " is always witnessed. The state of detached awareness is the witness-consciousness, the 'mirror-mind'. It rises and sets with its object and thus it is not quite the real. Whatever its object, it remains the same; hence it is also real. It partakes of both the real and the unreal and is therefore a bridge between the tow. seeker: if all happens only to the "I am", if the "I am" is the unknown and the knower and the knoweledge itself, what does the witness do? of what use is it? Niz: It does nothing and is of no use whatsoever. seeker: Then why do we talk of it? Niz: Because it is there. The bridge serves one purpose only -- to cross over. You don't build houses on a bridge. The "I am" looks at things, the witness sees through them. It sees them as they are -- unreal and transient. To say 'not me, not mine' is the task of the witness. seeker: Is it the manifested (saguna) by which the unmanifested (nirguna) is represented? Niz: The unmanifested is not represented. Nothing manifested can represent the unmanifested. seeker: Then why do you talk of it? Niz: Because it is my birthplace. |
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Post by justlikeyou on Aug 14, 2014 15:21:56 GMT -5
It is. But unless it is seen directly, it remains ungraspable. Do you mean, unless it is lived, it's just words on a page? Yes. |
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Post by laughter on Aug 14, 2014 15:35:20 GMT -5
A certain prescription for an uptick in the murder rate. Dude, come on, there are other ways  It's true that some platonic relationships are healthy but it's also true that an inability to integrate passion and companionship are not the fault of the sex drive. I'm sorry but the idea of a 5 year sexless engagement is something that, in my opinion, is likely to fit with or serve very very few couples well. |
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Post by laughter on Aug 14, 2014 15:39:34 GMT -5
No. Thats not right. The Witness is prior to beingness. Again, it cannot be grasped intellectually. It has to be seen. Niz gives an excellent prescription on how that can be accomplished. Be with your sense of being to the exclusion of everything else and it will become clear what he is going on about. I'm just talking about the words. If witness is prior to beingness, then beingness is form? And he talks about being as transcendent, so being must be formlessness? It's a very confusing use of terminology. In my words what I think Niz meant is that the " sense of being" is a form and when we refer to being we're referring to a reflection of what it is that he'd call the "real", and that these distinctions only arise in mind, as there is no actual separation between any of it. |
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Post by silver on Aug 14, 2014 16:52:11 GMT -5
Ah, but remember Silver, love is blind. It's only seen clearly for what it is the morning after the night before. But by then it may be too late. For this reason I strongly suggest long engagements without sex...perhaps 5 years or longer  A certain prescription for an uptick in the murder rate. If a heart attack or stroke doesn't take one of 'em out first...  |
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Post by enigma on Aug 14, 2014 19:43:54 GMT -5
When I search the quote, I don't find what you have written in brackets. You added that as your interpretation of what Niz means by I amness/consciousness. I understand the quote as it actually is, which still doesn't resolve the being/beingness issue: " The primary ignorance is about our ‘I amness’; we have taken it as the Ultimate, which is ignorance. We presume that this consciousness is the eternal, the Ultimate, which is the mistake. This ‘I am’ principle is there provided the waking state and deep sleep are there. I am not the waking state, I am not the deep sleep – therefore I, the Absolute, am not that ‘I am’. " Correct. But for the "self evident aliveness" everything else are terms he used in similar contexts. I wanted you to understand exactly what is being said. Of course, you will have to make up your own mind about it. But for illustration purposes here is another quote you can google. Niz: "We are dealing with the physical form, which is made up of, and fed by, the five elements. In that form are operating the life force (the vital breath) and this consciousness that is, the knowledge ‘I am’ or the sense of being, the sense of existence. The latter is the ‘sentience’, which is the gift of the consciousness.' I don't have a lot of trouble with it when he talks about 'knowledge of I am, sense of being and sense of existence since knowledge and senses are not 'the I am' and beingness and existence. It's only when he objectifies 'I am', and talks about being and existence as form that I have a problem. I can probly adapt to that terminology, but then he talks about being as transcendent and self evident, which contradicts the notion of being as impermanent form: "Tirelessly I draw your attention to the one incontrovertible factor – that of being. Being needs no proofs – it proves itself." I may be misunderstanding, but I don't see you addressing my concern. I don't need more quotes or assurances that when I finally see the light it will all be clear. |
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Post by enigma on Aug 14, 2014 19:48:10 GMT -5
So, to Niz, beingness is form but being is prior to form?  When he speaks of prior-to or beyond form he uses an expression that is indeterminate: not neither, not either, not both, but beyond both. But isn't he calling it "being" here? Elsewhere, being seems to refer to form. |
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Post by justlikeyou on Aug 14, 2014 19:57:18 GMT -5
Correct. But for the "self evident aliveness" everything else are terms he used in similar contexts. I wanted you to understand exactly what is being said. Of course, you will have to make up your own mind about it. But for illustration purposes here is another quote you can google. Niz: "We are dealing with the physical form, which is made up of, and fed by, the five elements. In that form are operating the life force (the vital breath) and this consciousness that is, the knowledge ‘I am’ or the sense of being, the sense of existence. The latter is the ‘sentience’, which is the gift of the consciousness.' I don't have a lot of trouble with it when he talks about 'knowledge of I am, sense of being and sense of existence since knowledge and senses are not 'the I am' and beingness and existence. It's only when he objectifies 'I am', and talks about being and existence as form that I have a problem. I can probly adapt to that terminology, but then he talks about being as transcendent and self evident, which contradicts the notion of being as impermanent form: "Tirelessly I draw your attention to the one incontrovertible factor – that of being. Being needs no proofs – it proves itself." I may be misunderstanding, but I don't see you addressing my concern. I don't need more quotes or assurances that when I finally see the light it will all be clear. What is your first conscious memory? |
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Post by laughter on Aug 14, 2014 21:59:43 GMT -5
When he speaks of prior-to or beyond form he uses an expression that is indeterminate: not neither, not either, not both, but beyond both. But isn't he calling it "being" here? Elsewhere, being seems to refer to form. He has multiple uses for the word and does this not just with the word "being", but the term "I am" as well. Polysemantics based on context is nothing new to you my friend.  in fact, now that I think about it, the only terms that he's really consistent with are words that he uses when speaking about the indeterminism beyond mind (parabrhaman) such as "real", "supreme" and "natural" on one hand, and also when he's speaking about the consensus trance and refers to suffering, attachment and delusion, etc. on the other. It's on the middle-ground revolving around the prescription to attend the sense of being, to "refuse all thoughts but 'I AM'" that he'll shift his perspective, and from reading the dialogs this seems to be done based on where the seeker is and what their interests are. If I'm not mistaken, he'll use the word "consciousness" a few different ways as well, but "the witness" has only one meaning. In the "I AM THAT" dialogs he uses the word "parabrhaman" only twice, but those might be illuminating as to his vocabulary: seeker: The fully realised man, spontaneously abiding in the supreme state, appears to eat, drink and so on. Is he aware of it, or not? Niz: That in which consciousness happens, the universal consciousness or mind, we call the ether of consciousness. All the objects of consciousness form the universe. What is beyond both, supporting both, is the supreme state, a state of utter stillness and silence. Whoever goes there, disappears. It is unreachable by words, or mind. You may call it God, or Parabrahman, or Supreme Reality, but these are names given by the mind. It is the nameless, contentless, effortless and spontaneous state, beyond being and not being. (para's 21 and 22 from dialog 13 of "I AM THAT", "The Supreme, the Mind and the Body") seeker: What you say reminds me of the dharmakaya of the Buddha. Niz: Maybe. We need not run off with terminology. Just see the person you imagine yourself to be as a part of the world you perceive within your mind and look at the mind from the outside, for you are not the mind. ... seeker: What is the relation between reality and its expressions? Niz: No relation. In reality all is real and identical. As we put it, saguna and nirguna are one in Parabrahman. There is only the Supreme. In movement, it Is saguna. Motionless, it is nirguna. But it is only the mind that moves or does not move. The real is beyond, you are beyond. Once you have understood that nothing perceivable, or conceivable can be yourself, you are free of your imaginations. To see everything as imagination, born of desire, is necessary for self-realisation. We miss the real by lack of attention and create the unreal by excess of imagination. (para's 5 and 6, and 39 and 40, from dialog 94 of "I AM THAT", "You are Beyond Space and Time") |
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Post by laughter on Aug 14, 2014 22:01:18 GMT -5
When he speaks of prior-to or beyond form he uses an expression that is indeterminate: not neither, not either, not both, but beyond both. But isn't he calling it "being" here? Elsewhere, being seems to refer to form. One other point -- in my understanding of this lexicon, form has no independent existence. There is no form that isn't a reflection of being. IOW: on one hand all appearances involve an entanglement of the "real" and the unreal, but on the other, the real never becomes unreal: Niz: The unmanifested is not represented. Nothing manifested can represent the unmanifested. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2014 22:16:14 GMT -5
what, take a bite?  Its a fact that Men can learn from women just as Women can learn from men. It's a better fact that anyone can learn from anyone, if they are interested in learning. another fact is that not offering is somewhat better than making yourself known. If they ask, they're in the right frame of mind.  Attachments:
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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2014 13:12:35 GMT -5
Sounds like the gateless gate again. Seems imposing on approach but disappears immediately upon crossing the threshold. What's with the axe then? For peeps lingering at the threshold, clinging to the "I AM" for dear lifeless life. Here's a hint: listen to what the material realists and commonsensicalists have to say.  Please elaborate on that last hint. Where could I find what they are saying? |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2014 13:17:57 GMT -5
"Understanding" seems to have a bad rap. "So and so demonstrates a mere intellectual understanding yada yada." Somehow putting 'intellectual' in front of 'understanding' changes it from the real mccoy to a fake, a mimic. But as James Schwartz repeatedly emphasizes much of this whole biz is exactly about understanding. How that understanding comes about is not via rote memorization though, and it almost never is. Honestly, I don't find the concept of Oneness or the idea of no separation to be possible to be intellectually understood. The terms can be bandied about, repeated verbally in different contexts, but fundamentally they can only be grokked, or understood. There's plenty of intellectual reference points for "Oneness". The world is profoundly interconnected, and if you believe the astronomers, it all began at a single point as a single thing and no part of it can be destroyed, it can only change form. One can simply ask, "where do I end and the world begin?", and realize quite quickly that every boundary is ultimately arbitrary. Another one (of dozens) of lines of inquiry which all lead to the same conclusion is to recognize that no action ever really either arises or completes in isolation without both endless cause and effect. Where it gets tricky for the mind is the fact that this interconnected apparent whole is only a shadowy reflection of what nonduality points toward. Any "Whole" that we can conceive of is encapsulated by the conception and thereby necessarily involves at least two things. Point taken. Sometimes I find myself eagerly trying to wrap my head around a materialist version of Oneness. It is attractive but insurmountable really, as it involves mostly imagination. It's one thing to understand that this keyboard is just probability clouds and forces and energy, etc but this is discarded in the practical functional relationship (I'm not sitting in awe looking at it). |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2014 13:21:21 GMT -5
I was looking at that crazy diagram of self knowledge this morning (sorry can't find a link) and it shows 'I AM' as being the border between 'The Great Illusion' and 'The Natural State.' So it is the foundation of all illusion (personal self) and also the point at which form meets formlessness. I like to think of this by the metaphor of Alice and the looking glass. In one direction, looking from the "I AM" outward, to where attachments are put on it ("I am a man, I am a father, I am a salaried employee" ...) it's what he's referred to as "the core delusion", but looking back toward the mirror from out in the delusion, it's the polishing cloth that one uses to discover the only certainty. When he starts talking in terms that are indeterminate is when he's referring to the other side of the looking glass. Trying to follow any of that with logic or to use any of those statements as the basis for coming to conclusions about what happens outside of Wonderland just leads to confusion at the very least, and often, strife. John Wheeler refers to the positive and negative aspects. The negative is what is done with neti neti, discarding the stuff that comes after I Am. The positive is just resting or whatever with 'the natural state,' the undeniable fact of being or however you want to say it. |
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