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Let “me” take “ you” to the VOID
Let “me” take “ you” to the VOID
There are two routes. Now which one should you and me take dear friend?
For me and you are not matter or not atleast any matter that we know of…let us take both the routes
Like two streams of the same water taking two different routes and reaching the sea/void…
Stream 1….
Take any object excluding what ever you think you are ..or simply you …except for you take any object..
A bucket may be..?mmmmm…?
Now what is that bucket…is it plastic molded into a bucket…?
Now suppose there is a camera …a very special camera …a camera with a self/soul/life…but with the same built/apparatus that we know a camera has…
This camera/vedio would record all sort of things…all things it could point to and record..is it not?
Now suppose there is a bucket …and our friend camera clicks it and lo there is a picture of the bucket.
Now our friend camera looks at this picture of the bucket and begins to wonder..what is this bucket..?
Now our friend the camera is logically correct …there is a world external to it…and it has pictures of that external world …therefore it questions what is this bucket?
But all our friend camera can for ever look at is the “picture” of the bucket and never ever at any real bucket. What it can look at ..ever..is only 0s & 1s( bits of voltage which form the image of the bucket).
Now suppose our friend camera finally finds the answer…finds whats really out there…..what would this answer be? Wouldn’t it be 0s and 1s( picture) too?
Now the camera might think “ I can never ever really know what reality is…for what ever I can know will only be the picture”…
But one day our camera realizes that its realization “ “ I can never ever really know what reality is…for what ever I can know will only be the picture”… is also a neat picture in itself…0s and 1s(bits of voltage)
the same bits of 0s and ones which formed the “bucket” also formed ““ I can never ever really know what reality is…for what ever I can know will only be the picture”…”.
Now putting aside our friend what do “you” see when you see a bucket?
Are you convinced that you are looking at a real bucket and not at its picture?
Right now that bucket , and that shoe and that standpost and that car…all pictures….in your mind… or are they?
Are they the snapshots of the camera mind of the world external to you?
I mean to say there is a real bucket outside and what you see is a picture of it in your mind?
Now what is that “ there is a real bucket outside”?
If bucket is also a picture isn’t “ there is a real bucket outside” a picture too?
There is never any picture anywhere but rather only the seeing.
Let it be the bucket , or that orange or that dog all /everything is only the seeing of it…including the seeing that it is a seeing.
Like 0s and 1s of our friend camera the same 0s and 1s sometime forming a man , and sometime forming a chair , our consciousness ( the same consciousness/seeing) forms a bucket , and also forms that table……AND ALSO FORMS US as the subject of these.
We go on with the drama/play/dream……
We are utterly convinced that that “bucket” or that “hill” is really out there. That there is really an “outside” and an “inside”.
We are also convinced just like the bucket we too are outside the dream….
That we are someone or a person or a self …outside this dream...outside this “seeing”…outside to this consciousness.
Waking up consists of realizing that we too and everything is in reality only this dream…only this seeing.
You cant wake up unless you realize that everything is a dream including yourself and that such a waking up too IS IN THE DREAM….
You wake up to what? You wake up to the dream! You cant wake up to waking up. YOU or me, in the dream can ever only wake up to the dream…that we are.
Now this dream or seeing or consciousness can never ever be anything (real) because if it was something it too would be a formation (seen) and not seeing.
It cannot be that bucket or that orange or you or me or a god or anything.
And on the other hand apart from the seen there can be nothing that can be said about the seeing.
That this seeing is absolutely nothing ..absolutely nothing is the void.
Now don’t say that seeing cannot be seen thus and only thus nothing can be said about it.
That “seeing cannot be seen “ is also the “seen”( dream/non reality)
Seeing is simply void. It never was , is or will be anything. Void doesn’t mean something...as an absence.
When everything is only illusonary how can its absence be true.
Void is simply not ….because void is simply not everything will simply be.
But everything that will simply be can only be the void( seeing – dream-consciousness)
Now this is the secret behind hui neng saying “from the beginning not a single thing is”
Or of the rigveda stating “ before creation there are neither things nor their absence…for things have not yet been created for their absence to be”.
or of the buddha with immense love stating to his disciple ....when for you in the seen there is only the seen ...you are free".
Voila …..Welcome to the Void and your waking up…
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The second sutta of Buddha which still raises such a cry and vehement debate….whether Buddha meant no self or not self…etc so on and so forth…the annatta lakhana sutta …is summed up by Buddha himself in these words….
In this world there is absolutely nothing that you can call as “me” or” mine”.
Because consciousness is seen as the ultimate “thing” that a man possesses …he (Buddha) analyses it thus…
If consciousness was truly yours…you must be able to say …let me always be conscious of only this or that. Your consciousness too should always remain with you…..but these things never ever happen and is the proof or plain seeing that consciousness and hence nothing else is really yours.
This sutta of Buddha is meant to explain what a “witness” sees. Or how a witness sees.
A winess is the other name for the one who has waken up …the liberated.
Now what does a witness see….? He just not sees that everything is not he…he sees altogether something different and the key.
He sees that he is not he.
Not just not he not anything else either!
Suppose you look at yourself in the mirror. Is the image you? However you know that it is a image of yourself and that you are standing outside the mirror.
For the witness it is different.
He sees that he is not he ( that the image in the mirror is not he) and also sees nothing else is also he.
He realizes that all his life upto that point a severe and a stressful effort was made a lot of suffering too endured just to create the lie that he was really the he.
From thereon for the witness everything becomes the same thing forming different things…the “he” the “she” the “you” the orange, the pain , the joy, etc etc …..
this the what the upanishads states ....the enlightened sees evertyhing as the same , he then never intends any harm to anyone/thing".
And the witness also understands that this same "thing" which forms different things OR rather which different things really are…is not anything in reality for if it was something there never could be any diffrent things and on the other hand the different things is all that can be said about this same thing(seeing/consciousness) .
(Something more to he is not he:
Generally when people wake up to this “truth” let me tell you people think that it could be a very shocking experience , like ground removed from below etc etc etc …
But generally what happens when people wake up to this fact is that they cant stop laughing…just cant stop laughing……That is the sign dear friend , that is the sign remember it.)
Any way …….
that he/she is not he/she and nothing else too is he/she …..This too is the Void….
(that there is nothing that can be called as me or mine)
And as there cannot be 2 voids,….. is the same void as waking up to the dream in the dream..
that an object is not an object in reality but it is plain and simply the seeing of it , the seeing of it which can be nothing(real).
that right now is a dream is waking up...waking up too in the dream.
the dream of that moon out there and the dream of that self in here.
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There is a beautiful account concerning advaita , which is surprisingly not available on the web. I too came across it , Tony, when reading a book on Advaita in my native vernacular – Telugu.
The account is this.
A disciple comes to a master and asks him for Knowledge.
With what and when do you “see” the master questions
With my eyes and when there is light the disciple answers.
Mster: But what when there is no light , like when the sun sets?
Dis: Then there is the moon
Mst: And when there is no moon like during some nights?
Dis: I light a candle.
Mst: And Whn there is no candle and only utter darkness?
Dis: I see nothing.
Mst: But don’t you see that “you” see “nothing”? Then with what eye and with what light?
Thus to begin it implies there is absolutely and cannot be any distinction between this real “eye” and “light”……..NOT TWO.
Then there can also be no distinction between this “eye(light-as used now by Masters Like dr shankar/consciousness- as is used in Vedanta/mind- as is used in Zen/ “seeing” as used by Masters such as Wei Wu Wei)………….then there can also be no distinction between this eye and also what is seen…….NOT TWO.
That only the seen can be said about seeing , and the seen is nothing but the seeing of it….NOT TWO.
Seeing too cannot be anything and all that seeing can be is the seen….Not Two
That only non reality can be said about reality and non reality is nothing but reality…not two
Reality too cannot be anything and all that reality can be is non reality…NOT TWO.
Wherein lies the illusion?
A. In the reality?
B. In the interpretation?
C. In the belief that the interpretation is reality?
A, B & C altogether....therefore and thus the void...the void wherein reality and non reality are not two
But dear tony the purpose of all spiritual endeavour , as you rightly insist on sincerety...is beautifully put in one of the suttas ( name i fail to recollect). The spiritual search is absolutely not to know what that orange is or this and that is but to know "oneself".
lord the master Ananda asks " in what sense the world is said to be empty"?
buddha : in so much so that the world is empty of a self, dear ananda..in so much so as the world is empty of a self.
regards tony
Good story AI. What sees the nothing when there is no distinction between “light as used by Dr. Shankar, “consciousness” as used by Vedanta, “mind” as used in Zen, and “seeing” as used by Wei Wu Wei, when at the fundamental level of being everything is everything is everything is everything? In my experience no word or words can reveal that.
A partial point to my alternative telling above is that if not alert I can fall prey to the narrowing effect of particular point of view, language and the primacy of the “sight” sense in pursuing metaphorical linguistic understanding. In short, I was attempting to mix up the sense modality metaphors and analogies to see if we got more or less to the same place or not.
What I have discovered if I’m not careful when using language is that instead of understanding flowing forth the mind created sense of “me” inflates with a false sense of knowing and knowledge. And if unchecked that inflated head can make it difficult, if not impossible, to pass from one room to another, from common courtesy to civil discourse. I sometimes just get stuck until I remember to let the words go.
With respect to my query: Wherein lies the illusion?
A. In the reality?
B. In the interpretation?
C. In the belief that the interpretation is reality?
For the sake of my story I proffered C. But as you aptly pointed out the more complete answer is A, B & C altogether.
There are various studies out there in the ether purporting to explain how our messages are communicated to one another, especially in face-to-face communication. Fifty-five per cent of our message is communicated through body language, 38% through facial expressions and tone of voice, and only 7% through the words actually said. In other words, 93% of the content of our communication is non-verbal. So in a sense when I read your post and those of others, I’m focusing between 90-100% of my attention on only 7% of the message!?
That may be why, in my experience the written word does not and cannot ever deliver “me” into consciousness or the void. But somehow that hasn't stopped me reading what others have to say.
For the moment instead of considering your example of a camera with a self/soul/life recording all sorts of things – including taking a picture of a bucket and debating whether the camera is capable of “looking” only at a picture of a bucket or the “real” bucket itself, or whether a human being can actually “see” an external shoe or stand post or car other than as an "image" in his or her mind, and concluding that ultimately there is never any picture/image but rather only the “seeing,” consider, in the alternative, an unsighted seeker relying primarily on touch and smell and sound and taste to interpret reality.
For this seeker there is the “feel” of the bucket and the bucket itself. But all this seeker can ever know of the bucket is the “feel,” weight and texture of the bucket, never the bucket itself in its total reality. Such a seeker might think “I can never ever really know what reality is . . .for whatever I can know will only be the “felt” sensation of it”
But then one day this seeker realizes that the same atoms (electrons, protons and neutrons) that form the bucket also form his “felt” sensation of the bucket (it’s all the same consciousness/touching). Can such a seeker ever genuinely conclude there is never any weight or texture anywhere but rather only the “feeling?” Whether it’s a bucket, orange or dog, all/everything is only the “feeling” of it . . . including the realization that the realization is a “feeling.”
I don’t know, maybe such a seeker could. For such a seeker the intimate knowing of reality may very well be touching (and the remaining senses) and all he/she ever would know of reality would be feeling-based.
Waking up for this seeker might consist of realizing that outside or inside, everything in reality is only this “feeling/touching.” He wakes up to the fact that touching the bucket or touching his body, involves the same touching, that everything is felt or not felt. “Feeling that cannot be felt” is also the “felt” (dream/non reality). Feeling is simply void. It never was, is or will be anything but itself.
Be that as it may, consider for a moment that reality, actuality, is the same for all beings.
Consider that the interpretation of that reality, actuality, is different for each.
Wherein lies the illusion?
A. In the reality?
B. In the interpretation?
C. In the belief that the interpretation is reality?
For the sake of this story, I say C.
Tony
YouTube Channel: Ordinary Consciousness
By: MTony502