The Transparency of Things by Rupert Spira

[Peter Jones]

The Transparency of Things: Contemplating the Nature of Experience by Rupert Spira

It's fabulous!! Not a word about metaphysics! Simple, straightforward, profound, insightful, helpful...

Many thanks to Don, (I think it was), for the recommendation. Unmissable.

Now when someone asks how all this guff about metaphysics translates into real life I can just point to this very accessible book.
 

[Dana Lomas]

'The Transparency of Things' sure sounds like metaphysics. :)  I feel that Rupert just expresses it in such a way that one doesn't have to be into metaphysics to get it. Which is a good thing, as indifference, and even aversion to metaphysics seems to be the rule rather than the exception.

[Ben Iscatus]

I've just started his "The Nature of Consciousness". The early stages suggest there may be some differences with Bernardo's philosophy. For instance, "awareness is self-aware...self-knowing". Isn't the idea behind whirlpools in BK's work that localisation of consciousness is necessary before self-awareness is possible?

 

It may be that this is elaborated on later in the book, of course... 

[Larry Schultz]

I'm also contemplating through this book - read 1-5 pages each night.

I'd agree it's not metaphysics properly in that Rupert is offering a consciousness first perspective through an easy look at personal experience - and suggesting the reader try it on to see if it fits.

It's that analogy of dipping a cloth into a dye - then fading it . . . repeat till cloth is full color and does not fade.

Clarity of mind through repetition and familiarity - not through logic and deduction.

[The-One-Who-Doesn't-Know]

Good point.

[The-One-Who-Doesn't-Know]

I'd agree it's not metaphysics properly in that Rupert is offering a consciousness first perspective through an easy look at personal experience - and suggesting the reader try it on to see if it fits.

It's that analogy of dipping a cloth into a dye - then fading it . . . repeat till cloth is full color and does not fade.

Clarity of mind through repetition and familiarity - not through logic and deduction.

 

Spira also says that "self-enquiry" is often misunderstood as an activity of the mind searching for a self. He suggests that it would better be called "self-abidance," -resting for a while in the ever-present awareness. Exactly like in the "dye analogy," a more or less permanent transformation of perspective results from periodic engagements with the the source of awareness the nature of which is peace and happiness.  

[Peter Jones]

On Monday, 21 August 2017 13:07:41 UTC+1, Dana Lomas wrote:

'The Transparency of Things' sure sounds like metaphysics. :)  I feel that Rupert just expresses it in such a way that one doesn't have to be into metaphysics to get it. Which is a good thing, as indifference, and even aversion to metaphysics seems to be the rule rather than the exception.

Yes, It's chock -a-block with metaphysics is we read between the lines. The topic is not optional when we look into these things. But he expressly does not talk about it. It's not in the text but in the implications of his description of experience.   .  

[Bernardo]

Yes, I seem to deviate from Rupert on this specific point. I don't think universal consciousness is intrinsically self-aware in the sense of being metacognizant of its own mental processes. I think it takes particular configurations of consciousness to achieve this, and the image of these configurations is the brain of higher animals.

[Oksem]

From what I know of Rupert's work, when he says that consciousness is self-conscious, it means that consciousness does not need a finite mind to know SELF itself, but to know a world a body or a thought, it arises in form of a finite mind. And we can verify this in our experience, When I ask the question that was introduced by Sri atmananda Krishna Menon, I am conscious? The answer obviously arises as a "yes" answer through a thought, yes I am conscious. I Awareness know myself

[Bernardo]

The thing is this: to know anything by direct experience while being a human being automatically includes the capacities entailed by being a human being. If a human being is capable of self-reflective awareness, then the direct experience of a human being doing self-inquiry automatically entails self-reflective awareness. Rupert's method is entirely based on direct experience, which is its strength. But then to say what consciousness is or isn't outside of being human becomes very tricky because of the very method of inquiry used. I am totally with Rupert that the most fundamental, pollution-free, ego-free state of human consciousness is pure self-awareness. But I think extrapolating that realization beyond being human is necessarily a question of philosophy, i.e. of extrapolation of direct experience by the use of reason. Cheers, B.

[Peter Jones]

Bernardo - To me this would be the transcendence of knower and known and not a question of philosophy but of realisation. I wonder whether the difference you mention is that Spira's explanation extends beyond Mind while you see Mind as going all the way down. Is this anything like the situation? .  

[Dana Lomas]

This seems a good spot to drop in on one of Rupert's gatherings ... Join in as he tells the tale of he and Bernardo's stroll through the streets of Amsterdam, as well as the indivisibility of Mary and Jane.

[Peter Jones]

What a wonderful talk. It may be the best discussion of the relationship between (or identity of) Mind and Consciousness that I've come across for being so clear and uncomplicated and for the way he explains the different uses of these words.

[Larry Schultz]

I think Rupert refers to (pure) consciousness as a 'knowingness', not as a knowing of this or that, nor even as a self-aware or self knowing.   Non Duality does not allow for a Self (or a small s self) because there is no non self . . . and there being no non self, there is no Self.

There is no Self in non duality.

[Dana Lomas]

Self ... no-self ... Meh ... Mere names that might make dismissible answers to a koan :))  

[Anne]

On Sunday, September 3, 2017 at 1:03:49 PM UTC+1, Dana Lomas wrote:

Self ... no-self ... Meh ... Mere names that might make dismissible answers to a koan :))

Isn't it wonderful, when it all gets too much or too difficult to sort out, to just fall back into the peace that passes understanding!

[Dana Lomas]

Hi Anne ... At least there's no arguing with the self :)  Not so peaceful today though -- watching tennis! But hey excitement is allowed too ... No?

[Dana Lomas]

Speaking of excitement, it raises the question: isn't excitation also in the nature of TWE? If so, isn't it a foregone conclusion that worlds arise? 

[Ben Iscatus]

When TWE was exhausted by play

(Thanks to Lila and Maia and Fay)

He was glad his mum said,

"Come home, TWE, to bed."

Thank God for the end of the day! 

[Dana Lomas]

And such a lovely way to begin the day, with poetry :)  But you've stumped this still dream-dazed mind ... Who is Fay?!

Yes, lest one forget, there must be 'rest.' Even a perpetual pendulum must have its timeless moment of stillness. And if worlds must arise and rest and arise again, without point of origin or finality, and we and those worlds are indivisible, best handle with love.

[Ben Iscatus]

Fay's the fairy child  - a dreamer too.

[Dana Lomas]

Ah ... How clever ... I like it!

"And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen

Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name." ~ WS

[Ben Iscatus]

Rupert Spira quotes that A Midsummer Night's Dream passage too in his book (The Nature of Consciousness). Also Wordsworth's, "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting" and Kathleen Raine's "Woman to Lover". 

[Arro]

Hi Bernardo, I'm surprised to hear you say that but maybe I've misunderstood. Surely that's the one place philosophy can't go, only direct experience. If I've understood you correctly it would mean the Buddha and other enlightened beings are not fully realised, only semi-realised. In fact even that would not be true because anything beyond being human would be unknown and reduced to mere guess work. I'd be interested to hear your view on that. What is enlightenment to you? 

If "self-enquiry automatically entails self-reflective awareness" then it only belongs to the self, to the mind. Surely Rupert means the opposite when he talk of self-enquiry, more like the transcendence of self-reflective awareness. Going beyond the 'knower and the known' as Peter put it. After all, all the whirlpool knows and ever can know is the stream, so whether it becomes self-reflective or not the knowing with which it apparently knows 'itself' is ever-present, the knower and the known are only modulations of the knowing, and is that knowing not awareness itself, regardless of the existence of a whirlpool?

I'd be interested to know if Rupert would agree that the most fundamental state of human consciousness is pure self-awareness. Surely it would just be pure awareness, no self. And since there is no self there is nothing that could be called human or otherwise, therefore it is universal consciousness awake unto itself. In fact self-reflection is just awareness being aware of awareness, it is only our belief in a separate self that gives any meaning to the term self-reflective. Ultimately all there ever is, is awareness.

[Ben Iscatus]

"our belief in a separate self"

But if there is no self, there is no "our" to believe in it. There appears to be a separate self, and as Rupert says, appearances are real - "An illusion always has a reality to it".

Modulations and activity of consciousness are real enough in time and space, though not, of course, eternal or infinite. 

[Arro]

 "But if there is no self, there is no "our" to believe in it. "

Ok, awareness's temporary belief in a separate self. 

 

"There appears to be a separate self, and as Rupert says, appearances are real - "An illusion always has a reality to it".

Modulations and activity of consciousness are real enough in time and space, though not, of course, eternal or infinite."

The reality would be knowing, the illusion would be the knower and the known. Time and space the illusion, eternity the reality. 

[Dana Lomas]

I would still suggest that it is in the nature of Awareness to assume an individual (indivisible) subjective point of view, for the sake of relational experience. As such, since it's in its nature to do so, then the perpetual expressing and exploring of such experience is a foregone conclusion. The notion of escaping that experience is futile. So-called awakening is just the deliverance from the delusion of a subject/object dichotomy and its attendant existential suffering of a dichotomous self. However, the nature of Awareness ever remains.

[Ben Iscatus]

Nicely put, sir!

[Don Salmon]

Hi Ben:  As far as I'm aware, no major philosopher in history has ever asserted that Consciousness (God, Brahman, the Tao, etc) is not self-aware.  Bernardo  seems to equate "self awareness" with human self consciousness, which is why he denies this to God.  But of course, God doesn't need human ego consciousness, being Self-Aware luminously and naturally. At least, that is the empirical evidence, if you accept as evidence the reports of people who have actually had the experience, which I would think is in line with the true meaning of science.

On Monday, August 21, 2017 at 9:15:00 AM UTC-4, Ben Iscatus wrote:

I've just started his "The Nature of Consciousness". The early stages suggest there may be some differences with Bernardo's philosophy. For instance, "awareness is self-aware...self-knowing". Isn't the idea behind whirlpools in BK's work that localisation of consciousness is necessary before self-awareness is possible?

 

It may be that this is elaborated on later in the book, of course... 

[Don Salmon]

In fact, perhaps Peter can help with this in terms of philosophy.   As far as I'm aware, just taking Shankara and Longchempa as examples, the Brahman is seen as "Self aware" (perhaps that may help to distinguish it from "s"elf awareness) on the basis of BOTH philosophic reasoning AND direct spiritual experience.  I would be interested to hear if any sage-philosopher - contemporary (such as Harvard trained philosopher Franklin Merrell Wolff) or pre-modern (Nicholas of Cusa, Meister Eckhart, Rabbi Nachman, Ibn Arabi, Nagarjuna, Longchempa, Sankara, Abhinavagupta, Lao Tzu, any of the neo-Confucians, etc etc) does not come to the same conclusion.  

Which of course, doesn't mean they're right. Bernardo may be correct and they're incorrect. I'm just saying his conclusion is not the only one that has been put forth based simply on philosophic reasoning. But I do think, if you put forth an idea that is disputed by virtually every philosopher and/or sage throughout history, it would be good to (a) be familiar with those who disagree, and (b) make an attempt to correctly represent their ideas and explain why you disagree.  I haven't seen anywhere yet (including the books I've read and the comment above) where he has done either.  I would love to see it, as clearly Bernardo is becoming an increasingly important figure in this discussion. People who are far more familiar than me or anybody else here on this forum who are very familiar with these philosophers will inappropriate reject his writing (as i've seen to be the case in some of the Amazon comments and elsewhere on the net) because of his lack of awareness of these things. I'm rooting for him - but if he's not familiar with these basic things, it's going to be problematic once he finds he no longer has to deal with materialists (i'm optimistic that this may happen in the next 10 to 15 years  - and it's good to prepare ahead of time)

[Dana Lomas]

Here's another clip from Rupert, concisely breaking it down in about 7 minutes, in which the case is made that nondual awareness would be identical to love -- i.e. objectless love.

[Larry Schultz]

there's a difference between 'self aware' meaning self-sufficient, as in not needing a second (thing). . . and 'self aware' as in aware of the self, or aware of oneself.

Non Duality / Pure Consciousness is the former - meaning self-sufficient.

Self aware as aware of oneself requires a second(thing) . . . it requires a non self

Having a patina of non self (lesh avidya) is perhaps the best . . . I'll have to get to you on that  :  )

[Ben Iscatus]

Hello Don. As Larry suggests, there is likely a difference between infinite self-awareness and self-reflective awareness. To have self-reflective awareness (considering options, for instance), you need a perspective. Infinite Consciousness presumably can't generate a perspective until it manifests as finite mind.

[Peter Jones]

I'm not entirely sure of BK's view on this matter so have no comment on that. As has been said I think we have to be careful not to confuse 'awareness of'' with just 'aware'. At the limit awareness would be awareness of awareness, not 'of'' something else. There wouldn't be anything else.  To say God is self-aware looks like sloppy language. Better to say simply God is awareness or, with the Druids, 'Consciousness is God'.  The language falls apart if we say 'Awareness is self-aware'.  Self-reflection would be what the world is for and not prior to the world.

Bradley places a lot of this problem with the subject-predicate form of language. He writes that in metaphysics the use of predication is both necessary and illegitimate, echoing Lao Tsu's comment that Tao cannot be spoken but must be spoken. A doctrine of Unity must eventually, for an ultimate view,. collapse the subject and predicate.and thus become unsayable. Then we get into muddle because what we say is not quite what we mean and so our words become misleading. Spira handles this brilliantly and always gives both opposite views on the issues, thus cutting off one-sided interpretations of his words. He makes it look easy but it isn't. Hence it is usually easy to tell who knows their stuff from their use of language. Peirce writes 'It is easy to tell a man still at the dual stage by his use of language'. By the same token, it is easy to tell the non-dual philosopher from the rest. This would be why it is usually possible to tell which we are reading by the end of the end of the first two or three paragraphs of the preface of most books.

Whether 'God' is 'Self-aware' as Don suggests may again be a matter of language. That is, it probably depends on what we mean. I wish I could report back from a visit but my ticket still hasn't come thorough.  

[Dana Lomas]

"I wish I could report back from a visit but my ticket still hasn't come thorough."

One's Buddha-nature needs no ticket. Perhaps the destination seeking, dichotomous self just falls off the train. :))

[Don Salmon]

Peter, since this relates to the question of what Sri Aurobindo has introduced that may be "different," I'll try again.

As far as I can see, "svaraj" may be closest to the English "Self luminous."  Of course, anything remotely "human" in terms of "self awareness" would be profoundly limited cared to a "Self-Luminous Consciousness" (Svaraj Chit).

The notion that human beings can only "experience" through "human consciousness" seems to me a Kantian/Humean abstraction that is actually quite far removed from experience - I've had the feeling for years that Klein/Lucille/Spira/Goode are intellectuals who have abstracted certain aspects of phenomenology and assume those limited sensory/conceptual experiences to be related to "Atman" (or Tao or whatever).

To be a little less obtuse, and to get back to Sri Aurobindo, what does "Mahat Atman" mean?  I've never heard any commentator put it on the same plane as human consciousness, and I've never heard of any commentator put it on the plane of the Absolute.  Everything I've seen for nearly half a century considers it to represent a consciousness vastly superior to non-awakened human consciousness (or awakened consciousness solely resting in the Self), and it is also considered to be That which holds the so-called "laws of nature" in place, which shines infinitesimally as instinct in animals and intuition in humans.

Since "we" are not human beings to begin with, there is no reason why we can't awaken a consciousness superior to what is conventionally called "human" (i.e. mental; manas/buddhi).

if that all seems like winding around, Peter, I'll ask one question: What does Mahat Atman mean?  I think if you can get clear about that, a lot of what I've clumsily been trying to say may get at least a bit clearer. 

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

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[Arro]

If "escaping that experience is futile" then there cannot be a "deliverance from the delusion of a subject/object dichotomy". 

[Arro]

We as humans do not gain awareness from having an apparently individual perspective, the individual perspective (the knower, subject etc.) arises within awareness in the same way the object/known does. What we usually call the subject is really a subtle object. The experience most people describe as subject/object is actually object-I-call-me/object-I-call-other. The knowing with which we know the apparent experience of being a self-reflective human being does not share the limitations of that human perspective, in fact the human perspective is not a perspective at all, it is itself known, known by that which is ever-present and all pervading.  God is awareness sums it up for me. 

[Dana Lomas]

Arro ...  I don't see how the passing away of the experience of a dichotomous self is equatable to the end of relational experience. Does one's Buddha-nature no longer know such experience?

[Peter Jones]

Don - I think you've misunderstood my words. Of course only a human being can experience as a human being. And of course consciousness and awareness is more than human-self-awareness. Spira appears to me to hold the same view as you.

Arro's point seems to be that if the subject-object world has been transcended then so has the world of experience-experiencer. Thus experiences do not go 'all the way down'. As Bernardo says 'All experiences are untrue'. Here 'untrue' would mean something like 'reducible' or 'not metaphysically real'.

After all, if time is metaphysically real then time-based experiences go the same way.   

[Dana Lomas]

I must still maintain that relational experience is the play of Lila. It is the very nature of Awareness -- as in Scott's Polarity/Awareness Trinity. There is no abiding escape into some non-relational state. Not even for a Buddha.

[Don Salmon]

Well, in the "realistic Vedanta" that Sri Aurobindo puts forth, all experiences are True - from the "view" (non view) of Vijnana.  If you put nothing between (ordinary) mind and the absolute, then your view makes sense. 

Again, I ask, Peter, what is your understanding of the meaning of the phrase, "Mahat Atman?"

To put it in plainer words, **within** the cosmos, is there an active consciousness which is not equivalent to Chit, but superior to the human?  That is the core question, and the core difference between Sri Aurobindo's view and that of traditional Vedanta (though Abhinavagupta and many of the Kashmiri Shavite tradition come close)

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 7:53 AM, Peter Jones <peterjo...@btinternet.com> wrote:

Don - I think you've misundertood my words. Of course only a human being can experience as a human being. And of course consciousness and awareness is more than human-self-awareness. Spira appears to me to hold the same view as you.  

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[Peter Jones]

On Friday, 8 September 2017 13:52:17 UTC+1, Don Salmon wrote:

Well, in the "realistic Vedanta" that Sri Aurobindo puts forth, all experiences are True - from the "view" (non view) of Vijnana.  If you put nothing between (ordinary) mind and the absolute, then your view makes sense. 

Aha yes. True words seem paradoxical! All experiences would be true if we see them for what they are, viz. reducible for an ultimate analysis. 

Again, I ask, Peter, what is your understanding of the meaning of the phrase, "Mahat Atman?"

I've not come across this phrase before. 

To put it in plainer words, **within** the cosmos, is there an active consciousness which is not equivalent to Chit, but superior to the human?  That is the core question, and the core difference between Sri Aurobindo's view and that of traditional Vedanta (though Abhinavagupta and many of the Kashmiri Shavite tradition come close)

Right. I see now what the issue is. I'd say there is 'Christ-consciousness' and perhaps this qualifies. It is defined as standing between the ordinary human mind and the transcendence of mind. Is this what you're suggesting is a point of contention between Aurobindo and Spira?

 

[Peter Jones]

On Friday, 8 September 2017 13:18:47 UTC+1, Dana Lomas wrote:

I must still maintain that relational experience is the play of Lila. It is the very nature of Awareness -- as in Scott's Polarity/Awareness Trinity. There is no abiding escape into some non-relational state. Not even for a Buddha.

I think we all agree that relational experience is the play of Lila and part of the nature of Awareness.

But we clearly do not agree about the possibility of overcoming the idea that reality consists of three things, even though the literature is bursting with references to the unity of the universe.  

[Don Salmon]

Right. I see now what the issue is. I'd say there is 'Christ-consciousness' and perhaps this qualifies. It is defined as standing between the ordinary human mind and the transcendence of mind. Is this what you're suggesting is a point of contention between Aurobindo and Spira?

Partially - Christ consciousness relates - at least in some respects - to true individuality (the transformation of the "dissociated alter" into a "Real" portion of the Divine, the individuality that persists when the human mind is utterly transcended.

But it is not the same as the Mahat Atman. I would suggest looking into it before responding. It's necessary to understand it - or something akin to it from other traditions, before going on. it relates to issues of what is real, what the "purpose" of evolution is, the nature of the individual, the relation between the individual and society, what a true science might be (one in which the quantitative, even in physics, takes its rightful, that is minimal, place in relation to the qualitative and ultimately to the cosmic Real-Ideas of the Mahat Atman).  I might suggest "nous" as equivalent, but the term, even by the late classic period in Greece, had been so diminished that it hardly has the cosmic proportions of the Mahat.  Mahat is a basic, fundamental term in Sankhya, took on a different meaning in Vedanta (leading to the limitations of Shankara and way way down the line, the limitations of the modern Vedantins like Klein).  De Chardin attempted some revival of the original meaning, but his physicalist tendencies and scientistic views seemed to me to diminish his attempts greatly.

Krishna Prem, in Chapter 10 of his Gita commentary, has a masterful, evocative description of the Mahat. That's a great place to start. I'll see if I can find it online (the whole book is online).

be back in a jiffy!

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 9:02 AM, Peter Jones <peterjo...@btinternet.com> wrote:

On Friday, 8 September 2017 13:52:17 UTC+1, Don Salmon wrote:

Well, in the "realistic Vedanta" that Sri Aurobindo puts forth, all experiences are True - from the "view" (non view) of Vijnana.  If you put nothing between (ordinary) mind and the absolute, then your view makes sense. 

Aha yes. True words seem paradoxical/ All experiences would be true if we see them for what they are, viz. reducible for an ultimate analysis. 

Again, I ask, Peter, what is your understanding of the meaning of the phrase, "Mahat Atman?"

I've not come across this phrase before. 

To put it in plainer words, **within** the cosmos, is there an active consciousness which is not equivalent to Chit, but superior to the human?  That is the core question, and the core difference between Sri Aurobindo's view and that of traditional Vedanta (though Abhinavagupta and many of the Kashmiri Shavite tradition come close)

Right. I see now what the issue is. I'd say there is 'Christ-consciousness' and perhaps this qualifies. It is defined as standing between the ordinary human mind and the transcendence of mind. Is this what you're suggesting is a point of contention between Aurobindo and Spira?

 

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[Don Salmon]

I may just put up the whole of Chapter 10. Here's part of it:

The disciple is instructed to try to see in all things, not their separate being, but the Great Atman, by whose Powers all have their form and nature.  Each type of being on earth is what it is because of the “reflection” of some aspect of that Atman. [Footnote: “We do not mean that the Idea, locally separate, shows itself in Matter like a reflection in water; the Matter touches the Idea at every point, though not by physical contact, and by dint of neighborhood – nothing to keep them apart – is able to absorb thence all that lies within its capacity, the Idea itself not penetrating, not approaching, the Matter, but remaining self-locked” (Plotinus, Vi, v, 8)].  This “reflection” is best seen in those objects which are pre-eminent within their class, for it is in them that the Divine Archetype has best found expression. T his is the meaning of the list that Krishna gives.  In all beings, gods or men or sages, so-0called “inanimate” objects or in mental qualities, “He” is to be sought out and contemplated in the chief of every class. [Footnote: compare Plotinus, vi, 9: “Things here are signs; they show therefore to the wiser teachers how the supreme God is known; the instructed priest reading the sign may enter the holy place and make real the vision of the inaccessible.”]  For He indeed is verily the Atman in all beings, their very Self, the base on which they stand.

 

[Verses 21-38] What makes the gods shining and powerful?  It is the Light and Power of the one.  What makes the Vedas holy, worth of our reverence?  It is the ancient Archetypal Wisdom.  What is it that calls forth our aspirations in the sight of mountain peaks, calms us in sheets of water, whispers to us in trees, disturbs our hearts in animals or thrills in gleaming weapons? [Footnote: In spite of man's ill-treatment of and contempt for the “lower animals” he has always felt a disturbing sense of something strange and archetypal in their being.  This is the underlying cause of the “totemism” of sl-called primitive peoples, of the animal-gods of the Egyptians (so distasteful to both pagan Greek and Christian) and of the animal signs in the Zodiac.]  What is it but Him shining through all these beings in spiritual Powers to which, if we give names, they are but poor translation for our weakness?

[Verse 36] Even in the greatly wicked, in him who says to evil “Be thou my good,” in the fierce pride of Duryodhana, in such a type of monstrous wickedness as Shakespeare's Richard the Third, we feel His presence compelling wonder, even admiration, in spite of all the protests of our moral nature. 

We must not turn from these perceptions as mere poetic fancies, saying, as many do, that, after all, in fact an animal is but an animal; a sword, a strip of steel.  What is thus felt in beings is not a fancy but something truly, if but vaguely, seen within.  The disciple must cling to these intuitive perceptions and by constant meditation sharpen them to clearness until the outer forms seem unreal things through whose translucid shells the wondrous Powers shine in their gleaming splendours [my note: not all Indian teachers consider the outer forms “unreal things”; in particular, the greatest Tantric teachers like Abhinavagupta see the forms as having a Divine Reality in a rather dramatically different way than taught by many current “neo-Vedantins” as well as followers of Shankara; though to be fair to Sri Krishna Prem, he does say “seem unreal”].  

 

As he proceeds a change will overtake his vision.  Not only will he see the spiritual Power in each form, but since these Powers are united in a living Whole, he will begin to see, what before he could but think, the vast interconnectedness of all things. [Footnote: These connections, vaguely intuited, give life to poetry and art.  What the poet dimly senses and dares not take for more than metaphor is clearly seen by the awakened seer.  It may also be added that the use of those affinities is an essential part of Kabalistic and other forms of magic, white or black.]

 

“In our realm all is part arising from part and nothing can be more than partial; but There each being is an eternal product of a whole and is at once a whole and an individual manifestation as part but, to the keen vision There, known for the whole it is.” (Plotinus, v, 8).

 

Thus to the seeing eye all things are linked to all in a great Cosmic Harmony.  Flowers in the green are seen as one with the far-distant stars gleaming for every in the blue abyss of space.  Within this six-foot frame blow all the winds of heaven and in the heart of man lie still the glittering pomp, the sometimes cruel beauty, and all the hidden secrets of long-vanished empires buried now beneath the desert sands or ocean waves.

There is a story current that on certain days, if one go out to sea from the town known as Dwarka, beneath the waves can dimly be descried the towers and pinnacles of Krishna's island city.  Legend, no doubt, for Dwarka was not there.  Nevertheless beneath the storm-tossed surface of our hearts the vanished past still lives.  Unseen within these depths the ancient wars are fought, Atlantis shines in glory, darkens with pride and falls; Sri Krishna walks the earth and Buddha leaves his home for love of men.

Nothing is lost, for ever all remains, deep in the waters of eternal Mind.  He who can plunge within lives in the Cosmic Heart and sees Its mighty throbs send forth the cycling years to run their changing courses through the worlds back ot the blue depths of Eternity.

 

It is said that in a lotus-seed exists in miniature a perfect lotus.  So in that Mighty Being is the seed of all that is, subtle beyond all images of sense, the shining spiritual Cosmos; Infinite seeds and yet one wondrous Seed, beyond the reach of mind, yet to be seen by Mind. [Footnote: Gita, x, verses 39-42. Compare this with the so-called Nassene document.  “Accordingly they (the Egyptians) declare concerning the Essence of the Seed which si the cause of all things in the world of generation, that it is none of these things, but that it begets and makes all generated things saying, 'I become what I will and am what I am.'  Therefore that which moves all is unmoved; for It remains what it is, making all things, and becoming no one of the things produced”]

 

[Verse 40] All that is glorious, beautiful, or mighty shines by reflection of a portion of that Being.  Vainly we seek on earth a symbol grand enough to adumbrate Its glories.  In ancient Egypt and Chaldea the starry heaven was Its only symbol; the heaven with its interlinked and patterned stars whirling in gleaming harmonies around the pole.  But all the splendors of the cosmic depths, their mind-annihilating magnitudes of time and space, symbol to all men of eternal Law and Beauty, are but a moment of the Mighty Atman; infinities ranged on the shoulders of infinities; a wondrous hierarchy of living spiritual Powers where each is each and each is All and all dance forth in ecstasy the Cosmic Harmony. [Footnote: This Cosmic Harmony, known to Pythagoreans as the music of the spheres, was in the Vedic tradition termed rita, the cosmic order in which all the gods exist. Those who find in the Vedas mere chaotic polytheism and those who find incipient monotheism are alike mistaken.  Unity indeed there was, but it was not the unity of a personal being but of Divine impersonal Cosmic Order within which Indra, Varuna and Agni, the whole pantheon of Gods, all shone and had their being.]

[Verse 42] Vast beyond thought as is this spiritual realm, this flaming Cosmos of Divine Ideas, yet still beyond lies That, the One Eternal, the Parabrahman, Rootless Root of all. Beyond all Gods, beyond all time and space, beyond al lbeing even, flames Its dark transcendent Light. [Footnote: Strictly speaking, between the Great Atman and the Parabrahman are the unmanifested Two. For convenience they are here included in the Supreme Unmanifested One.]

 

From that Eternal Brahman issue forth the Mighty Atman, great beyond all thought, and all the countless starry worlds that fill the wide immensities of space.  Yet so vast is Its spaceless, timeless grandeur that all these wondrous emanated worlds are as a drop taken from out the ocean, leaving Its shoreless being ever full. Therefore Sri Krsihna, speaking for That Brahman, says, “having established this entire universe with one fragment of Myself, I remain.”

“That is the Full; this is the full;

From that Full has this full come forth;

Having taken the full from the Full

Verily the Full Itself remains.” (Ishopanishad)

 

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

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[Don Salmon]

ok, just posted Krishna Prem's entire commentary on chapter 10 in a separate thread. 

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

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[Dana Lomas]

Who mentioned three 'things'?  

[Don Salmon]

Who mentioned three 'things'?  

​  

me, myself and I​

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

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[Dana Lomas]

To simplify this: since emptiness and form are indivisibly integral to the inevitable becoming of Lila, neither alone can be the ontological primitive -- which here is being called Awareness.

[Dana Lomas]

"Me, myself and I"

:)) 

[Arro]

Well no, not in the sense of self/other. Relational requires two things. All we ever know is the Self. 

[Arro]

There is no escape because there is no relational experience to escape from in the first place. A Buddha is one who has realised this. You seem to reify Lila to some degree, which will surely just lead to confusion. 

[Dana Lomas]

Relational requires endless expressions of the Individual -- aka the play of Lila. If there is no such relational experience, then this conversation is over. :)

[Peter Jones]

Don - Try as I might I cannot find anything in your extract above to disagree with. It's an odd thing, we disagree but I never know why.

Dana - Not sure whether we disagree. In my view relational experience is not metaphysically real, This is why it has to be created.

The 'three things' comment should have been on another thread. I got confused.  

I cannot for the life of me grasp why there is opposition here to the idea that the Universe is a Unity. If it is not then the knowledge claims of mysticism are impossible and metaphysics cannot be understood.  

[Dana Lomas]

Peter ... It may well be that my case is full of wholes :)

The question still arises: is it in the nature of Awareness to manifest as the ever-becoming play of Lila? -- i.e. it is self-impelled to manifest as the these expressions and explorations of the Individual in relationship. And if that's the case, calling it unreal vs real seems just another dichotomous tendency. Such is its suchness, and can't be otherwise.

[Arro]

Dana - What conversation? I only see God's infinite being :) 

Seriously though, where, who and what is this individual you speak of? 

 

[Dana Lomas]

Arro ... The individual that seems impelled to participate in the relational experience of this conversation. As such,  I'm seeing no contradiction of my basic point. I can only say, welcome back. :)

[Arro]

I would not call this conversation a relational experience, that's where we differ. You seem to be referring to the mind, or to be more clear the egoic mind, but as Osho points out "the mind does not exist". Only thoughts exist and they are just clouds in the sky of awareness. If you can sincerely find this individual in your experience then I'll be so bold as to say you are the first person in history to do so. 

Thanks, it's good to be back. :) I've been on an epic adventure.

 

[Dana Lomas]

Arro ... As I've stated elsewhere, the instructive hint is in the derivation of the term individual, meaning indivisible. I'm not saying that it's an experience divisible from Awareness. The only source of that individual experience can be Awareness. However, each is nonetheless a unique and valid individual experience that Awareness is somehow self-impelled to express and explore. Which I posit is for the sake of having this relational experience. Why? Your individual guess is as good as mine. I only know that I can't invalidate or deny the sacred reality of that experience -- as Rupert has referred to it. 

[Peter Jones]

On Friday, 8 September 2017 18:07:19 UTC+1, Dana Lomas wrote:

Peter ... It may well be that my case is full of wholes :)

The question still arises: is it in the nature of Awareness to manifest as the ever-becoming play of Lila?

It seems that the answer is clearly yes. But becoming manifest as seemingly discrete entities entails no loss of unity. Metaphysically-speaking unity is prior to diversity, or, as I think Nagarjuna might say, the Ultimate is prior to the Conventional. The difference is one of contingency. One is contingent on the other. Diversity would be real by virtue of that contingency, but not 'real' in quite the same sense, therefore 'unreal' by one way of looking. 

You say it yourself.  You idea of 'becoming manifest' implies that the unmanifest is prior.  Only something that is unmanifest can be everywhere at once. .

[Dana Lomas]

Peter ... what you say seems true, and yet I'm still not sure about a point of origin for such becoming ... as you say, it's tricky :)

Be that as it may, in such discussions, lately I'm not finding a distinction between real and unreal experience particularly useful. Reverting to Rupert's screen-and-movie analogy, since the screen and its images are indivisible and inextricable, it feels problematic to say that the screen of Awareness without any images is real, and the screen with images is unreal. Either way it never ceases to be the screen of Awareness. And I find only this individual experience of the Indivisible Awareness. The curiosity then becomes the why and how of the images, such that Awareness expressing as each 'I-ness' is playing a unique movie.

[Peter Jones]

On Saturday, 9 September 2017 13:24:12 UTC+1, Dana Lomas wrote:

Peter ... what you say seems true, and yet I'm still not sure about a point of origin for such becoming ... as you say, it's tricky :)

It sure is. We tend to get lost in the words. 

---"Be that as it may, in such discussions, lately I'm not finding a distinction between real and unreal experience particularly useful."

Fair enough. By reduction there wouldn't be any real experiences so there would be no need to discriminate between experiences. There would be the need to discriminate between experiences, which require two things, the experience and the experiencer, and the phenomenon that encompasses both and makes then possible. Perhaps one thing to watch out for is the danger of making experiences (metaphysically) unreal while making the experiencer real. The unreality of experiences makes no sense unless the experiencer is unreal.

---"Reverting to Rupert's screen-and-movie analogy, since the screen and its images are indivisible and inextricable, it feels problematic to say that the screen of Awareness without any images is real, and the screen with images is unreal."

The screen would be real with or without the images. The images would real images, but they would be images. The screen would a real phenomenon without which the images could not appear. Images would be dependent on the screen, not vice versa. .

I think that the idea of 'dependent existence' is useful and less potentially misleading 'real and 'unreal'. The images would be dependently-existing, but not everything can be only be dependently-existing.

And then, in the end we have to reduce the screen and the images, as you say, and Spira does. So it may not be right to say that either the images or the screen is real since we have abstracted them as relative phenomena.  

[Dana Lomas]

Oh well, these musings are not much more than entertainment now, with the dispelling of the problematic notion of there being some objective source of experience, and some separate subject experiencing it. There being only this individual expression of Indivisible Awareness suffices without any elaborate story about it -- although we do seem to enjoy a good story :)

[Dana Lomas]

Here is Rupert on the topic of 'real' and 'unreal' experience, so eloquent as usual ... All Illusions Have a Reality to them

[Scott Roberts]

Peter,

It looks to me that you are privileging the unmanifest over the manifest, being over becoming, unity over diversity, which I regard as going off the Middle Way. True, most people go off in the other direction (mistaking the manifest for the whole of reality), and so most mystical writing is concerned with showing that error. But going off the other way is also an error. It provides no explanation of why there is anything manifested, or where diversity comes from. An unmanifest without the manifest, should it be possible, might as well not be real. While the manifest is dependent on the unmanifest, the unmanifest is also dependent on the manifest. The manifest provides all the "where's" that allow the unmanifest to be everywhere, to know itself as every "where".

The doctrine of two truths is a useful pedagogical tool for those who think the reality they daily experience is the whole of reality, that truths that are true within the conventions of that reality are true absolutely. In physical reality, physical laws are true, but in the larger picture, they are simply conventional. So far, so good. There are many conventions, and each one is limited. But convention-making, better known as creativity, is ultimate and unlimited. A given manifestation will conform to some convention, but manifesting is fundamental. Or as I like to say, God is Creativity, not a being that creates.

[Peter Jones]

Scott

You have no understanding of my view. You seem to have little understanding of metaphysics. I noticed the deliberately provocative remark in your essay that the idea of Unity is useless in philosophy but it was so daft I couldn't be bothered to argue. Perhaps you'd prefer the word 'Simplex' as used by Plotinus. Or 'Unicity' as used by some advaitans. ;

One reason I don't just pile into an argument is that I always struggle to understand what you're saying. Could you clarify one thing.

Are you proposing that Reality is Three, Two, One, Zero or a Unity.  A one word answer would be enough.

[Don Salmon]

Wow, Peter. That was pretty intense.  I thought you were privileging the unmanifest over the manifest as well.

That is one of the core differences, by the way, between Sri Aurobindo's view of Vedanta and the traditional one. Since I agreed with Scott's comment, that might be somewhere to start. 

I have a question that might help to clarify this.

1. Let's say you are experiencing the phenomena (literally, phenomenon may be translated as an "appearing") "apple" and "grape."   Obviously, Reality being a Unity, the apparent "objects," "apple" and "grape" have no reality independent of the Absolute.  So far so good.    Now, here's the question: If you remove the phenomena "apple" and "grape" and all other phenomena, are you left with an undifferentiated Unity or is there something about the "apple" and "grape' that remain in the Absolute - just as there would be something about any particular phenomenon that remain in the Absolute - whether there are manifested phenomena or not.  I assume your answer would be "no" but perhaps I am misunderstanding you as well.

You could look at any phenomenon this way and the question would be the same.  So for example, to describe an individual in the Ignorance, in Avidya, as a "dissociated alter," would seem accurate to me, but once that Individual awakens, along with, say, 11 other individuals, if the mind-body form associated with those individuals dissolves, is there still a real Individual persisting, an individuality which is not wholly dissolved in the Absolute yet in no way separate form the Absolute, what one might call an Infinite Individual, or Infinite individuals, which are "aspects" (bad word but i can't think of another - and really, any word is going to be "wrong" if taken as a thing-in-itself) of the transcendent Infinite.

I assume you would disagree with that possibility as well.  You would be in line with the perennial philosophy (and Spira too, for that matter) but quite different from Sri Aurobindo.

Note here I'm not defending Sri Aurobindo. I thought he was wrong for decades, and it may be true that his views are wrong. But since his views seem more aligned with what Scott just wrote than your critique, that might be a good place to start in understanding how his views are different from  yours.   I have the same sense about Klein, Maharshi, Spira, Lucille, etc that they all privilege Oneness over Mulitiplicity, whereas the Absolute is neither One nor Many - at least, in Sri Aurobindo's view. 

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

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[Dana Lomas]

Well again, that neither formless nor form, unmanifest nor manifest, being nor becoming, alone can be the ontological primitive, as such, each must be integral, and still remain not-two. Rupert, as far as I can tell, says that the ontological primitive is Awareness -- or at least that's his name of choice for That which transcends all names. Thus, it cannot be just formlessness or form, as they can only be forever indivisible and inextricable.

[Don Salmon]

the Vedantins tend to take Awareness or "Consciousness" as the ontological primitive, whereas the Tantrics - explicitly opposing the Vedantic view - take Consciousness and "Energy" (Shakti) as equal.  This has been, for over 1000 years, a real difference, not just a matter of semantics.  That's something that's worth taking a look into.  

And whatever the Vedantins may claim about the integrality of their views, there has been a tendency (such as Ramana Maharshi referring to the body as a disease, or simply saying "experience is untrue"- even with all the qualifications) to privilege the unmanifest over the manifest in the Vedantic line - or at least, the Advaita line.  The qualified non dualists take a different tack, though still not the same as the Tantrics.

And just to add a little spice to the mix, Sri Aurobindo's view is not the same as either the Vedantins or Tantrics.

There is NOT agreement even within India about spiritual philosophy, and its not just a matter of semantics. These are real differences that have critical consequences in practical matters.  The nature of individuality, the purpose of evolution, the way one organizes the government, and the way one practices physics - for example, recognizing that a purely quantitative approach would be considered, in traditional Indian parlance, asuric. 

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

On Sun, Sep 10, 2017 at 7:35 AM, Dana Lomas <d.ho...@gmail.com> wrote:

Well again, that neither formless nor form, unmanifest nor manifest, being nor becoming, alone can be the ontological primitive. As such, each must be integral, and still remain not-two. Rupert, as far as I can tell, says that the ontological primitive is Awareness -- or at least that's his name of choice for That which transcends all names. Thus, it cannot be just formlessness or form, as they can only be forever indivisible and inextricable.

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[Dana Lomas]

I feel that the realization of That which is the ontological primitive, by whatever name, is truly what is crucial. It seems that giving it a name does potentially become semantically problematic. But if each individual in any given discussion actually realizes That which it refers to, then the names shouldn't be problematic at all. Perhaps we can agree upon one name only, to make the discussion less problematic, or at least agree that any given name isn't better than any other, once its Source that transcends all names is agreed upon in mutual realization.

[Don Salmon]

Dana, it's not just about words.  There are actually different realizations as well as different philosophies.  This, at least, is my point. If it turns out that one way of talking about it is actually extremely limited, and worse, leads to problematic consequences in the real world, it's worth talking about, it seems to me.   

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

On Sun, Sep 10, 2017 at 7:59 AM, Dana Lomas <d.ho...@gmail.com> wrote:

I feel that the realization of That which is the ontological primitive, by whatever name, is truly what is crucial. It seems that giving it a name does become semantically problematic. But if each individual in any given discussion actually realizes That which it refers to, then the names shouldn't be problematic at all. Perhaps we can agree upon one name only, to make the discussion less problematic, or at least agree that any given name isn't better than any other, once its Source that transcends all names is agreed upon in mutual realization.

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[Dana Lomas]

Well, there are different expressions of That which is the ontological primitive. My point is only that if each individual actually realizes That which is their Source, then those expressions can conceivably be reconciled. However, insofar as That is not realized, then it seems unlikely they can ever be reconciled, no matter how eloquent the wording may be. Can the eloquence of the wording, as the Tao that may be told, actually bring about such a realization of the Tao that can't be told?  I'd like to hope so. However, surely it would have to be coming from a perspective of realization. Even then, I feel there's more to it than that.

[Don Salmon]

what is being questioned here is the whole idea of an ontological primitive.

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

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[Dana Lomas]

The ontological primitive can only be That which has no point of origin -- i.e. causation -- or finality. It's the That which Nisargadatta was referring to. 

[Dana Lomas]

I'm still rather partial to Emptifullness as a name for That ... Totally unbiased of course ... Oh wait, if I'm partial I'm not unbiased :))  This may well be the problem with preferred names, in that they're all inherently partial.

[Don Salmon]

Well, the 'That" that nisargadatta was referring to is quite dramatically different from the Brahman that Sri Aurobindo and Abhinavagupta referred to. 

It is that view of the Brahman that allows for a real individual to persist after awakening.  And it's not just a difference after awakening, but a profound difference in philosophy and practice prior as well. 

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

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[Don Salmon]

arro, look up "The Eternal and the Individual" chapter in The Life Divine.  The Individual is inseparable yet distinguishable from the Absolute. it is the Absolute as well, which is free to be individual, universal and transcendent, which relates to the Christian Trinity as well. 

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

On Sun, Sep 10, 2017 at 9:21 AM, Arro <arro...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dana - again I ask, where, who and what is this individual? Just because the word is derived from indivisible does not mean you can just use it in the sense of indivisible from the whole, it still implies separation by definition, the indivisible aspect is within itself, not the whole. Just look up the definition of the word. 

I feel like I just can't get with your use of language. If the individual is indivisible from awareness then there is no individual. It may be useful for everyday life, practice, or relative explanations but this is a philosophy forum and this conversation is about the transparency of things, either you agree with non-dualism and therefore the individual is ultimately unreal (in the sense that it is only an interpretation, not a reality) or you disagree with non-dualism. You share Rupert's videos however and seem to resonate, so which is it?

Arro ... As I've stated elsewhere, the instructive hint is in the derivation of the term individual, meaning indivisible. I'm not saying that it's an experience divisible from Awareness. The only source of that individual experience can be Awareness. However, each is nonetheless a unique and valid individual experience that Awareness is somehow self-impelled to express and explore. Which I posit is for the sake of having this relational experience. Why? Your individual guess is as good as mine. I only know that I can't invalidate or deny the sacred reality of that experience -- as Rupert has referred to it. 

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[Dana Lomas]

Whatever else Nisargadatta may have taught, the statement  "Wisdom is knowing I am nothing, Love is knowing I am everything, between the two my life moves" is a recognition of the integral, indivisible, inextricable, role of emptiness, form and Love -- but perhaps I'm missing his point, and there is some irreconcilable difference. In any case, the Thatness to which I am referring is the ontological primitive which has no point of origin/causation or finality. So give me a preferred name for That, and I'll mull it over. Lately, in the context of this Rupert-inspired discussion, I've been using Awareness, but I'm not attached to it. Other traditional names for the Divine Godhead associated with certain doctrinal teachings, tend to acquire some amount of baggage, anthropomorphic themes, etc, which can also be problematic -- and which is no doubt why teachers sometimes abandon them. If we're going to come up with some kind of neologism, perhaps it should be somehow indicative and inclusive of the integral, indivisible, inextricable role of emptiness, form and Love. I'm open to suggestions :)

[Don Salmon]

Brahman.

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

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[Dana Lomas]

Good enough ... but I'm not attached to that one either :)

[Dana Lomas]

Speaking of which, ignorant as I may be, what is the Buddhist term for the ontological primitive? Buddha-nature? Or do they just avoid the name game, when it comes to That?

[Don Salmon]

This is not a bad start: (Peter, there are numerous things here that seem to me to contradict things you've written - might be fun to look a little more closely:>)

Chapter II

Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara — Maya, Prakriti, Shakti

It is there in beings indivisible and as if divided. Gita.1 Brahman, the Truth, the Knowledge, the Infinite.

Taittiriya Upanishad.2 Know Purusha and Prakriti to be both eternal without begin-

ning. Gita.3 One must know Maya as Prakriti and the Master of Maya as

the great Lord of all. Swetaswatara Upanishad.4

It is the might of the Godhead in the world that turns the wheel of Brahman. Him one must know, the supreme Lord of all lords, the supreme Godhead above all godheads. Supreme too is his Shakti and manifold the natural working of her knowledge and her force. One Godhead, occult in all beings, the inner Self of all beings, the all-pervading, absolute without qualities, the overseer of all actions, the witness, the knower.

Swetaswatara Upanishad.5

THERE is then a supreme Reality eternal, absolute and infinite. Because it is absolute and infinite, it is in its essence indeterminable. It is indefinable and inconceiv- able by finite and defining Mind; it is ineffable by a mind-created speech; it is describable neither by our negations, neti neti, — for we cannot limit it by saying it is not this, it is not that, — nor by our affirmations, for we cannot fix it by saying it is this,

1 XIII.17. 2 II.1. 3 XIII.20. 4 IV.10. 5 VI.1,7,8,11.

Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara 337

it is that, iti iti. And yet, though in this way unknowable to us, it is not altogether and in every way unknowable; it is self- evident to itself and, although inexpressible, yet self-evident to a knowledge by identity of which the spiritual being in us must be capable; for that spiritual being is in its essence and its original and intimate reality not other than this Supreme Existence.

But although thus indeterminable to Mind, because of its absoluteness and infinity, we discover that this Supreme and Eternal Infinite determines itself to our consciousness in the universe by real and fundamental truths of its being which are beyond the universe and in it and are the very foundation of its existence. These truths present themselves to our conceptual cognition as the fundamental aspects in which we see and expe- rience the omnipresent Reality. In themselves they are seized directly, not by intellectual understanding but by a spiritual intuition, a spiritual experience in the very substance of our consciousness; but they can also be caught at in conception by a large and plastic idea and can be expressed in some sort by a plastic speech which does not insist too much on rigid definition or limit the wideness and subtlety of the idea. In order to ex- press this experience or this idea with any nearness a language has to be created which is at once intuitively metaphysical and revealingly poetic, admitting significant and living images as the vehicle of a close, suggestive and vivid indication, — a language such as we find hammered out into a subtle and pregnant mas- siveness in the Veda and the Upanishads. In the ordinary tongue of metaphysical thought we have to be content with a distant indication, an approximation by abstractions, which may still be of some service to our intellect, for it is this kind of speech which suits our method of logical and rational understanding; but if it is to be of real service, the intellect must consent to pass out of the bounds of a finite logic and accustom itself to the logic of the Infinite. On this condition alone, by this way of seeing and thinking, it ceases to be paradoxical or futile to speak of the Ineffable: but if we insist on applying a finite logic to the Infinite, the omnipresent Reality will escape us and we shall grasp instead an abstract shadow, a dead form petrified into speech or a hard

338 The Life Divine

incisive graph which speaks of the Reality but does not express it. Our way of knowing must be appropriate to that which is to be known; otherwise we achieve only a distant speculation, a figure of knowledge and not veritable knowledge.

The supreme Truth-aspect which thus manifests itself to us is an eternal and infinite and absolute self-existence, self-aware- ness, self-delight of being; this founds all things and secretly supports and pervades all things. This Self-existence reveals itself again in three terms of its essential nature, — self, con- scious being or spirit, and God or the Divine Being. The Indian terms are more satisfactory, — Brahman the Reality is Atman, Purusha, Ishwara; for these terms grew from a root of Intuition and, while they have a comprehensive preciseness, are capable of a plastic application which avoids both vagueness in the use and the rigid snare of a too limiting intellectual concept. The Supreme Brahman is that which in Western metaphysics is called the Absolute: but Brahman is at the same time the omnipresent Reality in which all that is relative exists as its forms or its movements; this is an Absolute which takes all relativities in its embrace. The Upanishads affirm that all this is the Brahman; Mind is Brahman, Life is Brahman, Matter is Brahman; addressing Vayu, the Lord of Air, of Life, it is said “O Vayu, thou art manifest Brahman”; and, pointing to man and beast and bird and insect, each separately is identified with the One, — “O Brahman, thou art this old man and boy and girl, this bird, this insect.” Brahman is the Consciousness that knows itself in all that exists; Brahman is the Force that sustains the power of God and Titan and Demon, the Force that acts in man and animal and the forms and energies of Nature; Brahman is the Ananda, the secret Bliss of existence which is the ether of our being and without which none could breathe or live. Brahman is the inner Soul in all; it has taken a form in correspondence with each created form which it inhabits. The Lord of Beings is that which is conscious in the conscious being, but he is also the Conscious in inconscient things, the One who is master and in control of the many that are passive in the hands of Force- Nature. He is the Timeless and Time; He is Space and all that is in Space; He is Causality and the cause and the effect: He is the thinker and his thought, the warrior and his courage, the gambler and his dice-throw. All realities and all aspects and all semblances are the Brahman; Brahman is the Absolute, the Transcendent and incommunicable, the Supracosmic Existence that sustains the cosmos, the Cosmic Self that upholds all beings, but It is too the self of each individual: the soul or psychic entity is an eternal portion of the Ishwara; it is his supreme Nature or Consciousness-Force that has become the living being in a world of living beings. The Brahman alone is, and because of It all are, for all are the Brahman; this Reality is the reality of everything that we see in Self and Nature. Brahman, the Ishwara, is all this by his Yoga-Maya, by the power of his Consciousness- Force put out in self-manifestation: he is the Conscious Being, Soul, Spirit, Purusha, and it is by his Nature, the force of his conscious self-existence that he is all things; he is the Ishwara, the omniscient and omnipotent All-ruler, and it is by his Shakti, his conscious Power, that he manifests himself in Time and governs the universe. These and similar statements taken together are all-comprehensive: it is possible for the mind to cut and select, to build a closed system and explain away all that does not fit within it; but it is on the complete and many-sided statement that we must take our stand if we have to acquire an integral knowledge. 

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

Brahman.

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

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[Don Salmon]

and this:

What seems to us irrational or reprehensible in relation to a partial set of facts, motives, desiderata might be perfectly rational and approvable in relation to a much vaster motive and totality of data and desiderata. Reason with its partial vision sets up constructed conclusions which it strives to turn into general rules of knowledge and action and it compels into its rule by some mental device or gets rid of what does not suit with it: an infinite Consciousness would have no such rules, it would have instead large intrin- sic truths governing automatically conclusion and result, but adapting them differently and spontaneously to a different total of circumstances, so that by this pliability and free adaptation it might seem to the narrower faculty to have no standards whatever. In the same way, we cannot judge of the principle and dynamic operation of infinite being by the standards of finite existence, — what might be impossible for the one would be normal and self-evidently natural states and motives for the greater freer Reality. It is this that makes the difference between our fragmentary mind consciousness constructing integers out of its fractions and an essential and total consciousness, vision and knowledge. It is not indeed possible, so long as we are compelled to use reason as our main support, for it to abdicate altogether in favour of an undeveloped or half-organised intuition; but it is imperative on us in a consideration of the Infinite and its being and action to enforce on our reason an utmost plasticity and open it to an awareness of the larger states and possibilities of that which we are striving to consider. It will not do to apply our limited and limiting conclusions to That which is illimitable. If we concentrate only on one aspect and treat it as the whole, we illustrate the story of the blind men and the elephant; each of the blind inquirers touched a different part and concluded that the whole animal was some object resembling the part of which he had had the touch. An experience of some one aspect of the

346 The Life Divine

Infinite is valid in itself; but we cannot generalise from it that the Infinite is that alone, nor would it be safe to view the rest of the Infinite in the terms of that aspect and exclude all other view-points of spiritual experience. The Infinite is at once an essentiality, a boundless totality and a multitude; all these have to be known in order to know truly the Infinite. To see the parts alone and the totality not at all or only as a sum of the parts is a knowledge, but also at the same time an ignorance; to see the totality alone and ignore the parts is also a knowledge and at the same time an ignorance, for a part may be greater than the whole because it belongs to the transcendence; to see the essence alone because it takes us back straight towards the transcendence and negate the totality and the parts is a penultimate knowledge, but here too there is a capital ignorance. A whole knowledge must be there and the reason must become plastic enough to look at all sides, all aspects and seek through them for that in which they are one. 

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

[Don Salmon]

and I think this expresses Scott's point about privileging the Silence:

Thus too, if we see only the aspect of self, we may con- centrate on its static silence and miss the dynamic truth of the Infinite; if we see only the Ishwara, we may seize the dynamic truth but miss the eternal status and the infinite silence, become aware of only dynamic being, dynamic consciousness, dynamic delight of being, but miss the pure existence, pure consciousness, pure bliss of being. If we concentrate on Purusha-Prakriti alone, we may see only the dichotomy of Soul and Nature, Spirit and Matter, and miss their unity. In considering the action of the Infinite we have to avoid the error of the disciple who thought of himself as the Brahman, refused to obey the warning of the elephant-driver to budge from the narrow path and was taken up by the elephant’s trunk and removed out of the way; “You are no doubt the Brahman,” said the master to his bewildered disciple, “but why did you not obey the driver Brahman and get out of the path of the elephant Brahman?” We must not commit the mistake of emphasising one side of the Truth and concluding from it or acting upon it to the exclusion of all other sides and aspects of the Infinite. The realisation “I am That” is true, but we cannot safely proceed on it unless we realise also that all is

Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara 347

That; our self-existence is a fact, but we must also be aware of other selves, of the same Self in other beings and of That which exceeds both own-self and other-self. The Infinite is one in a multiplicity and its action is only seizable by a supreme Reason which regards all and acts as a one-awareness that observes itself in difference and respects its own differences, so that each thing and each being has its form of essential being and its form of dynamic nature, svaru ̄pa, svadharma, and all are respected in the total working. The knowledge and action of the Infinite is one in an unbound variability: it would be from the point of view of the infinite Truth equally an error to insist either on a sameness of action in all circumstances or on a diversity of action without any unifying truth and harmony behind the diversity. In our own principle of conduct, if we sought to act in this greater Truth, it would be equally an error to insist on our self alone or to insist on other selves alone; it is the Self of all on which we have to found a unity of action and a total, infinitely plastic yet harmonious diversity of action; for that is the nature of the working of the Infinite. 

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

[Don Salmon]

when we look with a straight and accurate look on the truth of the Reality...  In our experience of it we become aware of an Infinite essentially free from all limitation by qualities, properties, features; on the other hand, we are aware of an Infinite teeming with innumer- able qualities, properties, features. 

[Don Salmon]

note also the reference to the "self awareness" of the Absolute. Of course this is not human self awareness, it is a Self Awareness which INCLUDES the infinite multiplities, and a self awareness which is infinitely superior to that of human self awareness.

And between the Self awareness of the Absolute and the self awareness of the human (awakened or in ignorance) is the Self awareness of the mahat Atman, or Cosmic Christ.  These are three very different kinds of self awareness, and quite different from the awareness of the ordinary dreamer, or the awareness associated with what we call "matter."

This has tremendous practical implications. If we in meditation continue to believe in "self effort" (well, we may not believe in it, or think we believe in it but act as if it were the case) we cut off access to the Divine Mother, the Mahashakti. We don't realize the full Reality of the manifestation, the purpose of evolution or the purpose of individuality.  We don't understand what science or art is actually about, and we don't understand what blocks society and governments from peace and justice.  

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

[Don Salmon]

and here, from the next chapter, on the individual. If you've ever seen anything remotely like this in any of the neo vedantists, nisargadatta, maharshi, etc, I've love to see it.

The first difficulty for the reason is that it has always been accustomed to identify the individual self with the ego and to think of it as existing only by the limitations and exclusions of the ego. If that were so, then by the transcendence of the ego the individual would abolish his own existence; our end would be to disappear and dissolve into some universality of matter, life, mind or spirit or else some indeterminate from which our egois- tic determinations of individuality have started. But what is this strongly separative self-experience that we call ego? It is nothing fundamentally real in itself but only a practical construction of our consciousness devised to centralise the activities of Nature in us. We perceive a formation of mental, physical, vital experience which distinguishes itself from the rest of being, and that is what we think of as ourselves in nature — this individualisation of being in becoming. We then proceed to conceive of ourselves as something which has thus individualised itself and only ex- ists so long as it is individualised, — a temporary or at least a

The Eternal and the Individual 383

temporal becoming; or else we conceive of ourselves as someone who supports or causes the individualisation, an immortal being perhaps but limited by its individuality. This perception and this conception constitute our ego-sense. Normally, we go no farther in our knowledge of our individual existence.

But in the end we have to see that our individualisation is only a superficial formation, a practical selection and limited conscious synthesis for the temporary utility of life in a particular body, or else it is a constantly changing and developing synthesis pursued through successive lives in successive bodies. Behind it there is a consciousness, a Purusha, who is not determined or limited by his individualisation or by this synthesis but on the contrary determines, supports and yet exceeds it. That which he selects from in order to construct this synthesis, is his total experience of the world-being. Therefore our individualisation exists by virtue of the world-being, but also by virtue of a consciousness which uses the world-being for experience of its possibilities of individuality. These two powers, Person and his world-material, are both necessary for our present experience of individuality. If the Purusha with his individualising synthesis of consciousness were to disappear, to merge, to annul himself in any way, our constructed individuality would cease because the Reality that supported it would no longer be in presence; if, on the other hand, the world-being were to dissolve, merge, disappear, then also our individualisation would cease, for the material of experience by which it effectuates itself would be wanting. We have then to recognise these two terms of our exis- tence, a world-being and an individualising consciousness which is the cause of all our self-experience and world-experience.

But we see farther that in the end this Purusha, this cause and self of our individuality, comes to embrace the whole world and all other beings in a sort of conscious extension of itself and to perceive itself as one with the world-being. In its con- scious extension of itself it exceeds the primary experience and abolishes the barriers of its active self-limitation and individual- isation; by its perception of its own infinite universality it goes beyond all consciousness of separative individuality or limited

384 The Life Divine

soul-being. By that very fact the individual ceases to be the self- limiting ego; in other words, our false consciousness of existing only by self-limitation, by rigid distinction of ourselves from the rest of being and becoming is transcended; our identification of ourselves with our personal and temporal individualisation in a particular mind and body is abolished. But is all truth of individ- uality and individualisation abolished? does the Purusha cease to exist or does he become the world-Purusha and live intimately in innumerable minds and bodies? We do not find it to be so. He still individualises and it is still he who exists and embraces this wider consciousness while he individualises: but the mind no longer thinks of a limited temporary individualisation as all ourselves but only as a wave of becoming thrown up from the sea of its being or else as a form or centre of universality. The soul still makes the world-becoming the material for individual experience, but instead of regarding it as something outside and larger than itself on which it has to draw, by which it is affected, with which it has to make accommodations, it is aware of it sub- jectively as within itself; it embraces both its world-material and its individualised experience of spatial and temporal activities in a free and enlarged consciousness. In this new consciousness the spiritual individual perceives its true self to be one in being with the Transcendence and seated and dwelling within it, and no longer takes its constructed individuality as anything more than a formation for world-experience. 

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

[Dana Lomas]

Yes, here Aurobindo certainly resonates with my intuiting of each unique individual expression of The Divine Indivisible, as opposed to the notion of a dichotomous self. Not being steeped in any spiritual tradition, I do tend to eclectically cherry-pick from their teachings, focusing on the part that resonates with my intuitive experience, and discarding what doesn't. However, I can't recommend this approach for everyone. And it may well be that many will outgrow certain traditional approaches, as they find them somehow incomplete, or insufficient. So far, I certainly don't see any of them as the teaching to end all teachings. Just an invitation to embrace the Life Divine that transcends beginnings and endings :)

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

Brahman.

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

On Sun, Sep 10, 2017 at 7:59 AM, Dana Lomas <d.ho...@gmail.com</a

[Scott Roberts]

On Sunday, September 10, 2017 at 1:13:37 AM UTC-10, Peter Jones wrote:

You have no understanding of my view. You seem to have little understanding of metaphysics. I noticed the deliberately provocative remark in your essay that the idea of Unity is useless in philosophy but it was so daft I couldn't be bothered to argue. Perhaps you'd prefer the word 'Simplex' as used by Plotinus. Or 'Unicity' as used by some advaitans. ;

I didn't say that the idea of Unity is useless in philosophy. In fact, I call fundamental reality a triUNITY, and not (say) a triple. What I said is that positing a unity ontologically prior to the distinction between formlessness and form (or unity and multiplicity, or stillness and change) is metaphysically useless. If you think otherwise, tell me how it is metaphysically useful. 

 

One reason I don't just pile into an argument is that I always struggle to understand what you're saying. Could you clarify one thing.

Are you proposing that Reality is Three, Two, One, Zero or a Unity.  A one word answer would be enough.

I am proposing that Reality is self-aware tetralemmic polarity. And you should be struggling to understand it, as I am, since it is not understandable in the common meaning of "understanding", since it is not an object. If I were to say it is one of your four options, that would be understandable, and therefore wrong. ("If you understand it, you're wrong" -- credited to Augustine, I think, referring to his triunity.)

You say I have no understanding of your view. Perhaps. Here is what I understand your view to be:

1. You interpret Nagarjuna as having proved that all distinctions belong to conventional truth, while in absolute truth there are no distinctions.

2. Since absolutely there are no real distinctions, any "positive view", which you define as taking one side of a distinction over the other, is false.

I disagree with this in that I hold that the distinction between distinctionlessness and distinctions is fundamental. Whether this is counter to Nagarjuna or not I do not know -- Nagarjuna gets interpreted in many conflicting ways. I maintain it is fundamental, since without it, there would be no conventions. Or at least there is no explanation of where conventions come from. (And I emphasize again that to distinguish is not to separate, that though distinguishable, distinctionlessness is not other than distinctions, distinctions not other than distinctionlessness.)

One thing I do not understand is why when you privilege unity over multiplicity you exempt yourself from having taken one side of a distinction. 

[Arro]

Don and Dana - I think the difference here is of reification. I do not reify anything that has a dependant reality. I obviously do not deny the apparent experience and usefulness of different 'stages' of consciousness, but we have to be clear on their relativity. Aurobindo is very clear about that, whereas I don't feel like you two are. I don't see anything in that particular extract of The Life Divine that contradicts Rupert/Maharshi and others who have a more direct approach. Only if you confuse the poetry within it for strict philosophical rules do the teachings appear to conflict. Aurobindo alludes to the need for poetry in the extract;  "In order to ex- press this experience or this idea with any nearness a language has to be created which is at once intuitively metaphysical and revealingly poetic". The context is the absolute here, but it surely applies elsewhere, especially to those who talk experientially and not just conceptually or logically.

Maybe the difference really is a philosophical one and not a poetic one, but if so Don you will have you point out exactly where that difference lies, and I'd be interested to see where it contradicts Peter's writing too, because from what I have seen, it seems like it is only your rigidity that does not allow for reconciliation of either. And by rigidity I mean the solidifying of certain aspects of the teachings. For example, I assume you take Purusha, the individuating consciousness, to be a point of difference compared to Spira etc. but Aurobindo explicitly states that both Purusha and the 'world-becoming' are reduced. Purusha would seem to me like the capacity for individual experience, and no one is denying that capacity exists, however the experience itself is nothing but the Absolute. Ignorance in the unawakened, but simply a tool for the awakened. From Aurobino;

"But we see farther that in the end this Purusha, this cause and self of our individuality, comes to embrace the whole world and all other beings in a sort of conscious extension of itself and to perceive itself as one with the world-being. In its con- scious extension of itself it exceeds the primary experience and abolishes the barriers of its active self-limitation and individual- isation; by its perception of its own infinite universality it goes beyond all consciousness of separative individuality or limited soul-being."

I have heard Spira refer to the soul as the individual but say that the term is not in his repertoire. I really don't think there is any conflict, it's just that Spira chooses certain language, whereas others (especially those who come from indian background) may use different expressions either to make sense of the literature already available or as a descriptive tool. Osho for example says many things that could appear to contradict non-dualism, but that is because he uses poetical and experiential expression as well as philosophical explanations. Personally, from an experiential viewpoint I think the direct approach is massively useful but lacks some colour and needs to be contrasted with other teachings. I suppose it depends on the individual body-mind and the course which it's 'un-ravelling' takes. 

[Dana Lomas]

Arro ... I'm not seeing how your reiteration of Aurobindo here contradicts what I have said. Rather, your continued participation in this relational conversation only reinforces the point I'm trying to make. But I'm still open to being convinced otherwise, if you feel so inclined. :)

[Dana Lomas]

I'm going to try to express this in yet another creative way ... As the Heart Sutra states, emptiness and form are indivisibly, inextricably not-two. Now let's go so far as to say that the indivisible, inextricable play of emptiness and form is equatable to the play of experience. Then it can be said that this play of experience is to Awareness, as the play of Lila is to Brahman, and that it is in the imperative nature of Awareness/Brahman to play, such that it can't not inevitably play. Furthermore, it can be said that the play and the Player are indivisibly, inextricably not-two. Now, let it be said that the Player can express itself as individual (indivisible) players in the play, each playing their integral role. And that the Player Playing as Players has no point of origin/causation or finality ... aka, the ontological primitive.

[Don Salmon]

Arro: I'm going to have to give up at this point.

Here's what I dont' understand, and if anybody - you or Peter, or anyone else - is interested, you can explain this to me.

it's not MY opinion I'm putting forth. Look, I DISAGREED with Sri Aurobindo's own statements for 20 years. I thought everyone else who agreed with him was being rigid. I KNOW that place.

here's the simple question for anyone who's interested, to explain to me.

Sri Aurobindo insisted, having studied Sankara and all the rest in the original Sanskrit, and having read numerous commentaries, that his view was DRAMATICALLY different than theirs.  He specifically picked out aspects of Ramana Maharshi's core teaching that he disagreed with.  Radically.

Sorry for the caps, but I'm bewildered.  It's not me you're disagreeing with.  If you read Sri Aurobindo's commentary on Indian philosophy in general, you'll see quite literally hundreds of examples where he disagrees. I also know the experience of reading excerpts like the one I sent and insisting to myself (as I said, I did this for 20 years), "Why, there's absolutely nothing here that is in any way conflicting with anything in Indian philosophy."

After my "epiphany" (paradigm shift, whatever you want to call it) after spending 5 days in northern England in 1996 (having first read Sri Aurobindo in 1976) I looked again at the passages I had assumed were the same. I realized I had been interpreting the passages through the lens of Sankara, Nagarjuna, etc.  I now looked again, trying to understand Sri Aurobindo on his own terms.  I started seeing not just words, but phrases, sentences, whole paragraphs I had either missed altogether, or wholly misinterpreted.

Anyway, after all that rambling, here's the mission, should anyone choose to accept it.  There is a section (free, online) of his 'Letters on Yoga,' called "Integral Yoga and Other Paths."  He spells out in dozens of different ways, radical ways in which his view conflicts with others.

If you like, you might read Osho or Nasr on what's wrong with Sri Aurobindo. That's another approach.  They had absolutely no hesitation in saying he radically and completely misunderstood the Vedanta.  I don't think he did, but in the course of attacking him, they did a very good job of identifying what was different about his approach.  

So that's all I can say. Peter, it seems to me, when you repeatedly say, after looking at a comment of mine or a passage from Sri Aurobindo, that you're doing the same thing I did for many years. Even the way you respond sounds like it could have been taken verbatim from something I said repeatedly over 2 decades.

It takes A LOT of work to get it, because superficially, he's using the same language in many cases.  But again, or, to conclude, Arro, this is not my personal opinion, it's what Sri Aurobindo and Mirra Alfassa both insisted on, Mirra even more so in the last decades of her life after Sri Aurobindo passed, that in some ways, there are many things that are the opposite of what Sri Aurobindo was saying, in traditional Indian philosophy.

Ok, sometime in the hopefully not too distant future, I'll be writing out all this in greater detail. But even then, it wouldn't matter, because if you read it the way I read Sri Aurobindo for 20 years, it won't seem different. I get that. 

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

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[Arro]

Fair enough Don. I'll have to come back to you when I've got more acquainted with Aurobindo. I will check out your suggestions.

[Arro]

Similarly, your continued assertion, without any disclaimer, that this is a relational experience leads me to the feeling that you are still thinking dualistically. I may be wrong, but I can only go on what you write.

[Don Salmon]

Arro, that idea that relational is dualistic is not a bad place to start:>))

http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.html 

On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 7:46 AM, Arro <arro...@gmail.com> wrote:

Similarly, your continued assertion, without any disclaimer, that this is a relational experience leads me to the feeling that you are still thinking dualistically. I may be wrong, but I can only go on what you write.

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[Peter Jones]

On Sunday, 10 September 2017 12:31:49 UTC+1, Don Salmon wrote:

Wow, Peter. That was pretty intense.  I thought you were privileging the unmanifest over the manifest as well.

Yes it was. The threads overlap so I was responding partly to this comment from Scott. .

---  to posit a somewhat that is neither formlessness nor form (a prior unity, say) adds nothing that is helpful in accounting for our experience. In that sense, it is metaphysically useless. Furthermore, it creates a new problem, namely how this somewhat relates to formlessness and form. If what is posited is a prior unity, one is left with no explanation of how it unites formlessness and form, and without an explanation of how formlessness and form are derived from it (this latter being the same problem with (1))."

As Scott knows my view is entirely dependent on the the unity of the universe and that I would read this post it is highly provocative. We are not talking about a 'prior' Unity. Prior to what? There is no 'prior' about it. I feel about Scott's view the same way Plato felt about Democritus'. It leads people astray and makes metaphysics incomprehensible. I have yet to read a sage who denies the unity that Scott denies. In my view to call form and formlessness independent polarities is dualism.  . 

[Peter Jones]

On Sunday, 10 September 2017 12:35:32 UTC+1, Dana Lomas wrote:

Well again, that neither formless nor form, unmanifest nor manifest, being nor becoming, alone can be the ontological primitive, as such, each must be integral, and still remain not-two. Rupert, as far as I can tell, says that the ontological primitive is Awareness -- or at least that's his name of choice for That which transcends all names. Thus, it cannot be just formlessness or form, as they can only be forever indivisible and inextricable.

Exactly. Basic stuff.