Who Are You, Really?

Sorry, I could not understand that.

Cavfancier, I think that which is looking out of your dogs eyes is that which is also looking out of your/my/our eyes. As you say, that which your dog is rests in the eye of the observer……………and/yet there isn't one .

Yes, JLNobody, thank you,, It is truly amazing that nothing observes.

alikimr wrote:




No, It's not the same thing. Thought like any object doesn't observe anything, that's a given. And thought is

Yes. I understand what you're saying perfectly. (I think)

You say, Twyvel, that nothing observes. That's right. No thing observes. Yet there is observation. I like to think that the Hindus are right, namely that EVERYTHING is doing the observing. Brahma (through Atman) is bringing about the observing experience by generating all the infinite necessary and sufficient conditions for it to happen. I am not writing this, Brahma is. Jesus claimed to be one with God. I see no difference.

JLNobody;
I am observing YOUR post 702677, as written by you, and obviously not by Brahma,and by so doing put to serious question what you interpret Twyvel as claiming "that nothing observes". Apparently all the necessary conditions
necessary for my observation to happen where generated by Brahma precisely to allow me to voice this disclaimer. Please accept this as argument, not as sarcasm.

True, I wasn't clear in my post there. I agree. Just because I have a visual impression of my dog does not make me an observer in the sense of one who defines anything via that criteria. In an attempt to wax poetic, I forgot to be specific in stating that the example I presented was meant to indicate a fluidity in existence, a mutual and ongoing state of molecular flux that eliminates 'self' of any kind. Damn, why am I up so early? Hope that clarifies my position.

JL, that was a great knock knock joke. I have an addendum:

After further training, the Seeker comes back to God and says "Hey old friend, remember our knock knock exchanges of old?"

"God says, how could I forget? You slay me with those."

Seeker says: "Want to hear another one, for old times sake?"

God says: "Sure."

Seeker says: "Okay, you start."

JLNobody

That's what Zen calls your original face, the face of Atman/Brahman. Experientially, right now and always there is nothing in my visual filed that is a looker, it is crystal clear and void of any see-er, and is the nothingness from which the (visual) universe emerges. (And if there were a seer in the visual field it would block the seeing).

And this of course is supported by what Krishnamurti and many others have said, That the perceiver and perceived are one and the same in the act of perceiving. This is what is meant, this is what they have recognized (in part). It is a sudden recognition, a flash of awareness, at the perception level, that there is no seer.

As you say, "the universe observes itself"; emptiness is plenum, plenum is emptiness, two sides of no-coin. Which is not some mystical far off abstraction that requires a thousand years of meditation to acquirer, though maybe we have been meditating/contemplating for thousands of years to get to this simple observation; to see through our conditioning (of cause and effect relations); imagining things that are not there.

alikimrJLN says, it takes time, or not.

Twyvel, I take profound pleasure in witnessing your sharp insight. Pardon the flattery, but I would burst if I could not say so.
Alikimir, the key to my perspective can be found in Tywvel's comments. One way to take my stance (perspective) is to focus on my use of the terms "no thing" (like Tywvel's nothing and emptiness) and "every thing". To be no thing in particular is to be everything in general. To be a thing among things is to have only relative being; to be everything is to have absolute being (there is nothing other than your true Self to be relative to). You are right in that "all the necessary [and sufficient] conditions necessary for [your] observation to happen were generated by [actually, ARE] Brahma to allow [you] to voice this disclaimer." My true Self is also making "your" disclaimer. In reality we are one. We are making discordant claims in unity. How wonderful is Reality. When Jesus said he was one with God, and I say I am one with the ground of my being, we are actually saying that Jesus IS God and I AM that ground. SO ARE YOU and everyone and everything else. No matter how hard we struggle "against" one another there is no alientation, only harmony. You and I are connected by the space between us and one in our differences. This is the transcendence of dualism.
Twyvel's insight is ultimately OUR insight. He is keeping his Buddhist vow to save all beings.

Alikimir, I think I understand your reservation regarding the notion of a "false self." How can there be a self that is "false" or an ego that is "pseudo"? Right. I should have emphasized that the ego or self is false/pseudo in the sense that they do not really exist as objective entities, only as subjective experiences. They are ILLUSORY to the extent that we grant substance to them, but they are real as experiences, as subjective states; they are illusory only to the extent that we consider them objects of experience. Just as mirages are real mirages, they are real illusions. But do not try to drink a mirage or protect and gratify ego/self.

JRN : I find great difficulty in following some of your statements.particularly these:
"To be nothing in particular is to be everything in general" followed later with"to be everything is to have absolute being"...which means that to be nothing is the criteria for being
absolute.....????
"There is no alienation, only harmony".....in
Iraq, in Palestine/Israel ?????
"Buddhist vow to save all beings"....since
when?

twyvel:
I.would comment on some of your assertions as follows.....The Universe observes itself only if it conscious so I presume you are of the opinion that it is in fact conscious....which is interesting.
...."assuming thingds that are not there" is a common ailment of many human brain matters.
I hope that when you use the word observation you include the use of the sense of touch, smell, taste, hearing, etc.
Do you agree with JCN that "Buddhists vow to save all beings?

Alikimr, it takes a certain broad perspective to grasp my specific statements here. Otherwise they apppear nonsensical. It is one of the major vows of Mahayana Buddhism to save all beings. But the meaning of this is quite unique and not available to commonsense. If all is one, which it is, then Tywvel's enlightenment is also ours, it is not shared by our egos; it is shared by our common nature. Also, to be no individual thing (I'm talking about self, not discreet body) is to be all things. When we die this becomes theoretically most obvious. We then return to the absolute, the everything, from which we came. But we are really there now as well. But ego makes us feel separate from the Totality. That is alienation, an illusion. To be everything is to be of the absolute in the sense that there is nothing apart from the Everything to make it relative. If it is all there is, it is "absolute". Of course words like relative and absolute, nothing and everything, etc. are our constructions. But they can give us a peek at the beyond-language. It all depends on the perspective of our intuition. Even the violence in the middle east is part of the general harmony. One must see beyond the dichotomies of war-peace, harmony-conflict. They make very good sense at a dualistic level of awareness, but are absurd (empty distinctions) at the non-dualistic level of awareness (where the world is seen as it is, at least in terms of our capacity for its immediate, pre-reflective, perception).
I must apologize for not even trying to be clear, to actually communicate what is very obscure to another who operates under a radically different set of assumptions. I am indulging myself rather grossly, just trying to express rather than to communicate. But I know there are a number of people here who understand me quite well.

(edited on May 23)

There are special occasions where I think I know this but they are rare and I am never sure JLN.



Thank you all of you who participate in this discussion. I enjoy it so much even though I know so little about most of what you are saying.

JLN....when you can so blithely dismiss the violence
in the middle east "as part of the general harmony"
this is where "our unity" parts. My brain matter is only aware of the world as it shows itself, and will not see beyond the"dichotomies",as you put it. and why ? Because I apparently have no need , or capacity, for the mystic. By the way, why not try to communicate instead of expressing your rationalizations, which ,after all , we are all tempted
to do.

twyvel & JLN :
I have not received an answer to my direct question re the Buddhist approach which was cited by JLN.......that "Buddhists vow to save all beings".
I never imagined that "saving" in the traditional religious fundamentalist sense was even remotely a consideration , let alone a dictum
of Buddhism. And if not in that sence, what other sense?

Alikimr, you are absolutely correct, you have no need (I would not say no capacity, I don't know) for the mystical perspective. Very few people do. Please do not conclude that because I see Ulitimate Reality as beyond our values and desires that I do not feel just as bad about the Middle East or about the injustices in the U.S. as you do. We are talking not about the relativistic and dualistic world of the life that we have constructed (we have weaved a web of meaning in which we are caught). The "general harmony" has to do with a transcendental perspective, not "transcendental" in any glorious sense, only in that it ignores dualistic distinctions, good-bad, beautiful-ugly, inside-outside, up-down, true-false, etc. etc.. It lets go of all distinctions, even that between dualism and non-dualism. That is why it is virtually impossible to "communicate" this perspective. It can't be done by means of language because language is inherently dualistic, it forces us to choose between dichotomies. I'm talking about letting go of them. You cannot do that after arguing with me, even after giving into my claims. If that were so, many people in monasteries would be able to go home very quickly, and enlightened a la cheap. For Buddhists, "saving all sentient beings" is in no way similar to the Christian "saving" of souls from Hell (since they do not believe in either souls or an afterlife). By the way, I and Tywvel live almost every minute of our lives in the same dualistic world you live in. We also argue over issues we imagine in philosophy, politics, aesthetics, etc. etc.. It's just that we know that ultimately it is just noise. We care deeply about such issues, but know that in the end it doesn't matter. Nevertheless, most of the time we live in the world not of ultimate truth (ultimate reality, yes; so do you). We make choices between relative truths, just like you. So, I think that you should argue with us about the latter, not the former. That would just be a waste of all our time.

alikimr wrote:




As many sages have said, All there is is consciousness'…………..but what is consciousness? Just a concept. And what is a concept? An intangible fleeting observation.




Yes, all observables.




It's not a matter of agreement.

I'm not a Buddhist per say, more of a nondualist though in reference to the heart sutra there probably is little or no difference.