Reality is...

I don't think so; words are basically allusions, and by describing our experience with words which allude to a similar experienc that we have had, inspite of the vagaries of sensual detail, and memory, this allows us to "understand" (and of course, that is of paramount importance) what the teller is describing.

sharing
BoGoWo, excellent point. It's strange to me that seeing the color red or experiencing the taste of an apple is generally considered to be a "public" phenomenon insofar as it is not "private" in the sense of being completely subjective and unshared. Twyvel notes the epistemological fact that we simply do not know with technical certainty if the experience of "redness" is the same for two non-color blind individuals. We do use the same word for the experience. An anthropologist once called this use of language (among other things) a cultural mechanism for the "organization of diversity" : a way for us to create at least the delusion of sharing. To me, it seems that we must be agnostic on this point. If we cannot know with certainty that we are sharing, (i.e., co-experiencing) the same perception when looking at redness, we also cannot know that we are not. But isn't it wonderful that language permits us to live at least AS IF we are sharing? We live in a non-discursive world of immediate experiences, but language permits us to escape solipsism and live like the social animals that we are. Which is what we are doing RIGHT NOW.

Yes, JLNobody well put and thanks for emphasizing, ..."as if" we are sharing.

We have common understandings but we don't share the understandings, in as much as understanding is an experience and not sharable. And of course this extends to the uncertainty of solipsism which is always present, which you have noted.

In order for us to share an experience it would have to be nondual even though nonduality is solipsistic. So we wouldn't be sharing the experience; with whom would we share it? We would just BE it. Solipsism is only an idea amongst the many, in that if it is true it doesn't exist.

Anyway there you are and here I am, isolated like two peas in a pod. You are my experience and I am yours, that's about as close as we can get.

Well actually all the world is closer then my own skin, closer then these thoughts, closer then this breath, then this heart beat. Closer then close as there is no distance between a singularity. Dive deep into your self and you will find the universe at the bottom of your being.

Dive deep, Ramana said.

Dive deep

sharing
Twyvel, let me see if I understand you. To completely share an experience with another person is to BE that person--at least for that moment. I wonder what shock Mr. Spock must have experienced the first time he "mind-melded" with another person. Would he remember himself when in the other's mind? And when he "returned", would he remember the other person's experience?
Years ago--in the sixties--I had a strange experience which is apropo. I was driving my car when suddenly all things seemed to take on a kind of experiential absoluteness, a sense of being ONLY what they were immediately sensed. A car was not a "car". The word, "car" was JUST a sound and a concept standing for what I was driving and what I saw other people driving. The same for flowers, my pants, all things, including my name. There was a brilliance of emptiness, with the world of words separated from the world of perceptions. I asked a Japanese zen master, with whom I was meditating at the time if this was "satori". His disappointing answer was "No, you're working too hard." Nonetheless, the experience provided materials for later philosophical discussions, like now. What amazed me most about the experience was that when it passed I could not remember--experientially speaking--what it was like. I could give the superficial word-bound description given above, but I could not re-live it in memory. But also--and get this--when I was in "the state" I could not for the life of me "feel" what it was like to be in my normal state where words and their referents seemed to be each other. It required a major effort for me not to panic. I felt I was about to fall into an abyss of permanent meaninglessness. Ever since then, I've appreciated the beautiful illusions my language and culture have permitted me to create with others. Oh, and I am equally grateful for the realization that they are illusions.
Why am I telling you this? I don't remember.

Interesting JL, sounds like a glimpse, or an experience of no-self. What you (as awareness) identifies with seems to have shifted, moved away from the subject---object split. I don't know. Very interesting though. I can reasonably understand the sense of panic as the loss of self is a death, literally, even though there's nothing to die. All so paradoxical.

I guess it's about identification, what the awareness identifies with,( although as Ramesh Balsekar says, "Why identify with anything.", which seems to suggest that awareness does not need an object.) although its nothing and that's the amazing thing, this awareness is nothing. How does an image arise to nothing?

That's why I think someone who is in a transcendent state is amazed just at looking at their hand or a flower. Who sees the images/photons entering the eyes? I don't have another set of eyes behind these ones, and even if I did we would end up postulating endless sets of eyes ad infinitum, and still be left with, Who's looking?

How does this screen/monitor arise in appearance, in visual awareness if the eyes don't see anything, any more then a telescope does? How can it possibly happen? Most don't know. But I and I think you and others know from this observation that there is no one looking, that this screen arises from nothing. But if so, if there is nothing in me that IS the screen or a representation of it, and the screen is 'out there' how does information or knowledge of the presence or appearance of the screen get to me?

And I dare say if there were in fact a looker the looker would obscure the visual field, for there is nothing in the observed that is not the observed. Seeing and other perceptions are all impossible yet here they appear to be.


Can you completely share an experience with another person? Like you and I have said qualia and thoughts are private. If nondualism is correct and you ARE the experience and two sages in a permanent state of transcendence are together I imagine they would see them selves as the same being, with 'difference' being relative to the manifest. Probably a naïve guess.

death
Twyvel, it's too late and I'm too tired out (painting on my feet all day) to understand your post. Let me look at it again tomorrow when rested.

That comment probably illustrates the disagreements I have with you as well as any other might.

As Ican once put it over in Abuzz: "What is there about the climate and air of the Indian subcontinent that causes people over there to suppose they know more about reality than anyone else on the planet."

The Indian mystics appear to be guessing about reality and how to perceive it. But you seem to buy into it as though they are revealing some great truth.

truth
Frank, are you sure they are not revealing some deep truth? Isn't it better to attempt to understand their perspective rather than dismiss it because of what I agree appears to be their cultural imperiousness regarding religious matters. Similarly, if a theoretical physicist thinks he is better than me in matters of science, I would be selling myself short to dismiss his achievements because of his attitude.

JLN, Just be careful; some of those so-called scientists are quacks. c.i.

Frank wrote:



That's a good question Frank, perhaps for a thread of its own, although I don't think the answers lie in the 'air' and 'climate'.

I think a religion/spiritual historian, could provide interesting replies, related to the interpretations of Christianity and the bible as "outward" looking; that god is outside of you.

But it goes back along way; mystics claimed to have discovered inner states of consciousness thousands of years ago, which until recently have not been well understood. I think it's a complex question that could be addressed from many different disciplines and perspectives.

Perhaps JLNobody could comment.



The difference is they do not appear to be guessing to me, they appear for the most part to be reporting observations, of inner states of awareness. That they 'appear' to be guessing may be just that 'appearance'. But if one is not prepared to take up a practice to inquire into themselves, to do research into their being, then how would they know? From where do they based their judgements.

If one is eager to know how it is they know anything, how knowing comes about, who they are, and what the nature of this apparent reality is, there are certainly many roads of inquiry, and this is one of them. This, being that some answers are not so much to be found "out there" in the sense world, in the objects of perception, but in the analysis of those perceptions and through the awareness of them.

I think there is a "great truth" (as you put it) to be known, but it's not in some book or in India or eastern mystics, it's inside of me, or IS me. Ultimate reality is me.

I think from our interactions that that is not your orientation, that's fine, none of us have the capacity of endless inquiry in all directions. I personally do not feel I have to read the bible a hundred times to reason that that is not the road for me, not to say some insights cannot be found there. I just cannot comprehend how I could know a god if I don't know the " I "that knows. If the I that knows is a mystery to the extent that I don't' know where it is or what it is, or what I ever mean with the word I

And the question is a little dated in that there are many, many people from the so called western world, philosophers, psychologists, spiritual leaders, sages, etc. who affirm the idea of inner transcendence or self inquiry as the road to truth, whatever that may mean.

twyvel, It's all in the mind of the beholder. c.i.

cicerone,

That's the problem, that's what we're looking for, the beholder.

hmmmm.......

Twyvel

They may have the truth.

Christians may have the truth.

I don't know for sure -- and anything I say about it will be a guess.

Is the situation different for you?

truth
Twyvel, you say that "the 'great truth' is inside of me". I think this is the essential message of the Buddha when he said, "Be a lantern unto yourself." Look nowhere but to your immediate experience, seeing it exactly as it is. This is the statue of the sitting Buddha.

Frank wrote:



In a general sense of the word, know, in every day use, as in when you say "I do not know" and claim to know that you do not know, or in the understanding that you know (through observation and reason) that you are looking at this monitor/screen, I know that:

• consciousness cannot be observed
  
• there's nothing observable observing internal dialogue
  
• eyes don't see anything
  
• nerves don't feel anything
  
• ears don't hear
  
• the nose doesn't smell
  
• the mouth/tongue doesn't taste anything
  
• the body doesn't perceive
  

Consciousness does all that, even though consciousness cannot be observed as being anything except, the hearing, smelling, tasting, seeing, feeling and thinking.

Do I know that nondualism is the truth? No, I am not a sage,( not yetJ) nor have I had a significant glimpse, but the above does not only not contradict what they say, and what nondualism means, it affirms it.

So as I stated they do not appear to be guessing to me. Therefore I guess that others know that god or a transcendent self or greater self exists, and that others know the truth or the true nature of this existence.


Now let me ask you a question(s).

I have asked you this question within the past week and you appeared to avoid it, so I'll ask again in a slightly different way.

Although you are not doing it now you have repeatedly wrote the statement,

"We do not know."

Is this a guess of yours?

And who are you claiming to speak for with the use of the word, 'We' ?

JLNobody wrote:



Yes, JL I think this is meant to be taken literally, as you say, seeing it exactly as it is.

Meaning take nothing for granted, (if that is possible) and be strict. We live in a world of fragments and parts, never seeing the whole of things; our body, other bodies, objects, etc. And if nondualism is correct what we perceive is precisely what IS,....and cause and effect are relative to being observed.

Yet the fragments are whole fragments, if that could be said, because that is all that there is to them at the moment of observation, whole parts.

Where else could (the) truth reside but inside of you? Or more correctly, as you.

Jesus said, "I am the light that is above them all, I am the All,
The All came forth from Me and the All
Attained to Me. Cleave a piece of wood, I am there; lift up the
Stone and you will find Me there."

Reality is nondual, one without a second.

• Tao only
  
• Mind only
  
• Christ only
  
• Brahman only
  
• Spirit only
  
• Consciousness only
  
• That only
  
• I only.
  

JLNobody wrote:



Yes, JL I think this is meant to be taken literally, as you say, seeing it exactly as it is.

Meaning take nothing for granted, (if that is possible) and be strict. We live in a world of fragments and parts, never seeing the whole of things; our body, other bodies, objects, etc. And if nondualism is correct what we perceive is precisely what IS,....and cause and effect are relative to being observed.

Yet the fragments are whole fragments, if that could be said, because that is all that there is to them at the moment of observation, whole parts.

Where else could (the) truth reside but inside of you? Or more correctly, as you.

Jesus said, "I am the light that is above them all, I am the All,
The All came forth from Me and the All
Attained to Me. Cleave a piece of wood, I am there; lift up the
Stone and you will find Me there."

Reality is nondual, one without a second.

• Tao only
  
• Mind only
  
• Christ only
  
• Brahman only
  
• Spirit only
  
• Consciousness only
  
• That only
  
• I only.
  

red pill
Reality is taking the red pill. the Matrix rules!!

Well, Boss, do expect a good deal of the tired old shadows on the wall of the cave disquisition . . . and recall Dr. Johnson's advice to the metaphysicians that if they doubt the reality of their senses, that they begin each day by stubbing their feet against stones . . .