The Primacy Of Consciousness

[Joshpantera]

My point is that Spirit, the Absolute, Consciousness, is nondual. It is both emptiness and form. It is not a 'thing' on the other side of matter, which is we look hard enough we can make all matter that thus eliminating duality. That is monism. That is what pantheism is actually. It is monism - not that that is wrong of course, just partial.

This isn't the first time I've had to try and explain myself to other mystics who don't seem to see what I'm getting at. This might help:

 

Many > One > Mystery of the Existence of the One which is viewed as many.

 

I'm saying that God as "All" entails God as the mystery underlying the existence of the one which is perceived as many and is present in every aspect of existence. If you point to the monism of the one substance that doesn't address the rest of the way I'm taking it by breaking everything down to the mystery ingrained into the one which appears to be many.

 

I haven't spoken of the one yet without also pitching it past the one, because I know that we're to pitch it past that level. I know that the one and the many are of the realm of duality. I'm just not sure why you choose to focus on what I say concerning the one but leave out the mystery underlying the one which I also mention. Consciousness could be viewed as the one. But the mystery of it's existence goes deeper than the one.

 

Like I said, this isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened so don't worry because I don't find any of this offensive. I'm just wondering if you've actually taken this to beyond where I've already taken it because it's still unclear as of your monism example because I haven't stopped off at monism which is what your source is speaking to.

 

Nonduality the state beyond that and becomes awareness of all things arising as themselves, as itself. I have experienced that several times. That, is seeing Life as it is.

Sort of like this?

The Power of Myth

 

”The story that we have in the west, so far as it is based on the Bible, is based on a view of the universe that belongs to the first millennium BC. It does not accord with our concept either of the universe or of the dignity of man. It belongs somewhere else entirely. We have today to learn to get back into accord with the wisdom of nature and realize again our brotherhood with the animals and with the water and the sea. To say that the divinity informs the world, and all things, is condemned as Pantheism. But Pantheism is a misleading word. It suggests that a personal God is supposed to inhabit the world, but that is not the idea at all. The idea is TRANS-THEOLOGICAL. It is of an undefinable, inconceivable MYSTERY, thought of as a power, that is the source and end and supporting ground of all life and being." – Joseph Campbell

[Ravenstar]

This is the problem with language.. once something is named, it becomes 'other'. Definition, by it's very nature separates and limits. Reasoning is the same... once it becomes intellectual it is automatically delineated.

 

It's why I don't like the word, 'god'. Even the word 'mystery' again alludes to something 'spiritual'. 'Life' is also a misnomer - there is no life or death, these are metaphors for events or qualities (states?) of consciousness.

 

Duality itself is also a language... but it can't describe the absolute reality because to define or delineate to communicate or understand one must have comparison... ie: duality.

 

I think the BB is an apt story - allegory, to describe states of consciousness/absolute and it's discreet experiences (bracketed events). This is where I differ - I think science is describing the story. Not necessarily the 'reality'. I think quantum mechanics is also describing the story. This is allegory.. like plasma is the reflection of the singular nature and regular matter (states) are the expression of that reflection through duality. Can it be KNOWN this way... sort of... but not in the way it can be experienced through mysticism. You can enter the story.. or BE the story or be the urge behind the story, or the raw potential of the expression of the story. This is the difference.

 

Consciousness has created the story...(universe, etc...) and it's beautiful, and not, I believe, to be denigrated as 'less than' the absolute reality. Sentience is trying to comprehend the story, through myth, religious thought, science, philosophy.. and yes - mysticism. some are indirect, some are more direct.

 

I don't have any quotes, as I haven't really looked into other people's thoughts on this... this is just where I ended up.

[Antlerman]

My point is that Spirit, the Absolute, Consciousness, is nondual. It is both emptiness and form. It is not a 'thing' on the other side of matter, which is we look hard enough we can make all matter that thus eliminating duality. That is monism. That is what pantheism is actually. It is monism - not that that is wrong of course, just partial.

This isn't the first time I've had to try and explain myself to other mystics who don't seem to see what I'm getting at. This might help:

 

Many > One > Mystery of the Existence of the One which is viewed as many.

 

I'm saying that God as "All" entails God as the mystery underlying the existence of the one which is perceived as many and is present in every aspect of existence. If you point to the monism of the one substance that doesn't address the rest of the way I'm taking it by breaking everything down to the mystery ingrained into the one which appears to be many.

It's so fascinating to me dialoging with you. I keep envisioning this as like you and I seeing each other on the street, catching each others eyes as a familiar face, then circling around each other on the same patch of sidewalk curiously looking at each other. We recognize each other clearly, but there's something different. Turns our we're twin brothers separated at birth, yet are you really? You speak with an East Coast dialect, and I speak with a Western dialect. You seem different to me because of that, it seems.

 

We are in fact saying the same things and this is really a matter of word usage. When I speak of the One, I am speaking of that Infinity, that Mystery beyond God.

 

One conversation I had wanted to get back to in another thread with you, but it got lost in time, was the discussion of the Logos. In the sense that John uses it it speaks of it as that Agent of manifestation. Logos is the Manifestor of the unknowable God - or better stated in that mystical sense, Godhead. This to me is how I see God, in speaking in a theistic sense, the Manifestation of the Absolute, a Face upon the Infinite. It is Godhead beyond that that I see as the One, in the sense that Plotinus and other nondualists speak of it. God beyond God. God, is what we in a dualistic reality experience as the Face of the absolute, the Manifestation into duality. Yet underlying that, behind that, beyond that, is Infinity within Infinity within Infinity, Infinitely. That is your "Mystery", and what I mean by the One.

 

I haven't spoken of the one yet without also pitching it past the one, because I know that we're to pitch it past that level. I know that the one and the many are of the realm of duality. I'm just not sure why you choose to focus on what I say concerning the one but leave out the mystery underlying the one which I also mention.

Because of what I just explained. Why do you see the One as in the realm of duality?

 

Consciousness could be viewed as the one. But the mystery of it's existence goes deeper than the one.

Yes.

 

This is good we are getting to heart of the communication problem here.

 

I'm just wondering if you've actually taken this to beyond where I've already taken it because it's still unclear as of your monism example because I haven't stopped off at monism which is what your source is speaking to.

And here's the other stumbling block for me. One reason I hate labeling myself, and why I was very careful to say I don't call myself a panenthiest, but rather that it comes closer than what pantheism is, is because labels like this convey a whole raft of understandings with it. You say you haven't stopped at monism, which is the same thing for me, yet you identify as a pantheist which is monism. Just as you hear panentheism as "theism lite", I hear pantheism as monism, which traditionally it is. Pantheism is traditionally not nondualism. It's monism.

 

Nonduality the state beyond that and becomes awareness of all things arising as themselves, as itself. I have experienced that several times. That, is seeing Life as it is.

Sort of like this?

The Power of Myth

 

”The story that we have in the west, so far as it is based on the Bible, is based on a view of the universe that belongs to the first millennium BC. It does not accord with our concept either of the universe or of the dignity of man. It belongs somewhere else entirely. We have today to learn to get back into accord with the wisdom of nature and realize again our brotherhood with the animals and with the water and the sea. To say that the divinity informs the world, and all things, is condemned as Pantheism. But Pantheism is a misleading word. It suggests that a personal God is supposed to inhabit the world, but that is not the idea at all. The idea is TRANS-THEOLOGICAL. It is of an undefinable, inconceivable MYSTERY, thought of as a power, that is the source and end and supporting ground of all life and being." – Joseph Campbell

I like the word transtheological, and it's something I think I've used myself in some form. But Campbell's description here only is distinguishing the personal God, the theological God from this underlying mystery, "thought of as a power" as the source and end of all life and being. That, by the way, is how "the One" is used in those like Plotinus and other nondual mystics of the world. But again, traditional pantheism identifies this directly with the world itself, and not beyond it. Campbell is right in what he is saying that pantheism is not about the personal God in nature, as a theist might misconceive it. But is he himself actually identifying what monism is? The ground of all being is something Tillich used, and I'm pretty sure he was not a pantheist. Campbell is using it as I hear Tillich and Ploltinus used it, who were more nondualists.

[Joshpantera]

^ What you're saying tends to sit well with me. I have been suspecting that miscommunication is the only real hurdle.

 

I posted the above quote to open up dialogue about what brought me into Pantheism to begin with. I used to think of Pantheism in the straw man sense that theists oppose it - that a personal God is supposed to inhabit the world. But that isn't really what Pantheism is. I'm using it in the trans-theological sense offered here by Campbell. Everyone's God is a metaphor for the source, end, and supporting ground of all life and being which not known, named, or defined. But that mystery as the existence of everything like the universe and the world, is common to everything in the universe and world. It always comes back to an "all" implication.

 

You see what I mean?

 

If we associate God with consciousness, then God is "all," when all is consciousness.

 

If you press deeper and associate God with the mystery underlying the existence of something like consciousness, it's not different from consciousness it's just calling attention to the mystery factor infused into it's very existence. So once again, God is still "all."

 

There are different strains of Pantheism like every other belief or lack of belief, but to stay centered on the meaning of All God Belief it seems to resonate as true.

 

If you tell me that God is nondual, and present in the one, two, or three then God is still a reference to "all," whether or not materialistic Pantheists prefer to go there. They can take it or leave it, but what they can not do is change the implication. If they don't believe in anything nondual, so be it, they just see God in the context of what they perceive as "all." And you perceive "all" as much more than what they are willing to admit as materialists, but nevertheless your God is also "all" from the way you've been presented your feelings about God.

 

It is both Formless and Form. It is not a matter of simply boiling everything down to that single substance. The rock is the rock, the tree is the tree, I am me, and I am God. I-I. I exist as Keith. I see God. I see myself. I see myself as God. I am God and I am me. At once. Not one, not two. There is no one or the other. If all is Spirit, there is then only One. There is the One and the Many.

[Antlerman]

Crap, I thought this is what I've been saying all along.

[Antlerman]

This is the problem with language.. once something is named, it becomes 'other'. Definition, by it's very nature separates and limits. Reasoning is the same... once it becomes intellectual it is automatically delineated.

Yes, exactly. It will always, no matter how close you think you are describing it, slip right through your fingers like sand. Rather it recedes from you is a more apt description. It's like what I experience within meditation. As you enter into the deep silence, what arises to you, what presents itself to you must be taken within that silence itself. The second you attempt to examine it, it recedes from you. And the reason I have found for this is because you are turning your mind to that analytical center, you are facing yourself and your own understanding. You are facing yourself. Or if you attempt even to seize it, to pull it to yourself in any fashion, again you are facing yourself which is seated in duality. The 'key' to it, it is in emptying yourself into That, you fall into that Ocean, you move beyond that dualistic self into that Infinite Source.

 

So to try to even talk about it, is talking about it from a place of duality. In reality, it is beyond description, beyond form, beyond words, beyond comprehensions. But it is not beyond apprehension.

 

I think the BB is an apt story - allegory, to describe states of consciousness/absolute and it's discreet experiences (bracketed events). This is where I differ - I think science is describing the story. Not necessarily the 'reality'. I think quantum mechanics is also describing the story. This is allegory.. like plasma is the reflection of the singular nature and regular matter (states) are the expression of that reflection through duality. Can it be KNOWN this way... sort of... but not in the way it can be experienced through mysticism. You can enter the story.. or BE the story or be the urge behind the story, or the raw potential of the expression of the story. This is the difference.

I like this analogy. Yes, this is why I love science and what it reveals. It tells a marvelous story of this manifestation. It leaves my spirit in awe of the magnificent splendor. It takes the internal landscape of being and deepens it with a wider, fuller story!

 

I heard someone say before about Enlightenment, that even though we in our day and age know vastly more about the world than the Buddha did, that this may somehow mean that we can have a greater enlightenment than he is a misnomer. There is no such thing as freer than freedom itself. However, within the context of a greater, deeper, and wider worldview which factors in such things as scientific realizations, that Freedom of enlightenment finds fuller, and wider experience in the world. Enlightenment is to first move beyond form into that Freedom, and then from that Freedom it moves into that broadening and widening landscape of the world. Enlightenment is fulfilled in expression. Spirit is fulfilled in expression. And the deeper and wider that expression, the fuller and richer the experience of that Spirit is. This is why us as humans are as some would say, 'spirit knowing itself' through us.

 

Consciousness has created the story...(universe, etc...) and it's beautiful, and not, I believe, to be denigrated as 'less than' the absolute reality. Sentience is trying to comprehend the story, through myth, religious thought, science, philosophy.. and yes - mysticism. some are indirect, some are more direct.

I think this an area we haven't really touched directly upon but it bears mentioning here, that of ranking or hierarchies of value. I don't believe by saying that a scientific understand is 'less than' direct mystical apprehension denigrates it as trivial or unimportant. Not to me. It goes to what I said above about fuller expression, deeper experience of that Freedom, or Spirit. The experience of Love in a child is the same Love that an adult experiences, however to the adult the experience of that is much fuller, richer, wider, and deeper because they have a far greater ocean of experiences and understandings of mind and emotions on which to let the experience of love navigate and permeate to. And adult sees others in ways children are yet incapable of, so love therefore finds a greater, fuller expression extending to others rather than just to the narrower self of a child. To the child it's the world, and that's great. But to the adult, it's the world, and that too is great. But they are not equal in depth. The depth is greater because the context is larger for an adult.

 

Do you see how I'm tying this to science and mysticism? I think the greatest scientists are mystics for a reason. There is something beyond science that science cannot reach to. I serious believe I am going to order that book I know about where Wilber collected the mystical writings of these physicists who pioneered quantum physics and others who themselves reached beyond science. They looked deeply enough to know science could not reach into that deep. Now those are explorers!

 

 

Anyway, I think I'm rambling. I should go focus my mind right now since I've finished my morning tea....

[Antlerman]

I disagree that we can't find out anything about the absolute through science... but are in our infancy there as well. Don't know if we will get closer in my lifetime but I suspect that science and mysticism will meet at some point - because reality is - and mysticism and philosophy and science have the same ultimate goals - to discover truth. They just approach this goal from different perspectives and methodology.

I think what I'm getting at that is being misunderstood here not that it cannot discover anything, but that at its very best, science in the sense of the empiric-analytic sciences, that that set of tool can by very definition only, ever examine the surfaces, not the interior. It's not that looking at those won't tell you anything at all. But it is not the correct set of tools to examine the inner landscapes. It always and ever will be examining the world of form, and that is exactly what it is designed to do, and it does it well. But exploring the formless is not done with the tools of analytic pursuits. Its' exactly what I said in my last post that the second you try to look at it and analyze it, to categorize it, to define it, it recedes away from you. It is undefinable, and as such unexaminable through the tools of the empiric-analytic sciences.

 

It's the same thing for psychology, literature, and art. Reductionists like to imagine that they can know you by examining your brain waves, but of course that's crap. All you see is my brainwaves. You can only and ever know "me" through a mind to mind examination, not a mind to matter examination. You know me through interview, mental to mental inquiry using the tools of hermeneutics. Yes, you can study external surfaces such as behaviors and brain patterns, but that is not knowing me, nor ever will begin to enter into understanding the subtleties of my person. I cannot be know by only examining me as an object. And that is what the empiric-analytic sciences do. It's valuable what it sees, but it cannot, is incapable of, examining my interior landscapes. That's far too fluid and dynamic for the tools of object examinations.

 

Now ratchet that up one whole level higher than mind to mind examination. Now we're talking about looking at undefinable Spirit! Mind to mind interviews works off of various internal symbol sets creating elaborate frameworks of representation we interact with as some sort of 'object', which of course is purely mental in nature. It is a world of internal mental symbols that create such things as "time", self identifications, etc. But with Spirit, or God, or the Absolute, or Consciousness, what you end up with is mind being unable to penetrate into that space except with highly symbolic, imperfect, dualistic representations - archetypes, the gods, myth, poetry, art. Spirit is entered into interiorally only, never by an analytic knowledge of matter. BUT, I do wish to qualify, that looking at nature may, in an instant, be transformed in the mind to a symbol of transcendence, which then the inner spirit responds to with the mind in elevating mental thought into the transcendence, a.k.a, a spiritual experience. But you cannot 'know' God by knowing science. Period. You may however find God through looking at science, but that is not the same thing at all. You may find God through human relations as well, but you do not come to know God by simply knowing another. You come to Spirit, through Spirit.

 

So Spirit to Spirit knowing is Gnosis, direct, unmediated knowledge. Mind to Spirit knowing is metaphysical, archetypal, etc. Mind to mind is hermeneutic. Mind to matter is empiric-analytic. Matter to matter is sensory and impulse. As such the natural sciences examine only the material world in a mind to matter relationship; not mind to mind, not mind to spirit, and certainly not spirit to spirit. It does not penetrate, is incapable of with its valid tool set for studying the world, to study spiritual landscapes. At best examining spiritual landscapes outside of it, is a mental, interpretive exercise, not empiric-analytic or mind to matter exercise. If however, you mean science in the broad sense of the word as in empiricism in general, then yes, we may scientifically approach the practice a meditation, or create various metaphysics based on direct experience. But that is not what people general mean when they say 'science', as in science will see the same thing the mystic sees one day.

[Joshpantera]

This is the problem with language.. once something is named, it becomes 'other'. Definition, by it's very nature separates and limits. Reasoning is the same... once it becomes intellectual it is automatically delineated.

 

It's why I don't like the word, 'god'. Even the word 'mystery' again alludes to something 'spiritual'. 'Life' is also a misnomer - there is no life or death, these are metaphors for events or qualities (states?) of consciousness.

 

Duality itself is also a language... but it can't describe the absolute reality because to define or delineate to communicate or understand one must have comparison... ie: duality.

 

I think the BB is an apt story - allegory, to describe states of consciousness/absolute and it's discreet experiences (bracketed events). This is where I differ - I think science is describing the story. Not necessarily the 'reality'. I think quantum mechanics is also describing the story. This is allegory.. like plasma is the reflection of the singular nature and regular matter (states) are the expression of that reflection through duality. Can it be KNOWN this way... sort of... but not in the way it can be experienced through mysticism. You can enter the story.. or BE the story or be the urge behind the story, or the raw potential of the expression of the story. This is the difference.

 

Consciousness has created the story...(universe, etc...) and it's beautiful, and not, I believe, to be denigrated as 'less than' the absolute reality. Sentience is trying to comprehend the story, through myth, religious thought, science, philosophy.. and yes - mysticism. some are indirect, some are more direct.

 

I don't have any quotes, as I haven't really looked into other people's thoughts on this... this is just where I ended up.

Exploring life and death from the perspective of the primacy of consciousness is interesting. It probably does turn out to be nothing more than states of consciousness. Without necessarily linking existence with consciousness, I still realized early on that the metaphor of eternal life is probably geared towards identifying with the part of ourselves that is simply existence, that which has always been and will always be.

 

"Deep is the well of the past, shall we not call it infinite."

 

In this case existence is consciousness. So we never came into consciousness magically out of not-consciousness, there can be no not-consciousness at all if existence is consciousness because existence itself has had to have always been in some way or another in order for us to be existing in the here and now. I wouldn't assume that we cease consciousness at death either, but rather dissolve back into the primary consciousness of nature from whence we came...

[Joshpantera]

Antlerman, here's another gem I mined up from some of my early exposure to Campbellian summarization of mythology. I like his methods because he had a knack for breaking complexity down to simplicity:

Brown: Why have we here in the west lost this sense of what you are calling "accord with nature"?

 

Campbell: We're getting back to a kind of Lamarckian view - Lamark was earlier than Goethe. Goethe had a theory of evolution. And Shopenhauer has a wonderful paper called "The Will in Nature," where he speaks about these things.

 

Favrot: So you think that at the protoplasmic level there is some intention -

 

Campbell: There has to be! I saw a film of my friend, Stanley Keleman, made at the university of Pennsylvania, I think, of just raw protoplasm under a microscope. And you see this acts as a flow, and then there's flow this way, and pretty soon the flow is building a little channel for itself, it's building a house for itself.

 

When I drove down here to Esalen from San Francisco after that film, all I could see as I drove was protoplasm! Protoplasm in the form of cows eating, protoplasm in the form of grass, and protoplasm overhead. It was a kind of satori, a kind of revelation, the whole world as intentional protoplasm, with consciousness and energy. From then I come to the feeling of energy and consciousness being two aspects of the same thing.

 

Favrot: The physicists are saying that nowadays.

 

Campbell: I know they are. I got a wonderful letter from a biologist from Harvard, a professor emeritus, an old, old, man. He sent me a paper that he had read at one of the international congresses, and he said, "It shocks my scientific consciousness but I have to conclude that there is an intention in nature."

 

Brown: But doesn't that run against his grain? He just comes spiritually to that sense because the physical theories don't allow that kind of thinking.

 

Campbell: One of the great things about a good scientist is, whether it runs against his grain or not, he speaks out what he finds as evidence. That's a thing that most religious people don't do. They stick with their religious thoughts and no amount of evidence will dislodge them.

 

But the scientific attitude is: We haven't found truth. We have a working hypothesis that explains a new fact. We may have to change the whole thing. People don't understand this about science.

 

Now I'm interested in the biological thing because I think of mythology as a function of biology. Let's say that every organ of the body has it's energy impulse, and impulse to action, and the experience of the conflicts of these different energies inside, is what constitutes the psyche.

 

It's nature talking. And mythology is the expression in personified images of these energies.

This was something that caught my attention years ago. Now with respect to the arguments here for the primacy of consciousness his suspicions seem all the more justified.

 

And this gave me deeper insight into agnosticism:

Campbell: A man spoke to me the other day, a very intelligent man, a man who was a man of considerable dignity in our literary world, an agnostic. He asked, "Are you possibly an agnostic?"

 

I said, "I know too much to be an agnostic."

 

What I know is that all of these images are metaphors. And they're metaphors for what? A metaphor has a connotation and the mythic metaphors have connotations of the spiritual powers within the individual. And when one is preaching religion, if you're not preaching the connotation of the metaphor, you're preaching psuedohistory or sociology or something of that kind. So there's very little true religion in the world.

 

 

[Ravenstar]

Marvelous

 

yes and yes to all the above posts. and I want to express my deep gratitude for the opportunity to discourse with kindred minds

 

Most people just think I'm nuts...

 

I find it interesting when I see glimmers of these truths in religious writings (buried under scads of dogma). I hear the religious say, "this is truth" - but in all honesty they miss the real message a lot of the times even if they have that inner sense that there is truth there, unfortunately they take it all, undigested and unexamined, and try to find truth by listening to someone else' experience and descriptions instead of entering it for themselves. Dogma and doctrine has been mistaken for true religion - which is an experience, not a philosophy.

 

"Do you see how I'm tying this to science and mysticism? I think the greatest scientists are mystics for a reason. There is something beyond science that science cannot reach to. I serious believe I am going to order that book I know about where Wilber collected the mystical writings of these physicists who pioneered quantum physics and others who themselves reached beyond science. They looked deeply enough to know science could not reach into that deep. Now those are explorers!"

 

-I think any real quantum physicist is a mystic at heart - he just speaks math better than most

 

"It's nature talking. And mythology is the expression in personified images of these energies."

 

When you look at religious evolution.. from animism, to shamanism to polytheism to ..etc... you can see the progression of the human minds' progress through trying to grasp and describe what they were (are) experiencing. Even in monotheism - they've backtracked to polytheism (trinity).. this is an attempt to describe the poly in the all and vice versa.

 

With mythology, religion, philosophy, science, etc... It's like the story about the blind men describing an elephant from touch alone. Each is at a different area, and will come up with wildly different answers, yet they all experienced, albeit in a primitive way, an elephant. Yet the fundamental nature of the elephant is not addressed.. it's elephant-ness. I think pantheism(as a view) and mysticism (as a practice) are more like sitting with the elephant... or in some small way being the elephant.

 

However.. if we do find out that at the string level, that strings ARE consciousness manifest... and we can discover their 'field') [for lack of a better word] of origin.. if that's possible I think that would be amazing.

Ya.. a lot of speculation there. ;D

 

It may have been Ram Dass, I don't remember - but I like this sentiment: (the) Creation is the natural expression, the manifestation of Joy, that's the reason for it all, Pure, unadulterated Joy.

[Deva]

Yes, I love this whole area of exploration. Our own experience and our own sense of being. There is something wondrous in that which is beyond explanation. I wish I had the vocabulary to express myself better.

[asanerman]

Marvelous

 

yes and yes to all the above posts. and I want to express my deep gratitude for the opportunity to discourse with kindred minds

 

Most people just think I'm nuts...

 

Yes! I second that emotion!

 

 

Yes, I love this whole area of exploration. Our own experience and our own sense of being. There is something wondrous in that which is beyond explanation. I wish I had the vocabulary to express myself better.

 

So do I Deva!

[Joshpantera]

That was a beautiful post Ravenstar.

 

On the topic of science, here's Peter Russell on the nonduality of science and mystical practice:

 

 

I like this guy's perspective.

 

I came across another interesting interview on conscious TV where talks about studying under Stephen Hawking as a youth @ Cambridge and then later taking off into the mystical at which point he spent time doing 24 hrs a day meditation (around 17:00):

 

[Antlerman]

That was a beautiful post Ravenstar.

 

On the topic of science, here's Peter Russell on the nonduality of science and mystical practice:

 

You're going to hate me for this... that's not nonduality, that's monism. Sorry.... He says explicitly that "nonduality means the universe is 'not dual', that there is only one essence". Once again, that explicitly is the position of monism, not nonduality. Nondualty says the universe "not one, not two, but both". Again, this is a paradox. Nondualism is experiential, not theoretical, and that is the key. Monism is a scientific approach. This is not nonduality.

 

I found this thread elsewhere that explains it very well. One post states the following:

 

"If you feel reality is "one thing," this refers to monism.

T

ake that one thing and imagine it

evaporates

or that it was never really there

: that points to nondualism.

 

The first thing you'll notice is that monism is comfortable to the mind as it can somehow be grasped. It's nice to know there's "something there."

 

However, nondualism can be distressing because you can't wrap your mind around it.

 

If the monist says there's one thing and the nondualist says no thing, the two teachings would appear very different. You can see the fork in the road."

 

Another poster responds, and I think this really nails it on the head even better (which is what my original link to the dialog of the Rinpoche and the apprentice was getting at):

 

"Monism is only a

scientific

discovery that says all existence is of one essence. Non-dualism is the art of living with a non-fragmented mind.

Monism is a statement of objective fact - non-dualism is the

subjective experience

of that fact.

Monism discovers the sugar - non-dualism tastes the sugar, becomes the sugar.

"

 

From here: http://www.religious...nondualism.html [emphasis mine]

 

Do you see the difference? That is nonduality. Not what he says in the video which is instead monism.

[asanerman]

I find it interesting when I see glimmers of these truths in religious writings (buried under scads of dogma). I hear the religious say, "this is truth" - but in all honesty they miss the real message a lot of the times even if they have that inner sense that there is truth there, unfortunately they take it all, undigested and unexamined, and try to find truth by listening to someone else' experience and descriptions instead of entering it for themselves. Dogma and doctrine has been mistaken for true religion - which is an experience, not a philosophy.

 

"Do you see how I'm tying this to science and mysticism? I think the greatest scientists are mystics for a reason. There is something beyond science that science cannot reach to. ....They looked deeply enough to know science could not reach into that deep. Now those are explorers!"

 

 

 

I was introduced to Joe Campbell through the works of Sam Keen. Keen and Campbell did seminars (1971 thru 1986) together combining the methods of recovering personal mythology with reflection on classical mythical themes.

 

I am indebted to both these guys for "exposing" the mythic assumptions that underlie the commonly accepted view of "reality" and the refusal to consider how much our individual and communal lives are shaped by dramatic scenarios and "historical" narratives.

 

The works of both these men offered a point from which I started my exploration--inside the myth I did not know I was living.

 

Rumi said "Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others, Unfold your own myth."

 

After being exposed to myth as "an intricate set of interlocking stories, rituals, rites and customs that inform and give pivotal sense of meaning and direction to a person, family, community or culture" I gave myself the permission to "know what conscious, unconscious or per-conscious myth(s) was forming me" ~C.G. Jung

 

Whenever men have looked for something solid on which to found their lives, they have chosen not the facts in which the world abounds, but the myths of an immemorial imagination.

Joseph Campbell

Primitive Mythology

 

What I have found in all my exploring is that "every person's deepest ecstasies and fears are old as humankind and common as dirt." ~Keen

 

What brings me solace is something Campbell said:

 

We have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.

Joseph Campbell,

Hero with a Thousand Faces

 

What blows my mind is that "where I started, I now "know the place for the first time" --"the center of my own existence!"

 

There is something beyond science that science cannot reach to.

 

..All manner of things shall be well

When the tongues of flame are in-folded

Into the crowned knot of fire

And the fire and the rose are one.

T.S. Eliot

 

Damn, it's great to be alive!

[asanerman]

Joshpantera,

 

For some reason I "view" Joe C. everywhere you post!

 

Yep, same shirt, same coat! Same contented smile!

[Joshpantera]

"Monism is only a scientific discovery that says all existence is of one essence. Non-dualism is the art of living with a non-fragmented mind. Monism is a statement of objective fact - non-dualism is the subjective experience of that fact. Monism discovers the sugar - non-dualism tastes the sugar, becomes the sugar."

That's essentially what Peter Russell's entire point is the way I see it. The science is a type of materialistic non-duality, which you call monism, and then mysticism goes to where science can not go in order to explore the mind which is another type of non-duality as he sees it. And it would seem to me that his 24 hour periods of meditation in India were all about tasting and becoming the sugar. That's touched on in the second video.

 

How long has any one here meditated for an unbroken duration?

 

I find that inspiring. I feel refreshed if I can take even an hour to meditate without interruption. I can't imagine 24 hours of it. But I see what he means about exploring the depths of the mind over such a radical duration. I suppose that when you have the time to take on that sort of venture, what the hell, why not?

[Joshpantera]

Joshpantera,

 

For some reason I "view" Joe C. everywhere you post!

 

Yep, same shirt, same coat! Same contented smile!

So did you meet Campbell personally?

[Ravenstar]

I haven't had any marathon sessions. I'd say about 2 hours max in one sitting, 20 - 60 minutes is the norm. - but would that include mindfulness meditation as well? That's something I try to stay in (and fail miserable sometimes! lol) pretty much daily.

 

I'm not a spring chicken anymore and remaining still for too long can hurt when I come out

- hips and knees don't care much for the absolute!

 

asanerman - great quotes! and I love the ts eliot poem.

 

I'm not well-informed on all the terms... but I think if there is one thing (as opposed to no thing) it would have to be consciousness itself... pure awareness, beingness, call it what you will. For there to be true nothing then even experience of that would be impossible. It could be the reality, but we would never be able to know or experience it.

[Ravenstar]

I wonder... though to truly discuss it properly I would have to do more reading. Okay.. the implications of a holographic universe, are there hints there as to the nature of reality? What I have read kind of goes like this... there is a certain amount of information in the universe, this data exists in pure form (maybe has something to do with black holes?) and is projected to 'create' the physical reality we perceive - but it's actually just data- outside of time and space. (meta quantum data?).

 

That's as far as I have gone in reading anything about it. I find it intriguing, so far.

[Antlerman]

"Monism is only a scientific discovery that says all existence is of one essence. Non-dualism is the art of living with a non-fragmented mind. Monism is a statement of objective fact - non-dualism is the subjective experience of that fact. Monism discovers the sugar - non-dualism tastes the sugar, becomes the sugar."

That's essentially what Peter Russell's entire point is the way I see it. The science is a type of materialistic non-duality, which you call monism, and then mysticism goes to where science can not go in order to explore the mind which is another type of non-duality as he sees it. And it would seem to me that his 24 hour periods of meditation in India were all about tasting and becoming the sugar. That's touched on in the second video.

 

How long has any one here meditated for an unbroken duration?

 

I find that inspiring. I feel refreshed if I can take even an hour to meditate without interruption. I can't imagine 24 hours of it. But I see what he means about exploring the depths of the mind over such a radical duration. I suppose that when you have the time to take on that sort of venture, what the hell, why not?

Perhaps he fleshes out his thoughts a little more in the next video. It's hard to say since it's one hour long again and it's hard to sit through that much material to get to those points. The simpler video, the first one of only 3 minutes is the one where he appears to conflate nonduality with monism. It's just that calling the words he used as nonduality is technically incorrect. It's not "one essence" in nonduality, as I pointed out already.

 

As far as meditating for 24 hours, I can't speak to what his experiences are/were. I didn't watch the one hour video. The length of time in meditation is really relative, in my experience and opinion. That really depends on the individual. Time is not really a good point of comparison. Some days I can instantly enter into the deepest states of meditation in only a few minutes, than if I've meditated over 2 hours. In my practice of meditation, within the first few weeks I was already entering states of meditation that those practicing for years and years have not. It has little to do with how much time you have spent, as it does other factors. Someone could spend a week solid meditating and not go as far as someone spending only a few minutes.

 

To answer the question for time for myself though, my normal practice is 75 minutes sitting meditation in the morning, and walking meditation for about 30 minutes mid-afternoon, and various 5 minute 'pauses' throughout the day, etc. In addition I engage in various readings of mystics such as Meister Eckhart, Sri Arubindo, etc. Plus lengthy dialogs with others of friends of these interior spaces/realizations. All of which take the mind into these inner, meditative spaces. I tend to make my life a living meditation for the most part, so in that sense you could say I've meditated for at least over the last year straight (which of course involves loosing focus from time to time in that overall process).

 

In my sitting meditation it is normal, where there is really little exception, to enter into subtle state experiences. It's where I choose to spend the majority of my time as there is a lot that arises for me. Call it my space of lessons, for various reasons. Additionally, it is normal to move into the casual states from there, and the nondual on occasion. To read about these stages of consciousness refer here where he speaks of Insight mediation and the psychic, subtle, causal, and nondual: http://integrallife....ages-meditation

 

Again though, I'm sure this person may have deep experiences in mediation. I very much suspect he in fact does. But time duration again is really a factor of the individual. So much time is actually spent in 'unlearning', and then where you spend your time in meditation is a factor of what your are ready for in your internal stages of development. Just because I can enter into the deepest of the holy of holies, so to speak, doesn't mean I am ready to spend the bulk of my time there at the feet of the Absolute, or to sit in that throne as the Divine in myself every time. There are other 'lessons' more important to the overall process, preparedness if you want to call it that, than to just stick your face into the Infinite for a look.

 

How long someone spends is hardly the point of the comparison.

[Antlerman]

I'm not a spring chicken anymore and remaining still for too long can hurt when I come out

- hips and knees don't care much for the absolute!

I use a really great bean-husk zafu cushion for meditation. It's helps a lot with posture since it conforms so well to me. I can sit for about one hour without getting stiff, but then I simply change position on it with one leg kneeling or something, or stand up, move around in meditation, etc. There's no fast rule you must sit the whole time. In fact, I just heard that for women in particular for whatever reason, forms of dance in meditation are more productive than sitting in a corner facing a wall, which tends to be more effective for men. Also, a straight back chair is effective as well if you can't sit cross-legged. Really, it's what works that's important. Each technique brings its own 'openings' as well! I try various things, depending on the day and my body. I'm not married to form, only the soul.

 

Adding this: in fact to listen to the body is a technique in itself. It's listening to what the kundalini is putting pressure upon. To focus on that point, a stiffness for instance, will allow you to enter into that and move through it. It opens you up to various things. If you haven't read that book I recommended elsewhere, she touches on this in it.

 

I'm not well-informed on all the terms... but I think if there is one thing (as opposed to no thing) it would have to be consciousness itself... pure awareness, beingness, call it what you will. For there to be true nothing then even experience of that would be impossible. It could be the reality, but we would never be able to know or experience it.

I think we all agree with this.

[Joshpantera]

The context of Russell's radical mediation was during his second trip to India years ago. He was over teaching and studying and apparently getting involved in some rather aggressive sessions. I have to settle for the short periods that I can do it, but I have felt pretty refreshed from even that. If I can do that a few times a day then it does seem to help give perspective.

 

Ravenstar, on 07 December 2012 - 07:25 AM, said:

 

I'm not well-informed on all the terms... but I think if there is one thing (as opposed to no thing) it would have to be consciousness itself... pure awareness, beingness, call it what you will. For there to be true nothing then even experience of that would be impossible. It could be the reality, but we would never be able to know or experience it.

Yes, this rings true.

 

The thing about nonduality is that we're using a term linked to the categorizing of thoughts with the use of paired opposites:

 

Duality and Nonduality - this and that.

 

If "neti neti," not this, not that, then not Nonduality (that) if we're going to get even more anal about our word usage instead of just letting it alone and just understanding what everyone is trying to get at.

 

The reference is to beyond "that", and even the word beyond suggests another category. So what we're actually talking about isn't really non-duality, or mystery, or oneness, or even beyond in any literal sense. I'm sure everyone understands that though, maybe.

 

As many ( a ) proceed from one ( B ) so does the universe ( c ) from God ( x ).

 

The universe is one continuous realm that appears to be many pieces and parts, which itself proceeds from the non-dual transcendent mystery underlying all of existence. This seems the most appropriate illustration to try and outline the leave taking of God for God. Love, Reason, and even unity (monism) are no more than an analogy pointing to the actual mystery beyond all description, that which people call nondual. I can see why Antlerman would see Panentheism as the closest thing to this, while kept to the context of a naturalist interpretation of Panentheism. It allows for the transcendent factor and has no problems with the above analogy.

 

I've taken it a little further though because I like to explore the notion of space and matter spread out infinitely through an endless space with no possible boundary. That seems to be the forefront of cosmology because the BB as it stands is a paradox in need of further advancement and explanation. Somethings not quite right. All that exists only inhabiting this observable range we 'call' the universe is becoming outdated. The idea of universal expansion from true and literal nothing is likewise growing outdated (for reasons you've already described in the quote above) even though some people do like to make that claim.

 

The source material of existence is in some way eternal, it has to be or nothing would have ever expanded because nothing would have existed in order to expand There would be no potential universe smaller than an atom to begin with. No one would be experiencing anything at all right now in the present if something hasn't existed in some remote way all along. We're look at that something as consciousness, a primary consciousness. It could also be pre-existing matter that blew out through a worm hole linking a black hole in another universe to a white hole which caused the BB expansion. But if matter is consciousness, as we're discussing, well then we're looking at how consciousness got from there to here and how we're personally interconnected and linked into the eternal consciousness which has no fixed beginning or end and simply flows, continuously.

 

There is no literal transcendent realm in this scenario. There is no boundary or border in which to transcend space and matter. Time is basically our observation of motion / vibration and there's no sense of finding a time when time was not, or simply a time when no motion / vibration existed at all. It just flows through evenly, infinitely, and eternally. The spiritual in this sense is just the existence of it all. The mystery of it all. It's not a separate realm of it's own outside of time and space because there is no outside of time and space in advanced cosmological thinking. Time and Eternity occupy the same continuous space. Spirit and matter are interconnected. All is God. All is divinity. Constant Genesis's of creation in an endless sea of Nirvana. The idea in mythology of seeing the radiance of eternity in all of the forms and images of time applies to this outlook. Transcendent is a state of mind concerning the material realm which is probably really a conscious realm, plain and simple. I want to get away from drawing a distinction between the spiritual and the material in favor of the wholeness, in my view. I chose to see the wholeness all around me and within me. This is the next level of Pantheism applied to advancing cosmological models. It disposes of the need to break off into Panentheism in order to incorporate the transcendent. The formula for the transcendent remains the same, although slightly adjusted for infinite space and motion:

 

as many ( a ) proceed from one ( B ) so does the multiverse ( c ) from God ( x ).

 

The universe is the one realm that appears to be many parts. The multiverse is but an expansion from a finite view to an infinite view of the one realm that appears to be many parts, and is yet one (the monism). The non-dual transcendent (non-duality) is simply the experience of the mystery of it all. It's still tasting the sugar, being the sugar, and so on. The Pantheism is open to everything that so-called non-duality presents. It's still about the mystery underlying the one and the many and the experience of it through meditation and what-have-you. I'm just adjusting my perception here in order to account for the future of cosmology with respect to religious and philosophical implications that would arise. Whether the multiverse model of string theory wins out doesn't really matter either because any of the competitive infinite space cosmologies on the table today fit just as easily into the position of ( c ). And ( X) is the transcending of any one of them.

 

This has been a topic of interest as of lately in Pantheist forums, the primacy of consciousness and infinite continuous space, and the something = something issue...

[stryper]

so having not really followed this post at all  I heard some snippets of this on NPR last Saturday. 

 

Just throwing it out there. 

 

http://ttbook.org/book/meet-your-mind-series

 

I especially was enjoying the part where the Neuroscientist was talking about meeting the Dalai Lama. It was interesting. 

[Joshpantera]

^ Thanks, checking it out.

 

I found another interview that is more or less getting at what I was trying to get at about consciousness being primary, then it's an awareness that has always been and flows through the existence of the whole. Our individual consciousness would be more or less that primary consciousness of existence itself in nature (sperm and egg in this instance) coming into greater focus with the growth of a nervous system. Experiencing the human perspective and all that entails like ego and so on, and then perhaps receding back into the underlying consciousness of nature itself once again after what we call death: