Oriental philosophy from the
writings of Wei Wu Wei
(pseudonym of an Irish nobleman n/o Terence Gray - 1895-1986)
(Wei Wu Wei is a Taoist term which
translates as action that is non-action)
The Masters of Zen rarely
discoursed. Discoursing they regarded as one of the obstacles to enlightenment,
for it encouraged and developed the wrong kind of thinking - that 'mentation'
or 'intellection' which affirms our false identification with a fictitious ego.
'The ignorant are delighted with discoursing,'
the Lankavatara Sutra states, 'discoursing is a source of suffering in the
triple world.' We would not doubt it; yes, indeed, but when the Lanka says that
discoursing is a source of suffering it means more particularly that it is a
hindrance to the removal of ignorance, and so perpetuates our normal state of
suffering.
But, nowadays, what was meant
by discoursing is chiefly represented by books. In books, as conventionally and
commercially produced today, no idea can be conveyed in less than about ten
thousand words - with apologies for not making it a hundred thousand, in which
form it would have been much 'better'. No chance for anyone to think except the
author!
Yet, when ideas are buried in
a haystack of verbiage, who remembers them, and, conversely, when ideas are
concisely expressed, who pays any attention to them? The most vital statements
of the sages and prophets, even of the Buddha and Jesus, are not taken
seriously - presumably because they are not served up in a sauce that conceals
their flavour and substitutes its own.
Instead of apologizing for not
burying their ideas even more deeply in verbiage would not modern authors do
better to apologise whenever they are unable to express an idea more concisely
than in, say, one thousand words? Ideas may vary in the amount of expression
they need, for many a hundred words should be ample. After all, the more fully
ex-pressed the less juice there remains in them, the more complete the
exposition the more dead they are on delivery; ideas mummified in words are
only museum specimens.
The ideas of the Masters,
expressed in half a dozen words, are still alive after centuries, but they are
fingers pointing to intuitional understanding, not fossilized examples of
intellection.
Have we any greater difficulty
than the famous 'Void' which forms the principal subject of so many sutras and
statements of the Masters as of the Buddha himself? How many hair-splitting definitions,
negations of negations and contradictions of contradictions have been attempted
in order to suggest its meaning to our tri-dimensional minds?
Supposing we ask Hui Hai?
'The Void is simply non-attachment'
* *
It may be necessary to regard the Void in a
more metaphysical aspect. 'Emptiness', 'the Void' - if one thinks about it,
surely the epithet most suggestive and least misleading to us today should be
just 'Non-Manifestation'?
If anything is clear it is
that the Taoist conception of Non-Action is the basis of all action. Similarly
Non-manifestation must be the basis of all manifestation.
Most, if not all, sects of most, if not all, superior religions seek to
transmute hate into love, i.e. negative into positive. Zen alone requires no
such transmutation between two aspects of a single thing, which are evaluations
of an affective manifestation. Instead it requires absolute non-attachment, the
exclusion of both hate and love, which may be defined as the abolition of
affectivity itself. One may look for the origin of this in the original Taoism.
But if Caritas, impersonal compassion, be an accurate description
of the resulting state, one must envisage it as a strictly non-affective
condition of the mind…. Detachment is a state; it is not a totalization
of achieved indifferences.
Every action should be an adequate response to
circumstances, whether that be slaughter or self-sacrifice.
Since
our egos hinder us from responding adequately to circumstances we are
well-advised to abide by the classification into 'good' and 'bad' devised for
purposes of social order, but do not let us imagine that they are really such.
As regards discrimination on the plane of seeming no quotation is
necessary, since every Master has condemned it. As regards correct
discrimination Hui Hai says 'An equal combination of abstraction ('abstraction'
here means detachment from affectivity) and understanding is called
deliverance.'
'To be able to distinguish minutely between every kind of good and evil is
called understanding. Not to feel love or hatred or to be in any way affected
at the moment of making these distinctions is called abstraction (detachment).
This is an equal combination of abstraction (detachment) and understanding.'
And, therefore, 'is called deliverance'.
But
let us not forget that on the plane of seeming discrimination (i.e. affective),
discrimination between 'good' and 'evil' is illusory.
Hui
Hai also states, 'No attachment means that feelings of hatred and love do not
arise. That is what is meant by no attachment.'
Judging is an automatic response of the ego asserting itself: in so far
as pure-intelligence (buddhi) has reduced the power of the ego, the
automatic response to stimulus is understanding.
We tend to conceive everything as subject to
our notion of time. But 'living for ever', i.e. going on living, is not the
same thing as being eternal. The former is impossible, a pure illusion; the
latter the only reality. Being eternal is never having been subject to the
conception of time.
Being eternal is not 'going on
living': it involves no process of becoming: being eternal consists simply in
Being.
Whatever we may do we find a surface opposed to
another surface.
On the plane of Manifestation each of us is
utterly separate and alone. Union is only on the plane of Reality, and thereon
mutual possession is universal and absolute.
Our notion of love is perhaps
a nostalgia for that.
The association of male and
female has the apparent effect of restoring this double imbalance to a state of
equilibrium. Since the attainment of equilibrium is constantly and
automatically sought throughout manifestation, the mutual attraction of male
and female and the mutual need of one another thereby becomes comprehensible.
But it is a need that can
never attain fulfillment during life, nor anything but a simulation thereof.
From this, there results all sexual performances on the one hand, and all
specific conflict between the sexes on the other.
This inadequate utilization of the mind is even more clearly defined
when the subject matter is personal. Whereas a controlled mind will receive
personal criticism with interest, even with eagerness, seeking to benefit by
any truth it may be able to recognise in the criticism - since it is inevitably
difficult for human beings to regard themselves dispassionately, so that the
criticism of others can be of great value - the primary intelligence will fight
back at once, using any argument, however inadequate, that comes to hand, and
without any reasoning other than self-defence, self-justification, or offence.
Thus it becomes virtually impossible for the primary intelligence to
learn anything from discussion, particularly concerning itself. Strange as it
may seem this condition can be observed even in people who, otherwise, have
quite a high standard of culture.
One would have thought that the first object of education should be to
remove this obstacle to mental development. But education seems to be more
concerned with effects than with causes, much as primitive medicine is more
concerned with symptoms than with their origins.
Since, in our present state (conditioned by conditioned reflexes), we are
the unconscious 'victims' of an intricate mechanism that goes by the name of
cause-and-effect and can only do what we must, it makes little difference
whether we know that we know what we have to do, whether we suspect that we
know what we have to do, or whether we are totally unaware that we know it.
It is inevitable that we know it, since we have
done it again and again in the beginningless and endless circuit of the
time-process which we see as future-into-past, but which from the dimension at
right-angles is a composite present.
To promise to do something which we must do anyhow is meaningless. To
promise to do something that may not be, or is not, what we must do, is not
only meaningless but sets up a conflict between what we think we want to do and
what we have to do, a futile conflict, since ultimately we can only want what
we must, and this conflict represents an attempt to obtain what we want by
doing something that we are not able to do, or, if you prefer, an attempt to
want one thing and obtain the result that could only come from another.
A promise, therefore, is devoid of significance; it cannot have any part
in reality. It is no more than a form of words which in no circumstances can
express more than the desire or sentiment which actuates us at a given moment.
To make a promise in all seriousness presupposes the notion that we are
free to do as we will at any given moment, which is manifestly absurd, and
which only ignorance and incomprehension could allow us to suppose. Knowing
this, to make a promise is either dishonest or just a conventional form of
words to express a sentiment. To try to 'keep' a promise, or to try to oblige
another to do so, is as futile as trying to stop the tide from coming in
because you want to keep your feet from getting wet....
Louis de Broglie and Schrödinger, crowning half
a century's work in physics, seem to have demonstrated mathematically and in
the laboratory that there is nothing real that exists, nothing absolute that
could exist. Mass appears to be only resistance to change (to movement of
energy), decreasing in bulk in accordance with acceleration and increasing
proportionally in energy. Matter, therefore, has no existence as such.
Hui Neng seems to have known that about 1300
years ago. Scientists have now demonstrated it. Wise men believed Hui Neng; the
unwise will believe the scientists.
An inexperienced shot will fire at a partridge the
moment he sees it. When this error is brought home to him he tends to go to the
other extreme and to wait until the bird is out of range before he shoots.
An experienced shot, on the other hand,
understands the curve of opportunity, aims with unhurried deliberation, and
shoots at the summit of that curve. And, if for any reason, for instance the
intervention of circumstances beyond his control, he misses the effective
period of that curve of opportunity, he forbears to fire when he could only
hope to wound the poor bird, and allows the occasion to pass as though it had
never arisen.
PERSONA (literally 'mask': the
artificial 'me'): You say that I don't exist, that I have no reality; you liken
me to a puff of smoke, vapour, a passing cloud, even a mirage. But here I am.
RELATIVE EGO: Look, there is passing cloud!
PERSONA: Then what am I?
RELATIVE EGO: You are the resultant of all my contacts with the 'not-me'. Your
substance is memory, also called 'habit energy', your vitality is psychic
tension, and you live on affirmations and negations.
PERSONA: Is my substance not real?
RELATIVE EGO: Memory is not real; it is like a reflection or echo of that which
has been perceived and is no longer perceived - though it has not ceased to be;
it is a distorted image of a perception.
PERSONA: Even if I am not real, how can you maintain that I do not exist?
RELATIVE EGO: Because you are not a thing-in-itself. You only exist in the
colloquial sense that everything we recognise may be said therefore to have an
appearance of existence. You are an evaluation, not a reality.
PERSONA: Yet you and your friends spend a lot of time talking about me as
though I existed. You say that the ego of so-and-so sticks out like the
bristles on a hedgehog, that such another has an ego like a boil on his nose,
that a third is an 'insufferable egoist'. You have just been saying that pride
and humility are merely functions of the ego, that when I am powerful they
manifest as pride, and that when I am weak they manifest as humility. How can
they be a function of something that does not exist?
RELATIVE EGO: They do not exist as things-in-themselves just as you do not, and
for precisely the same reason; just as they are merely estimations of a
function depending on you, so you are also just a functional manifestation.
PERSONA: So they are a function of a function? What is a function?
RELATIVE EGO: It is defined as 'a quantity that is dependent for its value on
another quantity'. No function exists as a thing-in-itself.
PERSONA: Of what am I a function?
RELATIVE EGO: Of me.
PERSONA: And what, pray, are you?
RELATIVE EGO: As Bodhidharma stated long ago to the Emperor of China in reply
to the same question - I do not know.
PERSONA: Is that a qualification for accusing others of not existing?
RELATIVE EGO: I am a function of maya. When Reality refracts Itself through the
prism of Time, and appears in Mind as manifestation in three dimensions - which
is maya - I appear as the nucleus of this so-called individual.
PERSONA: Why so-called?
RELATIVE EGO: Because the word 'individual' means that which is undivided, and
the manifestation in question is just the opposite of that. He is a 'dividual',
but he has the superficial appearance of singularity.
PERSONA: Multiple or single, are you real at least?
RELATIVE EGO: Good Heavens, no: I am relative.
PERSONA: That is a comfort.
RELATIVE EGO: Thinking of yourself as usual!
PERSONA: That is my job. How do you know that you are not real?
RELATIVE EGO: The Lord Buddha, in the Diamond Sutra, many times used a phrase
which was admirably inclusive. That which must not be conceived as really
existing he termed 'an ego-entity, a personality, a being or a separated
individuality'. We are all in that.
PERSONA: Well, what is the difference between us?
RELATIVE EGO: I fulfil a useful function; without me this so-called individual
would disintegrate, could not remain in manifestation.
PERSONA: And me?
RELATIVE EGO: You are just a nuisance, a by-product, a malady, a bad smell. I
have only to cut off the psychic tensions which are your life-force, or deprive
you of the affirmations and negations on which you feed, and you dissolve like
a puff of smoke, vapour, or a cloud in the sky.
PERSONA: You try! I am strong; I know how to fight and protect myself.
RELATIVE EGO: Nonsense, you are a clown, an illusionist. When one grows up and
sees through the tawdry mechanism of your tricks, and watches you performing
them, you wilt and crumple up like a balloon that is burst. Your strength is
that of a bully, but you are only a poor fish. You have nothing substantial
anywhere in you to hold you together. You are just hot air.
PERSONA: You think you are somebody just because you have Reality behind you,
attached to your name by a hyphen.
RELATIVE EGO: Potentially I am Reality, but as long as I am encumbered with you
I am tied down to perception in three dimensions and can only know that
intellectually. When I am rid of you I shall be free to turn round - paravritti
it is called in Sanscrit, the 'turning over of the mind' - and live in
accordance with cosmic necessity, free from conflict, free from all the
miseries that come upon me through your antics. I shall be able to cast off
relativity.
PERSONA: Can't I come in on that?
RELATIVE EGO: In that state there remains no sense of a 'me', there is no
longer differentiation between one and other. How then could you participate
therein?
PERSONA: That's all ballyhoo; I'm off to see if I can't find a means of having
a good time. I 'exist' all right in my own way.
RELATIVE EGO: Incorrigible! What a lout! You could not understand it, but to
'exist' connotes 'dualistically'; all idea of existence is dualistic. That is
why it is unreal, why nothing exists in reality - as Hui Neng told us. But
'being' is always in unicity. And nothing dualist (relative) IS.
The Zen masters made it clear to us that we
must 'die to the past'; the Lankavatara Sutra, which, with the Diamond Sutra,
constitutes the Buddhist basis of Zen, explains the disastrous role of
habit-memory in anchoring us to the fictitious self which finds therein its
principle source of power.
But the Zen masters show
little sign of having understood the nature of time. Let us, therefore, seek to
interpret this essential concept in the time-context. The past does not exist
as such, neither past nor future can be passed or to come - for nothing is
either 'before' or 'after' anything else. That, the time-sequence, is merely a
phenomenal illusion, a product of our receptive mechanism. We visualise
time-as-the-fourth-dimension-of-Space as best we may - that is spatially.
Perhaps we use the analogy of the runway lights, seen one after the other from
the aeroplane that is gathering speed, but seen simultaneously in a pattern
when the further dimension of height has been gained.
But we can approach more nearly to reality than
that, even though ultimately it should be necessary entirely to discard a
spatial concept: the notion of parallel lives is surely a clearer reflection of
the truth.
Ouspensky seems to have sensed this, though he
never - to my knowledge - developed the intuition, preferring the already
admirable, and ancient, concept of recurrence in time. But surely the
nearer-truth is that we live lives parallel to the one of which we are
conscious from moment to moment. Every moment of our lives should be parallel
to every other, so that we live every moment of our lives simultaneously. We do
not live again and again in circles of time, as Ouspensky - and no doubt
Pythagoras - suggested. We are not reborn every seventy odd years in the same
conditions (period, place, and circumstances), repeating every detail of our
lives unless we have been able to change our selves and evolve in a further
dimension; rather are we living every detail of our lives at the same time on parallel
planes.
In this there may seem to be two concepts
apparently confused: parallelism of each moment as it enters consciousness,
that is parallelism of the time sequence itself, and simultaneity of every
moment of the complete time-sequence of a life. In this apparent confusion two
different dimensions are involved, at right-angles to one another, in which a
single phenomenon is envisaged from two different angles.
Of the dimension in which the simultaneity of a
complete life is visualised I know of nothing to say, save that it is difficult
for us to conceive, but the dimension in which we are living in parallel to
ourselves at this, and every, moment is nearer and may more readily be
visualised. Indeed it may merely be the fourth.
The alternatives that appear to be offered us
at every moment of our lives may not be the pure illusion that we have assumed
them to be. It may be possible, theoretically at least, to 'choose'. But in
practice it is unlikely that we often can, or that most of us ever do, for in
order to 'choose', that is to change the 'alternative' that lies in front of us
on the tram-line of our one-dimensional displacement in time, we must
necessarily have effected or undergone a change in ourselves - and that happens
rarely, if ever, to many of us. But, admitting such a change, or the
culminating moment of a process leading up to such a change, it would seem
probable that we find the points ahead of us re-set and our tram switches over
to a line that, at that moment, is running parallel to our own. On such an
occasion we are unaware of any variation in our surroundings (or are we always
unaware?), but we have in fact switched over into a parallel life.
* * *
But who are the 'we' that have switched over?
Who are the 'we' that have experienced a change in our selves?
* * *
Satori should be the supreme example of such a
change-over, and it is likely that all authentic 'spiritual' experiences are so
also, but there seems no reason to suppose that such a change is necessarily
accompanied by any recognisable 'experience' as such.
The change in the self that precipitates such
an event should inevitably be a reduction of the fog of illusion that surrounds
the relative self in the form of the supposed personality or fictitious ego,
such reduction liberating the element of reality and enabling it to become
conscious of life on a more brightly-lit plane.
But what becomes of the other trams which were
left behind on the other line; won't they miss ours? And won't they be
surprised to see ours on the new line to which we have switched over?
We are only using a metaphor, we are not
describing something that exists as such. How difficult it is to bear that in
mind! Let us say, then, that the 'points' are a railway junction and that we
change trains. Both trains run from a beginningless beginning and go on to an
endless end, but one is on the Inner Circle and the other is on the Outer.
And let us remember: there are
no trains anyhow, and no passengers, but only fluctuating force-fields in which
energy pullulates in diverse patterns, energy that is conscious of itself.
From: ‘Why Lazarus Laughed: The Essential Doctrine
Zen-Advaita-Tantra’
That of which we need to rid ourselves, to transcend, is the false
concept whereby we assume that entity's existence. We have only to look with
penetration in order to perceive that there is in fact nothing in us that
corresponds to the concept of an entity, in our ever-changing kaleidoscope of
electronic impulses interpreted in the false perspective of a time-sequence. A
pulsating force-field is not an entity to be transcended, any more than is
vapour issuing from the spout of a kettle, or the apparently living being
resulting from the rapid and consecutive projection of isolated and motionless
'stills' (or quanta) on to a cinematograph screen.
There is not, there could not be, any entity; the Buddha based his
doctrine upon that realisation; there can be nothing of which to rid ourselves,
or to transcend, except an erroneous concept....
That is a highly technical sense of what is ordinarily meant by
Non-attachment or by Detachment, and that may be what the word Dhyana, so
inadequately rendered by 'Meditation', really implies.
The Zen Masters' condemnation of meditation applies to mental
meditation, which implies thought, whereas Dhyana may imply non-mental
(No-mind) meditation. Misunderstanding of the meaning of words, in translation,
is the cause of much confusion.
It is no less absurd to blame our contemporaries in the moment of
history in which ourselves are sustaining a role.
We may envy or pity those who have to play certain parts - that can
hardly be called absurd, although ultimately we ourselves play every part and
are the picture itself.
If to praise or to blame is evidently an example of failure to
understand, is their extension, 'loving' and 'hating', any less idiotic?
·
On the phenomenal plane we seek pleasure and the avoidance of pain. On
the noumenal plane we know the absence of both - which is bliss.
Nothing is permanent except Consciousness
Itself. Everything, intelligence, sensation, the body, is discrete, without
continuity or duration. Every momentary manifestation of every one of these
notions is a fresh manifestation of Consciousness Itself. That each such
manifestation seems to resemble its immediate predecessor, giving the illusion
of a continuous entity, has obscured the realisation of this essential
condition.
This reveals the full meaning of what the Sages
have told us, and we can see that Consciousness is the only Reality, alone IS,
alone is us, and that there is nothing else to look for since It only is here
and now.
It is us, we are It, anything else is just an
apparent object of that Consciousness, i.e. a concept therein.
* * *
At every moment and in all circumstances we
must realise our identity with Consciousness Itself, once and for all we must
see ourselves united Therewith, observe as the Witness Itself everything
perceived via senses or mind, including that mind and body themselves,
realising everything so observed as apparent objects within this Consciousness
outside Which there can be nothing.
This is the transference of identification from
the so-called psycho-somatic apparatus to Reality, but it is in fact merely the
removal of a false identification and a return to the norm. Nothing any longer
can be seen as from a subject, as the object of a subject that is other than
pure and original Consciousness (Reality) Itself. I, we, no longer see, hear,
touch, smell, taste, think, feel, for there is not, could not be, any I or we,
which were only notions that transformed transitory objects of Consciousness
into imaginary entities. Such imaginary entities were powerless to do
anything whatsoever, they were only thoughts renewed every instant,
apparent objectivisations of Consciousness Itself. 'I', 'we' were evaluations,
notions, ideas: I, we are nothing but Consciousness, Reality, and never
could be anything else.
'We' have no percepts, concepts or ideas of any
kind, 'we' have nothing - for 'we' do not exist, only Consciousness
appears to have them, and as Consciousness we know them.
Now that we are seeing
directly at last - have we understood what we ARE?
* * *
That is the meaning of Vedanta Advaita, of the
Lankavatara Sutra, of the Diamond Sutra, of Hui Neng, of Huang Po, of every
explanation of the Maharshi.
Every authentic explanation coming from the
plane of Reality tries to tell us just that. A re-statement, certainly not in
any way 'better' in itself, but in current language, may cause understanding to
arise, but such understanding cannot come from the transient phenomenal aspect
of mind: it can only come if an intuition of Consciousness Itself finds sudden
dualistic expression via the projected mind.
·
When
you give a shilling to a beggar - do you realise that you are giving it to
yourself?
When you help a lame dog over a stile - do you realise that you yourself are
being helped?
When you kick a man when he is down - do you realise that you are kicking
yourself?
Give him another kick - if you deserve it!
ONE: The universe is My dream. Every thing
therein, including 'you' and 'me', is an element of that dream - from elephant
to virus, from nebula to atom.
TWO: Then each of us dreams a universe? How comes it that we all dream the same
universe?
ONE: Each of us does not dream a universe. Only I dream the universe. You all
perceive the same universe because you are all elements in My dream.
TWO: Is that concept not - let us say - somewhat egotistic?
ONE: 'Egoism' is a dualistic concept and implies 'non-egoism'. But there is no
such thing in reality as non-egoism. Therefore there is no egoism either. There
is only I - and nothing else (which would be necessary) to constitute egoism.
TWO: But why is the universe your dream any more than mine?
ONE: I have already told you: 'you' do not exist except as dreamed by Me.
TWO: Supposing I reply that 'you' do not exist except as dreamed by Me?
ONE: That is unnecessary: it goes without saying.
TWO: There is evidently something I have failed to understand.
ONE: That is due to our dualistic language, inadequate to the communication of
truth. We have to use the same word to convey several meanings. You are still
thinking in terms of identification with a body. You are using the terms 'you'
and 'me' in order to indicate the unreal elements of My dream which are holding
this conversation. Unreal elements of a dream cannot dream the universe of
which they are elements.
TWO: Then who dreams it?
ONE: I do. Anyone who says 'I do'. For that I is the Absolute, Reality,
Consciousness Itself, Cosmic Mind, Tao. That I is One - no matter who
says it.
TWO: Obscure, very obscure!
ONE: 'Obscure' my foot! It is as clear as daylight, as simple and obvious as
anything within the grasp of Mind in manifestation. Only its expression is
obscure - for it has been expressed in words.
TWO: So I am everything in this universe, as I am everything in the universe of
my sleeping dreams, every elephant, every virus, every nebula, every atom,
'you' and 'I'?
ONE: You have understood.
TWO: What more is there to say?
ONE: Nothing whatsoever. Everything is explained, every word of every Sage and
Master. That is the meaning of the Lord Buddha expressly conveyed in the
Lankavatara Sutra, and Sri Krishna if he be regarded as responsible for Vedanta
Advaita.
1.
Will is an imaginary function of an
imaginary entity.
2.
As ultimate Reality we can have no
will, for Non-Being is devoid of attributes.
3.
As relative Reality, in the
dualist aspect of Consciousness and objects of Consciousness – Observer and all that is observed – we are
integrated in the Cosmos and act accordingly.
Will, therefore, is just a
figure of speech. We are like passengers in a railway-train who think that we
can change our mind and make the train go anywhere we wish.
The apparent self in our dreams believes in
himself; the sea or motor-car in front of him is real, dangerous, powerful or
whatever it may be, and the people, some of them to us long dead, are as real
as they were when we knew them. The mind that dreams our dreams as convincingly
as the mind that dreams our so-called waking life. When we awaken, our critical
mind, applying its waking standards, sees the dream personages as unreal, as
distorted, as fantastic, as what it calls 'figments of the imagination'.
And those who awaken from their 'waking' dream,
from the dream of 'daily life', can we doubt that they see their 'waking' dream
personages as we see those of our sleeping dreams, i.e. as unreal, distorted,
fantastic, as figments of the imagination? From their words it seems clear that
they do, and that so it is.
Neither dream, and there are other kinds of
dream experienced in other states, to which the same applies, is one whit more
or less real than the other, for both, all, are mind-manifestations experienced
by consciousness in different conditions.
The only reality in either, in any kind of
dream, of mind-manifestation, is Mind Itself.
The eternal present,
the now-moment, the interval between thoughts, which we normally never
perceive, alone is real.
·
Everything we perceive is only an interpretation in a dualistic,
temporal and formal framework, of a suchness, a reality which we are unable to
know. Were we able to know the reality of anything at all, we may surmise that
it could only appear to us as something such as a mathematical or algebraic
symbol.
Many of us realise this well enough, but fewer have understood that what
we regard as ourselves are also objects that we perceive, subject to the
same conditions of perception as everything else. If we strip ourselves, our
friends and our dogs, of the names, functions and qualities we clothe them
with, nothing remains but our suchness - which cannot be represented otherwise
than, just possibly, by a mathematical symbol. Let us not forget that the image
which 'strikes' a retina only produces chemical changes therein, and that these
changes, transmitted by nerve-impulses, only effect corresponding chemical
changes in cerebral matter, the resulting image being merely an interpretation
in consciousness of chemical changes in that cerebral matter. To suppose that
anything really is (is in timeless, formless Reality) that which it appears
(as an interpretation, in a space-time context, of chemical changes in matter)
- is surely the limit of absurdity! At the same time the image that 'strikes' a
retina is itself the projection of that image in consciousness, as is any such
image when we dream it, and is not anything external - for nothing can be
external to consciousness.
So much for what we aren't! But what are we? Strange as it
may seem to us - who have been thinking that we are what we think we see in a
looking-glass - we are reality. Just that, and nothing else whatever. If we
could get that into our heads our troubles surely would be over.
Was this not a symbol of man set up as an
individual, a separate self, an ego, an independent personality? For his day of
life as such he imagines himself an independent being, possessing free-will and
all sorts of 'rights' and dignities ('la dignité humaine', 'la personne
humaine', 'the rights of man', 'liberty', 'justice', and all that clap-trap),
and he never notices that, as an individual - he has exactly no power whatever
to do anything whatsoever except glory in his illusory situation. Both are
puppets, for neither has any existence at all as what he imagines that he is.
Hard words?
And yet we wonder and are shocked when we read
that the Zen Masters treated their pupils so roughly, using these same methods
to the same end!
Evidently in our consciousness, dualistically divided, we know ourselves
as subject and object, as positive and negative, as yang and yin
(as the Chinese put it), and since we are unable to be conscious of more than
one thought at a time we have to recognise these dual aspects of ourselves consecutively,
and can never recognise them together, which indeed is the mechanism of
duality. Yet Huang Po tells us that they are not divided in reality, that they are
one, and that to realise that unity in an intuition - since we are unable to
realise it as a concept - is to realise our reality.
How simple it appears!
Perhaps it is? What, in fact, is hindering us from experiencing this
essential intuition? Surely just the concept whereby we think of our objective
aspect as subject? That is an erroneous identification, for subject and object
are one but object is not subject when experienced dualistically, and that
error is responsible for the notion of an 'ego' which all the Masters told us
does not exist.
Subject and object, positive and negative, can have no independent
existence; when one appears both are present: therefore they are one whole
thing in reality. Are we the obverse or reverse of a coin, the effigy of the
sovereign or the symbols of sovereignty, 'heads' or 'tails', 'subject' or
'objects'? We are the coin itself - nothing else in the reality of this image;
in its dual aspect we appear as both sovereign and symbols, but our
reality is just gold.
As subject I speak, look, listen, as subject I am action - but that which seems
to do it is object.
Some people go out to the far-East in order to
learn it. Even so one wonders what, in fact, they learn, and, more
particularly, if that really is what the Masters meant - since they
roundly condemned 'meditation'. In meditation there is movement; in
concentration there is effort; in dhyana there is neither.
- - In short it is
dualistic thought which has to be transcended. Huang Po goes so far as to say,
'Yes, my advice is to give up all indulgence in conceptual thought and
intellectual processes. When such things no longer trouble you, you will
unfailingly reach Supreme Enlightenment'.
To most of us the idea of letting go of our
precious intellect, even for a moment, is almost unbearable. - - Is the answer
not simple - as answers should be, if they are real? Are the Masters not asking
us just to withdraw our subjectivity from the object, thereby reintegrating the
subject?
In that state, if someone comes and insults us,
practises a fraud upon us, or strikes us - we do not react. How could we? What
we misinterpreted as an 'ego' is no longer there. It is almost as though we
were reading about such actions in a newspaper, only, in the latter case, we
tend to identify ourselves with the victim - and react.
In that state the mind is still, but there is
no lack of - but increased - awareness. No concepts arise, but intuition can
enter freely. Its tranquillity is restorative, and its serenity has an element
of bliss.
Ouspensky sought to inculcate a similar
practice, which he called 'self-remembering'?
We have been doing what primitive medicine did - attacking the symptoms
in order to cure a disease, and aggravating the disease by so doing. For
instance, a fever is a defensive measure on the part of the body controlled by
organic consciousness, and where, by artificial and violent means, doctors
counteracted the fever they thereby thwarted the body's defensive mechanism and
aggravated the malady.
Need we be surprised at the unsatisfactory results of our efforts? Did
the Masters not warn us not to make them?
We have only to eliminate the ego-notion by
succeeding in the difficult task of understanding that it does not exist except
as a notion. Which,
by the way, is the subject/object of this book!
Speaking in a general manner it may be said
that almost every point of view favours the idea of reincarnation - or
transmigration as it is less inadequately termed - except one.
It is explicitly accepted by almost the whole
of the Eastern and wiser half of the world, and none of the Masters has ever
denied it: it is taken for granted by wise and simple, and the Sages frequently
refer to it as a fact. But against it there is one apparently insuperable
objection. The central or pivotal element in the doctrine of the Buddha, and
the fundamental belief of everyone who has ever fully understood that doctrine,
results from the realisation that no entity has ever existed, exists, or ever
could exist, and that therefore there is nothing, could not be anything, that
could incarnate, reincarnate, or transmigrate in any circumstances whatsoever!
We all understand this, I hope. But let us
consider this matter once more, and in the simplest possible manner.
What can we imagine 'reincarnating' anyhow?
Anything might reincarnate if there is anything to reincarnate, but unless it
were potentially identifiable as having incarnated already it could never be
known as having done so, and the very idea would be meaningless. Nothing,
however, can fulfil this essential condition but that which has the notion of
self. In other words - if anything can 'reincarnate', that thing must be, or
must be accompanied by, the I-notion.
But - and who knows it better than we do by
now? - what is the I-notion? It is a concept. And a concept is not an entity.
Do we know what becomes of a concept? When an I-concept finds the body decaying
that it supposed was itself, what does it do, what becomes of it?
I do not, of course, know; nor, I presume, do
you; but being subject to Time, why should it not attach itself to another
nascent body, if it can find one? And might it not be attracted to one with
inherent, or genetical, similarities to the one that has left it high-and-dry
by dissolution? Whatever it be in metaphysics - a minute electronic force-field
in flux, a fluctuating vibrational complex, might it not be associated with
residual experience which it could bring over and deposit in the psyche-soma in
which it has found a new home? If that reads like a description of an entity,
the fault is mine: it is not an entity in the sense of the Buddha, any more
than is a cloud or a smell or an electric storm.
What may have occurred is like any other
occurrence in the 'waking' dream of manifestation. The concept-complex had a
discrete existence in illusory time, as an object of a dream-subject, and,
after an instantaneous experience of timelessness on the dissolution of its
past, associated body-object, it became attached to another nascent body-object
and re-entered the sequential or time-illusion.
From:
‘Ask The Awakened’
What, then, is it - this metaphysical silence?
Clearly it is the 'Buddha-mind' of Ch'an, the 'Witness' of Vedanta, the
'Father' of Christianity, i.e. whole-mind. The mechanism of dualism seems to be
that of the escapement of a clock, which is also an instrument for recording
time. One half momentarily stops the flow of time, and then the other, tic-toc,
tic-toc. So does each half of split-mind, tic-toc, tic-toc, and the interval
between each tick is pure movement, the background, the intemporal reality
which, measured by each alternative tick, becomes time as we know it. And the
tic-toc, the alternative stoppage, is the comparison of opposites, the activity
of split-mind, which we know as thought and mentation.
We can now see why every one of the awakened
tells us ad nauseam that all we need to do is to arrest the movement of
thought in order to know whole-mind and find ourselves awake. It explains also
why wu or satori is always precipitated by a sudden sound,
anything from a clap of thunder to the snapping of a twig, or, indeed, any
other sensory perception whatever. Such perception momentarily arrests the
eternal tic-toc of thought and, the subject being ripe, whole-mind takes
possession and is no longer split.
That the awakened continue to know divided
mind, in communicating with those who remain identified, is evident, but for
them that condition is the abnormal, and the state of whole-mind the normal,
instead of the contrary as with the rest of us. But it is surely an error to
suppose that we do not know whole-mind in our daily life - for the
consciousness that is aware of our having thought is certainly that, a
consciousness that is ever awake, is always present, and that alone is 'real'.
All talk about the Void being this and that, not meaning that and the
other, is not only baulking the issue - it is shutting oneself off from the truth.
It is necessary to realise that the Void means exactly Nothing, and that
exactly Nothing is all that there is. And that that is the reason why
anything can appear to be. Otherwise one has the whole situation the wrong
way round, for one continues to think that reality is positive, something
positively existing, of which the negative is inconceivable. But reality
itself is negative, and its positive is just appearance, and both are
concepts of the split or samsaric mind. In whole-mind, reality is neither
positive nor negative - for there is nothing of the kind. Reality simply
IS NOT.
This seems to be the Essential Doctrine of the Prajna-paramita,
revealing the illusion which constitutes the bondage of Samsara, the barrier
which prevents mind from knowing itself as no-mind, pure negativity or the
absolute unconscious.
The 'real' nature of all manifestation is no-nature, and of all
ideas of 'reality' and of being - for all such are concepts or dharmas.
They are directly negative or void, and only indirectly positive and relative.
To look upon the Void as an emptiness that exists somewhere in a cosmic
fullness will never open the mind to its wholeness. Vision must start afresh by
realising that a cosmic plenitude is an imaginary implication, and that the
cosmos itself is not. The Void is not nothing somewhere within something: that
something is nothing, there is nowhere within it, and the Void is that.
Take any object - say a jug - and let it
represent, be a symbol for, reality. If you then photograph it you have a
negative representation of it in two dimensions, composed merely of light and
shade. The positive reproduction of that symbol reverses the light and shade,
and reveals an image which we can recognise as that of what we know as a jug.
An animal, unable to form concepts, cannot normally recognise the object, but
sees only light and shade.
That, in fact, is the Buddha's formula, in
reverse. The positive image is that which appears to be in phenomenal
existence. The negative image is the background of that, its relative reality
from which it derives, that which precedes it and without which it cannot be.
But both are just two-dimensional images composed of light and shade, quite
illusory, unrecognisable except by beings who use concepts - just
representations of the jug-reality whose existence is in a further dimension.
So you have the formula exactly: it is (as an
appearance); it is not (is a negative): therefore that which is represented
(and is real) alone is.
Note 1: We notice in passing that this example
reveals clearly the three degrees of perception available to man: perception of
'reality', known only to the awakened; perception of 'relative reality', the
objective world known to us; perception of images and symbols by means of
conceptualisation. The first is real; the second is a representation of the
real; the third is imaginary. The Buddha's formula treats of the two first
forms of perception; our example is applied to the two latter.
Note 2: The photographic apparatus represents
the sensorial apparatus by means of which we interpret, or create, the apparent
world which surrounds us.
At that point it is to be found, and that
'point' is in every direction, so that wherever we turn we cannot avoid it.
Nor, of course, is it a long way off. It is not 'off' at all: it is within,
here and now, and where we are before we start to look for it. We don't have to
look for it, nor could we ever see it by looking. By the absence of looking,
listening, touching, tasting, smelling, and thinking we realise that we are it.
For it is the unmanifest of that which we see, hear, feel, taste, smell, and
think of as manifest. It is the negative of everything that is positive to us,
the reality of every illusion - and every sensory and conceptual experience is
an illusion. I have only to cease to be in order to become that which an I is,
to realise that I am not in order to be That I Am.
Where our sensory and intellectual experience
ceases, where we can no longer know anything by their means, there lies what to
them can only be Nothing or the Void - that is our 'real nature', that is pure
consciousness which is all that is, and it is just that.
Put in another
manner, it is just the underside of the surfaces which are all that we are
aware of anywhere or in anything, the within of the without which surrounds us
on all sides, the back of the front. It is the Unmanifest from within which
everything manifests, the Not-I which is all theI that is.
From 'All Else is Bondage;
Non-Volitional Living':
·
TAO
The Doctrine is the doctrine of non-doctrine,
The Practice is the practice of non-practice,
The Method is meditation by non-meditation,
And Cultivation which is cultivation by non-cultivation.
This is the Mind of non-mind, which is wu hsin,
The Thought of non-thought, which is wu nien,
The Action of non-action, which is wu wei,
The Presence of the absence of volition,
Which is Tao.
Non-volitional living is glad
living.
This is the only 'practice'.
Since we are obliged to use dualistic language
in order to communicate understanding we should be well-advised to use words in
a manner which is verifiable, that is in a way which is etymologically correct.
To per-ceive means 'thoroughly to take hold
of', but metaphysically there is no one to take hold of anything and nothing to
take hold of. Therefore perception is the first stage of the conceptualisation
process, and the two elements - perception and conception - form one whole, and
that one whole is the mechanism whereby we create samsara.
What we are required to do is the contrary, to
lay everything down, to be nothing, to know that we are nothing, and thereby
leave behind the whole process of conceptualisation. So-doing we cease to be
that which we never were, are not, and never could be. That, no doubt, is nirvana,
and, since nothing is being conceived, nothing is being perceived, and nothing
is being 'projected' via the psycho-somatic apparatus which itself is a
conceptualised percept.
At that moment the phenomenal universe no
longer exists as far as we are concerned. We are 'sitting in a bodhimandala',
in a state of perfect availability. So placed - and automatically - we should
re-become integrally that which we always were, are, and forever must be. And
that - because it is THIS - can never be thought or spoken, for this, being
purely non-objective, is in a different 'direction of measurement' from any
conceptual dimension, being the source of all dimensionality and phenomenality.
This is the sun itself, shining through the
dualism of negative and positive, whose rays (which are Itself) appear to split
into that negative (nirvana) and that positive (samsara) from
which arise all phenomena, the perceptual-conceptual universe, including that
which we have known as ourselves.
'I am that I am', said Jahweh - which no doubt
means 'this which I am'. We, too are 'this which we are', for THIS is
everything that ever was, is, or could be.
The extrovert assumes that things objectively exist, and that
subjectively they do not. That indeed is the accepted sense of those terms and,
I think, the theoretical and experimental basis of science.
It requires years of intuitive research to understand that the opposite
is the truth: that no thing exists objectively other than as a concept, and
that subjectively every thing has potential existence, i.e. permanently exists
as potential.
When the Masters say tirelessly that every single thing 'neither exists
nor does not exist' they mean just that: its only existence is as potential
which is the integration of object and subject, of negative and positive, by
which each interdependent counterpart has been obliterated.
The term 'realisation' - 'making real, a thing' - logically is only
applicable to the illusory process of assuming conceptual objects do exist, for
they have no other reality.
That which ultimately they ARE, and all that they could ever BE, is
neither Reality nor Relative Reality (even with capital 'R's) but Potential
(with a capital 'P' if you wish).
·
What do you have to do?
Pack your bags,
Go to the station without them,
Catch the train,
And leave your self behind.
Wherever there are others there is a self,
Wherever there are no others there can be no self,
Wherever there is no self there are no others,
Because in the absence of self I am all others.
That is non-objective relation.
But there can be no factual evidence for the existence
of sentient beings, either as subject or as object, who therefore are merely a
conceptual assumption on the part of the consciousness in which they are
cognised.
It follows that 'consciousness' also can only be a
conceptual assumption without demonstrable existence.
Metaphysics, relying on intuition or direct perception, says no more
than this, and points out that no word, be it the Absolute, the Logos, God, or
Tao, can be other than a concept which as such has no factual validity
whatsoever.
And the Future? We cannot know it until it has become the Past - for it
can never be known in the Present. Then how can it be at all, for we cannot
know the Past (which is gone)? Surely we cannot: neither Future, Present nor
Past can we ever know.
How, then, do they exist - if existence they have? And if any of them
exist, which exists? Or do all of them exist as a unity unextended in time and
space, a time and space which only come into apparent existence with them,
hypothetically, in order to render them cognisable?
Clearly none of them exists as a thing-in-itself, as objective events in
their own right, as phenomena separate from the cognisers of them.
Future - Present - Past appear to be three illusory aspects of a single
subjective phenomenon known as 'cognition'.
All this which is dreamed is the product of the dreaming mind, of the
subject-object process called 'causation', within the consciousness in which it
occurs; it is integral in consciousness, it is consciousness itself, and there
is nothing else whatever that IS. But 'consciousness' is only a concept as
such: it is no thing, no object, has no subject therefore. It can only
be indicated as the Unmanifested, and even such indication can only be a
manifestation of the unmanifested.
- Chuang Tzu, chapter XIII, p. 138.
Each of us spends his time 'riding a tethered horse'.
The horse cannot be set free;
But each of us can forbear to ride.
Whatever the origin of this, it seems to be great nonsense, and
thoroughly demoralizing. In the first place is there any evidence, let alone
likelihood, that it is a fact? Is it not more probable that 'we' have far too
many? That, certainly, is the view of the oriental majority of the human race.
And even if that were definitely not so, what is this 'living' of a
'life', subject to conceptual 'time', and who or what 'lives' it? The notion of
the 'sacredness of life' - human only of course! - is somewhat unevenly
distributed over the surface of the Earth.
Dreams and poppycock! Let us find out what in fact we are - and then the
importance and apparent duration of this phenomenal experience will seem to
matter very little indeed!
'A long life, and a merry one!' By all means, and why not? But does it
matter? Do we bother about the longevity of - say - fish?
Note: 'Life' is only manifestation expressed in a
space-time context, entirely hypothetical; there is in fact no 'thing' whatever
to begin or to end, to be 'born' or to 'die', and our experience is a psychic
phenomenon.
From: 'The Tenth Man :The Great Joke'
Without Tears
A psyche-soma, phenomenal as it is, must have a
functional centre, without which it could not be what is seen as a 'sentient
being'. Such centre must be psychic, just as the heart is somatic. The five
senses, interpreted by the sixth, depend on this centre for their manifestation
as perception and cognition; all functioning, instinctive or rational, is
directed therefrom, and it is logical, therefore, that this centre should be
considered as the subjective element of the objectivised phenomenon. So,
phenomenally, it appears, but itself this 'subject' is an object, so that never
could it be what we are, but only a part of the phenomenal set-up of the
discriminated and separate phenomenon which we think that we are. Never could
it be autonomous, never could it exercise volition, never could it be what we
conceive as 'us'.
Moreover our sentience is essentially noumenal,
and we are mistaking the switch-board for the power-station, the reservoir for
the source, an electronic computer for a mind: the functional centre of a
sentient being is purely cybernetic.
The identification which gives rise to a
supposed 'entity' that then and thereby thinks that it is in bondage, is
identification of what noumenally we are, of our natural noumenality, with the
functional 'organ' in the psyche-soma which becomes thereby a supposed 'self'
or 'ego' with relative, if not full, autonomy and volition. We do not even care
to remember that only a small fraction of our physical movements, of our
organic functioning responds in any way to the initiatives of our personalised
wishes.
How does this situation arise? It arises as a
result of the splitting of mind, called 'dualism', whereby the phenomenal
aspect of noumenality - that is pure impersonal phenomenality - divides into
negative and positive, and there appear 'objects' which require a 'subject',
and 'others' which require a 'self', each totally dependent on its counterpart
for its apparent existence.
But mind, though apparently split in the process
of phenomenalisation, remains whole as noumenon, and only in the becoming
apparent, or in order to become apparent, is it obliged to divide into an
apparent see-er and an apparent seen, a cogniser and a thing cognised, which
nevertheless can never be different, never two, for though in function it
divides yet in its potentiality it remains whole.
All phenomenality, therefore,
is objective, that is appearance in mind, and its appearance is dependent on
its division into a see-er or cogniser and what is seen or cognised, that is
which becomes apparent to an observer whose existence is assumed in order that
appearance may appear. It follows that in all this phenomenality there is no
'ens' anywhere, for neither the apparent cogniser nor the apparently cognised
is an entity in its own right, i.e. having a nature of its own, autonomy or
volition.
It follows also that the potentiality of
'sentience' whereby all this manifestation is cognised, called prajna in
Sanscrit, is an im-mediate expression of noumenality. Utterly impersonal, as
devoid of 'ens' as are phenomena, 'it' is nevertheless, and 'it' must
necessarily be, what we are, and all that we are. In conceptualising 'it' as
prajna, 'it' is conceptualising 'itself', via the familiar dualistic process of
splitting into conceptualiser and concept or cogniser and cognised, so that in
seeking for what we are - that for which we are seeking is the seeker: the
seeker is the sought and the sought is the seeker, and that - as Padma Sambhava
told us in plain words - is what we are.
There is no entity involved anywhere, and
space-time here is seen as a conceptual framework which accompanies events in
order that events may have the necessary extension whereby they may appear to
occur.
Total negation is
required, for the Negative Way alone abolishes the factuality of all phenomena
and the existence of entity as such, but if a positive representation is to be
attempted these are the elements out of which the image seems to be composed.
·
It is only with total humility, and in absolute stillness of mind
that we can know what indeed we are.
*'Humbly' here is not used as the counterpart of 'proudly', for such
'humility' is just negative 'pride'. Humility, metaphysically, implies the
absence of any entity to be either 'proud' or 'humble'.
·
'Space'
is a concept which provides exteriorised objects with the extension necessary
to render their appearance 'solid', i.e. perceptible tri-dimensionally as
objects, and in spatial relation to other objects, just as 'time' is their
equally necessary extension in duration. Time is an extension of space
in duration, and so a further direction of measurement. Space-time as a single
concept then utilises four dimensions, three spatial and one temporal.
'Dimensions' are merely our conceptual
extension in 'Space', which appears in three divergent directions of measurement
as length, breadth, and height, a fourth, spatially incognisable but called
'voidness', being phenomenally represented by duration.
It is this latter which represents our apparent
being, for we appear to exist because we appear to last. Our continuation in
time, long or short, our growth and development therein, our process of being
born, maturing, ageing and dying seems to take place, or be extended as we say,
in 'time', so that what we are is seen to be that lasting, becoming, in the
framework of 'space'.
Our appearance must be dependent on the
concepts of 'space' and 'time', for without them we could not appear to be, and
without us they are not at all. They are our apparent extension, three
directions of measurement conceived as spatial dimensions, the fourth as
temporal.
There is no past, no future, and the 'present',
i.e. existence as such, is no moment, but is this temporal dimension which
includes all the others, and so represents what we can be said to be.
When contact is broken, the current no longer
passes, the resistance cools, there is darkness, and the line is 'dead'.
The electric current is what is implied by
'prajna' where sentient beings are concerned: it is the act of action, the
living of life.
Nobody knows what electricity is, nobody knows
what prajna is: both terms are just names given to concepts that seek to
describe in dualistic language a basic 'energy' that enables appearance to
appear and being to be.
When contact is made we know it as 'light' and
as 'life'; when contact is broken we know it as 'darkness' and 'death'. But the
source of 'energy' remains intact and intangible.
Are we the hot resistance and the light, the
cold resistance and the darkness - or the vital current itself?
·
Phenomenally,
we can know no present, since it must be in the 'past' before our senses can
complete the process of recording it, leaving only a suppositional past and
future; noumenally there is no question of 'past' or 'future' but only a presence
which knows neither 'time' nor 'space'.
·
For
those concerned with the doctrines of various forms of Buddhism, or as
propounded by successive Buddhas, the Nth or inclusive measurement of volume [further
directions of measurement than the three which are available to our sensory
apparatus] is what is
variously described as 'the Void', 'the Middle Way', and 'Dependent
Origination'. The first is fairly obvious, but the second is senseless as
translated, being neither a 'way' nor in the 'middle' of anything; if
conceivable as a 'way' it would need to be described as 'the Inner' or 'the
Transcending' Way. The third may be said to find its explanation in
super-volume.
'Destiny', like 'free-will', is a word which seeks to describe a concept,
as also are 'path' and 'achievement'. They are not sensorial perceptions,
interpreted as having objective existence, but structures in mind whose
existence is inferential only, i.e. directly conceptual. As concepts, their
truth or falsehood depends upon the truth or falsehood of the 'entity'
to which they are attached and whose comportment they are designed to explain.
It follows that if there is an 'entity', a question arises as to whether
such entity suffers 'destiny' or not, exercises 'free-will' or not, has a
'path' to follow or not, can claim an 'achievement' or not.
In all Advaita, whether Vedantic or Buddhic, the totality of great and
known Masters have categorically declared that no such thing as an entity
has ever existed, exists, or ever could exist. The Buddha mentions the fact nineteen
times in the Diamond Sutra alone.
The explanation of Maharshi's magnificently categorical statement is
that there is neither an entity to suffer destiny, nor an entity to exercise
free-will, neither an entity to follow a path, nor an entity to achieve an aim.
If we are lived, without attempted 'volition' on the part of a purely
suppositional 'entity', we may ask what could there be to have cares and
worries, for the disappearance of a supposed 'path' can only leave what
inevitably must be our normal and eternal condition here and now, in lieu of
'achievement'.
Note: An entity requires inferences such as 'space'
and 'duration', an entity is subject to limitation, an entity is an object and
needs a subject.
From: 'Posthumous Pieces'
These pieces are called
'posthumous',
Not because I am 'dead';
Unborn, that is forever impossible,
But because they are,
Which is inevitable.
They are tombstones,
A record of living intuitions
Which, embalmed in relative terminology,
Are well and truly dead.
These
notions, so queried, belong to whoever has never profoundly considered these
facile and conditioned assumptions, for all are conceptual images in mind, the
supposed factuality of which is as imaginary as any mirage, hallucination, or
dream, and all of which are experienced as both factual and actual.
But the supreme illusion is not that of the incidence of 'birth',
'life', and 'death' as such, but that of there being any objective entity to
experience these conceptual occurrences.
The accessory illusion is that of spatial and temporal extension
subject to which the supreme illusion of entity is rendered possible and
without which no 'entity' could appear to suffer any experience whatever.
Unextended conceptually in
'space',
Unprotracted conceptually in 'time',
Formless, therefore, and without duration,
Unborn, therefore, and undying,
Eternally we are as I.
The only 'present' therefore is presence
and must necessarily be what we are.
Such presence, then, is inevitably outside time and must be
'intemporality'.
*the processes of perception and conception are complicated and require
a lapse of time for their completion.
The
phenomenal absence of space-time, being inconceivable, must therefore be our
own phenomenal absence as what is conceiving, and - since we cannot conceive
our own absence - we must be what space-time is, and space-time must be what noumenally
we are.
And that no doubt explains why all that we are,
both phenomenally and noumenally, was termed 'mind' by the great Masters of
China.
Note: We may assume also that this explains why so
very few people are willing to face up to the problem of space-time, why nearly
all fight shy of it, decline to discuss it, and just accept it as something
inevitable, whether philosophers, the religious, or those who seek
'enlightenment'. Yet surely anyone can see how vitally important it must be,
that nothing can be finally understood while that remains unexplained, for it
is obvious that whatever is subject to extension in space and to successional
duration could not be veritable in itself. The study of space-time in physics
may also be the key to the startling fact that so many of the greater
physicists have found themselves on or over the borders of metaphysics, and
have been brave enough to say so.
The metaphysical development of philosophy alone can reveal - even
though it may never be able to state in dualistic terms - what ultimately we
are and what is our relation to our phenomenal universe, inseparable from
ourselves, a revelation which the most optimistic could hardly anticipate from
the empirical methods of Science.
Then this impression is repeated again and again with incalculable
rapidity until the impression assumes 'form' and is cognised as a 'table' or a
'star'. Each of these repetitions is a separate quanta, and the object
is composed of these quanta, and so is built-up as a supposedly material
unit. Such is the 'reality' of the object, and its dimensions, shape and
distance are judged by these quanta, the quanta being attributed to the
light by which the object is perceived, whereas they lie exclusively in the
perceiving mind.
All light being presumed quanta, all distance is presumed quanta,
and all velocity, and all are only in the observing mind. All, therefore,
depend upon succession, the sequence of time, which itself is nothing but
seriality - the repetition of quanta.
·
The Nonsense of 'Life' and 'Death'
What difference could there be between 'living'
and 'dying'? 'Living' is only the elaboration in sequential duration of what
otherwise is known as 'death'.
When What-we-are functions, extending in three
apparent spatial dimensions and another interpreting them as duration, together
known as 'space-time', there is what we know as 'living'. When that process
ceases we are no longer extended in sequential duration, we are no longer
elaborated in 'space', 'space-time' is no more and the apparent universe
dis-appears.
Then we say we are 'dead'.
But as what we are we have never 'lived', and we cannot 'die'.
Where could 'we' live? When could 'we' die? How
could there be such things as 'we'? 'Living' is a spatial illusion, 'dying' is
a temporal illusion, 'we' are a spatio-temporal illusion based on the serial
interpretation of dimensional 'stills' or 'quanta' cognised as movement.
Only the concepts of infinity and intemporality
can suggest intellectually a notion of what we are as the source and origin of
appearance or manifestation.
There is neither Creation nor Destruction,
Neither Destiny nor Free-will,
Neither Path nor Achievement;
This is the final Truth.
To confirm
it would be presumptuous, to re-state it is a duty, to understand it is
liberation.
4-05
Keith and Marnie Elliott’s “REMEDY” Site
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