A Discussion Of Non Dual "adviata" Philosophy.

That's why it's a category. Chairs are things that have certain characteristics. Anything can be a chair if it has those characteristics.
They're in a difference sub category than a table.

For instance, both a chair and a table are in the category furniture, but a table serves a different function than a chair, even though either may be substituted for the other from time to time. So they are in different sub categories.

 

What I was trying to say is that when you have an experience, that is your senses sense, there is no rational thought about what is occurring at that moment.
It's a pure instantaneous experience. Timeless.

Later on, a second later, a minute, an hour, you stop and reflect on what the original experience was.
You re-member it, you re-construct it in your mind.

Through memory you reflect on, or think about, the original experience. But what does the reflection? Who remembers?
The one remembering and reflecting is what we call "I" or me.

The original experience is selfless.

 

What is any object sans its characteristics?

Can you describe an object without resorting to a description of it?
For example, can you tell me what a boat is?

Furniture implies movable, functional articles.
There are different types of furniture such as tables, chairs, beds etc. for use in a home and then there is movable pieces of wood or metal for use in a printing press or milling machine... and some other uses of the word.

 

Let's assume you and I are in a room together.

I ask you to go into the next room and get the two chairs that I placed there.
You walk into the room and see one hundred separate items, none of them the same and you have never seen any of them before; yet you know two of them are objects called "chairs".
.
How do you determine which two of the one hundred objects are chairs?

 

?
All experiences invoke pleasure or pain, to a certain degree. If they didn't, they wouldn't be remembered.
Remembrance of pleasure and pain causes us to seek or avoid those remembered experiences in the future and the now moment.
The seeking or avoidance is called desire, and the goal of desire is to end that desire by either finding pleasure or avoiding pain.

Desire arises from the memory of past experiences.
Our existence is nothing more than the desire to end desire.

 

Interesting. I would think that the term desire as it's being used here, would not include basic physical needs such as food.

We know infants need food and will "desire" to eat, or suckle, but that is instinctive and hardwired into the brain. I doubt that an infant has much in the way of memory building capacities. But as it grows it does then develop the capacity to retain the memory of good and bad experiences. As that grows the baby will begin to develop true non instinctual desires.

So I think desire begins with the capacity to retain memories.

 

Exactly. Even the infants need for food is already a duality.

 

From whence do memories arrive?

As I can only remember what I have experienced objectively, and I can also remember the experience of subjective thought; it follows that the consciousness of these experiences is separate from the experiences themselves, otherwise how would I be able to experience the experiences?
And as "I" remember both objective and subject experiences, I must be that which is conscious of both and transcends both the objective and subjective.
Now, as I associate this consciousness with the objective and subjective experiences of the body, "I" come to believe that ultimate consciousness, as experienced through the body, is an individual entity or ego.
As the ego is only a construct, it has no reality of its own and can only exist through the memory of that which has gone before.

 

And now we plunge into an area I'm having trouble with, memory.

This seems to say that, as in the previous post, the notion of "I" arises when ultimate unego consciousness gets identified with a body due to the senses.

When the senses experience "objects", they do so in a discontinuous manner, due to the interval between thoughts.
When an object is thought of as something separate from the sensing apparatus of the body, the conscious principle also assumes that it is separate from the object.
As this is a discontinuous exercise, it appears to happen sequentially, that is over time.
Although this is a continuous experience of the flux of nature, it appears to be time related as each experience is reflected on by the unchanging knower.
The knower never changes but as the continuity of experiences is disrupted by the interval between thoughts, the thoughts are laced together by the notion of a separate ego which is derived from the linking of discontinuous experiences.

This is memory. A continuous experience of discontinuous observations which are reflected on at each moment.

There! I think I confused myself on that one pretty well!!!!
Anybody know what I just said?

 

The ego and memory are one and the same. You can't have one without the other.
So the ego is built on memories of "I did this, I experienced that." the remembrance of "someone" experiencing something is the ego.

But we also project out ego into the future, "I will do this, I will experience that."
This leads us to recognize that the ego is not the witness of experiences as the ego can only identify with that which it remembers.
There is another "thing" that witnesses the continuous stream of present, past, and future projected experiences.

This "witness" is what observes the ongoing consciousness, or awareness, or experience.

 

When I think of myself, I can think of doing things with my body such as walking, talking, or thinking.

Or I can think of myself as not doing things with my body such as I didn't move or I wasn't thinking.

By claiming both states to be true I must surpass both states, I must exist as a doer and a non doer.
As such I witness both states.

 

And we also have the instinctual Medulla section of the brain.
The sub cortex deals with memory and emotions, and the cortex itself is the realm of self awareness.

Each level seems to build on the preceding, but the body can function relatively well without major parts of the cortex.

 

As the body changes from year to year, day to day, and moment to moment; it has no inherent substance itself. It is not a fixed, permanent entity. For us to claim to be our bodies is thus delusional in that there is no fixed body to lay claim to.
Our ego, or sense of individuality, is not due to our bodies.

Therefore as we discard the idea of the ego residing in the body, we are left with that which never changes, our consciousness of the body and our consciousness of consciousness itself.

We have never been individual egos, only that which wrongly recognizes the concept, or notion, of individuality due to ignorance of the fact that no such ego in truth can be found to exist apart from consciousness itself.