The Nature of Reality

MeAgain · Mar 5, 2021

2. Time.
From a standpoint that is still in duality, thought appears as the principle of consciousness objectified, objectified by what I do not say, for in order that consciousness may seem to be objectified, an independent agent is needed: and nothing can exist independently of consciousness. Let me then repeat, in the only terms available, that thought is the apparent objectification of consciousness. Let me add, moreover, that each thought as such has an object and that the two are inseparable. Now time, or the notion of succession, is one such object: and time too is consciousness objectified.
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As consciousness alone exists, thought is the result of consciousness and consciousnesses alone. The succession of thoughts, one after the other, causes the notion of an object to arise. that object, in this case is time.

3 . The Passage of Time and Pure Being.
We measure the passage of time by the observation of movements in natural objects like the sun. Observation implies the remembrance of successive sensory perceptions. Were it not for these memories, our notion of time, if we could ever have acquired it, would fade into the experience of pure being, as it does whenever mental activity ceases.
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Time is nothing more than the remembrance of sensory perceptions.

4. The Apprehension of Timelessness.
The absence of mental activity cannot properly be called a state, since it transcends time. If we wish to understand what it is, we must abstract every idea of duration from our mind. This is not impossible, for a thought as such is always at one with its object. If we make timelessness the object of thought, all that is objective drops away and we realize timelessness as pure, changeless, being.
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Time can only exist when thought of. The absence of thought is the absence of time.

Mountain Valley Wolf · Mar 6, 2021

MeAgain said: ↑

THE ILLUSION OF CAUSALITY
The experience of an object is an experience of momentary sensation. As an object must be thought of to be seen to exist, and as each thought is a separate occurrence, and as each thought occurs as a discreet moment in time; with each passing moment (allowing for the reality of time) the object will be seen anew. It is only the persistence of memory that causes us to believe we have seen the same object with each thought perception. With each perception, and thought, in reality the object has already seemed to have changed, in actuality a new notion of the object has arisen in our perception.

Even if we grant the independent existence of objects and say that the existence of the object has caused us to be able to perceive it we find existence cannot be a cause of the effect of perception as a cause cannot be seen until it has manifested an effect. The notion that a cause leads to an effect is only known once the effect has been observed. Without a cause there is no effect and without an effect there is no cause. Although they seem to be separate events, they in fact are one and the same.
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I was fascinated with the concept of a holographic universe when I first heard of it but did not think we could ever prove such a thing and therefore did not embrace it. Then a bunch of things happened, a Native American friend gave me a red tailed hawk feather he said was meant for me, and now here I am... LOL! When my own philosophy started developing more (I say 'developed more' because I was surprised to discover a few years ago that even in my philosophy papers back in college I was on that same philosophical trajectory, and even in my writing in High School I see it.) I did not know where it would take me, but sure enough, it convinced me that we do in fact live in a holographic universe.

I do agree with the idea that the Space-Time continuum does not exist as we understand it. Physically, I argue that we live in a Space-Present, and that the space-time continuum as Einstein used it is a nonphysical thing. Coincidentally, he used imaginary numbers (i) in his calculations.

But I do have to disagree with his ideas of non-causality. In a superpositioned reality where everything is already everywhere (the reality of the quantum wave) then mass could manifest in a chaotic soup of total randomness without any rhyme or reason. However it is phenomena as quantum information that creates meaning and sense out of this chaos, and it does so from, and based on, previous moments of Now. In other words, the phenomena carries the history of the past to create the present physical now from a field of absolute potentiality.

He bases this, I believe, on the idea that we cannot have simultaneous thoughts. I would argue that this is because of the linear experience we have of the physical world. It is how we make sense of the physical world; the source of our objective understanding of reality. Back when I was 17 when I used to meditate with Hindu and Buddhist mantras, I had what Maslow would refer to as a peak experience. I actually wasn't meditating at the time, but I was very relaxed and listening to the Moody Blues, Days of Future Past album. Somehow I felt myself becoming, super relaxed, you could say, and then suddenly it was like this ball of information burst in my head. It was a sudden deep understanding of the interconnectedness of all things, and vibration and all this stuff. As I understood it, in a brief moment I had all this knowledge---all these simultaneous thoughts, but then it was gone and I had this feeling that I had to start running through this information or I would lose it. So I quickly grabbed pen and paper and started writing things down, but even then I could not do justice to that brief moment of knowledge. I remember writing about positive and negative, yin-yang, and vibration and stuff like that, but I never kept that paper. I wasn't doing any drugs at the time as I was spending the summer with my aunt and uncle in Seattle and didn't know where to get anything even if I wanted to.

I use a Jungian concept of the ego, and he treated the ego as a filter for the purpose of maintaining personality. It therefore filters out all non-essential phenomena, stimulus, and details, and keeps us rooted in physical reality, and the objective requirements of perception at the time. I would argue that in doing so it maintains a linear focus in our conscious mind. The subconscious is where everything else goes, and the subconscious is working in the background below our level of conscious awareness. The Italian Philosopher, Franz Brentano, defined thought as an intentional object, because thought is always a thought of a 'thing' (an object) and we cannot think of a no-thing. We can find ways of how the subconscious mind influences us as we go about our conscious activities, so obviously there are intentional objects at play within our subconscious even as we are consciously thinking. In other words, our mind may always be thinking different things simultaneously, but we are unaware because the ego filters out such experience. But I believe there are times where we can pass through the gates of the ego and experience simultaneous non-linear thought. I have experienced this at other times as well while doing shamanic spirit journeying, where I have received information or advice, and I am compelled to restate it so that I make it linear and can retain it at a conscious level. It is an experience of, I already know it, but I restate it anyway to be sure. Schizophrenics and perhaps others as well have this experience which is described as their mind racing or thinking too fast. I would suspect that this too is perhaps having multiple thoughts at once, or thinking in a non-linear manner.

The philosopher Husserl, like this author, talked about experiencing phenomena in a sequence, for example, when we look at a mountain range, to see the details we see individual peaks and valleys separately and successively. But I have wondered if it is possible that we initially see it in its entirety at once, including the details, but we then have to sort it out linearly and thereby separate individual details so that it makes sense to our conscious linear-based mind, or that we can focus on individual details.

tikoo · Mar 6, 2021

Well , MeAgain presents his old man philosophy as a respectable thing as an old man will do at such an age .
It is his gift to us . Ok > when you are done please make a concise simple statement of it re: the normatives of
epistemology , axiology and such .

MeAgain · Mar 7, 2021

Mountain Valley Wolf said: ↑

I was fascinated with the concept of a holographic universe when I first heard of it but did not think we could ever prove such a thing and therefore did not embrace it. Then a bunch of things happened, a Native American friend gave me a red tailed hawk feather he said was meant for me, and now here I am... LOL! When my own philosophy started developing more (I say 'developed more' because I was surprised to discover a few years ago that even in my philosophy papers back in college I was on that same philosophical trajectory, and even in my writing in High School I see it.) I did not know where it would take me, but sure enough, it convinced me that we do in fact live in a holographic universe.

I do agree with the idea that the Space-Time continuum does not exist as we understand it. Physically, I argue that we live in a Space-Present, and that the space-time continuum as Einstein used it is a nonphysical thing. Coincidentally, he used imaginary numbers (i) in his calculations.

But I do have to disagree with his ideas of non-causality. In a superpositioned reality where everything is already everywhere (the reality of the quantum wave) then mass could manifest in a chaotic soup of total randomness without any rhyme or reason. However it is phenomena as quantum information that creates meaning and sense out of this chaos, and it does so from, and based on, previous moments of Now. In other words, the phenomena carries the history of the past to create the present physical now from a field of absolute potentiality.

He bases this, I believe, on the idea that we cannot have simultaneous thoughts. I would argue that this is because of the linear experience we have of the physical world. It is how we make sense of the physical world; the source of our objective understanding of reality. Back when I was 17 when I used to meditate with Hindu and Buddhist mantras, I had what Maslow would refer to as a peak experience. I actually wasn't meditating at the time, but I was very relaxed and listening to the Moody Blues, Days of Future Past album. Somehow I felt myself becoming, super relaxed, you could say, and then suddenly it was like this ball of information burst in my head. It was a sudden deep understanding of the interconnectedness of all things, and vibration and all this stuff. As I understood it, in a brief moment I had all this knowledge---all these simultaneous thoughts, but then it was gone and I had this feeling that I had to start running through this information or I would lose it. So I quickly grabbed pen and paper and started writing things down, but even then I could not do justice to that brief moment of knowledge. I remember writing about positive and negative, yin-yang, and vibration and stuff like that, but I never kept that paper. I wasn't doing any drugs at the time as I was spending the summer with my aunt and uncle in Seattle and didn't know where to get anything even if I wanted to.

I use a Jungian concept of the ego, and he treated the ego as a filter for the purpose of maintaining personality. It therefore filters out all non-essential phenomena, stimulus, and details, and keeps us rooted in physical reality, and the objective requirements of perception at the time. I would argue that in doing so it maintains a linear focus in our conscious mind. The subconscious is where everything else goes, and the subconscious is working in the background below our level of conscious awareness. The Italian Philosopher, Franz Brentano, defined thought as an intentional object, because thought is always a thought of a 'thing' (an object) and we cannot think of a no-thing. We can find ways of how the subconscious mind influences us as we go about our conscious activities, so obviously there are intentional objects at play within our subconscious even as we are consciously thinking. In other words, our mind may always be thinking different things simultaneously, but we are unaware because the ego filters out such experience. But I believe there are times where we can pass through the gates of the ego and experience simultaneous non-linear thought. I have experienced this at other times as well while doing shamanic spirit journeying, where I have received information or advice, and I am compelled to restate it so that I make it linear and can retain it at a conscious level. It is an experience of, I already know it, but I restate it anyway to be sure. Schizophrenics and perhaps others as well have this experience which is described as their mind racing or thinking too fast. I would suspect that this too is perhaps having multiple thoughts at once, or thinking in a non-linear manner.

The philosopher Husserl, like this author, talked about experiencing phenomena in a sequence, for example, when we look at a mountain range, to see the details we see individual peaks and valleys separately and successively. But I have wondered if it is possible that we initially see it in its entirety at once, including the details, but we then have to sort it out linearly and thereby separate individual details so that it makes sense to our conscious linear-based mind, or that we can focus on individual details.
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I read a book one time about the holographic universes, but I don't remember much about it.

"...the phenomena carries the history of the past to create the present physical now from a field of absolute potentiality." I suppose that is something like the Buddhist seed memory.

The Moody Blues.....There was a great awakening in the West back in that era. Unfortunately it didn't manifest on a grander scale and has since diminished from its peak.

Regarding simultaneous thoughts as opposed to linear thoughts, in other words we may have simultaneous thoughts in the subconscious mind but not the conscious mind. I would think that as the interval between thoughts, as expressed by Levy in this book, are timeless we could say that all thoughts occur outside of time and are not really linear as to be linear there must be a time period between each thought. As you sem to say, it is the awareness of the thought that is linear.

MeAgain · Mar 7, 2021

tikoo said: ↑

Well , MeAgain presents his old man philosophy as a respectable thing as an old man will do at such an age .
It is his gift to us . Ok > when you are done please make a concise simple statement of it re: the normatives of
epistemology , axiology and such .
Click to expand...

Philosophia perennis.

MeAgain · Mar 7, 2021

TIME AND THE PRESENT ETERNITY

1. The Situating of Experience in Time.
As already stated, when we are thinking of a specific object, nothing else is present to consciousness and there is no idea then of the object's location. A separate thought, or series of thoughts, is required in order to situate that one object in relation to others. These determinative thoughts follow almost invariably (XZJ, 2). Likewise, just as one group of sensations going to form the notion of an object is followed habitually by another, which situates the object in space, so is this, and any other kind of experience, followed habitually by one which situates it in time, that is to say, it brings the experience into relation with the succession of thoughts in general. The group of thoughts so situated is then considered to be a present occurrence, though it is already past: it is considered to be a past occurrence only when new thoughts arise.
2. Past, Present and Future.
I thought really means I am at present conscious of the kind of thought called a memory (or a recollection); I shall think really means I am at present conscious of the kind of thought called an expectation (or an intention or a prediction); I think really means I am at present conscious of the kind of thought called an actuality or a present occurrence. That the absence of objective experience cannot be thought or spoken of as a present occurrence is obvious: in the first place, there is no occurrence; and in the second, there is no individual to speak or to think, the seeming duality of a conscious subject and its object arising only when objective experience arises.
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Present experiences are actually already past as the sense must sense, the sensed must be placed in space, and then in time. Once this has occurred the original sensation has already passed. It appears to be a present sensation wen the past experience is thought of.

I thought is a present memory of a passed thought.
I shall think is a present anticipation of a thought.
I think is a present awareness of the thought of thinking.

A present occurrence cannot be thought of as it occurs, as there is no separate occurrence and no separate self to experience the occurrence.

MeAgain · Mar 8, 2021

3. Sleep and Non-Duality.
I slept (or I was unconscious) really means I am at present conscious of a memory that relates to the absence of thought. But it is not the absence as such of thought that is remembered. Sleep and unconsciousness are notions based on the memory of conditions that preceded and followed the cessation of individual experience. I say this from the standpoint of the plain man who thinks of sleep as occurring in time, that is to say, as having a beginning and an end, thus making it a part of waking experience; whereas sleep from its own standpoint cannot be said to occur at all. Profound sleep in itself is non-temporal and neither an active nor a passive state: duration, activity and passivity pertain exclusively to the objective realm which in deep sleep is non-existent. But some positive state, corresponding to what is negatively called the absence of thought, does undoubtedly exist. And though I call it a state, it is not a state in the common acceptation of the word, for states begin and end, but this is non-temporal. In it we are merged in non-duality, ready as it were to become, or rather to seem to become, the conscious subject, when objects are experienced, or seem to be experienced. Nevertheless, non-duality abides as the substratum and the reality of dualistic experience (///, 3), though we cannot as individuals be aware of its existence when our attention is turned outwards.
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When awaking from the non dreaming state, we say, "I slept".
But there is no remembrance of having slept. All that is remembered is the state that occurred before entering dreamless sleep and the state after.
Time seems to have passed, but while in that state no time is experienced at all. Further, the self doesn't exist. as no time passes and the self is non existent, it will be found that no dreamless sleep has occurred at all, as there was no one to experience it and no time frame for it to have happened in.

Dreamless sleep is non dual.
Dreamless sleep is not a state of conscious being.
Dreamless sleep is pure consciousness, which being pure and non dual cannot be described, it remains a background for all experience, but is not experience itself.

MeAgain · Mar 9, 2021

4. Time and the Present Eternity.
Like space, which would be inconceivable apart from the objects it is supposed to pervade (XII, i), time also cannot be more than a notion. It is never directly experienced. I mean by this that we never experience a present time: the present time is nothing more than our way of qualifying a select group of thoughts which has just now been present to consciousness. Behind our notion of a present time, however, is the immediate apprehension of the principle of consciousness, which is ever present as the self, not in terms of succession, but as the present eternity. And this immediate knowledge finds expression in our use of the pronoun, I, that is to say, in egoism.
5 . Conclusion : The Ego and Non-duality.
In the final analysis, therefore, the pronoun, I, even when supposedly standing for individual consciousness, stands always for non-duality. If we would actualize this truth, we must abstract from our notion of consciousness all that is personal, not as we unwittingly do when we fall asleep and between two thoughts, but by the remembrance in our workaday life of the main principles of Adwaita, so far only partially stated.
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The present moment, now, is never experienced for as soon as we recognize, or think of it, it is already gone.
However something is present to recognize the thought process, something which transcends time and the now moment and is always aware. This something is what we call ourselves, or "I".

Therefore, as we each experience an "I" sensation, and as the "I" sensation is nothing more than the eternal consciousness recognizing the thought process; the "I" experience is non dual. It transcends individuality and is always present.
As it is always present in everyone, it must be universal.
The principle of Advaita is to recognize this truth in daily life.

MeAgain · Mar 10, 2021

THE SELF XVll
THE DEFINITION OF A HUMAN BEING

1. Individuality and Personality.
A practical definition of individuality is the consciousness of a separate, corporeal existence; and of personality, the sum of physical and mental traits characterizing that individual existence.
2. The Self.
Now in the being conscious of something, there is a distinction between consciousness and the object of consciousness. We are conscious of our individual existence and therefore we transcend it. That which transcends individual existence is the changeless, impersonal self. Notwithstanding, we identify the self with the body.
3. Personal Identity.
The outcome of this mistaken attachment is the notion of a personal identity, to which we give indirect expression through the possessive and direct expression through the personal and reflexive pronouns. Body continually changes, but we who claim it as our own are changeless, otherwise we could not say, "This portrait is of me as a child". Yet we ignore the evidence and become identified with each successive bodily state of which we are conscious. This ignorance causes us to personify the immutable self as our self, that is to say, as I who think, know, enjoy, perceive by the senses, and act, and their opposites.
4. The Immutable Self.
A doubt may arise whether the self may properly be called changeless, even though it does not change as the body changes. But change is a characteristic of matter. The self, since it transcends the body, transcends change, including birth and death.
5. The Definition of a Human Being.
Our notion of individual existence is born of the identification of self and body. This identification is mistaken, because the changeless self and a changeful body cannot be identical. Typical expressions of identification are, "I am of medium height", "This portrait is of me as a child", "l am hungry", "I injured my leg", "My body is lean", and "I lost myself". This supposed identity of incompatibles is called a human being.
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Each of us is defined as a separate being by our separate consciousness of existing, our personality, and our physical and mental states.
Being conscious of these factors we must transcend them as the eye cannot see itself, nor the teeth bite themselves. What transcends knowledge of the body, personality, and consciousness of being is the eternal universal self. Yet we identify with an individual body.
As the body ages it changes, it is never the same from moment to moment. Yet we continue to think of the body as "Me, Myself". The baby in a crib, the child, the young teen, the adult, the aged and dying old man or women, all are seen as the same person from within the individual perspective.
The individual self within the body endures, transcending matter.
Transcending matter it is not affected by life and death. It is immortal.

But as human beings we usually do not recognize this truth.
As such the lack of identification of the body with the immutable self is the common definition of a human being.

MeAgain · Mar 11, 2021

IDENTIFICATION

1. The Personal Pronoun and Identification.
Plain men use the pronoun, "I", indifferently to express three distinct levels of identification.
First, identification with the body and the bodily senses, for example, "l am of medium height" and "I hear."
Second, with thoughts and the affections, for example, "I think" or "I imagine", and "l am happy" or "I am moved".
Third, with the state of unconsciousness supposed to exist in the absence of thought, for example, "I was unconscious" or "I slept soundly".
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"I" am my body, my mind, and the great void.

2. The Personal Pronoun and Unconsciousness.
The expression, "I was unconscious", is a contradiction in terms. It means I, the thinker, had no thoughts. But I cannot be a thinker when I have no thoughts. When thought is absent, I remain in being although the consciousness of an individual existence has vanished with the cessation of mental activity. Thus the expressions, "I was unconscious", or shall be unconscious, imply that I continued, or shall continue, to exist without individuality. Every human life proves this fact, although it is not recognized. If, for example, there were any fear lest the loss of individual consciousness spelt annihilation, no one who identified himself with his body would dare to fall asleep.
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Cogito, ergo sum, je pense, donc je suis, I think therefore I am ~ René Descartes.
Non cogito ergo sum, Je ne pense pas donc je ne suis pas, I do not think therefore I am not.
If there is no thought, no thinker thinks.
When thought is lacking where does the thinker go?
In dreamless sleep though the thinker is silent something persists, and upon awakening is refreshed.

3. The Personal Pronoun and Consciouness.
As human beings, we seem to have a personal identity that is expressed by the pronoun, "I". This ego causes the real self to appear as identical with the body, the senses, or the mind. Such an identification is wholly illogical and unreal. The personal pronoun, whatever sense we may give it, denotes always the immutable self, that single* consciousness in which the totality of objective experience seems to occur. I think means I am conscious of thoughts, I see or hear means I am conscious of visual or auditory perceptions; and I am happy means lam conscious of a feeling of happiness.

*The same may be said of general anaesthesia, once it has been experienced.
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"I" continue to exist in dreamless sleep, the interval between thoughts, during anesthesia, and beyond. "I" am not only my body, my senses and my mind. "I" am that which witnesses the activity and experiences of my body, my senses and my mind.

MeAgain · Mar 12, 2021

CONSCIOUSNESS AND MENTAL ACTIVITY

1. The Different Aspects of Thought.
I use the terms thinker', thinking and thought in what follows to include all the different aspects of mental activity as such, that is to say, reasoning and intellection, imagination, feeling, volition, and perception, the latter denoting the 'mental action of knowing external things through the medium of sense presentations'. To this list must be added one other, namely, egoism or the habit of identification. I call it the I-thought. This, together with its concomitant, memory, will be studied in due course.
2. Mental Activity Defined.
Mental activity is a notion arising from the memory of distinct thoughts. And since each thought as such constitutes an object of consciousness, I shall in future speak, whenever possible, of objective or individual experience in preference to mental activity.
3. Thought.
Thoughts are so called from the standpoint of one who sporadically identifies himself with his body, since his own and other bodies appear as external to what he takes to be himself, while thoughts seem to occur within. But for one who has understood that the body and its world are merely notions pertaining to his individual experience, there is neither an inner nor an outer world: the whole objective domain will appear to be mental. If it has been clearly understood that the commonsense distinction between matter and mind, or waking and dreaming, is an illusion, then the truth of this statement will be readily grasped. But if all its implications have not been fully accepted, we are likely to oscillate continually between identification with the body as such (I am of medium height) and identification with thoughts as such (I am clever). We shall continue to view thoughts as subtle entities until we shall have known by reasoning and accepted the implications of the fact that all the objects of consciousness, whether they appear as external or internal, are so many aspects of a single objective plane. And then we shall find it pointless to make any distinction between mental and sensory, or physical, activity. What is called a thought is the consciousness of something: and this consciousness we personify as I who think. But for all that, I shall continue to use the word thought for the sake of simplicity, so long as we are examining human experience as such.
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Thoughts, that is the recognition of mental activity, seem to occur separately from the body as an agent of the body. However as the body itself is nothing more than a mental construct they are in reality one and the same. The body, and thoughts are merely experiences of consciousness.

MeAgain · Mar 13, 2021

4. The Thinker.
The thinker is supposed to think the thoughts of which he is conscious. But no one thinks. This truth will become apparent as we proceed; and in particular from our examination of the duality of subject and object, in the chapter to follow. It is enough for the time being to note that the expressions, "I think" and "I am thinking" both mean I am conscious of something objective and not "I am the thinker."
5. Conclusion.
Whereas the objects of consciousness are many and various, the single consciousness in which they appear remains unmodified. I am therefore a principle transcending all that is objective to me. I cannot be the thinker, for the thinker as such is the object of consciousness and not the self, otherwise I could not remember having thought (7J/, 5).
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"I think" and "I am thinking" means I am aware of the thinking process. If I am aware of the process of thinking, I (the ego) am not the thinker just as the eyes cannot see themselves nor the teeth bite themselves.

MeAgain · Mar 15, 2021

THE ILLUSION OF DUALITY

1. Duality Defined.
As already stated (I/I, 2, b\ duality is the seeming division of non-dual consciousness into thinker and thought, or subject and object, the one being conscious of the other. We shall now see why duality is only a figment.
2. Subject and Object.
When I am conscious of an object, that is, of a notion or a percept, that object alone is present. When I am conscious of my perceiving, what alone presents itself to consciousness is the notion that I perceive the object: and therefore the notion of my being the perceiver also constitutes an object of consciousness. From this, a most important fact emerges: the so-called subject who thinks, and its apparent object, have no immediate relation. That the notions of subject and object are separate thoughts may be seen from the following example, drawn from everyday life. When we are absorbed in some activity, let us say in reading a book, we experience a steady flow of thoughts relating to its contents. The notion, "I am reading" does not occur while we are thus absorbed: it occurs only when our attention wavers. I have given this example because its lesson is readily understood: a little reflection will show that even when we are not thus absorbed for any appreciable lapse of time, the subject who afterwards lays claim to the action was not present to consciousness when the action was taking place. The idea of our being the agent occurs to us as a separate thought, which is to say that it forms an entirely fresh object of consciousness. And since, at the time of the occurrence, we were present as neither the thinker, the agent, the percipient, nor the enjoyer, no subsequent claim on our part could alter the position. The cause of our claiming that which belongs to the body is to be found in the erroneous habit of identification.
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The thinker and thought appear to be two separate entitles, but upon reflection we see that when any mental activity occurs the thinker who thought he or she was thinking the thought as it occurred in fact only thinks of the thought after it has passed.
The thinker thinking is not present when the thought is thunk (to coin a word). He or she only appears after the thought is thought about by the thinker who thought he or she was present during the thing thought.

MeAgain · Mar 16, 2021

3. Memory and Ignorance.
If the notions of subject and object are both the separate objects of consciousness, neither term has any real significance. An object, in the absence of a subject, cannot be what is normally called an object; and the subject, in the absence of an object, cannot be what is normally called the subject. It is in memory that the two notions seem to combine to form an entirely new notion, I am the perceiver or the thinker. Now all notions are more or less complex. Memory is therefore an ingredient essential to the sense of individuality. Individuality is the apparent combination of the changeless self and a changeful body. Ignorance I have elsewhere described as the identification of body and self and, as a corollary, the personification of the impersonal principle of consciousness (XKII, 5 & 3
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To repeat:
"The notion of a separate thinker, of an ‘I’ distinct from the experience, comes from memory and from the rapidity with which thought changes. It is like whirling a burning stick to give the illusion of a continuous circle of fire. If you imagine that memory is a direct knowledge of the past rather than a present experience, you get the illusion of knowing the past and the present at the same time. This suggests that there is something in you distinct from both the past and the present experiences. You reason, ‘I know this present experience, and it is different from that past experience. If I can compare the two, and notice that experience has changed, I must be something constant and apart.

But, as a matter of fact, you cannot compare this present experience with a past experience. You can only compare it with a memory of the past, which is a part of the present experience. When you see clearly that memory is a form of present experience, it will be obvious that trying to separate yourself from this experience is as impossible as trying to make your teeth bite themselves.

To understand this is to realize that life is entirely momentary, that there is neither permanence nor security, and that there is no ‘I’ which can be protected.” ~ Alan Watts

MeAgain · Mar 17, 2021

LIFE, MEMORY AND DESIRE

We remember that alone which has affected us: and what affects us is pleasure and pain. The memory of pleasure and pain gives rise to desire and aversion: these two in action become will. And will, or conation, in its widest sense, makes us seek what memory tells us has been found agreeable or necessary to life and avoid what has been found disagreeable or hurtful to it.* Now life, or individual existence, is the expression of non-duality (III, 2, a e^ 9 b): it proceeds in terms of desire and aversion. These, then, are also the expressions of non-duality, for the ultimate object of every desire is to become desireless (XXIX, z : see also III, 2, i). Aversion is simply the obverse of desire and has the same target. This manner of looking at pleasure and pain will be developed in a later chapter. Meanwhile, it is evident that the search for the one and the avoidance of the other are the sole and complementary aims of individual existence at all levels. Neither would be possible without memory.

*There will be no difficulty in applying what I have said regarding desire and aversion to the different modes of individual experience : we have seen that the commonsense distinction between mind and matter is unreal. I refer to the fact that we have desires which appear at times to be physical and at others mental.
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Conation is a drive to act purposefully. The drive, or desire, is to seek that which is pleasurable and avoid that which is unpleasant. We determine pleasure and its opposite by comparing the present and projected future to what our memory tells us we have experienced in the past.
We desire to fulfill pleasant expectations, and so end the desire of fulfillment as it has been met; or likewise fulfill the avoidance of unpleasant expectations, and so end the desire of that avoidance.
Thus existence is simply the desire to end desire.

tikoo · Mar 17, 2021

you desire
and it's lonesome

MeAgain · Mar 19, 2021

THE ORIGIN OF MEMORY, AND THE WITNESS

1 . The Thinker an Object of Consciousness.
I can remember only what I have known.* I remember not only my thoughts:** I remember also my having thought. It follows that I, as the thinker or individual, am the object of consciousness; but as the knower of this and of all other objects, it follows that I am consciousness itself.
2. Egoism and the Act of Remembering.
Whenever the principle of consciousness gets identified with the body, the false notion of my being the thinker springs up. That which claims to have been conscious of an event at which it was not present is the ego, or the I-thought. Thus the ego can claim only what has gone before and the experience so claimed is a remembrance.
3. Memory and Identification.
As just now stated, the false notion of my being the thinker arises whenever there is identification of the impersonal principle of consciousness and the body. The effect of this identification is to divide non-dual consciousness into the ostensible duality of a conscious subject and its object. Since the objects of consciousness appear discontinuously; and since, moreover, the conscious subject, made objective in the form of the claiming I-thought, also appears discontinuously, the consciousness that illuminates them seems to be discontinuous too. When non-dual consciousness seems in this way to be conditioned by time, it seems to assume the form of a faculty of remembering that gives cohesion to what would otherwise be a state of total flux, unimaginable and impossible because it could not be known by a knower who, by his having no continuity, must perforce change at every perception: he could not even know himself. Memory and the consciousness of individual existence are therefore synonymous.

*It is the same thing whether these memories are conscious, unconscious or subconscious, whichever of the two last expressions is preferred. See Ch. II, n. i.
**Whether the knowledge or the memory is correct or incorrect makes no difference.
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Knowing that I have known, being conscious that I can "see" my thinking process from "outside" of my own thinking process; means there must be some agent that is able to "view" this thinking process. That agent is pure consciousness.

Consciousness of sensory input by the body is itself immediate. Reflection of that immediate experience, which has already passed, leads to the false sense of someone who has had the immediate experience.

It would be interesting to hear others' response to section 3 above.

Addition

Anyway....
The ego arises when consciousness is assumed to originate from the body. This creates the delusion of duality, consciousness and the body, subject and object, mental and physical. As objects and thoughts appear only one at a time (two thoughts cannot exist at the same time) consciousness appears to be discontinuous. The rapid appearance and passing of thoughts and objects which are always in a continual state of flux leads to the present thought seeming to "remember", re-member, what has already passed. Re-membering that which has dis-membered, in the present, becomes our individual memories, which are always present memories or thoughts.

MeAgain · Mar 19, 2021

4. Memory and the Witness.
The consciousness of individual existence and memory are indeed synonymous. But we look forward as well as back. Now although it is true that in looking forward we make use of past experience, it would nevertheless be more precise and comprehensive if we spoke of a witness that observes the stream of objective experience as a whole rather than of a faculty which only remembers, since retention merely reflects the witness. This witness is what I have hitherto called the consciousness in which objects appear. It must not, as such, be identified with the principle of consciousness.
5. The Twofold Nature of the Ego, and the Witness.
The apparent existence of a conscious, witnessing faculty is made possible by the ego's double nature. The ego, or I-thought, which is engendered by an illusory combination of the self and the body, partakes of both, claiming sometimes to be the one and sometimes the other. When it claims that which belongs to the body, it causes the self to appear as active (I am the doer, the thinker or the enjoyer). When it claims that which belongs to the self, it causes the latter to appear as inactive (I slept soundly and knew nothing, or I was unconscious). But the self transcends both action and inaction, since it transcends the individual (XVII, 2). And that is why, whenever individuality appears, the self assumes the role of an impassible witness.
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The witness, Sakshi, is beyond time, space, the experiencer, experiencing, and the experienced. It is eternal, all inclusive, ever present.

"See, this table is an object of experience to my eyes. My eyes and the body are objects of experience to my mind. And my mind is an object of experience, I cannot deny it, it's a fact ...to what? That awareness which experiences the mind from within. That awareness which cannot be objectified. That is called, for want of a better term, because it witnesses, it shines upon, illumines every movement of the mind, every thought, every idea, every memory, every feeling, it's called the Witness. In Sanskrit: sakshi." ~ Swami Sarvapriyananda

A holy man once gave two men a chicken each and told them to go and kill the chickens where no one could see. The first man went behind a fence and killed the chicken. The second man walked around for two days carrying the live chicken. When the holy man asked him what had happened he said, "Everywhere I go, the chicken sees." ~ Ram Dass

Tyrsonswood · Mar 19, 2021

The observer

wilsjane · Mar 19, 2021

Tyrsonswood said: ↑

Long time ago I knew this blind guy. It was an optic nerve thing, blind from birth. He said he could "see" in his dreams. He had some kind of visual reference for houses, trees, birds, etc. without ever having seen these things in reality. I never figured out how "visually" accurate his dreams were, but some of what he described seemed to me to be things he wouldn't know from his functional senses (smell,touch,hearing,etc) Like how a tree looked and how it's leaves were attached, how they moved with the wind. What birds looked like in flight. Things like that.

So here was a guy who's dreams were not originating from waking experiences... At least not fully.
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Their is always one thing that has puzzled me about sight.

We all know what we see, but their is no way of comparing it to others since it is always a comparison.
For example, if I was explaining blue to you, I could use the sky as a reference. However, if your eves were perceiving it differently, their is no way that either of us would ever know.
Blending colours would not help either. We all know the colour wheel application, but their is no fixed starting point

A modern cinema film has 4,000 pixels of 3 colours on each of it's 2,000 lines. Then each pixel has 256 brightness levels to choose between, This gives 2 billion combinations to produce the detail and we can see the differences.
We are quite clever really.

This one is a bit like infinity, insoluble to the human brain.

PS, their are a few other things that puzzle me too, but most of them are about human behaviour.

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