AWARENESS ALONE ATTESTS REALITY: Apparent Duality in Non-Duality

The following words are not to be taken on faith. Nor are they to be thought about or analysed. Instead, put them to the test.

The claim:

Self-evidently, Awareness is the capacity to Sense-sensations (colours, odours, flavours, feelings, and sounds) and to Know-ideas (number, form, and meaning).

The Senses can firstly attest to the reality of the Senses… which is to say (for example) that in simply looking ‘Seeing-colours’ is self-evident.

Though, there is no Awareness of ‘what’ Seeing-colours ‘is’… only ‘that it is’.

The same for Feeling-feelings, Tasting-flavours, Smelling-odours, and Hearing-sounds.

In simply looking at a ‘colour’ (for example) it is also self-evident that there is no number, form or meaning inherent in any colour-Seen, or combination of colours-Seen.

What is true of Seeing-colour is true of Sensing-sensations in general.

It follows that Ideas cannot derive from sensations, for (as observed) sensations are meaningless in themselves, and meaning cannot be derived from meaninglessness.

Self-evidently, sensory images appear to be meaningful ‘things, events, and relations’ only as specific ideas-Known are associated with the fleeting ever-changing images. In the absence of any ideas being associated with some ‘sensory image’ the experience is ‘what’s that? Or, there is simply no Awareness of there being any specific thing to perceive (just an indeterminate coloured pattern, or sounds, or other sensory images).

It is also self-evident that Knowing-ideas has no form or substance, it cannot be Sensed in any way. Nor can it be conceived of, for only ideas can be conceIved; and like Sensing-sensations, Knowing-ideas is not an idea. It is Real, being Conception ItSelf.

Sensing-sensations and Knowing-ideas (together called Awareness) can also attest that the apparent world is an illusion formed of fleeting ever-changing sensory images arising in and apparent to Awareness… given number form and meaning by the specific ideas-Known that are associated with the images… creating the appearance of separate things, events, and relations (including the apparent body, thoughts and feelings perceived from the first person perspective as ‘my body, thoughts and feelings’)… like a dream.

Awareness alone attests to its own Reality: that it is… though not ‘what’ it is. For all what’s are ideas, and Awareness is not an idea… it is Real.

Anyone denying this Reality is just another illusory being :😊

Exploring further.

Knowing-all-ideas-of-number-form-meaning-ever-unchanged is called Omniscience… and Omnipotence.

Between Knowing and Power there is no absolute distinction. Nor between Sensing and Power. They are not two.

This is inconceivable, yet…

It is plain.

Looking first at ‘Knowing’.

A number is an idea, as is any form, or meaning. What ideas are ‘in themselves’ is impossible to say. That ideas are Known is self-evident.

Plainly, no idea can exist that is not Known. Nor can any idea ever change, for if it did, it would no longer be the idea that it is.

Plainly too, to Know one thing is to Know all things…

For, every ‘thing’, ‘event’, and ‘relation’ takes its number, form, and meaning by reference to other ideas, that take their number, form, and meaning from still more ideas, that ultimately form the infinite closed set of every possibility-Known.

Plainly, there is no direct Awareness of Knowing-all-ideas-ever-unchanged, or even Knowing-any-idea… until specific ideas are associated with some sensory image:

Teaspoon…

Until this word appears and meaning is associated with it, there is no Awareness at all of Knowing or not-Knowing the meaning.

What is true of words referencing things, is just as true of pictures of things, and even the apparent things themselves. In the absence of any associated ideas, the experience is ‘what’s that?’ Or, there is simply no Awareness of there being any specific thing to perceive (just an indeterminate coloured pattern or sounds or other sensory image).

And whatever ‘that’ it is, can never stand alone. To Know ‘what’ a teaspoon is, is to Know what metal and water is, and clay and other materials, and making and cup, and heating and drinking and people, and tea and hence tea plants and growing and soil and sun, and each of these can only be understood in the context of other ‘things’ (ideas). Plainly, every ‘thing’ is dependent for it meaning on every ‘thing’ else.

These ideas cannot be learned from experience, as all that is experienced are meaningless sounds (speech) or meaningless visual images (writing). That the sounds and images themselves are meaningless is evident from hearing or reading a foreign language.

Plainly, meaninglessness cannot give rise to meaning.

Learning is an illusion.

In the normal course, from birth, ideas are gradually associated with sounds (speech) and other sensory images (apparent things), so it appears that a child is learning. However, ideas can never be learned from experience, for it is ideas that give every experience its number, form and meaning.

This process extends into the realms of mathematics and science.

The pursuit of pure mathematics reveals glimpses of the hidden realm of pure numbers and pure forms which are themselves immaterial. As such, they cannot be Sensed in any way. They can only be Known. It is the unchanging Known-numbers and Known-forms that give meaning to any apparent mathematical symbols and diagrams.

Applied to the apparent world, mathematics is used to model the form of theoretical objects (quantum field, sub-atomic particles, atoms, molecules, proteins, cells, organs, bodies… all the way up to planets, stars, galaxies, clusters, and the background radiation), and their theoretical properties (mass, charge, spin, etc), along with specified theoretical constants (Fine-structure Constant, etc), as well as theoretical laws (Conservation of Momentum, etc) that together describe their theoretical behavior within theoretical space-time.

There is usually a long chain of mathematics (including the maths embedded in the apparent devices used in any experiment, as well as those used to display the results) that links the theoretical behaviour to the observations.

A theory is held to be valid when the theoretical behaviour of the theoretical objects reliably (though not necessarily perfectly) maps or predicts the observed behaviour of observed objects.

Through the scientific process, the depth and breadth, and interconnection and complexity of the apparent world is made plain on all scales, across all apparent space-time.

But, that is all.

In looking, all that is ever Seen is the apparent surface of facets of the Known-3D-form… distorted by ‘perspective’. For example, the Known-cube has six sides all the same with all adjacent sides at right angles to each other. Any perceived cube shows only 1–3 sides of different shapes (depending upon the apparent viewing angle), where the edges of the cube appear to converge to a set of ‘vanishing points’. A thing that apparently varies in shape (the apparent cube) cannot ‘be’ the thing that is invariable (the Known-cube).

No observation, no science, can ever reveal anything about the ‘true nature’ of sensations forming apparent things, or of Known-things.

Or, about ‘meaning’, or the ‘lived experience’. What it is to experience a dawn over the desert, or the thrill and terror of battle to the death, or the hug of a child, or an argument with the boss, or the disgust at a rotting pile of garbage, or the strains of a Mozart symphony or the heady beats of an African drum… or anything else about what it is to experience ‘life’.

As science deals only in ideas (theories about things), it can never touch the ‘ground of Being’… this Consciousness. For Consciousness is not an idea. It is Real. It is This by which, in which, to which, and for which all theories, observations, and meaning appear in the form of ‘fleeting ever-changing sensory images and associated ideas’.

It is self-evident that all sensory images are formed of non-dual colours-Seen, feelings-Felt, odours-Smelled, flavours-Tasted, and sounds-Heard… no different to a dream.

The illusory nature of appearances is apparent in the forms themselves.

Held up, an apparent thumb appears to be larger than things Known to be much bigger than it. A thing cannot be both smaller than, and bigger than, another thing. That any thing appears to be other than it is, is the definition of illusion. What is true of the apparent thumb, is true of all apparent things.

Not convinced?

Look straight ahead.

Notice the visual field appears like a circle with an indefinite edge. Notice that ‘beyond the edge’ is neither black nor white… simply nothing.

Notice no body is apparent.

Now look down.

Notice that only the front of the torso and limbs are apparent… but no head.

Now take a finger and point back to where the head is thought to be. Here Now is just a ‘clear space’ in which and to which everything appears… including the bits of the body perceived from the ‘first person perspective’ as ‘my body’. This observation may be enhanced if an open-ended tube is used. Looking into the tube, it is apparent that at the ‘far end’ there are variously coloured patterns. At the ‘near end’, there is simply this ‘clear space’ Aware of the coloured images. The apparent separation of the two ends of the tube is purely conceptual, as the appearance includes the whole tube itself. Plainly, the colours and the Seeing are inseparable. Without Seeing, no colours could appear…. though Seeing remains whether or not colours are apparent.

This visual field, this clear space and the coloured images appearing in and to it, is called The Single Eye of God. It is the Eye of Consciousness. The only Eye there is.

This Eye not only Sees, it Hears, and Tastes, and Smells, and Feels, and… Knows.

Trying to understand the meaning of these words misses the mark.

In simply looking, this non-dual Seeing-colours is plain. Plain that this clear-Seeing does not change, even as the colours appear to change.

Plain too, that no colour, or mix of colours, contains any number, form or meaning.

The same for Sensing-all-sensations.

Turning to Power.

There is only one Power. It is the All-Knowing-Sensing-Power to manifest sensory images in accord with ideas to create the appearance in and to Awareness of ‘things, events and relations’.

Objectively, All-Knowing-Sensing-Power appears as if it is not, for it has no form or substance. No colour, or odour, or flavour, or feeling. It is the silence out of which and to which all sound appears. It is inconceivable, as only ideas can be conceived, and it is not an idea… it is Conception ItSelf.

As observed, in and of themselves, the ever-shifting fleeting sensory images are totally meaningless.

That they appear to be meaningful ‘things, events and relations’ evidences This All-Knowing-Sensing-Power. For, only This that Senses and Knows can form sensations into patterns that accord with ideas. Without This All-Knowing-Sensing-Power sensations would forever swirl in meaningless chaotic patterns… without Awareness of any ‘thing’ at all.

As things and space are merely concepts, so is time.

Every apparent moment appears fleeting and new as This UnKnowable-UnSensed-All-Knowing-Sensing-Power makes these sensory images dance within Awareness in accord with ideas… telling life’s stories.

Move a hand into view. Hold it there. Now move it out of view. Before, during and after the appearance no time is passing. The hand remains present for so long as it is apparent and then ceases to be present as it is removed from view.

In Reality, there is no future nor any past. The past is merely a present memory, and the future a present imagining arising in and apparent to Awareness.

Without memory of any other life, it appears this is the only life ever lived.

As it once appeared in this life that ‘I have a child’s body, with the thoughts, feelings and surroundings of childhood’, and now it appears that ‘I have a very different adult’s body with very different thoughts, feelings, and surroundings of an adult’ (as sensations and ideas manifest these appearances)…

So, in ‘timeless eternity’ it appears that ‘I have the body, thoughts, feelings, and surroundings’ of every creature throughout all apparent space and time, each in turn…

As though looking out the eyes of the creature and experiencing its body, thoughts, feelings and surroundings from ‘the first person perspective’ as ‘my body’, and ‘my thoughts’, and ‘my feelings’, and ‘my surroundings’… as in a dream.

No human can ever Sense or Know anything… they are among the Sensed and Known: coffee, and trees, and torture, and fire, and dancing, and boredom, and whatever else appears to be happening.

Nothing is happening.

There is no ‘world out there’, no ‘people’… nothing to gain or lose.

It is a dream of insubstantial faeries… and not even that: merely a play of fleeting ever-changing sensations given number, form and meaning by the ideas wordlessly associated with them.

No one is fooled or deluded by this dream. As sensations appear and ideas arise to give them number, form and meaning, the sensations and ideas are simply recognised… instantly without error. In the process the story unfolds. It’s no different to a person watching a film. As the images appear, they are recognised and the story is understood.

Indeed, it is this same Consciousness who Senses and understands in all cases.

This dream of life perfectly expresses every imperfection… every duality… every concept: love and hate, heroes and villains, pleasure and pain… the whole damn thing!

It is the Never-ending Story :)

As these words appear, there are no other appearances any where or any when else, for there is no where but here and no when but now.

Which is to say, This Consciousness is Omnipresent… for all things appear in and to it alone, Here and Now.

This Here and Now is Invisible, Intangible, Inaudible, Timeless, Unchanging, Non-dual.

Here and Now along with Omnipotence, Omniscience and Omnipresence are just words that reference Awareness/Consciousness which are just more words for Reality which is just another word for This that cannot be said or thought or imagined…

This is Thou…

So long as no meaning is associated with the words ‘This’, ‘is’, or ‘Thou’…

In simply being of Aware of all of the ‘facets’ of being Aware, this Reality is made plain.

Anyone denying this Reality is just another illusory being :😊