What? I don't understand this.
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Could Nothingness Be Another Dimension In And Of Itself?
- Thread starter Runewolf1973
- Start date
godnotgod
Thou art That
The notion that Everything and Nothing are distinct takes place only in the conceptual mind.
Yeah, that's not making it any clearer.
godnotgod
Thou art That
Do you see Reality as divided or undivided.
Undivided, I suppose. My worldview is a mixture of idealist monism, existentialism and nihilism.
Ben Dhyan
Veteran Member
Nothingness does not and can not exist in absolute terms...
If anyone thinks otherwise...what evidence is there apart from the concept?
godnotgod
Thou art That
If it is undivided, where does the distinction, if any, lie between 'no-thing' and 'every-thing'?
freethinker44
Well-Known Member
There isn't a distinction. There is not 'no-thing', only everything. Nothing is just a useful explanayory concept that doesn't exist beyond imagination.If it is undivided, where does the distinction, if any, lie between 'no-thing' and 'every-thing'?
Runewolf1973
Materialism/Animism
"Nothing" doesn't exist.If it is undivided, where does the distinction, if any, lie between 'no-thing' and 'every-thing'?
Ben Dhyan
Veteran Member
Of course....for logical reasons...the concept of pure consciousness implies the existence of something....but the concept of nothing implies the absence of anything...
Runewolf1973
Materialism/Animism
I like that perspective. I've had this discussion before with Godnotgod and his view of "Ultimate Reality" seems to be that pure consciousness is absolute nothingness. So basically all energy, matter and interactions are illusions and that nothing really exists. I have a hard time accepting such a view.
I can see pure consciousness as being another word for the underlying interactive, unifying force of the entire universe...a Unified Field perhaps, but not nothingness.
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Ben Dhyan
Veteran Member
Agreed....the absolute is one and thus is not directly subject to complementary opposite conceptual distinctions...but from the non-conceptual Tao comes the one, the concept of Tao, from the one comes the two, from the two comes the three, and from the three come the the ten thousand things....
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godnotgod
Thou art That
OK, but if there is only Everything, how do you know that? That is to say, what is the reference against which you know that 'Every-thing' is a reality? Don't all things have space between them, to define them as the forms that they are?
For example: you know that black exists because of white; shadow because of light; female because of male; good because of evil, etc.
In reality, there are no 'things' as what we term 'things' are all interconnected to everything else. So there is no such thing as 'every-thing-. There is only The One.
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Ben Dhyan
Veteran Member
The one that is all...
Without conceptual distinctions of the perceived aspects of the one, there can be no discussion and thus nothing further to be said... So it is always important to remember that we can never say anything about the one reality beyond conceptualization, but only about the the reality perceived and conceived...There is this Chan saying....the true teaching is that there is no true teaching, nevertheless this teaching that there is no true teaching is the true teaching.. It means that while the absolute is beyond concepts, one needs to use concepts as an expedient to teach that only when the mortal mind is free from concepts will the absolute reveal itself...
godnotgod
Thou art That
The one that is all...
Yes, The One, The Absolute, that projects/plays itself as The All; ie; 'Every-Thing" that is the world, or maya, while its true nature is that of No-Thing.
So is this simply to say that the mortal mind is in the sphere of duality, while the free mind is of the merging of all dualities?
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godnotgod
Thou art That
Nothingness is Pure (ie 'clear') Consciousness, 'clear' meaning unconditioned, and therefore, universal.
Nothing exists as the conditioned mind perceives things to be. Quantum Physics is now giving us a glimpse of that experience.
'First there is a mountain;
then there is no mountain;
then there is'
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godnotgod
Thou art That
Yup! Everything comes out of No-Thing. There is no duality here, as Everything and Nothing are one and the same Reality. It is like saying 'Brahman is the world', or, as Vivekenanda said it:
'The Universe IS [none other than] The Absolute, as seen through the glass of Time, Space, and Causation'.
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godnotgod
Thou art That
Ben Dhyan
Veteran Member
The one/universal mind is non-dual so there are no dualities to merge...