Reality: What is it?

[atanu]

You use the term 'screen'; I am using the term 'background'. I want to know if the screen, or background of the manifested world comes into being, or is it always the case? IOW, is this background, or consciousness, unborn and uncreated? Has anyone ever experienced consciousness having come into existence from a state of non-existence?

Uncreated, unborn, and homogeneous.

 

[godnotgod]

Uncreated, unborn, and homogeneous.

'homogeneous', as in 'undifferentiated', or 'formless'?

 

[godnotgod]

There is no 'we', here.

Wrong question, worded wrong.

Kindly provide the right question, correctly worded, for the benefit of all concerned.

 

[Willamena]

What is making that 'step beyond'?

We are. We cast truth to be that beyond, by definition.

 

[Willamena]

'Reality is the world', but what knows that to be the case?

An artifice. An actor. Self.

 

[Willamena]

Agreed. But there is no ego person to own the pain.

As long as artifices are not denied for what they are, there is most certainly is an ego person. There is no good reason to deny it. There is no good reason to deny anything that exists.

Yeah. But how does one get the 'non dual' part? If a mosquito bites me, no else but me gets the itch.

I don't dictate a method.

 

[godnotgod]

An artifice. An actor. Self.

Really! But the actor is taken in by his own ingenuity, and forgets he is acting, thinking his persona, and 'the world', to be real. IOW, he hasn't pierced the facade yet. He has been taken in. The Identification he finds himself in is fiction, but he thinks it to be real.

 

[godnotgod]

We are. We cast truth to be that beyond, by definition.

Sorry, 'beyond' what?

 

[atanu]

As long as artifices are not denied for what they are, there is most certainly is an ego person. There is no good reason to deny it. There is no good reason to deny anything that exists.

I am confused. What are the artifices in the non dual?

I don't dictate a method.

I asked what transformed your view from that of dual to non dual?

PS: For me Brahman is the unborn, uncreated, unformed reality of the nature of truth (unchanging), knowledge (whereupon discernment rests), and bliss (all joy that we experience when desires are fulfilled/extinguished from time to time).

I am asking questions not for argument sake but to understand your view.

 

[Twilight Hue]

I remember a vivid dream I had. While dreaming the reality would be I would not realize it was a dream. I interacted with people and places the same way I would in waking life unaware of another reality even though I had experienced it before going to sleep. That's the freaky part.

I'm not saying life is a dream, because obviously life is more detailed without gaps that you would have in a dream because we can generally recollect for a bit once we awake.

When we die do we actually awaken?

It's definitely a philosophical question.

Something like looking in a mirror in front and a mirror in the back that oscallates throughout Infinity. It seems sometimes that reality is multi-faceted like that. A phenomena comparable with the proverbial Alice going down the rabbit hole.

 

[godnotgod]

I remember a vivid dream I had. While dreaming the reality would be I would not realize it was a dream. I interacted with people and places the same way I would in waking life unaware of another reality even though I had experienced it before going to sleep. That's the freaky part.

I'm not saying life is a dream, because obviously life is more detailed without gaps that you would have in a dream because we can generally recollect for a bit once we awake.

When we die do we actually awaken?

It's definitely a philosophical question.

Something like looking in a mirror in front and a mirror in the back that oscallates throughout Infinity. It seems sometimes that reality is multi-faceted like that. A phenomena comparable with the proverbial Alice going down the rabbit hole.

Who is it that dreams?
Who is it that awakens?

Who is it that lives?
Who is it that dies?

"Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called the transformation of material things.
After ten thousand generations there may be a great sage who will be able to explain it, a trivial interval equivalent to the passage from morning to night...
How do I know that enjoying life is not a delusion? How do I know that in hating death we are not like people who got lost in early childhood and do not know the way home?... During our dreams we do not know we are dreaming. We may even dream of interpreting a dream. Only on waking do we know it was a dream. Only after the great awakening will we realize that this is the great dream."

Zhuangzi, Taoist sage

Zhuangzi - Wikiquote

 

[godnotgod]

As long as artifices are not denied for what they are, there is most certainly is an ego person. There is no good reason to deny it. There is no good reason to deny anything that exists.
.

...unless that which 'exists', does not actually exist, that this world of 'reality' is only one of appearances, like the shadows cast upon the cave walls in Plato's Cave allegory, and that true Reality lies somewhere beyond such appearances. After all, we only 'know' this world as being 'real' via perception. One might say that the 'material' world is only perception.

Now Quantum physics comes along and says that what we thought to be a 'material' world is a 'superposition of possibilities', and what's up with that?

"From the very beginning,
not a single thing exists"
Hui Neng, 6th Zen Patriarch

 

[Willamena]

I am confused. What are the artifices in the non dual?

The same things they are in the dual.

The world doesn't change for having a dual or non-dual ontological image.

I asked what transformed your view from that of dual to non dual?

It was the realization of what "non-dual" meant. The realization of non-dual is what "transformed my view." I balk at the word "transformed," though. The world doesn't change for having had a realization.

 

[Willamena]

...unless that which 'exists', does not actually exist, that this world of 'reality' is only one of appearances, like the shadows cast upon the cave walls in Plato's Cave allegory, and that true Reality lies somewhere beyond such appearances. After all, we only 'know' this world as being 'real' via perception. One might say that the 'material' world is only perception.

Now Quantum physics comes along and says that what we thought to be a 'material' world is a 'superposition of possibilities', and what's up with that?

"From the very beginning,
not a single thing exists"
Hui Neng, 6th Zen Patriarch

Existence is relative. For me, it is what is captured as 'mind.' In that sense, all that exists does exist.

Unlike reality, it is not defined in terms of truth.

 

[Willamena]

Sorry, 'beyond' what?

Truth is "the beyond," it informs all things.

 

[Willamena]

Really! But the actor is taken in by his own ingenuity, and forgets he is acting, thinking his persona, and 'the world', to be real. IOW, he hasn't pierced the facade yet. He has been taken in. The Identification he finds himself in is fiction, but he thinks it to be real.

Taken, indeed.

 

[godnotgod]

Existence is relative. For me, it is what is captured as 'mind.' In that sense, all that exists does exist.

Unlike reality, it is not defined in terms of truth.

Neither is Reality; it is 'defined' in terms of itself, as direct experience, ie; 'you are That'.

All else is fiction.

Because it is 'captured as mind', it exists? Don't you determine that via perception?

 

[godnotgod]

Truth is "the beyond," it informs all things.

'Beyond' what?

 

[Aupmanyav]

"From the very beginning, not a single thing exists" Hui Neng, 6th Zen Patriarch

Science has not clarified it yet, so I will wait - eternal or 'Ex-nihilo', rather than jumping to conclusions.

godnotgod, you use too many words (shabda-jaala - maze of words) and similes. They confuse. State directly and precisely what you want to ask or say.

 

[Willamena]

Neither is Reality; it is 'defined' in terms of itself, as direct experience, ie; 'you are That'.

All else is fiction.

Something defined in terms of itself is meaningless. Reality is ordinarily defined in terms of truth, to contrast with delusion and imagination. If the direct experience (of 'you are that') is true, for instance, then it is described as real. Its relation to us is fact.

All else is fiction.

Because it is 'captured as mind', it exists? Don't you determine that via perception?

Not "because." Rather, in that it is captured as mind, it exists. In other words, I am expressing a definition rather than a cause.

'Perception' is a word given to those who believe that they require a means to get 'that' to here (me, mind). They are not that.
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