The Debate of God.

[atanu]

That's how they connect. Consciousness is also a form of awareness, and you can't be aware without having something to be aware of.

That is true. Pure light without any object to reflect/refract will appear as pure dark.

Similar with consciousness. In deep sleep, consciousness is singular, homogeneous, without any contrast, and is thus unknown. In dream, upon creation of subject-object separation, both light and consciousness appear to emerge.

It does not mean that consciousness was not there to start with.

I hope it will create a lightning flash.

 

[Ouroboros]

That is true. Pure light without any object to reflect/refract will appear as pure dark.

Similar with consciousness. In deep sleep, consciousness is singular, homogeneous, without any contrast, and is thus unknown. In dream, upon creation of subject-object separation, both light and consciousness appear to emerge.

It does not mean that consciousness was not there to start with.

I hope it will create a lightning flash.

Agree. And I never said it wasn't there. It's just that there's a symbiosis of realities coming together. Different modes of being.

I realized how an image of the trinity would work. Ocean, the Father. Air and wind, the Holy Spirit. The surface, the coming together of wind and ocean, is Jesus, the reality, us, experiencing and realizing our part of the whole.

 

[godnotgod]

I'm not sure what you mean.

You had stated that:

"...you can't be aware without having something to be aware of."

...which creates the concept of separate 'things', which do not actually exist, along with the concept of an observer, the idea of 'self and other', which negates that the universe is One and Absolute, as there is no 'other'.

The observer observes itself.

So the 'observer' is the subject of its own observation? Then who is observing the observer? I'm afraid this is not possible. There is no such thing as the 'observer' of the 'observed'; there is only observation with no distinction between the two.

Do I understand you right that consciousness is non-temporal?

Yes, and non-local. What mind attaches to is temporal. Consciousness is still; it only sees; only mind moves, and that is where illusion comes in.

1st observer: 'flag is moving'
2nd observer: 'wind is moving'
3rd observer: 'both flag and wind are moving'
passerby: 'your minds are moving!"

Not sure what you mean here either. Non-temporality can't give "birth" to temporality. If space-time is the effect of consciousness, and consciousness is real, the space-time is real in some sense and an integral part of consciousness and not separate. Consciousness can only be aware of its own existence in a temporal form.

Not true. Consciousness is not bound by Time, Space, or Causation, but the mind can be so bound, rendering it temporal.

"Before Abraham was, I am"

Yeshu here is saying he is not bound to history, to birth and death, but comes out of the living Present Moment, where there is no history, where there is no memory. Consciousness is not bound by Time, Space, or Causation, and is therefore eternal.

and....

Human Route By Zen Master Seung Sahn

Coming empty-handed,
going empty-handed -- that is human.
When you are born, where do you come from?
When you die, where do you go?
Life is like a floating cloud which appears.
Death is like a floating cloud which disappears.
The floating cloud itself originally does not exist.
Life and death, coming and going, are also like that.
But there is one thing which always remains clear.
It is pure and clear, not depending on life and death.
Then what is the one pure and clear thing?

 

[godnotgod]

If there's a "what" and an act of "detecting" then there's existence and temporality. None can't be without the other.

Only the 'what' is able to detect the illusory self. The illusory self cannot detect itself because it sees itself as real. Therefore, the 'what' is non-temporal and does not dwell in Identification (temporal existence), but dwells instead in pure being. Once the temporal self is detected, the process of awakening begins, and the temporal self is eventually dissolved. It never existed to begin with, as it is an illusion, just as the 'snake that is actually a rope never existed to begin with.

No, wave is part of ocean, but ocean is never still. Both ocean and wave constantly exist and changes. The ocean never stops waving. The wave can't exist without the ocean, but the ocean have no borders unless it has a surface, and it won't realize it's own existence without motion. Different aspects of the same.

If you were defining one wave against another, that would be true, but the wave/ocean metaphor, in the manner I used it, cannot be extended in the manner you have, for reasons you have pointed out. The wave is metaphor for temporal existence as form in time, space, and causation. But the ocean is metaphor for the undifferentiated Absolute that does not move/change, because there is no 'other' against which it can be seen to move/change.

The ocean is 'waving' by doing nothing, just as the Absolute is manifesting the universe by doing nothing.

"The geese do not intend to cast their images on the still pond, nor does the pond intend to reflect them."

"[The statement]...that the Universe is the Absolute seen through the screen of time, space and causation allows us to get some interesting information, albeit in negative terms, about what [is called] the Absolute.

Since it is not in time, it cannot be changing. Change takes place only in time.

And since it is not in space, it must be undivided, because division and separation occur only in space.

And since it is therefore one and undivided, it must also be infinite, since there is no "other" to limit it.

Now "changeless," "infinite," and "undivided" are negative statements, but they will suffice. We can trace the physics of our Universe from these three negative statements.

If we don't see the Absolute as what it is, we'll see it as something else.

If we don't see it as changeless, infinite, and undivided, we'll see it as changing, finite, and divided, since in this case there is no other else. There is no other way to mistake the changeless except as changing. So we see a Universe which is changing all the time, made of minuscule particles, and divided into atoms. "

The Equations of Maya

Which are temporal and if consciousness is non-temporal, how can there be a temporality for consciousness to experience?

Because consciousness itself has created the illusion, but has become so immersed in it that it has forgotten that it has done so. It has taken the game seriously. That is why consciousness must be awakened, so that it can remember its own true nature.

I could not resist borrowing the way atanu put it in another post. Hope he does'nt mind:

"When the realisation shines that the intelligent aspect is truly immortal, irrespective of its temporary contact with forms-names, it becomes freed of its attachment. It simply remains as what it is -- pure untainted immortal awareness fully made of bliss."

It is all about SEEING, not thinking.

Can you see how this goes back to what Chopra said in the beginning, that he 'returns to where he has always been'?

Those who perpetrated and maintained The Inquisition and The Holocaust had become so lost in Identification that the beliefs they based their actions upon were, for them, the same as Absolute Truth, and they could not be convinced otherwise while in its throes. They took Persona and Shadow seriously....dead seriously. They may as well have been in a hypnotic trance.

 

[Halcyon]

Except that you still think of you being you after you have changed. The continuation of your identity isn't broken. Your experience might be, but will you suddenly feel that you're not you anymore or that your memories aren't your either?

To use the video game analogy again, the illusion of continuity of nature and form from one level to the next of the game is solely a projection of the underlying code. It doesn't matter that the next level might use utterly unrelated data from a totally different area of the system memory to the previous level, the illusion of seamless continuity is maintained because it is advantageous to maintain it.
The illusion of self is maintained because it is advantageous to the organism's survival to maintain it, not because a coherent self actually exists.

Agree that we aren't what we think we are, but we are something that we are. Just because we aren't what we think we are, doesn't mean that we are nothing at all. We do feel, interpret, consider, think, and in a progressive manner that is riding upon the wave of those snapshots of existence.

To clarify, I didn't say that we were nothing. Imagine a car driving along the road, it pulls over and you open the door but there is no driver. You search the entire car, ripping apart every componant but can't find a driver of any kind. That's what we are, a car that drives itself.

Besides, consciousness must be a potential of reality or it wouldn't exist, not even as an illusion. It being an illusion doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, only that it's something else than we think it is. And as such, it's integral to reality and nature.

Illusions are illusions because they don't exist, they just appear to exist because other process are manufacturing that illusion. Unmask those processes and the illusion evaporates. Understand the mind and the self evaporates.

 

[atanu]

---The illusion of self is maintained because it is advantageous to the organism's survival to maintain it, not because a coherent self actually exists. ==.

I really do not understand. What is self that is illusion. What is organism that wants to survive?

 

[Ouroboros]

I can see we're talking past each other, so I'm just going to let it go.

 

[Ouroboros]

To use the video game analogy again, the illusion of continuity of nature and form from one level to the next of the game is solely a projection of the underlying code. It doesn't matter that the next level might use utterly unrelated data from a totally different area of the system memory to the previous level, the illusion of seamless continuity is maintained because it is advantageous to maintain it.

So software is conscious then? An NPC is aware of its own existence?

If it's not, what kind of continuation or level of abstraction must the running a software have to become aware of its own existence? Or is all software aware at the moment of bootup?

The illusion of self is maintained because it is advantageous to the organism's survival to maintain it, not because a coherent self actually exists.

What is the advantage of awareness/consciousness in the evolutionary concept? Why aren't we just robots? Why are we aware of being when just responding to the environment automatically is just as beneficial? There is something more to the world because we have awareness. Consciousness exists as a property and potential in the universal code.

Put it this way, MS Windows exists as a potential on the harddisk before the computer is booted up. It's not running, but the code is there to make it work. The potential is within the machinecode in the CPU. Without the ALU, PC, registers, memory manager, and more, a software wouldn't be able to run. (Note: I'm not arguing for a designer, not at all) This shows that the computer can run software, even when it doesn't, and in the universe, consciousness something that constantly will show up in different forms because the microcode in the universe itself allows the software consciousness to exist. The software you're running right now is an illusion, but it's still real, that's the thing. No one says they're using MS Windows, but it's just an illusion of Windows so they're not really running anything at all. MS Windows, or any software, is a meta-level of the computer that exists, just not in a physical form.

Or let's put it this way, if you wanted to make a software conscious, what would you have to do? Add a consciousness hardware module or program a method somewhere that reports back "I am"? Something must be done to make it "aware". Since the universe is a self-evolving and unfolding of both hardware and software simultaneous, a consciousness unit or method came to be because the fabric of reality is that way. It has the capacity from the beginning of becoming.

To clarify, I didn't say that we were nothing. Imagine a car driving along the road, it pulls over and you open the door but there is no driver. You search the entire car, ripping apart every componant but can't find a driver of any kind. That's what we are, a car that drives itself.

Then the car is the driver. There's still a driver if it is driven. Unless you're arguing that we are robots. If we are, then why be aware of being robots. It doesn't add any real benefit to aware of knowing. Just knowing is enough.

Illusions are illusions because they don't exist, they just appear to exist because other process are manufacturing that illusion. Unmask those processes and the illusion evaporates. Understand the mind and the self evaporates.

Eh. No. I disagree. Illusions, yes they're not there, but they're real in the sense of the experience of them to seem to be real. And something is still underlying that process of creating the illusion. Like watching a movie. You're not really watching a movie, you're watching light beams hitting your retina from a projection from a machine with a light bulb and some advanced color filtering pane, etc. So can we say that you'er never really actually watching a movie at all. The movie doesn't exist because it's an illusion? No. You're still watching a movie, even if it's an illusion.

 

[godnotgod]

To clarify, I didn't say that we were nothing. Imagine a car driving along the road, it pulls over and you open the door but there is no driver. You search the entire car, ripping apart every componant but can't find a driver of any kind. That's what we are, a car that drives itself.

Originally posted by Ouroboros:

Then the car is the driver. There's still a driver if it is driven.

There is neither car nor driver.

'Car' is a metaphor for the body and 'driver' for the mind.

The mind-body consists of the following:

1. Matter
2. Consciousness
3. Feeling
4. Perception and memory
5. Mental formations

In any of these, there is no permanent entity. They exist in the body and mind. They do not exist without the body and the body does not exist without them. All of our thoughts are impermanent, our personalities are transitory, feelings, perceptions, and life itself is impermanent.

An excellent explanation the Buddhist arahant Nagasena gave for no-self is the analogy of self to chariot. Nagasena asks if the pole of the chariot is the chariot; if the axle is the chariot; if the wheels are the chariot, or if the reins are the chariot. To these and further questions about the parts, the answer is no. Nagasena explains that the chariot is not something other than these parts. Yet the parts are not the chariot. Nagasena states that ' chariot' is just a word, it exists, but only in relation to the parts. The concept “chariot” does not have an intrinsic, inherent value or place as something permanent. It is the same with the self. We certainly exist, just as a chariot exists, but it is more in terms of conventional language as opposed to absolute language.

adapted from Wikipedia
*****

Descartes attempted to establish the veracity of the self by saying:

"I think, therefore I exist"

...but he failed to realize the illusory nature of "I" from the beginning.

There is no thinker of thoughts; there is only thinking.

So the question becomes: if there is no thinker of thoughts, then who, or what, is it that is writing these lines?

 

[atanu]

There is neither car nor driver.
'Car' is a metaphor for the body and 'driver' for the mind.

So, I do not believe this. How can I believe something coming from a 'no-person'?
(Your post, that articulates your concepts, surely indicates, a PERSON. )

------------------
In fact, even Buddha was asked, if the aggregates were all illusory and not permanent, then what was Nirvana? Who enjoyed that? And how could Nirvana be eternal? And He answered that there indeed was an unborn, unmanifest, unformed eternal that only imparted meaning to Nirvana.

An excellent explanation the Buddhist arahant Nagasena gave for no-self is the analogy of self to chariot. Nagasena asks if the pole of the chariot is the chariot; if the axle is the chariot; if the wheels are the chariot, or if the reins are the chariot. To these and further questions about the parts, the answer is no. Nagasena explains that the chariot is not something other than these parts. Yet the parts are not the chariot. Nagasena states that ' chariot' is just a word, it exists, but only in relation to the parts. The concept “chariot” does not have an intrinsic, inherent value or place as something permanent. It is the same with the self. We certainly exist, just as a chariot exists, but it is more in terms of conventional language as opposed to absolute language.

adapted from Wikipedia

Again, if the whole is not referenced, these examples are erroneous. A chariot surely is functionally different from its parts. That the diverse parts work together for a common function, indicates an integrating principle. The parts did not come together of their own and become a chariot.

 

[Ouroboros]

There is neither car nor driver.

'Car' is a metaphor for the body and 'driver' for the mind.

Wait. You said earlier that it was a car without a driver, now it's not a car either. So is this allegory itself an illusion of an allegory or is it a real allegory? I'm confused. If there's a car without a driver, then the allegory assumes a car for the allegory, not a no-car. I don't know what to do with that.

If there's no car, no driver, no nothing, no anything, only nothing, then there's no observer either. So where is this car allegory headed?

 

[godnotgod]

So, I do not believe this. How can I believe something coming from a 'no-person'?
(Your post, that articulates your concepts, surely indicates, a PERSON. )

That is your assumption. All it indicates is consciousness, without an agent of consciousness. That is what pure consciousness is. It requires no form in time and space for it to be.

You don't need to believe or not-believe; all you need to know how to do is to see.

If you still do not see, then show me the location of the thinker of thoughts.
------------------

In fact, even Buddha was asked, if the aggregates were all illusory and not permanent, then what was Nirvana? Who enjoyed that? And how could Nirvana be eternal? And He answered that there indeed was an unborn, unmanifest, unformed eternal that only imparted meaning to Nirvana.

You misunderstand. You are thinking that there is an attainer of Nirvana; an experiencer of the experience. There is no such attainer or experiencer. There is only Nirvana itself. Nirvana literally means the extinguishing of a fire, the 'fire' being the self. So there is no self that reaches Nirvana, because it becomes extinguished in the journey. Nirvana is the realization that no such self existed to begin with. Again, there is no realizer of the realization; there is only realization itself. Nirvana is also the realization that no self ever left the state of Nirvana; that all coming and going are illusions. It is, therefore, the realization that all beings are already enlightened.


"Realization is getting rid of the delusion that you haven't realized."
Ramana Maharshi

When the Buddha said that "an unborn, unmanifest, unformed eternal that only imparted meaning to Nirvana."

he is reinforcing the idea of the not-self. It is the illusory self that is allegedly 'born, manifested, formed, and temporal' that gets in the way of seeing Nirvana.There is no experiencer of Nirvana that makes Nirvana eternal; Nirvana is already eternal. It is already present, but most do not see it because they are immersed in the state of Identification, the fiction of self they mistake for reality, just as the prisoners in Plato's Cave mistake the cave wall shadows for reality.

Nirvana does not come into being upon any attainment of it by the self.

 

[godnotgod]

Wait. You said earlier that it was a car without a driver, now it's not a car either. So is this allegory itself an illusion of an allegory or is it a real allegory? I'm confused. If there's a car without a driver, then the allegory assumes a car for the allegory, not a no-car. I don't know what to do with that.

If there's no car, no driver, no nothing, no anything, only nothing, then there's no observer either. So where is this car allegory headed?

You are confusing my post with that of Halycon's, in which he originally did state that there was a car without a driver. He was addressing the illusion of just the driver, while I am addressing the illusion of both car and driver. In other words, there is no driver because there is no car to begin with, just as there never was a 'snake' that is actually a rope.

In other words, Halycon could have begun his statement with: "Imagine a car traveling toward you and stops, etc......", the key word here being 'imagine'.

 

[atanu]

That is your assumption. All it indicates is consciousness, without an agent of consciousness. ----.

What do you mean? "my' assumption? And see below:

There is neither car nor driver.
'Car' is a metaphor for the body and 'driver' for the mind.
The mind-body consists of the following:

1. Matter
2. Consciousness
3. Feeling
4. Perception and memory
5. Mental formations

In any of these, there is no permanent entity. ---?

That is what you said. Why should I at all believe you? Since, as per you nothing is real in the aggregates, including consciousness, which is one of the five listed items.


I have to doubt the veracity of your saying. There is no basis of correct teaching in this world, it seems.

 

[atanu]

That is your assumption. All it indicates is consciousness, without an agent of consciousness. That is what pure consciousness is. It requires no form in time and space for it to be.

So, what makes you think that this pure consciousness has no personae? And that an ego can extinguish itself? Can an illusion extinguish itself?

If you still do not see, then show me the location of the thinker of thoughts.
------------------
You misunderstand. You are thinking that there is an attainer of Nirvana; an experiencer of the experience. There is no such attainer or experiencer. There is only Nirvana itself. Nirvana literally means the extinguishing of a fire, the 'fire' being the self. ---

That is a bad instruction. How can you instruct that to a non-existent thing?

There is understanding of this. I only wish to emphasise that the ego self, being ultimately unreal, cannot have any power whatsoever to extinguish itself (the fire).

OTOH, surely, you do not mean to say that the ego selves came into illusionary existence of their own, all individually and separately, and yet have a commonaltiy of "I" awareness? They must have been brought into the relative existence, through a personae of the pure consciousness itself. Else, how we explain the organised nature of universe composed of so many parts? Thus, the "I" component of "I am this body" is the light of pure consciousness alone and is not the dependently arisen aggregate.

 

[godnotgod]

What do you mean? "my' assumption? And see below:

That is what you said. Why should I at all believe you? Since, as per you nothing is real in the aggregates, including consciousness, which is one of the five listed items.

I have to doubt the veracity of your saying. There is no basis of correct teaching in this world, it seems.

Excuse me, but I was not referring to the statement about the aggregates, but to what YOU said, here:

Your post, that articulates your concepts, surely indicates, a PERSON.

You jump to the conclusion that my post indicates the presence of a 'person', which is an assumption on your part.

As to your point in regards to consciousness, the aggregate being referred to is that of personal consciousness, and not universal consciousness:

"Let us now look at the mental factors of experience and let us see if we can understand how consciousness turns the physical factors of experience into personal conscious experience. First of all, we must remember that consciousness is mere awareness, or mere sensitivity to an object. When the physical factors of experience, as for example the eyes and a visible object, come into contact, and when consciousness too becomes associated with the physical factors of experience, visual consciousness arises. This is mere awareness of a visible object, not anything like what we could call personal experience. The way that our personal experience is produced is through the functioning of the other three major mental factors of experience and they are the aggregate of feeling, the aggregate of perception and the aggregate of mental formation or volition. These three aggregates function to turn this mere awareness of the object into personal experience."

The rest of the essay 'The Five Aggregates', excerpted from Fundamentals of Buddhism at buddhanet.net, can be read here:

Fundamentals of Buddhism: The Five Aggregates

 

[godnotgod]

So, what makes you think that this pure consciousness has no personae? And that an ego can extinguish itself? Can an illusion extinguish itself?

Excuse me. Did I SAY that an ego can extinguish itself? You need to return to what I DID say and re-read.

That is a bad instruction. How can you instruct that to a non-existent thing?

There is no such thing as a non-existent thing. It is an oxymoron. However, the consciousness that claims the presence of an agent of thought CAN be instructed to come forth with the evidence to support the assertion.

So...are you prepared to produce any such 'thinker of thought'?

There is understanding of this. I only wish to emphasise that the ego self, being ultimately unreal, cannot have any power whatsoever to extinguish itself (the fire).

OTOH, surely, you do not mean to say that the ego selves came into illusionary existence of their own, all individually and separately, and yet have a commonaltiy of "I" awareness? They must have been brought into the relative existence, through a personae of the pure consciousness itself. Else, how we explain the organised nature of universe composed of so many parts? Thus, the "I" component of "I am this body" is the light of pure consciousness alone and is not the dependently arisen aggregate.

Once again, please return to what I actually did say. I never stated that the ego can extinguish itself. You are reading things into what I said that are not there.

 

[atanu]

Excuse me, but I was not referring to the statement about the aggregates, but to what YOU said, here:
Your post, that articulates your concepts, surely indicates, a PERSON.
You jump to the conclusion that my post indicates the presence of a 'person', which is an assumption on your part.

No assumption. Plain evidence. You directed some sentence to me and I replied. If a mosquito bites me, you will not scratch your skin.

As to your point in regards to consciousness, the aggregate being referred to is that of personal consciousness, and not universal consciousness:

Thank God the universal consciousness is. But what makes you think that the Universal consciousness does not design a personae? Has anyone seen the universal consciousness and its workings?

Let me ask. Buddha attained the highest liberation and thus should have lost connection with the personal self? Then how did he come back and teach the world?

"Let us now look at the mental factors of experience and let us see if we can understand how consciousness turns the physical factors of experience into personal conscious experience. First of all, we must remember that consciousness is mere awareness, or mere sensitivity to an object. When the physical factors of experience, as for example the eyes and a visible object, come into contact, and when consciousness too becomes associated with the physical factors of experience, visual consciousness arises. This is mere awareness of a visible object, not anything like what we could call personal experience. The way that our personal experience is produced is through the functioning of the other three major mental factors of experience and they are the aggregate of feeling, the aggregate of perception and the aggregate of mental formation or volition. These three aggregates function to turn this mere awareness of the object into personal experience.

In waking state there are many beings. They are relatively true. A mosquito bite on my skin will not be felt by you. The above logic that there is no pesonal experience is plain BS. If we say that that consciousness is mere awareness then do we imply that mere awareness knows the mere awareness?

 

[atanu]

Excuse me. Did I SAY that an ego can extinguish itself? You need to return to what I DID say and re-read.

Okay.

There is no such thing as a non-existent thing. It is an oxymoron. However, the consciousness that claims the presence of an agent of thought CAN be instructed to come forth with the evidence to support the assertion.

But you instructed such an entity. Who did you instruct?

So...are you prepared to produce any such 'thinker of thought'?

How can I produce Him? :areyoucra

I do not know the self in waking state. I do not know the self in dreaming state. I do not know what are the causal seeds that bring out certain dreams and events. How can I produce Him?

 

[Ouroboros]

You are confusing my post with that of Halycon's,

Ooops! Sorry!

in which he originally did state that there was a car without a driver. He was addressing the illusion of just the driver, while I am addressing the illusion of both car and driver.

In other words, there is no driver because there is no car to begin with, just as there never was a 'snake' that is actually a rope.

In other words, Halycon could have begun his statement with: "Imagine a car traveling toward you and stops, etc......", the key word here being 'imagine'.

So I guess, using the car analogy, I could show the difference in how Halycon, you, and I are looking at it:

Halycon: there's a car, but no driver
Godnotgod: there's no car and no driver
Ouroboros: there's a car and a driver

Do I understand our differences correctly?

How about you Atanu? Are you in the position of there's no car, but there's a driver?

No, wait, I'm not sure that fits in the different views I read here either. I'm confused. LOL!