Ben Dhyan
Veteran Member
Awareness is awareness, no duality implied, what's so difficult?What is it that is aware?
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Awareness is awareness, no duality implied, what's so difficult?What is it that is aware?
We were having a productive discussion. I asked a simple question. No need to be condescending.Awareness is awareness, no duality implied, what's so difficult?
My apologies Salixlncendium.We were having a productive discussion. I asked a simple question. No need to be condescending.
I accept your apology.My apologies Salixlncendium.
True. There is a saying in Chan teaching pertaining to non-dualism, that the truth is there is in fact no true teaching, however nevertheless this teaching that there is no true teaching, is the true teaching. It is also the basis of the Taoist saying "He who says, does not know, he who knows, does not say."I accept your apology.
My point is that awareness...pure consciousness just is. It is the highest principle...or as @freelight said, primal Awareness itself. One can point to that from the perspective of transactional reality, but from the perspective of this pure awareness/consciousness, attempting to be aware of itself introduces duality...an I/other dichotomy, and this moves away from oneness.
True. There is a saying in Chan teaching pertaining to non-dualism, that the truth is there is in fact no true teaching, however nevertheless this teaching that there is no true teaching, is the true teaching. It is also the basis of the Taoist saying "He who says, does not know, he who knows, does not say."
When you try to explain non-dualism, the very explanation employs dualism, ie. conceptualization, but I do not dismiss it on that basis, for as the Chan saying goes, there is no other way to convey the teaching of non-dualism except through dualism.
I accept your apology.
My point is that awareness...pure consciousness just is. It is the highest principle...or as @freelight said, primal Awareness itself. One can point to that from the perspective of transactional reality, but from the perspective of this pure awareness/consciousness, attempting to be aware of itself introduces duality...an I/other dichotomy, and this moves away from oneness.
The Secret Doctrine establishes three fundamental propositions:—
(a) An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable Principle on which all speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power of human conception and could only be dwarfed by any human expression or similitude. It is beyond the range and reach of thought — in the words of Mandukya, “unthinkable and unspeakable.”
To render these ideas clearer to the general reader, let him set out with the postulate that there is one absolute Reality which antecedes all manifested, conditioned, being. This Infinite and Eternal Cause — dimly formulated in the “Unconscious” and “Unknowable” of current European philosophy — is the rootless root of “all that was, is, or ever shall be.” It is of course devoid of all attributes and is essentially without any relation to manifested, finite Being. It is “Be-ness” rather than Being (in Sanskrit, Sat), and is beyond all thought or speculation.
This “Be-ness” is symbolised in the Secret Doctrine under two aspects. On the one hand, absolute abstract Space, representing bare subjectivity, the one thing which no human mind can either exclude from any conception, or conceive of by itself. On the other, absolute Abstract Motion representing Unconditioned Consciousness. Even our Western thinkers have shown that Consciousness is inconceivable to us apart from change, and motion best symbolises change, its essential characteristic. This latter aspect of the one Reality, is also symbolised by the term “The Great Breath,” a symbol sufficiently graphic to need no further elucidation. Thus, then, the first fundamental axiom of the Secret Doctrine is this metaphysical One Absolute — Be-ness — symbolised by finite intelligence as the theological Trinity.
It may, however, assist the student if a few further explanations are given here.
Herbert Spencer has of late so far modified his Agnosticism, as to assert that the nature of the “First Cause,”(*) which the Occultist more logically derives from the “Causeless Cause,” the “Eternal,” and the “Unknowable,” may be essentially the same as that of the Consciousness which wells up within us: in short, that the impersonal reality pervading the Kosmos is the pure noumenon of thought. This advance on his part brings him very near to the esoteric and Vedantin tenet.(†)
Parabrahm (the One Reality, the Absolute) is the field of Absolute Consciousness, i.e., that Essence which is out of all relation to conditioned existence, and of which conscious existence is a conditioned symbol. But once that we pass in thought from this (to us) Absolute Negation, duality supervenes in the contrast of Spirit (or consciousness) and Matter, Subject and Object.
Spirit (or Consciousness) and Matter are, however, to be regarded, not as independent realities, but as the two facets or aspects of the Absolute (Parabrahm), which constitute the basis of conditioned Being whether subjective or objective.
I'm reading the Esoteric Tradition by him now. He and Annie are my favorite so far. Also reading the Secret Doctrine but still need to start Isis Unveiled. I really want to go to Lomaland.The terms used by modern theosophists are defined well in this large Glossary:
Encyclopedic Theosophical Glossary, G de Purucker ed. - Theosophy Resource