Where thought can’t go… – nondual.community

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Where thought can’t go…

Posted by Holger:

 

Sorry, I haven’t yet read and edited the transcript:

Go back and go back to your basic experience,
see that you are that which is aware
first of all see that your mind
is just the current thought and image.

Your body is just the current sensation
and if your eyes are open perception.
So now, having seen that see that you are that
which is aware of the current thought
image sensation and perception.

It’s easiest to see it with your thoughts.
A thought has yet to appear.
You are present.
The thought appears, you know it.
It disappears, you remain.
The next thought appears, you know it.

It disappears, you remain.
The next sensation appears, you know it,
the sensation disappears, you remain.

Sound of the aeroplane appears, you know it.
In time it will disappear but you remain.
you the knower of your experience always remains.

Thoughts are intermittent
images are intermittent
sensations and perceptions are intermittent,
but you remain throughout.

You are not made out of an intermittent
thought feeling sensational perception.

You are just made out of this pure;
this substance called knowing or awareness.
you’re present and you’re aware,
hence awareness that’s the name,
but don’t go too quickly to the name
don’t just pay lip service to the name.
You really have to go there in your experience.
try not to give it a name,
try see in your experience.

Yes, I am obviously that
Let’s just call it that,
whatever it is.
I am that which knows or is aware of my experience.

It’s not made out of a thought.
It’s not made out of a feeling or sensational
because all these are coming and going,
but that has always been with you.
In fact not with you, that is you.

You’ve never ceased to be that,
although you may have mistaken yourself
for a cluster of temporary thoughts,
feeling sensations and perceptions,
but even when you were mistaking yourself for that,
or rather even when thoughts and feelings
were mistaking you for that,
even then you are still only that which is aware of
those thoughts and feelings.

That’s the first step to realise
I am that which is both present and aware.
And that is not made out of
a thought sensational or perception.

So then you pause there.
You put thoughts sensations and perceptions
at a distance just for a while.

You put them at a distance,
which gives you the time and the space
to really look at this
that you have discovered you are.

I have discovered that I am awareness,
I am that which is aware.

Now what are its qualities
because its qualities are my qualities.

What is essential to it?
What cannot be removed from it?
Thoughts can be removed from it.
Feelings can be removed for it.
What can’t be removed from it?

Being and knowing are the first two.
It’s ever present and it’s a knowing presence
or an aware presence.
But then we have to go further than that
and discover these these
3 essential qualities that it has:
It is ever present. It is unlimited and it is imperturbable.

I won’t go into the exploration
in each of those cases because

but those are the things
take time
pause here,
put the body mind world at a distance
give your attention to the knower of your experience, not the known.
And discover that in its experience of itself,
it is ever present.
It never finds a limit in itself and it cannot be disturbed.
Its nature is peace or happiness.

That’s the most important one:
Its nature is peace, your nature under all circumstances is peace.

Then when or as that becomes clear,
then go back to the thoughts,
sensations and perceptions and explore them
in the context of this new found discovery.

 

5:13
Yes, exactly we could say that what we are is this infinite and dimension. Presence, which is an aware presence. It’s infinite, it has no limits, but it is also dimension.

And all these this 3 dimensional world and 4 dimensions if we include time. All of these appear in this dimension presence. The mind can’t take that step because the mine can’t think of something that has no dimensions.

He can only go to the brink. But we if we look at in inverted commas. If we look at awareness, we go to the presence of awareness it’s obviously present. It’s obviously aware but it it’s not in space. It’s not located somewhere.

Sometimes we say, it per all all the world. But that’s it’s not really right. It’s not that there is the world and the world is per provided by awareness in the same way that we wouldn’t say the screen fades the image.

It’s not like there is an image and that screen per provides the image. No, there is a screen and the image is a modulation of that screen.

In this case, all of this experience now this 3 dimensional world that we are seeing is a modulation of something which itself has no dimensions, infinite awareness, and that is what we are.

This is appearing in and is made out of something that has no dimensions. That is actually our experience.

And we may think that that’s an extraordinary idea actually, it’s not think of what takes place in a dream at night. A dream takes place in 1 dimension of time. It doesn’t take place in space, it just take place in mind.

But in that single dimension of time, a new 3 dimensional world appears. So every night we experience the phenomenon of a 3 dimensional world appearing in something that only has 1 dimension.

Not so strange. It happens to us every night. So all that’s being suggested here is that this waking world appears in something that has not 1 dimension but no dimensions.

And again, it’s not so strange because what happens to the dream of the world the new 3 dimensional world that appears in 1 dimension of time.

When that 1 dimension of time disappears. In other words, when we go into deep sleep even that 1 dimension disappears and with it its 3 dimensional world.

It all goes into this 0 dimensional space of deep sleep and then it emerges out of that again. First of all the dream state, 1 dimension and then the waking state, a new 4 dimensional world.

It’s not so strange. We experience this every night. It may not be strange but it’s mind blowing. Exactly exactly. It’s mind it’s truly mind blowing it blows the concepts with which the mind frames experience.

It blows them to pieces. It shows that they’re not actually based on our experience. Yes, it’s truly mind blowing. And an extension of that because of its dimension less.

Ness thought cannot conceptual it. Exactly. Yes. Thought cannot conceptualize and it’s for that reason that we use metaphors for instance. We invest awareness with a space like quality.

Spaces is the subtle object yes. So we can think of space, but we can’t think of dimension awareness. We just can’t think of awareness. So rec recognizing this, we say okay, let’s add the attribute of space to awareness.

And we’ll say that awareness is like a vast open empty space. This is the intermediary stage. Now as soon as we say awareness is like a vast open empty space.

We can all relate to that. We can all think of that. Yes, it’s like a vast guy and the clouds appear in it. So it’s just a tool to give the mind something a direction to go in.

But then having conceived this vast space like awareness, remove the space like quality and what are you left with? What you’re left with is dimension this awareness, but the mind cannot think of it.

It just can’t go there. So in this teaching, we kind of take the mind again and again and again right to the edge. We don’t just say to the mind, oh, you can’t get it don’t think about it. No. We say, think about it.

Think about it and through the process of thinking, the mind takes itself to the edge of its knowledge and it comes to a natural and they’re not a disciplined end, not a frustrated end being told, Or just stop thinking about this, you can’t understand reality.

That’s not the real end of the mind.

It just temporarily suppress the mind, but the mind bubbles up again because he wants to know So here we follow the mind on its little excursions and we take it again and again and again right to the the edge of its universe.

And then occasionally we just push it over the edge. I had an experience kind reflecting what you just said. I read I signed up.

I read the essay about duality and I was very focused and which was I think it’s on the website, It’s called about It’s like on okay. Yes. Yes. And at 1 point it said there is only 1 consciousness and we’re something to that effect.

I really felt like I mean I can talk about this stuff right now and it’s just words, but the experience was I felt like went I zoomed right to this experience that there’s a point of perception. There was a perceive.

There’s really only 1 perceive and that everything else is perceived and it felt like the 1 perceive was the only thing that was real and all the perceived was not real. And it wasn’t pleasant at all. It was very frightening.

All time all history, my wife, my kids, everything was a dream was you, that perceives And again, these I can talk about it now because I’m back and I had this huge spike of fear and that brought me back to and You know my heart was pounding.

I’m thinking okay, good. I’m glad to be back where there’s me and you and you’re real and all these people are real because I’m afraid during this retreat, we’re going to go all the way back as that place is this…

I can’t imagine I’m the only person to have this experience, but it was very off putting.

And it remind me what you said about you how that your fall self is going to fight hard okay so that’s fine. So in this retreat, we’re going to go back to that place we’re going to go back slowly and consciously without fear.

I guess the fear was big and yes, the fear was big because everything you had previously invested your identity in was crumbling away.

And actually crumbled away very quickly, you just all the apparent solidity these objects, your wife, your family, you realised in this moment something about what you are reading triggered this understanding in yourself that they were not real in the way you had previously considered them to be and this like it was left and not nor you not know was what you considered to be I.

Real and it was like all these things that you’ve been holding onto and investing your security and it suddenly had to let go of them and you were free falling. Without anything to hold on to, and that’s very frightening.

It was. So that’s what we do in these meetings. We just start with how things seem to be. And we just gradually through our meditations and contemplation and conversations we trace our way back to the reality of our experience.

And at various different stages on this journey back. We meet obstacles and people meet different obstacles everyone traces their own particular pathway back. And people meet different obstacles at different stages.

So in our conversations, we address these various obstacles. What is an obstacle for 1 person is very often shared between a number of other people, but it’s not necessary everybody’s obstacle.

Then somebody else will find an obstacle on the path and we’ll mention it and you know or fact other people will think, oh yeah, there’s a similar kind of boulder in the middle of my path as well So we just encounter all these obstacles gently taking time until we see they’re not really obstacles and then we just carry on.

So for instance with you.

To take the current perception that you’re having now the current visual perception. And that perception is of objects. A collection of objects people objects. So in instead of instead of following your attention towards the objects.

Trace it back in the other direction. Go backwards. Towards the source of perception rather than the object perceived. What do you find there? I know what I’m afraid to find, I guess I’m stuck on that. No just trace back your experience.

Take the experience of perception. The objects are on 1 end the end out there. What is on the other end of your attention? Trace it back or don’t think about it, don’t refer to what you’ve read or what you know or what you’re afraid of.

Trace it back. Like walking physically along a party. It’s that experiential trace it back to the source of your attention or perception.

What do you find there? Exactly. That’s what you call I You don’t find anything. You don’t find any thing. You don’t find a body or a mind or a world. But nevertheless, your experience of that is absolutely real.

Perception is taking place. Objects are on 1 end of it. What is on the other end? I call that the receiver. But I guess. It’s the perceive. But if you ask what is that perceive?

You don’t find any thing. Right it’s a point which is It’s a point but in fact, not even a point a point. A point is the best the mind can do right it’s an idea The mind is struggling to call it something.

So in its own language of objectivity. It says it’s a point. You’re right, it’s a point, but actually to go a little further, it’s a point that has no dimensions. Points don’t have an inventions that’s exactly right.

Exactly. In exactly. You you’re absolutely right. It has no dimension in time or space. It’s a dimension this point. Now go back to what you are perceiving. Doesn’t it all appear in that I dimension this point?

I can’t honestly say I know the difference so I could say yes, the difference between between it being separate point exactly. Exactly that’s the next stage. It’s not this apparent world of 4 dimensions.

Is not only appearing in. First of all, it appears to that dimension this point. The dimension point seat seems to be on 1 end and the 4 dimensional world on the other end and then we realised no, it’s close that.

It’s appearing in this 4 dimensional reality is appearing in this dimension empty point, but you’re right.

It’s even more than that. The only substance present In this 4 dimensional world of time and space is this dimension empty aware point.

That that’s the stuff it’s made of as a concession to the vast physical space. The teaching sometimes says awareness is vast. In other words, it’s even bigger than the physical world because it contains the physical world.

The teaching awareness is vast or border, awareness is not vast or border. It’s dimension. It has no dimensions, but the mind cannot think of no dimensions, so as a concession to the mind a teaching says it is vast.

It is ever. It is neither vast nor ever. The mind literally cannot go there. That’s why it’s not possible to think about consciousness.

My first teacher there fernando Sara the Shank of the north of India said once. Real thinkers don’t think. Real thinkers the people that really take thought all the way that think about the absolute reality of experience.

That activity of exploring reality with the mind brings the mind to an end, It is not possible. To think of consciousness. The best we could do would be to think of a blank empty space.

But even that is a subtle object a blank object. If we truly try to think of consciousness thought comes to an end and consciousness stands revealed. I’m thinking you know my my conundrum was nothing was real and that was terrifying.

And then it feels like the counter to that is everything is really absolutely. Nothing is real in the way it is normally conceived. The world is an illusion. Only Brahma is real.

Brahma is the world. But everything in there is also real too because it’s a part of Bra. But actually it, the world as we normally think of it Our experiences we normally think of it made out of stuff called mind and matter.

That’s what most people think. Experiences divided into 2 parts. Thoughts and feelings are made out of mind, sensations and perceptions, the body in the world are made out of matter. That’s the conventional view.

So the first stage the world is an illusion the experience as we normally think of it as made out of mind matter is an illusion. What is really real what is true in our experience. It’s just the experience of being aware.

That is all that we are ever ever aware of the knowing of experience, Brahma. Then when we go back to this body and world, the body mind world that we found to be unreal. We may go back to all of this, we find out Well, it is real.

My experience is real but it’s not made out of stuff called mind or matter. It’s made out of this infinite dimension stuff called pure. In that sense, it is real. It is real as consciousness, but unreal is mind and matter.

And it’s not a coincidence apologies to those of you that have heard me say this before it’s not a coincidence that physicists have never found this stuff called matter and psychiatrists have never found the stuff called mind.

It’s not a coincidence. It’s not just a matter of a few more years before someone discovers it. They’re not going to discover it. It’s not there.

So this understanding could generate the most terrific fear in you because the world is just everything that we you’re considered to be so real, everything that you invested your identity and your happiness in is just vanishing in front of your eyes.

But the same understanding can be a source of such profound joy and love.

Because nothing of value is being taken away from you. But the level of activities and relationships, family relationships, intimate relationships, friendships, all that is being taken away is the tyranny of the ego.

That ruined those relationships that made them battleground between egos. That’s all you’re going to lose.

And a relationship be it intimate relationship relationship with a dog or a family or a, a relationship that is free of the tyranny of the is a tender loving, warm hearted, humorous friendly. Relationship. Fearless. Yes.

One Source

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Created: March 18, 2023 
Last modified: March 19, 2023

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