From a site visitor: “If there is no ‘me,’ then who is the person thinking, doing, feeling, etc?”
F.: We ended yesterday’s posting with an invitation to consider the question above. Since there’s a duality at play in that question, there can be a subject-object at play in regards to witnessing or observing. To be free of the limited identification with the body and the "mind roles" it plays, You must find who or what subject knows that false object. Who or what is the witness of that body and those roles and personas and false identities? Who or what is that You which can observe you (the “me” in the question) and is far enough removed from it to be able to make an inquiry into what that “me” might be? Who or what is that You that knows its presence? Who is that I which, in the case of some persons, can reach a point when it can say, “I realize that I am as phony as a three-dollar bill”? Who are the two “I’s” used to generate that statement of duality? Do You see that two different versions of “you,” that two different “I’s,” are at play in that revelation? Do You see—since all dualities are always lies—that only one of those “I’s” can refer to the Real You and that the other has to be referring to something that is not real? Who is that You which can know ItSelf and can come to know that the false roles are false? Only You can do that witnessing and and only You can come to know the “not you.” It was explained this way in the Editor’s Interview in the back of the non-duality novel, The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders:
Author: Now, remember the discussion with Chief, using the lost arms-legs-organs exercise that shows we are not our body?
Editor: Of course, and that experiment showed me that I am not what I’ve thought I was, that I am something, but I am still not sure what.
Author: Ha. OK. The ‘arms-legs-organs exercise’ reveals that you are not the body. The body sustains the mind, so if the body goes, the mind goes. That which goes cannot be the permanent, cannot be the Real You. Yet you know even without those parts that You Are still You. Right?
Editor: Yes.
Author: Since there is no duality, no subject-object duality, what is it that knows that consciousness, that presence?
Editor: That’s where I got lost. I don't know.
F.: We ended yesterday’s posting with an invitation to consider the question above. Since there’s a duality at play in that question, there can be a subject-object at play in regards to witnessing or observing. To be free of the limited identification with the body and the "mind roles" it plays, You must find who or what subject knows that false object. Who or what is the witness of that body and those roles and personas and false identities? Who or what is that You which can observe you (the “me” in the question) and is far enough removed from it to be able to make an inquiry into what that “me” might be? Who or what is that You that knows its presence? Who is that I which, in the case of some persons, can reach a point when it can say, “I realize that I am as phony as a three-dollar bill”? Who are the two “I’s” used to generate that statement of duality? Do You see that two different versions of “you,” that two different “I’s,” are at play in that revelation? Do You see—since all dualities are always lies—that only one of those “I’s” can refer to the Real You and that the other has to be referring to something that is not real? Who is that You which can know ItSelf and can come to know that the false roles are false? Only You can do that witnessing and and only You can come to know the “not you.” It was explained this way in the Editor’s Interview in the back of the non-duality novel, The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders:
Author: Now, remember the discussion with Chief, using the lost arms-legs-organs exercise that shows we are not our body?
Editor: Of course, and that experiment showed me that I am not what I’ve thought I was, that I am something, but I am still not sure what.
Author: Ha. OK. The ‘arms-legs-organs exercise’ reveals that you are not the body. The body sustains the mind, so if the body goes, the mind goes. That which goes cannot be the permanent, cannot be the Real You. Yet you know even without those parts that You Are still You. Right?
Editor: Yes.
Author: Since there is no duality, no subject-object duality, what is it that knows that consciousness, that presence?
Editor: That’s where I got lost. I don't know.
Author: That which knows that conscious presence, since there is no duality, has to also be . . . CONSCIOUSNESS!
Realize, also, that the consciousness must cycle regularly via plants for the body and mind to continue their functionings. [And if the consciousness has been corrupted, and if the illusions of a "mind" that was generated via corrupted consciousness are clung to, then the body and mind will not function naturally but will function unnaturally or supernaturally.] “The mind” records distorted images of all the reflections that were supposedly “seen” via corrupted consciousness and results in the faulty perception of a "me"...a "me" that supposedly has had years and years of continuity. Yet study a photo album with a first-grade picture and a sixth-grade picture and an eleventh-grade picture; then look into the mirror and see that, in truth, there is not even any continuity of a body. Trillions of cells have “come and gone,” so with the exception of a few organs, a chain of bodies that you took to be you have “come and gone.” Among those different body forms, which “me” would any person claim to be "the real me”? What “me” would a “mind” assume to be "the one, real you”? What a distortion to talk of a "me."
Next, realize that the consciousness has no permanent continuity in the body. If the food is not consumed that allows the cyclings of consciousness to continue, then any remaining conscious-energy in the body would soon unmanifest. Consciousness is constantly in movement, “coming and going,” so to speak. To stop eating is to stop “the flow”…the manifesting and unmanifesting. An earlier posting quoted Szent-Gyorgyi who said, “What drives life is … a little electric current, set up by the sunshine.” To stop eating would be to “pull the plug” on that current’s flow. The understanding of the Functioning of the Totality of the Universe is so simple when the science of the cycling is understood to involve sunshine, plants, and an electrical current that is measurable via an EEG.
So how does so much misunderstanding come about? Via that which cannot be measured and is, therefore, not real. What is that which (like a body) is not real but seems to have continuity and thereby allows the illusion of "a past" to be imagined and allows "a future" to be imagined? Know that of these four—the body, the mind, the personas and the consciousness—only the consciousness is permanent; thus, only the consciousness is real. Understand that the consciousness can know itSelf rightly and that "the mind" can only “know” the body and itself wrongly. Realize that "the mind" is not real and can never know anything—all "thought" via that "mind" amounting to nothing more than supposedly "seeing again" one of a series of images or imaginings stored in compartments of a brain that will end even though the conscious-energy will remain eternally. When the conscious-energy unmanifests, what will be left behind is a decaying brain that will eventually return to the elements, ending forever the storage place of a series of images that were stored therein and thus ending forever “the mind.” Is it seen that all imagining is just imaging? Is it seen that any image—like a mirage in the desert—might have an appearance that seems real but is not? Is it seen that it is the essence of the plant that provides the consciousness which, if warped or corrupted, allows the imaginings of a “mind” to happen and to generate falsely a sense of body-mind-personality continuity that has never been real? Is it seen that it is “the mind” that allows persons to (a) imagine a past to have been some way that it was not and to (b) imagine a present to be in a way that it is not and to (c) imagine that a future will be a certain way that also will not be real? Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]
