THE INSTABILITY OF DUALITY, Part Two

F.: The irony is that persons desire permanency but cling to the impermanent and fleeting and transitory while believing that those can have some permanence. They attach to their bodies, attach to their roles, and attach to the distorted ideas and beliefs which become known as their “minds.” While fearing impermanence and desiring continuity, they cling to things relative that are always in flux while having no clue at all about what is real and permanent and unchanging and eternal.

Anything involving the relative will be in a state of flux, while what persons desire is permanence. Most roles being played and cherished by persons will end during the manifestation. If an end to their roles is not forced upon persons during the manifestation, the roles will certainly end when the consciousness unmanifests (thus solving such Christian dilemmas as, "Which of my multiple spouses will I spend eternity with?")

A man in a recent satsanga session mentioned his fear that his wife was going to leave him. The wife of a different man e-mailed a few days later to express her fear that she might go to the grave without getting rid of her husband. One person fears a partner will go and thereby end one of his false identities; another person fears that a partner will stay and that she will have to continue playing the role of "The Wife." Either way, both are suffering the instability that always accompanies the duality of role-playing. Such is the case when placing some identifier after the words "I am" rather than being fixed in the I Amness only.

If true stability is being sought, however, then the seeker must move even beyond rejoicing in the beingness. Know the beingness, of course, but in order to end all duality and instability, you must allow all ego-states and identities to vanish and must abide in the Isness for a period. Then, you must transcend even that, must merge into the Absolute, and must then abide as the Absolute for the remainder of the manifestation.

Next, see that persons, even though they take themselves to be the roles they play, are no different from the Realized. Persons only think they are something different from what the Realized know They Truly Are. Only one of two scenarios can occur: either (1) consciousness manifested, became obstructed by concepts, and has not been unobscured (as with persons); or (2) consciousness manifested, became obscured, and has been unobscured (as with the Realized).

Post-manifestation, the exact same providence awaits those who take themselves to be persons as well as those who know What They Really Are: the untimate fate of all manifested consciousness is that it will unmanifest and be re-absorbed into the pool of universal energy. The only difference, then, is that (a) the manifestation can happen with stability or (b) the manifestation will be marked with instability or with fluctuations between happiness and unhappiness, or even with chaos.

The guaranteed cycling of conscious-energy means that those who believe themselves to be persons will eventually be free of all concerns (but only post-manifestation), just as is the case with the Realized (but also during the manifestation). When the consciousness unmanifests and merges into that vast pool of energy called “The Absolute,” it will know nothing, no matter what happened or did not happen during the manifestation.

At that point, it will be irrelevant if that speck of consciousness when manifested knew Itself or if it mistook itself for the roles that the obstructed consciousness leads persons to think they are. The only difference happens NOW: persons suffer instability and/or emotional intoxication and/or fear while the Realized do not, but after the consciousness is no longer manifested, the result is the same: consciousness will be unmanifested and unknowing.

If you complete the entire seven-step "journey" as outlined in FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE, you’re going to see exactly, step-by-step, how you got from the Absolute state to the false belief that you’re a body. And you’re going to see how to get from believing that you are a body to Realization of the Absolute. And seeing that complete cycle, then you’re going to understand all the cycles (including how the "cycling in" happens and how the "cycling out" happens).

You will understand each step of the "way in," all the way from the Absolute to body identification; then you will understand why the way to Realizing (and abiding as) the Absolute happens only when each of those steps is taken again, in reverse order.

As “His Majesty the Baby” illustrated yesterday, only from the conditioned mind of an assumed “self” can self-importance come. When the last “who” disappears, the understanding of THAT appears. The question is not, “Who am I?” The question is, "What am I?”

If it's instability and/or altering states of happiness and unhappiness and/or emotional intoxication and/or constantly having to process change that you find unacceptable, then know that You Are the Absolute. Know that You Are fixed, immutable, ineradicable, constant, and invariable. All that you perceive as being variable is misperception, merely fiction imagined via your “variable mind.”

I Am prior to beingness, prior to consciousness, and even prior to non-beingness. I have passed eternity being That, but for now I just happen to be in movement with other waves and particles of energy during this present temporary cycling into manifestation. This “floyd” is nothing more than the result a cosmic accident, an accident that was facilitated along the way by an act of friction that set into motion a series of happening that allowed conscious-energy to manifest temporarily. Among those who realize that, wherefore “pride”? Wherefore "happiness vs. unhappiness"? Wherefore the instability of getting caught up in the fiction and nonsense of relative doings and happenings? Please enter the silence of contemplation.
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AWARENESS/CONSCIOUSNESS, Follow-Up

FROM A SITE VISITOR: I’ll grant that the explanation of consciousness/awareness over the last few days was clearer than any I’ve read, but I’m more inclined to seek the scientific view, always. I read an article on your other website and it said that Maharaj said that science would some day affirm the content of the teachings he offered. How about a bottomline explanation from that viewpoint. Alfred

F.: OK:

In the expanse of space, energy can move via wave and/or particle form. Subatomic particles of specialized energy exist and are moving through that expanse freely. Because the expanse is so vast (limitless in fact), the particles are not forced together into large-quantity clusters or groupings of energy within that space. Consciousness only happens when large-quantity clusters or groupings of energy occur in compact spaces with nervous systems. Otherwise, the background of Awareness IS and energy is moving without confinement in that vast space labeled "the Absolute"; however, by definition at least, "consciousness" capable of being conscious of (as a result of manifestation) is not. Awareness is, even when there is no "one" to be conscious of.

[Another visitor also wrote yesterday to ask, "Isn't consciousness all there is?" Yes, if you want to accept that there are levels of consciousness ranging from "pure and unadulterated" to "totally corrupted" and modalities of consciousness ranging from "manifested" or "not manifested." Then you would consider some levels of consciousness to be "pure and unmanifested" and some levels of consciousness to be "manifest and soon-to-be corrupted." Next, you would likely speak of "the THAT state" as opposed to "the I AM state." If you take that stance, then you have to conclude that "sticky" and "stickiness" are the same. In the no-concept, non-dual Reality, the conclusion above can be valid. The discussion of Awareness/Consciousness is only mentioned in the last book in the Advaita series of books that are offered on this site because an understanding of Awareness/Consciousness is only "relevant" if it guides seekers to the total freedom, during the relative existence, which manifests if abidance happens not as the consciousness but as the unadulterated Awareness or the Absolute.]

Now, back to Alfred's request. As the energy particles move, some enter the atmosphere of earth and strike plants and begin to gather there. In that limited space, the particles of specialized energy (energy able to be conscious of if manifested in something with a nervous system) gather into “tighter” groupings as a result of manifesting in a limited, confined space. Advaitins point to that happening as “the manifestation of consciousness.”

Thus, the term “the manifestation of consciousness” really points to nothing more than a spontaneously-occurring gathering of atomic and subatomic particles of specialized energy into a compact grouping. Consciousness happens only when larger groupings of particles of this specialized energy come together in a “tighter” cluster and in a more confined space than occurs in the vast space of unmanifested energy-awareness. Here's another analogy which can illustrate the "different while not being different" aspect of the Awareness/Consciousness discussion.

Consider an ice cube "versus" water vapor. Really, the ice cube/water vapor is "not two," just as "I AM THAT"/"I AM" is "not two" and as "consciousness/awareness" is "not two." Yet "aspects" exist. When H20 atoms are compacted and close together in a smaller space, water can take on the appearance of "a cube." When quantities of H20 are subjected to intense heat, water can take on the appearance of "vapor." The cube takes on an aspect of being fixed, confined, restricted. The vapors, on the other hand, are free to move about over a far broader area. The "cube" seems confined in a small space; the "vapors" seem free.

Consider the manifested consciousness to be "the cube" (confined and compacted) and the awareness to be "the vapor" (free and not compacted). The discussion of consciousness/awareness then becomes nothing more than a discussion about location and density. The same is true of the discussion of "THAT"/"AM-ness." Located "here" with an aspect of density? Consciousness. Located "there" with no aspect of density? Awareness.

As a side note to this cycling of energy, do you see, therefore, why the concept of “death” is given no credibility by the Realized, much less any “concern”? It is understood by the Realized that what persons call “death” is merely the unmanifesting of consciousness, is merely the releasing of compact groupings of energy that are just “ungrouping” and being “freed up” to move about in a wider, less-limited (actually infinite) space, exactly as prior to manifestation. That "ungrouping" and "releasing" of energy from a confined space (called "death" by persons) is a totally meaningless happening except to the corrupted consciousness that believes in the distorted, dualistic concepts of "good vs. bad" and "right vs." wrong" and some subsequent "punishment vs. reward" of a body-mind-personality triad with eternal continuity. In fact, only the energy is infinite and eternal; the body and "mind" and personality are illusory phenomena that are finite and temporary.

So that which persons refer to as “the moment of death” is really just the unmanifestation process whereby those larger groupings of energy particles in a confined space are freed from that space and enter into an expansive, unlimited energy field or space (called “The Absolute” in order to emphasize the pure and unadulterated state of the energy while in that space). By “relocating” from a confined space called “the human body,” for example, those elementary particles can group together in that vast and expansive ocean of energy; however, they will group into smaller gatherings and into fewer configurations since they are not being compacted into a small space.

During the process whereby consciousness unmanifests, therefore, particles of energy are merely “spreading out” or "being freed from ‘confinement’ in a compact space." After being freed from the confines of a relatively small space with a nervous system—such as a plant or a plant food body (which persons dualistically call "a human" or "an animal" or "a bird")—the energy moves into the limitless expanse of The Absolute and the particles “move apart.” In that freed-up space, the essence of Reality (Awareness) IS.

Now, are you also seeing that though the cycles are natural happenings, the manifesting of consciousness is actually, on one level, a very unnatural event? Why? That which is normally and naturally free to move about in an unrestrained environment and in an unrestricted manner is temporarily not free to function in that manner. Manifested consciousness, as the physicist will understand, is actually "restricted" and "restrained" when compared to the "normal" state of particles of energy which move about in a limitless field or space. Compare (a) the unrestricted movement of light waves moving instantly from the sun to the moon and reflecting off that surface with (b) the restricted movement of conscious-energy striking one synapse after another within the limited space of a human brain.

Here is another side note for the advanced seeker: the essence (awareness) is always in the background, even as consciousness is manifested. That awareness in the background can account for the disconcerting notion generated by the "trapped" and "confined" manifest consciousness that results in persons sensing that "I am not free" and "I need to be free" and "I long for more freedom," all of which mark the relative existence and that happen as long as consciousness is manifested and as long as abidance is happening as that consciousness rather than as the Absolute. Are you understanding why the corrupted consciousness, and even abidance as the Self-Realized consciousness, can never produce a sense of true freedom? The "journey" to true freedom does not end at the point of Self-Realization, and to transmit that fact is the only reason this discussion is warranted.

Awareness is beyond both consciousness being manifested and consciousness not being manifested. Thus Consciousness is what allows consciousness of to happen, but Awareness is why the Consciousness can happen. Consciousness, while manifested via a temporary combination of physical elements, has no independent existence apart from its fundamental background of Awareness. (Does that ultimately mean that "sticky" = "stickiness"? Or, is "stickiness" the essence of something that is "sticky"? "Sticky" can only happen when physical elements temporarily combine. "Stickiness," though, is permanent and forever. Ultimately, it's all definition, all thorns that can be used to remove thorns, and you know that the thorns are all to be tossed eventually. All else should fall into the realm of "entertainment." So only for the sake of entertainment, Alfred, will the response to your request continue.)

When the previously pure energy manifests in humans, it is soon subjected to programming, conditioning, and enculturation. “Minds” form and the endless chatter of “thoughts” soon follows, all because specialized energy gathered into a limited space. The more that electrons accumulate into a natural coherence within a confined space and the more that conscious-energy takes itself to be “a human”, the more frequently will abstract "thoughts" occur and the more frequently they will continue on a large-scale basis once personas are accepted as true identities.

By contrast, when single or elementary particles or coherent groups of energy-capable-of-being-conscious-of come together, smaller-scale abstract "thoughts" in consciousness happen. When the energy is totally “free” and is not gathered into large groups that are confined within relatively small spaces with nervous systems and is not bastardized with programming, then no thoughts occur...but awareness remains. (That is the way that AS IF Living happens: You Are Aware, but there are no "thoughts," no "mind," no separation, no sense of confinement, no fighting with others who are not as "good" as your ego-states and egotism convince you that you are, and no chatter of a thousand monkeys inside your head.)

The manifested particles of energy can be freed of close confinement and compacting via the unmanifesting of consciousness. Prior to that, it is possible that particles of energy can be freed of the distorting effects of programming and conditioning and enculturation via the Full Realization process. Then, the energy can function in the pure and free and uncorrupted manner in which it functioned prior to consciousness, prior to manifestation, and prior to being corrupted.

Awareness Is, without consciousness of subject and objects and without consciousness of any "thing" and without consciousness of some "thing." After "The Nothingness" is understood, You Are the same as the "Awareness Is": just being and just aware. The effects of compacted, manifested consciousness can be transcended and the manifested energy can function as pure, free, unconfined, unlimited awareness instead. So there it is in its scientific cloak, Alfred. Now the invitation is to please enter the silence of contemplation.

TOMORROW: More on de-accumulation.

CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS, Part Three

FROM A SITE VISITOR: Please explain consciousness as opposed to awareness. Thank you. Harish

F.: The excerpt from the book, CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS: The Nature of Reality Beyond Self-Realization (Peace Every Day When Abiding as The Absolute), continues and the picture referred to is in the 3 May 2007 post:

Please review the picture posted yesterday. Next, for purposes of illustration, take the foreground in the picture to represent the I-Amness and the background to be the I AM THAT-ness. Take the foreground to represent Consciousness and the background to represent Awareness. Note that consciousness involves being conscious of (something) so consciousness is always, ultimately, about duality: “this” is conscious of “that.” (Thus, the seeker who thinks he/she is Fully Realized and is the unicity because he/she knows the True Self is mistaken. That seeker might be Self-Realized, but That Which Truly Is is beyond self-ness, Self-ness, beingness, non-beingness, and realizing. It is even beyond “conscious of-ness.”)

PLEASE NOTE: The (Peace Every Day When Abiding as The Absolute) referred to in the aforementioned title manifests when abidance “beyond conscious of-ness” happens. The relative existence comparison offered by Advaitins is "the deep sleep metaphor" wherein peace happens beyond relative consciousness. (Compare the “beyond conscious of-ness” to the awareness of the body’s need that automatically, spontaneously keeps the heart and the lungs functioning even as there is no “one” present to consciously “do” that. Also, understand the automatic, spontaneous functioning in order to understand how your relative existence can happen with no illusion of a “do-er” being present and with abidance happening even beyond conscious of-ness. That happens when abidance as the Absolute happens.)

To continue with the discussion of the picture from yesterday, the doingness in the foreground is marked by consciousness and a sense of duality. Persons unaware of the unicity believe that they are conscious of some vast multiplicity of things: houses, roads, crops, intersections, buses, mercatos, etc. In the background of the picture, which includes trees and clouds and mountains and sky and sunlight, there is no sense of duality. Why? There is no “one” to be conscious of anything, yet there is awareness. In what way is “Awareness without Conscious of-ness” present in the background?

Observe that there appears to be a variety of “cloud” formations, but see that “the clouds” are not the real. What is “real,” for the sake of this example, is H20. As for awareness, a series of two hydrogen atoms are aware of an oxygen atom, but there is no “one” that is present to be conscious of anything. Awareness is just happening, so Awareness is not dualistic in its nature. (Yes, this explanation is beyond what has been offered on the site to some seekers who were not ready for this level of discussion. By virtue of the fact that Harish asked, there is evidence that he might be.)

The H20 can manifest in various "forms" or "spaces" which persons try to separate with labeling into “rain, rivers, lakes, clouds, vapor, water, snow, snowmen, snowballs, snow cones, snow flurries, snow flakes, snow piles, slush, ice, steam, lakes, pools, waterfalls, streams, fog, ponds, hail, drizzle, floods, mist, swamps, oceans, seas,” ad infinitum, but it’s really all one thing, all H20, merely appearing to be different. (See why persons live in the delusion of duality? See why persons are not "in the world" and why "the world" is in them...in their wrongly-perceiving "minds" that take what they think they see to be real and that try to support "differentiation" through labeling?)

Similarly, consciousness can manifest via the spaces labeled as "plants, animals, humans, birds," etc., and though it’s really all consciousness manifested, it appears to the non-Realized to be multiple and different things. For any perception of rain, rivers, plants, or animals to happen, conscious of-ness must also happen, and as a result of inaccurate suppositions rooted in distorted perception, the illusion of duality manifests.

(Again, it should be seen why it is frequently repeated on this site that, ultimately, there is no “goal” of abiding as Consciousness. For full freedom to happen during the manifestation of consciousness, abidance must happen as the Absolute.)

As with the “atoms as clouds,” whereby awareness can happen without any “one” being conscious of, so it is as the Absolute. Awareness is, even as there is no “one” to be aware of. Thus Awareness involves no duality. To use the second analogy, the glue is considered “sticky” as it adheres one thing to another (so it is dualistic in its very nature) but that which is independent and eternal is the glue's fundamental essence of “stickiness” (which is non-dual in its nature).

In both the foreground and the background of the picture from yesterday, everything is merely happening; however, in the foreground where consciousness has been corrupted, consciousness takes itself to be something it is not and leads persons to believe that they are making things happen and that they are seeing separate things. Persons are taking themselves to be “do-ers,” are lacking an understanding of the unicity, and are, therefore, strapped with delusional thinking generated by an illusory "mind."

So Harish, are you beginning to understand why you were advised that “in the no-concept, non-dual reality, there is nothing ‘opposed to’ anything else” but that your question could be addressed by discussing the supposed “attributes” of Awareness and Consciousness? Glue sticks and Scotch tape and Post-It Notes can be discussed; while manifested, they can each exhibit the "attribute" of being sticky; but someday the atrophy process will happen and those elements will return to the universal pool of elements. Then, what remains? Not glue sticks and Scotch tape and Post-It Notes but only “stickiness.”

Now, please understand what can and what cannot happen with the Post-It Notes in order to understand what cycles and what does not. If you understand this, then you can be free of nonsensical beliefs such as the Dalai Lama's “New Orleans was struck by Hurricane Katrina because of the bad (dualistic) karma of the people” or such nonsense as “Harish is going to cycle and cycle and cycle again, until he gets it right (duality)”:

it could be that millions of old Post-It Notes might be processed through a pulper that chops the paper into small bits and then heats them in a mixture that breaks them down into fibrous strands of cullulose (which is merely organic plant material). Then, the pulp can be screened and, if necessary, de-inked and color-stripped. After bleaching, that can be processed in a manner that results in it again taking the form of paper which can, in turn, take the form of Post-It Notes again. But what cycled? The organic elements. Are these the same Post-It Notes that existed before? Of course not. Will all Post-It Notes be recycled? No. Can their “form” end permanently? Yes. Can the organic material used to make paper be destroyed? No.

If recycled, it is the same organic material which can cycle into a form that appears to be the same, but that material could as easily take the form and appearance of a legal pad, a magazine, or a book. (That is how trillions upon trillions of "humans and animals and birds" have cycled into and out of manifested form on the planet while the planet has experienced zero-gain and zero-loss: organic material is merely being cycled, and it all happens with a speck of energy manifesting via plants. In the relative, you are what you eat and nothing more. It happens spontaneously with no master-control or Master-control involved. With condolences to those who take themselves or their offspring to be "gifts from God," what is really going on, and on-going, is a simple and natural organic happening, not a supernatural happening.)

Conscious-energy cycles (or not) in the same manner as the Post-It Notes. In the case of the legal pad, the magazine or the book, the attribute of "being sticky" would not happen, yet “stickiness” still remains though the original "sticky note paper" does not remain in its previous form. (Dennis Waite makes this clear by noting that those who are inpeccable with their words will talk of "tably wood," not of a "wooden table.") Do you grasp fully the functioning of the totality? Do you understand completely what cycles, how it cycles, what does not cycle, what remains forever, and what is only temporarily manifested? Please enter the silence of contemplation. (Tomorrow: The Conclusion)