Metamorphoses of the Spirit: Transfiguring our Thinking (Part II)

[Eugene I]

On the other hand, if you recognize that there is a knowing (consciousness) independent from experience (awareness), it is possible to directly know the existence of something (like absolute nothingness) that exists outside awareness. This is not a logical argument. It is a description of the actual act of knowing. I know there is absolute nothingness, the infinite void.

I think we are bumping into terminological problems here. Let me try to adjust to your terminology. OK, there is consciousness independent from awareness, and this consciousness can directly know absolute nothingness. But at the moment of consciousness knowing nothingness the conscious still exists and "knows". So how it is "absolute nothingness" if consciousness still directly knows it? There must be "something" that knows the nothingness, some "knowing" or "That which knows", but that is not "ultimate nothingness, it is still "somethingness" (that knows). If such nothingness would be ultimately absolute, there could not be even any "knowing" of it.

I love these conversations because they make me look deeper into these questions. Today I've been reflecting about Rupert's final remarks in that video you showed me, saying that since we've never experienced our own beginning, we can't assume that we ever began, and therefore we can conclude that we are eternal, and will never die. There is some truth in this, I'm sure, but I also think there is a "fear of the void" lurking underneath the apparently impeccable logic. I'm sure it must be comforting to think that there is no void, no death, and that awareness will go on forever, eternally. But I wonder if it really works. Does the belief that awareness is eternal and never ceases cure the fear of death? I imagine it helps, but I don't expect it to dissolve that fear completely. Because underneath that belief in eternal awareness the fear of nothingness, which is our deepest fear, remains.

Now I would claim that what Rupert means by "awareness" is the same thing that you call "knowing (consciousness) independent from experience (awareness)", and what you call "experience (awareness)" is what Rupert calls "mind". IMO this is only a terminological confusion and we are actually all talking about the same thing but confused by our different terminology. I would suggest you to try to listen to Rupert keeping in mind that when he talks about "awareness", it is actually what you call "knowing (consciousness) independent from experience (awareness)".

And now, once we clarify that terminological confusion, IMO there is no difference between Almaas and Rupert's views. The Almaas "Nothingness" is a void state which is still directly known by "knowing (consciousness)", and many people witnessed such state (me included), there is indeed a dimension of Void/Nothingness (in Buddhism called Arupaloka and experienced in Jhana meditation method). I'll post below a collection of amazing NDE experiences of Void.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Adur ... I'm with Eugene here, in that this is largely a case of terminological/semantic interpretations of the 'knowing' of no-thingness vis-a-vis the 'awareness' of the absence of any objectified experiential contents of awareness. 'No-thingness', by definition, is a reference to the latter, because 'awareness' is not a 'thing'. So to state that one can 'know' a state of 'no-thingness' is tantamount to saying that one can know a state of awareness absent any experiential contents of awareness, i.e. 'things'. In which case, A.H and R.S are stating the same basic premise, if allowing for some terminological convergence.

[SanteriSatama]

On the other hand, if you recognize that there is a knowing (consciousness) independent from experience (awareness), it is possible to directly know the existence of something (like absolute nothingness) that exists outside awareness. This is not a logical argument. It is a description of the actual act of knowing. I know there is absolute nothingness, the infinite void.

I think we are bumping into terminological problems here. Let me try to adjust to your terminology. OK, there is consciousness independent from awareness, and this consciousness can directly know absolute nothingness. But at the moment of consciousness knowing nothingness the conscious still exists and "knows". So how it is "absolute nothingness" if consciousness still directly knows it? There must be "something" that knows the nothingness, some "knowing" or "That which knows", but that is not "ultimate nothingness, it is still "somethingness" (that knows). If such nothingness would be ultimately absolute, there could not be even any "knowing" of it.

I love these conversations because they make me look deeper into these questions. Today I've been reflecting about Rupert's final remarks in that video you showed me, saying that since we've never experienced our own beginning, we can't assume that we ever began, and therefore we can conclude that we are eternal, and will never die. There is some truth in this, I'm sure, but I also think there is a "fear of the void" lurking underneath the apparently impeccable logic. I'm sure it must be comforting to think that there is no void, no death, and that awareness will go on forever, eternally. But I wonder if it really works. Does the belief that awareness is eternal and never ceases cure the fear of death? I imagine it helps, but I don't expect it to dissolve that fear completely. Because underneath that belief in eternal awareness the fear of nothingness, which is our deepest fear, remains.

Now I would claim that what Rupert means by "awareness" is the same thing that you call "knowing (consciousness) independent from experience (awareness)", and what you call "experience (awareness)" is what Rupert calls "mind". IMO this is only a terminological confusion and we are actually all talking about the same thing but confused by our different terminology. I would suggest you to try to listen to Rupert keeping in mind that when he talks about "awareness", it is actually what you call "knowing (consciousness) independent from experience (awareness)".

And now, once we clarify that terminological confusion, IMO there is no difference between Almaas and Rupert's views. The Almaas "Nothingness" is a void state which is still directly known by "knowing (consciousness)", and many people witnessed such state (me included), there is indeed a dimension of Void/Nothingness (in Buddhism called Arupaloka and experienced in Jhana meditation method). I'll post below a collection of amazing NDE experiences of Void.

I can concur with consciouss experience of the void aka 'kenoma'. To add more semantic confusion, the feel is that the kenoma-void lacks also awareness, it's beyond awareness and observable only to metacognitive imagination (of nothing to imagine). What can we do? The kenoma-void can also be fullfilled with pleroma-fullness, made fully aware by our dissolving into simple awareness.

And thus, breathing. The Spirit.