Soul_of_Shu wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 11:47 am
Ben Iscatus wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 10:57 am
Adur, although I find what you say fascinating and cannot dispute it, I would like you to explain how you think Consciousness arises from Absolute Emptiness. The reason I ask this is that it strikes me as an incorrect use of the term, since by normal definition and use of English, something cannot come from nothing. Can you not use the term "plenum" or a "void containing the superposition of all unrealised possibilities", or similar?
And as per previous chats with Adur on this notion, I'm still awaiting the explanation for how a state utterly absent any awareness of it, can be a memory that one recalls? By definition there could be no recall of it. I'm fine with with no-thingness, but since awareness is not a 'thing', then what does the absence of thingness have to do with the absence of awareness?
Hi Dana,
The word-play of "no-thingnesss" only works in English, which as we all know is a language with lots of curious materialistic expressions, like for example "every-body", "any-body", etc. In every other language I know, the word "Nothing" doesn't contain the word "thing" in it (German
Nichts, Spanish
Nada, Basque
Ezerez). So no, when I use the word "Nothing" I don't mean "no-thing". I mean Nichts. Nada. Nil.
There is no memory that one recalls. I know my awareness dissolved and I went into Absolute Nothingness. But I can't remember that Nothingness, I have no memory of it. You can ask: "If you can't remember it, how can you know it happened?" I know it happened because that experience changed me completely. It liberated me from fear of Death. And it marked the end of an unconscious striving that had been pushing me all my life. I finally found what I was unconsciously looking for. I found my true Home.
I also know it happened because I remember myself sitting on the floor of my bedroom, feeling my awareness dissolve, and willing myself to relax and let go. And then I remember myself lying on the couch in my living room, amazed at my awareness arising from that absolute blackness. It was like witnessing a miracle. The most life-changing experience I've ever had. As I let myself slip into the Nothingness, I truly felt it was the End. But now I was back! I felt renewed, reborn. I have no recollection of what happened in between, and I have no idea of how much time passed while I was "gone". I don't remember anything in that gap.
Another way of talking about this is to say that I can't remember that Absolute Nothingness because it's not in the past. It's right here and now. It never left me. I can feel it at the core of all reality. At the core of my Awareness, of my Consciousness.
So, I don't need to remember anything to know that this Absolute Nothingness is real.
Soul_of_Shu wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 12:59 pm
Hedge90 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 12:27 pmHe wrote that it was actually just a gap in his experience ...
Nonetheless, that is recall of a 'gap' in one's experience. That gap being no-thingness, or the absence of things
to be aware of. As Spira has put it, there is no absence of awareness, only the awareness of absence—which would also be the absence of any experience of time passing—which means that one can't, by way of recall, now be aware of a gap that no-one could have been aware of, if there was no awareness to be aware, period.
A video has been shared here previously of Spira and Almaas discussing this premise, in which I feel they did seem to reconcile their takes on it, at least to my satisfaction.
Like I said above, there is no recall of a gap. There is just a gap in your awareness. You recall what happened before, and what happened afterwards. You don't recall the gap itself.
After watching those two videos of Rupert Spira and Almaas in conversation, my take is that Rupert has never experienced Cessation, the total cessation of awareness Hameed (Almaas) was talking about. Hameed didn't push the topic further, because it is pointless to try to convince somebody that an experience they've never had and that they can't even conceive is possible. And from the point of view of Awareness (which is Rupert's point of view), Rupert is of course right. Awareness can't experience the absence of awareness. That's an impossibility. So, Awareness can only conceive the "awareness of absence", meaning the absence of everything but awareness itself. This awareness of absence is in itself a very profound spiritual experience, and it is deeply liberating in its own right. But it's not the same as the Cessation Hameed was talking about.
I think you can trust me on this. I took part in a 9-day online retreat this summer, in which Hameed (A. H. Almaas) talked at length about Cessation and the Absolute, contrasting it with other kinds of nondual realization (like Formless Awareness), and we did practical exercises exploring these topics. I don't mean to say that Almaas is right and Rupert Spira wrong, what I'm saying is that they have different views, and that in that conversation Almaas didn't pursue the discussion because it was clear that Rupert wasn't familiar with this kind of realization (Cessation).