Sunday, August 15, 2010

You are That

What is the world?  What is the knower of the world?

Any "thing" is only apparently so from the perspective of senses - from the perspective of eyes and touch the rock is a solid thing - yet from a microscope we find the elements, maybe molecules which are atoms - atoms are empty space described by an orbiting electron - pulsing energy - energy behaving in certain patterns.  This commonality is the same for any "thing" essentially.  At this point all so-called "things" are particular patterns of energy or emptiness.  Emptiness behaving in particular ways.

We know this even at the level of the senses - water is ice, liquid and vapor - why is it so?  Isn't the essence water in all cases?  The form we see is different but the essence remains the same.  We aren't fooled by the form-ation because we know it's water appearing as ice, water appearing as liquid, water appearing as vapor or fog or mist.

But water is hydrogen atoms and oxygen atoms - a combination of atoms creating a particular form-ation, a particular appearance.  We look upon water in its various forms and overlook the reality that it is both hydrogen and oxygen atoms.  Those atoms are a movement of energy - the behavior of emptiness itself.  Is it not so?  We don't walk around thinking this way but nevertheless it's true.  Our reality is shaped in terms of our taking the resulting form-ation as true and overlooking the essence.

In other words, we take a relative appearance AS absolute reality.  This is called maya.  A veil made up only of inattention, only of conceptual reality, of ignoring what IS in preference for what appears.

Yet we can also say that what appears IS what is, only the resulting form-ation is relied upon for the picture of reality.  Therefore the rock is a separate entity.  The ice cube is a separate "thing".  And this is mainly from the perspective of a knower.  To ME it is separate.  From MY perspective it is separate, yes?

So what is the reality or essence of the knower?  The body is part of the world - it is a form-ation - it is made up of the elements - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, etc.  The make-up of the body is the elements - elements are atoms - atoms are once again emptiness - intelligence-energy - behaving in a way as to appear, like the rock, as a separate form, a thing among things -but only from the perspective of the knower of the body.

Ultimately there is a knower of all forms - a knower that isn't appearing as part of the known.  That knower is also intelligence - you are intelligent - you are present.  So you are a fact yet you cannot find yourself among these form-ations.  However we can never divide or separate or assert a separate intelligence anywhere.  That emptiness, that intelligence-energy is no different from the intelligence-energy from which the world appears.

That intelligence is what IS - that intelligence is all.  We can say it is knowing only in reference to the known.  When it is only knowing itself, even knowing must fall away as the final duality and what IS remains indescribable yet the most real, unbound from the relative form-ations and dualistic equation of seer and seen.

What IS, when described in terms of the resultant form-ation, is only relatively true - the absolute (concept) is undefinable and ineffable yet is the most real.

You are that.

5 comments:

benjamin said...

What once was known to be true of things later becomes false. What is the single knowledge permeating all knowables like the thread which holds the beads? What is this ever-truth screaming through and as the senses? What is that which no words hold and holds all words? What is that which you cannot grasp but which has grasped you since you were? What is the most self-evident and yet unfathomable Reality?

billtys said...

Hello Randall,

Thank you for this latest post. It seems to point to the following:

In the relative arena, so to speak, there is a knower of the known...there is the knower of the concept of awareness.

I see therefore why you say "...it is knowing only in reference to the known."

However, as you say, there is a knower which does not appear in the field of the known...it is not an object...it is pure subjectivity in which everything, without exception, appears...including the knower of the known.

This knower is the indefinable and indescribable you.

This is evidenced by the fact that the knower of the known in the relative sense, is that same value that knows the knower of the known.

Thank you for your most interesting post... but I got a little lost towards the end and would you please provide some further clarification.

Cheers Bill

Randall Friend said...

Benjamin,

Nicely said.

Randall Friend said...

Hey Bill,

Good to hear from you again, my friend.

That which is known and that which is knowing are the same reality. We can only speak of knowing in reference to the known. The entity who is knowing and the entity known are both mental divisions alone, mental realities.

We can approach it many ways but two seem to be the most useful - one is to notice that the appearance is always a relative form-ation - then we are forced to look deeper, so to speak, to find out what is the essence. Upon investigation we realize we always took the resulting relative formation as absolute - therefore the rock is a thing apart from ME.

When we do this, our idea of "thingness" falls apart because we can only come to recognize that there is one essence, expressing as every "thing". That intelligence which is the world and the intelligence which "knows" the world are one and the same reality.

The other way is to discern or untangle the pure subject from the object - we come to find that the subject can never have any objective attributes at all - we recognize without a doubt that the subject is always awareness - it can't be anything else. Experiencing. And then we may notice that the experience and experiencing - the subjective "feeling" and the objective "feeling" are not two realities. They are identical and have never been separate. We notice how the mind splits these up in requiring the paradigm of separation, yet they are never divided in obvious reality.

In both cases, what IS is singular, whole, limitless and undefinable - although we certainly use lots of words to talk about it.

One essence expressing as everything.


love
randall

billtys said...

Thank you very much Randall.

That is beautiful...

Love to you Bill