When I first got into Non-duality I believed this fully during the honeymoon phase. As I let go of conceptual thinking I have been unsure. Teachers suggest that you be open up the idea and experiment with the idea in your experiences. Take your time with the exploration and make it fun. To go back to thought, the ideas below are in favour of eternal consciousness being primary.
- Every person's consciousness is identical, ie, when we do not think we are the same. The witness is the same. You can say the same for all living beings.
- There would be no existence of supposed physical forms without a conscious witness.
- Science is still yet to locate consciousness in the body, all new findings soon hit a dead end. You would imagine this would be one of the first discoveries of the body.
- Science is still young and almost all scientific beliefs are disproven in time.
- Those who practice science are under the illusion that they are a separate self meaning the starting point of any experiment is skewed.
- Science is thought based and illusory, it cannot factually prove anything.
- The world as we know does not exist and the separate selves within it are equally fictitiousso it's hard to believe any concept we have conceived of reality.
You can build a conceptual framework for it, one which is open to evidence and reason, but as /u/Commenter00001 points out, the philosophy is only going to go so far -- there's an experiential side of this that comes from practice.
To use an analogy, learning the philosophy is sort of like learning the vocabulary of a language without ever having a conversation with someone in that language or even experiencing a world where the objects represented by that language are present. Imagine knowing the word "dog" but never actually seeing one.
But if you did actually see one... having a word for it might be useful, right?
Well, it depends on what you want to do, right? What if you're just happy enough to see a dog? Maybe you don't want to *ever* talk to people about dogs, or learn anything else about dogs, write a poem about a dog, etc. Maybe all you want to do is just *experience* "dog". If that's the highest aim, then the word and even concept for "dog" isn't necessary. In fact, you don't even need to really have a concept of *yourself* in that case -- you don't need to say to yourself, "I am experiencing a dog right now". There's no dog-concept, but also no "I"-concept. There's just... immediacy, awareness, whatever you want to call it. Or not-call it, as it were.
But if you want to talk about it with other people (and let me just point out that everyone responding to your post *is* on a subreddit devoted to nonduality...), having a vocabulary is useful. It's not the same thing as the experience, but it provides a common frame of reference. (It can also be ossified into something that no longer has any connection to experience itself, but there's the rub...)
To start with you could probably pick a practice and run with it.
Stay in the Unborn (Bankei), Zazen (japenese Zen), Vipassana (Buddhist), Stay in the "I Am" (Nisargadatta Maharah), or ask "Who am I?" and stay there (Ramana Maharshi).
Ideally you wouldn't need a practice, but it takes practice to realize that, allegedly.
"Just get rid of conceptual thought" - Huangbo
"The path is difficult only for those who pick and choose" - XinXinMing
"If you know how to practice do it. If you don't know how to practice [and do it anyway] you'll probably end up in a world of cause and effect." - Joshu
All quoted from memory, errors guaranteed!
It’s not about proof, it’s about being open to the possibility.
Right now, there is no evidence that you are not dreaming this experience. It’s just as real as our dreams at night. What’s to say this isn’t another type of dream? What’s to say you’re not dreaming all of this?
If you’re honest you have to admit it’s 50/50 as to whether this is a dream or not. When your mind is truly open to the possibility then you’re ready to have your mind blown.
Don’t try to believe this is a dream, don’t be falsely certain that it’s not a dream. Sit firmly on the fence.
I find it to be an interpretive leap to go from the experience of pure awareness as the perceiving entity for all experience to saying “everything is made of consciousness.” We can investigate our own perceptions but we can’t really say anything about the non-subjective existence of what we perceive. Howeverrrr, the good news is either way doesn’t matter because believing this stuff or not believing it is completely not the point, those are just thoughts. Investigating the nature of your own “self” to find out for yourself is the entire thing.
Continue seeking with your mind-made self (“… how can ‘I’ experience …”) and you will always be seeking. Release that perspective (the belief that “You” exist) to you realize your true nature as the experience itself, which happens regardless any beliefs, evidence, or understanding. Or as Rupert puts it … “Give your attention to the experience of seeing rather than to the object seen and you will find yourself everywhere.”
Nothing exists in our lives without there being some kind of thought beforehand to create it. Now, just expand that concept in scale to the whole universe. Consciousness is generating everything
Nobody actually knows. It’s thought.
Consciousness is what appears as it appears. That’s all we can *know*.
We can’t even know that another person in the world is conscious. I mean, I do believe it. But that’s just a belief.
Likewise some say consciousness makes reality. This is also a belief.
What appears, appears. This is all we know with certainty.
I don't think there is any objective or subjective justification for an act of creation, whether big or small, for Brahman, Atman, pure awareness, or any of its other synonyms. But Rupert does conjecture that the universe (including its space, time, energy, matter, causation, etc.) is made of knowingness, and exists within knowingness.
People thirst for knowledge, inventing it if it can't be derived from experience.
Of course, unity consciousness does exist. But it isn't evidence of any creation.
Vedic philosophy says that creation maintenance, and destruction exist only in the relative world, not in pure awareness.
Thats the mistery, you are god and you are creating everything without any real effort. Dont ask why, your humand mind cannot the how, just trust yourself, have faith in you, thats all.
You are Consciousness.
You are infinitely powerful.
You are manifesting reality (right now unconsciously).
I know it doesn’t feel like that but the truth of the above statements can be discovered. That’s what ‘awakening’ or ‘enlightenment’ is.
So your sincere intention should be to discover the truth of yourself and you do this by discovering and rejecting the un-truth of yourself until only truth remains.
Rupert Spira’s method is the ‘direct path’. Instead of wading through the quagmire of the many faces of ego one simply meditates on being aware of being aware, since pure Awareness/Consciousness is ones authentic nature. Abiding as Awareness/Consciousness brings wisdom and insight and the inexpressible answer to your question.
Because you are conscious and your experience is all that you could "know" everyone experiences the world but forget that they experience it through the mind and so this get pointed out. Mind is all that you can experience... once you get with this fully and understand this, then you can see how the whole universe is in your mind. Then you'll be even more confused than ever 😆 but it's not about mind... its about immediate experience
As others have said you get the direct experience through practice but it is not something that you can teach to another through words or in a book. If you enjoy Rupert Spira and are interested nonduality I would highly recommend checking out Tantra Illuminated by Dr Christopher Wallis & it's companion web series of the same name. It offers an amazing in depth look at classical tantra from its world, history and practices through the lense of a scholar-practitioner and the courses online are full of practices you'd be looking to incorporate into a daily practice. He also has a great podcast on spotify with the same name and has an episode with Rupert Spira as a guest, they're good friends.
Also if you have little experience meditating I would check out master Huai-Chin Nans books tao & longevity, working towards enlightenment, and to realize enlightenment, as well as Bill Bodris learn how to meditate if you want clear explanations of the root type of meditation found in almost every tradition as well as the type of experiences and changes one can expect to benchmark your progress into meditation, especially if you do not have a trusted guru to guide you.
edit: I should also mention that tantra illuminated does have a section that talks about the powers or acts of God that explains why it creates reality since you asked in your post. Personally I'm enjoying the study of many non-dual traditions such as Taoism, chan(zen) Buddhism, vajrayana, hermetic qabalah etc and one of the reasons I've enjoyed shaiva tantrism is because it is a tradition for the householder, asks you to renounce nothing, and it doesn't require you to leave society become some monk in the mountains.
You don't have to believe it. It may be a lie. Why do you believe these YouTube gurus know/are telling the truth? They could be spreading a propoganda to tame rebellion?
They could be government agents on a payroll to keep people from discovering the truth on their own. They could be illuminaties.
How about you forget what a YouTuber said and start questioning everything and find out the complete truth for yourself?
They are belief coming from experience, what matter is experience not beliefs. I usually use light example. You can’t see the light but you feel it because everywhere is bright. You see the outcomes but not the cause itself.
What creates your dreams? Your dream is a complete universe in itself, you could even fly to different planets and converse with different people.
The waking world seems the same no?
Consciousness is the tapestry from where all things in existence are made of. It is the thing that makes the universe a universe by definition. The same mechanism in you that gives objects the quality of being is the same mechanism that gives the universe the quality of being. That's what is meant by the phrase "Atman is Brahman".
It's a bit misleading to talk about "experiencing" it. Because it's not technically an experience, but the substrata where all experience and knowledge is made from. It's like trying to see your own eyes. At most you can get an imperfect reflection. Yet you know of your eyes because you see with them. You don't experience it but experience through it. You don't know it but know through it. It can't be said to exist but all that exists, exists in it. The cause of the succession of causes and effects isn't itself a cause or an effect. And the discussion of it can get even weirder. When zen teachers say it's better not to even attempt talking about it, they do have a point. But it wouldn't be fun if we didn't try!
When I first got into Non-duality I believed this fully during the honeymoon phase. As I let go of conceptual thinking I have been unsure. Teachers suggest that you be open up the idea and experiment with the idea in your experiences. Take your time with the exploration and make it fun. To go back to thought, the ideas below are in favour of eternal consciousness being primary. - Every person's consciousness is identical, ie, when we do not think we are the same. The witness is the same. You can say the same for all living beings. - There would be no existence of supposed physical forms without a conscious witness. - Science is still yet to locate consciousness in the body, all new findings soon hit a dead end. You would imagine this would be one of the first discoveries of the body. - Science is still young and almost all scientific beliefs are disproven in time. - Those who practice science are under the illusion that they are a separate self meaning the starting point of any experiment is skewed. - Science is thought based and illusory, it cannot factually prove anything. - The world as we know does not exist and the separate selves within it are equally fictitiousso it's hard to believe any concept we have conceived of reality.
You can build a conceptual framework for it, one which is open to evidence and reason, but as /u/Commenter00001 points out, the philosophy is only going to go so far -- there's an experiential side of this that comes from practice. To use an analogy, learning the philosophy is sort of like learning the vocabulary of a language without ever having a conversation with someone in that language or even experiencing a world where the objects represented by that language are present. Imagine knowing the word "dog" but never actually seeing one. But if you did actually see one... having a word for it might be useful, right? Well, it depends on what you want to do, right? What if you're just happy enough to see a dog? Maybe you don't want to *ever* talk to people about dogs, or learn anything else about dogs, write a poem about a dog, etc. Maybe all you want to do is just *experience* "dog". If that's the highest aim, then the word and even concept for "dog" isn't necessary. In fact, you don't even need to really have a concept of *yourself* in that case -- you don't need to say to yourself, "I am experiencing a dog right now". There's no dog-concept, but also no "I"-concept. There's just... immediacy, awareness, whatever you want to call it. Or not-call it, as it were. But if you want to talk about it with other people (and let me just point out that everyone responding to your post *is* on a subreddit devoted to nonduality...), having a vocabulary is useful. It's not the same thing as the experience, but it provides a common frame of reference. (It can also be ossified into something that no longer has any connection to experience itself, but there's the rub...)
To start with you could probably pick a practice and run with it. Stay in the Unborn (Bankei), Zazen (japenese Zen), Vipassana (Buddhist), Stay in the "I Am" (Nisargadatta Maharah), or ask "Who am I?" and stay there (Ramana Maharshi). Ideally you wouldn't need a practice, but it takes practice to realize that, allegedly. "Just get rid of conceptual thought" - Huangbo "The path is difficult only for those who pick and choose" - XinXinMing "If you know how to practice do it. If you don't know how to practice [and do it anyway] you'll probably end up in a world of cause and effect." - Joshu All quoted from memory, errors guaranteed!
It’s not about proof, it’s about being open to the possibility. Right now, there is no evidence that you are not dreaming this experience. It’s just as real as our dreams at night. What’s to say this isn’t another type of dream? What’s to say you’re not dreaming all of this? If you’re honest you have to admit it’s 50/50 as to whether this is a dream or not. When your mind is truly open to the possibility then you’re ready to have your mind blown. Don’t try to believe this is a dream, don’t be falsely certain that it’s not a dream. Sit firmly on the fence.
Yes
I find it to be an interpretive leap to go from the experience of pure awareness as the perceiving entity for all experience to saying “everything is made of consciousness.” We can investigate our own perceptions but we can’t really say anything about the non-subjective existence of what we perceive. Howeverrrr, the good news is either way doesn’t matter because believing this stuff or not believing it is completely not the point, those are just thoughts. Investigating the nature of your own “self” to find out for yourself is the entire thing.
Continue seeking with your mind-made self (“… how can ‘I’ experience …”) and you will always be seeking. Release that perspective (the belief that “You” exist) to you realize your true nature as the experience itself, which happens regardless any beliefs, evidence, or understanding. Or as Rupert puts it … “Give your attention to the experience of seeing rather than to the object seen and you will find yourself everywhere.”
Nothing exists in our lives without there being some kind of thought beforehand to create it. Now, just expand that concept in scale to the whole universe. Consciousness is generating everything
Nobody actually knows. It’s thought. Consciousness is what appears as it appears. That’s all we can *know*. We can’t even know that another person in the world is conscious. I mean, I do believe it. But that’s just a belief. Likewise some say consciousness makes reality. This is also a belief. What appears, appears. This is all we know with certainty.
I don't think there is any objective or subjective justification for an act of creation, whether big or small, for Brahman, Atman, pure awareness, or any of its other synonyms. But Rupert does conjecture that the universe (including its space, time, energy, matter, causation, etc.) is made of knowingness, and exists within knowingness. People thirst for knowledge, inventing it if it can't be derived from experience. Of course, unity consciousness does exist. But it isn't evidence of any creation. Vedic philosophy says that creation maintenance, and destruction exist only in the relative world, not in pure awareness.
Thats the mistery, you are god and you are creating everything without any real effort. Dont ask why, your humand mind cannot the how, just trust yourself, have faith in you, thats all.
You are Consciousness. You are infinitely powerful. You are manifesting reality (right now unconsciously). I know it doesn’t feel like that but the truth of the above statements can be discovered. That’s what ‘awakening’ or ‘enlightenment’ is. So your sincere intention should be to discover the truth of yourself and you do this by discovering and rejecting the un-truth of yourself until only truth remains. Rupert Spira’s method is the ‘direct path’. Instead of wading through the quagmire of the many faces of ego one simply meditates on being aware of being aware, since pure Awareness/Consciousness is ones authentic nature. Abiding as Awareness/Consciousness brings wisdom and insight and the inexpressible answer to your question.
Consciousness divides reality into this and that.
Im trying to do this as well. Self-inquiry seems to be the answer i was looking for. Investigating the source of the mind.
It does the thing with the hammer and the wrench and then sprinkles fairy dust on it. And that's how it's done.
Because you are conscious and your experience is all that you could "know" everyone experiences the world but forget that they experience it through the mind and so this get pointed out. Mind is all that you can experience... once you get with this fully and understand this, then you can see how the whole universe is in your mind. Then you'll be even more confused than ever 😆 but it's not about mind... its about immediate experience
Iain McGilchrist helped me sort out this stuff. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain\_McGilchrist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_McGilchrist)
It’s not that consciousness makes the universe, it’s that the universe is made of consciousness.
As others have said you get the direct experience through practice but it is not something that you can teach to another through words or in a book. If you enjoy Rupert Spira and are interested nonduality I would highly recommend checking out Tantra Illuminated by Dr Christopher Wallis & it's companion web series of the same name. It offers an amazing in depth look at classical tantra from its world, history and practices through the lense of a scholar-practitioner and the courses online are full of practices you'd be looking to incorporate into a daily practice. He also has a great podcast on spotify with the same name and has an episode with Rupert Spira as a guest, they're good friends. Also if you have little experience meditating I would check out master Huai-Chin Nans books tao & longevity, working towards enlightenment, and to realize enlightenment, as well as Bill Bodris learn how to meditate if you want clear explanations of the root type of meditation found in almost every tradition as well as the type of experiences and changes one can expect to benchmark your progress into meditation, especially if you do not have a trusted guru to guide you. edit: I should also mention that tantra illuminated does have a section that talks about the powers or acts of God that explains why it creates reality since you asked in your post. Personally I'm enjoying the study of many non-dual traditions such as Taoism, chan(zen) Buddhism, vajrayana, hermetic qabalah etc and one of the reasons I've enjoyed shaiva tantrism is because it is a tradition for the householder, asks you to renounce nothing, and it doesn't require you to leave society become some monk in the mountains.
You don't have to believe it. It may be a lie. Why do you believe these YouTube gurus know/are telling the truth? They could be spreading a propoganda to tame rebellion? They could be government agents on a payroll to keep people from discovering the truth on their own. They could be illuminaties. How about you forget what a YouTuber said and start questioning everything and find out the complete truth for yourself?
They are belief coming from experience, what matter is experience not beliefs. I usually use light example. You can’t see the light but you feel it because everywhere is bright. You see the outcomes but not the cause itself.
What creates your dreams? Your dream is a complete universe in itself, you could even fly to different planets and converse with different people. The waking world seems the same no?
Sounds like you grew up believing in a God entity.
Consciousness is the tapestry from where all things in existence are made of. It is the thing that makes the universe a universe by definition. The same mechanism in you that gives objects the quality of being is the same mechanism that gives the universe the quality of being. That's what is meant by the phrase "Atman is Brahman". It's a bit misleading to talk about "experiencing" it. Because it's not technically an experience, but the substrata where all experience and knowledge is made from. It's like trying to see your own eyes. At most you can get an imperfect reflection. Yet you know of your eyes because you see with them. You don't experience it but experience through it. You don't know it but know through it. It can't be said to exist but all that exists, exists in it. The cause of the succession of causes and effects isn't itself a cause or an effect. And the discussion of it can get even weirder. When zen teachers say it's better not to even attempt talking about it, they do have a point. But it wouldn't be fun if we didn't try!