Even 'Beyondness' is a point of view.

"That everyone has different experiences and perspectives is not a problem; rather, the problem is that when we interpret an experience outside its own paradigm, context, and stated definitions, that experience becomes lost altogether. It becomes lost because we have redefined the terms according to a totally different paradigm or perspective and thereby made it over into an experience it never was in the first place. When we force an experience into an alien paradigm, that experience becomes subsumed, interpreted away, unrecognizable, confused, or made totally indistinguishable. Thus when we impose alien definitions on the original terms of an experience, that experience becomes lost to the journey, and eventually it becomes lost to the literature as well. To keep this from happening it is necessary to draw clear lines and to make sharp, exacting distinctions. The purpose of doing so is not to criticize other paradigms, but to allow a different paradigm or perspective to stand in its own right, to have its own space in order to contribute what it can to our knowledge of man and his journey to the divine.

 Distinguishing what is true or false, essential or superficial in our experience is not a matter to be taken lightly. We cannot simply define our terms and then sit back and expect perfect agreement across the board. Our spiritual-psychological journey does not work this way. We are not uniform robots with the same experiences, same definitions, same perspectives, or same anything."

Bernadette Roberts.

That seems pretty useful to me in the wake of all the endless discussions and endless terminology of levels and personally percieved definitions of that terminology which have spewed out recently (especially with reference to or in reaction against Benthino's latest thing) ...

Ultimately, on a pragamatic level it means that whatever our own experience is and whatever our own interpretation of that experience is, is real for us personally. One almost might say that whatever works for each individual is cool for them.

 After that it is interesting to listen to the other guy and see where he's at and if it looks interesting or better see if we can find something similar in and through ourselves ..

However to constantly be looking at the other guy and criticising him if it doesn't 'measure up' to our own concepts or experience is to deny the possibility of further openings .. and the beauty of the reality that nobody can ever have the full Truth or the Absolute picture .. that is for The Truth or The Absolute itself .. always always beyond .. always always greater than .. and never never communicable in words ..

No human can deny their humanity and the 'point of view' that this implies while alive in a human body ..

Bismi'llah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim...for the sake of Prophet Muhammad saws and Sheikh Nazim may Allah protect his secret.

Friday, 15th June 2012

08:26:Hrs;

 Analysis shows there is no-thing .. nothing .. at the sub-atomic level .. and there was no-thing before the universe at a cosmic level .. Self analysis shows there is no self at a personal level ..

and yet .. Here it all is and here we all are .. How does that happen ?

No-thing being every-thing.

Individually .. subjectively this is experienced as no-thing being some-thing. Us as a subject and other as object.

In the ‘Being’ .. we meet .. we recognise that other people are, in one sense, objects .. i.e. bodies .. but they are animated bodies with characters and personalities .. we recognise the life in them and that that life is similar to our own .. essentially the same ..

The sameness .. the ‘being’ is what we love and long to know and to be and to share ..

the differences .. the ‘thingness’ .. is what separates us .. causes misunderstandings and even wars ..

What I am saying is that in a world of ‘things’ we are alienated .. as a subject surrounded by and percieving objects .. Nobody really knows how it is that apparent objects upon analysis turn out to not exist .. and yet they are there .. This is due to a being (as a verb not a noun) which is not understood and cannot be described because it is no thing and yet it is what all things exist in .. maybe the essence of what all things actually are .. therefore it is living .. alive .. Being .. No thing .. being everything .. experienced as some things ..

To find that Being which is no thing and yet the essence of all things we must look into ourselves .. It is the only way to find that Being and when it is found in and as the real self (not the body and not the mind) .. then it is recognised that one’s real self is the same One that is all other selves and the essential nature of all that exists ..

That I believe is the work that the human being really was designed to do .. the work of self-knowledge .. It is also what religions were ultimately meant to guide to .. self knowledge being knowledge of God or the Divine or The Absolute .. the No-thing .. which is continually Being Every-thing ...

When one knows oneself as no-thing being something then one knows that all things are no-thing being everything ..

It is the living Being which unites all things and all apparently separate beings .. wether human beings or animal-beings or plants-beings or (apparently)inanimate-beings.

We are all one in Being. All is One in Being.

Bismi'llah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim...for the sake of Prophet Muhammad saws and Sheikh Nazim may Allah protect his secret.

Someone says .. God is Emptiness Emptiness is God .. ..yeah kinda like that ..
Emptiness is so full of God that it overflows into form ! : )
& form is so empty of reality that it flows back into God ..

Either way everything is pregnant with God both form and emptiness .. which are signs of that ..
...
And of course He / It are so much more than that (always) ..

Abandoning the opposites in Unity & then abandoning Unity in Suchness & then abandoning Suchness in Emptiness .. diving into the void .. to find .... that which is beyond finding .. no finder no finding no found .. only that which is ..

& it’s just here .. now .. naked awareness .. and all that is in consciousness .. forms & self .. self and forms co-appearing (interbeing as Tich nat Hahn says) .. in something which is nothing .. Presence .. nothing hiding itself by being everything ..

and expressing itself here now in these words on this lappie .. out to FB and whoever reads it .. ultimately the same one reading it as wrote it .. everywhere God knowing Himself / Itself .. through us .. as us ..
The “meaning” of life ? Just that .. God knowing Himself through His creation which is none other than He ..
Only one thing which is no thing .. everywhere and everywhen at all times and places without time or place ..
The place of the placeless the space of the spaceless .. in the timeless eternal moment of now ..

“Allah was a hidden treasure and He wanted to be known .. so He produced the creation that He might be known.” (hadith qudsi)

But of course all that is knowing and known is none other than He ..
As Ibn Arabi said ...

“Allah was and there was nothing with Him .. and He is now as He was.”

Only the words God and Allah get in the way .. partly because they represent something which is an unknowable Reality and then they get turned into concepts attached to the word .. and more especially because of all the connotations implied by the connection of those concepts with religions and their misapprehensions and consequent contradictory terrible deeds.

Shame about that because I love God .. (none other than He loving Himself as & through me) ..

a hadith in Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti's collection-
which is a Hadith Qudsi which states ...

I was a hidden treasure and I loved that I be known ...
[That is Allah loved that He be known.]
Therefore, I created creation and made by Myself known to them ...
So through Me they knew Me.

(repeat) ..

So through Me they knew Me.

Duality and non-duality same (but different) ..

Bismi'llah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim...for the sake of Prophet Muhammad saws and Sheikh Nazim may Allah protect his secret.

It’s about the non-local consciousness as pure non duality .. i.e. that which is beyond words .. no-thing .. nothing .. Emptiness or God .. Brahman .. The Absolute .. whatever one chooses to call it ..

Let’s call it Universal Mind for now .. the brain as reciever .. through that the absolute non-dual consciousness gets filtered into duality ..

Actual Reality is all one thing .. but our filtering brain sees it as two contrasting poles which make up dualistic consciousness .. hence time and space .. past and future .. here and there .. and all other dualities ..

All the methods are in order to ‘trip the switch’ of dualistic perception and get back to a state prior to this .. which is like Universal Mind .. when this is done a third state comes in which the dual is realised as the non-dual .. that all the composites of dual mind are composed of nothing but Universal Mind one might say .. Both poles of any pair of opposites not only have the same source but actually are the same source ..

Therefore the wonderful saying ..

The world is an illusion .. only Brahman is real ..

The world is Brahman.

Which is why I almost feel to ‘correct’ that imperfectly stated thing in a thread which says .. Brahman is the World ..

I see that as different from The world is Brahman .. as in the world is not other than Brahman but Brahman is not defined as being the world

I maybe even still find it hard to see emptiness is form .. but easy to see form is emptiness .. (in other words emptiness is a vast emptiness and there is nothing other than it .. and all form is nothing other than emptiness but emptinesss is not defined by the sum of all form .. and far from that )

In more sufi language .. the world is not other than God .. (because nothing truly exists except God) .. but He is not defined by the world .. as He is its creator and therefore much more than that .. creating unimagined worlds with qualities & beings we cannot possibly imagine ..

So the world is an illusion, Allah alone is Real .. the world is not other than Allah .. would sum that up

and translate as ..

The world is an illusion .. Brahman alone is real .. the world is Brahman, in the sense that the world is not other than Brahman ..

I see the world as an illusion created out of whatever ultimate reality is (call it God or Brahman or maybe even Emptiness) .. and not other than that in essence .. but caused or ‘created’ by or through the filtering mechanism of the mind / the brain / dualistic consciousness .. interpreting universal mind or pure non-dual, non-local consciousness.