[Zenugget]

[skygypsy]

"If you need time to achieve something, it must be false.
The real is always with you;
you need not wait to be what you are.
Only you must not allow your mind to go out of yourself
in search."

- Nisargadatta Maharaj

Comments

[roadriverrail]

It is an echo of a Camus maxim I live by -- "You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you continue to search for the meaning of life."

I'm always wary, though, of the word "self," at least in this context. That unholy clash of the Western cult of the individual with the Eastern cult of the abstractly ineffable has left a tempestuous brew of words and ideas without grounding. I'm left never sure what a self, let alone a Self, is, nor what makes it whole, nor what the experience of wholeness is.

I have read some nondualism, most notably Ken Wilber. I guess, in some ways, I like what they say, but the inevitable problem with nondualism is that each "dual" is argued to actually be an aspect of a greater whole, and this argument is what causes the "nonduality" to exist. This is where things start to fall apart for me. Wilber, for example, argues that dualities apparent at one "level of consciousness" are seen as not-dual and part of an integrated whole at a "higher" "level of consciousness", leading to total nondualism, where the entire duality of subject and object no longer exists. Yet it only raises the question about how one knows these levels of consciousness exist and whether suggesting that the final duality is subject/object. For all we know, there are dualities we haven't identified beyond that. Wilber's solution is to claim all mystic practice as repeatable science on "consciousness" and thus you find authoritative data in mystic traditions. This also props up his love of the guru-disciple relationship, since it makes gurus scientists.

I'm not ready to bite. I might have certain experiences from, say, a meditation, but calling them a "higher" "consciousness" is not a conclusion but a supposition, and it privileges one experience over another without giving a tangible reason why. Especially when this typical line of thinking leads to supporting power relationships among people, it's worth stopping and asking why we're putting that particular map over our experiences.

i think you made a comment about denying everything, or rather, believing in nothing?

Oh, I believe in lots of things. I believe in personal freedom. I believe in the value of labor. I believe in human rights. I believe that, generally, what's fair for everyone is best. I believe in maximizing happiness for the largest number of people. I don't deny everything...that would be nihilism. I do, however, strongly challenge the use or importance of a certain class of ideas, many of which we lump under the rubric of spirituality or philosophy. Concepts of divinity, of quintessence, of unseen cosmic forces, of universal justice, of teleology, and other "meaning of life" stuff.