surreptitious57 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 06, 2018 3:49 pm
The fundamental difference between our respective positions is that you think consciousness is non existent while I think that it is experienced by conscious beings. You think that all of reality is an illusion and consciousness is an illusion too. And that reality is really nothing because conscious beings that experience it are themselves not actually real. And that because they are not actually real they do not exist and therefore cannot die
So all of conscious experience is an illusion. And life and death are illusions too
Yes that is my position. All knowledge is an appearance of not-knowing. All concepts are sourced from the non-conceptual.. From my position, all knowledge is an illusory appearance appearing real. In that knowledge informs the illusory reality that there is a knower separate from the known which is impossible, it is possible only in the sense that the separation is an illusion. In reality the knower, knowing and known are only ever ONE in the same instant, namely, nowhere, nowhere. This can be proven in DEEP meditation, when the assumed separate ''I thought'' can be observed to drop away leaving pure unborn presence which does not drop away. This PURE UNBORN PRESENCE is there in deep sleep, under anaesthesia, in death, and in life, it pervades absolutely every conceptual state aka knowledge, while it itself is not a state...this illusion of being in a state, aka ''otherness'' aka the ''I thought'' can be observed to drop away, because you are the observer, and everything is of you, in you, and there is nothing outside of you, but more you. I'm not talking about the personal you that comes and goes here, I'm talking about the impersonal you that does not come and go... the universal I
surreptitious57 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 06, 2018 3:49 pmI understand your position completely I just do not think it is true. And the reason I think that is because the illusion is too real for it to be
an illusion. Your position is very interesting philosophically but empirically it is not convincing at all which is why I cannot accept it as such
I accept your position. The illusion is too real to be an illusion.
The problem is with the word ''illusion''
I the context in I usually use the word ''illusion'' is by saying that which appears to look real is not real. Life is real and not real, we have to include both sides of the mirror when using concepts to describe this since language is dual by it's very nature.
Now, from my position, the mirror (aka consciousness, aka awareness) is inseparable from it's contents, it's actually ONE reflecting itself as two. It's non-dual so to speak, real, and unreal. Remember, the word ''real'' would have no meaning without a complimentary opposite. In the same way, a doorknob would have no meaning without relating it to a door.
The problem is ONE doesn't really have an opposite, there is nothing in relationship with it except it's self...and that is the illusion, it's the illusion of ''other'' separate from itself.
That's my position that I refuse to let go of because it's my only understanding that is clear to me about the nature of reality.
And of course, you are entitled to your position as well, I accept your right to see what ever you want to see...I'm simply reporting my own experience how I see it. It's my opinion only.
Also, a good analogy for me to use to explain what I mean by illusion is as follows...when we see a human illusionist performing a trick on stage by sawing his woman assistant in half, the trick looks as if it's really happened, but it was just an illusion, it didn't happen, the woman wasn't cut into two, she was whole the entire time. In the trick, it does appear to look like she was cut into two halves, but this was an illusion appearing to be real.
That's how I try to explain this, that the illusion is real, it's a real illusion.
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