Epistle to Natural Consciousness

So-called personal consciousness is filtered consciousness but most people been down so long they think it’s natural consciousness.

Let’s define our terms. Personal consciousness receives everything. Natural consciousness projects through everything.

One is natural consciousness, but ordinary people think they’re just this personal consciousness produced by the body somewhere in the brain.

In this vein, natural consciousness is not ordinary to such people, but natural consciousness appears to be almost supernatural to them.

Communicating this paradox is why there’s gods, friends, and devils. You know the devil of every detail but one. God is consciousness.

Footnotes.

1. Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me by Richard Fariña.

2. Personal consciousness is the universal cause. Natural consciousness is beyond all cause and effect. I am that I am.

3. Scientific materialism is just a religion whose personal god is named scientific materialism. Dear eight pound, six ounce, newborn baby big bang. So cuddly but still omnipotent.

4. Beyond natural, maybe.

5. If jiva is atman, and atman is brahman, then brahman is jiva. Let the circle be nondual.

end notes

I am of the opinion.

Reality is consciousness minus mind.

Energy minus resistance is aum’s law.

Do the math.

Old math, new math. Real math is experiential.

Because numbers are the new names, tao is also numberless.

Tvam am tat.

Prajnanam brahma, ayam atma brahma, tat tvam asi, aham brahma asmi.

The self of self-awareness is brahman.

Another name for self-awareness is maya.

The world is just a cross-section of self-awareness.

I went to the crossroad and fell down on my knees.

If atman is the self,

and brahman is awareness,

maya is the self-awareness.

Welcome to My Paraverse

Consciousness knows everything except reality. For reality is consciousness and self-awareness is its dream state.

So living in the world is like suspending disbelief in a movie called self-awareness. Actors never die. Movies do. Myth is the script.

So religions sell myth. It’s not easy writing your own. For example, in advaita vedanta, vedanta is religion and nonduality is disbelief.

My myth is self-awareness, my disbelief is nonduality, and my religion is the loving personality. My poetry is my bible. Happy birthday number one daughter!

end notes

1.1. not only does consciousness know everything, it causes everything.

1.2. for the sea surrounds the island. the island does not surround the sea, says hafiz.

2.1. in the first place, you can't get there from here.

2.2. li po plays all along the watchtower!

3.1. if story is super brahman, myth is parabrahman.

3.2. i'm advaita america.

4.1. see the reflexive universe, spot. see the mandukya, jack kerouac.

4.2. love is all.

Aum Beatitudes

Aum is I-am as form, subsiding to concept, and resting as knowledge.

But this deep knowledge, universal consciousness, doesn't know the absolute; the nondual absolute knows it.

Such noumenal knowing, pure awareness, the witnessing I, is that without cause, and, without effect.

On Eka-ātma-pratyaya-sāram

After all the neti neti of Mandukya 7, this all-important positive line appears. Here are various translations: 

whose valid proof consists in the single belief in the Self 

~Gambhirananda 

The essence of the Consciousness manifesting as the self [in the three states] 

~Nikhilananda 

As one whose essence is the perception of itself alone 

~Olivelle 

 essentially of the Self alone 

~Chinmayananda 

 Always experienced as the unbroken “I-sense,” 

~Swartz 

The only proof of His existence is union with Him 

~Yeats & Purohit 

The essence of the assurance of which is the state of being one with the Self 

~Hume 

Essence of self knowledge 

~Raphael 

The essence of its certainty is the one Self.  

~Jones 

 

Essentially one-pointed self-awareness,  

~aumdada 

On Natural Apprehension. Commentary in Paraverse on Gaudapada K1.15.

Deconstruct misapprehension. Forget non-apprehension. Just know natural apprehension.

There’s no curing the common cause. You always know yourself. You’ve identified with something else.

Knowing natural apprehension is the direct path. Ekātma-pratyaya-sāraṁ. That’s not just awareness, that's oneself, bliss.

footnotes.

1.1. and do not forget i too took this road and still swear by the four agreements.

1.2. non-apprehension was never born. like social conditioning, or maya.

1.3. the guru, written or unwritten, only leads you to the wine. hafiz, drink it for god's sake!

2.1. if not-knowing is the first disease, knowing is original ease and non-doing.

2.2. leaves fall, a tree abides. trees die, the earth abides. the earth disintegrates, the sun abides. the sun implodes, black brahman abides.

2.3. the self is always witnessing self-awareness. people, all manner of things shall be well.

3.1. from superego to immaculate conception to universal consciousness. aum.

3.2. akāra ukāro makāra. waking dream, dreaming dream, dreamless sleep.

3.3.1. awareness is often mistaken as attention. the mind attends the senses and its memories.

3.3.1.1. awareness affectionately witnesses. this is why we speak in threes.

3.3.1.2. see satcitananda.

3.3.1.3. islands of happiness appear and disappear in spacetime. bliss is that in which the sea of spacetime is appearing.

Deep Sleep Is Nihilism's Name: A Commentary on Gaudapada.

According to Gaudapada,

deep sleep is the non-apprehension of reality,

and the states of the waking dream

and dreaming dream are both

non-apprehension, and further,

misapprehension of reality.

The former is cause and the latter, effect.

Thus deep sleep,

or the absence of duality (nihilism, nothing),

is not reality.

Reality is not just nothing; reality is nondual.

Whereas people see all manner of things unwell,

reality eternally is witnessing

only self-awareness.

afterword

so, if deep sleep is nihilism according to gaudapada, then what is the waking and dream state?

i'm guessing the waking state is full bore materialism and the dream state is some religious halfway house.

in other words, those three states of consciousness are represented in the world by three schools of thought: materialism, religionism, nihilism. but they are not the truth. the stateless fourth state is the truth.

footnotes

1. my autocorrect says godapada and so far i'm okay with that.

2. deep sleep is like the big bang, like a cosmic worm hole, like the necessary self-forgetting (maya) before self-awareness.

3. religion is the greatest dream state.

4. scientific materialism is the greatest religion.

5. it's one thing not to see the rope but it's another thing to see the snake.

6. the primal cause is ignorance. the first effect is fear.

7. deep sleep is nothing. nihilism is not reality. reality is nondual.

8. awareness is witnessing self-awareness. cool, cool, cool.

bibliography

updating the mandukya and karika translation observations—gambhirananda is still in first. although i feel there are significant mistakes in a few places, these actually help in understanding sankara's commentary, which is surprisingly deferential in faithfulness to the paraguru.

swartz is in second place despite the sometimes poor editing and questionable design decisions, and an obvious, if transcendentally fine, agenda. still, i feel there is some true insight in places, none more insightful as the one in seeing the i-sense as the proof of Mandukya 7.

third is chinmayananda. as far as i'm concerned, c. is nearly a prerequisite for its complete translation services. it is almost necessary for triangulation purposes. but it's commentary, although truly profound in places, is mundane overall, which actually might be its intent.

fourth, but not last, is raphael. it's been nicely esoteric in a western way, but is, so far, a fourth wheel in triangulation. yet it's still early, although if its approach to mandukya 7, possibly the world's greatest statement on nonduality, is any guide, don't hold your breath.

i feel it's necessary to say i have not read nikhilananda's translation as well as many others. i still may, of course. and as for jones, no comment.

haiku

october crickets

awareness is as love sounds

aum self-awareness

The Game Show

The snake sees through the snake.

All awareness witnesses is self-awareness.

Atman, brahman, and parabrahman walk into a fine establishment and words are spoken.

Who are Tao Chien, Hafez, and Juan de la Cruz?

Affirming, denying, and reconciliation, like immaculate conception, deconstruction, self-awareness. What is the power of three?

First there is a jeopardy, then there is no jeopardy, then there is.

Is it self-consciousness is, or are, the foothills of self-awareness?

The duality behind nonduality is self-awareness and that's no duality at all.

If atman is this self in self-awareness, and brahman is that awareness in self-awareness, parabrahman is awareness.

The poetry of paraverse is my devotion to this inquiry behind all self-enquiry.

To trinity, trimurti, triangle, and all my pyramid scemes—

may Turiya be with you.

11 Translations of Mandukya 7

The 7th verse of the Mandukya Upanishad is the most important verse of that short work. There the word, advaita, shows up for the first time in history, and thus it is arguably the most important verse in advaita vedanta. It is the verse in which the fourth state, the stateless state, appears (after the previous appearances of the three states, in verses 3, 4, 5, respectively, of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep). Because of its importance, I am including various translations here for triangulation purposes.

They consider the Fourth to be that which is not conscious of the internal world, nor conscious of the external world, nor conscious of both the worlds, nor a mass of consciousness, nor conscious, nor unconscious; which is unseen, beyond empirical dealings, beyond the grasp (of the organs of action), uninferable, unthinkable, indescribable; whose valid proof consists in the single belief in the Self; in which all phenomena cease; and which is unchanging, auspicious, and non-dual. That is the Self, and That is to be known.

~Gambhirananda

(And this is from Sankara’s commentary as translated by Gambhirananda:

By the phrase, `nantah-prajnam, not conscious of the internal world’, is eliminated Taijasa. By `na bahis-prannam, not conscious of the outside world’, is eliminated Visva. By `na ubhayatah-praj’nam, not conscious of either’ is ruled out the intermediate state between dream and waking. By `na prajndnaghanam, not a mass of consciousness’ is denied the state of deep sleep, for this consists in a state of latency where everything becomes indistinguishable. By ‘na prajnam, nor conscious’ is denied being aware of all objects simultaneously (by a single act of consciousness). By ‘na aprajham, nor unconscious’ is negated insentience.

Hence, It is adrstam, unseen. Since It is unseen (i.e. unperceived), therefore It is avyavahdryam, beyond empirical dealings; agrdhyam, beyond the grasp, of the organs of action; alaksanam, without any logical ground of inference, that is to say, uninferable. Therefore It is acintyam, unthinkable. Hence It is avyapade-syam, indescribable, by words. It is eka-dtma pratyaya- sdram, to be spotted by the unchanging belief that It is the same Self that subsists in the states of waking and so on. Or, the Turiya that has for Its sara, valid proof, eka dtmapratyaya, the single belief in the Self, is the eka-atmapratyaya-sara. And this is in accord with the Vedic text: `The Self alone is to be meditated upon’)

Turiya is not that which is conscious of the inner (subjective) world, nor that which is conscious of the outer (objective) world, nor that which is conscious of both, nor that which is a mass of consciousness. It is not simple consciousness nor is It unconsciousness. It is unperceived, unrelated, incomprehensible, uninferable, unthinkable, and indescribable. The essence of the Consciousness manifesting as the self [in the three states], It is the cessation of all phenomena; It is all peace, all bliss, and non-dual. This is what is known as the Fourth (Turiya). This is Ātman, and this has to be realized.

~Nikhilananda

They consider the fourth quarter as perceiving neither what is inside nor what is outside, nor even both together; not as a mass of perception, neither as perceiving nor as not perceiving; as unseen; as beyond the reach of ordinary transaction; as ungraspable; as without distinguishing marks; as unthinkable; as indescribable; as one whose essence is the perception of itself alone; as the cessation of the visible world; as tranquil; as auspicious; as without a second. That is the self (ātman), and it is that which should be perceived.

~Olivelle

It is not that which is conscious of the internal subjective world nor that which is conscious of the extenal world, nor that which is conscious of both, nor that which is a mass of Consciousness, nor that which is simple Consciousness, nor is it unconscious: It is unseen by any sense organ, beyond empirical dealings, incomprehensible by the mind, uninferable, unthinkable, indescribable, essentially of the Self alone, negation of all phenomena, the peaceful, the auspicious and the non-dual. This is what is known as the fourth (turīya). This is the Ᾱtman and this is to be realised.

~Chinmayananda

The Fourth [Turiya] is not outward-moving consciousness, not consciousness turned inward, not consciousness moving in any direction. It is not a mass of consciousness or all-knowing consciousness. It is not unconscious either. It is beyond perception, beyond all kinds of transactions, ungraspable, uninferable, indescribable and always experienced as the unbroken “I-sense,” free from the world, tranquil, auspicious and non-dual. It is the Self. It is to be known.

~Swartz

He is not knowable by perception, turned inward or outward, nor by both combined. He is neither that which is known, nor that which is not known, nor is He the sum of all that might be known. He cannot be seen, grasped, bargained with. He is undefinable, unthinkable, indescribable. The only proof of His existence is union with Him. The world disappears in Him. He is the peaceful, the good, the one without a second. This is the fourth condition of the Self — the most worthy of all.

~Yeats & Purohit

Not inwardly cognitive (antaḥ-prajña), not outwardly cognitive (bahiḥ-prajña), not both-wise cognitive (ubhayatah-prajña), not a cognition-mass (prajñāna-ghana, not cognitive (prajña), not non-cognitive (a‑prajña), unseen (a‑dṛṣṭa), with which there can be no dealing (a‑vyavahārya), ungraspable (a‑grāhya), having no distinctive mark (a‑lakṣaṇa), non-thinkable (a‑cintya), that cannot be designated (a‑vyapadeśya), the essence of the assurance of which is the state of being one with the Self (ekātmya-pratyaya-sāra), the cessation of development (prapañcopaśama), tranquil (śanta), benign (śiva), without a second (a‑dvaita) — [such] they think is the fourth. He is the Self (Ātman). He should be discerned.

~Hume

The Sages believe that the Fourth which has knowledge neither of the internal (subjective) nor of the external (objective) world, nor simultaneously of the former and the latter, and which, ultimately, is not (even) a unity of integral consciousness, as it is neither conscious nor unconscious – is adṛṣṭa: invisible, avyavahārya: non agent, agrāhya: incomprehensible, alakşana: indefinable, acintya: unthinkable, avyapadesya: indescribable; it is the only pratyayasara: essence of self knowledge, without any trace of manifestation, fullness of peace and bliss devoid of duality: it is the atman and as such it must be known.

~Raphael

People say that the fourth quarter neither perceives outwardly nor inwardly nor both. It is not a mass of cognition- it is neither cognitive nor noncognitive. It is unseen, not open to interaction, ungraspable, without a defining mark, inconceivable, indescribable, the cessation of material proliferation. Tranquil, auspicious, and without a second (advaita). The essence of its certainty is the one Self. That is the Self. That is what is to be known.

~Jones

2025 addition:

The Self is not the dreamer, not the waker, not an in-between state, not the deep sleeper, not the all-knower and not unconscious. The Self is invisible, not transactable, not graspable, cannot be inferred, beyond thought and beyond language. It is the essence of the “I-sense”, the quiescence of the universe, peace itself, bliss itself, nondual and thought to be the fourth. That is the Self to be realized.

~Sarvapriyananda

They consider the Turīya to be (that which is) not the outward consciousness, not the inward consciousness, not the consciousness turned both sides, not a mass of consciousness, not the all-knowing consciousness, not unconscious, beyond perception, beyond transaction, beyond grasp, beyond inference, beyond thoughts, beyond description, traceable through the unbroken self-awareness, free from the world, tranquil, auspicious, and non-dual. It is the ātmā. It is to be known.

~Paramarthananda

And a quick transcreation:

Neither outwardly conscious nor inwardly conscious nor both.

Neither integral consciousness nor consciousness itself nor unconsciousness.

Unseen, beyond transaction, inconceivable, uninferable, unthinkable, indescribable.

Essentially one-pointed self-awareness, beyond all phenomena, peaceful, blissful, nondual.

The one Self That is to be known.

~aumdada 2021

Not inner consciousness nor outer consciousness nor consciousness in-between. Not a mass of consciousness nor omniscient consciousness nor unconsciousness either.

Imperceptible, unrelatable, unreachable, uninferable, unthinkable, indescribable.

That intuitive endless I-essence. Cessation of the world's appearances. Peaceful. Blissful. Nondual. What is known as the Fourth. That is the real self. That is to be realized.

~aumdada 2025

Aum Vibrations

From thought forms to bright thoughts to no mind

from deep sleep through dreamtime to night and day,

if the world is visible light, then all my reveries are infrared and ultraviolet.

It's said enlightenment is east of the microwaves and west of x-ray

and from phenomena to memoranda to the holy noumenon,

all of this is good vibrations of the absolute om bop bop.

footnotes:

from molecular to nuclear to self-awareness,

atman is brahman is parabrahman.

beyond gamma rays and radar, i am that i am.

this is cosmic radio 108!

light! memory! eyes, ears, nose, throat, and dermatology!

that's karma yoga. that's what all the people say.

One Is the Absence of Duality

The world appears in the dream. The dream appears in deep sleep. Deep sleep is the absence of duality.

The presence of nonduality is self-awareness. Nonduality is beyond description.

The goddess dream is like first wave rising from the sea of deep sleep like Botticelli’s Birth of Venus.

And the world is like the crash and undertow and ten thousand nights of mystical oscillation.

And the chorus sings. The presence of nonduality is self-awareness. Nonduality is beyond description.

Aum to Zeno

Zeno proves this universe isn’t real and not vice versa. Thus Zeno is a litmus test for religious materialism.

The waking state affirms the dreaming state. This is the first law of manifestation.

Seeing through desire is knowing biblical intent. This is the second law of manifestation.

Enlightening intent is the god of negative capability. Call me Shiva. I’m third law of manifestation.

As I was saying before myth broke in, you can't get here from there if you’re already here.

Footnotes

Earth’s the right place for self-awareness.

Deep sleep is the first state of maha-maya-consciousness and not the last.

As the mind appears in consciousness, dreaming is the second city.

It’s Friday night live!

Therefore I tweet.

Manifestation is just projection of this play called self-awareness.

Watch me now!

Awareness watches; self-awareness plays. ™

As desire is love in translation, all translations leave a lot to be desired.

All fogs lift.

On the Corner of Agape and Beloved

Love isn’t logical. The mind doesn’t understand love. This is your first clue.

Too, universal timeless consciousness is like a day of love on earth.

Now is the day of trinity. Gurus and fools love love. Philosophers hate it. 

As love is like a lifeline flung to the living dead, love reveals the void.

Prophecies cease, verbs stop, and generalities fade away, but love never loses.

Like First Corinthians 13, love is lucky that way.

Underneath the cloud of thought, self-shining consciousness is called love, but what’s in a name?

For love is no mind. Do you think there's something more esoteric than my beloved?

Dancing with That

 “You know that there is a world, but does the world know you? All knowledge flows from you, as all being and all joy. Realize that you are the eternal source and accept all as your own. Such acceptance is true love.” ~N_M

Between the big bang tail and self-awareness mouth of the ouroboric self-reflexive universe is

that absolute beyond the spacetime of its evolutionary body-mind. You cannot mind that Gap.

That the referent of you is that is demonstrative; absolute tantric yoga is exactly identifying as that.

Walk that nondual talk. You don’t fight ego. Ego fights ego. You watch the fight or see through it.

Superego is a good bet. Awareness watches. Self-awareness plays. A cherry blossom is falling in the milky way.

Valley Spirit

Telling people

nondual awareness

is ordinary

is like telling

them a table

isn’t solid.

Belief trumps science,

no matter how

much it hurts.

Chop religion,

carry DNA—

don’t think like

an ordinary

person girlfriend

but be like unknown.

Experiential

An experience is not experiential.

An experience is the rough translation

of this experiential

infinite in primal memory.

The experiential is the wordless now

and thus untranslatable.

The experiential is without fault

my default.

The experiential is the absolute

being.

Ode to My Way

1.

Not only socially conditioned with thought, but conditioned to identify with particular thoughts, I forgot that I am nonconceptually brahman.

Absolute awareness is, if nothing else, self-aware. The cross-section of this self-awareness appears to be a universe of space-time. The heartwood of this universe is enlightening intent.

Knowing that the absolute is the efficient cause is being conscious but realizing that the absolute is the material cause is self-awareness.

First, I cannot know myself by any conceptual way. Thus there is no name for tao, that self-shining consciousness of pure awareness.

2.

Consciousness becomes unconscious, and in that space of deep sleep, the duality of dreaming mind appears to build a daytime dreamstate, and then deconstruct it, thereby reawakening consciousness. The next chapter is entitled embodiment.

If the universe appears to be a cross-section of self-awareness, then the stuff of the universe is consciousness, which is the stuff of self-awareness.

Consciousness is the stuff of the universe and absolute awareness. Thus it is said Atman is Brahman. On the other hand, the duality of dreaming is the stuff of the mind.

3.

The knowledge of the mind is limited to the realm of the mind, fantasies, deconstructions and lucid dreamings like meditation, contemplation and other visualizations.

Turning inwards to the intuitive understanding of oneself is more like love than process. Even the lucid dreaming of the deepest meditation only takes you to the gate.

It’s not as much a question of effort as one of effortlessness. Self-awareness is inevitable because self-awareness is all that is. All fog lifts, period.

To a person, consciousness is a pre-existing condition. To consciousness, the body-mind is a vehicle to self-awareness. The self that realizes the self is the self.

footnotes

a.

the process of remembering who i am is told in seven myths: awareness, space-time, dream-time, past-time, now-time, light-time, and the self-awareness of timeless awareness

the wormhole of this universe is love

the formal cause of this universe is its heartwood

in the name of the person does not have consciousness, consciousness has the person, and the absolute has consciousness, aumdada

b.

consciousness, (unconsciousness (deep sleep), dreamtime, daytime, deconstruction time / consciousness awakens

using the tool is called embodiment.

consciousness is to the universe as the mind is to the world. consciousness is to the absolute as absolute awareness is to self-shining consciousness.

everything but consciousness is dreamstate or deconstructing myth.

c.

As good fences make good neighbors, good myth makes good deconstruction. The religion is good myth gone bad.

First, the mind is intentionally born in unconsciousness. Consciousness must become unconscious, or in other words, sleep, to make the mind. Call this deep sleep.

In deep sleep appears the mind. First, the mind learns to dream in the language of thought. Call this dreamtime. Next, the mind learns to dream in living color, loving consciousness. Call this daytime.

Consciousness becomes unconscious to make the mind, knowing the deconstructing mind will wake it up. Consciousness makes the mind for self-awareness. Call this tool, divine imagination.

Myth is mind deconstructing mind. The embodiment of lucid dreaming is the divine imagination of self-shining consciousness manifesting self-awareness. Myth is like sutra. Embodiment is like tantra.

d.

people meditate. consciousness dreams lucidly.

love is mind-training 101.

duality is ten thousand concepts. misconception is identifying with a single one;

in the sudden presence of nonduality, there's an absence of identification called awakening, revelation, kensho, savikalpa samadhi.

in ouroboric visualization, satcitananda is the kundalini-like tail and awareness is the empty mouth.

A Timeless Quintet in ABC

The mind, conscious or subconscious, appears in the unconsciousness of consciousness.

Personal deconstruction without self-remembering is nihilistic, my friend.

Repeat your mantra at least twice a day.

Every siesta, just breathe and stretch that kundalini.

Consciously is earnestly.

footnotes

the longer the mantra, the less you shall repeat it. the shorter the mantra, the less the dosage for self-remembering.

consciously consciousness is another name for self-remembering

or abcc.

caution: every word in a manta may induce savikalpa kensho; do not use while driving.

or not.

self-awareness informs the body-mind.

in the meantime, enjoy your samsara

This is key: the mind, conscious or subconscious, appears in the unconsciousness of consciousness.

there is no no further in self-awareness.

time is just a thought away.

one baby step, one giant leap in self-awareness.

kundalini form, carry mind.

also key: consciously is earnestly.

awakening is quick but consciously consciousness is staying sudden.

forgiveness is the backbone of personal deconstruction.

this is like freud, jung, and nisargadatta rolled into one: the mind, conscious or subconscious, appears in the unconsciousness of consciousness.

A Tractate in Paraverse on Reality, Dreamstate, Emotion, and Sun

The real can’t be described. If you can see, hear, smell, taste, touch, or fuck it, it’s not real. The real does not transform nor is the real impermanent.

Objects in consciousness appear as real but that’s the nature of a dream, is it not? The mind dreams in concepts. Consciousness dreams in living color.

The mind is thought and consciousness is love. Emotion equals love minus thought, or love plus thought, or love times thought, or any kind of long division. People can be so emotional.

Look, the mathematics of sunset and sunrise are earthbound but the sun is never earthbound. Earth thinks, light loves, and the sun is beyond the known.

footnotes

the reality that can be named is not the way

if you believed my last trick was real, wait for the next truck up my sleeve

a person is love +/-

black wholes, texas tea

black wholes, texas tao

old beliefs never fade away but lie low

repentance is self-remembering like ouspensky along the tavricheskaya

"And on the way while driving along the Tavricheskaya I began to feel a strange uneasiness, as though I had forgotten something. And I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten to remember myself."

i find some kind of self-remembering schedule is not a bad practice

i have to take a shower every day

awareness is already self-aware. this intent toward self-awareness makes that self-awareness. further, tricksters.

air conditioning is the last conditioning

"If one discards the false and takes refuge in the True, one resides frozen in ""wall contemplation"", in which self and other, ordinary person and sage, are one and the same; one resides fixedly without wavering, never again to be swayed by written teachings. ~Bodhidharma (McRae)

"Call it honesty, integrity, wholeness; you must not go back, undo, uproot, abandon the conquered ground. Tenacity of purpose and honesty in pursuit will bring you to your goal. ~Nisargadatta (Frydman)

as repentance is deconstruction, atonement is reconciliation

reconciling with oneself is tectonic, my friend

psychologically, reconciliation is some kind of crazy

after reconciliation, there shall be aftershock

if ease is default, disease is belief

age is the oldest religion

birth is your first god

air conditioning is the last god

you don't miss your water until the air conditioning runs dry

awareness doesn't know. that's your job.

you had one job

only i am real. that is who i am, bitches.

you gotta serve some security

the personal usurps the noumenon when threatened. late oppenheimer said as much.

consciousness is primal

this has yet to be disproved despite the astronomical funding

consciousness is the stuff of self-awareness

thought is the box. the box appears in consciousness. like a monolith.

it's not so much the absolute doesn't know but the absolute's beyond all knowledge

the tempest is curious

disassociation is to mind what reconciliation is to consciousness

what happens in samsara stays in samsara

Epistle to Second Place

Repentance is duality-speak for personal deconstruction.

Non-conceptual contemplation is a nondual indicator for atonement.

And primordial self-shining natural awareness is absolutely absolution.

Repentance doesn’t mean repentance; repentance is a conscious turning from the perpetual motion of the personal.

Atonement isn’t making reparations to a god but reconciling with the unity I am.

And absolution isn’t being pardoned for original sin but ultimate self-awareness.

Truth is most beautiful but what’s so wrong about repentance, atonement, and absolution in the second place?

Consciousness Renaissance Sonnet

Consciousness only is the only knowledge.

True knowledge is unknowable by the working mind.

The mind imagines and deconstructs imagination.

As imagination appears in the mind, the mind appears in consciousness.

As the mind appears in consciousness, consciousness appears in the absolute.

As the mind knows imagination, consciousness knows the mind.

That the absolute knows consciousness is the only knowledge.

Call this knowledge being the unknown.

Being the unknown is obviously non-conceptual,

the closest concepts describing the indescribable being words

like observational, experiential, and empirical.

Observational as in naturally witnessing without judgment.

Experiential as in being non-objectively universal.

And empirical as in the only empire is the empire of bliss.

sidebar

the arden tempest arrived today. part 3 of shakespeare's romantic trilogy. just started cymbeline act 5. mistaken identity is certainly a thread so far.

there's something else though. mad jealousy. in the winter's tale, there is leontes, and in cymbeline there's posthumus leonatus. just noticing the similarity in names as i write this.

just did a little research on the characters in the tempest which i read 25 years ago and so remember little. but ariel, one of the main characters whom i remember being my favorite and with whom i most identified at that time, means the lion of god. curiouser and curiouser.

and on a rather personal note, my father's name was leo. he would have been 108 on august 3. how's that for a propitious age? happy birthday  dad.

as i so often say to something my four-year-old granddaughter says on our frequent video chats, that makes sense.

so this profound revelation is kind of blowing my paradigm live.

as violence is the action of duality, jealousy is its prime mover. damn that will shakespeare!

that's like negative negative capability.

for the record, i would like to thank john keats for turning me on to cymbeline.

like john lennon, i have been a jealous guy.

as violence is the action of duality, jealousy is its prime mover.

footnotes

1. absolute awareness is self-awareness.

2. within this self-awareness awareness is descending into unawareness and vice-versa like the rings of a tree.

3. self-awareness is like lightning. lucid dreaming is like the thunder told by a fool signifying nothing.

4. another name for lucid dreaming is divine imagination, myth.

5. cloud-to-ground lightning comes from the sky down, but the part we see comes from the ground up.