Pot-space

[Guest guest]

Namaste Vedantins,

 

I have a question I would like to ask to respected members

here. I have heard the phrase 'pot-space' used by many

of Swami Dayanandaji's older students. It seems to me

that Swamiji himself may have used this analogy in teaching quite

often in the past, but I myself have never heard him unfold it,

nor does my teacher refer to it.

 

Recently I attended a conference in San Rafael, CA, titled,

'The Conference on Science and Nonduality.' At that conference,

one of the moderators of this list, Greg Goode, gave a talk

whose subject matter was the number one stumbling block to

nondual realization.

 

What Greg pointed out in his talk, is that most people

feel that Awareness is located somewhere in the body,

which in reality is not the case.

 

I am wondering if the analogy of 'pot-space' standing

for Awareness, is the same as the feeling that Awareness

is localized in the body.

 

Vedanta often compares brahman to space, as space is all

pervasive, (although the teachings further point out that,

unlike brahman, there are things which space is not.)

 

Is it that brahman being all-pervasive and nothing ever

apart or separate from brahman, and everything in fact

being brahman, that as the body/mind moves from place to

place, there is no encapsulation of brahman, but rather

a moving through brahman, as it were?

 

We are told that brahman doesn't move, has no parts, and

is all pervasive, the adishthana of all. And then we have

this mithya reality of experience, which although brahman true, moves, and has

parts, and objects within it have separate locations.

Thus a tree is located in my garden and not in my living room.

 

I suppose the purpose of this musing is that indeed

I found Greg Goode's thesis to be correct. One does

feel that Awareness is localized in the body, even

if one has recognized that Awareness is very different

from the body, i.e. Awareness never changes, is present

in all three periods of time, present to

all mental states of experience, is the source of

all love and happiness. And yet, despite all this,

it does seem to me that Awareness is contained in

the body, even while at the same time seeing that

everything to do with the body, takes place in unchanging

Awareness.

 

So all of this pondering has brought to my mind the

pot-space analogy, which I've heard referred to, but

feel that I've never properly understood. Would some

respected member kindly explain that metaphor again

if indeed it applies to understanding that Awareness is

not contained, but rather is all-pervasive.

 

Thank you.

 

My pranams,

Durga