Scientific questioning and non-duality

[Guest guest]

Namaste,

All questions asked in science start by assuming a duality: between what knows and what is known. A knowing subject is assumed to be somehow different from an object known; and from this difference there results a questioning, of what the object is and how it can be known.

In everyone's experience, a variety of objects appear: through body, sense and mind. Through our bodies and their sense organs, other bodies are perceived, in a world of structured space. These bodies appear as material objects, each existing in particular, in its own part of space. A world of matter thus appears, made up of co-existing parts. Each part relates from its own place to other parts: thus making up an objective world, distributed in space.

This world of space is known through time, as mind's attention turns from one object to another. But as attention is thus turned, there is in mind no structured space, made up of co-existing parts. Mind's own experience is just process, made of states that pass in time. At every moment in each mind, a single state of mind occurs. No past nor any future state is present now. Mind's states don't ever co-exist, but each replace what went before.

As moments pass, states of perception, thought and feeling come and go. Through body's sensual functioning, perceived sensations show. They show in mind as passing states, interpreted by further states of thought and feeling. Through this interpretation, we take it that our thoughts and feelings speak to us, about a world made up of meaningful and valued objects. We take it that these objects are perceived in structured space, outside our inner processes of mental states that come and go in changing time.

As mental states replace each other, they occur successively, each one at its own time. Each state of mind occurs alone, at each present moment. In mind, no more than just one state is ever found, by anyone. We each experience unity, at every moment in our minds. How then could it be possible for different things to be experienced in the course of time, as mental states get changed?

To know that something showing now is different from another something shown before, some kind of knowing must stay present through the change. Some knowing presence must continue on through time. That knowing presence must remain, while previous states of mental process get replaced by later states.

That knowing presence is called 'consciousness'. It is that knowing principle which is found shared in common, by all the different states of knowing that appear and disappear in every changing mind. It is essentially implied in all perceptions, thoughts and feelings -- carried out through all our bodies and their senses, all of our conceiving minds. It is the common base on which communication is achieved, across our many differences of changing personality.

No matter where, no matter when, no matter through what instrument or faculty, consciousness is that which knows. It is that knowing subject before which all appearances are shown, through all that happens in the world and in our personalities. These happenings are nature's acts, producing part appearances of world perceived and thought and felt through partial personality.

In everyone's experience, as personality perceives and thinks and feels, a world appears to be made up of objects that are part of it. Each such object thus displayed is incomplete. There's more to it than what appears. What's shown of it is not enough. More needs to be discovered and then thought about, to find more truly what it is. It's something not quite rightly known; but rather something to be known, more clearly and less partially.

But then, how to achieve impartiality, so that true knowing may be clarified? There are two ways. One way is outward, through the construction of a pictured world, perceived by sense and thought by mind. The other way is inward, by asking back into the make-up of the picturing.

The outward way puts pictures together, from smaller pieces of perception. A complex world is pictured to be made of smaller objects, on the basis of assumptions and beliefs that are taken for granted in our minds. The inward way asks questions that reflect back into mind, so as to ask how far what we believe is true. To the extent that our beliefs are found to be wrong, they need a correction from which we may construct a better picturing.

As we keep putting pictures together, on the basis of accepted belief, we get accordingly involved with this doubtful picturing. In order to know objects better, we need sometimes to ask questions that reflect more deeply into mind, beneath blind habits of belief.

For such an inward questioning to work, the questioner must get reflected back, beneath involvement with the picturing. Reflecting there, into the depth of mind, a subjective detachment is attained. This is an inward detachment, of subjective knowing from objective picturing. By questioning thus inwardly, an impartial and clear knowing gets to be detached, from partialities and from confusions which our senses and our minds bring into all their pictures of an outside world.

Where knowing has thus been detached from picturing, it is essentially subjective. It is no act that's carried out by body, sense or mind, to show a pictured object. It's not the action of an instrument towards an object other than itself. It's not at all a changing act, performing any changing show that gets put on or taken off.

Instead, it is that purely knowing subject which is found unmixed, with any act or any object other than itself. It's that pure self whose very being shines unchanged, as knowing light. That light illuminates itself, through all appearances and disappearances of changing show. It knows itself, as its own true identity.

It's that self-shining consciousness which is each person's real self. It is that 'I' which is the same for everyone, beneath all changes and all differences of personality and world. In it, there's no duality, between what knows and what is known. It is at once the knowing self in each of us and the complete reality shown by all objects and all happenings throughout the entire world.

Ananda

[Guest guest]

advaitin , " Ananda " <awood wrote:

>

>

> Namaste,

>

> All questions asked in science start by assuming a duality: between what

> knows and what is known. A knowing subject is assumed to be somehow

> different from an object known; and from this difference there results a

> questioning, of what the object is and how it can be known.

>

Dear Mr Anand

 

You have done a wonderful description of the known.Your understanding of the

known is good enough.You proved that even simple words can carry ideas worth

referring.Technical jargon is not necessary to understand simple things.

 

thank you

sekhar

[Guest guest]

Shri Anandaji,

 

Wonderful and most convincing explanation in simple words, shorn of technicalities.

 

Regards

 

Dilip Dhopavkar 

On 11/24/09, Ananda <awood wrote:

 

 

 

 

 

Namaste,

All questions asked in science start by assuming a duality: between what knows and what is known. A knowing subject is assumed to be somehow different from an object known; and from this difference there results a questioning, of what the object is and how it can be known.

In everyone's experience, a variety of objects appear: through body, sense and mind. Through our bodies and their sense organs, other bodies are perceived, in a world of structured space. These bodies appear as material objects, each existing in particular, in its own part of space. A world of matter thus appears, made up of co-existing parts. Each part relates from its own place to other parts: thus making up an objective world, distributed in space.

This world of space is known through time, as mind's attention turns from one object to another. But as attention is thus turned, there is in mind no structured space, made up of co-existing parts. Mind's own experience is just process, made of states that pass in time. At every moment in each mind, a single state of mind occurs. No past nor any future state is present now. Mind's states don't ever co-exist, but each replace what went before.

As moments pass, states of perception, thought and feeling come and go. Through body's sensual functioning, perceived sensations show. They show in mind as passing states, interpreted by further states of thought and feeling. Through this interpretation, we take it that our thoughts and feelings speak to us, about a world made up of meaningful and valued objects. We take it that these objects are perceived in structured space, outside our inner processes of mental states that come and go in changing time.

As mental states replace each other, they occur successively, each one at its own time. Each state of mind occurs alone, at each present moment. In mind, no more than just one state is ever found, by anyone. We each experience unity, at every moment in our minds. How then could it be possible for different things to be experienced in the course of time, as mental states get changed?

To know that something showing now is different from another something shown before, some kind of knowing must stay present through the change. Some knowing presence must continue on through time. That knowing presence must remain, while previous states of mental process get replaced by later states.

That knowing presence is called 'consciousness'. It is that knowing principle which is found shared in common, by all the different states of knowing that appear and disappear in every changing mind. It is essentially implied in all perceptions, thoughts and feelings -- carried out through all our bodies and their senses, all of our conceiving minds. It is the common base on which communication is achieved, across our many differences of changing personality.

No matter where, no matter when, no matter through what instrument or faculty, consciousness is that which knows. It is that knowing subject before which all appearances are shown, through all that happens in the world and in our personalities. These happenings are nature's acts, producing part appearances of world perceived and thought and felt through partial personality.

In everyone's experience, as personality perceives and thinks and feels, a world appears to be made up of objects that are part of it. Each such object thus displayed is incomplete. There's more to it than what appears. What's shown of it is not enough. More needs to be discovered and then thought about, to find more truly what it is. It's something not quite rightly known; but rather something to be known, more clearly and less partially.

But then, how to achieve impartiality, so that true knowing may be clarified? There are two ways. One way is outward, through the construction of a pictured world, perceived by sense and thought by mind. The other way is inward, by asking back into the make-up of the picturing.

The outward way puts pictures together, from smaller pieces of perception. A complex world is pictured to be made of smaller objects, on the basis of assumptions and beliefs that are taken for granted in our minds. The inward way asks questions that reflect back into mind, so as to ask how far what we believe is true. To the extent that our beliefs are found to be wrong, they need a correction from which we may construct a better picturing.

As we keep putting pictures together, on the basis of accepted belief, we get accordingly involved with this doubtful picturing. In order to know objects better, we need sometimes to ask questions that reflect more deeply into mind, beneath blind habits of belief.

For such an inward questioning to work, the questioner must get reflected back, beneath involvement with the picturing. Reflecting there, into the depth of mind, a subjective detachment is attained. This is an inward detachment, of subjective knowing from objective picturing. By questioning thus inwardly, an impartial and clear knowing gets to be detached, from partialities and from confusions which our senses and our minds bring into all their pictures of an outside world.

Where knowing has thus been detached from picturing, it is essentially subjective. It is no act that's carried out by body, sense or mind, to show a pictured object. It's not the action of an instrument towards an object other than itself. It's not at all a changing act, performing any changing show that gets put on or taken off.

Instead, it is that purely knowing subject which is found unmixed, with any act or any object other than itself. It's that pure self whose very being shines unchanged, as knowing light. That light illuminates itself, through all appearances and disappearances of changing show. It knows itself, as its own true identity.

It's that self-shining consciousness which is each person's real self. It is that 'I' which is the same for everyone, beneath all changes and all differences of personality and world. In it, there's no duality, between what knows and what is known. It is at once the knowing self in each of us and the complete reality shown by all objects and all happenings throughout the entire world.

Ananda