Flowering trees

[Guest guest]

[This is an excerpt from a letter I wrote a few days ago to a friend]

 

When I get into the Witness (which is nearly all the time now, even

sometimes when I sleep) the view is expansive and vast, there is no

boundary between "me" and the world. But there is still a Witness, and what

the Witness witnesses is Self-being-the-world. Or I can turn it around and

then the Witness is Self witnessing me. But there is still that further

dualism.

But already light is appearing around the edges of this view, i.e., a

further Reality is beginning to bleed through to this one. Intimations of

the identity of Self and the Witness are coming on strong. Even though they

seem to regard eachother, in reality they ARE eachother. It seems that I

can understand it either way: the Witness projects everything onto the

screen of apparent otherness: the World, Self, and All. OR, Self has an

amusing way of observing itself by splitting off this Witness thing.

When the further Reality is most vividly in my meditations, it is a

vibrant, humming, energetic, blissful thing, kind of a rapid on-off pulse

that creates Everything and destroys Everything every instant. I might call

this thing God. Except of course it is not a Thing, there is nothing

including me that it is not. And I might call this God because for the

first time since my Christian faith collapsed like a popped balloon, I have

encountered something worthy of the name. And I know that this vision of

God also ultimately collapses and becomes just what is, a man typing at a

computer and smoking his pipe in the late afternoon of a gorgeous spring

day. Only the trees are breaking into flower all about him.

 

David

[Guest guest]

Message: 9

Mon, 03 May 1999 19:35:58 -0400

David Hodges <dhodges

Flowering trees

 

[This is an excerpt from a letter I wrote a few days ago to a friend]

 

<< When I get into the Witness (which is nearly all the time now, even

sometimes when I sleep) the view is expansive and vast, there is no

boundary between "me" and the world. But there is still a Witness, and

what the Witness witnesses is Self-being-the-world. Or I can turn it

around and then the Witness is Self witnessing me. But there is still

that further dualism.

But already light is appearing around the edges of this view, i.e., a

further Reality is beginning to bleed through to this one. Intimations

of the identity of Self and the Witness are coming on strong. Even

though they seem to regard eachother, in reality they ARE eachother. It

seems that I can understand it either way: the Witness projects

everything onto the screen of apparent otherness: the World, Self, and

All. OR, Self has an amusing way of observing itself by splitting off

this Witness thing.

When the further Reality is most vividly in my meditations, it is a

vibrant, humming, energetic, blissful thing, kind of a rapid on-off

pulse that creates Everything and destroys Everything every instant. I

might call this thing God. Except of course it is not a Thing, there is

nothing including me that it is not. And I might call this God because

for the first time since my Christian faith collapsed like a popped

balloon, I have encountered something worthy of the name. And I know

that this vision of God also ultimately collapses and becomes just what

is, a man typing at a computer and smoking his pipe in the late

afternoon of a gorgeous spring day. Only the trees are breaking into

flower all about him. >>

 

You should write more often you...

 

Thank you for the flowering tree,

 

In appreciation,

 

Antoine