[NondualitySalon] Addiction

[Guest guest]

On 3/3/00 at 6:00 PM Roger Isaacs wrote:

 

[...]

¤R:

¤I'm interested in experiential reality: does one percieve

that one's essence

¤is limited to the body or coincident with the body? Who

cares about

¤scientific opinion: what is our perception? Most people

will have to answer

¤yes to this, even if they believe otherwise. The reality is

that nearly

¤everyone lives the illusion of being confined in a body.

¤

j: The reason is very simple: the sense of touch is ever

reminding one of the body; it is only temporarily forgotten in

deep, dreamless sleep and nirvikalpa samadhi. Even when in

meditation the sense of touch is forgotten, the potential

remains and this is a veil by itself. Many have to live with

one or two experiences of "not being the body".

 

R:¤But, is this identification with the body the truth? If

it's our perception

¤we'd be foolish to deny it, but is it the final truth? We

can discover the

¤reality perceptually. Talking about it conceptually is not

very interesting,

¤I expect, compared to the perceptual reality.

 

j: Right, the talking isn't the walking. The identification

"I" could be called a soft one as it concerns a function of

memory. But the identification "body, made of flesh, blood and

bone etc." with its feelings is embedded in the laws of

nature. How can there be "business as usual" without a sense

of touch, without feeling gravity, without feeling heat and

cold? Either the body will die very quickly because of

disfunctionality, or some highly complicated transformations

have to be made. There are a few hints (no more than that),

indicating there are such transformations and when they are

completed, one has a "private" version of Maya, so to speak.

It won't be a surprise there is no information on this topic

as *factual no-I* is THE "goal" for a nondualist and often

takes a lifetime by itself... Apart from that, without the

"I", "human functioning could be called "improved" whereas

one can no longer be functioning and called "human" when the

body no longer is falling under the laws of nature. So be sure

that identification is a very tenacious one...

[...]

[Guest guest]

Dear Jan/Roger,

 

re:Body reality etc.

 

You said:

 

R:¤But, is this identification with the body the truth? If

it's our perception

¤we'd be foolish to deny it, but is it the final truth? We

can discover the

¤reality perceptually. Talking about it conceptually is not

very interesting,

¤I expect, compared to the perceptual reality.

j: Right, the talking isn't the walking. The identification

"I" could be called a soft one as it concerns a function of

memory. But the identification "body, made of flesh, blood and

bone etc." with its feelings is embedded in the laws of

nature. How can there be "business as usual" without a sense

of touch, without feeling gravity, without feeling heat and

cold? Either the body will die very quickly because of

disfunctionality, or some highly complicated transformations

have to be made. There are a few hints (no more than that),

indicating there are such transformations and when they are

completed, one has a "private" version of Maya, so to speak.

It won't be a surprise there is no information on this topic

as *factual no-I* is THE "goal" for a nondualist and often

takes a lifetime by itself... Apart from that, without the

"I", "human functioning could be called "improved" whereas

one can no longer be functioning and called "human" when the

body no longer is falling under the laws of nature. So be sure

that identification is a very tenacious one...

 

 

Roger said: If its our perception ...

 

~~(M) Allow me to come in here. The body is indeed our perception and I do

not sense that the non-dualistic approach will deny this. When non-dualism

is the case, the body continues, it is just that there is no-one left to

identify with it, or to perceive it. I see no contradiction here.

 

Another side point is that the perception of the body is perhaps like the

scientist's perception of very small particles. But at a profoundly more

sophisticated level of 'observation' these particles cannot be found. The

perception of our body is like that. Ordinary perception appears to confirm

a body. This is true. But during meditation, when the whole thing is very

quiet, this process presents itself as rather different to what it appeared

at the level of ordinary perception. Here the 'sense' of touch changes into

a mere sense of non-material, energy-kind - of feeling. If you REALLY try

to sense your two fingers touching, you will find that when thought is quiet

so that it does not project the image of two fingers touching, then the

actual experience is not that of any two things touching. There is just

this strange sense of energy present which does not confirm the dualistic

subject object reality of ordinary experience. What appears, appears by

itself as a unitary process.

 

Identification is the problem. Not the body as such. And identification is

a function of thought and attention.

 

Love,

Moller