A blog on understanding your 'self' – and for lovers and teachers of interfaith as inter-spiritual living. It's an ongoing stream of interspiritual Nondual & interfaith resources for realizing happiness by finding our way home to our true Self.
Dr. Peter Adamson writesHEREabout Avicenna that the most famous of his thought experiments; is the so-called ‘flying man’ thought experiment, devised by the most influential philosopher of the Islamic world, Avicenna (in Arabic, Ibn Sīnā, who lived from 980 to 1037 CE). Imagine, he says, that a person is created by God in mid-air, in good condition but with his sight veiled and his limbs outstretched so that he is touching nothing, not even his own body. This person has no memories, having only just been created. Will his mind be a blank, devoid as it is of past or present sensory experience? No, says Avicenna. He will be aware of his own existence…….
….is Avicenna right that the ‘flying man’ would be self-aware? Well, it’s important to realise that Avicenna does not attempt to argue that the flying man would know that he exists. Rather, he takes it as obvious. In one version, he even tells readers that we should imagine ourselves being so created. If we put ourselves in the flying man’s dangling shoes, we should just see that we would be self-aware. Indeed, this turns out to be a fundamental idea in Avicenna’s philosophy. He thinks that we are all always self-aware, even when we’re asleep or focusing hard on something other than ourselves. Paradoxically, we’re often not aware of being self-aware: it is the non-interruptive background music of human psychology, something we notice only when our attention is called to it, a pre-reflective awareness of self. The flying man thought experiment is itself one way to call attention to this self-awareness: Avicenna calls it a tanbīh, meaning a ‘pointer’ to something. -0-
My, Roger’s, sense is that our personal awareness is limited but ceases to be limited proportionate to how far we lose our egoic self and come to rest as Awareness which, since it is not composed cannot de-compose, must therefore be eternal. As Nondual teachings including Advaita Vedanta teach take away everything, arms legs, status, personality, qualities etc what is left of you or me? Answer = Awareness.
See Prof Deikman’s ‘I = Awareness HERE http://www.deikman.com/awareness.html
Enjoy 3 breaths after each section and frequently through your week
POINTER INSIGHT:There is only awareness. We are aware even when we say we aren’t aware.
COMMENTARY: Many spiritual teachers use the term Awareness quite often as a synonym for consciousness. I reserve consciousness to mean ‘not in a coma’. Ken Wilber plumps for awareness where he says; The one thing that we always are already aware of is….awareness itself. We already have basic awareness in the form of the capacity to witness whatever arises. As an old Zen master used to say, “you hear the birds? You see the sun? Who is not enlightened? None of us can even imagine a state where basic awareness is not because we would still be aware of the imagining. Even in dreams we are aware. Moreover, these traditions maintain, there are not two different types of awareness, enlightened versus ignorant. There is only awareness. And this awareness, exactly and precisely as it is, without correction or modification at all, is itself Spirit, since there is nowhere that Spirit is not. – One Taste: p. 130
KEN RELAYS THE INSTRUCTIONS: recognize awareness, recognize the Witness, recognize the Self, and abide as that.
Any attempt to get awareness is totally beside the point. “But I still don’t see the Spirit!” “You are aware of your not seeing Spirit, and that awareness is itself Spirit!” You can practice mindfulness, because there is forgetfulness; but you cannot practice awareness, because there is only awareness. -0- One Taste: p. 130
Enjoy 3 breaths
PRACTICE/s FOR THE WEEK: Smile more, take time out for three conscious breaths, give a helping hand.
Many spiritual teachers use the term Awareness as a synonym for consciousness. I reserve consciousness to mean ‘not in a coma’.
Ken Wilber plumps for awareness where he says;
“The one thing that we always are already aware of is….awareness itself. We already have basic awareness in the form of the capacity to witness whatever arises. As an old Zen master used to say, “you hear the birds? You see the sun? Who is not enlightened?
None of us can even imagine a state where basic awareness is not because we would still be aware of the imagining. Even in dreams we are aware. ……. there are not two different types of awareness, enlightened versus ignorant. There is only awareness.
And this awareness, exactly and precisely as it is, without correction or modification at all, is itself Spirit, since there is nowhere that Spirit is not”. – One Taste: p. 130
Spiritual awakening is a matter of becoming aware of awareness
“……..Turn thy sight unto thyself, that thou mayest find Me standing within thee, mighty, powerful and self-subsisting.” – From The Hidden Words by Baha’u’llah
“You find God the moment you realize that you don’t need to seek God.” – Eckhart Tolle – The Power of Now, page 122
“It is impossible to experience the appearance of awareness. We are that awareness to which such an appearance would occur. We have no experience of a beginning to the awareness that is seeing these words. We have no experience of its birth. We have no experience that we, awareness, are born. Likewise, in order to claim legitimately that awareness dies, something would have to be present to experience its disappearance. Have we ever experienced the disappearance of awareness? If we think the answer is, ‘Yes’, then what is it that is present and aware to experience the apparent disappearance of awareness? Whatever that is must be aware and present. It must be awareness. When we are born or when we wake in the morning, we have the experience of the appearance of objects. When we die and when we fall asleep at night, we have the experience of the disappearance of objects. However, we have no experience that we, awareness, appear, are born, disappear or die.” – Rupert Spira – The Intimacy of All Experience
Within the One Garden model of ‘interfaith as inter-spiritual living’ we see the core teachings of the world’s great traditions very simply as; Awaken more, Detach from ego more, and Serve others better. Awaken is the realization of awareness Ono excellent contemporary spiritual teacher is Rupert Spira. In this video he answers the question; “What is awareness?’
ACCEPTING – “You are accepted!” … accepted by that which is greater than you and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask the name now, perhaps you will know it later. Do not try to do anything, perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything, do not perform anything, do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted. – – Paul Tillich
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AMBIGUITY – The awareness of the ambiguity of one’s highest achievements (as well as one’s deepest failures) is a definite symptom of maturity. – Paul Tillich
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ANGER “Anger is a noble infirmity; the generous failing of the just; the one…”
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ART AS SUBJECTIVITY – Since the last decades of the nineteenth century, revolt against the objectified world has determined the character of art and literature. (Paul Tillich)
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ASTONISHMENT – Astonishment is the root of philosophy. (Paul Tillich)
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AUTHORITY – The passion for truth is silenced by answers which have the weight of undisputed authority. – Paul Tillich
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AWARENESS – The awareness of the ambiguity of one’s highest achievements (as well as one’s deepest failures) is a definite symptom of maturity. – Paul Tillich
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BECOMING AS FULFILLING PERSONAL DESTINY – Man is asked to make of himself what he is supposed to become to fulfill his destiny. (Paul Tillich)
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BEING AVOIDANCE – Neurosis is the way of avoiding non-being by avoiding being
~ Paul Tillich
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BEING GRASPED – Religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the question of a meaning of our life. – Paul Tillich
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BEING RELIGIOUS – “Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt.” – Paul Tillich
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BOREDOM – Boredom is rage spread thin. (Paul Tillich)
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CONCERN – Religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the question of a meaning of our life. – Paul Tillich
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COURAGE – The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable. – Paul Tillich
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COURAGE TO BE – The courage to be is rooted in the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt. (Paul Tillich)
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CRUELTY – Cruelty towards others is always also cruelty towards ourselves. ~ Paul Tillich
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CYNICISM – Cynically speaking, one could say that it is true to life to be cynical about it. (Paul Tillich)
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DECISION-MAKING – Decision is a risk rooted in the courage of being free. (Paul Tillich)
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DEPRESSION – Depression is rage spread thin. – Paul Tillich
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DEPTH – He who knows about depth knows about God. (Paul Tillich)
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DOING SMALL THINGS – We can do not great things – only small things with great love. (Paul Tillich)
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DOUBT AS FAITH – “Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith” – Paul Tillich
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FAILURE – He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being. – Paul Tillich
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FAITH – Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned. – Paul Tillich
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FAITH AS BEING GRASPED – Faith is an act of a finite being who is grasped by, and turned to, the infinite. – Paul Tillich
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FEAR – Fear is the absence of faith. – Paul Tillich
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FEAR v ANXIETY – Fear, as opposed to anxiety, has a definite object, which can be faced, analyzed, attacked, endured… anxiety has no object, or rather, in a paradoxical phrase, its object is the negation of every object. (Paul Tillich)
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FREEDOM – Decision is a risk rooted in the courage of being free – Paul Tillich
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GOD – Faith consists in being vitally concerned with that ultimate reality to which I give the symbolical name of God. Whoever reflects earnestly on the meaning of life is on the verge of an act of faith. – Paul Tillich
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HELP – There is no love which does not become help. – Paul Tillich
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HUMAN BEING – The character of human life, like the character of the human condition, like the character of all life, is “ambiguity”: the inseparable mixture of good and evil, the true and false, the creative and destructive forces – both individual and social.- – Paul Tillich
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HU-MAN-ITY – Man is asked to make of himself what he is supposed to become to fulfill his destiny. – Paul Tillich
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KNOWING GOD – He who knows about depth knows about God. (Paul Tillich)
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LANGUAGE, LONLINESS & SOLITUDE – Our language has wisely sensed the two sides of being alone. It has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word solitude to express the glory of being alone. – Paul Tillich
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LISTENING – The first duty of love is to listen. (Paul Tillich)
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LONLINESS – Our language has wisely sensed the two sides of being alone. It has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone – Paul Tillich
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LOVE AS HELP – There is no love which does not become help – Paul Tillich
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LOVE AS THE BLOOD OF LIFE – For love … is the blood of life, the power of reunion in the separated.- Paul Tillich
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MEANING – Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt. – Paul Tillich
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MEANING OF EXISTENCE – Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt. – Paul Tillich
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MEANING SEEKING AS FAITH – Faith consists in being vitally concerned with that ultimate reality to which I give the symbolical name of God. Whoever reflects earnestly on the meaning of life is on the verge of an act of faith. – Paul Tillich
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NEUROSIS – Neurosis is the way of avoiding non-being by avoiding being (The Courage To Be) – Paul Tillich
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NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION – We can speak without voice to the trees and the clouds and the waves of the sea. Without words they respond through the rustling of leaves and the moving of clouds and the murmuring of the sea. – Paul Tillich
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PHILOSOPHY – Astonishment is the root of philosophy. – Paul Tillich
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QUEST FOR MEANING – Faith consists in being vitally concerned with that ultimate reality to which I give the symbolical name of God. Whoever reflects earnestly on the meaning of life is on the verge of an act of faith. – Paul Tillich
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QUESTIONING – Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt. (Paul Tillich)
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RAGE – Boredom is rage spread thin – Paul Tillich
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REALITY – Faith consists in being vitally concerned with that ultimate reality to which I give the symbolical name of God. Whoever reflects earnestly on the meaning of life is on the verge of an act of faith – Paul Tillich
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REFLECTION AS FAITH – “Faith consists in being vitally concerned with that ultimate reality to which I give the symbolical name of God. Whoever reflects earnestly on the meaning of life is on the verge of an act of faith.” – Paul Tillich
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RELIGION AS ULTIMATE CONCERN – Religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the question of a meaning of our life. – Paul Tillich
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RISKING – He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being. (Paul Tillich)
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SINGING YOUR SONG – If my tongue were trained to measures, I would sing a stirring song. (Paul Tillich)
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SOLITUDE – Our language has wisely sensed the two sides of being alone. It has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone – Paul Tillich
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SPEAKING OF GOD – I hope for the day when everyone can speak again of God without embarrassment. (Paul Tillich)
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SYMBOLIC EXPRESSION – Man’s ultimate concern must be expressed symbolically, because symbolic language alone is able to express the ultimate. (Paul Tillich)
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ULTIMATE REALITY – Faith consists in being vitally concerned with that ultimate reality to which I give the symbolical name of God. Whoever reflects earnestly on the meaning of life is on the verge of an act of faith.” – Paul Tillich
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WORK AS PLEASURE – The joy about our work is spoiled when we perform it not because of what we produce but because of the pleasure with which it can provide us, or the pain against which it can protect us.- Paul Tillich
The branches of a tree don't make war on each other!
I added this post to an earlier piece but I think it is worth posting and developing because it contains an idea that is new to me! The difference is that I place it here in the discussion concerning the recent massacre in Mumbai.
The suggestion is that the idea of federalism – politically it works well in many countries – could and should be popularized as a key to the peoples of the world relating more successfully at the religious ideological level. Perhaps this could be termed ‘Federalism of spirit’ – the harmony that cherishes diversity.
How can we prevent massive amplification of hatred? What would be a starting point forward? The teaching of the Golden Rule in all schools would be a great step forward – (SEARCH articles on the Golden Rule on this site). But I’m suggesting that we teach, step-by-step, a Universalist world-view in addition to whatever is the majority religion. Just as I am British, Chinese or Kenyan I am also first and foremost a human being. Similarly I am proudly and faithfully a Christian/Moslem/Buddhist, or whatever, but I can also be a Universalist through recognizing;
1) The Golden Rule,
2) the essential Oneness of the mystical core of religions – Perennial Philosophy – and that
3) we are simply all emanations of one Source.
The deal at the moment for many is this – if I have a strong faith I am compelled because of ‘exclusivity of truth’ to hate all deemed to be ‘other’. If we all were Universalists as well as being of a particular tradition we could dialogue more profitably instead of killing each other. Federalism works – even without oceans of blood as precursors.
Of course there are other elements and needs in the mix – the need for greater political justice, the prevention of plain old crime etc. but shifting the world’s mind-set through teaching the Universal alongside the particular would improve matters enormously.
Eckhart Tolle is probably the most accessible proponent of Perennial Philosophy – the United nations should emply him and Karen Armstrong as Goodwill Ambassadors!
Perennial Philosophy, or mysticism, in one sentence
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“We can be happy, and serve others well,
if we realize our true Self
by detaching ourselves from the egotistic lower self –
through our step-by-step becoming aware
of the stillness beneath the noise.”
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This is the mystical core of all of the great world wisdom traditions.
If you don’t have the time to delve deeply into one or all of the religions read Eckhart Tolle’s The New Earth and do this course presented by Oprah Winfrey – HERE
Spiritual maturity, as related to religion, is a function of two things.
Firstly the degree toward which the ‘believer’ manages to de-anthropomorphise God, and gain a grown-up understanding of Ultimate Reality.
Secondly the ability to feel and think and do without attachment to ‘thumb-sucking’ supports – they vary with each individual.
The pay-off? We consequently learn to live with justice as the conditioning influence of all we see, think and do – we come to see through his own eyes and not through the eyes of another.
God of course by definition is undefinable.
Here is one definition that defies that indefinablity AND manage to capture the essence of the combined immanence and transcendence of the theological position known as panentheism;
“God is a circle whose centre is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere.”
Anonymous, ‘The Book of the Twenty-four Philosophers‘ (12thC)
Here are some other attempts -less satisfactory;
To define God is to limit Him. Still it seems inevitable that man should do that in order to get some edge to which his mind may cling. – Heywood Broun
When I was fifteen years old or so I came up with a definition of God to which, in my old age, I come back more and more, I would call it an operational definition. It reads as follows: God is the partner of your most intimate soliloquies. – Viktor Frankl
God is the experience of looking at a tree and saying, Ah! – Joseph Campbell
We know God easily, if we do not constrain ourselves to define him. – Joseph Joubert
God… a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man’s power to conceive. – Ayn Rand
A stimulating, and largely satisfactory phenomenological definition of God is;
The philosopher Michel Henry defines God in a phenomenological point of view. He says: “God is Life, he is the essence of Life, or, if we prefer, the essence of Life is God. Saying this we already know what is God, we know it not by the effect of a learning or of some knowledge, we don’t know it by the thought, on the background of the truth of the world ; we know it and we can know it only in and by the Life itself. We can know it only in God.” (I Am the Truth. Toward a Philosophy of Christianity).
This Life is not biological life defined by objective and exterior properties, nor an abstract and empty philosophical concept, but the absolute phenomenological life, a radically immanent life which possesses in it the power of showing itself in itself without distance, a life which reveals permanently itself. A manifestation of oneself and a self-revelation which doesn’t consist in the fact of seeing outside of oneself or of perceiving the exterior world, but in the fact of feeling and of feeling oneself, of experiencing in oneself its own inner and affective reality.
As Michel Henry says also in this same book, “God is that pure Revelation that reveals nothing other than itself. God reveals Himself. The Revelation of God is his self-revelation”. God is in himself revelation, he is the primordial Revelation that tears everything from nothingness, a revelation which is the pathetic self-revelation and the absolute self-enjoyment of Life. As John says, God is love, because Life loves itself in an infinite and eternal love. See HERE for more
The Baha’i view is also panentheistic;
In the Bahá’í Faith, God is described as a single, imperishable God, the creator of all things, including all the creatures and forces in the universe. The connection between God and the world is that of the creator to his creation. God is understood to be independent of his creation, and that creation is dependent and contingent on God. God, however, is not seen to be part of creation as he cannot be divided and does not descend to the condition of his creatures. Instead, in the Bahá’í understanding, the world of creation emanates from God, in that all things have been realized by him and have attained to existence. Creation is seen as the expression of God’s will in the contingent world and every created thing is seen as a sign of God’s sovereignty, and leading to knowledge of him; the signs of God are most particularly revealed in human beings.
The above two are more less long-winded – why not just say with the blessed Anonymous from the 12thC “God is a circle whose centre is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere.”
Each of us, each and every part of Creation is a ‘sunbeam’ shining out of the Whole. All is Spirit. Spirit with a capital ‘S’ is the Whole, the ultimate Oneness, Mystery, ultimate Reality……God (not anthropomorphised) if you prefer.
All that isn’t Spirit per se is spirit-as-emanation, emanation set aside in each case for a special purpose. The rock is spirit-as-emanation set aside for the purpose of manifesting the rockness of a rock. The tree is spirit-as-emanation set aside for the purpose of manifesting the treeness of a tree. The human being is spirit-as-emanation set aside for the purpose of manifesting the positive and noble humanness of a human being.
What would be a starting point forward? The teaching of the Golden Rule in all schools would be a great step forward – SEARCH articles on the Golden Rule on this site. But the Universalist world view, including the panentheistic perspective enables something much more importanta federalist position. Just as I am British, Chinese or Kenyan I am also first and foremost a human being. Similarly I am proudly and faithfully Christian/Moslem/Buddhist or whatever but I am also a Universalist through recognizing
1) The Golden Rule,
2) the essential Oneness of the mystical core of religions and that
3) we are all emanations of one Source.
Probably no idea has more power to overcome the seemingly endless capacity for suffering and creating suffering than this; ‘There are many paths to the summit but only one summit’.
Soul Needs - One Garden 