Just want to chime in and note that the word void is a horrible translation of shunyata..which means empty of inherent existence. When Buddha say's there is no self he isn't denying the individual nature of each being. What he is saying is that there isn't a single aspect of our selves that isn't conditioned by other things. That really is all he is saying. Buddha would say I am because that is and that is because I am. Everything arises dependently... or Thich Nhat Hanh would call it dependent co-arising.. What it's not though is empty in the english sense of the word. it's full interconnectedness... like Indra's net. The part is in the whole, but the whole is also in the part.

Absolutely!

We are dealing with the fragility and often inadequate semantics of one human language being translated into another, within an entirely alternate, cultural context and time period. Besides, modern English is not really designed to deal with many of the specificities of the far subtler Eastern ideological conceptions.

More so, I suspect that we all mean slightly different things conceptually, as individual persons, by words like: God, Heaven, The Void, Brahman, The Tao, Allah, Nirvana, Samadhi, Satori, Sat Lok... more specifically, what is or is not truly spiritual in essence, for 'tis a wondrous, sheer emptiness and indivisible presence exuberantly echoing and reflecting itself ad infinitum.

As modern physics has clearly revealed, space is not as empty as we had for centuries upon centuries thought, for it is full of pulsing energy and invisible patterns of Sacred Geometry and universal forces manifesting existence. And as we all know, those things we perceive materially through our physical senses as solid, are not as concrete as we had once imagined, as there is an infinity of space within each finite form. An emptiness inside of the dreamscapes of the ephemeral play of self.

From my windowsill, what is "Void" is simply that which remains insubstantial in it's enigmatic, unborn nature... and That exists as an undifferentiated field. Paradoxically, That manifests This by way of an unquantifiable mystery. Never truly loosing itself in the mirage but ever present. Eternal and momentary, Absolute and relative, Infinite and most finite. One Indivisible KABOOM expanding forever. Ergo, That is This. Which is more or less, what Brahman actually is (by my infinitesimally puny understanding).

All things arise from this Unified Field and while appearances of this and that are of themselves, wholly impermanent, for they are simultaneously, ineffable and wholly Divine in their quintessence. There is this immeasurable no-thingness, all-pervasive current of unbound force... mysteriously creating an equal and opposite twin, an echo and reflection of what is appearing spontaneously as clearly formed and quite substantial, by any subjective analysis or material equation.

So nice to hear your thoughts, joedirt.
How did your 10 day Vipassana retreat go? Mind sharing a wee bit with the Nexus community? Sounds like an awesome thread for the Methods of Exploring Consciousness subforum. After such a powerful experience, I had wondered if you'd possibly disappeared from this dream of material reality which we all cohabitate within. But then again, what's key is to be alive and well, here and now... and I suspect that here is where we are ultimately meant to be.

Peace and Light, RS

in the movie waking life , a character when describing the moment uses these lines - "yes it is empty with such fullness "

this is quite close to any satisfactory description of the void

could be wrong

Just read this for another web forum. Kinda feels like it relates in spades!

Yangti and Thogal Insight

You have never moved. You have always surrounded and projected yourself creatively into a self-generated mandala or world of experience made of consciousness itself.

Look around, everything seen and sensed is pure self-generated consciousness. There are no other "things" or "beings" outside this consciousness. This is true for everyone. We are only seeing ourselves in all that we see, but "our self" is what everything is.

A past life or future life are just the next or last most recent self-generated scenery where a different body was or will be featured as the subjective point of perspective.

No one here has ever known death or birth. Floating in total emptiness, our holographic self-projection, is the only reality there is to know. However the core center of Consciousness is not divided into a you or me.

The one same creative Universal Consciousness is the center-most point of each individual mandala; the ultimate impersonal Emptiness that expresses Itself as the subjective experience of being a "you" or "me" while Itself never becoming an identity and while Itself appearing neither in space or time.

Isn't this all rather like a dream? Gnostic flashes of knowing oneself as that Universal Source, are Its current vignette self-displayed. How amazing it is that Infinity's majestic play is expressed in such an ordinary yet extraordinary way, day after day!

Ah la la ho!

Sri Adi Shakaracharya Totally Rocked!

^..ha,ha..yeah Adi Shankaracharya sure was a dude, RisingSpirit... !
and very relevant and interesting quote previous post..yes there is nowhere to go..it's all 'here'..


joedirt..very eloquent view on the meaning of Śūnyatā..
very much appreciate your views..i think just as 'void' may be misinterpreted by some, similarly the term 'self' used in vedanta has been misconstrued..and (as you mentioned to me privately) is avoided by Buddha lest people look for some eternal aspect of the ego..likewise 'emptiness' has to be treated carefully, and is avoided by Vedanta lest people construe from it nihilism..obviously something Is..this itself has meaning..

here we see the very limits of language, and how different words with different surface meanings can lead to the same unspeakable understandings in the end..


and thank you Jin, good to hear from you again..i think you're quite right.."empty with such fullness" is pointing to this 'thing' we are all trying to grasp (if that be possible) ..the nature of reality..in infinite fullness there is no thing..

..That which Vedanta describes is undetectable via the senses, un-objectifiable, ungraspable by mind..
completely transparent..like the clear light of the void..

call it 'self' or 'emptiness'..neither word truly describes it..



from the Avadhuta Gita:

4. Verily the one Self is all, free from differentiation and non-differentiation. Neither can it be said, "It is" nor "It is not." What a great mystery.

5. This is the whole substance of Vedanta; this is the essence of all knowledge, theoretical and intuitional. I am the Atman, by nature impersonal and all-pervasive."
...

9. The mind is as space, embracing all. I am beyond mind. In Reality the mind has no independent existence.

10. How can it be said that the Self is manifest? How can it be said that the self is limited? I alone am existence; all this objective world am I. More subtle than space itself am I.

11. Know the Self to be infinite consciousness, self-evident, beyond destruction, enlightening all bodies equally, ever shining. In It is neither day nor night.
..

Great topic thank you.






"Further up and further In"
Aslan

joedirt



I read your post last night, and it really stayed with me.

I get up frequently at night, that's when I meditate, because I can't always get back to sleep. I had a vivid dream after, where I remembered your words while I battled and vanquished a demon into complete nothingness. I felt no fear at all! I woke up later and remembered the dream; a strong physical vibration resonated through me. Wow!

Thank you joedirt.

What a magnificent thread topic this is! 'Tis the substanceless causative of all perceivable variances of manifest ground and substantiation, yet ironically, an unbound force, never ensnared by the definition of it's apparent finality and superficiality.

Ain't we got an infinity of indescribable potentiality to explore? But then again, who are we and whence did we come to arrive aware and wholly awakened, within this very living moment, bambinos hurled into the rushing magnitude of material creation?

When does one expanding circle of consciousness end... and another begin? Lost in the encircling, many souls unite as one. Let's give a triumphant shout to the immeasurable, unknowable force that mysteriously spins this vast, existential web of Omniversal being, shall we all? I'm definitely in!

^^

yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

I wanted to reiterate just how challenging it can be to translate knowledge in Sanskrit and Pali terms, which are after all, kinda tough to describe clearly enough, within an English-speaking format. These are some common translations and some of my own terminology used to define them, tossed in all willy-nilly.

Anatman or Anatta: No-self or perhaps, an absence of the limitations of a finite self... The Zero-self.
Anicca: Impermanence or transience... 'Tis our fleeting human mortality, caught up in the time-space-continuum.
Arahant: One who has attained the highest realization... AKA: became fully awakened, unfettered, enlightened.
Atman or Atta: The soul or the self... Conscious-awareness, whence the I-thought initially arises into being.
Avadhuta: One who is wholly beyond duality... A self-realized being, like Sri Adi Shankaracharya or Sri Ramana Maharshi.
Avakasha: No-thingness, undifferentiated field of reality... Sheer ethereal, timelessness of the unbound Spiritus.
Avatara: Mortal incarnation of the Godhead... Like lords: Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Lao Tsu & Yeshua the Christ.
Boddhi: That knowledge beyond the veil of Maya... Direct gnosis of That imperishable mystery.
Brahman: Undifferentiated, unmanifest, infinite... Indivisible, immaterial source of all which exists.
Ishvara: Supreme Being or God principle... Divine interconnection with everything else, symbolically. The Unified Field of Being.
Jivatman: Relative self or individual soul-essence... The Iso-self or sentient aspect of the Omniversal Self.
Maya: Illusion or state of non-reality... As if dreaming or as if appearing within a subjective mirage.
Moksha: Liberation and awakening... From the bondage and compression of the fixedly individualized self.
Mukti: Freedom from any delusion... Ergo, transcending the boundaries and compression of a frozen, egocentric vantagpoint.
Nirvana: Annihilation or extinguishment... Ego death, cessation of all separation from the Web of the Grid.
Paramatman: Absolute self or non-individuated, soul-essence... The Omniself. All is one. Atman is Brahman.
Shunyata or Sunnata: Void & emptiness... Ineffable, transcendental, "empty of inherent existence" (thanx, joedirt)
Tatha-agata: One who has come... into the here and now... Totally awakening from one's own mortal slumber.
Tathagata: One who has gone... beyond all transitory phenomena... Sakyamuni Buddha was the 25th incarnation.
Tirthankara: Passage-making/one who has tasted immortality... Mahavira (Jain faith) was the 24th incarnation.

^..thank you for that helpful glossary Rising Spirit..!

i like your definition of Maya..'As if dreaming or as if appearing within a subjective mirage.' ..which leads to my next point..

..well, as Jin says, yes!..your description of the majesty of the creation, spinning its web is to me the sum of Maya (of whom Adi Shankaracharya said was 'most wonderful' ) ..the absolute, in both Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism has no form or attributes..but Maya is what we mostly experience..it brings us joy and tears..

Adya (the original shakti, projected from the absolute)
..in beholding and contemplating the many forms of the Devi (great goddess) one comes to see all of them as one..and becomes at one with the Devi, mind purified, personal agenda dissolved..seeing the the creation..the means of the three gunas (creation, preservation, destruction)
..the Devi, i think, is the furthest one can go with senses and mind..beyond that is the unfathomable..that which cannot be conceived..the absolute..
..Adya is nature..the universe.."when She merges again with the absolute, the universe dissolves" (R. E. Svoboda)
to become at one with Adya is far as knowledge can go..for in the old Shakta works, she is Vidya, knowledge..
..Maya (a form, or multitude) is wonderful, because she inspires me to meditate and dance, and become closer to the absolute Brahman..Shaktism, the tantric path (in the true sense of tantra, not the californian)..
in the Shiva/Parvati dynamic schools, both are one..

i concur with the absolute Advaita of the Upanishads and Shankaracharya, and the middle way of Buddha..
i also celebrate this great illusion called life..
.

Jai Ma !

"In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad there is a verse that describes how, at the beginning of the universe, the Self became aware of itself as 'I':
In the beginning this [universe] was the Self alone… He [the Self] reflected and saw nothing but the Self. He first said, 'I am He'. Therefore He came to be known by the name aham ['I'].(Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, tr. Swami Nikhilananda: from The Upanishads, vol. 3, 1975 ed., p. 11)

'I' thus became the first name of God. Bhagavan corroborated the sentiments expressed in this verse when he told a devotee, 'The one, infinite, unbroken whole [plenum] became aware of itself as ''I''. This is its original name. All other names, for example Om, are later growths.' (Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, talk no. 9)

On another occasion Bhagavan, commenting on this famous verse from the Upanishads, explained how, due to a felicitous combination of letters, the name aham not only denoted the subjective nature of God but also implied that it encompassed and constituted all of the manifest universe:

The talk then turned to the name of God and Bhagavan said, 'Talking of all mantras, the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says 'aham' [I] is the first name of God. The first letter in Sanskrit is 'A' and the last letter 'Ha' and 'aha' thus includes everything from beginning to end. The word ayam means 'that which exists', Self-shining and Self-evident. Ayam, atma and aham all refer to the same thing . (Day by Day with Bhagavan, 22nd November 1945)

The name aham merely indicates that God experiences himself subjectively as 'I'. When one adds the word 'am' to the name there is the further implication that God is, that God is being itself. Bhagavan expounded on this idea in Guru Vachaka Kovai and then went on to say that 'I am' is not merely the first name of God, it is also the most appropriate:

Since along with 'I', the aforementioned first name [mentioned in the previous verse], 'am' always shines as the light of reality, 'I am' is also the name. Among the many thousands of names of God, no name suits God, who abides in the Heart, devoid of thought, so aptly as 'I' or 'I am'. Of all the known names of God, 'I', 'I' alone will resound triumphantly when the ego is destroyed, rising as the silent supreme word [mauna para vak] in the Heart-space of those whose attention is Selfward-facing.(Guru Vachaka Kovai, vv. 713-5)"

David Godman

Wow, over 10,000 views and growing!!!

And is it presumptuous to celebrate the fact that such a thread might have such a HUGE impact, here at the Nexus? I believe that the "Spirit Molecule" has increasingly been drawing humankind deeper and deeper into the universal wisdom of the ancient mystics.

Still, we are here now. This is it. And we are collectively awakening, right at this pivotal point in time. And while the said time-space-continuum does unfold sequentially... we all stand strong within the vortexial fulcrum of this present living moment. Being consciously aware of existing is, in and of itself, perhaps our very reason for being here? At least this seems so within the subjective dream bubble of physical existence.

It's simply seeing universal symmetry in it's most gloriously-effulgent, fully blooming nature. Embracing emptiness in fullness and vice verca. We encircle a primary awareness, forevermore, as we gaze through the infinite glance. We have clearly seen and experienced our ownn reality from myriad perceptions which are of themselves... each an eternity in the making.

Deep bow to all of you fellow Nexians.

Namaste

..zhoro, thank you for returning us to Advaitan focus

..yes..I..am..the principle of conscious existence..which, reflected upon, is the basis of existence..
present in all states, waking, dreaming or deep sleep..I
..who am I?

going back to Adi Shankaracharya, in his commentary on the Chandogya Upanishad, he wrote:




yes, 'this is IT' Rising Spirit !

it is without beginning nor end..

.

..for some further traditional advaita vedanta,
in Prabodhasudhakara ('The Ocean of the Nectar of Enlightenment', Adi Shankaracharya wrote:




..allowing the experience of the perceiver of mind..which is always present..



.

I hope I didn't skim over this, if it was asked in this thread, so if so..i apologize. This question is not meant to divert this thread but if only for a brief bit. This question is moreso directed towards nen, seeing as to how you created this thread.

Nen, how did you come to discover Vedanta; was it after or before tryptamine use, or was it something that always fascinated you beforehand? And how much do you feel some of the core teachings have resonated with your experiences per say, especially intense DMT states; especially the common denominator phrase of Vedanta - 'Tat Tvam Asi'?

Ime, I never had an inkling of understanding in regards to Vedanta, then about a year after my first intense DMT state, I had picked up the Upanishads, read them over and over, then not much longer read the Bhagavad Gita, especially the section of the Gita where Arjuana is shown Krishnas 'divine form' and the description/s of this 'divine form' still echo strongly everyday for me; as it was quite literally a translation, visually/intuitively speaking, of what i've encountered time n' time again, and this was all before id ever read any of this or known of Vedanta.

much appreciated nen

I am not nen (well, I am, but let's stay conventional for the time being ), but would like to respond anyway.

Over here, entheogenic experience predated and informed the study of Advaita, the practice of yoga, meditation and self-inquiry. It was Salvia that first pointed out to me unambigously that I pervade Creation into Infinity and am at the same time the dimensionless interface of all experience. This was very useful in my later practice of self-inquiry: having had the experience made it easier to identify what was referenced in the writings. Learning to stay there is what the practice is for. 'Who am I?" is not a question to be answered, but a thread to be followed: upstream to where the flow of perception originates.

The locus of the 'I' in the habitual mental mode seems to be in the area of the head, behind the eyes, but when the retreat of attention upstream proceeds far enough, the locus descends to the area of the chest, where people instinctively point when referring to themselves, before ceasing to be a locus at all. Ramana Maharshi talked about this on multiple occasions, pointing to two fingers to the right of the center of the chest as the exact location where the perception of 'I' as the body arises. It is my experience as well that this is where the perception of the body dissolves when the feeling/sensation of 'I' is traced to its origin. It is called the hridaya granthi, the heart knot, or chit-jada granthi, the consciousness-matter knot, because that is where a subtle movement in pure consciousness seems to escalate and solidify into form and through the same gateway the phenomenon is reversed. Experiencing the arising of this knot from which the entire body instantaneously expanded in perception during a cube-rue experience once brought memories of the Biblical story of the creation of Eve (matter) from the rib of Adam (the world of ideas).

So, yes, entheogens were an important aspect of the journey. But it was important for the journey to proceed beyond them.

well zhoro's answer i like

Tattvamasi, yes, it was after experience of tryptamines that i became interested in advaita vedanta, a while after..i spent time studying a few different ancient traditions in spiritual viewpoint, cosmology, mental approaches, disciplines..as far as advaita vedanta is concerned, i resisted it for a while from early exposure to 'neo-advaita', though i appreciated some vedic texts (and the devi) ..it was after a friend got me reading adi shankaracharya and i re-read the major upanishads that i appreciated what a refined language/philosophy framework it was, of the written traditions, for describing some levels of experience..

the natural progression with entheogens was to focus increasingly on consciousness itself..for the perceiver to face itself..the language of advaita reminded me of what i was contemplating..observing..
there can be transient experiences where the object and subject and perception blend and which are timeless..they can be difficult to recall without focus, let alone describe.. glimpses of states which are known in a range of older spiritual disciplines..which i also appreciate..

entheogens, beyond their dynamics, led to becoming aware of a continuum between any entheogenic state and apparently 'ordinary' states..not to be astonished anymore ..becoming more aware of what is there in all states..
the 'entheogenic' aspect increasingly remains even without 'visions'..what is 'it' ? it's beyond the entheogens..they are a potential training ground in mental dynamic and focus and observation.. advaita is beyond the dynamic..

so, was a progression, Tattvamasi..
.







'Contemplation On The Subtle Sound' (Adi Shankaracharya)


ॐ