An Interesting article - any response?

[Charles A. Hillig]

At 07:37 PM 12/5/96 -0700, you wrote:
>Charles A. Hillig wrote
>
>> >>      Any attempt to seek a time-based, linear "causality" ignores the fact
>> >> that cause and effect are, quintessentially, the same thing because they
>> > >"both" arise simultaneously.
>> >
>> >Or, in other words, we dream at the same time as we are wakeful?
>>
>>        We are neither "dreaming" nor are we ever "wakeful."
>
>In which case, the "arise simultaneously" is false?
>

          No.  I'm suggesting that "everything" is "happening" at the same
"time."

>>        "We" are not really here at all.
>
>Who is "we"?

We can't really answer if "we're" not really "here."
>
>>       Only the Self is present
>
>What is the Self?

The Self is "what is."  It is one without a second.

>>       As Maharshi has said,  the so-called dream world and the waking world
>> are  exactly the same.
>
>But since "we" are not here, neither is the Maharshi, nor his
>statement.

That's true.  Only the Self is present.

>Also, since "we" never either wake nor dream, what weight
>to the alleged equivalence of the "dream world" and the "waking
>world."

   Neither the "dream world" nor the "walking world" is real.
   Reality is "that which persists."      The Self.
>
>>            One just SEEMS to last longer.
>
>I seem to think that the "SEEMS" is itself a part of the sense of
>waking.  So how can that be true when the latter isn't?

Things are not what they seem.


>> >>      However, just because I see an intense movie during the waking state
>> >> and then dream about that movie at night, it still doesn't mean that the
>> >> movie is "real" or that the characters and action really, in fact,
> occurred.
>> >
>> >Of course it occurred.  Movies are made at tremendous cost, etc.; they
>> >don't happen by themselves.
>>
>>          But the "characters" on the screen that triggered an emotional
>> response were only flickering lights.
>
>>         The reality supporting the illusion was still only the unbroken
>> screen.
>
>-- and the flickering lights, which are different from the screen, and
>from oneself.

The point is that, in a good movie, we don't experience the screen.  We only
experience the movie.  We are mesmerized by an illusion.
>
>> >>      The variety of dream-objects manifesting as part of the dream was,
>> >> seemingly, only triggered by the illusory variety of objects that appeared
>> >> as the movie on the screen.
>> >
>> >... which in turn was "triggered" by what?
>>
>>             Obviously, the analogy has its limitations.
>
>Not the analogy, but the theory it attempts to support.  The analogy
>is fine.

No, it's basically limited.  Words can never describe the pure consciousness
that is the Self.
As they say, the "map is not the territory."  Well, in this case, there are
a lot of so-called "maps" but the real irony is that there's no "territory"
that's "out there" that can be ventured into.  The Self is fully present.


>> >>      But didn't the screen, itself, still remain seamless, undivided, and
>> >> whole?
>> >
>> >... and different from oneself as well?
>>
>
>>      No, not different.  The perceiver and the perceived are one and the
>> same.
>
>Ah.  In that case, you're saying that I myself am the screen upon
>which the movie is projected?  But since the perception of the screen
>is part of the experience of waking, wouldn't the latter then become
>true as well?

To continue with this limited analogy, you are the infinte screen that's
only pretending to be one of the characters that's being projected upon it.

The essence of the Self is to be what it is
                                           by pretending to become what it
isn't.





                                 With Blessings,

                                           Chuck Hillig