The non-reality of nothingness

[Greg Goode]

At 12:00 PM 12/8/97 -0800, Jonathan Bricklin wrote:

[...]

>thought.  Nisgardatta probably didn't mean to suggest that it existed for
>him as an experience, but the way his words have come down to us (been
>translated?) can easily mislead--for example:
>
> >Your true home is in nothingness, in emptiness of all content.  (487)
>
>and, apparently, have misled.
>
>At the very least, the word "nothingness", short of being edited out of his
>texts altogether, needs a footnote  as a hedge against reification.
>Furthermore,  his use of the words "pure" and "beyond" as attributes of
>consciousness/awareness makes it unclear whether he agrees with the
>fundamental advaitin premise that consciousness is the one unsublatable
>concept.

I agree -- the way Nisargadatta's translations have come to us, with his
use of Awareness and the one unsublatable concept, and consciousness as a
property of the jiva, has been very confusing to many readers.

--Greg Goode