December 2014

Only seven of us today first we looked at three short videos one on speaking, another on fears are an illusion and a rather daft one on slowing time. Still we have to keep an open mind maybe it does work. After our tea and cake. Jennie treated us. We looked at this answer to a question that intrigues me.

Question
The ONE may well in fact be the absolutely brain based reticular activating system that also may be the source of awareness. 
This process naturally precedes thought and therefore cannot be known by thought. It is also individually based. Identification with this pre-cortical awareness seems to me to be equivalent to the SOURCE that you describe. Perhaps its characteristics are sat/chit/Ananda. 
Is it not possible that all this spiritual searching is just plain silly? 
Response: An interesting question Joe. Spiritual searching may be called silly for many reasons, but for the seeker it probably is not. If I need my glasses and look for them, I don't consider this silly, but if you see them perched on top of my head, you probably do: It's a matter of perspective. 
We could say that the brain-based reticular activating system is instrumental to the functioning of human consciousness, but to conclude that this system is the One Source seems like declaring part of the radio to be the source of what we hear on it. We could remove a certain component of the radio and thereby silence it. This may then be taken as evidence that the music we heard, originated in the part we removed. 
Is it not just as unlikely that consciousness is the outcome of some random chemical interaction as it is that Bach's music originates in a transistor? Could it be that 'something' animates this manifestation just like the airwaves 'animate' the radio? We could call it 'intelligent energy', 'Life' or 'Beingness'. Without this 'force' even a fully intact body does not function; just like an intact light bulb will not produce light without the animating energy of electricity. 
Here, Life or Beingness and whatever appears are not seen as two, but for the sake of metaphor let's say that Beingness 'uses' the reticular activating system to express AS 'human-self-reflecting-consciousness' in the same way a musician may use an instrument to express his musicality. Seen in this light, the reticular activating system is the instrument 'played' by Life-It-Self and 'awareness' is the melody. 
There is no way I know of, to prove what I say here, yet there is now way I know of to disprove it. There are of course NDE's and OBE's, which are difficult to fit with awareness being purely brain based. To be sure, they do not prove anything conclusively, but neither have they been explained satisfactorily. Within the commonly accepted idea that time is real and humans and their brains have evolved through a lengthy process, it may indeed seem possible for dead matter to have sparked into brain based consciousness, just like it might be possible for a million monkeys pressing keys on a million typewriters to come up with the Encyclopedia Britannica. However this is not what is seen here: No past, no future, only THIS timeless presence appearing right now, including memories and theories. One Timeless Unborn Source - One Energy- expressing AS apparent diversity. 
To approach this mystery of 'Self Origination' through 'cause/effect reasoning' may lead to the idea that the reticular activating system is what has given rise to the idea of One Source. But could it not as well be the other way around? However, if we decide to use 'cause/effect reasoning' to get to the root (or source), then why stop there? If we really want to explain it, it seems we now have to come up with 'something' as the cause of this 'reticular activating system'. And so on…… 
It seems this chain of cause and effect ultimately requires a 'first cause.' This 'first cause' would have to be 'uncaused' for it to be the first. I only put this in to illustrate that from 'my' perspective 'cause/effect theory' merely provides answers within its own limited scope. Eventually it either seems to 'pitter out', or it gets pushed back forever and ever, or it leads back to the mystery of 'Self Origination.' 
Here splitting ONE in cause and effect is seen as a purely mind generated abstraction, very handy in day to day interaction, but an abstraction nevertheless. Such dividing logic may convincingly tell us of the cause -the brain based reticular activating system- and its effect of 'it being interpreted as Source.' Such reasoning wins on its own terms, but perhaps there is the option of an intuitive insight, a sudden 'seeing through' where this whole manifestation is perceived as nothing but 'the Single Source' appearing presently AS consciousness and its apparent objects -as a single, many faceted, self-shining diamond. As such IT may be re-cognized as the Timeless-Uncaused-Presence-You-Are. 

The Taoists call the appearance of the world and its unchanging background "Mutual Arising." We could say that Awareness is the 'generator' of the manifest world because all appears in awareness, but the split between awareness and its object is purely conceptual. Again, 'Mutual Arising' seems a great pointer. Can we conceive of something that does not appear in awareness, can we find a difference between hearing and a sound? Can we find colors separate from the seeing of colors? Perhaps it is obvious now that splitting 'the generator of the world' and the world itself is purely an idea. The generator and the generated -the dreamer and the dream- are not two. 
When the scissor of the mind, which divides this manifestation in 'this and that' in 'you and me' in 'up and down' is quiet for even just a moment, when all labels are gone; THIS is just AS IT IS. 
There was never a point in time when IT was created or 'generated' as time itself is part of 'the generated appearance'. Here IT IS, appearing (or 'being generated') presently. This is the Unborn Mystery of 'some-thing' out of 'no-thing. 'You', as a character, will never get closer to IT, nor can 'you' get away from IT. IT is all there is and -as said in the Upanishads- YOU Are THAT. 

But the real proof of this concept is INSIDE of us. Anybody who meditates can see, sense, feel and know that there is something there. That there is more there than just going to work each morning, making money to buy a house or a car, shopping, sleeping and eating. If we think that this is our purpose on this Universe, we are making a mistake. Sooner or later, our Higher Selves will give us lessons that will lead us back to unconditional love and harmony.