April 1, 2010
- Non-duality -
I wonder if one of the bigger problems with having a sense of a separate self is that we only seem to be able to look externally OR internally. We can’t seem to do both at the same time, not without one coloring the other in ways that aren’t actually what’s going on. When we’re watching what goes on outside, we end up ignoring certain things that are going on inside, and vice-versa.
But although we’re ignoring them, on some level we do know there’s something being ignored; we just don’t know what it is. And this not knowing is dukkha, the potters wheel that’s squeaking because it’s not turning smoothly, that agonizing tick in the back of our minds of something’s-amiss-here.
Does this spring from seeing our internal reality as separate from our external reality? I can certainly see this causing problems, since the two aren’t ever actually separate each other. Reality is pouring in at us from all sides at all times, and bubbling up within us as well, each in no way contradicting the other. Nothing that exists in the moment can ever be out of step with anything else that exists in this moment, because it’s happening at the same time all together. There’s never any part of reality, within or without, that’s on “pause” when we’re focused on one of the two. But we have to act like there is, because, for whatever reason, there’s some resistance, some holding back that stops us from placing our selves directly in reality. The connections not complete, there’s resistance in the wires…
Why do we do this? I have no idea. Neither am I sure what causes that split in the first place. Just holding up pieces, trying to see what fits together and what doesn’t.
>> externally OR internally
Cool. You’re on a roll here…
Comment by speedbird — April 1, 2010 @ 2:06 pm
Thanks. I feel like I might be inching towards one of those moments of complexity collapsing to a higher simplicity. Though there’s no guarantee things won’t wash back in the other direction again instead.
Comment by Ian — April 1, 2010 @ 2:08 pm
Interesting post over at OEITH today, regarding Rudolph Steiner’s take on life/death and internal/external…
Thinking afterwards, I was reminded of some remarks by Rudolf Steiner concerning our experience after death. In the life before death we experience ourselves on the inside and our environment outside, but in the life after death, Steiner avers, our sense of self comes at us from outside and the environment is something we discover within. This leads me to wonder whether we have to contend not only with different types of spirits in these explorations – some of which come from ‘outside’, some from ‘within’ – but also different states, which can cause us to experience ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ differently from how they ordinarily appear.
Comment by Ian — April 2, 2010 @ 11:56 am
also over at It10D:
“The so-called ‘dividing line’ between the quantum and the macro realms is completely artificial, it is really all part of the same continuum.”
This, of course, is one of the big ones. We keep reading mainstream science articles which suggest that the quantum world is completely separate from the physical world we see around us, but we also keep reading about scientists who have demonstrated quantum entanglement with larger and larger molecules. Where is the dividing line really, and why does it seem to keep moving more and more into our macro world?
The quantum realm being the part of reality that is influenced into and out of existence by our use of conscious awareness.
Comment by Ian — April 2, 2010 @ 12:01 pm