The Advaita Show #47 – ABC'ing Just Being

Cam in France
July 4, 2008
The Advaita Show #48 – Bob's Joint Sept 2, 2008
September 5, 2008
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The Advaita Show #47 – ABC'ing Just Being

Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome! Fremde, etranger, stranger. Gluklich zu sehen, je suis enchante,
happy to see you, bleibe, reste, stay.

Okay well maybe this ain’t no cabaret but it sure is a party whenever The Wittness and I get together for a show every week… month… ok ok SEASON. This is our show for WINTER (Aussie time).

It’s especially a party when Steve launches his first book on non-duality!

ABCing

You can order the book NOW from the link above. Come one come all! Enlightenment for sale! Don’t worry about any stupid Secrets, get the real thing! One time offer! Huzzah!

Subscribe now to the TPN update email (fill in the below box) to get a weekly list of all of the new podcast episodes on TPN in one easy-to-read format!

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78 Comments

  1. kris says:

    Awesome! Love the cover–your kids are very talented, Steve! But where’s the show? I don’t see a link to the latest podcast?

  2. Cameron Reilly says:

    kris the play button and download link are just below the email subscription box. You don’t see it?

  3. neal says:

    Cam,

    You are talking nonsense.

    If a hand hits a wall, it does not hurt like F$%£ unless the sense is taken receipt of and labelled as pain.

    On cognisance there is only energy.

    Same with reality. It only appears to be real because our senses interact with it or respond to it. On cognisance there is only energy appearing as shapes and forms and motion. Note “appearing” being the appropriate word.
    It may feel real but what is it that feels?

    this is Bob speaking!

  4. MadMama!! says:

    Great Show guys!!! Cameron I’m really interested in the science side of this non-dual thing. I really hope you get the physicist Brian Greene to do G’Day World.

    I lost interest in just about everything since realizing the no “me” thing. Did anyone else find that to be their experience? I spent so many years studying and teaching the Bible and now if someone should ask about the Bible I tell them to “read it once if you want to and then just THROW IT AWAY!!!!

    I’m heading to Steve’s website now to get that awesome looking book!!!! Thanks for the show!

  5. Cameron says:

    Neal, try punching a wall and tell me whether or not you think it’s real.

    What is this ‘energy’ that you speak of? Have you seen it? Can you taste it? Can you hear it? Define “energy” for me.

    MadMama, you should be our guest on the next show. Up for it?

  6. kris says:

    Steve, I just finished going through your abcing website and saw that you went to Stanford, “made and lost a fortune”, wrote a few science books–you seem to have led quite a rich and varied life! Can I ask what brought you to adviata? You mention a journey that changed everything in 2002–was there some pivotal event that changed you or was it meeting someone like Sailor Bob or Cameron or something?

  7. neal says:

    Cam,

    Sorry, but I don’t think punching a wall is a valid test.

    The real that you are talking about is merely relative to everything else that exists within the confines and behaviour of that reality. It does not make it real as such. Investigation shows there is no basis whatsoever to this apparent reality. It appears out of nothing and disappears back into nothing. It is as insubstantial as a dream and if there were the same kind of continuity in sleep dreams as there are in this awake dream, it would be impossible to determine which was which.

    But if we are to limit the basis of reality to what our physical senses and therefor our mental interpretation tells us about it, there is nothing more to say.

  8. Cameron says:

    Neal, can there be ‘nothing’ without its opposite ‘something’? To say that the universe is “not real” is to say you are “not real” which is the same as saying you do not exist. And to say “I do not exist” is an oxymoron. If you did not exist you could not say “I do no exist”. If nothing is real, what is there to do this investigation that you speak of?

  9. daniel says:

    Aren’t we speaking about an actor on a stage, special effects? Is time real or only a fabrication of the mind. Does conciousness exist in time or beyond it? Cameron I don’t get you, one minute you profess nonduality and the next time bound conceptualism. Which is it? Does the video character in the game really hurt when they get hit?

  10. Steven Witt says:

    Gentlemen all, may i have a go?

    Keep the words consciousness, being and identity in front of you.

    Niz 1:

    “The discovery of truth is in the discernment of the false. You can know what is not. What is – you can only be. Knowledge is relative to the known. In a way, it is the counterpart of ignorance. Where ignorance is not, where is the need of knowledge? By themselves, neither ignorance nor knowledge have being. They are only states of mind, which again is but an appearance of movement in consciousness.”

    Consciousness is a synonym for God, I am or whatever works for you. Each is movement (mind) of something that is known, an experience. God witnesses itself as all the play and actors.

    Now, Niz #2:

    “There can be no experience beyond consciousness. Yet there is the experience of just being. There is a state beyond consciousness, which is not unsconscious. Some call it super-consciousness, or pure consciousness, or supreme consciousness. It is pure awareness free from the subject-object nexus. Consciousness is intermitent, full of gaps. Yet there is the continuity of identity. What is this sense of identity due to, if not to something beyond consciousness?

    i love this now because i saw it quite sometime after i had chosen the title for our book. But it makes plain that, indeed, just being is the only real identity that is. Any “thing” else is an appearance of and on THAT — Just Being.

    And the Niz kicker #3:

    “What changes is not real, what is real does not change. Now, what is it in you that does not change? As long as there is food, there is body and mind. When the food is stopped, the body dies and the mind dissolves. But does the observer perish? It is a matter of actual experience that the self has being independent of mind and body. It is being-awareness-bliss. Awareness of being is bliss.”

    How beautiful and beatifully clear this is: Just Being is what’s left when all else dis-appears. Awareness of that only fact is bliss.

    Take that in fully and deeply: no body (no sensation…wall hitting or otherwise) no mind (no thought) and yet FULL IDENTITY remains…and ALL apearances can never be anything other than THAT.

    Get that the only real identity is Just Being and, folks, we are done.

    much love

    Kris and anyone else, if you would like to chat, “Drop us a line” on the ABCingJustBeing.com site and we will see where it goes.

  11. MadMama!! says:

    Cameron,

    Thanks for the invite to be on the next show. May I take a rain check? After all I’m in Florida and we have “Hurricane Fay” on the way as I type. This wind and rain seems REAL to me but then again I guess I’m in the “light touch category”. HA!

  12. Stig says:

    Thanks for another great show!

    Steven the web site looks good, I like the art. I may buy a copy of the book sometime when my finances are in better order.

    For me the Niz is a bit hard going with all the lingo, I’ve read several other books since I got ‘I am that’ and still haven’t finished it. The ‘punching the wall’ conversation reminded me of Bob’s ‘you can’t get a bucket of blue water out of the blue ocean’ bit. It may only be an appearance of a painful hand but it’s still a painful hand (for no one). Both real and unreal, as has been said before.

  13. Cameron says:

    Daniel, non-duality means just that – Not two. Therefore to say “nothing is real” is actually dualistic – Real vs Unreal. It’s a common misconception. As I said earlier, saying “I do not exist” is nonsense. The fact that we “are” is all that we know. Non-duality doesn’t mean we don’t exist or that nothing is real. It means that what we are, our true nature, isn’t what the senses perceive. That the “illusion” of the senses might tell us we are a person when really we are “that”, the fundamental substrate of the universe, whatever that may be, what the gurus, who knew little of science, would call BEING or CONSCIOUSNESS or THAT. But make no mistkae – THAT is real. And the “illusion” that we see, the person, the hand hitting the wall, is also THAT and is therefore also REAL.

    The error that we try to correct with non-dualistic teaching is that believing that a person is ALL that we are is wrong. The mistake we make is identifying with an element of THAT instead of ALL of THAT. All this becomes clear the moment we see through the illusion of a ‘me’ directly. Until then, it’s easy to get confused by concepts such as “actors” or the words of the Niz or the Bob because words are just a finger pointing at the moon. Focus on the finger and you’ll miss the moon.

  14. marcelo says:

    Nicely put – let’s not forget the simple title to the Niz’s book.

    I Am That.

    You can’t get more real than THAT!

    I am not that, everything is not that – that would be the illusion.

  15. Corey Vance says:

    Cam, Great clarification!

    Steve, Congrats on the book being released!!!

    MadMama, I’d love to hear a show with you Cam, and Steve!

    From my lips to That’s ears. 🙂

  16. daniel says:

    Very good cameron, sometimes you really suprise me with your understanding. What you said up there^ is alot clearer than some of the things you say on the show. Thanks for the reply!

  17. neal says:

    Cam,

    do not change the goalposts. We were not discussing “I am That all is That” but the reality or not of this dualistic universe.

    I already stated in different words that hitting a dualistic wall with a dualistic fist will not help me determine their reality other than to each other. The only way to truly determine the ultimate reality of something is to step outside of it, be independent of it and that of course is impossible.

    To cut across all this mental stuff and return to the simplicity of this, the investigation shows that there are no answers and life is a mystery, “What Am I?”,”Who Am I?”, “What is all This!?” all end in Mystery with nowhere to go. It is the full stop. How can you say anything is real when all is mystery?

  18. Cameron says:

    Neal, what is the mystery? I don’t see any mystery. It seems obvious and simple to me that what I am is “that which is”, the noumenon AND the phenomenon, the entirety of the universe, cause AND effect. What else could I possibly be? What we were arguing about what whether or not the phenomenon, aka “the fist hitting the wall” is real or not. I’m saying that the phenomenon is just as real as the noumenon – no more, no less – because they are two sides of the same coin. The noumenon is the substrate – the phenomenon is the appearance.

    As the Xin Xin Ming says:

    “To deny the reality of things

    is to miss their reality;

    To assert the emptiness of things

    is to miss their reality.”

  19. daniel says:

    The old he said,she said thing. We need an advaiten comedian because this shit gets so hilarryass. As I lie in my bed this morning reflecting on what Cameron had said. He says it’s all real I say it’s all made up. Who’s right who’s wrong? We’re a bag of chemical reactions that create a conceptual world. Bob said can you drink the word water? Mind games. Those that haven’t dealt with physical pain think I want to live forever,those you have think what an idiot. The Niz personally said he didn’t want to come into physical existance, personally that baffles me, consciousness has no preferances does it? Either you profess to be consciousness or the show. Steve, sex and advaita the only things that haven’t changed? How about the instinct for survival? Or were you just being funny for Cameron, since he thinks sex is the end all, be all, to enjoying so called life?
    My wife would love for us to have sex and lots of it , but do to a desease that she has contracted it’s only mental! Take your “all is real” and shove it!!!! Only kidding,my conceptualization got out of hand,as we all know I’m only talking to myself:)

  20. Stig says:

    What gets me with this is the apparent conversations, and I suppose it goes for everything else as well but this for me this is where it sticks out most. This apparent relationship of words and people putting across one point of view or defending another is just something that is happening. Like smoke in the wind twisting into all sorts of shapes and going in every direction with no reason other than being smoke in the wind. The smoke has no choice about it’s form and the wind didn’t choose to blow this way or that, and these conversations just happen with no choice anywhere. It appears that I write this and thoughts will appear worrying about what I have written and if it was right or just a load of rubbish and the frustration of knowing that again there is no choice about any of that but still there arises a wanting to change it in some way but with no idea of what that would be or how to do it. Yet here are words but they are not mine, they like me are what shall I call IT? The substrate, the intelligence energy, the nothing, the mystery? All fit and all fail, and the going on keeps going on. I guess that’s the monkey on the tigers back thing, just being taken for a ride with no control over where to go or what to do and it might be fun or scary, beautiful or terrible and that’s what we call entertainment when we’re sitting in a movie theater and it’s not happening to me…

  21. Steven Witt says:

    stig…well done.

    As Leo Hartong put perfectly: it is “awakeniog to the dream, not from the dream.”

    Once you see that this daytime version is not a tick different than the nighttime one, with precisely the same “substance, exiistence, reality” — as in poof it’s gone in deep sleep — all done.

    You, as witness, watch it all “unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected”
    as it arises, always KNOWING that, as Bob says, “something cannot come form nothing…so in fact No-thing is what you ARE.”

    A witness can only be of or to something — an appearance.

    No witness (God), no appearance…no nuttin, THAT is your real identity: brimming emptiness.

    “Can i get an Amen for James Brown…..right on”

  22. Marcelo says:

    Can you ever point to un-reality?

    Everything is that – EVERYTHING!

  23. Cameron says:

    spot on Marcelo

  24. neal says:

    Cam,

    Nevermind,

    I made a comment about the show and tried to clarify it a couple of times. That’s all there is.

  25. Cameron says:

    A good album NEVERMIND. I play it often. Vale Kurt.

  26. Steven Witt says:

    I have to at least chuckle, if not BWHAAAAAAAA, at how this great paradox of non-duality messes with the dual mind and thus ALL words.

    If you ask, well, just about anyone who had never heard of adviata, anywhere, any time, is “everything real” they would laugh and say “but of course.”

    So then, we all might ask, then what is all this adviata and pointing for and about?

    Only answer: nothing, no-thing.

    As the Zen guys say: “First there are mountains and rivers, then there is nothing, then there are mountains and rivers.”

    Got it? Got THAT?

    Let me quote Homer Simpson who said in his movie while walking by himself: “You shudup,no you shudup, no you shudup, no you shudup.”

    love

  27. marcelo says:

    We all get the – life is an appearance bit – can we move on then?. Rather than stand there like a deer in headlights.

    Like Cam said – everything is real and unreal – which makes it ALL REAL!

    If thats a paradox you can’t handle, then what in Godzillas name are you doing here? go to a church or something…

  28. Fred says:

    Has anybody found the off switch yet?

  29. Allegra says:

    So then, we all might ask, then what is all this adviata and pointing for and about?
    answer:yes

  30. daniel says:

    It’s nice that conciousness lets us play all thezze games, what if conciousness had a conscience :)? Steve I think you’ve got that mountain river thing wrong. I’m sure it was
    Donovan that said that! Hey Fred are you the same Fred from one of Cam’s interveiws with BOB? Hey Bob isn’t a chair and a person the same to you? You said it don’t lie!!, I have have your tape?:”@#$! The only reason that anybody gives a fuck about this shit is because they can’t deal with ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????, if you know this crap or not, conciousness has no preferances,I love quotes! Isn’t bliss ignorance ? My neighbors say so and they’re broke. But they love sex and everybody knows that’s one thing we can count on to make every thing O.K.:)

  31. Mark says:

    Maybe the Hokey Pokey really IS what it’s all about.

  32. daniel says:

    hey Mark I’m getting dizzy

  33. daniel says:

    Hey Cameron selfishness, like Ayn Rand:)

    hey Cameron selfishness ,Ayn Rand:)

  34. daniel says:

    The second line came from Ayn Rand herself,go figure!Do you know who she is, of course!

  35. Corey Vance says:

    This is good stuff, it’s like listening on someone’s drunk dialing, but drunk posting. Keep it up kids!

    corey

  36. daniel says:

    Corey, I’m glad you got the joke, some people are just too fucking serious:)

  37. Cameron says:

    yeah Daniel I love Ayn Rand. I read Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged every other year. Two of my favourite books of all-time. I’ve read everything she wrote, including a collection of her letters. She would have HATED advaita. 🙂

  38. daniel says:

    Cameron sometimes you blow my mind! If I ever say anything derogatory towards you please kick me in the nuuts as cartman would say., You think you know someone by what they’ve said and then they deep six you. I hope your life goes better than you planned!!!!!!!! Devorce sucks:”(

  39. Cameron says:

    Don’t you listen to G’Day World mate? I’m sure I’ve done a show or two about her over there. I’ve actually tried to find an Objectivism expert to come on the show. If you know anyone, send ’em my way. As for my life, well I learned along time ago that I’m not in control so whatever happens is okay with me. 🙂

  40. Mark says:

    Hey Cam – Ken Wilber did a series of interviews with Ayn Rand’s ex-husband whose name completely escapes me at the moment. It was only a few years ago so I think he’s still around. Great interview. You might find it via http://www.integralnaked.com

  41. daniel says:

    As a by the by dude there are several interviews of ayn rand on you tube, the ones with mike wallace are quite interesting.

  42. Cameron says:

    thanks for the tips! Watching now!

  43. daniel says:

    Cameron do you know about Miro? I’ve thought that having a more video format would be much more competitive for tpn. Why compete with radio’ they’re more music oriented and your show is quite diversified . A video format would be much more appealing to me as well as others. As an example the advaita show you did with Bob on video was much more compelling than just the voice recording. I suppose this isn’t anything new to you and do to equipment costs it might not be practical.

  44. Cameron says:

    Daniel, yep, know about Miro and think it’s great. The problem I have with video is that the majority of the show I do involve chatting with people on the other side of the planet. Do people really want to look at my ugly mug while I talk to someone they can’t see? I don’t know how to simulate the ‘satellite link’ interview as you see it on TV. Any suggestions?

  45. daniel says:

    Cameron you are not the ugly mug you think yourself to be,”60 minutes” no movie stars there. On miro look at “end of the world as we know it “and see if that doesn’t give you some idea how you might do it, you have to know some geeks that could figure it out. Do you think ayn rand knew about free will?

  46. Cameron says:

    The idea that humans had free will was pretty core to Objectivism. I suspect she would have scorned anyone who tried to suggest that free will was an illusion. Objectivism was more of a social and moral philosophy than a spiritual philosophy though. She was more interested in how we live together in society than the true nature of existence. And I agree with a great deal of what she had to say about society. I still consider myself a lassez faire capitalist. The one idea I would love to discuss with Ayn would be when altruism *is* in our best interests, which is the way i think today. I don’t see altruism as a responsibility but as an opportunity. The more people we bring out of poverty, the more people can contribute to the progress of the human race at a much higher level.

  47. daniel says:

    you know
    i’ve always thought rand as the queen of selfishness and kind of spurn alot of her ideas,but from experience I know in some cases it may be the right course,but as you say bringing people out of poverty may outweight that especially if you beleive in advaita and oneness of us all. It’s too bad that some countries are as selfish as they are and think the worlds resources belong to them! Cameron I do appreciate you taking the time to talk with someone you don’t know that sometimes gives you shit. I surely hope that internet doesn’t get taken over by profiteers and this kind of thing can continue, you don’t have to respond to this ,I appreciate the time you’ve taken,” lassez faire” you do love your french:)

  48. daniel says:

    I feel like an idiot, I always thik of something else to say after the fact. I’ve listening to you since advaita #4 and my favorite Gday world was the one with kurzweil, I do listen but I’m kind of selective.Thats all no more I promise!!!!

  49. Cameron says:

    you give me shit? I never noticed. 🙂

  50. daniel says:

    Good nite Gracy:)

  51. marcelo says:

    I still don’t get how intelligent men fell for the Fountainhead thing. Then again, I still don’t get how intelligent people believe in the Bible.

    If the effects of Fountainhead weren’t so horrific, it’d be funny.

  52. Cameron says:

    Marcelo, what your problem with the ideas contained in The Fountainhead?

  53. joni says:

    He was playing real good for free , thank you:)

  54. tomasz says:

    How do you IMAGINE that SCIENCE is just as valid concerning THAT?
    How do you IMAGINE wrapping your MIND around THAT wich cannot be objectified?
    SCIENCE only ever operates on the level of APPEARANCES and CONCEPTS.

    I can Imagine that if you reduce this KNOWING to a felt sense in the body of ‘JUST BEING’ then offcourse that can be studied because it’s JUST AN APPEARANCE. But that’s NOT what the NIZ was about.

  55. Cameron says:

    Tomasz, how do you imagine science is NOT valid concerning THAT? Do you think old bald Indian men have an exclusive license on pointing to the truth? It’s true that science operates with concepts – as does the mind, and do we not use the mind to discuss, to inquire about the true nature of our Self, to read The NIZ? Science is a valid tool for enquiry. In the end it points to the same truth the Niz did. After all, what else could it point to? I never said I could “wrap my mind around THAT”. Physics, just like the Niz and the Bob, shows us that our minds are limited and that the reality of our identity is very, very different from what we perceive with our tiny primate brains.

  56. tomasz says:

    1)Science happens in and as THAT as behaviour. Wich as Steven Witt points out in ‘ABC-ing just being’; “Seeing clearly your non-separate Nature has not one thing to do with behavior.”
    2) And as the NIZ points out ever so clearly “Knowledge is bondage”. Nothing can be said about that. No knowledge can be acquired. No bald Indian guy in diapers knew more about THAT; Maybe they knew more about what’s holding you back from seeing THIS. How will science acquire knowledge about ‘DON’t KNOW’?
    3)Science is based on observation, but every observation is the endresult of a proces of omitting, omitting, omitting in the brain as Stephen H Wolinsky points out. Science sees reality through a tiny peephole (brain, microscope, telescope) wich filters and colors reality. If you positively identify something as an atom, or an electron then you’re in the world of illusion. Then you’re drawing circles on a flowing river. It’s all THAT but appears as separate ‘atoms’, ‘electrons’. What Science is left if you drop all categories?

  57. tomasz says:

    As someone said:

    “The Universe does not exists out af Atoms,
    It exists out of stories”

    Science will give us just another story; Fascinating as it maybe, it will only be a more accurate description of the Dream. THAT is not something in the dream, wich is an illusion in the sense that it has no separate existence. Reality as it is commonly perceived is only real in this sense: Where is the dream of yesterday, can you pinpoint it? Did it actually happen?

  58. tomasz says:

    The Science of the 1st person as worked out by Douglas Harding not withstanding, science as we know it only ever points to discrete phenomena which are perceived as out there. (according to the X-files ‘The Truth is Out There’, but can truth be unevenly distributed in the Universe then why not call it a Duo-verse)

    “Science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge. This system uses observation and experimentation to describe and explain natural phenomena. The term science also refers to the organized body of knowledge people have gained using that system. Less formally, the word science often describes any systematic field of study or the knowledge gained from it”

    Scientist will have a hard time measuring the NOUMENON since it is NOT MANIFESTED

  59. tomasz says:

    We already know that science will provide us only with a description.
    We already know that the described is not the actual.
    So we can stop expecting a child from a barren woman.
    So we can stop eating the menu, and have a hearty meal from uncensored Reality.
    But by all means let’s enjoy Science cause Reality has got all kind of wonderful tricks up it’s sleeve and is keeping up appearances to entertain young and old.

  60. Cameron Reilly says:

    Tomasz, you’re getting worked up over two different fingers and missing that they are both pointing at the same moon.

    30 years ago physicist Fritjof Capra wrote:

    “A careful analysis of the process of observation in atomic physics has shown that the subatomic particles have no meaning as isolated entities, but can only be understood as interconnections between the preparation of an experiment and the subsequent measurement. Quantum theory thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe.”

    Ponder on that for a while and I think you’ll see it’s as profound a statement as anything the Niz ever said. The Niz just pointed to the oneness of all things and told us that if we investigated for ourselves, we would discover that we were THAT. Capra is hinting at the exact same thing, except instead of sitting in a little room in Mumbai smoking beadies, he was sitting in the Physics Dept at the University of London. While some people relate to the language of a Niz or a Bob, others relate to the language of scientific investigation.

    At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you’re being pointed at this by the Niz or by Capra or the Witt. It still requires a direct investigation and realization that what we are is THAT.

  61. tomasz says:

    Yes, and in direct experience there are no atoms nor interconnections. Its just knowledge in the mind that will keep you intellectualising. After closing the book on the Science of how all is interconnected , the reader will remain as he/she was; with the thought ‘I am separate’. No one ever realised THIS after reading a book about quantumphysics. Anyway it’s all fine. They are All THAT anyway.
    But what we are doesn’t appear in the dream, interconnections included.

  62. Cameron Reilly says:

    Tomasz, have you had this direct experience of no atoms or interconnections? In this direct experience, what was there? And what was doing the direct experiencing?

  63. tomasz says:

    ‘Don’t Know’ ! 🙂

  64. tomasz says:

    On his way back from the K’un-lun Mountains, the Yellow Emperor lost the Dark Pearl of Tao. He sent Knowledge to find it, but Knowledge was unable to understand it. He sent Distant Vision, but Distant Vision was unable to see it. He sent Eloquence, but Eloquence was unable to describe it.

    Finally, he sent Empty Mind, and Empty Mind came back with the Pearl.

  65. tomasz says:

    The NIZ was all about getting us to awaken to the dream. What he told us were just ‘strategies’ for that purpose. Luckily he wasn’t explaining the Nature of Reality. That kind of knowledge is as good as dead and only furthers the belief in the dream. And would result in endless discussions of followers about what he really meant.

    Yes, we can use Science to better understand the nature of existence. And as a pointer we can use it as ‘Neti-Neti’; We are not restricted to this nor to that.

  66. Steven Witt says:

    Tomasz, I LOVE that you are fired up about the nothingness of all THIS. And I am with you. As WWW said in the quote i read on the show, most stop sort of including themselves in this emptiness.
    It’s that simple.

    As for my ol pal Dr. Reilly, you really got to be around him sometime to get the fullness of that beast. He is on ALL the time and always interested in something…or not.

    He digs Napoleon, gets wet over deep physics and secretly believes that Hunter S. Thompson is in his body.

    And it’s all good. He is one of a kind they just do not make enough of.

    The person who wrote this poem is too. Suffice to say, it says all that can be SAID.

    http://www.sentient.org/awakening/forget.html

    love

  67. Cameron Reilly says:

    Tomasz, as I’ve said here many times – the “dream” is real. It’s a mistake to deny the existence of the universe. The dream is real. The universe is real. It is THAT. It’s just the phenomenal aspect of the noumenon. Trying to deny the phenomenon to embrace the noumenon is missing the point.

  68. MadMama says:

    Tomasz,
    I’m new at this and don’t really understand all you are saying but I can tell you that science has helped me to understand non-duality, some what. And how would you know “No one ever realised THIS after reading a book about quantumphysics.” I’ve never heard a guru speak in person. never meditated, never attended a sansong (SP?). Isn’t anything possible in appearence? If I’m not understanding please enlighten me. 🙂
    Thanks!

  69. marcelo says:

    “The basis of economic policy is distribution of resources. Rand is an elitist and promotes a form of elitism as preferable to collectivism. I prefer a utilitarian policy that attempts to distribute and redistribute resources for maximum good.”

    Sorry, but I can’t remember where that quote came from…

    Her views managed to line up extraordinarily well with the interests of corporate America, I don’t have a problem with the book, for what it was worth back then… but, that was then, and this is now…
    Unfortunately, capitalist used that book to confirm that there actions were correct. I’d like to ask every one of the millions of people who felt the boot of Rand influenced capitalism if they were correct too.

    But hey, Cam, I respect you alot, so If you know something I don’t know – please feel free to correct me.

  70. marcelo says:

    Man, I really dig Capra – the Tao of Physics was one the books that helped me get here.

    Science or ‘some old bald indian’ –

    whatever works – as long as you pay attention

  71. tomvds says:

    Yes, everything is valid in the appearance Madmama.

    You’re right Cameron:And yes the dream is real as a dream; As you said many times:
    To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality;
    To assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality.

    Thanks Steven for that beautifull poem!!: “Forget everything and be happy”

    And as James Brown would put it:
    “Hair is the first thing. And teeth the second. Hair and teeth. A man got those two things he’s got it All.”

  72. tomvds says:

    Hi Marcello,

    Yes the intellectual understanding has to happen too. And I’m glad that worked out for you. But that’s just as far as the mind can go.
    What you truly are needs NO help. There is no in-between. The realisation is SUDDEN and beyond comprehension. Then we realise we are the attention.
    Anyway:
    ““Forget everything and be happy”

  73. Cameron says:

    Marcelo, I think in that video interview with Rand from the 50s she was quite adamant that America didn’t have, and has never had, true capitalism. She argued that the large corporations in the US had already corrupted capitalism by pushing through a whole bunch of legislation giving them unnatural powers. I’m pretty sure she would have loathed the current form of American capitalism. It’s the great irony that one of her best students went over to the darkside as the chairman of the Fed and made the situation even worse.

  74. marcelo says:

    tomvds – i’ll just hapily ignore that, thanks – man, was I that annoying in the past too?

    So Cam, can we drop rand then? Aren’t we saying something similar about the bible?

  75. marcelo says:

    tomvds – mate, I’m sure I was much more annoying. I’m not gonna give you an advaita line, The comment I made was just a stupid comment.

    Go nuts brother – thats how we all got there.

  76. daniel says:

    In some aspects I absolutely hate Ayn Rand and in others what she says makes the most sense in the world. You can beleive anything advaita, anything scientific, but it’s your existance not anybody else’s, so if you want to give it up to someone elses ideals go a head. There is no free will, you’ve got to pay good bucks for it!!!!

  77. Max says:

    Hey dudes, what’s up? I haven’t been checking the blog for a while, but it seems to still be going strong. I love the shows; always interesting and informative. Steve, I’m glad you’ve got a book, maybe I’ll read it sometime. Tomasz, you’re pretty sharp and spot on mate, I’m with you all the way, esp. about the dream bit. Cam, you make really good points and come at it from a different angle. It’s all the same moon. The thing about science is that it’s like a computer game inside a computer game. I think Tomasz is on about the whole computer game in general, not focussing on science.

    Keep up the good work

    In service,
    Max

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