Month: January 2024

One can discover in Bishop George Berkeley–and it’s the writings of Greg Goode that pointed me in this direction–the basic elements of a nondual metaphysics. Obviously, he was a theist, but his ontology can arguably lend itself to a proto-nondualist interpretation.

These basic elements are: ideas, finite minds, and God’s Infinite Mind. Below, I’ll add “God’s Body” to the set.

1. All ideas (i.e., experiences) occur in finite minds. This means that perceiving (“the world”), sensing (“the body”), and thinking and imagining (“the mind” narrowly construed) are all occurring within the finite mind, broadly construed.

2. Each finite mind is a modulation, in temporary name and form, of God’s Infinite Mind.

3. To perceive ideas, God’s Infinite Mind “turns outward” in the mode of the Witness.

4. Therefore, all there ultimately is in this nondual ontology is Infinite Mind. Ideas and finite minds are reducible to the Infinite Mind.

5. One would need to add “God’s Body,” which would be understood as the universe (or universes), to the elements that Berkeley provides.

5. Then God’s Body, which is just the vibration of God’s Infinite Mind and which is known as manifestation, would, so far as the waking state of finite mind is concerned, function in accordance with certain Laws of Nature. These laws could help to explain how there can be regular occurrences or appearances of certain ideas–for instance, why John’s finite mind, in the waking state, leaves his car in the garage the night before and finds it in the same place the following day. (A different set of laws would obtain in the case of the dream state.)

6. Of course, “car” is just a conventionally agreed upon bundle of ideas: of certain colors, shapes, textures, sounds, and so on. Ditto all other so-called ordinary objects.

7. Among the many unconventional consequences of such an ontology is that there are no mind-independent objects that have an independent existence. Instead, all ideas, regardless of content, are intermittently appearing and disappearing. There are also no independent subjects, or finite minds; that is, there are no independently existing selves. However, for those who have meditated for a while, there’s nothing at all surprising about this: every experience rises and falls, and the apparently separate (or ego) self is likewise nothing but a temporary expression of God’s Infinite Mind.

In his book The Transparency of Things, Rupert Spira speaks, near the end, about turning toward and being with what he terms “uncomfortable feelings.”

How might this look?

Step 1: Uncomfortable Feeling

Identify any uncomfortable feeling arising just now. Or just memory to call forth any especially uncomfortable feeling–a vivid, a fresh one or an ancient one.

Step 2: The Body

Turn inside the body and begin to “locate” the feeling in the chest, solar plexus, hands, shoulders, or wherever it may be.

Step 3: Go With The Essence of Gendlin’s Focusing

First, explore its qualities: warmth, coldness, colors, patterns of movement, etc. At this point, use metaphors freely (e.g., “It feels like a zipper that’s stuck midway.”).

Second, only after you’ve begun to explore its qualities do you ask: “If this feeling could speak, what might it say?” Let the feeling speak for as long as that is needed.

Step 4: Then Turn To Internal Family Systems

You can ask ChatGPT more about IFS. I take a basic point to be this one:

• How can you turn toward the sensation, assume for the time being that it’s a character or person, and learn more about this one?
• How old is he or she, for instance?
• What is she like?
• What does she fear? What does she desire?
• What does she need above all else?
• And so on.

Steps 3 and 4 are really just placing you in a position to let go of all mental labels. Then you can be with the essence of the uncomfortable feeling: that is, with the sensation itself.

Step 5: Open To The Raw Sensation

Notice that, in direct experience, there is actually no emotion/feeling. There’s either a thought (or series of thoughts) or a sensation (or a series of sensations). (But never both at once, and as you go deeper, you’ll discover that it’s often a sensation.)

Indeed, as you explore ‘the body’ further, you’ll come to understand that it’s just sensation, or a network of sensations.

In S5, then, take off all the labels and just have what’s left as sensation.

Be with this sensation. Open to it. See what this is like.

Step 6 (or at any time): Notice Any Resistances

• Are you turning toward smoking?
• Is there a sense of checking out?
• Is there an immediate thought about being too tired for this?
• Has the mind risen and has it gone on a journey with a view to “solving a problem”?
• When is reading wholesome and edifying, and when is it a sophisticated escape route?
• In short, where are the escape routes?

Just notice all the resistances and, to the best of your ability, return to S5.

Throughout, be innocent, without expectation, open, fresh, welcoming, curious.

What is the relationship between images of the body (thoughts, memories, concepts, visual perceptions, etc.) and the so-called material body itself?

A moment’s reflection reveals that naive realism can’t be true: the image of the body is not the material body. For example, the image in the mirror is a representation of the material body. And a representation–a copy, a similitude–is not the thing in itself.

Then is the image of the material body an accurate representation of the material body?

The natural first answer is: I don’t know.

Then how could I verify that the image of the body (which occurs “in the mind”) resembles the material body that is believed to exist in its own right?

Case 1: Suppose I keep namarupa (“name and form”). Am I able to check my visual perception “against” the material body in itself in order to ascertain whether there is a significant resemblance? No, obviously not: I can’t reach outside of experience–here, perception–in order to perform this check. Besides, if I could reach the material body directly, then this whole investigation would be mute, that is, unnecessary.

Well, can I check (a) visual perception #1 against (b) memory thought of this visual perception #2? It seems as if I should be able to, but I actually can’t.

Why not?

Because when the visual perception #1 is present at time T1 the memory thought is not present. And when memory thought #2 is present at T2 the visual perception is not present. Therefore, I can never get them “close enough” to properly ascertain whether they resemble one another.

And even if I could, the resemblance between two experiences “in the mind” would still tell me nothing about whether they are accurately “carrying the information” from the material body itself into experience #1 (the visual perception) and then into experience #2 (the memory thought).

Therefore, Case 1 is a dead-end.

Case 2: Suppose I remove namarupa, i.e., all names and forms. Then what am I left with?

I’m not aware of a ding an sich, that is, a thing in itself. I’m only aware of Presence. And Presence is not a bounded thing.

Therefore, my inquiry into how I could confirm or disconfirm the resemblance or likeness thesis comes up empty.

Perhaps what’s worth questioning, then, is the very question itself: What if the concept of a material body were nothing but a function of the mind that then projected the independent existence of the so-called material body beyond the bounds of its own activity? What if, to quote Wittgenstein, a “picture held us captive”?

What would it be like to let go of–or at least to begin loosening up–the belief and feeling that my material body exists?

“I am the body.”

It is impossible to substantiate this view:

1.) For when I think, “I am the body,” I am involved in thought alone, and this thought cannot make contact with the presumed referent (i.e., the body).

2.) And when I don’t think, “I am the body,” then the experience is unfolding as and however it is. There is just experiencing.

Since I cannot substantiate this view, it would be wise to be open to the possibility that I am not the body.