Dear Rupert,
Thank you so much for your very clear pointers on your site. I am hoping that you may be able to dispel some confusion over the topic of mind. Consciousness morphs into different things, therefore can only ever experiences itself. But it seems that experience can only take place through the mind, and because the mind’s very nature is duality, it seems that appearances are being experienced and not the underlying consciousness.
For example, there is the ‘seeing’ of a tree. Consciousness is seeing itself (through mind) as tree, so the experience is tree, not consciousness. When the concept of separation dissolves, what allows the underlying consciousness to be experienced instead of the appearances? And is this happening in mind?
Thank you,
Belle
Dear Belle,
Objective experience is not happening throughmind. Objective experience ismind, and by ‘mind’ here is meant sensing and perceiving as well as thinking. Mind, in the broadest sense of the word, is not inherently dualistic. Mind is an appearance that seems to become dualistic or ignorant only by the thought that attaches consciousness to one part of the totality, that is, to the body part.
If we think that appearances are being experienced and not consciousness, we must first have separated ourself from the totality and imagined ourself instead to be a fragment. Consciousness does not see itself as a tree ‘through’ the mind. The only knowledge we have of a tree is through seeing, and seeing isconsciousness.
There is no tree ‘out there’ that consciousness is connecting with throughthe mind. In other words, a ‘tree’ independent of and made out of something other than consciousness is never actually experienced.
The question about what allows the underlying consciousness to be experienced as opposed to appearances presumes that consciousness is not being experienced right now. That is, it presumes that consciousness is experiencing something other than itself in this moment.
What allows this to be seen is a deep exploration of our experience in which all our beliefs and projections are exposed and seen through, leaving the experience of consciousness knowing itself relieved of all superimposition.
When the concept of separation dissolves, it is seen clearly that consciousness is and ‘has always’ only ever been experiencing itself. It experiences itself through itself alone and not through a body or a mind.
With love,
Rupert
