Hi there,
The feeling of a ‘me’ cannot exist without any ‘thing out there’ that is ‘not me’ for comparison, yes? I still seem to be identified with the human body-mind mechanism. I understand that touching is touching and could not exist without that which is being touched, that which is touching and the experience of one object against another – all one thing/event/experience, or whatever you want to call it.
So, the ‘me feeling’ requires a me, a not-me and the experience which results from of the contrast between them. Without both, there is no-thing, yes? No? I’m lost at the world creating itself through me and awareness as things. Without the body-mind mechanism there is no ‘me’ – I am still identified with the body-mind. I know it changes; it is not the same body and thoughts as even five seconds ago, and that there is awareness. Clarity, anyone?
Thank you so much,
Linda
Dear Linda,
It is not ‘things out there’ that create the ‘me feeling’. To put it very simply, the creation of the apparent ‘me’ takes place like this:
There is knowing presence. Within knowing presence (and made out of nothing other than knowing presence) mind arises, that is, mind in the broadest sense, comprising thoughts, sensations and perceptions. At this stage there is not necessarily any ignorance. (By ignorance I mean the apparent ignoring or veiling of knowing presence).
At some point a thought arises within presence (and made out of nothing other than presence) which identifies presence with just one of the sensations present, that is, with one particular body.
It is as if a TV screen (if it were able to talk) were to say, ‘I am the substance of just one of the characters that appear in the movie rather than all the characters and everything else in the movie’. With this thought, presence, which is in fact the substance of everythought, sensation and perception, seemsto become limited and located to the particular sensation with which thought has identified it.
This thought, which exclusively identifies presence with a particular body, is known as the ‘I’ thought. It is what is sometimes referred to as ignorance. Knowing presence is now believed to be limited to this little sensation. It is ‘I am the body’.
* * *
So what about all the other perceptions that are appearing within presence? If they are not knowing presence (by virtue of our new belief that knowing presence is limited to a single body), what are they?
At this point a second concept is created which is the natural and inevitable corollary of the first concept, the ‘I’ thought. This second concept is ‘the world’. Everything that is not this new ‘I’ (the body) is now conceived as ‘the world’ or ‘objects’. It is everything I am not.
So the ‘I’ thought is the belief that presence is located and limited, and its counterpart is the belief that there is a world (or objects) that exists outside of and independent from knowing presence and, furthermore, is made out of something other than knowing presence.
However, the ‘I’ or ‘me feeling’ that you refer to is not a thought or a belief. It is a bodily feeling and is the most tenacious aspect of ignorance.
The ‘I’ thought is like a veil that colours all subsequent sensations and perceptions. It makes perceptions seem to be outside, distant, other, separate and ‘not me’. In other words, it makes them seem to be objects. And it makes bodily sensations seem to be inside, close and ‘me’. It makes them seem to be the subject. This is the appearance of two apparent things, a subject and an object, dvaita.
In this way the body becomes, as it were, a dense web of feelings which, through lack of being clearly seen, seem to be the true ‘me’. It is this dense web of bodily sensations that is the ‘me feeling’. It seems to validate and substantiate the ‘I’ thought. At this point, we not only believethat I am a body but, more importantly, we feelit.
Another way of saying this is that our experience of the body and the world appears in accordance with our beliefs. If we believe that the knowing presence that we are is personal and limited, our experience of the body and the world will seem to validate and substantiate this. And if we understand that knowing presence is simultaneously the witness and substance of all things, our experience of the body and the world will likewise confirm this too.
With love,
Rupert
