Dear Rupert,
I just returned from a wonderful/difficult vacation, and I’m realizing that the wonderful/difficult-ness of it is just a judgement, and that in fact the whole vacation may never have happened in the first place, and this is frightening me a little. I am realizing that the memories I have of that vacation – the interaction with friends, the talk, the laughter, the disagreements – are completely non-existent. They are just images in my mind, thoughts that rise up and fade away in my awareness.
The memory of a bag being thrown down the stairs is just an arising, a memory. The CD player that sits in front of me now, cracked and broken, has no relationship to the thought of the bag being thrown down the stairs. Some part of me is saying this is crazy, and this is scary.
Is it just because my brain (or is it my ego?) is invested in the continuity of time and the solidity of objects and believes in the necessity of cause and effect? Are my friends not there when I’m not there? Is anything there when I’m not there? I think the answer to these questions is supposed to be no, and my direct experience appears to be no, but the truth is, I’m a little afraid. Thanks for listening,
Best wishes,
Phyllis
Dear Phyllis,
The problem is that we believe that objects such as bags, CD players, stairs, people, friends, and so on, have a reality that is independent and separate from consciousness. That is, we believe that they have solidity, reality and continuity of their own.
They do not. Their apparent reality (that is, their independence, solidity, continuity in time and space, and so on) is not actual or real. However, experienceis real. The experience of the bag, the stairs, the friends, and so on, is real, but the reality of experience does not belong to apparent objects. It belongs to consciousness.
So it is not that our friends or anything else are not there when we are not there, but rather that they were never there to begin with in the form we imagined them to have, that is, as independent objects. However, something was ‘there’ (in fact, all experience is ‘here’). Somethingwas present, but it was not an object, not an ‘other’. It was being, consciousness, ‘I’, friend-ing, stair-ing, box-ing, CD-ing.
Experience is real, but real as consciousness, not real as an object. Yes, it can be shocking and even scary to realise that the reality we invested in all these apparent things and people does not belong to the objects and people. It belongs to the consciousness ‘aspect’ of experience.
But the fear gives way to humour, happiness and love when we realise our mistake and begin to see that our own being pervades all seeming things. (In fact, it more than ‘pervades’. All seeming things are made out of being.) We cease to take ourself or others for entities and cease considering the world to be made of dead, inert matter. ‘I’ and all others or objects are one being.
We also realise that all the psychological suffering in our lives was caused by this mistaken view of experience. As soon as we view experience as it really is, everything gradually falls into place.
With love,
Rupert
