Dear Rupert,
After having read your and other’s books I’m really fascinated by the discovery, that (in my direct experience) everything is made out of ‘sensing’, as you put it – that there aren’t any objects, only experience. This is very easy for me to experience when focusing on hearing, when touching, smelling, and so on, but it’s very hard for me when I’m sensing visually, seeing. It seems that my mind ‘gets into’ the visual picture, so it’s hard for me to stay with the experience of the visual picture just being sensing. The visual sense seems to be the most convincing to my mind. Maybe you have something to say on this matter?
Kind regards,
Jeppe
Dear Jeppe,
Jeppe: I’m really fascinated by the discovery, that (in my direct experience) everything is made out of ‘sensing’, as you put it – that there aren’t any objects, only experience.
Rupert: You are on the right track, but just for clarity, I would say that the mind is made out of thinking and imagining, the body is made out of sensing and the world is made out of perceiving. Thinking, sensing and perceiving could simply be called ‘experiencing’.
Now take the world that is normally considered to be at a distance from and made out of something other than ‘myself’. For instance, take an object in the world, such as a distant mountain. How far is that mountain from experiencing? Obviously no distance at all.
Now ask yourself, ‘How far is experiencing from myself (that is, from consciousness)?’ Obviously no distance at all. So how far is the mountain from myself? Obviously no distance at all.
Now start again and ask, ‘What other substance is present in the mountain besides experiencing?’ Obviously none; there is no evidence of a world outside the experience of it.
Now ask, ‘What other substance is present in experiencing besides myself (consciousness)?’ Obviously none.
Therefore, it is my direct and intimate experience that the mountain (and everything else) takes place in me and is made out of myself.
This is very easy for me to experience when focusing on hearing, when touching, smelling, and so on, but it’s very hard for me when I’m sensing visually, seeing.
Yes, the visual realm is the one in which the illusion of duality, separation and otherness is at its most convincing. However, if it is obvious to you that all hearing, touching, smelling, and so on, takes place ‘in you’ (consciousness) and is made out of nothing other than you, then you have the key. You need only transpose that feeling-understanding to the realm of seeing.
Here is a practical suggestion: Start with your eyes closed and establish that, for instance, the tingling vibration called ‘the sound of the traffic in the distance’ is only made of hearing, and that this hearing is one with and made out of yourself.
See, with your eyes still closed, that the reddish-brown visual image that is appearing to you (‘the back of the eyelids’) is a tingling vibration of light which is made only of seeing, and that this seeing is made out of and appears in the same place as hearing.
Now open your eyes very slowly and see that the grey floor (or whatever) that appears is just a modulation of the reddish-brown image which you have previously establishes as being made only of yourself.
If the world seems to jump outside when you try this, just close your eyes again and establish experientially that everything is within you and made out of you. Then open your eyes and try again.
As you experiment with your experience in this way, it will become more and more obvious that even the visual world is made only of experiencing, that is, made only of you, consciousness.
As you get the taste of this, there is no need to confine this experiment to a meditative type of environment. Try it while walking down the street, doing the dishes, talking with your friends. As time goes on it will become more and more ordinary, effortless and natural to experience the world in and as yourself.
One more thing: the feeling that the world is outside and ‘not me’ is the inevitable counterpart to the feeling that ‘I’ is inside the body and that it isme. The exploration of the world outlined above is the exploration of that part of ignorance that considers the world to be outside, separate and other. The exploration of the body addresses that aspect of ignorance that makes us feel we are located ‘here’, in and as a body. These are simply two aspects of the same exploration.
With love,
Rupert
