Does the forest have trees, or is the forest trees? Are those trees made of wood, or are they wood? No–thing is made of any thing, but of itself is so…The trees are treeing. It is a symptom of the cosmos.
I AM THAT, I am. More appropriately, I am this, not that. This, the subject, that, the object, and objects are simply forms which quintessentially are made of atoms which are made of no-thing. We may as well be analyzing the images on a movie screen—the massless photon, waves or particles, images?—imagines. Everything is happening in the mind.
In the language of Nootka Indians, there are no nouns and are only verbs—simply doings, for the doer and the doing are one and the same. An interesting way to see the world, and maybe more realistic than the dual nature of western thought. There is no one to blame for anything, for it is all your doing—take responsibility for it!
In Indian philosophy, nama-rupa, or named form, gets special distinction as the ultimate reality which is non-dualistic in nature. But it’s not really nature either, but mind. All of it is a projection from the apertures of the organism as in a dream of dreams—so real because it is in fact, all that we know.
In Wei Wu Wei, we are the mind using the mind to seek the ontological truth, but the seeker and the sought is one in the same and can never be found—what is sought is the seeker. That is the secret. So, our biggest hinderance to seeing this begins with language—that things have a subject and a predicate, but everything is a really a gerund. I’m not a jim, but I am jimming. I am a verb-ing. This certainly rings a bell. No wonder nobody can see it—like a fish searching for water in the ocean—it is nowhere to be found.
One thing that sets Christianity and Islam apart from other religions; is theirs must be the ultimate truth, it’s that important—yet it’s all they know. There are better ways of realization without the depreciation—sinners! Yes god has been revealed to others places and times, but…
Fascinating to me how others see the world, without the guilt of being born of no freewill from sin. Who’s right? There is only one contradictory free truth, so how hard can it be?
TheCommonAtheist 
Look at how others see the world, yes. Animal lives are of lesser value and insects have no value at all. They accidentally step on an ant and walk away like nothing happened, a dog gets run over by a truck and nobody cares. It’s okay to kill a chicken but not a cow because it’s holy. Perspectives suck.
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Isn’t it perspective that gives us variety? Imagine when everyone thinks and believes the same way?
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Oh yeah but aren’t perspectives influenced ?
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Sure. Isn’t yours? Now it’s a constant barrage day and night—even in your dreams. ’swhy I like the quiet.
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Mine is too. But religion makes you stubborn; you aren’t open to changes if you’re religious. I’m starting to like the quiet too.
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Still to young to be a vanaprastha. Give it 30 years…
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I am not giving up on worldly life, I’m a sinner.
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If everything were happening in the mind, your cell phone wouldn’t work. Applications, therapies, and technologies that work for everyone everywhere all the time demonstrate there is something wrong with this hypothesis.
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What are all those gadgets made of? What are they an extension of but the human mind? Is technology separate from it? Think of it as an extended phenotype.
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Eschewing nouns would certainly have an impact on how you view and interact with the world and other people. Just as certain Asian languages eschew past and future tenses in their verbs has an impact on how they view the world. Language of any form has some way of limiting our perception. But it also has tremendous advantages that I’m not willing to dispense with.
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No dispensing here either. Just a neat way to observe how others think in a way that has suited them just fine.
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This reminds me of that old New Yorker cartoon of two fish talking to each other – the first fish says, “How’s the water?” The second fish says, “What’s water?”
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Yes. Looking for the ocean?—no this is water, we want the ocean… round and round.
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wonderful observations! if you look at spiritual traditions (i did not say dogmatic religions) across the globe, yes, we always find the same common truth: all is one. what that is, is up to each of us to realize. they all have slightly different ways of expressing it, shaped by environment, culture, etc. but the truth has to remain the same. how could it be different?? how could truth change?
all our experiences of being awake, sleeping, dreaming and deep sleep are states that come and go. there is only only one state, in the background of all these, that never changes, never comes and goes. like the canvas behind the painting, that remains unaffected, unchanged by anything in the painting. when the painting is erased, it still is in its pristine state. such is our most essential, natural state of being. you can call it Christ consciousness, buddha nature, Self. all refer to same thing.
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It’s that common thread throughout separated cultures that has me so interested for so long. Michael Harner called it core shamanism, but even those in the shaman cultures resembled eastern beliefs in a very uncanny connection.
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yes, very much so. much of this wisdom is already dormant into our subconscious. (the pineal glad being one such doorway. why some people use drugs to activate it, and get access to other dimensions. to ‘loosen up’ the rigid logical view)
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I think it is funny that organized religion dispenses meager amounts of inspiration through the priest, what the shaman cultures surpass with a drum.
I love this quote from Black Elk, regarding Crazy Horse when he was alone three weeks in his vision quest.
”Crazy Horse went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of all things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that one—Black Elk
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very true. this reality is merely a reflection of the inner reality. sometimes things occur right after we thought about it, like the person we think of suddenly shows up, or you receive something you needed… those are basic examples of how our inner thoughts and desires manifest in material form. the state of the world is in such deplorable condition is only a reflection that we, as humanity, have split from our truth, our being
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Jim, I think you are simply too spiritual to be an atheist. What do you think of this?
https://druidry.org/druid-way/other-paths/christianity-druidry
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That is interesting. I am not spiritual, so I am spiritual. Let me explain…
Now, with the “word” god there is nothing to which it refers, so each man creates his own image of that for which there is no reference. The theologian does it in one way, the intellectual in another, and the believer and the non-believer in their own different ways. Hope generates this belief, and then the seeking. This hope is the outcome of despair—the despair of all we see around us in the world. From despair hope is born, they also are two sides of the same coin. When there is no hope there is hell, and this fear of hell gives us the vitality of hope. Then illusion begins. So the word has led us to illusion and not to god at all. God is the illusion which we worship; and the non-believer creates the illusion of another god which he worships – the State, or some utopia, or some book which he thinks contains all truth. So I am asking—whether you can be free of the words with their illusions?
My purpose is to crack the code, not to dabble in erroneous practices. I may sound spiritual because I am not. Curious, open, tolerant, loving, but absolutely not believing in god or any thing.
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tildeb could use a lil ayahuasca and a trip in other realms!😆
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Whatever the case, it’s a good game and he plays the role as well as you play yours. Or mine.
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lol!! yes, true.
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there is no language for the state of oneness- the moment you open your mouth, you have created a duality, a speaker and something that hears, isn’t it?
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I have had this problem all my life. I grew up speaking English, and while I have tried to learn other languages I have never been successful to any significant degree. But as much as I know the English language, I know that it traps me. English is based on a lot of assumptions, from the dominance of the outside world, the need for authority, the omnipresence of some godly power, and the absence of true spirituality. Because of my inability to absorb other languages, I am left to experience my spiritual life through words that deny the very existence of true spirit. I am trapped in a verbal conundrum. It is a place-of-birth curse.
But yet, in order to survive, and thrive, I needs must manipulate my one language to serve my purpose, to even attempt to give what is inside of me outward expression. Through the years I have come to even think in English, where once I as able to feel without words.
If I return to this world for my next existence I do hope I am born in a non-English speaking community.
What scares me? English is the most wide-spread language in the world, the Lingua Franca (how ironic) of commerce and even aviation. The dominating language of Abrahamic religions. If and when I come back, will other languages even exist?
God, I hope so!
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That is why when we reach a level of not thinking in words, reality is more likely to be visible.
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Nice post. Very Alan Watsy. But yeah, we lack the words and it is all one.
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Still unanswered is the age-old mystery: “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”
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Fascinating post. The Tao te Ching opens with the following: “The Tao that can be talked about is not the true Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name. Everything in the universe comes out of Nothing.
As opposed to the very Western notion:
In the beginning was the Word. etc.
Which one is the true way to understanding reality? I vote for the wisdom of the Tao, which is in accord with your thinking, Jim. Of course here I am using words to try to explain how I believe these other words are in agreement with your words. It’s a tangle. I’m not a Zen monk, but I do believe in meditation. It operates without language and it works. When I say “it works” I mean to say that I physically feel better after only ten minutes of meditation. I think better. I do not know how it works, but by allowing my brain to stop the stream of language, to stop thinking and just sit, I experience a gratifying sense of calm.
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I came to many of these observations reasoning my way along these past few years with as little help as possible. It certainly feels familiar to me in many ways when I started exposing myself to other philosophies. It’s amazing to me how similar these philosophies are to the Native American medicine wheel, the Toltec shaman, the aboriginals from all around the world, all have this common thread. I told Ark the other day, if aliens or uncontacted tribes knew all about Yahweh and jesus, hell, even aliens should know of the lord of the universe, but they don’t and they won’t. It would certainly be evidence in their favor. Yet here they are churning out the same repacked and worthless arguments that fail every litmus on the planet…even when you believe it.
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Love this post. Love it. Love. It.
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Thank you sir. One thing that fascinates me about these philosophies is they carry no contradiction. It is what it is and isn’t what it isn’t. Push the philosophy to it’s extremes and what we have is a self governing organism with 8billion apertures of the human form, plus every other form.
They don’t extrapolate a mental idolatry of a godform to worship, but to the contrary. Belief in anything is a hindering that keeps one asleep in the dream.
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“The sleeper must awaken”
-Duke Leto Atreides
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I read the dune series in my early teens. Probably should read it again. Frank Herbert lived not far from where I grew up. That was pretty cool.
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Agree fully with the point of your post. Not with what you said about namarupa though. That’s definitely dualist and one of the things that goes when you realise nondualism.
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No worries. The point of the blog is to point out more coherent philosophies than any mainstream religion. This is just a toehold on a mountain to deconstruct cultural bias that has rarely been thought out past the feel good parts.
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Good luck with that. There’s an awful lot of it to deconstruct. Like the notion karma is some sort of Abrahamic cosmic judgement without a personal judge. Or the inherently dualistic nature of Greek logic.
Hinduism isn’t a mainstream religion of course. It’s loads of divergent belief systems – including several atheisms – loosely linked with cultural similarities. It has rooms for all embracing faith, radical skepticism and everything in between. Non-dualism, dualism, qualified non-dualism …
Like you, I’m a fan of the Upanishads, but I think my favourite text is the Nasadiya Sukta from the Rig Veda.
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There is a lot to deconstruct, but one thing I like about Christianity is it will forever keep the game in play. That belief is the pinnacle of religious virtue is a neat trick that rewards men for doing something they cannot help but do. The natural man is actually the believer, not the other way around. Quite the guru challenge to his devotees, I would say.
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