Neti, neti, loco

Now that state of pure Witnessing is 'half-way' home to the Great Liberation. This pure Cartesian dualism is actually Shankara's great Crest Jewel of Discrimination : I am not this, I am not that— neti, neti . The pure Seer is not any objects that can be seen—and that PURE dualism is the causal realm in its all formless, pure, empty glory. It is an unbelievably high state—second only to the ultimate nondual—and that is why, if you THOROUGHLY experience this pure dualism, you are indeed half-way home. You can already feel some of this Great Liberation in that, as you rest in the ease of witnessing this moment, you already feel that you are free from the suffocating constriction of mere objects, mere feelings, mere thoughts—they all come and go, but you are the vast, free, empty, open Witness of them all, untouched by their torments and tortures. "This is actually the profound discovery of Purusha, of Shiva, of the pure divine Self, the formless Witness, causal nothingness, the vast Emptiness in which the entire world arises, stays a bit, and passes. And you are That . You are not the body, not the ego, not nature, not thoughts, not this, not that—you are a vast Emptiness, Freedom, Release, and Liberation. "With this discovery, to repeat, you are half-way home. You have dis-identified from any and all finite objects; you rest as infinite Consciousness. You are free, open, empty, clear, radiant, released, liberated, exalted, drenched in a blissful emptiness that exists prior to space, prior to time, prior to tears and terror; prior to pain and mortality and suffering and death. You have found the great Unborn, the vast Abyss, the unqualifiable Ground of all that is, and all that was, and all that ever shall be. "But why..." Powell looked gently at all of us. "Why is that only half-way home? Because as you rest in the infinite ease of consciousness, spontaneously aware of all that is arising, there will soon enough come the great catastrophe of final Freedom and Fullness: the Witness itself will disappear entirely, and instead of witnessing the sky, you are the sky; instead of touching the earth, you are the earth; instead of hearing the thunder, you are the thunder. You and the entire Kosmos become One Taste—you can drink the Pacific Ocean in a single gulp, hold Mt. Everest in the palm of your hand; supernovas swirl in your heart and the solar system replaces your head." Powell's radiant skin seemed to glow from within, a translucent ebony plugged into some sort of scintillating Kosmic energy source. "To put it in dry technical terms, beyond the causal—which retains the primary dualism of Subject versus all objects—there lies the pure Nondual state, where the Subject and All Objects become One Taste, where Emptiness and Form become 'not-two, not-one.' But don't mistake One Taste for nature mysticism—in the Nondual state, Gaia can disappear entirely, as she does in dreams and deep sleep, and you are still One Taste, you are still Freedom and Fullness in all domains that arise. Gaia is just another finite object, and you are not this, not that. But if Gaia arises, fine, then you are one with Gaia. If nothing arises, you are one with nothing. You are One Taste, the empty mirror that is one with any and all objects that arise in its embrace, a mindlessly vast translucent expanse, infinite, eternal, radiant beyond release. And you... are... That. ··············································································································· "So the primary Cartesian dualism—which is simply the dualism between Shiva and Shakti, Purusha and Prakriti, in here and out there, subject and object, the empty Witness and all things witnessed—is finally undone and overcome in nondual One Taste. Once you actually and fully contact the Witness, then—and only then—can it be transcended into radical Nonduality, and half-way home becomes fully home, here in the ever-present wonder of what is. "This, of course, is the profound meaning of Tantra. Shiva or Purusha (the Seer or the Witness, the pure formless Consciousness) is usually depicted as a male; and Shakti or Prakriti (the Seen, or the entire world of manifestation) is often depicted as a female. The point, of course, is that you are supposed to identify with both . Tantric art always shows Shiva and Shakti making love, or becoming One and Nondual. This is the eternal, erotic, ecstatic embrace of subject and object, mind and body, male and female, in here and out there—an embrace that lights up the sky with the shouts of the stars as they make love with infinity. ******************************************************************** "And so how do you know that you have finally and really overcome the Cartesian dualism? Very simple: if you have really overcome the Cartesian dualism, then you no longer feel that you are on this side of your face looking at the world out there. There is only the world, and you are all of that; you actually feel that you are one with everything that is arising moment to moment. You are not merely on this side of your face looking out there. 'In here' and 'out there' have become One Taste with a shuddering obviousness and certainty so profound it feels like a five-ton rock just dropped on your head. It is, shall we say, a feeling hard to miss." Powell smiled gently, her awareness floating in the room. ******************************************************************** "At that point, which is actually your ever-present condition, there is no exclusive identity with this particular organism, no constriction of consciousness to the head, a constriction that makes it seem that 'you' are in the head looking at the rest of the world out there; there is no binding of attention to the personal bodymind: instead, consciousness is one with all that is arising—a vast, open, transparent, radiant, infinitely Free and infinitely Full expanse that embraces the entire Kosmos, so that every single subject and every single object are erotically united in the Great Embrace of One Taste. You disappear from merely being behind your eyes, and you become the All, you directly and actually feel that your basic identity is everything that is arising moment to moment (just as previously you felt that your identify was with this finite, partial, separate, mortal coil of flesh you call a body). Inside and outside have become One Taste. I tell you, it can happen just like that!" and Lesa snapped her fingers—"The sound of one hand clapping," she whispered.