This is a great philosophical question. Underneath this question lies the answer we all have been seeking since time immemorial.
The entire Vedas try to clarify this to us.
Once we understand the core of this we will be close to enlightenment.
The Buddha understood this fact.
“Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””
“If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.
Esse est percipi* ~ George Berkeley
*To be is to be perceived.
docendo discimus
I guess no. But if it is, then surely we will be close to enlightenment. Observing our own self, I think, requires an detachment to the ego. Right?
Other than Humans, no animal is aware of it's own existance. They have no sense of self, they percieve only their surroundings. In a sense, does that mean they do not truly exist? This intrigues me and gives Existional Nihilism new support.
The only thing worse than the thought that it may all come tumbling down is the thought that we may go on like this forever
-Violet('Feed' by M.T. Anderson)-
But what about the Supreme Being? We humans can't perceive Him, does that follow then that He doesn't exist?Originally Posted by Red-Headed
Vanitas vanitatum, dixit Ecclesiastes, vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas.
Yo sé quién soy, y sé que puedo ser no sólo los que he dicho. - Don Quixote
The problem with this question is that there is no answer.
It is an impossibility, we cannot, and will most likely never know what really "is". We are slaves to our own senses, we percieve what we touch, smell, taste, hear etc to be real. Really these sensations are our brains attempts to make some deciferable sense out of our surroundings via signals which it can use to preserve itself. But if we use the interpretive system as the be all and end all of reality, then we are restricting our understanding of reality to what our brain is capable of figuring out.
I personally believe there are many many levels of reality which we as humans are unable to percieve with our limited senses via the brain. This is not to say that there is a God, or any diety watching over us, I simply wish to point out that we cannot really ever figure out if we as observers are being observed, because like animals attempting to understand if humans are observers, we just dont have the "reality processor" powerful enough to comprehend.
You have it incredibly right, except that there are many levels of being which we can perceive. I mean, many levels of being being only understanding through our senses: only understanding on a +1 or 0 system; pleasure or pain, reacting to all kinds of stresses; making plans, doing all kinds of activities, experiencing emotions, living - everything involved in life, but which is ultimately still under the limited body conception...
There are many levels beyond that, however, when we come more in touch with the source of everything; then we come closer to pure, pristine existence. To be enlightened is to know the source fully; to be completely in contact with it and aware of a unity of self and other, self and source. In that unity consciousness you realize the complete being, the complete essence of the source, as en evolving, single expression of the depth and range of existence.
Unalterably, it is a joyous and exalting expression, much characterised by gladness. It can be said ultimately, of anything which responds to the command "Be!" whether or not there is a giver of the command - anything which partakes of "being" in this existential universe is the recipient of the greatest gift, the greatest rarity. And all parts of being take part equally in the self-expression of Being as a Whole.
The levels of existence beyond the consciousness of the senses are as numerous... perhaps they cannot be counted because the range of existence can be endlessly divided...
The best of those levels is what is called enlightenment, or divine consciousness...
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Enlightenment, in relation to the consciousness based mainly on the senses and the body, and further the mind; is the same as the relationship of being awake to the state of sleep. The reason is the language, the rules and laws of the consicousness based on the senses are all rigid and unchanging. And what is unchanging is not tangible to what is changing. This is the secret of Buddhism and its enlightenment. That is why what is temporary is nothing. Actually anything which is unchanging is temporary.
What non-duality means is that the part is the same as the whole. As Emerson says, "Each part of nature contains the powers of the whole."
Or as scientists today are beginning to understand, the unvierse is like a holograph, and it is a picture of an infinite fractal. As you begin to view the smallest parts of the universe, you eventually uncover a smaller repetition of the larger pattern: you recognize another universe within those particles. Buddhism says that there are thousands of universes within a single atom.
The self is the same as the universe because the two are part of each other. The self, or consciousness, is truly a mirror. It is a recording device. It is the Witness. As we are the mirror of the universe, we do not have any existence shorter than the universe. We are observing the past as well as the present, so we exist also in the past. In fact, though we are minute, which is truly more substantial - the universe without life, or a single observer?
But the question of whether the universe is greater than an observer, or whether one single conscious observer is greater than the universe is a moot point - the question never needs to arise, because the observer is not separate from the universe. The observer is part of the being or existence of the universe.
Last edited by NikolaiI; 02-10-2010 at 03:29 AM.
Hmm. as one who prescribes to the reality is what we see view, I would say we are observed, but only by each other. the knowledge that their are other sentient beings starts an infinite chain of checks and balances. From the moment we are born we are observed, but not by some mighty Deity unable to be perceived by us because we are too lowly to see him. But by other rational, thinking humans.
Nax: One brief comment. Just because language cannot always define something, like a state of being, doesn't mean the human animal doesn't know its own onotology. We all know what it is to exist, and it is the primary drive of our self-interest. Yes, we can break it down to biological (i.e. material) observations and have a stroke over how DNA/RNA sequencing leads ultimately to metaphysical problems that rapidly become intractable, but the whole of the organic machine is more than the sum of its parts.
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