Source Text
‘Consciousness is naturally one with all things. It is one with the totality of experience. However, at times, Consciousness contracts itself, shrinks itself into a body, and this self-contraction requires constant maintenance. Left without maintenance, the self-contraction gradually unwinds and Consciousness returns to its natural condition. Desiring and fearing are two of the main ways that Consciousness maintains its self-contraction as an apparent separate entity.
This book is a collection of contemplations and conversations about the nature of experience. Its only purpose, if it can be said to have any purpose at all, is to look clearly and simply at experience itself.
The essential discovery of all the great spiritual traditions is the identity of Consciousness and Reality, the discovery that the fundamental nature of each one of us is identical with the fundamental nature of the universe.
This book explores what it is that is truly experienced. ‘What is the nature of our experience in this moment?’ is the question that is returned to again and again. However, this is not a philosophical treatise. It is a collection of contemplations and conversations in which a few core ideas are explored over and over again, each time from a slightly different angle, and for this reason there is an inevitable element of repetition.
Likewise, having noticed the awareness behind and within each experience, do we lose sight of that awareness when we return the focus of our attention to the objective aspect of experience? Do we not now see the two, the apparent two, Awareness and its object, simultaneously as one? And has it not always been so? Do the words themselves affect the paper? Does it matter to the paper what is said in the words? Does the content of each experience affect the awareness in which it appears?
THE GARDEN OF UNKNOWING
The abstract concepts of the mind cannot apprehend Reality, although they are an expression of it. Duality, the subject/object polarisation, is inherent in the concepts of the mind. For instance, when we speak of the ‘body’ we refer to an object, which in turn implies a subject. If we explore this object we discover that it is non-existent as such and is in fact only a ‘sensation’.
This deobjectification is the process of apparent involution through which That Which Cannot Be Named withdraws its projection of the mind, body and world, and rediscovers that it is the sole substance of the seamless totality of experience. That Which Cannot Be Named, the Absolute Emptiness into which the mind collapses, then projects itself, within itself, back along the same path of apparent objectification, to recreate the appearance of the mind, body and world.
That Which Cannot Be Named, and yet which is sometimes referred to as ‘I’, Consciousness, Being, Knowingness, takes the shape of thinking, sensing or perceiving in order to appear as a mind, a body or a world. This is the process of apparent evolution through which That Which Cannot Be Named gives birth to a mind, a body and a world, without ever becoming anything other than itself.
Each statement that is made here is provisionally true in relation to one statement but false in relation to another. However, it is never absolutely true. The purpose of every statement is to indicate the falsity of the previous one, only to await its own imminent demise. Each is an agent of Truth, but never true. Mind, in the broadest sense of the word,* is made of concepts and appearances. It never frames or grasps Reality itself. However, by speaking in this way, mind is being used to create evocations rather than descriptions of the experience of Consciousness knowing itself. These evocations are temporary expressions of That Which Cannot Be Named, like flowers blossoming for a moment, shedding the perfume of their origin on the Garden of Unknowing.
AI Summary
The Transparency of Things by Rupert Spira , Peter Russell (Foreword) presents key insights from the contemplative tradition. The 10 passages above capture the essential teachings.
Core Themes:
- [To be expanded]
Key Passages: Highlights 1, 3, and 10 are particularly representative.
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