ALL TRUE SPIRITUAL TRADITIONS
ARE CLOSER TO ONE ANOTHER THAN TO THE RELIGIONS DERIVED
FROM THEM, FOR THEY SPRING FROM ONE REALITY!
ONENESS PERCEIVED presents a unified field
theory of perception and reality. It is a theory of Oneness
and duality, reality and illusion, as they effect, redefine
and unify such fundamental concepts as consciousness, knowing,
evolution, time, space and being.
It is a unified field theory, but because
it deals with perception and not aperceptual reality, it
unites the biofield or perceptual field, the field of consciousness,
and not the physical field. [Whether it will move us closer
to a unified physical field theory as well is to be seen,
but it will at least offer some clarification.] I call it
perceptual field theory.
ONENESS IS REALITY
ONENESS PERCEIVED IS DUALITY DUALITY IS ILLUSION ONENESS
PERCEIVED IS ILLUSION
THE GREAT INFERENTIAL
Oneness is the great inferential. In one sense
we know it is there, it must be there, yet there is no way
of getting primary information about it, no way of knowing
it. Sometimes the idea that there is only Oneness and everything
is connected seems improbable, a woolly headed notion, a
mystical construct. Other times it seems self-evident, a
palpable reality, a truism, so real that it shines out every
place one looks. What is this level on which all things
are connected, on which all things are one? Call it the
level of being. No matter how extensive the differences
between things are, everything exists, everything is in
a state of being. Existence .. being .. forms a continuum,
inhabits a common dimension, saturates all possible separate
dimensions, is all inclusive, universal.
Oneness is reality. However, this too is an
inference, a negative category. Oneness can be said to be
reality only in the sense that it is not illusory, is not
a perception, is not dualized, is not a relational quality.
It is a reality that we cannot even prove exists. It must
exist otherwise we could not have anything to perceive,
but we can no more prove it than know it. We think it's
reality, the reality that underlies all appearances, but
again this is just pure supposition, unacceptable in any
scientific court of law. For now, let us just agree to discuss
Oneness as if it exists and as if it is reality, aperceptual
reality. For if it is not real and doesn't exist, then nothing
is real and nothing exists.
Not that this is a compelling argument. One
could take it the other way, reasoning that since there
is no proof that Oneness is real or even exists and since
we know perception is illusory, then perhaps nothing is
real and nothing exists. This opens up a difficult path.
If nothing is real and nothing underlies perception, what
does this say about the nature of existence .. that nothing
exists except illusion? As absurd and self-contradictory
as this is on the face of it, it does dispassionately sum
up the human predicament, or for that matter the condition
of all sentient beings.
It also implies something else. It implies
that the existence of Oneness and reality, to say nothing
of the reality of Oneness, if believed in at all, have to
be believed in as articles of faith, blind faith. We believe
in them because we must, because without that belief the
bottom would fall out of all higher human thought and endeavor.
We would be trapped in a shifting maze of appearances with
no direction even possible. However, this belief is more
like religion than philosophy .. to say nothing of science.
To believe in Oneness the same way we believe in God, with
no proof and no prospects of proof, just faith, is not a
foundation for science but for superstition. The more we
think about it, the more closely it resembles belief in
God.
Can Oneness be considered the generic
form of God?
Like God, Oneness is something that we suppose
must be there, underlying all we can see, something we infer
from all of the detailed and glorious illusions that make
up our world and ourselves. Unlike God, however, Oneness
is devoid of form and intention, and as such devoid of the
forms and intentions that almost all religions attribute
to their Gods.
If, however, despite the difficulties it makes
for us, despite the abyss it throws us into, we choose to
disbelieve, to be agnostic on Oneness, where does that leave
us? Is it possible to construct a coherent world view on
the foundation that all there is, is appearance, illusion,
with no underlying reality? We would have to start with
the premise that underlying perceptual illusion is just
a more fundamental illusion. (Not the fundamental illusion,
just a more fundamental illusion.) Now peculiarly enough,
this is just what science finds. Beneath color perception
we find the illusion [I say illusion because these are cognitive
perceptions realized in the form of sensory analogs] of
electromagnetic waves, behind that we find the illusion
of packets of energy; behind that perhaps vibrating strings
and behind that .. nothing, at least nothing we have thought
up yet. What is generating these levels of illusion if not
Oneness, if not primal existence .. nothing?
In a sense then Oneness and nothingness can
be held equivalent. Why is this and what does it mean? The
solution to this apparent paradox resides in the realization
that "thingness" is a perceptual category. Nothing,
"no thing", doesn't mean absence of all existence,
it simply means absence of perceptions, perceptual categories.
I talk more about this in the chapter titled Thingness and
the Perceived Self. That nothing, "no thing",
no perceptual category seems ultimately to underlie the
hierarchy of sensory and cognitive perceptions by which
we account for things, could suggest an absence of fundamental
existence, particularly if one does not recognize the difference
between perceptual categories and underlying reality. However,
it does not suggest that absence to me. Rather, it points
to the existence of an aperceptual Oneness that is a perceptual
void.
DUALITY AND ILLUSION
The relationship between Oneness and duality
is wholly a matter of perception. Whenever there is perception,
Oneness divides into a perceiver and a perceived, a subject
and an object. In other words, Oneness becomes dual. Oneness
and duality are the same thing from different points of
view; as are reality and illusion. More precisely, duality
and illusion arise from any and all points of view, whereas
Oneness and reality exist only from no point of view, A
point of view is a necessary condition for perception. Perception
without a point of view is as contradictory and meaningless
as perception without a perceiver.
If reality exists only from no point of view,
it is definitionally unknowable,[ that is not perceivable].
In that case, what can reality mean?
The dualism engendered by the sheer act of
perception is an unbreachable wall, an irreducible fact,
an impenetrable illusion that limits the human condition
and, in fact, the condition of all bounded entities.
ILLUSION
All perception is illusory. Illusion is an
inescapable consequence of the duality of perception, is
the duality of perception. Illusion enters with the perceiver.
The sheer existence of a point of consciousness in Oneness
sensing another creates duality and illusion, which, of
course, are merely the generic and specific forms of one
another.
When one confronts himself with this premise,
one confronts the ultimate dilemma of the human condition,
the impossibility of knowing reality, perhaps even the problem
of conceiving reality. This is because conception, at least
meaningful conception is closely tied to perception, and
equally built on sensory experiences. Throughout the history
of mankind, contemplative people have tried to find a way
out this limitation without fully appreciating why it is
impossible. Alchemists and their successors, scientists,
try to get around it by peering ever deeper into macrocosmic
and microcosmic space, as if duality could be resolved just
beyond the limits of resolution of our unaided senses. All
sorts of experiential metaphysicians ranging from shamans
to gurus to academic psychedelicians explore inner space
through trance, meditation or drugs. All attempts, however,
are destined to fail because of the intrinsic limitations
of perception.
Unfortunately, non-illusory perception is
the perpetual motion machine of both physics and metaphysics.
It seems intuitively possible, yet it can only run contrary
to natural law, and that realm has yet to be discovered.
The bright side of the matter, however, is that the pursuit
of non-illusory perception has led not only to a great deal
of nonsense, but to science and technology as well. However,
as science progresses, the search for non-illusory perception
is misleading us deeper into paradoxical wonderlands, quagmires
of nonsense. It is time to accept the limits of perception,
and consider what further limitations in the pursuit of
knowledge and the doing of science, these limits thrust
upon us.
NON-ILLUSORY PERCEPTION
What could non-illusory perception be? Sometimes
in altered states we think we experience it, but as soon
as we try to hold on to it, to describe it, to claim it
as ours, to know that we know it, it vanishes.
Q. Is non-illusory perception possible? A.
The only way to have perception that is non-illusory is
to have perception without a perceiver, without a point
of perception, to have awareness without reference to an
individual consciousness, without someone to be aware. Is
this a possibility? Could a "you" experience it?
A person can be aware of the illusion of duality,
but he cannot get free of it! A person can know about reality,
but he cannot perceive it.
Q. Can the observer be both subject and object?
A. Not and remain the observer, i.e., only at the sacrifice
of separation.
Q. Can you remember what you have never experienced,
what you can never have experienced?
ISNESSING ISNESS
One sometimes has an experience which seems
as have the portent of Oneness. Is it possible that this
is real? Can one experience Oneness but not perceive it,
or is this semantic nonsense?
Experiencing Oneness is imaginable by being
in a state of pure awareness, not awareness of. How can
this be accomplished, if indeed it ever is? Meditators suspend
"perception of" by disidentifying, disassociating,
or turning away from the presentations of the sensorium.
The Yogis withdraw from the senses entirely, whereas other
meditative traditions teach techniques of disidentifying
from them, or quieting the mind [stopping the cognitorium]
by concentrating on a point, counting breaths, repeating
a mantra, etc.
What is left when we do this? Pure consciousness,
experience without experiencing anything! If anything is,
this is the experience of Oneness. It is not Oneness out
there, Oneness perceived. It is our inner, individual Oneness.
Oneness known. But this is the turning of the circle...
Oneness is Oneness.. is all Oneness. By suspending perception
and tapping into our inner Oneness, we experience universal
Oneness... and that opens the gate.
There is a possible problem with this formulation
of pure aperceptual consciousness as the experience of Oneness.
Consider the possibility that consciousness does not exist
in aperceptual reality, but it too is perceptual illusion,
the reification of the experience of the sensorium or the
cognitorium. If this is the case, can consciousness exist
without anything to be conscious of? If consciousness is
just one pole of the dualistic illusion, conscious/unconscious,
then how can we attribute anything real to it? Even more
to the point, how can we say that pure consciousness is
the experience of Oneness, to say nothing of being Oneness
itself.
One solution is to go beyond the intrinsically
dual idea of consciousness as synonymous with awareness
[consciousness /unconscious] to the definitionally non-dual
idea of Isness, that which just is, RESTING IN ONENESS,
neither known nor not known. But again can we experience
Isness? If we can, is it not just another perception? Does
any experience of it convert it into the illusion of consciousness?
On the other hand, if we cannot experience Isness, how can
it lead to the experience of Oneness? Obviously we are running
up against the limitations of a dualistic language here.
Try this... what if we don't experience Isness?
I don't mean being unconscious of it. That would just be
the other pole of the duality, conscious/unconscious. What
if we refuse to admit being either conscious or unconscious
of it? What if we neither experience or not experience it?
What if we isness it instead? What if we isness Isness?
Is this possible or nonsense? Is it what the meditation
masters do? I leave these as open questions as well.
Isness... As a new verb it is destined to
remain forever incomprehensible!
What is the difference between being Isness,
which we all, from the lowest to highest, can lay claim
to, and isnessing Isness? What is the difference between
a common man and a Buddha? Is it knowing or even remembering
a state never perceived, in fact, unperceivable?
The fundamental question, the heart of the
matter, is this. Do you, by suspending perception reside
in your own fundamental self, the perceiver rather than
the perception, thus touching your own unperceived reality,
your own Oneness, which, of course, is also the Oneness
of the universe; in this way coming to know unperceived
reality. Or is this too, this touching of your own self,
your own Oneness, just a perception by a different eye,
also an illusion, the innermost shell of a perceptual onion
that has no core?
PERCEIVED REALITY
Is reality itself a perceptual illusion? If
we perceive it, it must be. Everything else we perceive
is. But if that is the case There must be infinite realities
just as there are infinite qualities and infinite illusions.
Is there something real beneath that illusion
we call reality? How can we know it? How can we call it?
The cosmic mystery! The unperceived!
