If we do not experience from within a body, then where oh where do we feel-think-do from?

whirlpool

Image by valemngilda

Think of a whirlpool. There seems to be a definable shape that we can point to and know as a whirlpool, and yet there is nothing separate or fixed about its whirlpool-ness. All the water that constructs the thing we have labelled “whirlpool” is in flow, never the same water in any moment, and yet it appears to hold its shape/from so convincingly that we believe we can point to the moment our whirlpool began, measure it’s lifetime, and record the moment it ceases to be.

But what is it that convinces us that the whirlpool is separate and of its own causal relatedness to “other” forms we have labelled in the single field of All That Is?

For as much as we focus on the ways to practice into a consciousness immune to mithyA, we have the experiences we have as All That Is in constant flow, unfixed and inseparable, no matter how we might label that experience.

It seems prudent to mention at this point that we are prone to use the word experience to separate so-called “personal identity” from “other-ness”, so the concept of experience encompassing all that we have labelled inner, outer, before, present, and so on, is an unnatural leap… until one comprehends the arbitrary lines we have drawn (even in language being the means of defining ideas that can be fixed in objective transfer of meaning), and recognise these too as whirlpools in the ocean of All That Is.

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Image by Andrey Alyukhin

Of course, the analogy can only go so far. According to the assumptions of our current cosmology, to know-observe a whirlpool is to be separate from it, and to literally form a whirlpool the ocean must exist within an atmosphere. But in our present physics of a causal universe, we have no means of explaining an alternative conceptual reality with words. Even the term “reality” inspires our perceptual bias dividing existence as dimensional from that which cannot be known/named/defined.

Which also means that while it seems that we can be taught the Vedantic mokSha; that there are those who trust innately, and perceive (for want of a better word) the whirlpool in its ocean state. Those who seek to trust, and devote themselves to practices which might reveal an ocean in all things. And those who examine trust through chemical, experimental, and philosophical means in order to demystify that which defies explanation (which will ultimately allow us to speak of that which language is yet to adequately express)… we do not experience (learn/live/know) from within a body because the “body”, the “self”, and experience as a point of separation, are all whirlpools within an ocean of All That Is.

“There is no dissolution, no origination, none in bondage, none possessed of the means of liberation, none desirous of liberation, and none liberated.” Gaudapada (K2.32)

7 thoughts on “If we do not experience from within a body, then where oh where do we feel-think-do from?

  1. I have no idea what you are talking about as you jump from one conceptual idea to another. I can accept that, as that is what our mind’s do, jump and run and jump. When you begin to see that that is all that the mind does, wisdom dawns and establishes itself and no longer allows the indulgence in the mind’s content and fickleness. Nothing the mind produces can interest you. It is just an empty echo with no one called ‘me’ in it. This dawning of wisdom is more powerful than anything you have ever known and more familiar than your family name. That ensuing Samadhi is what removes all the aggregates that give rise to a ‘self’. It appears automatically when the content of your mind no longer distracts you, tempts you, teases you into some sort of pleasure, indulgence, that hints of satisfying any of your desires. All you are doing is entertaining yourself, and that is precisely what is keeping you from this Samadhi.

    • Hi Anonymous : )

      Thank you for your reply.
      You obviously know a lot more than I do about Samadhi and I was wondering if you would like to say more. I am fascinated by what others have to say, what they know, and the way they articulate that knowing.

      I am less of a knower and more of an explorer. For me the world has no form or rules until I am present to its reveal, so I am open to hearing whatever you would like to share.

      Love & Poetry,
      Melanie

  2. I realise this site is a forum for sharing ideas and sometimes the “sharing” can seem like “arguing” or “challenging” more than simply allowing for a conversation about the many ways we can understand (or seek to understand)… and I would love to remind everyone that this can be a space for real vulnerability and honest contemplation.

    When I don’t understand something, I ask questions. When I meet someone who sees the world from a different place, I am fascinated, thirsty to understand how they see-feel-know. I also understand that sometimes that feeling, “that’s not true!” we feel when someone is explaining what makes sense to them, can be our own truth revealing itself to us (rather than a spur to “argue” with what someone else has decided to “share”).

    I wonder if we can share from that vulnerable space where we all get to contemplate without having to “defend” or “justify” our position? I wonder if a site dedicated to oneness (or monism) and Buddhism and self-awareness and the one truth seen in many ways, can also be the site for allowing every person their perspective?

    Just a thought as fleeting and unreal as everything else : )

    Melanie

    • What is being challenged is your perspective. Why? Because your perspective changes and cannot be relied upon. It is the very nature of ‘perspective’. When you pay attention to how the mind chases this or that, or ‘thinks’ about this or that, it is easy to see that you have no stable perspective. What takes place through this mindfulness is a sudden arising of wisdom which is a separation from the fickleness of body and mind and its endless changes. The deepening of this is Samadhi, a spontaneous concentration of sorts away from what we are not. It is here, through no power of your own, that the dissolution of the aggregates of body and mind can take place, ending the cycle of suffering.

      • Great!

        Thanks Anon : )
        I wonder if you can say more about “what is being challenged is your perspective…” Is this a reply to my comment about what it seems like? I guess I am a bit confused because you have made a statement about what is, whereas I simply proferred a possibility about appears to be.

        Please realise this is not a rebuke. I am genuinely curious about the point you are making. It is clear you have deeply considered this and have a strong sense of how these ideas are to be articulated. I appreciate that. Articulation is not something I am “expert” at, as I said earlier, I am an explorer…

        Do you wish to say more?
        And what for you is this cycle of suffering?

        Melanie

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