The World is here whether You exist or not

Its a strange thing in the complex Western World that we build up lives so high when we still haven't sorted out the foundations.

Its weird that we have an ambiguity. We know the world existed before we were born. Unless we lived forever or somehow spawned our self, obviously our parent must have been there before us (SRH). And this is the Big Existence that no one really disputes. Its not a fruitful dispute either so lets leave that.

But there is the World According to Me as another existence. "I'll believe it when I see it" comes from this very valid existence, that unless we are witness then it doesn't really exist. What happens to me is REAL.

So we have 2 ways to think about existence. In Hinduism, respectively, its called Brahma and Atman.

Now both modes of existence have something in common: they both surround what we might call the fundamental truth. In both cases we are looking for some "origin" or "foundation" or "solidity" for the world. Holding one of the theories we have our feet on the ground. The world has some heart or soul.

But we end up in conflict, We want to believe in some objective reality AND we want to believe in our self. But you can't have both. Ultimately it boils down to the world telling you something versus you following your own way.

Now there is a way to marry these, but it depends upon first working out why the two are not compatible.

Its down to that desire for "solidity" and "foundation" above. The world is already here, why should we want to "add" any foundation to it? Indeed what can we do to make it any different from what it is? If the world doesn't exist as it is then we are already doomed. But we can argue Anthropically or Descartes like that if it didn't exist then how can we even be disputing the fact (SRH again). So we know there is a foundation before we even start. 

That fundamental strength is that there is a source, and no getting away from it.

Within this world we then try all the manoeuvres above. We do exist, but as all the religions try to tell us this is by the grace of God. Which is another way of saying our source is the same as the world. We don't have our own separate Atman and soul.

But if we are not separate from the world how then do I end up in "my" life? If "my" life is the same foundation as "your" life then how are they different?

We aren't looking deep enough.

We are all sitting in old fashioned toilet cubicles. The ones where if you stand on the toilet you can almost see over to the next one. All the cubicles are in the same toilet but it still gives us privacy.

That privacy and sense of self, it part of the amazing creation of the world. We have the same origin as everyone and everything else. There is only once source. That source even made the privacy, that we think is down to our self existence.

Its when we get to consciousness that this is particularly subtle. I may be in the Matrix and everything I see and think is a lie and is all implanted and made up. But you can't make up that I am awake. I might be looking at a hologram and thinking implanted thoughts but I am awake and experiencing all this. And its "my experience." It looks like everything I am experiencing is mine, and that adds weight to a self existing soul "in here." Heideggar calls that brilliance of the world consciously existing as the "lighting up." But as argued already that lighting up that happens when we wake up, that ignites the flame in our consciousness and make us seem to come into existence. That lighting up, is the light of God. It does not come from us! I don't make the lighting of consciousness. No human even understands that yet. No one knows how something comes to be "seen by an individual" so that only that individual sees it. It's a complete mystery. And so no human makes that happen. It happens by itself,I have nothing to do with it. And so given that the world makes it happen by some magic why do I think its "my consciousness?" Surely its just consciousness. A gift from God. But then we think, well who is looking, who did God give that gift too. Well no one is looking, cos the gift it looking itself! And who received that gift? Well we are running out of room for this Atman in this world. What ever is left that we think is that secret solid self inside it all, that is actually made by the world, belongs to the world and has been given for free. And the world didn't need to give you a self in order to received these gifts, that would be pointless.

This length exposition achieves only one think. To remove that nagging doubt that inside us, is a self, like a ghost person inhabiting our lives. Nothing that we have, or that happens to us, even being awake and conscious of our own experiences needs any ghost or person inside us. We can just let go of it and carry on exactly as before but without hanging onto this belief. Everything carries on by itself exactly as before but free from any "me" inside it.

What does this mean practically. Well the mistake we make is to hold on to what we have as though it was a separate existence. We hold on to "what I see" as though it was made by me. We don't have the first idea how to see. We barely understand the eye and even the greatest brains in the world have no idea how the brain works (SRH). What chance to understand how we see, and even less to actually "make it happen." It happens by itself! It has its source not in "me" but in the world.

When we "see" we are watching God in action.

And this is the point We don't need to search for "our" self, or worry about "our" self, there is no self connected to us in any way different from everything else. We don't carry a self around like a baggage. The world makes all this by itself, and it worries about all this all by itself. There is nothing for us to do, cos there is no "me" separate from the world.

Now done properly this changes absolutely nothing. We still see, think, live just as before. The only difference is the nagging thought that there is some "solid" foundation inside us, or connected to us, that is private and ours is gone. We know that inside we are completely without anything solid that is separate from the solidity of what is already there in the world.

There is only 1 source. Its goo to look for that source, but it's a mistake to try and own it and believe it is mine, or chip a bit off all for me. That is the road to a lot of trouble.