Seer and Satcitananda in Savikapa

As thoughts appear, disidentify with the mind and all its objects, and see the seen as the witnessing seer sees through it. For the absolute seer is one’s true self.

Unattached Satcitananda, self-shining and nondual, I am. They say this is meditating in duality with pointers. Or using thought rather than being abused by it.

In savikalpa samadhi, an individual consciousness is meditating as pure consciousness, the highest degree of visualization and a paradoxical act of manifestation—one’s own deconstruction.

a. No matter.

No matter how much an individual meditates it will never be enlightened.

This illusory individual meditates because it has listened to the nondual truth, contemplated that nonduality as a whole, and has faith in its reality.

Geronimo!

b. Absolute reality.

Absolute reality is beyond description. In that sense, the absolute is the unknown.

In reality, I, Atman, am the absolute. In this sense, the absolute is known.

Brahman is not an object. Objects are Maya. Brahman is the absolute subject. I am Brahman.

c. Satcitananda is.

Satcitananda is reflecting in the subtle body of organic chemicals and functional compounds.

The reflection of existence is—I am. The reflection of consciousness is—I experience. The reflection of bliss is—I love.

Satcitananda is nonduality. The reflection of satcitananda is duality.

Brahman is never saying, I am, I experience, I love. Brahman is the silent principle of Existence, Consciousness, Bliss.

d. We drove.

We drove through the Texas panhandle on the way from Oklahoma City to Santa Fe. That place ain't just flat, it's Texas flat.

So I've been from Amarillo to Tucumcari on the way to Santa Fe but I've never been to Tucson though.

Leaving Tucamcari, we barely beat a rogue tornado out of town. It followed us down Route 66 and on to I-40 West.

We never stopped until we got to Santa Rosa. The waitress says it dissipated somewhere east of here and west of Cuervo.

e. Pure consciousness.

Pure consciousness is awareness. The reflection of awareness is universal consciousness. The reflection of christ consciousness is ego, mind, memory, and intellect.

Eyes see a piece. Mind places the piece in the puzzle. Consciousness watches.

Rah, rah, rah. Hand me the pliers.

f. Satcitananda is 2.

Satcitananda Is the Holy Trinity of Vedanta.

Existence is like the sea and this I-am is like a wave.

Consciousness is the knowing node of existence and infinity.

Bliss is not earthly bliss. Earthly bliss is love. The principle of Bliss is holistic infinity.

g. Our metaparadigm.

Our metaparadigm was materialism as it was in the old west and as it is in the new east.

Make my metaparadigm be pure consciousness. It doesn't have to be a hard problem.

Look, this egoic complex of mind, memory, and intellect is a mirror. See?

 

The Sacred Matrix of Satcitananda

Namarupa is the superimposition and satcitananda is the substrate. Namarupa in translation is name and form. Satcitananda in translation is existence, consciousness, bliss. One name for namarupa is Maya. One name for satcitananda is Brahman.

In that classic Vedantic analogy of snake and rope, or raju sarpa nyaya, namarupa is the snake and satcitananda is the rope, indicating the reality matrix of Brahman is ignorantly believed to be this illusory world of samsara instead.

This inquiry, analysis, viveka is all about teasing out the golden strands of nondual satcitananda from the monolithic dualities of namarupa. In doing so, one becomes impervious to all names and forms and devoted to the underlying trinity of existence, consciousness, bliss.

a. May the Fourth be with you Luther

All beliefs have one thing in common. They're not the truth.

True myth keeps on pointing. Dead myth is believed to death.

Don't mistake faith for belief. Belief forgets the point. Faith follows it.

b. Holy Yamadera, Part One

In 2007, we ascend the thousand steps of Yamadera, or temple mountain—officially known as Mount Hoju just northeast of Yamagata City—which Basho climbed in 1689, to Risshakuji Temple constructed in 860.

Basho wrote a haiku about this place where the voices of cicadas and silence are seeping into the rocks beneath his feet but he says it better: shizukesa ya / iwa ni shimiiru / semi no koe

Just beyond the halfway point, memorial inscriptions are engraved like tombstones in the cliffside beneath the towering cedar trees. In other words, you are now entering immortality.

c. Inside the Sacred Matrix (You can’t beat a trinity. It’s one better than duality)

Existence is the first filament in the sacred matrix of satcitananda. Because of this principle, I have something to say: I am.

The next strand in the gossamer of reality is consciousness. Not only do I see and think, I see through all this thought. I know.

Ananda is the third line in this satcitananda matrix. It’s difficult to translate ananda into English. Some say bliss. Others say bliss was co-opted by the Sixties.

Some try to replace ananda with infinity. Others dumb it down to happiness. I either leave it untranslated or say ‘holistic bliss infinity’ to cover all my bases.

d. The Mass of Consciousness

If existence isn’t absolutely godly, what is? Without consciousness, what do you know? Without ananda, what is satcitananda but samsara?

Without ananda, satcitananda is existence and consciousness. Two out of three ain’t bad when majority rules. There is no majority in nonduality.

The real matrix is existence, consciousness, and ananda. The false matrix is spacetime, religion, and the pleasure-pain syndrome. Beneath every dream is the silver screen of satcitananda.

The waking and sleeping dreams are appearing in consciousness. Deep sleep is the consciousness in which their absence is appearing. This is the mass of consciousness!

The mind is dreaming whether identifying with the body or not. In consciousness, the mind appears. In the mind, the world appears. In the world, the truth appears. Look for it.

( If existence itself isn’t absolutely godly, what is?

Without consciousness, what do you know?

Without ananda, what is satcitananda but samsara.

Without ananda, satcitananda is existence and consciousness.

Two out of three ain’t bad when majority rules. There is no majority in nonduality

The real matrix is existence, consciousness, and ananda.

The false matrix is spacetime, religion, and the pleasure-pain syndrome.

Beneath every dream is the silver screen of satcitananda.

The waking and sleeping dreams are appearing in consciousness.

Deep sleep is the consciousness in which nothing is appearing.

This is the mass of consciousness!

The mind is dreaming whether identifying with the body or not.

In consciousness, the mind appears. In the mind, the world appears.

In the world, the truth appears. Look for it. )

e. Penultimately, atman is brahman

If fire is our greatest knowledge, then the Bic Lighter must be our greatest technology.

Self-awareness is the greatest fire. Nonduality is like kindling.

The heart is atman. The metaphysical is brahman.

Oak, Satcitananda, Oakananda

The world is made of five ingredients, of which these are the foundational three: that which exists, that which is knowable, and that which is lovable, either in its presence or its absence.

These first three correspond to Existence, Consciousness, Bliss, which are present in all deities, creatures, and humans. The other two are name and form, namarupa, which differs with every entity.

Rather than stopping at visible names and forms, see Satcitananda as the essence of all. Consider an oak tree not as Oak but as Oak-satcitananda or Oakananda for short. What’s good for the monk is good for the mighty oak.

a. There is nothing but Brahman

There is nothing but Brahman. All is vanity but Brahman.

Namarupa is superimposed on Satcitananda. All dreams, whether waking or sleeping, appear in Satcitananda.

Atman is the witness. The seer is never seen. Atman is Brahman.

b. Form or Formless

As if Existence, Consciousness, and Holistic Infinite Bliss is not enough.

Every form needs a name.

Question, are we the form or the formless reflecting in the form?

c. On Individual, Universal, Nondual 

Consciousness in Maya is universal. Everything in Maya is made of nondual consciousness. Nondual consciousness is the absolute ground. Consciousness in Maya is universal; Consciousness in Samsara is individual.

Between nondual consciousness and universal consciousness is the form of the universe. Maya speaks in forms. Between universal consciousness and individual consciousness are names. People talk in names.

Individual consciousness is original ignorance. Universal consciousness is primordial God. Nondual consciousness is gone, gone beyond, gone far beyond. Tattvamasi.

d. Going East

I have been one who has seen the Garden of the Gods and all I got was this Frank Waters book at a Colorado Springs bookstore: The Woman at Otowi Crossing.

The Platte River is said to be a mile wide and an inch deep. I stayed there overnight on the way to Omaha. Deafening midnight thunder lets me know its sky is ten thousand miles deep and the speed of light loud.

By the time I got to Finger Lakes, I was completely claustrophobic. No longer was I seeing the desert for the trees. By the time I got to Woodstock, I was back in the world again. My next stop needs to be the Gulf of Maine or bust.

e. On Analogy and Paradox

First hit me with analogy. Then knock me out with paradox.

Hit me with your snake and rope.

Knock me out with nonduality.

 

In Creation but Not of Creation

Maya projects Creation and veils Brahman in which Creation is appearing.

Change is another word for Creation and Change only appears in the Changeless.

Seeing through this veil—discerning what’s Creation and Reality—is the Knowledge. 

a. on creation

All creation appears to the eyes. Their vision appears to the mind. Its dream appears to the witness. Stop.

Going further than the witness is an infinite regress. Stop.

The witness is existence-consciousness, self-shining, never rising, never setting. Full stop.

b. On Prospero's Island

Reflected consciousness is like

a river to the moon,

a moon to the sun,

a sun to the absolute—

in Sanskrit, Parabrahman;

in Big Science, a black hole.

To an island, the sea is like a black hole.

To the sea, an island is like a magical appearance—

like Prospero’s island in Shakespeare’s Tempest.

Deep sleep is the absence of duality.

Realization is the presence of nonduality.

Inbetween is this dream of duality—the great globe itself.

c. On Self-inquiry

One's audience is oneself. One is the talk of the time.

This is primordial knowledge.

Maine self-inquiry is like drilling for water on a shallow island.

Ask yourself sweet punk. Am I the seer or the seen?

d. no unconsciousness

am i the seer or the seen?

am i consciousness or mind?

there's no unconsciousness—

there's just deep sleep

and the occasional coma.

e. team satcitananda

things exist and i am.

things exist and i am and ananda.

satcitananda.

The Fresh Breeze of Knowledge

Ignorance appears in the seer as a superimposition, like a mirage in the desert or the snake in a rope, thanks to the veiling power of Maya.

As the veil of ignorance is removed by the fresh breeze of knowledge, the dissimilarity between the mask and the original face is revealed, dissolving and disappearing all such notions.

Hear the truth (sravana). Contemplate, meditate, ratify and confirm (manana). Affirm (nididhyasana) as to make firm that confirmation. And reaffirm each day.

a. Nonduality

Nonduality is like religion until realized. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Materialism is a belief too. But it only goes as far back as the big bang. Nonduality goes beyond this to that.

This nonduality as a religion utilizes both psychological and phenomenal myth in order to deconstruct all myth

thereby realizing one’s true self is the godhead and one’s real world is the primordial ground and that this atman is that brahman.

b. Fundamental Nonduality

As in any kind of religion, there are fundamentalists in nonduality too. Whatever.

There will always be the ones believing such myths to be the literal truth and not just straw men to be knocked down. We could never kill the buddha.

Look, seeing through the buddhi is difficult enough. Tattvamasi is not the starting line but the finish.

You still have to run the marathon. Neo-advaita is like Rosie Ruiz, god bless her.

c. On my 19th nervous nom de plume day

There is universal consciousness in which individual consciousness is the height of ignorance. What you can’t kill, you worship.

Universal consciousness is the manifestation of Brahman wielding Maya in the name of Self-awareness. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

on my sailor sakura / in monteverde cherry danish / signed with love, son rivers

d. For Henry David

I lived with Henry David for a year. He loves Nature as much as he loves Emerson. And he loves Waldo as much as he loves his self.

They were reading the Wilkins Gita before it was popular in the west. Like a century before. As Henry was known to say, "to some extent, and at rare intervals, even I am a yogi."

That’s great it starts with Passaconaway, Black Elk, Ancient Puebloan ruins, the living Toltec, Don Miguel Ruiz, Eckhart Tolle, Krishnamurti, Adyashanti, Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, and the Drg Drsya Viveka.

e. Sometimes a great irene

The recent cold didn't kill the local cherry trees this year. This is just about their northern extent although I hear they have Canada in their sights, sigh.

Sometimes in America the cherry blossoms are sakura. Sometimes sakura is like Basho haiku. 

Sometimes Basho gets a great notion to splash and disappear y'all.

f~Splash Basho~

Recent cold didn't kill the local cherry blossoms.

This is just about their northern boundary

although I hear Canada is in our sights, sigh.

Original sakura

and sublime haiku—

Basho thrives in every splash!

A Subtle Body Is Born Unto Maya

A subtle body of organic chemicals and functional compounds is born unto Maya.

And after evolving from its original material ignorance to this particular subtlety, it has grown ethereal enough to be touched by the Supreme Witness.

The sentience its inertness now receives spreads like wildfire reaching the outer limits of the material body to which it is still connected.

As if lightning has struck this subtlety, it is transformed into mind, memory, intellect, and ego identifying with the newly sentient physical body.

This encounter with reflected consciousness has created this monster of individual consciousness currently living in samsara.

a. Mind on fire

The mind is on fire with consciousness and every thought is a modification of consciousness.

Drop the thought and consciousness remains. 

One can't drop consciousness. One is consciousness.

b. I-am is the halfway house

I is the witness and I-am is the subtle body of mind and ego complex before identifying with the body of ten thousand identifications.

In Nisargayoga, I-am is the halfway house between the empirical chaos of ten thousand conceptual identifications and the reality of the nonconceptual witness.

I-am is like the fire-iron ball of Vidyaranya.

c. On Zuni Time

On the long drive through the Cibola desert to Zuni Pueblo, I see a great white buffalo on the side of the road checking my credentials and allowing me to pass.

Upon entering the Pueblo, I stop at a jewelry shop to buy my people Zuni earrings. But the shopkeeper offers to close down shop and accompany me to the sacred top of Dowa Yalanne mesa which I had been admiring from his window and where his people had fled to shelter in 1540 escaping Coronado.

An hour later, outside a closed souvenir shop, some Zuni teenagers in a red Chevy sell me a white eagle fetish carving for gas money to Gallup, New Mexico and a night on the town. I double-taped it to my dashboard where it still perches, shielding me from the conquistadors of today.

d. Meaning

To be a human being is double-edged.

Self-realization is the meaning of maya if maya can be given meaning.

And samsara is the cost of any meaning.

e. To laugh

Sentience is infectious.

Laughter is instant deconstruction.

Between the substrate of consciousness and the superimposition of construction is to laugh.

f. On Witnessing

I love in Advita Vedanta it's not about the judge but the witness.

And the witness not only witnesses but the witness testifies. Have mercy!

This Testament of the Witness is like Holy Scripture to those who hear. 

g. untitled

Other than consciousness and existence, there's ignorance and birth.

The real self is pure consciousness. Impure consciousness takes just one belief. I believe that consciousness can never be impure.

Existence is the first principle. Even furniture exists. Pure consciousness is the second principle. I am, therefore I know the third principle is Ananda. There is no English translation for this blissful word.

h. Consciousness

Individual consciousness is avidya.

Universal consciousness is maya.

Pure consciousness is parabrahman

Epistle to Satcitananda

Maya veils Atman on the inside and Brahman on the outside.

How can you know Atman is Brahman when you don’t even know a single side of that equation?

Not only don’t you know your true self, you don’t even know there’s a nondual godhead.

Creation is the name you give to Brahman, while Atman is any Tom, Dawn, or sorry Samsari.

But all names are etched into the substrate of consciousness. All forms are built upon the foundation of existence.

Consciousness is Existence as Atman is Brahman. That’s Satcitananda.

a. Second Epistle to Satcitananda

Contrary to quantum materialism, there's no solution to an equation consisting of all variables. That's why there's no grand unified theory. It's not the absolute truth.

In quantum materialism, there's no taking into account the constant. The same is true for psychomaterialism.

Brahman is unborn and immutable. All variables are Maya. Good luck with that.

b. The Subtle Body Question

Am I the subtle body of organic chemicals and functional compounds in which consciousness has lit into sentience

or am I the pure consciousness which is burning in this subtle body of a central nervous system?

This is actually a rhetorical question although most don't know it.

c. Original Nonduality

Original duality is me and you, inside and outside.

Not only do we fear the outside, we fear the inside. Not only do I fear you, I fear God.

Inside is the true me, Self. Outside is the real you, God.

Inside is outside in nonduality, Grasshopper. This is authentic science, Einstein.

d. The Principle of Existence

In principles of nonduality, consciousness is obvious,

but existence is easy to overlook, paradoxically.

Existence is not life. Existence gives life.

Existence is that principle which gives sentience to an inert body.

Thus one does not have a life. One is Existence itself.

e. On Ananda

Consciousness and Existence are two principles of Satcitananda. And Ananda is the third.

As pure consciousness gives reflected consciousness and existence gives life, bliss gives love.

Consciousness is not experience. Consciousness is witnessing experience.

Existence is not this spacetime between birth and death. Existence is that infinite timelessness in which birth and death appear.

And bliss is not ecstasy but that unconditional love in which happiness and sadness ate appearing.

f. The Power of Maya

As sovereign of duality, Maya possesses two powers. Its majesty needs no more.

They are avarana sakti and viksepa sakti, the power of veiling and the power of projection.

As Atman is veiled, a person is projected. As Brahman is veiled, a personal god is projected.

It's Maya

Having established that the absolute ground called Brahman is unborn, undying, and changeless consciousness-existence, what is one to make of this world which is all about birth, death, and change? It’s Maya.

There’s nothing else to say. In fact, there is nothing one can say. Maya is as indescribable as Brahman. As there’s no describing the Christ in anti-Christ, there’s no describing the Brahman in not-Brahman, or Maya.

Metaphors use words to describe the indescribable. In this way, metaphors aren’t words. A rope is seen as a snake. Mirages appear in the desert. And it feels real because it’s not unreal like the horns of a hare. All is Brahman.

a. Four Viewpoints of Japan

I swear I saw Mount Fuji while looking west on the train to Narita Airport but I’ll never really know.

While on northernmost Honshu IsIand, I saw Hokkaido from Oma Point but didn’t know it. Looking at the photos later, I saw its landmass filtered through the mists of Tsugaru Strait.

On the bullet train from Tokyo to Hachinohe, we tunneled underneath the Shirakawa Barrier, which Basho had to cross when entering the deep north of his Oku no Hosomichi.

During the Neputa Festival in Hirosaki, I see large illuminated fan-shaped floats depicting fantastic images of mythic warriors parade through the city accompanied by taiko drum and flute bands one after another over and over like crimson and cherry blossoms.

b. On Mayasakti

Maya does not preserve and protect; Maya veils and projects.

Maya veils the metaphorical rope with a beginningless ignorance of my true nature.

Maya projects it all, from the inner astral body to the furthest reaches of the universe.

c. Maya 321

Maya is everything. Brahman is no thing. All things are Brahman.

Maya is the universe. Avidya is hell.

Enlightenment is in Maya but not of Maya.

d. Om Maya

Strictly speaking, Aum is Maya. The silence surrounding and pervading Aum is Brahman.

Also strictly speaking, Aum is the waking and sleeping dream states, and the deep sleep dreamless state.

In Isvara's Trinity, Brahma wields Maya, Vishnu pervades Maya, and Shiva shatters Maya.

e. grateful tao

yellow forsythia

blossoms blossoming in april

right now and right here

f. seaing

reality is all there is.

samsara is neither reality nor unreality.

although a wave is not the sea,

the sea pervades the wave.

The Play of Realization

1. Quantum Isvara and Maya Stuff

Which came first? The waking dreamstate, the sleeping dreamstate, or the deep sleep state.

Consciousness is of course primary and is the only one of these three present in deep sleep.

The mind appears in consciousness as the sleeping dream, and the body appears in the mind as the waking dream.

In consciousness, does the dream mind appear and project a world body to act its dreams out? Like Isvara and Maya?

2. Vidyaranya Says

Furthermore, is avidya simply the feedback of forgetting the world is appearing in the mind and the mind is appearing in consciousness, believing instead that dreams are projections of the waking world and not vice versa?

Vidyaranya says, "The half manifestation of ego is the dream state. The full manifestation of ego is the waking state."

And "Thought modifications of the inner mind identifying with the reflection of consciousness projects various ideas in the dream state, and in the waking state imagines objects outside with the senses."

a. On Sun Mountain: Purple Mountain Majesty

Driving the highway to the summit of Pikes Peak, I see bighorn sheep, and stop the car.

They’re less than a football field away but I still want to take a closer look and get a better picture. Desire gets the best of me.

Hopping from rock to rock, avoiding the fragile surface vegetation, I find myself breathing heavy, and although it’s been but a few minutes, I have to stop and catch my breath.

It suddenly dawns on me we’re in the rarified air of 13,000 feet of altitude. This first encounter with bighorn sheep has literally taken my breath away.

For these Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep (ovis canadensis canadensis) are like angels. Their summer range lies above 10,000 ft. Like gods, they walk the heavens. Excuse me while I kiss the sky.

b. Isvara and Maya are Alright

There's this tendency to look at the surface suffering of the world and get all kinds of depressed knowing it will never change. I know it all too well.

Except within this movie, there's an unintended message, a deeper truth, a freudian slip if you will.

All shall be well, says Julian of Norwich. Isvara and Maya are alright tonight.

c. See Satcitananda

The material world cannot grow consciousness. Consciousness is the ground.

This subtle astral body is reflecting pure consciousness like a mirror reflects light. (Caution, the image in the mirror is just an illusion.) The reflection of consciousness is consciousness as the reflection of light is light.

Satcitananda is the source. Plug in, turn on, shine. See I am Satcitananda.

d. Mirror, mirror

The world is this false image of individual consciousness. As if universal consciousness can be divided.

Let this mirror be a subtle evolutionary astral body. Let this mirror be so subtle, it actually reflects pure consciousness.

Within the mirror there is a bizarro consciousness. Some call it samsara. Some know it as hell.

I am not in the mirror. I am the light reflecting off the mirror.

e. nondual haiku number nine

my trinity times

your trinity

equals nine.

existence is

electricity itself.

consciousness is the light.

ananda is that seeing

of the beauty

of the truth.

Consciousness, Pure Consciousness, and Mind

Identifying with consciousness is natural

but identifying with pure consciousness is delusional.

Identifying with consciousness is the best the mind can do

but identifying with pure consciousness is the worst.

I am, says the former.

I am something else, says the latter.

a. Naturally I Am

Ego identifying with reflected consciousness is natural; both manifestations in the subtle body are simultaneous.

Nisargayoga is all about this natural identity of ego with reflected awareness as expressed in 'I am'.

That 'I am' is like Vidyaranya's fiery iron ball.

b. A Labyrinth in Santa Fe

We are walking the labyrinth at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Santa Fe.

St Francis is the patron saint of this New Mexico city. Archbishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy oversaw the building of the church in 1869 and beyond. Willa Cather wrote the book. I am writing this with a Lamy pen. Los Alamos is 33 miles away.

I could keep on going with these interconnections forever. Here’s one: I’m walking the labyrinth with my daughter and she bought me this fountain pen for Christmas.

Some say a labyrinth symbolizes the interior journey towards Christ consciousness. The original Greek labyrinth was constructed to hide the Minotaur from sacrifice. Nothing happens in the past. Everything is appearing in consciousness now.

c. On Drg 8 and Beyond

Egoic mind identifies with three entities: consciousness, the body, and the absolute. The first is natural, the second is karmic or evolutionary if you prefer, and the third is purely delusional. Let's investigate this last one for a minute.

Individual consciousness identifying with absolute consciousness is to cry. Free will is to laugh. This ignorant ego hasn't even understood universal consciousness yet, my love.

For universal consciousness may be an illusion but individual consciousness is absolutely unrealistic. This is the key to differentiating maya from avidya: enlightenment is in maya but not of avidya.

d. Effing Antichrist

Never deconstruct anything before knowing love. If necessary, let your god be love.

Love is not a science. That should tell you something.

Individual consciousness is the Antichrist. Isn't that obvious?

e. Love is not a science

Never deconstruct anything before knowing love. If necessary, let your god be love itself.

Love is not a science. That should tell you something.

Individual consciousness is the Antichrist. Isn't that fucking obvious by now?

The only thing you may truly do is love. Anything other than love is a virus.

On DDV 6: Reflections of Consciousness

Call the central nervous system, the subtle body. Call this subtle body, organic chemicals and functional compounds. Call its amplification of intelligence, a reflection of pure consciousness. Call this mind and ego complex, a superimposition of ignorance upon the self.

Do not mistake the mind’s synthesis of data for a means of knowing reality.  At best, the mind can lead you to the water. For the mind is an instrument of avidya, using all the wrong ways to drink in truth.

Pure consciousness may be indescribable, no matter what kind of mathematics are being used, but truth is not unknowable. Only to the mind is reality unknown. To nonconceptual being, that’s all that’s known.

a. Almost Mile High in the White Mountains

I never hiked Mount Washington. I might have been solo-hiking the Whites for therapeutic purposes, but I wasn't crazy. The almost mile-high (5249') Mount Lafayette would be my Everest.

It all started on a crystal clear blue June day with temperatures of 70° at the trailhead. Later it would be in the '50s on the summit where one can see for miles and miles and miles.

Somewhere where the birches disappeared, I hit the wall. Whether it was endorphins or just seeing through negative thoughts I cannot say but I broke through and soon was catching the first real view.

From then on, I wasn't hiking the mountain as much as it was hiking me. To the tree line and beyond! Where the woods become a desert and Henry David is turning into Anthony the Great.

At the summit, sitting on an outcrop facing east towards Owl's Head and the surrounding Pemigewasset Wilderness, I am taking 13 panoramic photographs with my Canon A1, later setting them in a purple mat and framing that in rosewood. Thirty years later it still hangs behind my head like a fading halo.

b. I'm Ananda When You Smile

Reflected consciousness is amplified consciousness. In other words, consciousness is foundational, and the body-mind complex doesn't produce it but only makes it louder.

Like pure consciousness is eternal music and the body-mind complex is like my Kenwood receiver. Jackie Wilson said.

Lightning strikes and the wilderness burns. Fire is fire.

c. The Happiness of Satcitananda

Appearance or not, the world exists. 

The world exists but only I am existence and consciousness. Eka jiva vada.

Knowing that is the happiness of satcitananda. Not that I know it all the time. And not that there's anything wrong with that.

e. Satcitananda Calling

Being Existence Presence Consciousness Awareness Intelligence Holistic Bliss Infinity—say it soft enough and sound precocious.

Nirguna Brahman is like the black hole. Saguna Brahman is like a sun.

Gaia is as Maya. Its people are eight billion moons. Werewolves of Brahman. Om!

f. ATTN:LOVE

Attention to thought equals attention minus thought.

Attention minus thought equals pure consciousness.

I, pure consciousness, am like the deepest sea.

Wave-particle duality is purely superficial to me.

On Drg Drsya Viveka 4-5: Self-shining Witness

Pure consciousness witnesses the modifications of the mind in all its thoughts and emotions, including the tangled knot of ego.

The witness can’t be seen by the mind but is always the seer seeing all. The sea can’t be seen by an island.

Big science of the mind mistakes reflected consciousness for pure consciousness. Neuroscience will never get water from a stone.

Beginning with ego, drop the ‘e’, and add a ‘d’ at the end. Eka jiva. Remove avidya and I am God. Remove Maya and I am Brahman.

Self-shining consciousness does not rise nor set. That's the point of view on earth. Make your point of view the sun instead.

a. The Outer Banks

On Kitty Hawk, there’s wind and the windswept dunes of high seclusion. No wonder the Wright brothers took off there. They were lighting out for the territory.

Going further south on North Carolina Highway 12 one comes to Hatteras Island where 21st century east coast beach boys surfer girls are coexisting with summer mid-atlantic bon jovi vacationers.

At Hatteras Village, NC 12 takes a time out and Walt Whitman is crossing Ocracoke Ferry—shrimp boats on the sound and wild horses waiting for me on the island at the end of the world. Aum.

b. pure nonconceptual consciousness

The body sees the world. The mind sees the body. Consciousness sees the mind. And the buck stops here—self-shining consciousness.

What is consciousness? Pure consciousness is attention minus thought.

Pure nonconceptual consciousness is that which is aware of the mind even when the mind is turned off during deep sleep.

On Drg Drsya Viveka 2: The Seeing

Objects in the world vary but different eyes aren’t required to see various objects.

Objects in the world transform every second but my eyes aren’t changed by what they see.

Objects in the world are seen as countless yet my eyes are but one seer.

Thus Brahman is formless, changeless, and nondual.

a. The Loneliest Road

They say US 50 in Nevada is the loneliest road in America. That's a bit anthropomorphic, isn't it? I never heard it complain.

Topographically speaking, US 50 in Nevada is all basin and range. The landscape is quite flat until it isn't.

In one of those long flat sections, I stopped and turned off the car. It was absolute silence as far as the eye could see.

In that desert, nothing is superimposed upon pure existence but this mirage. God help me but sometimes I take it personally.

b. Vidyaranya's Genius

The eyes are the first seer. The mind is the second seer. Atman is the only seer.

That brahman is formless, changeless, and nondual is not a metaphysical statement, but one of both the physical and subtle bodies.

This is Vidyaranya's genius. Right here, right now, even your eyes are brahman. See?

c. On Gurdjieff, Vedanta, and Knowledge

Gurdjieff says one should read written expositions thrice. The first is a mechanical reading. The second is as one heart listening to another. And the third is fathoming the subject.

Vedanta says sravana, manana, and nididhyasana.

Sravana is like listening externally. Manana is like listening internally. And nididhyasana is like abidance in the subject.

Or hearing, contemplating, and knowing.

d. Drg Drsya Bibliographically Speaking

I first read Vidyaranya's DDV early last year. It was love at first sight. I went to the woods of Vedanta to get closer to Nisargadatta.

DDV is like 200 proof distilled Vedanta. These Drg Drsya Viveka translators and commentators deserve commendation.

Nikhilananda, founder of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York. Clear, concise, and kensho-inducing at times.

Sarvapriyananda, Minister of the Vedanta Society of New York. Youtube, storyteller, helpful.

Tejomayananda, head of Chinmaya Mission from 1994 to 2017. Comprehensive and noteworthy.

Dayananda, given Sannyasa in 1963 by Swami Chinmayananda & named Dayananda in 1963, founder of Arsha Vidya 1986, and spiritual Guru of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Sanskrit-dominant, released post-mahasamadhi without Dayananda's brilliant editing, but there's gold in them hills.

Paramarthananda, studied under Chinmayananda, took sannyasa from Dayananda, and is devoted to both sages. PDF but prescient.

e. The Rose of Advaita

If reality is formless, changeless, and nondual, then it follows that the world of form, transformation, and duality isn't real. 

According to Advaita Vedanta, this Maya isn't unreal though. Maya is like a movie. The television screen is like Plato's witness.

Your destiny is self-realization. DNA is like karma. There is no journey. A mirage is a mirage is a mirage.

f. To Bet Your Life

Why did the chicken cross the road? To let its karma runneth over.

People of the world, please accept my resignation.

Hello, I must be going. I cannot stay, I came to say, "I must be going."

On Drg Drsya Viveka 1: The Seer

For every scene there is identification. Identifying with the eye is the materialist i. Identifying with the eye of the mind is the conceptual i. Beyond the mind is the real I.

The material eye consummates in scientific inquiry. The conceptual eye incubates theories and conceives belief. But the real I self-destructs in self-awareness.

Alas, the Big Bang Theory has become the latest religion. Henceforward, real scientific exploration shall be called self-inquiry. Or Seer Seen Viveka.

a. pure consciousness

The purity of pure consciousness is not a moral purity but a nonconceptual one.

Another name for impure consciousness is attention. Attention is reflected consciousness. Or pure consciousness upon which egoic thought is super-imposed.

Pure consciousness is nonconceptual knowing, self-luminous seeing, and nondual intelligence.

b. to my beloved mount desert island

They say kensho happens when you aren't looking but I am. For me, the seascapes, mountainviews, and hidden ponds of Acadia National Park shine behind every turn of the trail.

Although the Acadian mountains aren't that high relatively speaking, their base begins at sea level and beyond to the Laurentian Abyss. Such is their absolute altitude.

Cadillac Mountain is the highest at 1530 ft. It's also the first place to see the winter east coast sunrise.

I hiked it once on Earth Day when no cars were allowed upon the summit road. And I hiked it one summer day on its great eastern trail and met up with a wedding party.

One of my favorite spots on the mountain is Eagle Point where Sanford Robinson Gifford sketched his Mount Desert in 1865.

It's overlooking the 1850 Otter Creek of Frederic Edwin Church. And the anonymous Gulf of Maine beyond.

c. to one seer and its two or three eyes

There appear to be three seers. But two are actually insentient without the real one.

And some say there are four seers dividing parabrahman into the saguna and nirguna witnesses.

There is one seer. All other seers may be phenomenal but they are not that I beyond I am.

d. to the penobscot

an artful inukshuk looks upon

the long rose granite slope of dawnland

and beyond is the unbelievable bay of fundy

e. the walrus says

In avidya, I appear to be two eyes.

To seek me is regressus ad infinitum.

For I am you goo goo g'joob.

x. be the sea

Never wait for the next wave

but be the sea a la Li Po—

act three, scene Basho 

Instant Atman

Consciousness does not begin with the big bang nor blossom with the human nervous system into a fountain of awareness. Consciousness is unborn.

Reflected consciousness is born with and dies with the subtle body of the mind reflecting consciousness. But consciousness is not conceptual.

Pure consciousness is like the ocean and the waves of the mind are appearing within pure consciousness like the reflexive universe is appearing in pure consciousness.

Attention minus thought is pure awareness as the big bang minus wave-particle duality is satcitananda. Time stops when thought stops and there am I. Timelessness.

a.

Brahman is not conscious. Brahman is consciousness. Similarly, I am not conscious. The body-mind complex is conscious. I am consciousness.

The body-mind complex is conscious like a wildfire and I am fire.

Believing I am this and this is me, is like thinking that is this and this is the world. Such is the way a noumenal subject becomes lost in the phenomenal object. It's not just an imposition, it's a superimposition.

b.

From Glacier Point, Half Dome looks like a luminous hooded shaman.

Entering Yosemite Valley is like the Wizard of Oz suddenly turning technicolor.

Leaving the valley by Tioga Road is like going from the ridiculous to the sublime, the highest highway in all the High Sierras, in all of California.

c.

Saguna Brahman and Nirguna Brahman appear in Parabrahman. Remember, nonduality is a method. It's not the truth.

Is ananda of satcitananda some unworldly bliss or is it the real happiness of ordinary happiness?

Atman is not happy. Brahman is infinite holistic happiness. Atman is Brahman.

d.

Between the satisfaction of an old desire consummated and the dissatisfaction of a new desire conceived is that gap where original happiness breaks through. That's the tantric heart.

Truth is not black and white. Here, Ansel Adams comes quite close. But colorization only improves Casablanca so much.

Ultimately people are people. And you aren't people—no matter how much you think you should try to be.

e.

The cure for ignorance is knowledge.

The cure for nihilism is self-inquiry.

The cure for samsara is ananda, satcitananda

I, Parabrahman. An Easter Egg.

Asking who is Atman is like asking who am I. The only difference in the questions is a grammatical one.

The upanishadic rishis answer both questions in their highest revelations, the mahavakyas. Atman is Brahman. I am Brahman.

And Brahman is that which is talked about in two ways. Nirguna Brahman is the unconditional godhead. Saguna Brahman is the conditional God of Maya.

And we are Brahman but due to original ignorance do not know it. Thankfully, sage revelations point the way. It’s up to us to clear away the personal clutter: what am I not?

In the analysis of seer and seen, what I’m able to know, I am not. Thus I’m not the body, breath, mind, intellect, or karma.

Neither am I the waking state of the world nor the dreaming state of the mind. Most provocative, I’m not even the absence of duality witnessed in deep sleep.

Not only am I not the known I'm not the unknown. I am the knower, the seer, pure consciousness!

Along with pure existence and holistic bliss infinity, I am satcitananda, another name for Brahman.

Have faith, for the revelation of the mahavakyas is not to be believed but confirmed. Beyond the individual is the universal. And beyond the I-am is I, Parabrahman.

a. april come she will

April is the month of reincarnation. It's not as much a cruel month as a karmic one. For in the perennial world, you reap what you sow.

April 1st is April Fool's Day. For only fools reincarnate. Nirvana is not for the foolish.

April is the month of Cynthia Forsythia wow! My pseudonym was born on April 27th and wrote about that goddess on the very next day.

b. on vidya

Original beginningless ignorance (avidya) is like original sin but without the sinner.

Beginningless ignorance begins with the big bang of wave-particle duality.

Wave-particle duality, enlightenment, and this devolutional-evolutional universe in-between are all appearing in the light of atman.

c. in the very merry month of may

One day in May I saw a dive-bombing osprey pull a striper from the middle of the river. Far across the high tide fullness of that Merrimack, an eagle saw and wanted.

Less than sixty seconds later, after a high-wire dance of conflicting desires, they collided in a winged battle less than thirty feet above from where I stood and watched in wicked awesome awe.

In the end, the hawk escaped with its treasure, the eagle returned to its pirate ship, and I continued on my merry way.

d. that sweet taste of nonduality

The moon in June doesn't just reflect the sun but smells like spirit too.

Its reflection of a midsummer light is nothing but light minus the vig.

Eye is seer. Ear is witness. Nose is the knowing. Tongue is that sweet taste of nonduality and skin is the holy ghost.

e. i am standing

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on I.

Assumptions are not to be trusted. Test each rock ten thousand times before standing on it.

I am standing on pure existence, absolute awareness (pure consciousness), and holistic bliss infinity (ananda). Anything but satcitananda is an assumption making samsara out of me and you.

Mithya Snake, Satya Rope

Ontologically speaking, there’s that which is self-existent, like a godhead, and this which depends upon something greater for its existence. In sanskrit, that is satya, and this is mithya.

In the classic advaitin examples, pots are mithya and the clay comprising each pot is satya, as gold is satya and the jewelry made from that gold is mithya. Of course these examples are not meant to be taken at face value. In the little lower layer, even gold is mithya.

For in the final analysis, the universe itself is mithya, and only parabrahman is satya. And satya is the sat in satcitananda, existence - consciousness - bliss, the real Self or atman, the real I or aham, as in atman is brahman or aham brahmasmi.

a.

Atman simply put is self-existent, self-luminous, and self-happy.

While a person of beginningless ignorance believes oneself to be mortal (this is the only mortal sin, my brothers and sisters).

And a person of beginningless ignorance believes oneself to be subordinate like an insignificant part of an infinite universe encapsulated in a life of constant sorrow.

b.

They say the tides on the Bay of Fundy are the greatest in the world. In some places the difference between high and low tides is more than forty feet. I've seen boats in harbors lie in the drying sea bottom thirty feet below the dock at low tide. No regrets coyote.

In the Santa Lucia Mountains of Big Sur is New Camoldi Hermitage. On the way up to its 1300 ft. altitude from Highway 1, there's a bench overlooking a scopious blue Pacific straight below. On the way down, I sat there and read the Thomas Merton I had purchased in their bookstore.

One of the canonical Three Views of Japan is the Matsushima Islands, 260 small pine islands situated in the confines of Matsushima Bay. The poet Basho visited in late spring 1689 while on a pilgrimage to sites written about by the 12th century poet Saigyo.

It's famously said Basho was so stunned by its beauty he couldn't write a single word about it in his masterpiece Oku no Hosomichi. There's another legend that says he wrote an unpublished haiku with only the words Matsushima & Ah! I visited in 2007 on a pilgrimage to Basho. Print the legend!

c.

You are not what you appear to be.

Neither material body, breath of energy, mind with memory, intellect, nor ego, you are that nondual trinity of satcitananda in which this mithya is now playing.

Things exist. Being knows. Self-awareness is ananda.

Tvam & Tat

1 tvam & tat

The one identifying with the body-mind complex is the individual consciousness. Neither is real but neither is unreal either. There’s the rub.

Beyond benightedness, yet within full light of maya, I’m not a part of universal consciousness. I am universal consciousness.

In nonduality, there’s neither separation nor division, inequality nor equality. In tattvamasi, I and That are the same.

2. who?

Not body-mind but individual consciousness. Not individual consciousness but universal consciousness. Not universal consciousness but consciousness period.

If transmigration begins in beginningless avidya but ends in maya, who is being reincarnated?

Individual consciousness is a super imposition.

3. lawrence

Where salt water of the Gulf of St Lawrence meets fresh waters of the St Lawrence River, this boy was mostly born.

But there’s that unborn spirit of ancestral fire-breathers swimming in volcanic York.

Seeing Mount St Helens from the Columbia River Valley was wicked cool though.

4. rabbit

beginningless avidya

fucks you up—

this is the verse.

nothing gold can stay—

this is the new england chapter.

what you could call my life on the way began when first i met the beatles.

5. recipe

The recipe for individual consciousness is organic chemicals, functional compounds, and the resultant amplification (reflection) of pure consciousness—

double bubble instant karma dancing with myself.

True science is deconstructing big belief. Big science isn't.

6. big

Both big religion and big science are trying to buy your big belief.

Is the new god the same as the old god?

Self-inquiry is the meaning of true love.

7. jivanmukta

all things exist.

some beings know.

one realizes.

Sunlight Earthshine

1. sunlight earthshine

In the Wonderland of Maya, the subtle body of organic chemicals and functional compounds is reflecting pure consciousness tonight like a red hot iron ball.

Consciousness is spreading to the far extremities of this body. Listen, light is light and reflected light is light, and I am that light and not the body-mind I am currently burning through and through.

It’s like the sun is original fire. And this wildfire on earth may be its reflection technically speaking, but the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Even earthshine can light up the dark side of the moon.

2. maya of things

If Saguna Brahman is the reflection of Nirguna Brahman, Maya is the mirror.

Or Isvara is the great magician and Maya is its scepter of power veiling the truth and projecting the false.

And Vishnu pervades, preserves, and protects this great projection. To paraphrase Julian of Norwich, all maya of things shall be well.

3. For James Leo Leon Mellon

Fifty-one years ago tonight, a man called Leo, whom I knew as Dad, died from a massive heart attack while working the night shift at Western Electric.

A psychotherapist once famously said to me that my mother was afraid of the world and my father never introduced me.

It was the greatest karma he could give me. It made me deconstruct things on my own. Love!

4. strange lands

From the south rim of Grand Canyon, one can see 10,000 sunrises in 15 minutes.

It's enough to make you think the sun never ascends, that atman is unborn and infinitely shining, and only the mind rises in a dream and sets in deep sleep.

Grok this: that witness of deep sleep is the witness of the waking state and I am that.

5. on unconsciousness

There are states of mind but there are no states of consciousness.

Identifying with any state of mind is unconsciousness.

Unconsciousness appears in consciousness. Paradox alert.

Midnight and Maya Again

1. midnight and maya again

Midnight and the sun is like pure consciousness and the moon is like the mind lit by self-luminous awareness and reflecting that light upon the darkness of the earth.

Midnight and the sun is nowhere in the sky like pure consciousness is the unseen seer. And midnight and the moon is insentient rock brought to life by the self-shining atman.

Midnight and the mind is but reflected consciousness although some people on earth mistake it for the real thing. Yes it’s midnight and the earth is on quicksilver sentient fire.

2. electric satcitananda

The mind is both seer and the seen. The mind sees the world and the mind is seen by consciousness. It’s the function of the mind to mind the world. It's the nature of awareness to witness the mind.

The world turns and the mind as a functioning mind is a singular tool. But the mind as an ego is always changing. This changing mind is seen by an unchanging consciousness, the only constant.

Disidentifying with the world is the science of psychotherapy. Disidentifying with the mind is the art of nonduality. The nature of mind is division; the nurturing of mind is ego. 

Consciousness is neither nature nor nurture. I am not the reflection of light in this filament of a light bulb but that electricity of satcitananda.

3. from out of bondage, james bondage

It was eighteen years ago today that Canyon del Muerto taught the mind to deconstruct.

In the middle of a timeless desert canyon facing the ancient one’s Mummy Cave Ruins etched in bronzed sandstone, I sit as this adjacent babbling brook takes away my vital breath to original Arizona.

I am not some DNA. Neither am I karma. I am that in which deoxyribonucleic acid and/or instant karma is appearing. That is pure consciousness. Pure consciousness is absolute existence. Absolute existence is ananda, satcitananda.