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Understanding the notion of “self” abstracted
from the ‘I am real’ experience The word
‘self’ verbalises part of the experience of non-relativised real presence condensed or concentrated to unit status (via the
elimination of boundary), objectified as ‘I am’, then iconised (i.e.
compressed and abstracted) as ‘I’. In short, the
experience and verbal expression of ‘I’ stand for the whole experience ‘I am
absolutely real without limitation’ (hence whole, i.e. a whole unit). It is the
ever present (i.e. continuously presenting and all pervading) ‘I am real
(complete, therefore whole, because not relativizsed)’ experience, variously
described as ‘I (am real) without a thou’, ‘The one (real) without a second’,
‘The undifferentiated, unborn, uncreated real I am’, which the ancient (East)
Indians called the atman (Buddhist: atta, both words possibly derived from
sattva), brahman or prajpati. The ancient Israelites described the experience
of the undifferentiated ‘I am real’ experience as ‘I am that … I am’ =
Yahweh. The ‘real unit
(boundless, because not relativised, hence whole or one) of I am’ experience happens as a continuum (of
discretely discontinuous non differentiating contact moments), and precedes
relativisation (i.e. differentiation (Sanskrti: with strands or threads, i.e.
gunas, Buddhist: sankaras), the latter providing the ‘I am’ (or
self-) experience with identity (i.e. identity = difference … that makes a difference, hence gives
‘birth’). It is the identified
‘real I am’ experience, i.e. the discretely discontinuous and differential
continuity of absolute real presence + differentials (hence the atta or atman
with clothes (See the Brhad-aranyaka Upanishad)) which the Tathagata (i.e.
the Buddha) called the false ‘I am’, i.e. anatta. He claimed that the false
‘I am’ (or atta) was false because the differentials that identify it (i.e.
as a persona in real-time) arise (or emerge, due to conditions) momentarily,
then fade (i.e. merge) and are extinguished, thus causing dukkha to those who
cling to the differentials. He claimed that the differential bits that
identified the ‘real I am’ continuum, i.e. the atta, were not (i.e. could not
possibly be) the atta because they were the cause of pain and because one had
no control over them. Plainly, his reasoning was naïve and seriously
incomplete. The problem would be resolved later by the inventors of the
Upanishads who proposed a nirguna (without differentials = conditions)
Brahman = atman and a saguna (differentiated with gunas = conditions) Brahman
= atman. Because of
the pain (indeed death) produced by the differentials (or attributes, i.e.
the transitory sankaras), the Tathagata proposed the complete elimination of all
attribute bodies (such as the khandas or fetters, or the desire for
difference, hence life/birth = death) of the false (because differentiated)
‘real I am’, thereby returning to the true (because undifferentiated) ‘real I
am’ = atta. In short, he instructed his followers that they eliminate all
difference (hence identity), hence life itself (i.e. all emergent phenomena),
thereby avoiding the pain of death. And the means
of eliminating the attributes was first to become wholly indifferent,
absolutely non-responsive to those attributes (and which he called
‘blindfolding mata’ (= mara, ‘The Evil One’)), then to refrain from generating (i.e. giving
birth to) attributes. By becoming wholly indifferent = same (since sameness
is not inconstant (or so it appears), hence cannot be the source of dukkha),
the identifiable individual eliminates (or fades) her identity and by so
doing reverts to the undifferentiated, non-identifiable (because unborn via
attributes = differentials, hence not subject to death) to the ‘real I am’
experience as formless, pre-attribute (Sanskrit: gunas) ground state. Obviously,
that only happens if and when the adept achieves one-pointed-ness of mental
focussing (experienced as the perfection gear
or speed), expressing itself locally as psychosis (read: cessation of mental
functioning). Continue
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