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On The Way of Non-Dual Philosophy

Table of Content

Aristotle ..............................................................................3 Forms and Souls ............................................................................................................................ 3

Metaphysics............................................................................................................................... 3Fundamental Truths................................................................................................................... 3Universals.................................................................................................................................. 4Higher Truths............................................................................................................................. 4The Nature of Souls................................................................................................................... 5Human Knowledge.................................................................................................................... 5

Hellenistic Philosophy ........................................................6 The Hellenistic World ................................................................................................................... 6

Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 6Epicurus and the Epicureans ..................................................................................................... 6The Ancient Skeptics................................................................................................................. 7Religion and Philosophy............................................................................................................ 8Plotinus...................................................................................................................................... 8

Kant.....................................................................................9 Kant: Synthetic A Priori Judgments .............................................................................................. 9

Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 9Varieties of Judgment.............................................................................................................. 10

Mathematics ............................................................................................................................ 11Preconditions for Natural Science........................................................................................... 11Deduction of the Categories .................................................................................................... 12

Kant: Experience and Reality...................................................................................................... 13Analogies of Experience.......................................................................................................... 13Phenomena and Noumena....................................................................................................... 14The Aim of Metaphysics ......................................................................................................... 14Transcendental Ideas ............................................................................................................... 15The Limits of Reason .............................................................................................................. 15

Kant: The Moral Order................................................................................................................ 17From Good Will to Universal Law.......................................................................................... 17

Imperatives for Action............................................................................................................. 17The Categorical Imperative ..................................................................................................... 18Alternative Formulae for the Categorical Imperative ............................................................. 19Autonomy of the Will.............................................................................................................. 20Human Freedom...................................................................................................................... 20Morality and Peace.................................................................................................................. 21Kant's Third Critque ................................................................................................................ 21



On The Way of Non-Dual Philosophy

Aristotle

Forms and Souls

Metaphysics

Aristotle considered the most fundamental features of reality in the twelve books of theMetafusikh (Metaphysics). Although experience of what happens is a key to all demonstrativeknowledge, Aristotle supposed that the abstract study of "being qua being" must delve moredeeply, in order to understand why things happen the way they do. A quick review of pastattempts at achieving this goal reveals that earlier philosophers had created more difficultquestions than they had answered: the Milesians over-emphasized material causes; Anaxagorasover-emphasized mind; and Plato got bogged down in the theory of forms. Aristotle intended to dobetter.

Although any disciplined study is promising because there is an ultimate truth to be discovered,the abstractness of metaphysical reasoning requires that we think about the processes we areemploying even as we use them in search of that truth. As always, Aristotle assumed that thestructure of language and logic naturally mirrors the way things really are. Thus, the major pointsof each book are made by carefully analyzing our linguistic practices as a guide to the ultimatenature of what is.

Fundamental Truths

It is reasonable to begin, therefore, with the simplest rules of logic, which embody the mostfundamental principles applying to absolutely everything that is:

The Law of Non-Contradiction in logic merely notes that no assertion is both true and false, butapplied to reality this simple rule entails that nothing can both "be . . . " and "not be . . . " at thesame time, although we will of course want to find room to allow for things to change. Thus,neither strict Protagorean relativism nor Parmenidean immutability offer a correct account of thenature of reality. (Metaphysics IV 3-6)

The Law of Excluded Middle in logic states the necessity that either an assertion or its negationmust be true, and this entails that there is no profound indeterminacy in the realm of reality.



Although our knowledge of an assertion may sometimes fall short of what we need in order todecide whether it is true or false, we can be sure that either it or its negation is true. (MetaphysicsIV 7-8)

In order to achieve its required abstract necessity, all of metaphysics must be constructed fromsimilar principles. Aristotle believed this to be the case because metaphysics is concerned with a

genuinely unique subject matter. While natural science deals with moveable, separable things andmathematics focuses upon immoveable, inseparable things, metaphysics (especially in its highest,most abstract varieties) has as its objects only things that are both immoveable and separable.Thus, what we learn in metaphysics is nothing less than the immutable eternal nature, or essence,of individual things.

Universals

In the central books of the Metaphysics, Aristotle tried to develop an adequate analysis of subject-predicate judgments. Since logic and language rely heavily upon the copulative use of "is," careful

study of these uses should reveal the genuine relationship that holds between substances and theirfeatures. Of course, Plato had already offered an extended account of this relationship,emphasizing the reality of the abstract forms rather than their material substratum.

But Aristotle argued that the theory of forms is seriously flawed: it is not supported by goodarguments; it requires a form for each thing; and it is too mathematical. Worst of all, on Aristotle'sview, the theory of forms cannot adequately explain the occurrence of change. By identifying thething with its essence, the theory cannot account for the generation of new substances.(Metaphysics VII) A more reasonable position must differentiate between matter and form andallow for a dynamic relation between the two.

Aristotle therefore maintained that each individual substance is a hylomorphic compositeinvolving both matter and form together. Ordinary predication, then, involves paronymouslyattributing an abstract universal of a concrete individual, and our experience of this green thing ismore significant than our apprehension of the form of greenness. This account, with its emphasison the particularity of individual substances, provided Aristotle with a firm foundation in practicalexperience.

Higher Truths

Aristotle also offered a detailed account of the dynamic process of change. A potentiality {Gk.dunamiV [dynamis]} is either the passive capacity of a substance to be changed or (in the case of animate beings) its active capacity to produce change in other substances in determinate ways. Anactuality {Gk. energeia [energeia]} is just the realization of one of these potentialities, which ismost significant when it includes not merely the movement but also its purpose. Becoming, then,is the process in which the potentiality present in one individual substance is actualized throughthe agency of something else which is already actual. (Metaphysics IX) Thus, for Aristotle, changeof any kind requires the actual existence of something which causes the change.



The higher truths of what Aristotle called "theology" arise from an application of these notions tothe more purely speculative study of being qua being. Since every being is a composite whoseform and matter have been brought together by some cause, and since there cannot be infinitelymany such causes, he concluded that everything that happens is ultimately attributable to a singleuniversal cause, itself eternal and immutable. (Metaphysics XII 6) This self-caused "first mover,"from which all else derives, must be regarded as a mind, whose actual thinking is its whole nature.

The goodness of the entire universe, Aristotle supposed, resides in its teleological unity as the willof a single intelligent being.

The Nature of Souls

According to Aristotle, every animate being is a living thing which can move itself only because ithas a soul. Animals and plants, along with human beings, are more like each other than any of them are like any inanimate object, since each of them has a soul. Thus, his great treatise onpsychology, On The Soul, offers interconnected explanations for the functions and operations of all living organisms.

All such beings, on Aristotle's view, have a nutritive soul which initiates and guides their mostbasic functions, the absorption of food, growth, and reproduction of its kind. All animals (andperhaps some plants) also have a sensitive soul by means of which they perceive features of theirsurroundings and move in response to the stimuli this provides. Human beings also possess (inaddition to the rest) a rational soul that permits representation and thought. (On the Soul II 2)

Notice that each living thing has just one soul, the actions of which exhibit some degree of nutritive, sensitive, and/or rational functioning. This soul is the formal, efficient, and final cause of the existence of the organism; only its material cause resides purely in the body. Thus, all of theoperations of the organism are to be explained in terms of the functions of its soul.

Human Knowledge

Sensation is the passive capacity for the soul to be changed through the contact of the associatedbody with external objects. In each variety of sensation, the normal operations of the appropriateorgan of sense result in the soul's becoming potentially what the object is in actuality. Thus,without any necessary exchange of matter, the soul takes on the form of the object: when I feel thepoint of a pin, its shape makes an impression on my finger, conveying this form to my sensitivesoul (resulting in information). (On the Soul II 5)

Thought is the more active process of engaging in the manipulation of forms without any contactwith external objects at all. Thus, thinking is potentially independent of the objects of thought,from which it abstracts the form alone. Even the imagination, according to Aristotle, involves theoperation of the common sense without stimulation by the sensory organs of the body. Hence,although all knowledge must begin with information acquired through the senses, its results areachieved by rational means. Transcending the sensory preoccupation with particulars, the soulemploys the formal methods of logic to cognize the relationships among abstract forms. (On theSoul III 4)



Desire is the origin of movement toward some goal. Every animate being, to some degree, iscapable of responding to its own internal states and those of its external environment in such away as to alleviate the felt absence or lack of some pleasure or the felt presence of some pain.Even actions taken as a result of intellectual deliberation, Aristotle supposed, produce motion onlythrough the collateral evocation of a concrete desire. (On the Soul III 10)

Hellenistic Philosophy

The Hellenistic World

Introduction

The great golden age of Athenian philosophy, encompassing Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle onlylasted for about a hundred years. In the centuries that followed, changes in the political andcultural climate of the ancient world tended to discourage many varieties of philosophicalthinking. The Macedonians under Philip and Alexander founded a Greek empire, which was laterconquered by the Romans. Although the general culture of this "Hellenistic" period remainedGreek in spirit, political power was vested in a highly centralized state, established and maintainedprimarily through extensive applications of military force. The (sometime) Athenian tradition of participatory government disappeared as individual citizens were excluded from significantlyshaping the social structure of their lives.

Hellenistic philosophers, therefore, devoted less attention than had Plato and Aristotle to thespeculative construction of an ideal state that would facilitate the achievement of a happy life.Instead, the ethical thinkers of this later period focused upon the life of the individual,independently of the society as a whole, describing in detail the kinds of character and action thatmight enable a person to live well despite the prevailing political realities. In general, we mightsay, such philosophers tried to show how we should live when circumstances beyond our controlseem to render pointless everything we try to accomplish. The Hellenistic schools of philosophy,then, exhibit less confidence and propose solutions less radical than their Athenian predecessorshad in the golden era.

Epicurus and the EpicureansThe ancient atomists (Leucippus and Democritus) had already worked out a systematic descriptionof the natural world comprising many particular material particles, whose mechanical interactionsaccount for everything that happens. In the Hellenistic period, attention turned to the consequencesof such a view for the conduct of human life.

Epicurus and his followers pointed out (in the Principle Doctrines, for example) that since theindestructible atoms that constitute the material world move, swerve, and collide entirely by



chance, everything that happens in the universe lies outside the reach of direct human control.(Notice how this position projects Hellenistic political impotence onto the natural world.) Humanlife is, therefore, essentially passive: all we can do is to experience what goes on, withoutsupposing ourselves capable of changing it. Even so, Epicurus held that this sort of life may be agood one, if the experiences are mostly pleasant ones.

Thus, in the Letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus held that the proper goal of human life is to achievemental ease {Gk. ataraxia [ataraxia]} and freedom from pain. All of our sensual desires are naturaland their satisfaction is to be desired, since satiation is always a pleasure but frustrated desire is amild pain. Material goods are worthwhile only to the extent that possessing them contributes to theachievement of peace. What is more, Epicurus held that we have no reason to complain of the factthat human life must come to an end. Since death results in the annihilation of the personality, heargued, it cannot be experienced and is thus nothing to be feared. Thus, Epicureanism was longago summarized as the view recommending that we "relax, eat, drink, and be merry." (Luke12:19-20)

The parody is accurate as far as it goes: Epicurus did suppose that a successful life is one of

personal fulfillment and the attainment of happiness within this life. But the philosophicalEpicureans were less confident than many of their later imitators about the prospects for achievingvery much pleasure in ordinary life. They emphasized instead the mental peace that comes fromaccepting whatever happens without complaint or struggle. Notice again that this is a reasonableresponse to a natural world and social environment that do not provide for effective individualaction.

The Roman philosopher Lucretius defended a similar set of theses, including both atomisms ingeneral and an Epicurean devotion to tranquility in his philosophical poem De Rerum Naturae (Onthe Nature of Things).

The Ancient Skeptics

Another school of Hellenistic philosophy illustrates yet again the prevailing lack of confidencethat life in this era inspired. The skeptics supposed that the possibility of human knowledge isseverely limited in scope and application.

Skepticism began with Pyrrho of Elis, who taught that apart from the sketchy informationprovided by the senses, we have no genuine knowledge of the nature of things. Unable to achieve

certainty about the general structure of the world, human beings should often practice suspensionof judgment, which is the only rational response to situations in which they are ignorant. Thiscourse naturally results in a nearly total lack of activity, which Pyrrho took to be equivalent topeace of mind. Although he wrote nothing, Pyrrho exerted a powerful influence on succeedinggenerations through his disciple, Timon of Philius and members of the later Academy.

Centuries later, Sextus Empiricus wrote a history of skeptical philosophy, the Outlines of Pyrrhonism, and used the Pyrrhonian approach to criticize the pretensions of other schools of thought. He made it clear that the skeptical challenge to traditional theories of knowledge arises



from an unusually strict definition of knowledge itself. If we can only be said properly to knowwhat is absolutely certain or beyond doubt, then very little indeed will be known. Although it waswidely ignored in his own time, the work of Sextus was instrumental in the modern revival of interest in skeptical philosophy.

Religion and PhilosophyDespite (or because of) the gloomy prospects held forward by these schools of philosophy, thelater Hellenistic period also produced significant movement toward the consolidation of the olderGreek philosophical tradition with the middle-eastern religions of Judaism and Christianity.

Philo Judaeus, for example, tried to develop a comprehensive view embracing both Plato andJudaism. This was no easy task, since the traditional religion of scripture was concrete andhistorically-rooted, while Plato's philosophy was extremely abstract and general. But since hesupposed that the same deity had inspired human awareness of truth in both contexts, Philomaintained that synthesis must be possible. He interpreted the religious texts allegorically, finding

in their structure clues and hints of the deeper philosophical truth. (Allegory is a dangerouslypowerful tool; it often permits or even encourages the 'discovery' of nearly any doctrine you likeeven within the most straightforwardly prosaic texts. Perhaps "Green Eggs and Ham" is a deeplysubversive expression of communist political ideology, while "Bert and Ernie" encourage ahomosexual lifestyle, and . . . .) For Philo, the goodness of the one transcendent god is expressedthrough the divine word {Gk. logos [logos]}, which is the organizing principle that accounts foreverything in the cosmos.

The Christian church fathers were not far behind. The earliest among them either regardedphilosophy as a source of heretical theology (Irenaeus) or offered general anti-intellectual tiradesagainst the power of human reason (Tertullian). But Justin Martyr carefully noted the natural

affinities between the emerging Christian theology and the traditions of thought deriving fromPlato, and Origen explicitly endeavored to combine the two in a single system. This path of development continued for centuries, reaching its peak in Gregory of Nyssa and Ambrose, whowas the teacher of Augustine.

Plotinus

The version of Platonic philosophy that came to be incorporated into the theology of the middleages, however, had rather little to do with the thought of Plato himself. It was, instead, derivedfrom the quasi-mystical writings of Plotinus. In an aphoristic book called the Enneads, Plotinusused Plato's fascination with the abstract forms of things as the starting-point for a comprehensivemetaphysical view of the cosmos.

According to Plotinus, the form of the Good is the transcendent source of everything in theuniverse: from its central core other forms emanate outward, like the ripples in a pond, losingmeasures of reality along the way. Thus, although the early emanations retain much of the abstractbeauty of their source, those out on the fringes of the cosmos have very little good left in them.Nevertheless, Plotinus supposed that careful examination of anything in the world could be used tolead us toward the central reality, if we use the information it provides as the basis for our



reasoning about its origins in something more significant. In principle, progressive applications of this technique will eventually bring us to contemplation of the Good itself and knowledge of thenature of the universe.

But since the Good is both the cause of the universe and the source of its moral quality forPlotinus, philosophical study is a redemptive activity. Achievement of mystical union with the

cause of the universe promises to provide us not only with knowledge but also with the trueelements of virtue as well. It was this neoplatonic philosophy that the Christians found so well-suited to their own theological purposes. Once the Good is identified with the god of scripture, thedetails work themselves out fairly naturally. Thus, we'll find notions of this sort to be a popularfeature of medieval philosophy.

Kant

Kant: Synthetic A Priori Judgments

Introduction

Next we turn to the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, a watershed figure who forever altered thecourse of philosophical thinking in the Western tradition. Long after his thorough indoctrinationinto the quasi-scholastic German appreciation of the metaphysical systems of Leibniz and Wolff,Kant said, it was a careful reading of David Hume that "interrupted my dogmatic slumbers andgave my investigations in the field of speculative philosophy a quite new direction." Having

appreciated the full force of such skeptical arguments, Kant supposed that the only adequateresponse would be a "Copernican Revolution" in philosophy, a recognition that the appearance of the external world depends in some measure upon the position and movement of its observers.This central idea became the basis for his life-long project of developing a critical philosophy thatcould withstand them.

Kant's aim was to move beyond the traditional dichotomy between rationalism and empiricism.The rationalists had tried to show that we can understand the world by careful use of reason; thisguarantees the indubitability of our knowledge but leaves serious questions about its practicalcontent. The empiricists, on the other hand, had argued that all of our knowledge must be firmlygrounded in experience; practical content is thus secured, but it turns out that we can be certain of

very little. Both approaches have failed, Kant supposed, because both are premised on the samemistaken assumption.

Progress in philosophy, according to Kant, requires that we frame the epistemological problem inan entirely different way. The crucial question is not how we can bring ourselves to understand theworld, but how the world comes to be understood by us. Instead of trying, by reason orexperience, to make our concepts match the nature of objects, Kant held, we must allow thestructure of our concepts shape our experience of objects. This is the purpose of Kant's Critique of



Pure Reason (1781, 1787): to show how reason determines the conditions under which experienceand knowledge are possible.

Varieties of Judgment

In the Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysic (1783) Kant presented the central themes of the firstCritique in a somewhat different manner, starting from instances in which we do appear to haveachieved knowledge and asking under what conditions each case becomes possible. So he beganby carefully drawing a pair of crucial distinctions among the judgments we do actually make.

The first distinction separates a priori from a posteriori judgments by reference to the origin of ourknowledge of them. A priori judgments are based upon reason alone, independently of all sensoryexperience, and therefore apply with strict universality. A posteriori judgments, on the other hand,must be grounded upon experience and are consequently limited and uncertain in their applicationto specific cases. Thus, this distinction also marks the difference traditionally noted in logicbetween necessary and contingent truths.

But Kant also made a less familiar distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments,according to the information conveyed as their content. Analytic judgments are those whosepredicates are wholly contained in their subjects; since they add nothing to our concept of thesubject, such judgments are purely explicative and can be deduced from the principle of non-contradiction. Synthetic judgments, on the other hand, are those whose predicates are whollydistinct from their subjects, to which they must be shown to relate because of some realconnection external to the concepts themselves. Hence, synthetic judgments are genuinelyinformative but require justification by reference to some outside principle.

Kant supposed that previous philosophers had failed to differentiate properly between these two

distinctions. Both Leibniz and Hume had made just one distinction, between matters of fact basedon sensory experience and the uninformative truths of pure reason. In fact, Kant held the twodistinctions are not entirely coextensive; we need at least to consider all four of their logicallypossible combinations:

Analytic a posteriori judgments cannot arise, since there is never any need to appeal to experiencein support of a purely explicative assertion.Synthetic a posteriori judgments are the relatively uncontroversial matters of fact we come toknow by means of our sensory experience (though Wolff had tried to derive even these from theprinciple of contradiction).Analytic a priori judgments, everyone agrees, include all merely logical truths and straightforward

matters of definition; they are necessarily true.Synthetic a priori judgments are the crucial case, since only they could provide new informationthat is necessarily true. But neither Leibniz nor Hume considered the possibility of any such case.Unlike his predecessors, Kant maintained that synthetic a priori judgments not only are possiblebut actually provide the basis for significant portions of human knowledge. In fact, he supposed(pace Hume) that arithmetic and geometry comprise such judgments and that natural sciencedepends on them for its power to explain and predict events. What is more, metaphysics—if itturns out to be possible at all—must rest upon synthetic a priori judgments, since anything else



Notice again that these features of nature are not generalized from anything we have alreadyexperienced; they are regulative principles that we impose in advance on everything we canexperience. We are justified in doing so, Kant believed, because only the pure concepts of theunderstanding can provide the required connections to establish synthetic a priori judgments.Unless these concepts are systematically applied to the sensory manifold, the unity of apperception

cannot be achieved, and no experience can be made intelligible.

Phenomena and Noumena

Having seen Kant's transcendental deduction of the categories as pure concepts of theunderstanding applicable a priori to every possible experience, we might naturally wish to ask thefurther question whether these regulative principles are really true. Are there substances? Doesevery event have a cause? Do all things interact? Given that we must suppose them in order tohave any experience, do they obtain in the world itself? To these further questions, Kant firmlyrefused to offer any answer.

According to Kant, it is vital always to distinguish between the distinct realms of phenomena andnoumena. Phenomena are the appearances, which constitute our experience; noumena are the(presumed) things themselves, which constitute reality. All of our synthetic a priori judgmentsapply only to the phenomenal realm, not the noumenal. (It is only at this level, with respect towhat we can experience, that we are justified in imposing the structure of our concepts onto theobjects of our knowledge.) Since the thing in itself (Ding an sich) would by definition be entirelyindependent of our experience of it, we are utterly ignorant of the noumenal realm.

Thus, on Kant's view, the most fundamental laws of nature, like the truths of mathematics, areknowable precisely because they make no effort to describe the world as it really is but rather

prescribe the structure of the world as we experience it. By applying the pure forms of sensibleintuition and the pure concepts of the understanding, we achieve a systematic view of thephenomenal realm but learn nothing of the noumenal realm. Math and science are certainly true of the phenomena; only metaphysics claims to instruct us about the noumena.

The Aim of Metaphysics

Although our knowledge of mathematics and natural science yield easily to a Kantian analysis, thesynthetic a priori judgments of metaphysics are much more difficult to explain. Here the forms of intuition and concepts of understanding are useless, since they find application only in the realmof our experience, while metaphysics seeks to transcend experience completely, in order todiscover the nature of reality itself as comprehended under pure reason.

Metaphysical speculation properly begins with the same method as the "Aesthetic" and "Analytic,"Kant supposed, but it invariably ends up in a "Dialectic." The transcendental arguments weemploy in metaphysics need not restrict their determination to the phenomenal realm alone, sincetheir aim is genuine knowledge of the noumena. Synthetic a priori judgments in metaphysics mustbe grounded upon truly transcendental ideas, which are regarded as applicable to things inthemselves independently of our experience of them.



Transcendental Ideas

Kant's exposition of the transcendental ideas begins once again from the logical distinction amongcategorical, hypothetical, and disjunctive syllogisms. From this distinction, as we have seen, theunderstanding derives the concepts of substance, cause, and community, which provide the basisfor rules that obtain as natural laws within our experience. Now, from the same distinction, thereason must carry things further in order derive the transcendental ideas of the complete subject,the complete series of conditions, and the complete complex of what is possible. Thus, the"completion" of metaphysical reasoning requires transcendental ideas of three sorts, but Kantargued that each leads to its characteristic irresolvable difficulty.

The Psychological Idea is the concept of the soul as a permanent substance which lives forever. Itis entirely natural to reason (as in Descartes's cogito) from knowledge that "I think" to my realexistence as one and the same thinking thing through all time, but Kant held that our efforts toreach such conclusions are "Paralogisms," with only illusory validity. It is true that thought

presupposes the unity of apperception and that every change presupposes an underlying substance,but these rules apply only to the phenomena we experience. Since substantial unity andimmortality are supposed to be noumenal features of the soul as a thing in it, Kant held, legitimatea priori judgments can never prove them, and the effort to transcend in this case fails.

The Cosmological Idea is the concept of a complete determination of the nature of the world as itmust be constituted in itself. In this case, Kant held, the difficulty is not that we can conclude toolittle but rather that we can prove too much. From the structure of our experience of the world, it iseasy to deduce contradictory particular claims about reality: finitude vs. infinity; simplicity vs.complexity; freedom vs. determinism; necessity vs. contingency. These "Antinomies" of PureReason can be avoided only when we recognize that one or both of the contradictory proofs in

each antinomy holds only for the phenomenal realm. Once again, it is the effort to achievetranscendental knowledge of noumena that necessarily fails.

The Theological Idea is the concept of an absolutely perfect and most real being (or god). Again itis natural to move from our recognition of dependence within the phenomenal realm to the notionof a perfectly independent noumenal being, the "Transcendental Ideal." But traditional attempts toprove that god really exists, founded as they are on what we experience, cannot establish thereality of a being necessarily beyond all experience.

The general point of the Transcendental Dialectic should by now be clear: metaphysicalspeculation about the ultimate nature of reality invariably fails. The synthetic a priori judgments

which properly serve as regulative principles governing our experience can never be shown tohave any force as constitutive of the real nature of the world. Pure reason inevitably reaches forwhat it cannot grasp.

The Limits of Reason



Now that we've seen Kant's answers to all three parts of the Prolegomena's "Main TranscendentalQuestion" and have traced their sources in the Critique of Pure Reason, we are in a position toappreciate his careful delineation of what is possible in metaphysical thought and what is not.

What most clearly is not possible is any legitimate synthetic a priori judgment about things inthem. The only thing that justifies the application of regulative principles in mathematics and

natural science is their limitation to phenomena. Both sensible intuition and the understanding dealwith the conditions under which experience is possible. But the whole point of speculativemetaphysics is to transcend experience entirely in order to achieve knowledge of the noumenalrealm. Here, only the faculty of reason is relevant, but its most crucial speculative conclusions, itsdeepest convictions about the self, the world, and god, are all drawn illegitimately.

What is possible—indeed, according to Kant what we are bound by our very nature as rationalbeings to do—are to think of the noumenal realm as if the speculative principles were true(whether or not they are). By the nature of reason itself, we are required to suppose our ownexistence as substantial beings, the possibility of our free action in a world of causal regularity,and the existence of god. The absence of any formal justification for these notions makes it

impossible for us to claim that we know them to be true, but it can in no way diminish the depth of our belief that they are.

According to Kant, then, the rational human faculties lead us to the very boundaries of what canbe known, by clarifying the conditions under which experience of the world as we know it ispossible. But beyond those boundaries our faculties are useless. The shape of the boundary itself,as evidenced in the Paralogisms and Antinomies, naturally impels us to postulate that the unknowndoes indeed have certain features, but these further speculations are inherently unjustifiable.

The only legitimate, "scientific" metaphysics that the future may hold, Kant therefore held, wouldbe a thoroughly critical, non-speculative examination of the bounds of pure reason, a carefuldescription of what we can know accompanied by a clear recognition that our transcendentalconcepts (however useful they may seem) are entirely unreliable as guides to the nature of reality.It is this task, of course, that Kant himself had pursued in the First Critique.



Kant: The Moral Order

Having mastered epistemology and metaphysics, Kant believed that a rigorous application of thesame methods of reasoning would yield an equal success in dealing with the problems of moralphilosophy. Thus, in the Critic der practischen Vernunft (Critique of Practical Reason) (1788), heproposed a "Table of the Categories of Freedom in Relation to the Concepts of Good and Evil,"using the familiar logical distinctions as the basis for a catalog of synthetic a priori judgments thathave bearing on the evaluation of human action, and declared that only two things inspire genuineawe: "der bestirnte Himmel über mir und das moralische Gesetz in mir" ("the starry sky above andthe moral law within"). Kant used ordinary moral notions as the foundation for a derivation of thismoral law in his Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals) (1785).

From Good Will to Universal Law

We begin with the concept of that which can be conceived to be good without qualification, agood will. Other good features of human nature and the benefits of a good life, Kant pointed out,have value only under appropriate conditions, since they may be used either for good or for evil.But a good will is intrinsically good; its value is wholly self-contained and utterly independent of its external relations. Since our practical reason is better suited to the development and guidance of a good will than to the achievement of happiness, it follows that the value of a good will does notdepend even on the results it manages to produce as the consequences of human action.

Kant's moral theory is, therefore, deontological: actions are morally right in virtue of theirmotives, which must derive more from duty than from inclination. The clearest examples of morally right action are precisely those in which an individual agent's determination to act inaccordance with duty overcomes her evident self-interest and obvious desire to do otherwise. Butin such a case, Kant argues, the moral value of the action can only reside in a formal principle or"maxim," the general commitment to act in this way because it is one's duty. So he concludes that"Duty is the necessity to act out of reverence for the law."

According to Kant, then, the ultimate principle of morality must be a moral law conceived soabstractly that it is capable of guiding us to the right action in application to every possible set of circumstances. So the only relevant feature of the moral law is its generality, the fact that it has theformal property of universalizability, by virtue of which it can be applied at all times to everymoral agent. From this chain of reasoning about our ordinary moral concepts, Kant derived as apreliminary statement of moral obligation the notion that right actions are those that practicalreason would will as universal law.

Imperatives for Action

More accurate comprehension of morality, of course, requires the introduction of a more precisephilosophical vocabulary. Although everything naturally acts in accordance with law, Kantsupposed, only rational beings do so consciously, in obedience to the objective principles



determined by practical reason. Of course, human agents also have subjective impulses—desiresand inclinations that may contradict the dictates of reason. So we experience the claim of reason asan obligation, a command that we act in a particular way, or an imperative. Such imperatives mayoccur in either of two distinct forms, hypothetical or categorical.

A hypothetical imperative conditionally demands performance of an action for the sake of some

other end or purpose; it has the form "Do A in order to achieve X." The application of hypotheticalimperatives to ethical decisions is mildly troublesome: in such cases it is clear that we are morallyobliged to perform the action A only if we are sure both that X is a legitimate goal and that doingA will in fact produce this desirable result. For a perfectly rational being, all of this would beanalytic, but given the general limitations of human knowledge, the joint conditions may rarely besatisfied.

A categorical imperative, on the other hand, unconditionally demands performance of an actionfor its own sake; it has the form "Do A." An absolute moral demand of this sort gives rise tofamiliar difficulties: since it expresses moral obligation with the perfect necessity that woulddirectly bind any will uncluttered by subjective inclinations, the categorical imperative must be

known a priori; yet it cannot be an analytic judgment, since its content is not contained in theconcept of a rational agent as such. The supreme principle of morality must be a synthetic a prioriproposition. Leaving its justification for the third section of the Grounding (and the SecondCritique), Kant proceeded to a discussion of the content and application of the categoricalimputative.

The Categorical Imperative

Constrained only by the principle of universalizability, the practical reason of any rational beingunderstands the categorical imperative to be: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can

at the same time will that it should become a universal law." That is, each individual agent regardsitself as determining, by its decision to act in a certain way that everyone (including itself) willalways act according to the same general rule in the future. This expression of the moral law, Kantmaintained, provides a concrete, practical method for evaluating particular human actions of several distinct varieties.

Consider, for example, the case (#2 in the text) of someone who contemplates relieving a financialcrisis by borrowing money from someone else, promising to repay it in the future while in facthaving no intention of doing so. (Notice that this is not the case of finding yourself incapable of keeping a promise originally made in good faith, which would require a different analysis.) Themaxim of this action would be that it is permissible to borrow money under false pretenses if you

really need it. But as Kant pointed out, making this maxim into a universal law would be clearlyself-defeating. The entire practice of lending money on promise presupposes at least the honestintention to repay; if this condition were universally ignored, the (universally) false promiseswould never be effective as methods of borrowing. Since the universalized maxim is contradictoryin and of itself, no one could will it to be law, and Kant concluded that we have a perfect duty (towhich there can never be any exceptions whatsoever) not to act in this manner.

On the other hand, consider the less obvious case (#4 in the text) of someone who livescomfortably but contemplates refusing any assistance to people who are struggling under great



hardships. The maxim here would be that it is permissible never to help those who are less well-off than us. Although Kant conceded that no direct contradiction would result from theuniversalization of such a rule of conduct, he argued that no one could consistently will that itbecome the universal law, since even the most fortunate among us rightly allow for the possibilitythat we may at some future time find ourselves in need of the benevolence of others. Here we haveonly an imperfect duty not act so selfishly, since particular instances may require exceptions to the

rule when it conflicts either with another imperfect duty (e.g., when I don't have enough money tohelp everyone in need) or a perfect duty (e.g., if the only way to get more money would be under afalse promise).

Kant also supposed that moral obligations arise even when other people are not involved. Since itwould be contradictory to universalize the maxim of taking one's own life if it promises moremisery than satisfaction (#1), he argued, we have a perfect duty to ourselves not to commitsuicide. And since no one would will a universalized maxim of neglecting to develop thediscipline required for fulfilling one's natural abilities (#3), we have an imperfect duty to ourselvesnot to waste our talents.

These are only examples of what a detailed application of the moral law would entail, but theyillustrate the general drift of Kant's moral theory. In cases of each of the four sorts, he held thatthere is a contradiction—either in the maxim itself or in the will—involved in any attempt to makethe rule under which we act into a universal law. The essence of immorality, then, is to make anexception of myself by acting on maxims that I cannot willfully universalize. It is always wrong toact in one way while wishing that everyone else would act otherwise. (The perfect world for athief would be one in which everyone else always respected private property.) Thus, the purelyformal expression of the categorical imperative is shown to yield significant practical applicationto moral decisions.

Alternative Formulae for the Categorical ImperativeAlthough he held that there is only one categorical imperative of morality, Kant found it helpful toexpress it in several ways. Some of the alternative statements can be regarded as minor variationson his major themes, but two differ from the "formula of universal law" sufficiently to warrant abrief independent discussion.

Kant offered the "formula of the end in itself" as: "Act in such a way that you treat humanity,whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end andnever simply as a means." This places more emphasis on the unique value of human life asdeserving of our ultimate moral respect and thus proposes a more personal view of morality. In

application to particular cases, of course, it yields the same results: violating a perfect duty bymaking a false promise (or killing myself) would be to treat another person (or myself) merely as ameans for getting money (or avoiding pain), and violating an imperfect duty by refusing to offerbenevolence (or neglecting my talents) would be a failure to treat another person (or myself) as anend in itself. Thus, the Kantian imperative agrees with the Christian expression of "The GoldenRule" by demanding that we derive from our own self-interest a generalized concern for all humanbeings.



Drawing everything together, Kant arrived at the "formula of autonomy," under which thedecision to act according to a maxim is actually regarded as having made it a universal law. Herethe concern with human dignity is combined with the principle of universalizability to produce aconception of the moral law as self-legislated by each for all. As Kant puts it,

A rational being belongs to the kingdom of ends as a member when he legislates in it universal

laws while also being himself subject to these laws. He belongs to it as sovereign, when aslegislator he is himslf subject to the will of no other.

A rational being must always regard himself as legislator in a kingdom of ends rendered possibleby freedom of the will, whether as member or as sovereign.

In this final formulation, the similarity of Kant's moral theory with his epistemology should beclear. Just as the understanding in each of us determines the regulative principles of naturalscience that all must share, so the practical reason in each of us determines the universal maximsof morality that all must obey.

Autonomy of the Will

In fact, this final formula for the categorical imperative brings us back to the original concept of the will itself as that which is good without qualification. At this point in the argument, Kant canprovide a more technical statement of its intrinsic moral value by distinguishing betweenautonomy and heteronomy of the will.

A heteronymous will is one in obedience to rules of action that have been legislated externally toit. Such a will is always submitting itself to some other end, and the principles of its action willinvariably be hypothetical imperatives urging that it act in such a way as to receive pleasure,

appease the moral sense, or seek personal perfection. In any case, the moral obligations it proposescannot be regarded as completely binding upon any agent, since their maxim of action comes fromoutside it.

An autonomous will, on the other hand, is entirely self-legislating: The moral obligations bywhich it is perfectly bound are those which it has imposed upon itself while simultaneouslyregarding them as binding upon everyone else by virtue of their common possession of the samerational faculties. All genuinely moral action, Kant supposed, flows from the freely chosendictates of an autonomous will. So even the possibility of morality presupposes that human agentshave free will, and the final section of the Grounding is devoted to Kant's effort to prove that theydo.

Human Freedom

As we might expect, Kant offered as proof of human freedom a transcendental argument from thefact of moral agency to the truth of its presupposed condition of free will. This may seem to beperfectly analogous to the use of similar arguments for synthetic a priori judgments in the FirstCritique, but the procedure is more viciously circular here. Having demonstrated the supremeprinciple of morality by reference to autonomy, Kant can hardly now claim to ground free will



upon the supposed fact of morality. That would be to exceed the bounds of reason by employingan epistemological argument for metaphysical purposes.

Here's another way of looking at it: Each case of moral action may be said to embody its ownunique instance of the antinomy between freedom and causal determination. For in order to do theright thing, it must at least be possible for my action to have some real effect in the world, yet I

must perform it in complete independence from any external influence. Morality requires bothfreedom and causality in me, and of course Kant supposes that they are. I can think of myself fromtwo standpoints: I operate within the phenomenal realm by participating fully in the causalregularities to which it is subject; but as a timeless thing in itself in the noumenal realm I must bewholly free. The trick is to think of myself in both ways at once, as sensibly determined butintelligibly free.

Kant rightly confesses at the end of the Grounding that serious contemplation of morality leads usto the very limits of human reason. Since action in accordance with the moral law requires anautonomous will, we must suppose ourselves to be free; since the correspondence of happinesswith virtue cannot be left to mere coincidence, we must suppose that there is a god who guarantees

it; and since the moral perfection demanded by the categorical imperative cannot be attained inthis life, we must suppose ourselves to live forever. Thus god, freedom, and immortality, whichwe have seen to be metaphysical illusions that lie beyond the reach of pure reason, turn out to bethe three great postulates of practical reason.

Although the truth about ourselves and god as noumenal beings can never be determined withperfect certainty, on Kant's view, we can continue to function as responsible moral agents only byacting as if it obtains. Things could hardly have been otherwise: the lofty dignity of the moral law,like the ultimate nature of reality, is the sort of thing we cannot know but are bound to believe.

Morality and PeaceKant's interest in moral matters was not exclusively theoretical. In Die Metaphysik der Sitten(Metaphysics of Morals) (1797) he worked out the practical application of the categoricalimperative in some detail, deriving a fairly comprehensive catalog of specific rules for thegovernance of social and personal morality. What each of us must actually will as universal, Kantsupposed, is a very rigid system of narrowly prescribed conduct.

In Zum ewigen Frieden (On Perpetual Peace) (1795), Kant proposed a high-minded scheme forsecuring widespread political stability and security. If statesmen would listen to philosophers, heargued, we could easily achieve an international federation of independent republics, each of

which reduces its standing army, declines to interfere in the internal affairs of other states, andagrees to be governed by the notion of universal hospitality.

Kant's Third Critque

The final component of Kant's critical philosophy found expression in his (Critic der Urteilskraft(Critique of Judgment)1790). Where the first Critique had dealt with understanding in relation toreality and the second had been concerned with practical reason in relation to action, this third



Critique was meant to show that there is a systematic connection between the two, a commonfeature underlying every use of synthetic a priori judgments, namely the concept of purpose. In thelast analysis, Kant supposed, it is our compulsion to find meaning and purpose in the world thatimpels us to accept the tenets of transcendental idealism.

In aesthetics, for example, all of our judgments about what is beautiful or sublime derive from the

determination to impose an underlying form on the sensory manifold. Like mathematics, art isconcerned with the discovery or creation of unity in our experience of the spatio-temporal world.Teleological judgments in science, theology, and morality similarly depend upon our fundamentalconvictions, that operation of the universe has some deep purpose and that we are capable of comprehending it.

Kant's final word here offers an explanation of our persistent desire to transcend from thephenomenal realm to the noumenal. We must impose the forms of space and time on all weperceive, we must suppose that the world we experience functions according to natural laws, wemust regulate our conduct by reference to a self-legislated categorical imperative, and we mustpostulate the noumenal reality of ourselves, god, and free will—all because a failure to do so

would be an implicit confession that the world may be meaningless, and that would be utterlyintolerable for us. Thus, Kant believed, the ultimate worth of his philosophy lay in his willingness"to criticize reason in order to make room for faith." The nineteenth-century German philosopherswho followed him quickly moved to transform his modest critical philosophy into the monumentalmetaphysical system of absolute idealism.

(All the Essays are compiled)



Noume na: Consciousness without an Object

The following article assimilates and incorporates the teachings of true teachers I have had the honor tostudy with, personal experiences of this body/mind and books I have read. This discourse is nothing more

than an exercise in for this body/mind to sit and absorb the wisdom imparted to it.

With deep respect and honor to James Swartz and Francis Lucile who have taken the time and effort tonurture me in the application of knowledge to uncover the natural state. This article bows to both of them;it borrows heavily from their brilliant work. Being self-realized does not qualify one to teach; both Francisand James are brilliant teachers. Please visit their websites, or better yet, track them down and visit with

them:

Just who are we?

That which we are is consciousness. Sometimes referred to as awareness, presence, the natural state, theunconditioned mind, the Self or the unborn, consciousness is simply that which perceives the words on thispage, that which hears the spoken word, that which perceives, right now, the “world”, the “body” and the“mind”.

We have a tendency to complicate this issue. We tend to believe that “awareness” is something mysterious,something that must be obtained. Somehow, we have decided that consciousness is something that must besought through a difficult path of inquiry and practice. But, this is simply not true.

Consciousness is directly under our noses. It allows us to perceive everything that is, allows us to experienceall of the objects of awareness.

Are you conscious? Of course you are. So, now you have it: you are consciousness. Your awareness of beingconscious is what we refer to when we talk of “consciousness becoming aware of itself”. Pretty simple and,as it turns out, pretty profound.

W orld, Body, Mind

What are these objects that we perceive? And who is it that perceives them?Who is the subject and who is the object? This is where the hunt for truth and happiness begins. This is thequestion that uncovers who we actually are.

These objects are phenomena, a word that needs definition. Phenomenon is an appearance, an anomaly, orsimply put, any occurrence that is observable.

As we extrovert our attention using our bodily senses, we group objects we observe as “the world.”

When our sensations are turned inward onto the body, we group these perceptions as “the body”.

When we direct our attention to our thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, we place these perceptions intoa basket we refer to as ‘the mind.’

The Space betwee n the Objects

In between the objects is space, a poor term at best for noumenon, something that exists in the “gaps”between them, “the thing in itself”, as Kant said. This awareness, this space, this presence endures at alltimes; this distinguishes it from the object itself, which appears and dissolves over time. It is the essence of our natural state; internally, we refer to it as consciousness. It is always present. We later discover, thatexternally, it is reality.

So life turns out to be a dual modality of sensations: externally perceived as the “world” on one level throughthe physical senses, while simultaneously, deeply understood as consciousnesses, awareness, internally.

As our investigation deepens, we come to question whether our view of consciousness as a limited and‘internal’ is valid.



This conflict between what we sense through our bodily senses, that we are separate and limited, and what we intuit in our internal experience, that we are limitless and infinite, creates a “spiritual dissonance”, whichmotivates our deepest behavior in life. It drives us to discover exactly who we are, and though this investigation,to discover the peace, happiness and freedom that we naturally are. The best way to describe this discovery is consciousness knowing itself.

It is only thru the mind that we know objects; consciousness has no such limitation in knowing itself. It exists beyond space, time and form; thus, it can not be shaped or affected by them.

In our minds, content constantly changes. We remain conscious thru all of these changes. Consciousnessremains changeless; the proof is that we experience change within consciousness. As Francis Lucille pointsout: “Consciousness of change is evidence of the changelessness of consciousness.”

This is good news. For, upon investigation, we discover that perhaps only one thing can be known for sure:that is, that we definitely exist. We are aware of objects in time and space. We know that all objects have a beginning and an end. For something to be perceived, there must be a subject and an object. What we areis the subject; all else must, by definition, be objects, whether material or not.If we observe them, they cannot be us.

The Choice of Freedom

As the witness, as consciousness, we have the ultimate choice: we choose whether to identify with that whichappears to us, or not. This includes the most basic choice of identification with the body/mind itself. Only

consciousness has the choice to be limited as a body/mind or to remain limitless.Only consciousness has freedom. If we take our stand as being limited, and assert the freedom to be unlimitedconsciousness, the conclusion must be that, in our natural state, we are limited to begin with. Thus, toexperience and remain universal, to remain limitless, would require continual effort, as limitless consciousness would, by definition, be artificial and require effort to maintain.

This is not the case. Our natural state is, in fact, our limitlessness, and thus, we are empowered to let go of our beliefs in limitation at any moment. It requires absolutely no effort.

We come to realize this through knowledge and direct experience. Over time, our direct experience, sometimesreferred to as Samadhi or glimpses of limitlessness deepens and ripens as the body/mind re-aligns itself with the newly discovered reality. Problems dissolve as our understanding conforms to the Truth. Suffering

reflects nothing more than the persistence of old habits and conditioning. We obtain the satisfaction of livingthe realization of what we truly are.

Grace

“Grace is that which does not come from an object.”

-Francis Lucille

Having discovered that, as the subject, all that we perceive must be objects, thru a process of elimination,ultimately, we discover our true nature. To one unaware of their true nature, nothing is grace; to one on thepath of self-discovery, some appearances are grace.

Ultimately, all is one; with this discovery, the truth unfolds: all is grace, our teacher.

It is only our habitual beliefs, conditioning and understandings that block us from seeing clearly; over time, we come to a state of ‘not knowing’, where we allow all things to arise and resolve in the moment. Life becomes the teacher.

When we open up to the possibility that every situation in our life is an opportunity for grace, then graceappears.

Vasanas: The Thoughts

In this ‘not knowing’ presence, all things appear, even our thoughts. Since we can observe the thoughts that



arise within us, they are not ‘us’. They are appearances, much like everything else. Thoughts come and go, while we remain conscious of them before, during and after their occurrence. As the ‘subject’, watchingthoughts, ‘objects’, we learn they are not what we are.

Watching these thoughts closely, realizing they are not ours, we try this test: we attempt to predict our nextthought. Of course, we can not. At very best, we can simultaneously announce the thought as it occurs; weare not the creator of the thoughts that appear to us.

This is a huge discovery that strips away layers of illusion that keep us married to Maya. For, if we are notthe creator of our thoughts, then, we are not the doer of our deeds, a profound conclusion illuminating thetruth within the dream, which we call the waking state.

The Ramana Question: Who am I?

And, to whom do these thoughts arise? This inquiry slowly erodes ego, as it is discovered that there is nolocus to which the thoughts appear, nothing which substantively constitutes a self. The inquiry frustratesthe inquirer by design, forcing the attention to the only thing that remains outside of phenomena, noumena.Clearly seeing that the subject does not create the thoughts and thus, does not do the deeds, coupled withthe revelation that the location of the self identity is nowhere to be found, the obvious conclusion arises: asa limited body/mind, ‘nobody is home.’

The mind is a tethered, limited process, incapable of discerning limitless Self. This occurs because mind isa subset of consciousness, not the other way around. It cannot understand that from which it was born, being

only a part of the whole. The mind has no direct access to consciousness.The mind stops looking for its true nature only when it realizes that it is beyond its capacity to know. Thisunderstanding does not imply that conscious awareness is in the jail of body/mind. Nothing could be furtherfrom the Truth. That we are limitless, action less awareness is our core nature, our natural state. When wediscover that it is also what we refer to as love and happiness, our interest becomes very keen.

This does not mean that knowledge is unnecessary or undesirable in the pursuit of self-realization. It is acommon misconception to believe that the mind must be avoided in the uncovering of Self. In fact, it isknowledge that places us at the foot of Atman. It permits Grace to push us over.

Thus, mind, through knowledge, can only bring us to the edge of the precipe. There, consciousness, thrugrace, permits the final step.

Thoughts of Separation

The mother of all thoughts is belief in separation, of being an individual, and thus, being a limited self. Thisthought, this core belief, has many subservient appendages to which we become slaves: the need for approval,security and control all emerge from this.

When this belief, which is nothing more than a thought with ‘me’ attached to it, consumes us, it drives ourday-to-day lives.

In fact, this belief in separation appears like all of our other thoughts within consciousness., This thought,like all others, evaporates over time to be replaced by other appearances.

Thus, all thoughts and bodily sensations and, in fact, all objects, are all one with consciousness.

In Truth, there is never duality. Duality is the re-writing of history by the limited mind, the interpretationof experience after the fact.

This is proven through the process of self observation.

Using the ‘subject’/’object’ inquiry, we focus on the belief that I am this, I am not that. As the witnessingconsciousness, we investigate our surroundings. Quickly, we determine, for instance, that we are not thosethings, which we behold, we are not the chair witnessed. The chair is a perceived object.

Turning our attention to our bodies, we ask ourselves, “Which are we: consciousness witnessing or the body



which it perceives? Clearly, using the dual nature of subject/object rationale, we are not our bodies. Weobserve the body and thus, cannot be it.

By extending the inquiry, the same conclusion is reached regarding our thoughts and bodily sensations,immaterial objects. Thoughts, beliefs, feelings, memories and bodily sensations are witnessed by the ‘subject’,us, and thus, cannot be us.

We are forced to conclude that what we are, then, is not attached to this body/mind mechanism we haveformerly identified with.

Even this small discovery begins to fuel a sense of freedom in us.

This witnessing presence, consciousness, the subject in our inquiry, no longer attached to the body/mind,can now be understood as being impersonal. Body/mind seems personal and thus, limited. Since consciousnessis not the body/mind, it is not subject to these limitations; it is not in any way an object.

This allows the inquirer to consider that his absolute nature as consciousness is universal and impersonal.There is no longer any valid reason to limit consciousness, the ever-present witness. This allowing for anunlimited, universal and impersonal view of Self, paves the way for the experience of a glimpse, of true natureas naked reality. Freedom is revealed.

There is absolutely no evidence that consciousness is contained within the body. There are no limits or boundaries to consciousness. You can check this out.

Armed with this conclusion, it is now possible to revisit the world of objects that create the illusion of separateself. Seeing that consciousness, awareness, presence, is universal and impersonal, it is realized that all objectsarise, exist and dissolve within it.

In fact, this could only be the case if all objects were actually of ‘it’, of consciousness, awareness, presence. All objects are made from consciousness, that which you are at your very core. Our experience is the experienceof the universe; our substance is the substance of the universe. Consciousness is the substance of the universeand everything that arises from within it, beings and all other objects, is made of this substance.

There is no more separation, no more subject/object, this/that, not even witness and witnessed. There isonly one. Duality is merely used as an investigative technique to illumine the nature of that which we arethru elimination of that which we apparently are not. Thus, we grant validity for the moment to that which

nourishes the illusion of separation. In the final inquiry, we use it to destroy the dualism that got us thereand liberate ourselves from its power.

Glimpses, Fleeting Samadh i

Bliss can be defined as consciousness becoming aware of itself. In it’s purest form, it is the remembranceof that which we are at our very core, and the sense of relief that permits. Everyone can and does have theseexperiences; the depth and intensity of habit and conditioning obscure the uninterrupted experience of it.

The question, “What am I?” points us in the direction of our fundamental nature, which is bliss. Bliss, thehappiness of consciousness knowing itself is sometimes referred to as, “The Perfume of Silence.” Focusingon noumena, consciousness without an object has the same effect. For that matter, a moment of natural beauty, which leaves us breathless, and thus, suspends our thinking, can bring on the temporary experienceof profound bliss, as consciousness experiences itself.

In fact, the happiness we mistakenly take as the result of acquiring objects of our desire does not emanatefrom the object itself. It occurs within the seeker simply from the cessation of desire for the object; in themoments following its acquisition, the absence of desire allows the bliss that already exists to shine through.How could an object contain the bliss we desire from it?

Even after the most powerful of Samadhis, residual habits, behaviors, contractions return, until they arefinally extinguished through knowledge acquired as to the fundamental nature of reality. Abidance in ourtrue nature is nothing more than the final detachment from objects, as the clouds, which cover reality,evaporate like the morning mist under the warmth of the sun.



A clear mind, free of any belief or feeling system supporting the idea of a personal identity, is what is necessary.When objects arise in experience, they appear in you as you. There is no notion of a person being there.

You are no longer enslaved to your belief that consciousness resides in the body, because there is nothingof identified you left in the body to experience anything. Experiences arise and pass right through you. Youare everywhere and everything is in you. Life simply pours thru the space that the identified you used tooccupy.

This is the experience of the witness becoming the witnessed. I am that. There is no difference between youand that which arises within what is you.

Thoughts may still arise, but they are witnessed and not engaged. No fear, no problems attach to them.

Consciousness precedes identity. Identity arises within it as does everything else. The experience of diversity must be preceded by consciousness. In other words, there can be no diversity without consciousness butthere can be consciousness without diversity.

The beauty is that our everyday consciousness , the same consciousness that we take for granted as beingso ordinary, is the same consciousness that divinely lives all of our lives. There is no separate divineconsciousness at work. All things come and go, live and die, within the consciousness that is always present.

Timeless Being

There is no time. It is a fiction supported by memory.Consider timelessness through the example of a night time dream. In a dream, a long time can elapse, forthe sake of argument, let’s say 6 months. Upon awakening it is realized that only a few moments have passed.This illustrates the illusionary aspect of time, as, when we wake up, we see that the time passing in the dreamwas fictional.

Now, assume that the few moments that passed in the waking state are within consciousness, presence, andassume that the 6 months of the dream are any period in time and space of the waking state. Every time wego back to consciousness we enter timelessness. It creates the illusion of time while existing outside of time.Just as the dream state is different than the waking state, consciousness is a place from which the apparentmovement of time can be noticed. Consciousness does not itself move in time.

In the night dream, there is only one mind involved, the mind of the dreamer. Though I interact with many characters within the night dream, I have access to only one mind.

The waking state dream is a different animal in that, it is a multi minded dream. As consciousness, we haveaccess to all minds at any given time, but, we choose to disregard all but one of them in the interest of completely enjoying the experience of this mind. And, actually, this is exactly what happens in the nightdream:

In the night dream, we create all of the characters and events but experience them only thru one character.Events we did not expect surprise us, even though we, as the dreamer, created them. We become excitedand afraid because we have forgotten that we actually created them!

The spiritual value of the night dream state is that it illustrates to us how the waking dream state operateswith illusion. At some point we realize that we are the creator (Brahma), sustainer (Vishnu) and the destroyer(Shiva) 0f all objects in consciousness. Just as the characters and objects of the night dream seem real tous when under the spell of sleep, the same illusion holds true under the power of Maya, even when we realizethat we are creating it all along.

It could be said that the night dream is powered by mind and Maya creates the waking dream state. In aplayful manner, consciousness makes it utterly real. This world, which seems to be real, is a well-orchestrateddream.

The day waking dream has the appearance of consistency from day to day. This is because gross mattervibrates at a much lower frequency than that which prevails at the level of mind, the subtle state. This givesthe appearance of durability.



What the mind serves up are images designed to entertain consciousness. The mind never sees ‘the thingin itself’. The ‘thing in itself’ has no shape, no form, no color and no properties. This is not to deny it’s relativereality, but to put things in proper perspective. Science has an abundance of evidence to support thisconclusion.

Since ‘the thing in itself’, the reality of all things, has the same absence of properties that consciousness has,it is not a quantum leap to conclude they are the same.

We don’t wake up from the waking dream simply because, when invited, we don’t really want to. This dreamis very compelling.

There is a common misunderstanding that when ‘one wakes up” form the waking state dream, that the dreamgoes away and, in it’s place, a better one emerges. In actuality, the dream simply continues as it did before;Maya does not change. The difference is that we now know Maya as Maya and that the body/mind is involved.We enter a new phase of life: it is similar to lucid dreaming. The dream does not go away. The only thingthat changes is our recognition of the illusion, that what we experience is not the ultimate reality of whatwe are.

This allows us to become playful and approach life as a celebration. We live in the timeless moment and thecontentment of our aloneness, permitting the mind to chatter on since we are no longer married to it.

The Nonsense of Others

Consciousness chooses to enjoy life through all body/minds. It doesn’t create just human body/minds, itcreates the whole shooting match: all of the animals, insects, plants, trees, the earth, mountains, the sea andso forth. It’s the really big game.

Mind does not invite consciousness to visit. This is the fallacy of ‘enlightenment.” As Francis Lucille says,“There will never be an enlightened human being.”

The mind only receives an invitation to the party from consciousness: thus, grace. So, invoking God by “being open to yourself” is nothing more than a plea to the consciousness that you already are.

Consciousness know s Itself

Consciousness knows itself prior to body/mind. Only then, does consciousness know objects. First, thereis self-realization, the knowing that there is no one other than Self. It is folly to think that a body/mind mustcreate a connection with consciousness; it would mean that consciousness was personal, separate and dieswith the body/mind. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Consciousness knows itself. It is the same consciousness that created the entire universe and perceives thewords written on this page, right here, right now.

Synchronicity

The purpose of all of life’s events is to point us towards the Truth of what we are and to celebrate that absolutetruth. As long as the residual programming, conditioning and habits continue to encourage the view of beinga separate entity, an individual person, consciousness will dish up a never ending series of lessons, alldesigned to give us pause and point us back in the direction of truth. The wise man takes note when heconfronts contraction, suffering and adversity. They are portals prodding us towards Truth. Perhaps thegreatest symbol of this is Christ on the cross.

When we begin to recognize what we are, we are fortunate and life becomes a celebration with confirmationsappearing at every turn. Life becomes an act of love, of humble service and gratitude with no expectationof return. Acts become an offering of thanks to the beauty and perfection of the manifestation.

The ‘I’ Thou ght

The desire to understand the ‘I’ thought never arises from ego; to deny this basic motivation is to deny lifeitself. It is seeking for the sake of itself. This one desire begs to be honored to the exclusion of all others. In



reality, all of our desires and fears are born of this fundamental motivation. It is only the illusion that whatwe seek can be found outside of ourselves that causes us misery.

Truth and Relief

Many do not approach Truth consistently; part of the time they seek Truth and the rest of the time they seek relief. These desires are diametrically opposed to one another and lead in opposite directions.

As Francis Lucille succinctly puts it, “When it comes to seeking the Truth, we are like the donkey; the stick and carrot both work. When we feel miserable, it is because we are doing something wrong. And if we feelhappy, it is because we are doing something right.”

Blank Mind; Empty Mind

This ‘I’ thought is outside of mind. In the absence of any perceptions, there is only the natural state of unconditioned consciousness. The mind has no access to anything other than objective reality. This is thenature of mind. It perceives only through the function of duality; thus, that which lies beyond it is outsideof it’s grasp. The most that mind can offer is a blank mind, in which there is absence of thoughts.

This can be compared to a painting hanging on the wall. Remove the painting and there is a blank spacewhere the painting formerly sat. This is not what is meant by an empty mind; the empty mind could be calledthe ‘space behind the space behind the picture.’

An empty mind is a moment out of time, an experience of no duration, full of bliss. This place is directly behind the mind. It is the glue that holds the entire picture together, without which nothing could possibly exist. It is consciousness without an object.

The W orld and it’s Objects

The world can be divided into three subsets: the gross world is filled with external objects; the subtle worldof mind with thoughts, feelings, memories, ideas, beliefs, and images; the third, consciousness.

External objects ultimately, are subsumed into the mental world, and the mental world is subsumed intoconsciousness. There are thus, two dissolutions. First, the gross is discovered to be subtle, made of mind,and then, the mind itself is discovered to be of consciousness.

The gross world is deployed in four dimensions, the three dimensions of space and the fourth dimension of time. When the gross world collapses into mind, there only remains time. When the subtle collapses intoconsciousness, the last dimension of time collapses into consciousness. The opposite occurs in creation.

When you acknowledge the possibility that everything is mind, you enter a world in which there is a deepconnection between the thoughts and the events they refer to. There can be intimations of that which is goingto happen.

At this level, in which we hold that there is no difference between mind and matter, the relevant law is thatof Karma, the law of cause and effect. Events occur obediently with those laws; at a certain level, there issome predictability as to outcome. But, when we acknowledge that everything is consciousness, this isreplaced only by awe and surprise. Nothing is predictable anymore as there are no laws.

So, in the natural gross world, evolution applies. In the subtle world, karmic law applies. But, as consciousness,only the law of love applies.

To the person who sees the world as merely a reflection of happenings of the mental world, there might befear of holding a certain thought as it might manifest something unwanted in his life. And, this fear wouldbe well grounded, as his attachment to thought would bring about the results of his fears.

But, to the sage, it is an entirely different matter. Not bound by his thoughts, unattached, the only rule isthat of love. If the thoughts come from love, they will bring only love, they will manifest only love. How couldit be any different?

The Garden of Eden



The source of all suffering is born of the belief in separation; the way out is to comprehend that we are not.Consider that in which this idea of separation emerges.

Here, the story of Adam and Eve is helpful. Tempted by the snake (desire), Adam is convinced to eat thefruit of the tree knowledge, of mind. This act imbues him with the knowledge of good and evil, right andwrong, and all of the other opposites. Through this simple act of defiance, Adam and Eve fall from grace.Dispassion and equanimity is lost. Separation is born and Paradise is lost. Desire and fear manifest.

The good news is that nothing says we cannot spit out the poison; it is our choice to return to our natural

state. To do so, we return to no-body and live in a state of not knowing. Then the fragrance can return.Releasing ourselves from intention is the key. Everything is absorbed in the moment and forgotten, thepoetry of consciousness designed to be consumed in the now. No rules, no dogma, no predictions or demands.

Once having experienced freedom from the burden of our goals and concepts, there is no more desire toforce reality to conform to our preconceived notions by squeezing out the blissful spontaneity of life nomatter how well thought out our beliefs might seem to be. Discarding words and concepts, we return toinnocence, playing as children in the gift of life.

The Seer and the SeenDrig Drishya Viveka

The Drig Drishya, written by Adi Shankara, is the Vedantic text inquiring into the nature of the ‘seer’ and‘the seen’, the subject/object inquiry previously discussed and of the utmost importance in deciphering thenature of Self as consciousness in Vedanta philosophy. A short 64 short verses, the Drig Drishya establishesfirst that the Self is not an object by any means, and then establishes that all people and , in fact, the worldin it’s entirety is that which you are.

Having been liberated from the bondage of objectivity, the student discovers a new dimension, a territory the mind does not know. In fact, attempting to see the seer thru the mind is exactly that which prevents theseer from uncovering itself. In actuality, the seer is beyond both time and space.

The seer is experienced as the ‘perfume of silence’, the fragrance of peace and happiness, no-space andrelease from burden. This is the unique trademark of Samadhi, the experience of consciousness knowingitself. Next to it, all happiness derived from external objects appears to be nothing more than a poor photocopy of the real thing.

Conversely, when peace, happiness and love are truly experienced in life, the cause is inevitably consciousnessexperiencing itself. When order and harmony are experienced in the world of objects, it triggers in us theexperience of it’s source, oneness, from behind the veil of ignorance. Bow and gives thanks, but never forgetthat it is not the object from which the happiness emerges, it is merely a reflection of your natural state.

Starting with the observation that the world is imperfect, as the understanding of oneness unfolds spiritually in us, we come to realize God in people, places and objects of all sorts. The process starts simply by becomingreceptive to the possibility that God is everywhere. The practice is simply to attempt to see God at every turn,every moment, every place.

It is a major distortion to view the waking state dream as real. The truth is that the seer is the seen, thatBrahman is Atman. Brahman is that which underlies all of phenomena and is the same as Atman, the Self,consciousness of the jiva, that which we refer to as ‘I’.

The awakening begins with the understanding that our beliefs are nothing more than that: a basket of beliefs.We see our subsequent liberation from them but, to go beyond this, we are delivered by grace. Belief inseparation rejects the invitation of grace.



Resting throu gh Understanding

There is a point when the mind’s concepts must be abandoned. Having no affinity for peace and happiness,the mind must bow to that which is, abiding in awareness, not knowing. It cannot know the joy, which liesoutside of it. The mind, looking for rest, and armed with knowledge, higher reasoning, abdicates it’s seat of control to the source of all, oneness, Atman.

All effort is ignorance. The mind cannot bully its way to rest. It only comes to rest through the process of understanding. The heart of the understanding is that the mind cannot have a clear picture of Truth. In fact,all seeking perpetuates the existence of the ego, and is a bad habit. It is just this conditioning, this habitual behavior that blocks us from self realization.

Once realized, the mind surrenders and rests in peace. Attempting to ‘crush’ the mind is fruitless; it mustaccomplish this naturally through understanding. In this way, we use the mind to achieve the understandingthat permits its subservience.

The understanding is not the end in itself. It is the beginning. It is probable that old, binding vasanas, behavioral patterns, will continue to residually agitate, blocking the sun, that which we are. In time, belief systems and desires release as the understanding takes hold.

We meet life where life meets us, but, we are only acting, for we never leave that which we are. Circumstancesand meditation teach us what to say and do in the moment. Allowing yourself to be led, the appropriate behavior and words arise, which have a liberating effect on those around you.

Thoughts are all centered around the illusionary concept of the individual ‘me’. As long as this notion exists,it perpetuates samsara, the merry go round of thoughts. Concurrently, it will also attempt to stop the merry go round of thoughts.

When this happens, we simply investigate this “me” belief. Who or what is this me entity, this allegedly separate person? Even when we have a fundamental understanding that there is no “me”, we return to itover and over again, observing what happens to these thoughts that repeatedly arise in the mind.

Asking, “What is this me?” stops the mind in it’s tracks, and permits meditation to occur. We observe thephysical sensations and thoughts masquerading as the pseudo “me” and see them as the objects they are.In this respect, we treat bodily sensations the same as we treat thoughts, surrendering them to the sourcefrom which they have arisen.

We discover emasculated involved thoughts appear out of habit. These thoughts are surrendered back intothe void from which they arise by shifting our focus upstream towards the Self, the space from which they appear. When we are no longer attached to them by desire, we no longer care if they arise or not. This isfreedom. We have cut off the fuel that feeds them simply by observing rather than acting on them. Slowly,they resolve, becoming part of the landscape and abidance occurs. Eventually, the shift occurs and we stabilize.“Benevolent indifference” is the term Francis Lucille uses to explain this attitude.

We have allowed these physical sensations and thoughts to parade as the pseudo “me’ simply because weenjoyed them. Realizing this, we are free to choose whether to participate in them, or remain in beingness.

We are quite fond of some of these sensations and thoughts. As thoughts, they localize in the forehead; asfeelings, they localize in the chest. Both give rise to the sense of pseudo self. The true center is not localized;it is consciousness. This is obvious because thoughts and sensations are an appearance in that which I am.

The true center only gives; it is not that which grasps. This is the difference between true love and the pseudolove of mind. As Francis Lucille succinctly puts it, “ True love wants nothing for itself.”

Bhakti: The Love of Truth

Love of Truth is the cornerstone, the ground from which we evolve. When questions regarding Truth constantly arise, we are at the feet of knowledge. This love, this hunger for Truth has great transformative power. Thelove of God opens us to everything, relaxes us and allows us to settle in our true nature. The fruit of our loveis the end of suffering and the commencement of celebration.

non dual philosophy

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