"When insight evaporates in words,
Only resonance survives." - Wei Wu Wei
Words serve us well when we use them according to so-called logic, pragmatism, conditioned learning and knowledge. They illuminate and convey what we consider rational thought. They represent what we consider objective reality. However, words fail miserably to convey awakening or even a path to it. And why not, when a sage like WWW describes enlightenment as "the state of non-being and of non-identity"? On its surface, his statement flies in the face of everything we have been taught as possible, of the evidence of our own lives, of reason, itself. However, there is a new order of logic awakened in the enlightened, or perhaps a "re-ordering" is more apt. It begins with a revision of very basic assumptions about very basic things such as "being" and 'identity." In a manner of speaking, these terms have been hijacked by the body-mind. For most of us, being and identity begin and end with the body-mind. But the truth is, a puddle is no more an ocean than we are the sentient bag of guts to which we have become identified. We are, in fact, neither "we" nor "I" nor "you," not even "it." What we are is non-conceptual, non-objective, non-anything": just "neti, neti." We are mistaken in our conditioned assumptions. Each of us is like a black hole, endlessly sucking an infinitude of matter into our maw, and we identify ourselves with each thing just as it crosses the event horizon and then disappears. We are not these things--we are everything but these things! So how does a realized sage get this across to someone convinced otherwise, especially using the handicap of words? We must understand these words as limited vehicles, mere pointers. They take us just so far, or perhaps prevent us from veering off-course, but at some point we have to step out of the vehicle sans our usual traveling accouterments: logic and reason. We must ignore objective phenomena, including thoughts, which are but mental objects. Then we find ourselves in the realm of what WWW calls "resonance." Then only the flavor of the sage's words carries us forward to the brink of something altogether new, beyond reason, beyond intuition, where we stand naked and receptive in a state of grace. And then it is out of our hands. Something happens akin to what Proust felt when he bit into that cookie, something like a recovered memory, only this is no temporary recollection. It is the final truth and it pervades our consciousness from that moment on.
Only resonance survives." - Wei Wu Wei
Words serve us well when we use them according to so-called logic, pragmatism, conditioned learning and knowledge. They illuminate and convey what we consider rational thought. They represent what we consider objective reality. However, words fail miserably to convey awakening or even a path to it. And why not, when a sage like WWW describes enlightenment as "the state of non-being and of non-identity"? On its surface, his statement flies in the face of everything we have been taught as possible, of the evidence of our own lives, of reason, itself. However, there is a new order of logic awakened in the enlightened, or perhaps a "re-ordering" is more apt. It begins with a revision of very basic assumptions about very basic things such as "being" and 'identity." In a manner of speaking, these terms have been hijacked by the body-mind. For most of us, being and identity begin and end with the body-mind. But the truth is, a puddle is no more an ocean than we are the sentient bag of guts to which we have become identified. We are, in fact, neither "we" nor "I" nor "you," not even "it." What we are is non-conceptual, non-objective, non-anything": just "neti, neti." We are mistaken in our conditioned assumptions. Each of us is like a black hole, endlessly sucking an infinitude of matter into our maw, and we identify ourselves with each thing just as it crosses the event horizon and then disappears. We are not these things--we are everything but these things! So how does a realized sage get this across to someone convinced otherwise, especially using the handicap of words? We must understand these words as limited vehicles, mere pointers. They take us just so far, or perhaps prevent us from veering off-course, but at some point we have to step out of the vehicle sans our usual traveling accouterments: logic and reason. We must ignore objective phenomena, including thoughts, which are but mental objects. Then we find ourselves in the realm of what WWW calls "resonance." Then only the flavor of the sage's words carries us forward to the brink of something altogether new, beyond reason, beyond intuition, where we stand naked and receptive in a state of grace. And then it is out of our hands. Something happens akin to what Proust felt when he bit into that cookie, something like a recovered memory, only this is no temporary recollection. It is the final truth and it pervades our consciousness from that moment on.
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