An Interesting article - any response?

Shrisha Rao shrao at NYX.NET
Thu Dec 5 20:37:03 CST 1996


Charles A. Hillig wrote

> >>      Any attempt to seek a time-based, linear "causality" ignores the fact
> >> that cause and effect are, quintessentially, the same thing because they
> > >"both" arise simultaneously.
> >
> >Or, in other words, we dream at the same time as we are wakeful?
>
>        We are neither "dreaming" nor are we ever "wakeful."

In which case, the "arise simultaneously" is false?

>        "We" are not really here at all.

Who is "we"?

>       Only the Self is present

What is the Self?

>       As Maharshi has said,  the so-called dream world and the waking world
> are                              exactly the same.

But since "we" are not here, neither is the Maharshi, nor his
statement.  Also, since "we" never either wake nor dream, what weight
to the alleged equivalence of the "dream world" and the "waking
world."

>            One just SEEMS to last longer.

I seem to think that the "SEEMS" is itself a part of the sense of
waking.  So how can that be true when the latter isn't?

> >>      However, just because I see an intense movie during the waking state
> >> and then dream about that movie at night, it still doesn't mean that the
> >> movie is "real" or that the characters and action really, in fact,
 occurred.
> >
> >Of course it occurred.  Movies are made at tremendous cost, etc.; they
> >don't happen by themselves.
>
>          But the "characters" on the screen that triggered an emotional
> response were only flickering lights.

>         The reality supporting the illusion was still only the unbroken
> screen.

-- and the flickering lights, which are different from the screen, and
from oneself.

> >>      The variety of dream-objects manifesting as part of the dream was,
> >> seemingly, only triggered by the illusory variety of objects that appeared
> >> as the movie on the screen.
> >
> >... which in turn was "triggered" by what?
>
>             Obviously, the analogy has its limitations.

Not the analogy, but the theory it attempts to support.  The analogy
is fine.

> >>      But didn't the screen, itself, still remain seamless, undivided, and
> >> whole?
> >
> >... and different from oneself as well?
>

>      No, not different.  The perceiver and the perceived are one and the
> same.

Ah.  In that case, you're saying that I myself am the screen upon
which the movie is projected?  But since the perception of the screen
is part of the experience of waking, wouldn't the latter then become
true as well?

Regards,

Shrisha Rao

>                                           Chuck Hillig



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