Dreaming at the Feet of Hades

Archive for the ‘Imeut’ Category

We know all identifiable phenomena are impermanent. And therefore, no identifiable phenomena has a core essence of true beingness and identity. Because of this, anything with a dual nature is inherently always shifting on its own spectrum of dual nature and is therefore empty of true existence. All things are of a dual nature, and therefore all things are empty.

We know that things are empty and illusory because of their dual nature, and yet we experience those things as existing. Therein lies the illusion of existence that we find ourselves constantly experiencing. The Goddess.

Because any identifiable thing is made up of parts, therefore, no identifiable thing truly exists. This goes all the way down to the quantum level of particle physics, where particles still have names and reference points, and are therefore “parts” of a whole of conceptuality and these quantum particles that make up everything we experience themselves therefore do not exist.

All things are empty. All things are the Goddess. All things are the harmony that is you.

You can spend time, lots of time hearing this and intellectually understanding it. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you will actually be able to hold that understanding of who and what you truly are in your experience unless you can create that experience yourself.

This is why we practice neti neti meditation. (neti neti means: “not this, not that”)

We begin with identifying the emptiness of all outward experienced phenomena just like our base physical senses, thoughts and feelings, and then we can move on to our personality, emotions, and intuition, to identify with the emptiness of the experience of awareness itself.

Any object or concept can be deconstructed into its parts and therefore found to be completely empty of any inherent existence. This is what the Madhyamaka school of Buddhist philosophy practices. For example, the blind men and the elephant parable. Each blind man, not seeing the whole elephant, touching a different part of the elephant has a different description of that elephant. The Madhyamaka school believes that there is no part-less particle, because whenever you are referencing a thing, the fact that you are referencing it means that it is out there, in otherness, and therefore is a part of a larger whole, and therefore is not part-less because it itself is a part.

And so, this is why the actual non-existent part-less particle is experience itself, the ancient harmony. It is there, and yet we know it isn’t, because it is made up of identifiable parts, and so on and so forth. The tree of life does a great job of exploring some of these part-less parts in their descent into complexity from pure consciousness (Kether) all the way down to pure experience here in your body (Malkuth).

But the tree of life is a pattern that can be applied to any compounded phenomena, thought, memory or feeling, and you can see how it arises from pure nothingness into pure nothingness of being.

So when you practice neti neti meditation you can remember and hold this view at any time for yourself and explore the true emptiness of reality as a whole, not just the true emptiness of the self and awareness.

You may find, with enough meditative practice, you don’t need to sit and meditate to think this way about things anymore, and find that you can think about it and essentially do neti neti meditation on the fly as you go about your day.  But you need to start out sitting and meditating on it intently. It’s unlikely that you will be able to start and make significant progress on building this habit of view by just experiencing it in your daily life. Sitting and meditating on it intently is necessary to cultivate the view under controlled conditions, so that you can become more familiar with it and get better and better at recalling that view, and eventually find stability in it. Eventually you may get to the point where almost all of the time you spend being aware, it is constantly apparent to you that everything is empty, and that everything is you, and therefore everything is to be loved and treated with love. It becomes impossible to not hold the view that all things are sacred, all things are the God and Goddess themselves in perfect harmony, even things like tables or rocks or uncomfortable events. And so, it becomes impossible to not care and love other people and things, because those things are you, and so compassion becomes inherent in the experience of all other beings and situations. This is ultimate Perfect Love. 

It’s like everything is a sea of bundled dualities, the existence of which are empty, and the cores of which are consciousness itself. And down to the micro scale in subatomic and quantum physics, we know molecules are made of atoms, atoms of subatomic particles, those subatomic particles themselves made of quantum “particles”, and so on and so forth. In the astral realm, in the realms of feelings and thought, in the realms of emotion and inklings we can see that every one of these experiences has two sides, and are therefore dual in nature as well. On the macro scale, we see planets, revolving in star systems, in galaxies, and cosmic webs of collections of form and nothingness. At any magnification of the phenomena within the experience of existence, one finds parts, and therefore emptiness between those parts. That emptiness itself is pure consciousness. All happening at once. And everything out there is illusory and floating beyond the illusory structure of time, and all you need to do is be present and aware of it. And how can you not be aware of it? It is always there, it is everything that is there to experience, and therefore you are always aware of it.

The ultimate empty dual nature of reality, that is evident in all phenomena, is that all phenomena is made up of parts, and therefore between those parts, there is a spectrum of emptiness. All things, even time itself, are made up of a dual nature with an empty harmonious middle that is one thing: pure consciousness. So every identifiable thing, even feelings or concepts or any experience, is therefore empty. So you can use this fact to analyze, in a basic and simple way, the inherent emptiness of any perceived experience or mental phenomena. However, you can get more specific, because any quality you can ascribe to an object is therefore a part of it, and that means the object and its associated concepts exist as dualities, which themselves are empty as well. This can be used to explore and understand how many things in life and experience work mechanically, but there is ultimately no reason to, since nothing is ultimately going on.

But start with examining the basics of form and emptiness. Get familiar with that, because it’s relatively simple to recognize and hold in your bundle of awareness.

To understand this view and see it in your own experience can become effortless, as it will happen by itself because it is self-apparent in reality at all times.

The habit of practicing this viewpoint builds, and it becomes a permanent part of reality and experience, not by being new, but because one realizes that it’s what always was and what always will be.

You can see the Goddess manifest before your very eyes in all phenomena, and it won’t be new, because it’s what you’ve always been seeing. Even just sitting there and meditating, and a thought or memory arises in the mind, that is the Goddess. A honking horn outside interrupting your perceived silence is the Goddess. A baby crying is the Goddess. All phenomena is the Goddess. And therefore, all phenomena can be meditated with and upon. There is no such thing as interruption in meditation, there is just experience and awareness of that experience.

You can achieve the same feeling and understanding of the emptiness of awareness (that you find when you reach the “I am” part of the city of the soul in neti neti meditation) by breaking down the empty duality of any object of awareness, because it is you. It is pure awareness. That emptiness you find when you turn your awareness back on itself doesn’t just exist inwards, but also outwards. It is ever present and directionless because it is within that empty space, the harmony, between all dualities (and therefore within all things). With awareness of this, pun intended, you can not only turn awareness in on itself, but literally turn reality itself in on itself, and see the true emptiness of it in totality. Everything is one, and yet simultaneously two. Everything is illusory. Everything is you. And so, it turns out, awareness is always staring directly back at itself. That’s what existence and experience is. It can never be not occurring because it is awareness itself. And so there is no direction to be aware in or any orientation for which awareness can turn from to look back at itself. Because it already is, in every moment of experience.

I’m not saying this because I’ve been there, but because it is simply self-evident in the nature of being itself that increasing the ‘beingness’ of practicing and finding this view in your own perspective would naturally culminate in you being that view more often and more often as the habit carries itself to perpetual increase. So no matter where you are on the path, the fact that you’re already here reading this paper now means you will inevitably get there. Beholding the view even once means it will be beheld again, especially with intensive practice. Everyone has beheld the view at least once, because everyone is technically always experiencing it.

And so, one does not do neti neti mediation, but rather, one simply experiences neti neti meditation unfold before the single eye/”I” of awareness in all things. All things are, and therefore all things say “I”. All experiences and feelings are that “I”, so of course you experience them intensely as the “I”!

We encourage people to come to us and talk about their experiences and questions. However, beware of talking about this practice and the experiences that arise from it, and especially sharing with people who are in the process of doing this practice and learning it themselves. This can be a distraction of ego in its own right, and can distract you from the core of the practice itself. It can also lead to an unfortunate effect where your own understanding and view may cloud or misdirect another’s practice, therefore hampering their own progress and understanding of the view. Words must be chosen very carefully, and when learning to practice and hold this view, it can be difficult to choose the right words and contexts for relating the view.

As a final comment, there is no rush. Wherever you are on the path, there you are! This isn’t something like where you cross a finish line and get a medal and that’s it. This is a practice that lasts for the rest of your life, and then beyond that, the rest of your lifetimes. It is eternal.

Just as all things are held within consciousness, consciousness is held within all things.

Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.

We are somewhat misled by the ego when attempting to understand what consciousness truly is. Because the ego is always present in our perspective of consciousness, we think that the 5 senses, thoughts, and feelings are implicit to consciousness. But they are not. Through meditation, you can see that these things are not necessary for the function of consciousness to be present. They are pieces that grow on top and out of it. And so, we find it hard to grasp how a rock or a cup can be conscious.

Consciousness alone requires none of these things. All it requires is beingness. We do not struggle to understand the consciousness of a rock because it is different and alien, but we struggle rather because we project our understanding of ego onto a rock or cup, and wrestle with the imagination of how a rock or a cup can see, hear, think, or feel.

But the rock doesn’t need to do any of these things to be conscious. All it needs to do it is be, and it already is. All things are. Rock-consciousness need not be anything more than the experience of touching the ground upon which the rock sits, and no other experience of phenomena is required in order for the presence of consciousness to occur. That beingness still entails dualities, like form and formlessness, self and other, and therefore, the rock is beingness of consciousness. This does not mean that the sense of sight, smell, etc cannot occur under those circumstances, but instead that they are not necessary for the circumstance of beingness to arise.

So, consciousness is in all things. All things have a nature of duality that defines its own existence. Do not limit yourself with what your personal experience of consciousness is, endowed with all of these incredible senses and ways of understanding phenomena around us. True consciousness doesn’t require all of those senses and ways of understanding. It is enriched by them, but it does not rely on them.

So, be a rock, sitting on the ground, and nothing else, and you will see that by simply imagining it, you have shifted your awareness to the point of view of that rock, and have in a sense, become that rock. This is why consciousness “sleeps” in the rocks. What do our bodies do when sleeping, but simply lie there? Does the relative inactivity and imperception of the body mean that consciousness isn’t there? Of course not.

But what of consciousness within air, or empty space? These are not singular identifiable objects in the traditional physical sense. All I need to say is, remember, all things are empty, even on the physical level due to the way that subatomic particles actually act. Even the rock itself is empty. So, do not mistake consciousness for existing in a singular identifiable thing, because there are no singular identifiable things. Therefore, consciousness also exists even within non-corporeal forms like concepts, thoughts or feelings. Consciousness is a frame of reference and experience, not an identifiable point or thing.

So, let us begin by recognizing that everything that is experienceable, all phenomena, all “objects of awareness” are of a dual nature. Form and emptiness, awareness and objects of awareness, all that. I will not give extensive examples of these identifiable dualities, and you already have many methods and tools which which to explore and identify them, like studying the tree of life, meditations, or simply experiencing, as all things are of a dual nature, and all you need to do to recognize that is experience.

Now, let us also recall that all dualities are empty. Not empty in the sense that they do not exist, but rather, empty in the sense that they are illusory. Upon further inspection and investigation of any specific duality, one finds that there are not two opposing things that compose the duality, but rather One whole, upon the face of which various experiences of the specific duality exist on a spectrum. Love and hate, male and female, etcetera.

But a question that is not often asked, I believe, is what of the spectrum that lies within form and formlessness, objects of awareness and awareness? These dualities are quite easy to look over, seeing only the extremes of the spectrum, and not the experiences that lie within the undefinable space of the spectrum.

The easiest identifiable space on the spectrum is experience itself, which we know to be the perfect harmony. This is easy to identify because it is ever present.

But some others are harder to identify, because of habit, and because of societal conditioning.

Let us remove the “upper” level of this duality for a moment, in the sense of things either existing or not existing. And let us remove the “lower” level of this duality for a moment, in the sense of causes of things existing, and their interactions upon existing.

This should, if I am successful, lock your attention to the level of awareness of this duality where things are perceived, or not perceived. It should not matter for the sake of this thought exercise whether things truly exist or not, or why they exist or not. All that matters is whether they are perceived or not.

Phenomena in the corporeal world around us are very easy to identify as being perceived. The senses of the body have been fine-tuned over millions, if not billions of years to be very acutely aware of, and thus perceive, corporeal phenomena.

But on this spectrum of form and formlessness lies another “form” of perceived phenomena, further from the “form” extreme of the spectrum, and closer to the “formless” extreme of the spectrum.

The perceived phenomena I am referring to here are thoughts, imaginations, visualizations, concepts, feelings. These things, when perceived, have no corporeal form. They may be linked to corporeal forms, but the thoughts themselves are perceived in their own right without a corporeal form of its own.

In this society, we have been conditioned to pay little attention to these “formless” forms. They serve little purpose to the average individual, who is expected to work, be obedient, and contribute life-energy to the machinery of society. One does not need to think or visualize to do peon work.

We have also been conditioned with a sense of “object permanence”. For those unfamiliar, babies actually have to learn object permanence. It is not something that is natural to awareness, it is something that is taught and learned. Before learning to hold object permanence in mind, when something leaves a baby’s awareness, it is really gone. This is why babies cry when their mother is gone, for fear that she is really truly gone, and may never return. This is why “peek-a-boo” works as a game for young babies. Now let us apply the concept of object permanence to the “imagined” world. McDonalds fries. Recall the thing, and there it is. Now you may be thinking of a variety of traits of McDonalds fries. You may smell them, you may feel the crunch of the fry, the taste of the potato and salt. The golden appearance of the fry. The red sheen of the fry container. These things were completely gone from “imagined” existence, and suddenly, there they are again, in as real as a form as you have ever perceived before. And so, this is to point out that object permanence too, is of a dual nature. It’s opposite is object impermanence. And the truth of existence of this dual nature is once again a spectrum. The fries are simultaneously gone, and there. Experience need only recall the thing, and there it is. The mother has left the room, and it is gone. Experience, the baby being aware, need only recall the mother, and there she is.

This lack of emphasis on this imagined space might lead many to believe that it does not matter, or possibly that it does not exist at all.

But, recognizing that all dual natures are equally empty, this makes the visualized and imagined world just as real as the corporeal one. It interacts with it, as our thoughts influence our actions and perceptions of the corporeal world. On it’s own level, thoughts and visualizations interact with other thoughts and visualizations in a very real way, just as a cup interacts with a table in the corporeal world.

And so, in your training, this should stand out. Most are unaware of the non-corporeal world of thought and visualization. But as a witch, with the goal to become aware of that which we are normally unaware, this includes awareness of the visualized world. This is one of the reasons why meditation is encouraged. It helps to cultivate awareness of the visualized world by shifting your focus of awareness from the corporeal world to your “internal” visualized world.

The goal should be to be aware of this “internal” visualized world completely and entirely at all moments of experience, not just during meditation. If that can be achieved, it becomes clear just how real the visualized world is.

It is so real, in fact, that when you do a pentagram ritual for example, you are not just visualizing the archangels and guardians and such. They are REALLY THERE. There is no such thing as a “fake” visualization. A visualization is a visualization, and following the logic of the empty dual nature of things, all visualizations are real. An impulse you have, an imaginations of an action you may want to carry out, are real. Not real on the corporeal level, but real on the visualized level, which is arguably half of all experience itself.

This is what makes things like arising as the deity and practicing a pentagram ritual so incredibly powerful. You’re not just pretending or practicing it, you are really doing it, for real. The god or goddess is visualized, and they are really there. Michael is visualized, and they are really there.

So, you probably already are, but I would like to encourage you to pay attention to this “imagined” half of existence. Pay as much attention to it as you do the corporeal world. Because the “imagined” half of existence is part of that duality of form and formlessness, and therefore as empty and real as any other perceived thing. Do a pentagram ritual and know that it is really there, in reality. Arise as the god or the goddess and know that you really are the god or goddess, you’re not just imagining or visualizing it.

Imeut (pronounced im-oo-et) is the witch name of our son. He’s grown now and writing his own musings about the nature of Mind and the nature of Reality.

Here you’ll find a collection of those musings he’s decided to make available to others.

When you recall a memory, you tend to think that that was me then there. But really, that wasn’t you. That person had different understandings and experiences from the ego that you are experiencing here now. So the person in a memory that you perceive as you is actually never you. It’s another ego. The you-ego is only in the now. The perceived you-ego in the past is a completely different being/ego. Maybe that being/ego had similar habits, bundles of egoic mass, and experiences, but you-ego in the now are a different being from the being who experienced something in the illusory past.

Similarities don’t make a being the same as another. They are similar, but not the exact same thing. Two beings liking the same movie and food doesn’t make them the same being, does it?

The ego is constantly growing, learning, changing. And so every moment of “now”, you are an entirely new fresh being with the power to be and do whatever. You are not beholden to what “you” did in the past, because that wasn’t actually you. The only true you is here now.

So what I’m trying say is the ego you perceived as interacting in the past, in a memory, is not even the same ego as you are perceiving in the now. Even that aspect of the ego-self is only true in the now. And in that sense, you are viewing a completely different ego than you were a minute ago, which in turn makes that ego an entirely new unique entity/being.

And so this is why it is possible for habits to carry from life to life beyond the ego, because while both habits and ego are empty, habits are not beholden to a singular state of ego bundle as we tend to think they are. Habits can exist in spaces, in group minds, in anything that is compounded phenomena, and carry and travel as those compounded phenomena inevitable change form, like the habits that change with them.

This view of ego is a simple way to recall the true emptiness of the ego, at any place, in any time. By just recalling the fact that the ego is an ever-changing illusion just like the phenomena around you, and is in every moment born anew; the emptiness of ego cannot be ignored.

Aside: This may be where the sensation of deja vu comes from. Because you, in the ego sense, are a unique being only existing in the exact now-time, you have technically always been there in that moment with those events occurring that feel like “I’ve seen this before”, and the you-ego always will be. Because by the time that space and those events pass, you’re no longer experiencing the ego-self that was then and there. That illusory ego-self stays there with that space and those events, and the you-ego recalling those events is a completely different ego.

Form and emptiness are two sides of the same coin, of a cycle of empty duality like all things. It is ultimate. All things arise from emptiness, into form, and return from form to emptiness simultaneously.

So, by naming and constructing these concepts, form and emptiness, or the goddess and the god, we learn to recognize form and emptiness interchangeable. Imagined as a wheel, one side white and one side black, we learn to spin that wheel so fast that the two colors and two sides blur into One identifiable mass, one circle, on thing, the perfect harmony. These two identifiable things are in fact One. By identifying form and emptiness at the core of experience, we learn to identify the fact that everything is simultaneously both, and that all experience is illusory.

And so, this recognition of the illusion of form and emptiness that is One, also makes clear the illusion of time, of past and future. These too, do not truly exist. There is only the now, the One. Anything identified as having happened in the past, or happening in the future, is present in experience now, and is therefore the One.

The illusion of time stems from the awareness of different experiences supposedly occurring, but none of the memories of the experiences having occurred in the past or the future are real. There is only ever One experience. There are not multiple. Any identified “other” experience is also this experience now. The One experience.

And so this again is why 3^rd degree spellcasting is nothing but simply experiencing. That’s all that needs to be done, and that doing is effortless. No spell supposedly cast in the illusory past will ever influence what is now. There is only the One experience of now. So it doesn’t matter what the weather forecast said, because the weather forecast will only have been an illusory memory in the illusory past by the time your experience is that it sure as shit is now raining.

Conquering ego isn’t about death or getting rid of the ego. It’s about recognizing the emptiness of the ego. Just like recognizing the emptiness of anything else, recognizing something’s emptiness does not make it go away. So recognizing the emptiness of the ego doesn’t make it go away. You’re not killing it, you’re not making it “gone”. It’s still a part of the play of reality.

So the term “ego death” is a bit misleading. It’s death in the sense of viewing it’s emptiness, not death in the sense of killing it and getting rid of it. The death is of the importance of the ego in a selfish view, not of the ego itself.

Ego death leads to the recognition that everyone is the same and equally empty, and that all awareness is at the center of ego. So the ego doesn’t go away, you’re just seeing through it.

This also reveals that ultimate perfect love and ultimate perfect trust, in their highest forms, are not something to learn or practice or figure out. They are inherent in being. They’re already there, they’ve always been there. You’re not learning perfect love and perfect trust, you’re just recognizing their eternal presence. You’re not becoming empty, or turning the go into an empty thing, it always was that. So in the same way, perfect love and perfect trust aren’t these new concepts you’re learning. They’ve always been there, and you’re just recognizing it in experience.

This principle of ultimate perfect love and ultimate perfect trust being at the core of reality are what make 3^rd degree spell casting effortless. Because everything is empty, there is no action to do. There is just being. You’re not casting a spell, there is just being, and a thing happening. And it’s that easy, because nothing is truly happening.

The effect of attention and recognition that we have explored in earlier degrees really still applies here with 3^rd degree spellcasting. It’s not an ability you unlock or something you learn to do. It’s more like unlearning. You’ve been doing it this whole time, constantly. You’re unlearning the idea of actively doing it, because truthfully, there is no way to go and actively do something. That something is already happening. The empty duality of reality creates the illusion of there being something to be done. But the truth is, you’re already doing it. It is in the now, being done. You’re not going to do it, you’re already doing it. Always.

So every being is always 3^rd degree spellcasting. It’s not that some don’t know how to do it. Everyone and everything is always doing it. It’s just that not every sentient being recognizes that fact.

You might now say well, recognition and non-recognition is a duality! Isn’t that empty? Yes, you are right, it is! That’s exactly the point. Recognition and non-recognition are meaningless to 3^rd degree spellcasting because 3^rd degree spellcasting is simply being. It happens whether you recognize it or not. How can you forget to be? How can you remember to be? You cannot.

Therefore no spell casting is needed. All you need to do is be. That’s it, done. Someone needs a job? Just be aware. Just be the person getting the job. Done. There is nothing to do. You and that need for a job are One and the same. Therefore you, and that person getting the job are One and the same. There is no need for a process of visualizing, and objectifying, and separating and putting the wish out there, because there is no wish, and no place for a wish to go. There is nothing to visualize. There is just the person getting the job. There is not need to visualize the person getting the job, because the person is already getting the job. It just is.

Of all the dualities that are empty, the most empty is the duality of the separation of objects of awareness, and awareness of those objects.

You are simultaneously experiencing both awareness, and objects of awareness. One doesn’t occur without the other. So even that sense of “otherness” between awareness and objects of awareness is really and empty duality.

You’re not awareness looking at objects of awareness. You simply are.

There is no word to put there after “are”. Because awareness and objects of awareness are simply two terms or concepts, two sides of the same “coin” that cannot be identified or named.

So there is no turning inward. There is no turning towards awareness, because there is nowhere to go. There no orientation with which to turn your awareness back on itself from. This is why when you try to examine awareness, you find nothingness. Because everything is that awareness. There is no separate point of view that turns inward to experience this. It already is. Everything is you. Everything that you experience, as we call it, just is. And that everything is the same as the awareness that you experience those “everything” things through. They are the exact same thing. And because there is no orientation of you within that One thing, there is no you. There just is.

Now I hear the ego speak up, and yes, technically there is an ego that you call you. And there is, because there is a need for awareness to experience the illusion of different perspectives on itself/into itself in order for the whole cosmological play of reality to arise and exist. But, that cyclical dual nature of reality is empty, as we know. There is really just One perfect harmony. There is nothing happening. There is just One. So by seeing through the emptiness of the perceived self-ness of awareness, and the emptiness of objects of awareness, there is no difference between the two. They are the exact same thing. They are One unnamable thing, the closest word and concept we have to describe it is the perfect harmony.

So there is nowhere to be, and there is nothing to meditate on. This is sort of a double entendre, because there is nothing to meditate on, and because everything is nothingness, there is therefore everything to meditate on. I’m not saying there is no reason to meditate, rather, I am pointing out that everything is meditation. Everything is that One true self, the perfect harmony. So every experience is that One true self, the perfect harmony. And so, every moment of experience is meditation on the One true self, the perfect harmony. Every single moment is a meditation, because this beingness of experience is itself the duality of form and emptiness, the dual nature of reality itself. Everything that there is to be perceived has behind it an empty nature of duality. For something to be defined as a thing separate from another, duality must be it’s nature. So even the idea of there being nothing to meditate on, and there being everything to meditate on, is in itself, an empty duality, which is truly just the One perfect harmony. You already are the perfect harmony. There is no meditating to do, and all of experience is meditation. There is no effort involved. Permanent meditation is simply being.

And so, there is nothing wrong with sitting there and just breathing. That is perfectly pleasant. And that too, is an experience, which is ultimately a meditation upon the One true self, the perfect harmony. So it’s still fine to meditate in the traditional way! It’s pretty nice to just sit there and do nothing for a bit! But it’s also to say that you are always meditating. We call sitting and watching the breath meditation because that is a very effective way to cultivate knowledge of the self. But true meditation never begun, and never ends.

There is no state of awareness to achieve because there are no states of awareness. There is simply One state, the perfect harmony. And that One perfect harmony is all perceived states. That’s it. All these seemingly different experiences and people and places are just that One perfect harmony. That one unnamable thing is everything, and everything is it.

And so, there is no enlightenment, and there is no non-enlightenment. There is no remembering, and there is no forgetting. There is no process of remembering who and what you truly are because it just is. It’s just you. It’s just being. The process of discovering being is not changing your awareness, because there is no awareness to change. There is no state to shift to or from, because there are no state of awareness, there is only the One perfect harmony. It’s already there. What we are doing is identifying the deepest parts of ourselves that are of an empty dual nature, and we are not casting them off because they are parts of ourselves. We are cultivating, for a lack of better words, an awareness of what awareness is, separate from everything else, so that we can recognize that that duality of separateness is actually empty. There is no separation between awareness and objects of awareness. The illusion is a creation necessary to form the ego, and we sometimes get caught up in that illusion that creates the play of life.

All other dualities are very easy to point out and deconstruct into emptiness, but the duality of experience itself is incredibly difficult to describe and name, because in it’s truest form, it is an indescribable experience. No one can actually deconstruct it for you or explain it to you, it needs to be experienced. So you, as a student, are given the examples of all of the other dualities that have been deconstructed into emptiness, to use those learnings and experiences as a blueprint for how to deconstruct the beingness of self. There are actually no words to describe that ultimately personal duality of being. The closes words we have are form and emptiness, awareness and objects of awareness, the goddess and the god. But these too are imperfect, because the true invisible duality of being is unnamable and unspeakable. And like every other duality, that invisible unspeakable unnamable duality is empty.

So no matter what tantra you follow, you will always have to recognize this emptiness of beingness for yourself. And the joke here, is that there is no self to recognize this. But that’s the point, that process cannot be explained or put into words that can be repeatedly conveyed, because for every different perspective of awareness riding an ego, the experience of the emptiness of that being is also different due to the experienced phenomena being different. There is no explaining to be done, and that’s what makes it so difficult.

So I repeat, there is no remembering and forgetting, there is no practicing remembering. There just is.

On justification for claiming that there are no states of awareness: A state is a slice of experience that you cut out and hold in memory and examine. By the time you are examining it, it is already in the past. A state is a measured thing. In quantum mechanics even, in order to measure a state, an interaction must occur, and once that has been measured, that state now exists in the past. So because all compounded phenomena is empty, and composed of nothingness in different perceived “states”, one can ultimately recognize that there are no states. Impermanence is the One true state. All matter is empty, emptiness is form, and form is emptiness. Therefore, any state of awareness that you perceive is also empty and does not truly exist. This is just the formless in so called “different states”. Just as matter takes different illusory and impermanent states, so too does non-matter, such as memory and experience. They are empty and perceived in their states in the illusory past, but in the now, they are always the One perfect harmony.

A conversation between Imeut and Durga

Imeut: Yeah so we were discussing the idea that everybody needs to experience different things and know different things in order for reality to “work”.

Durga: Right.

Imeut: because if everyone knew the same thing, or the experienced the same things, they wouldn’t be individuals.

Durga: Yeah they would be just ONE.

Imeut: And therefore reality, the play of life would not exist.

Durga: No. Because you need multiple players on a stage to make a play. You need multiple actors and actresses, it wouldn’t fun if it was just one person on a stage.

Imeut: right, it wouldn’t be an experience. But then the same point too is how meditation is intentionally becoming aware of that One awareness that’s behind them all. Well, not all meditation, but the meditation that we do.

Imeut: And about perfect love, with perfect love there would be no cause or reason to exercise perfect love unless people suffered. It’s the duality again. There is no recognition of suffering or alleviating of suffering without suffering itself being present. So you wouldn’t be able to have compassion for others if they weren’t suffering. So once again, reality would not work without compassion, without connection, without feeling for others. All of these individualized consciousnesses would just evaporate into nothingness, into the One.

Durga: Exactly, how could you have suffering or compassion if you didn’t have more than one “self” to teach you and give you examples of how to do it? Each one of us has a mother, who has given birth to us, and whose role in most mythologies or belief systems is to be the caregiver, to be the one that teaches you those things about yourself. You can’t have yourself without having another. You always come from somebody else who then hopefully takes care of you and loves you and teaches you about the ”self”. You couldn’t have just one “self” teaching “themselves” about “themselves” because it doesn’t work that way.

Imeut: Yeah! There would be no experience to learn from and nothing to learn! But that’s what the mother Goddess is doing at all times through the play of reality, she is teaching us compassion through er way of raising us all individually through ALL phenomena we experience constantly. It’s (experience) always a teaching leading us towards compassion. And so that brings you to the cycle of remembering and forgetting, remembering, and forgetting. Because for someone to learn compassion for suffering, someone needs to suffer. For someone to have remembered, they need to have forgotten. So without these terrible things that you wish you could alleviate and eliminate from the human experience, the fact is that if you eliminated them (suffering, lack of learning, forgetfulness of the nature of awareness) you would eliminate the nature of all awareness and phenomena themselves.

Durga: There would be nothing to experience, nothing to care about, nothing to love, nothing to feel compassion for, nothing to feel.

Imeut: There wouldn’t be feeling at all. Because feeling is just a concept.

Durga: You need an experience to have all of the things that we always think we are, which is our feelings, our body, our sensations, the noises around us, whatever. If there was no experience, we literally would just be that which we already are, what we explore in meditation. It would just remove all of the outer shells that we experience.

Imeut: And even that experience itself relies on there being experience to have. So even THAT removal of shells wouldn’t be there, because removing the shells would require a reference point. Once again, there is a duality-based reference point. Forgetting and remembering, suffering and non-suffering

Durga: Existing and not existing.

Imeut: Meditating on either awareness or objects of awareness. And these are all dualities. But remember, together they make the perfect harmony. All dualities do. So what does that mean for this cosmology of experience and consciousness we have just described and built? What do we know about duality? It’s false, it’s empty, it’s an illusion. Form is emptiness, and emptiness is form. So that means within this giant cosmology of remembering and forgetting, you actually never forget. Because you are that Oneness, are that experience at the center of this operative cosmology, you are the perfect harmony. There is no such thing as remembering and forgetting. As long as you’re there, you’re present, you are remembering and forgetting at the exact same time. You’re operating in the cycle as a consciousness, to play in and carry out the cycle for consciousness to exist. There is no point to be at. And there is no point to go to or come from. You’re simultaneously at every point at the same time in every moment of waking awareness. This isn’t like “Oh I was there, oh I’ll be there, oh I understood that then, I experienced that then,” no because it’s not even an experience! It just is the fact that you are.

Durga: And that’s why it’s the fact that you already are perfect and holy and whole.

Imeut & Durga at the same time: Everything is perfect and holy and whole.

Imeut: Everything (that can be identified) is just a tiny speck in this cosmology of the cycle of suffering, rebirth, remembering, death, forgetting.

Durga: But the fact that some gods and goddesses have become so- it’s because of duality that’s really the same thing- but you tend to have these people that are either really attracted to learning about wisdom traditions, or so opposite that they just are like “No, fuck you, and we’re going to create all of these things in society to condition you to forget and actively combat remembrance” and make you feel like you’re worthless, and you need to work for worth, and all that crap. That needs to exist in order for…

Imeut: For the other side of the duality to exist! Exactly! It’s a spectrum. There are two extremes of remember and forgetting, and things can exist at any point on that spectrum. It’s not two states, it’s a spectrum of One whole. You can’t have a spectrum or a duality without the perceived SHITTY part! Hahahaha!

Durga: Hahaha nooo! And that’s so shitty! That’s the shitty part!

Imeut: But it’s also beautiful!

Durga: It is beautiful in that like, you know the big picture perspective, and I can appreciate that. But I think that in the “micro” if you will, it’s not that great. It’s like the point you were making earlier, like we as humans are almost fighting ourselves all the time. We want this perfect beautiful universe, and we hate all the things that make it so ugly and horrible at times, but without those things you wouldn’t have the beautiful things either. You wouldn’t have anything at all.

Imeut: Right, and without that desire to address the negative things, you wouldn’t do good deeds. So you wouldn’t even be working towards, and as a part of the cosmology, moving that cycle or suffering and the alleviation of suffering. It wouldn’t be moving at all.

Durga: I know, and part of me feels kind of shitty about that because it’s frustrating. But at the same time it’s beautiful. But I don’t know how to balance that feeling. It’s frustrating and beautiful at the same time.

Imeut: Perfect trust. Nothing is really happening.

Durga: Yeah. I think where I’m coming from is more perfect love, like I’m angry for all those that are suffering and I want to help and change that.

Imeut: Well that’s very appropriate, especially in this conversation, because you are the goddess and I am the god. I’m emptiness, I know it’s all bullshit. And you’re the goddess, and you’re love, and you’re “Oh my GOD! All this suffering!” You’re pushing the wheel of the play of consciousness, causing people to remember and forget. And I’m just like, at the center of that wheel like “Yeah, okay! 😊” And that creates the movement of reality. Without the difference between the goddess and the god, there wouldn’t be a cycle of play. Once again, it’s part of the cosmology of awareness. This is another example of that duality that is empty, and really is just the One perfect harmony. The wheel doesn’t exist. The god and the goddess don’t exist. There is just the Oneness of the perfect harmony.

Durga: Right. Anything that separates anything is empty.

Imeut: Right, and if you wanna watch this black blob move, you need to make different parts move at different times to create patterns and the illusion of movement. And that’s why there needs to be a breakdown of the One perfect harmony, a split into the god and the goddess. There needs to be a part that can push another part. And then that goes and multiplies infinitely into more gods and goddesses, into people, into groupminds, into cities, into countries, planets, solar systems, galaxies. It’s all a microscopic magnification of that original splitting into duality from the One perfect harmony, of the god and the goddess. But what is doing the looking through that magnifying glass?

Durga: *laughs*

Imeut: You are. In every waking moment of reality. You don’t even have to do it, it just happens. It is happening. It is you. *laughs*