Dreaming at the Feet of Hades

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.