It is clear that everything is consciousness and that absolute conscious/awareness is the source. Not so clear is why we always seem to attach certain positive qualities like, love, serenity, beauty, joy, God to THAT. How does THAT have qualities or characteristics when it is ISNESS itself?
Dear Jay,
There is a distinction to be made between isness itself and isness being aware of itself. It could be said that isness itself has no qualities, although this statement is still a limitation superimposed onto the unlimited. It could be equally said, without inconsistency with the previous statement, that isness knowing itself is an experience we could try to describe (and fail in doing so) as absolute love, absolute intelligence, absolute splendor, absolute happiness, absolute freedom, eternity, Godhead.
The reason why this distinction is important is because isness being aware of itself is not the only mode of isness. There is also ignorance, which is isness not being aware of itself. From the vantage point of isness, if we may use this expression, there is no such a distinction, and that is the point you are trying to make in your question. However, on a lower level, on a level where there are distinctions, this distinction applies. In order to avoid any confusion, we need to know on which level a statement is made. At the level of the Ultimate no statement can be made, the last attempted statements being perhaps “I am” or “Isness is” or “I am that Isness which is”, something like that, words self dissolving into the experience of being.
Now here is the point: if we take the high road of non-duality, at the ultimate level, we cannot simultaneously feel or believe to be a separate entity with all the suffering attached to such a belief, and make the claim that everything is consciousness and that absolute consciousness/awareness is the source. We cannot speak the truth without living the truth. To speak the truth and to live the truth are not two separate experiences, and the one that matters is to live the truth. Whatever is said from the experience of living the truth, no matter how dualistic, or even sometimes childish it may seem to be, is true. Whatever is said from ignorance, no matter how logical it may seem to be, is false.
Warmest regards,
Francis
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