Francis, The teaching that nothing exists apart from consciousness, I can understand when it is referring to name and form. But the doubt that keeps arising concerns change, if I bury an egg in my garden it is out of sight out of mind, when I go back and dig it up 6 months later it is not the same egg, change has happened without my awareness of it. Does not this imply that there is something going on outside of or apart from awareness? Perhaps the egg being egg, the dirt being dirt, change being change is itself an awareness?? Thank you, James
Dear James,
We have to make a distinction between awareness and mind. Be open to the possibility that nothing happens outside of or apart from awareness, but that many things happen outside of or apart from our human mind. The belief that nothing happens outside of a limited human mind is a form of ignorance known as solipsism. Contemplate instead the following possibility: everything, including all minds, “happens” within awareness. There is only one awareness. Your awareness, my awareness and God’s awareness are the same awareness which is the substance of all things, literally “that which stands under” all things, that which understands all things. And that which “understands” all things is also that which comprehends all things, literally that which holds all things together. Awareness is beyond the duality of mind and matter. It is the formless and nameless presence that creates mind phenomena (names) and physical phenomena (forms).
The most common form of ignorance in modern civilization is the belief that awareness is a product of mind, and mind a product of matter, a view which is at odds with the simplicity of our direct experience, for the foundation, the centrality of our direct experience resides in awareness. Instead of relying upon this simple intuition, we fall into the trap of the complex ready made belief systems prevalent in our culture which offer a materialist view of the world and of ourselves, a view which alienates us from our own reality and is the root cause of all psychological suffering.
Love,
Francis
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