You cannot step in the same river twice

I look into a garden and see a rose bush, a recently mowed lawn, a tree with birds sitting on its branches and so on - how can you dismiss these observations as not being real - an illusion?

I had a dream last night and in my dream I observed a rose bush, a recently mowed lawn, a tree with birds sitting on its branches and so on - how can you dismiss these observations as not being real - an illusion?

But surely that is different. On your own admittance - you were dreaming!

Oh, but they seemed so real!

But when you awoke they disappeared!

You have answered your own question.

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If, as Buddha says, only that which is permanent and unchangeable is real - what is permanence?

Absolute absence. Absence is the infinite screen upon which you perceive the phenomenal world.

If absolute absence is the only reality, how does one perceive "absence"?

By absolute presence! When the feminine yin absence integrates with the masculine yang presence, reality - the eternal present - becomes manifest.

You said in a previous post that the real "I" is unchangeable and permanent beyond time and space. Are you implying that time also is an illusion?

Physical time exists only in relation to the illusory phenomenal world. As the phenomenal world comes into existence (i.e. constant change and transformation of form), time (duration of existence) becomes the fourth dimension. When the phenomenal world disappears and absence remains, physical time also disappears. Time (although linear) is not an "independent phenomena" but is associated with form and the measurement of form (constant motion).

If time is an illusion, how do you measure the ever present "Now"?

Good question. We observe movement - but then again do we? The nano second of the now is immeasurable i.e. infinitely divisible. The present becomes the past at a minute fraction less than the "speed of light". (Can this movement from present to past go any faster? - Mmmm - more on this later.)

What appears as movement or motion is the continuous separate snap shots of the now, put sequentially together (as in a film) by the shutter of your consciousness (Linear continuum of instants).

Thus perceived movement and flow (of time) are illusions. In reality what should be perceived is Now- Now-Now-Now-Now-Now-Now-Now-Now-Now. Each "Now" being a micro second instant. (Not stop, stop, stop, as it has been said by others - as stop implies motion - and motion is an illusion.)

Time may be an illusion, but why does it seem to drag so on some occasions and then on other occasions, go so fast?

There are 3 basic types of time (and I advocate a fourth). Physical time, psychological time, and biological time. As an example: You are awaiting the results of a X-ray in the doctors rooms. You know there will be an anxious half hour wait. Your half hour simply drags. The receptionist, who is rushed of her feet, would swear that her half hour sped. This is psychological time. Now the clock on the wall shows physical time. While all this is happening your biological clocks are ticking in your bodies: (biological time.)

And the fourth type that you said you advocate?

As I stated, Self is beyond time and space. That is, Self exists in the absence of physical time and space.

Each and every perception of the "Now-Now-Now-Now-Now...." perceived by each and every sentient being is a distinctly brand new manifested universe. These "multi-verses" disappear as fast they they arise. This illusion of the phenomenal world of form (samsara) arises via the mind-ego of the perceiver. The unawakened (sentient beings) perceive this play of "Now-Now-Now-Now-Now...." as a continuous and interrelated life span between birth and death - between awake and sleep, between dream and dream and so on.

What I advocate as the fourth kind of time is "pure time". Pure time being in perfect equilibrium both with the speed of light and the totality of consciousness.

As God, light, consciousness, nirvana, love, truth (or any other term one needs to label or describe the absolute) is the ever present eternity of totality, such presence is the embodiment of absolute light.

As "nothing " moves faster than the speed of light- the constant , then such speed may also be considered "non-speed or non-motion" - it simply "is" and need not necessarily be described as movement. Thus to a sentient being light appears to be in motion but to an enlightened being centred in perfect equilibrium of pure time, light is perceived as relative "non-speed or non-motion".

"Yikes you are blowing my brain!"

Mmmmm. The cycle is totality to duality back to totality. Or absence to form to absence. That is the play of existence. In the beginning was the formless - the absence - pure consciousness or God if you prefer. Movement in consciousness creates the phenomenal world or "The process of creation". Motion cannot just be considered to go various speeds up to the speed of light - the reverse must also be so. There is the ever constant (reality) and all motion is measured at a minus constant (illusion).

So "pure time" is God.

Even with time one must arrive at the absolute. The speed of light must also arrive at the absolute. Pure Time is the ever present eternity of totality.

Surely you are not implying that the speed of light is stationary.

No, stationary is relative and in logic impossible. The nature of God or totality encompassing all that is and being light, must also encompass the speed of light . So the speed of light simply IS. To sentient beings it appears to have a speed because every thing else is perceived to be going at a lesser speed. Indeed if we only measure the speed of light at the speed of 386,000 miles a second we must surely have to be prepared to prove that a second exists in absolute reality of non-time or pure time as well as the phenomenal world.

I find this all hard to believe...

If my words merely incite even more "adjustments to existing attitudal belief systems" then they are falling on death ears. If they ignite the spark of inner knowing or inner yearning for enlightenment, then they have not been in vain. I seek only to illustrate the unabridged gap of absence between the ego-mind and the Self so that one can become free of past conditioning and awaken from the dream state. Beyond the mind is the world of formlessness (nirvana).

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