Chapter Six

We are perhaps now at the most interesting and crucial stage of the proceedings. The material up until now has been fairly straightforward and I am sure that a lot of people would be in agreement with its tenets. The rest of the analysis will test them, however. For it is here that they will be forced to make a choice between abandoning their finite common sense while pushing their reasoning all the way in the pursuit of ultimate truth, and that of remaining safely ensconced in the world of mediocrity and convention. It will separate those who have the spark of genius in them and those who do not.

This is where a strong faith in reason comes into play. Those of you who do not have enough faith in your own minds to directly discern truth, and instead have to rely on the beliefs of others to prop you up, will fall away here. It requires tremendous courage and character to leave the world behind and attend to one s personal connection to Truth. You are all alone in this realm, with no one around to provide you with any support. It is just you and your ability to think clearly, and that is all. Not everyone is cut out for these lofty heights.

In this final chapter of part one, I will analyse the nature of experience itself. We have already established the enormous role the observer plays in the existence of things. Now we will examine the manner in which we experience anything at all, and from there we will slowly make our way towards emptiness.

Brain Constructions

It has long been known by science that everything we perceive in the world is a construction of the brain. The senses receive data from the outside world in the form of frequencies, wavelengths, energy pulses and the like. They then transform this data into electro-chemical messages and relay them to the processing centres of the brain, which, in turn, construct a three-dimensional world out of them using memory as a template.

Note that we never experience the "outside world" in any shape or form. The entire scope of our experiences is confined to what the brain happens to create. The people we love and hate, the large solid buildings in which they live, the distant mountains, the stars and galaxies in the sky - all of them are constructions of the brain. In a very real sense, the brain is all we ever experience.

In many ways, the construction that the brain creates is an arbitrary one. After all, there is no real need for it to make a strictly accurate rendition of what is really "out there". Its prime concern is merely to construct a world that best suits the practical needs of our species. The senses themselves have primarily evolved for this purpose. For example, our eyes can only sense a narrow range of electro-magnetic frequencies, as our species only needs a relatively small amount of visual information in order to survive. Whereas certain species of birds can differentiate between innumerable shades of green, which helps them spot camouflaged prey hidden in grass, we can only differentiate between relatively few. Our senses are structured to block out most of the information which is irrelevant to our survival as a species and to accentuate the rest, and because of this, our senses invariably provide us with a distorted picture of the world. It cannot be otherwise, of course. It goes with the territory of having senses in the first place. All sentient beings suffer sensory limitations, and distorted perceptions of the world, in one form or another.

It is natural for us to think that our visual perception, provided by our eyes, gives us an accurate portrayal of the world. This is because vision is the strongest of our five senses. But such thinking is generated more from habit than any sound reasoning. Consider the plight of the small bat, for example, which has very poor eyesight and relies instead on a process of echolocation. The bat emits high-frequency sounds which bounce off objects and return as echoes, thus allowing the bat to create some sort of picture of the world. Although its brain undoubtedly creates visual images from this sonic data, they are nevertheless images constructed by hearing, rather than by seeing.

However, that is the only real difference between the bat and ourselves. Whereas it uses sonar echoes to gain visual information about the world, we use photons of light. We might instinctively think that the bat suffers from a meagre visual image of the world because it "hears" it, rather than "sees" it, but nevertheless what it experiences is no less real than what we experience. Both the photon and the sound wave are simply vehicles of data; the images that are created in both the bat and the human are equally fake and constructed.

We have no way of knowing how accurately the construction we experience in each moment portrays what is "out there". It is impossible for us to reach beyond our consciousness and peek at what lies beyond. Granted, the construction needs to be accurate to some degree, otherwise we would notice gaping inconsistencies in our experiences. We would be tripping over things that we could not see and putting our hands through solid-looking objects; things would be winking in and out of existence willy-nilly, and so on. Given that the existence of these kinds of inconsistencies would seriously hinder our survival as a species, it is no surprise that we rarely experience them.

However, internal consistency alone is not enough to ensure that the world we experience has any resemblance to the world which exists beyond the mind. After all, radar images inside a military plane are internally consistent and display enough information for the navigator and pilot to react to circumstances. Even so, no one would assert that these images closely resemble the objects the radar is designed to detect. Navigators and pilots do not require accurate detailed replications on their radar screens - if anything, such detail would only distract them. All they want is basic information such as how fast the object is heading towards them and what distance it is at. Anything more than this would be superfluous. Similarly, our brains are under no obligation to construct anything other than a vastly simplified world which best serves our survival purposes.

It is important to note that the senses and the brain are themselves part of the simplified construction in which we live. Everything that we know of the brain and senses is by way of the construction. The constructed brain and senses are the only brains and senses that we know of. Although we might surmise that there is a brain beyond our consciousness, along with the five senses, photons, sound waves, and a physical world which has some sort of resemblance to the one we experience, it can never be anything more than a tentative inference on our parts. It could easily be the case that the construction we experience is a computer simulation, or a virtual reality created by machinery. If that is the case, then the view that the brain and senses are responsible for the construction would be an illusion. Again, the only brain that we know for sure exists is the one that we experience within consciousness.

Any conclusion that we care to reach concerning what lies beyond the construction will be nothing more than a tentative inference, one that is created within the construction itself. Even if we received compelling evidence that the construction is really a computer simulation, we would still have no way of ascertaining for sure that this is what is really happening. The computer, which is thought to be responsible for the existence of the construction, would be in the same boat as the brain. It is something that we would only experience within the construction itself. At bottom, it does not matter what we choose to postulate or imagine lies beyond consciousness, it will always be nothing more than a creation existing within consciousness.

To understand this point properly, the reader needs to make a quantum leap in his perspective and abandon altogether the notion that there is a world "out there" beyond the mind. He needs to realize that any kind of world he cares to conceive of will necessarily be part of the construction. Even the very division between what is within consciousness and what lies beyond it is a construction of consciousness. There is literally no "out there", apart from what we experience in our consciousness.

It may be objected that our inability to experience anything beyond the construction is not proof that nothing is there at all. And that would be true. There is another kind of proof, however, which does conclusively demonstrate that nothing can exist beyond the construction, one that shows that things necessarily only exist within it. It is as follows:

A thing can only exist if it possesses a form of some kind. Whether it has the form of a tree, or a cloud, or an ambiguous wave/particle duality, or a flowing stream, each thing finds its existence in its form. If a thing were to lack form altogether, then it would be incapable of existence. An existing thing without form is a contradiction in terms and therefore a logical impossibility.

Form, in turn, can only exist by virtue of a perspective created by an observer. The form of an object and the observer s perspective go hand in hand. There cannot be one without the other. Consider a leaf, for example, which presents itself to an observer as a small, light, brown object. The form of the leaf is generated, in part at least, by the observer s perspective, which includes his size and the structure of his brain and senses and so on. If we took away the observer altogether, we would also take away the form of the leaf. Its brownish colours would disappear, along with all of its other qualities. There would be nothing left. The leaf would be gone.

It might be argued that only the appearance of the leaf, as experienced by the observer, would disappear and not the leaf itself. But what is a leaf if not a bundle of properties which appear to an observer? If we took away all of those appearances, what would be left? A small dark amorphous object? That too would be an appearance. It does not matter what form the resulting object would have, it will always fall into the realm of appearances. The bottom line is, as soon as you posit that a thing exists, it will necessarily have a form of some kind and be nothing more than an appearance.

We can summarize these thoughts with the one simple assertion that existence is appearance. To exist is to appear. In the moment that a thing is not presenting an appearance, it does not exist.

It might be objected that there are some things in the world which do not present an appearance, yet we still know of their existence. An example would be a black hole, an object which does not reflect or emit light and therefore makes it impossible for us to perceive directly. The trouble with this argument is that we do indeed perceive the appearance of black holes - if not directly, then at least in the effects that it has on its surrounding environment. We can perceive its gravitational pull on nearby stars and galaxies, for example. It also presents an appearance in the mathematical equations that focus on its behaviour. So there is no question that black holes present an appearance.

We do not directly perceive, with the naked eye, the molecules which comprise a tree, yet that does not mean they do not present an appearance and do not exist. As with black holes, they present an appearance through their effects, the main one being the appearance of the tree itself. Because science has established that all large physical objects, such as trees, are composed of molecules, we can automatically infer that the tree s molecules exist simply by acknowledging the existence of the tree. And no doubt, if we were to pull out a microscope and peer into one of its cells, we would observe the molecules in question. But whether the molecules present an appearance directly through the microscope, or indirectly through its effects, they are still presenting an appearance.

It is important to let go of the notion that an object has one true form and therefore one true appearance. That is an illusion. The only true form that an object has is the form it happens to display to an observer at any given moment. In the moment that a molecule in a tree is perceived through a microscope, that is its form. And when it is perceived indirectly through our concepts or inferences, then that too is its form, its new form. The idea that the former constitutes the one true form of the molecule, while the latter is merely a distorted version is irrational. For even when we observe a molecule through a microscope, we only ever perceive an appearance which has been filtered and distorted by the structure of the microscope, our senses, nervous system and brain. In the end, it is impossible to perceive an object s true form because it has none. There is only the form that it displays in any given moment and that is all.

The Hidden Void

Since existence is equivalent to appearance, it naturally follows that it is impossible for existence to occur outside the mind. Armed with this knowledge, we can now properly examine what it is that lies beyond consciousness and creates our constructed universe in the first place.

The first thing we can establish is that it is incapable, by its very nature, of presenting an appearance and therefore incapable of existing and possessing form. It cannot be thought of as a brain, or a mind, or a God, or a physical process, or a world resembling the one we experience, or indeed anything at all. Nor can it be thought of as "pure nothingness", for that too is ultimately an appearance. It is wholly beyond the capacity of the mind to experience or grasp. We simply have to accept that it will always be a mystery which can never be solved.

This needs some qualification, however. To use the word "mystery" in this context is ultimately incorrect. A phenomenon can only qualify as being a mystery if an explanation or answer (one that is currently unknown to us) actually exists for it. The mystery stems from our incapacity to know what that particular explanation is. For example, the arisal of some forms of cancer is currently a mystery to us. It is a mystery because we have not yet been able to map the precise causal factors which produce these forms of cancer. While there is no doubt these causal factors exist, we simply have not yet been able to isolate them yet.

By contrast, the question, "What does a married bachelor look like?", is not a mystery. Even though no one has ever seen a married bachelor, or is able to imagine what he might look like, it is not really a mystery because it is impossible for a married bachelor to exist in the first place. It is a false mystery created out of illogical thought.

The same reasoning applies to the question of "what" is responsible for the existence of the construction in which we live. The term "what" is wholly inapplicable in this context, for there can be no "what" beyond the construction. Since nothing can exist at all beyond the construction (not even nothingness itself), the question of what is really there is meaningless and unaskable.

The actual creative agent of the construction, then, is not a brain or a computer or a God, but a "hidden void" which is necessarily beyond the scope of consciousness to perceive or grasp. There is nothing mystical or religious about my use of the term "hidden void" here. I only use it to highlight the fact that the creative agent of the construction is both beyond consciousness and completely lacking in form. Only things within the construction are capable of possessing form and being experienced. The hidden void is capable of neither.

In the final analysis, there are only two things we can know about the hidden void for sure - namely, (a) that it is not nothingness and (b) that it possesses the capacity to create the construction in which we live. To know anything more than this is impossible - for anyone or anything. Not even the hidden void itself can know anything more about it. For there is literally nothing more to know. As such, our understanding of what lies beyond consciousness is now complete.

Examining the Construction

Let us return now to the construction in which we live. It is important to avoid the trap of thinking that the construction, and everything within it, is merely an appearance, while the "hidden void" constitutes ultimate reality. Such a duality is unnecessary and lacks any fundamental basis. The hidden void and the construction are simply two manifestations of the one Reality. Everything within the construction is as real as the hidden void. The only difference between the two is that the hidden void is an aspect of Reality which is incapable of being experienced.

The objects that we perceive within the construction are not mere replications or simulations of "real objects" that exist beyond the mind. There are no objects beyond the mind. An object can only find its existence within the construction itself or not at all. In the very moment of our perception of it is the only time it exists. And in that very moment, it is nothing less than a real object.

At the same time, we need to remember that although the objects we perceive in any given moment are real objects, they nevertheless lack an objective or inherent form of existence. They do not have a fixed form which we can grasp in the belief we have apprehended their true nature. Their existence and form is exactly what it appears to be in any given moment and that is it.

Likewise, the observable universe as a whole, the entirety of the construction, also has no fixed form or true nature. It too is simply what it appears to be in any given moment. Consider the age of the universe, for example. Scientists currently hold the belief that the observable universe is 15 billion years old. It is a belief that has been generated by various pieces of empirical evidence from a wide range of disciplines, such as cosmology, astronomy, chemistry, geology, and quantum physics. As things stand, it seems to be a fairly well-established theory.

However, we have no way of checking whether the figure of 15 billion years is actually accurate or not. The evidence that we rely on is purely circumstantial in nature and we have no way of establishing its validity in an absolute sense. It could well be that the universe is only 200 years old, with the empirical evidence supporting the 15 billion year figure being planted by a devious agent of some kind in order to create a false impression. Who knows? It is probably very unlikely, and I have no reason to believe it, but nonetheless it cannot be entirely ruled out. It is not an impossibility.

That the universe seems to be 15 billion years old is simply an appearance to us. It is undoubtedly a compelling appearance, given the evidence currently available to us, but it is still an appearance nonetheless. And that is what it will always be.

New evidence might suddenly turn up tomorrow which will seem to convincingly demonstrate that the observable universe is only a six month old computer simulation and that our memories of our lives before then have merely been programmed into it. If that were to happen, then all of the old evidence which had been produced by cosmology, astronomy, geology and so on, to support a 15 billion year old universe would be rendered worthless. Our picture of the universe would change radically. But note, even this new picture would only ever constitute an appearance, one that we could never be certain about. We would be no more certain of the new appearance than we are of the current one.

The idea that the observable universe has a true or objective age is meaningless. For whatever age it could possibly have will always fall into the realm of appearances. The same reasoning applies to the observable universe itself. It is meaningless to think of the universe unfolding in a real or objective manner, for again, any kind of unfolding that we care to perceive or imagine will always fall into the realm of appearances. There is no real or objective universe. There is only an appearance of the universe, a construction of consciousness in the here and now, one that is capable of changing quite radically from one moment to the next.

Once again, it should always be kept in mind that I am using the word "appearance" advisedly here. Since neither the hidden void, nor anything within the observable universe, can lay sole claim to ultimate reality, the word "appearance" is not really applicable here. The universe that appears to us in any given moment is in fact the real universe. There is no other one.

Is there no difference, then, between a person who is lost in an hallucinatory universe in his own mind and the average person on the street who perceives the physical universe normally? Not really, it is only a matter of degree. A schizophrenic, for example, sometimes talks to people who exist purely in his mind in the belief that he is talking to real people. From his point of view, he is talking to real people, but from our point of view, he is hallucinating. But in the end, we have no way of establishing for sure that we are not hallucinating ourselves. Like the schizophrenic, we can only accept what we perceive in each moment at face value and assume, until evidence arises to the contrary, that it is real. This contrary evidence might come along or it might not. Either way, it is impossible for us determine that the world we experience in each moment is not an hallucination.

This is not really a problem for the enlightened person, I might add. The beauty of becoming enlightened is that one transcends the realm of appearances and all of its associated uncertainties. One no longer projects ultimate reality onto any particular appearance and thus one no longer has a personal stake in any one of them being real. So it does not really matter to the enlightened person if the perceived world is an hallucination or not. He sees that, either way, each appearance will always be nothing more than a momentary manifestation of Reality and have no other reality beyond that.

Before Consciousness

A natural question to ask at this point is what existed in the Universe before consciousness came into being. If we accept the standard scientific view, the first signs of life appeared around 4.5 billion years ago and rudimentary forms of consciousness perhaps a billion years after that. If, as I maintain, existence can only occur within consciousness, then it follows that nothing could have existed before consciousness evolved. How can that be so? What about the Big Bang which supposedly happened 15 billions years ago and presumably did not have the benefit of someone watching it? Am I saying that the Big Bang never occurred?

Again, although these questions are perfectly natural to ask, they are nevertheless fundamentally deluded and unaskable. For they are created out of a false understanding of my views. It is meaningless to speak of what occurred before the evolution of consciousness because, as I pointed out earlier, the very use of the word "what" is inapplicable outside of consciousness. Even the notions "before consciousness" or "outside consciousness" are meaningless.

As with anything else, the Big Bang can never be anything more than an appearance to an observer. If we could somehow build a time machine and travel back 15 billion years, there is little doubt that we would observe a Big Bang in action. However, it would still be a Big Bang exploding within our own consciousness and nowhere else. It would still only be an appearance. The idea of a Big Bang-in-itself, outside of anyone s perception, is groundless.

Note that I am not rejecting Big Bang theory because I favour an alternative cosmological theory or because I believe there was a state of absolute nothingness. I am not really engaging in a cosmological debate here at all. Rather, I am focusing on something far more profound. Alternative cosmological processes, together with the state of absolute nothingness, are like the Big Bang in that they can never be anything more than an appearance and hence cannot make any more claim to validity than the appearance of the Big Bang can. The bottom line is, we cannot even begin to think or speak about what occurred before the existence of consciousness because the very notion of "something occurring" is meaningless in this context.

As with any other scientific issue, all we can do is allow the empirical evidence to guide us and create what we think is a plausible theory about the observable universe s origins. This is a perfectly natural and worthwhile activity to engage in. But while we are doing this, we should never forget that whatever theory we care to create will only ever apply to appearances within consciousness. Any attempt to stretch their significance beyond this would be short-sighted and irrational.

So how did consciousness initially spring into being if there was ultimately no Big Bang, no alternative cosmological process and no nothingness? The short answer is, I have no idea. Nor does anyone else have a clue. The question is utterly beyond the capacity of the human mind to solve. As mentioned previously, there are only two things that we can know for sure about the "hidden void" - namely, (a) that it does not have any form and is therefore wholly unlike anything we can ever experience, and (b) that it possesses the capacity to generate consciousness and existence. Nothing else can ever be known about it.

Other People s Consciousnesses

Having established that everything exists within the construction created by consciousness, I will now briefly address the issue of other people s consciousnesses. Needless to say, the constructed universe in which I live is something that I experience within my own consciousness and nowhere else. I do not live in other constructed universes in other people s consciousnesses. Each person s constructed universe is unique and isolated from everyone else s.

I do not really know, of course, if these other constructed universes actually exist. It could well be they are an illusion created within my own consciousness. Other people certainly appear to be conscious, but I have no way of establishing that they really are. After all, they could be like the people that I meet in my dreams at night. Dream people can walk and talk and perform complex tasks and do anything that "real life" people can do, even though they are nothing more than unconscious automatons directed by my dreaming mind. Perhaps a similar situation occurs in my wakeful life? Perhaps everyone I meet is an unconscious automaton? It is impossible to judge. I will never be able to reach a final conclusion about this because any evidence I might wish to call upon to decide the matter, one way or the other, will always be part of my own construction and therefore will always be fundamentally unreliable.

Since it is essentially an unsolvable problem, the only rational course of action is treat it as though it were any other empirical issue - namely, treat the evidence supporting the existence of other people s consciousness at face value and make the provisional assumption that they are indeed conscious. I can reason that because other people look and behave like me, and because I already know that I am conscious, I can conclude that they are conscious as well. The evidence, circumstantial though it may be, generally seems to support this point of view. Although I am uncertain about it, I am happy enough to accept it for the time being, at least until compelling new evidence comes along and forces me to have a rethink.

When I speak of "the construction", then, I am referring to the totality of all constructions and not just my own. Things can certainly exist beyond my own consciousness, but only if there are other consciousnesses to support their existence. When I die and my own construction vanishes, the observable universe will live on in the minds of others. And should the human race and all conscious life on earth become extinct, well then, existence will have to wait until new sentient beings evolve - keeping in mind, of course, that concepts such as "waiting" and "time elapsing" and "existence" and "nothingness" have no meaning outside of consciousness.

At the moment, there are nearly six billion people on this planet, each of them existing inside their own construction. We can think of these constructions as separate dimensions, all happily coexisting side by side, with no interaction between them. The universe is like a multitude of bubbles, each bubble an isolated construction of consciousness, each somehow making room for the rest. It is an interesting picture of the Universe, but is it really true? Or is it simply a construct of my own consciousness, one that lacks any kind of objective reality? I will let the reader decide that one for himself.

Another Look at the Totality

It should be clear from the analysis I have presented that the concept of the Totality does not really refer to the three-dimensional physical universe imagined by most people to objectively exist. Rather, it refers to the totality of all appearances experienced by consciousness. Included in this larger totality is indeed the three-dimensional physical universe, but it is only one of countless other appearances. There is not a single appearance which can lay claim to being ultimate or objective reality. Whether it be an appearance of the physical universe itself, or an appearance of an inner mystical realm, each appearance exists only in the moment of our perceiving it and nowhere else. As soon as it ceases being perceived, it ceases to exist. Each appearance is but a charade of the moment and none of them ever reflect the true nature of Reality.

The Totality, then, is entirely formless. Or if you like, its form embraces the infinity of appearances. Or even more accurately, its form is whatever happens to be perceived in any given moment. In the moment that I conclude that the Totality is formless, or the infinity of appearances, it too is nothing more than a momentary perception on my part. To project anything more onto this perception, or to cling to it as though it were the final truth, would be to fall into delusion. In the end, the Totality is simply what it is in any given moment - end of story.

We can now go a step further and affirm that objective reality does indeed exist - in the moment of our perception of it. If, in any given moment, the observable universe appears to be objectively real, then that is exactly what it is. And if in the next moment, it no longer appears to be objectively real, then that too is exactly what it is. The observable universe is entirely a product of the moment and lacks any kind of form or existence outside of this.

The same is true of what is "out there" beyond the mind, and indeed of the mind itself. Both the mind and what lies beyond the mind are only real to the degree that they exist as an appearance. Understanding this point is important because it enables one to transcend to an even higher perspective, taking one beyond consciousness, as it were, to the very threshold of enlightenment itself. One is now but a finger snap away from opening the wisdom eye and seeing directly into the secret of creation.

Another look at Causation and Logical Truth

Given the fact that everything is an appearance of the moment, it follows that any causal process we happen to observe in the universe will also be an appearance of the moment. For example, a match being struck to produce fire creates the appearance that the striking of the match is the cause of the fire. Whether it really is the cause of the fire is meaningless from the ultimate perspective. Just as the universe as a whole has no objective reality beyond the realm of appearances, neither do causal chains.

Philosophically speaking, it makes no difference whether the fire is caused by a struck match or by something else. All we need to know is that it does have causes. Although we may not be able to trace its causes in any absolute sense, we can still reason that the fire lacks inherent existence and always derives its being from what is external to it. We can be sure of this by observing that it is logically impossible for anything to exist independently and without cause. In other words, we can observe that it is logically true that everything is caused.

It might be argued that if everything is an appearance of the moment and therefore uncertain, then logical truths must also be appearances and therefore uncertain. This is not quite true, however. The mere fact that a logical truth exists as an appearance has no bearing on the validity of its content. Its existence as a concept might be nothing more than an appearance of the moment, but the truth contained within it is timeless nonetheless.

For example, consider the logical truth that all things are finite, which was explored in an earlier chapter ("Entering the Logical Realm"). If a person reasons that everything in the Universe must necessarily be finite, then in the moment that he is reaching this conclusion it is absolutely and universally true. It makes no difference that the conclusion is merely a momentary appearance in his mind. It still remains a truth which necessarily applies to all possible worlds and therefore to all possible appearances. So even though the reasoner only experiences its truth momentarily, he is nevertheless able to see in that very moment that it cannot be falsified anywhere in the Universe. He has grasped a universal truth in a momentary flash of insight.

It should also be noted that the conclusion that "everything is an appearance", as articulated in this chapter, is built upon a whole series of truths which ultimately rest on the core truth that all things are finite and caused. As such, both the conclusion and the core truth live and die together. One cannot use a logical conclusion to falsify one of its own premises, at least not without falsifying the conclusion itself. Thus, to the degree that "everything is an appearance" is correct, to that very same degree "all things are finite and caused" is also correct, and vice versa.

Logical truths and logical falsehoods are distinct entities which come into being when the causal circumstances are ripe. Although they are both appearances, they are as different to one another as rocks are to the emotions or smell is to hearing. When people reason correctly, they experience the appearance of logical truths, and when they do not reason correctly, they experience falsehoods instead. It is as simple as that.

This relates to the more general point that while both the enlightened sage and the ordinary person exist purely in the realm of appearances, they do not experience the same kind of world. The former lives in a realm of truthful appearances, as it were, while the other one does not. Because the sage has eliminated all delusion from his mind and sees things truly, the appearances that he experiences are stripped of all the hallucinations and distortions that ordinary people project onto their experiences.

Take the perception of objective reality, for example. Both the sage and the ordinary person might, in a given moment, experience the appearance that the physical world is objectively real. But whereas the sage automatically realizes that it is nothing more than an appearance of the moment and can see that it has fundamentally nothing to do with Ultimate Reality, the ordinary person invariably loses his mind to the appearance and thereby becomes trapped in an illusion. Once this happens, a whole series of further delusions are triggered. Fears and anxieties begin to arise from his belief that the things contained within the illusion are real and potentially pose a threat. This then motivates him to want to devise a whole host of physical and mental strategies in order to deal with these threats. And thus, before you know it, he is fully absorbed in the task of building elaborate mental fortresses in which to hide and whatever connection he previously had to the sage s existence has well and truly been severed.

Sinking Back into this World

The attentive reader will note that we have almost come full circle in our investigation, where things that were initially negated are reaffirmed once more. There is a famous story in Zen which goes something like this:

When I was a student starting out on the path, I saw that trees were trees and mountains were mountains. After a little while, I began to see that trees weren t really trees and mountains weren t really mountains. But now that I have reached the end of the path, I see that trees are indeed trees and mountains are indeed mountains.

Although, on the surface, it might seem that the student in this story made no progress at all and simply went back to his original position, in reality his vision has been radically altered. The trees and mountains which he sees at the end of his quest, and which he affirms to be real, are vastly different to the trees and mountains that ordinary people see. They are trees and mountains stripped of all the false assumptions and beliefs that ordinary people habitually project onto them. The enlightened person affirms their reality in the light of what is ultimately real and sees directly into their nature, which is light years away from ordinary perception.

One of the major differences between the enlightened sage and the ordinary person is that the sage no longer surrounds himself with a plethora of useless abstractions and therefore no longer exists in a state of confusion. Because these unnecessary abstractions have vanished, he is able to experience God without any effort at all. He no longer has to take any mental steps in order to bring God into consciousness, for already sees God in everything that he experiences. His mind has become infinitely simple, like an uncarved block, no longer needing to engage in the intellectual complexities that are involved in piercing delusion. In a very real sense, he has gone beyond the intellect and rests effortlessly in his true nature.

He does not give up intellectualizing entirely, though. Even though he no longer has a use for it as far as own understanding is concerned, he still employs it in the task of trying to help others become enlightened. And since the first step towards enlightenment always involves the intellectual process of dismantling delusion, the sage, in his helping of others, often gives the appearance of being an intellectual. This, however, is an illusion.

As Chuang Tzu stated so beautifully:

The ordinary person is just as much steeped in the fundamental aimlessness of Nature as the enlightened sage is, as are animals and trees. Yet that does not stop them from behaving with purpose. But whereas the ordinary person tailors his purposes around his attachment to self-existence, the sage tailors them around the promotion of wisdom. The many long years that he has spent striving to become wise have instilled in him a natural propensity to value wisdom. He does not value it egotistically or emotionally, of course, and he ultimately does not care whether he succeeds or fails in the task of promoting wisdom, but nonetheless his whole being is structured around this very purpose. It is as natural for him to value wisdom as it is for birds to value the search for prey, and for trees to value the presence of sunlight. He can no more stop valuing wisdom than he can undo all the spiritual progress he has made. It is now part of his nature.

Conclusion to Part One

The reader who has come this far, and has thoroughly understood each step of the analysis along the way, is now in a position to make his own personal breakthrough into ultimate understanding. Unfortunately, I cannot help the reader take this final step. It is something he has to do on his own. He has, courtesy of these chapters, all the material he needs at his fingertips. The next step is for him to meditate on it, push the logical implications of it as far as they can go, and make the final connections in his own mind that will lead to his enlightenment.

Although I cannot help anyone take this last step, what I can do is point out some of the common pitfalls that the student is likely to encounter at this stage. This will help him avoid going down blind alleys and keep his mind pointed in the right direction.

Perhaps the most common pitfall is falling into the trap of mistaking a momentary appearance for the Ultimate Truth. For example, a person might reason his way to the point where he intellectually understands the formlessness of the Totality and the emptiness of all things, but nevertheless fails to realize that his understanding and mental picture of these truths is also nothing more than a momentary appearance and ultimately empty as well.

A sure sign this is occurring is when a person experiences doubts or conflicts in his understanding of emptiness. The mental picture of emptiness that he has mistakenly affirmed as constituting the ultimate truth in one moment suddenly seems to conflict with the sheer reality of the physical world that he experiences in the next. In his mind, two competing ultimate realities have been created and he cannot reconcile them. And since, understandably, he finds it difficult to doubt the reality of the physical world, he ends up doubting the reality of emptiness.

What has happened here is that he has lost sight of the fact that neither appearance is ultimately real. He has forgotten that Reality is entirely formless and cannot be captured by mental pictures at all. In other words, he has been taken in by an illusion.

When it comes to comprehending Reality, there is ultimately nothing to affirm or deny. To affirm something is to fall into the delusion that a particular appearance is ultimate reality; to deny a particular appearance is to fall into the delusion that Reality has a particular form. Thus, part of the process of becoming enlightened is learning how to put an end to this mentality of affirmation and denial, which means recognizing and accepting that Reality is essentially ungraspable. Reality is simply what it is in any given moment. It cannot be captured or got hold of in any way. The moment you try to do that, you lose it. All that you will be left with is a useless frozen image, a kind of mental corpse, completely oblivious to the fact that Reality has since moved on.

The path to enlightenment is simply one of halting deluded mental habits. Because Reality is the totality of all there is, we are already fully immersed in it. So there is no "place" in particular where we have to go, either physically or mentally, in order to experience it. All that needs to be done is to halt the habitual projection of false assumptions upon what is experienced. And as I have argued throughout these chapters, this can really only be done by intellectually understanding the formlessness of Reality and the emptiness of all things.

The better your understanding of formlessness and emptiness is, the fewer deluded mental habits you will have, and vice versa. The two always go together. It is by constantly deepening one s understanding of Reality that allows one to shed one s deluded habits of thought.

Another common pitfall, which is related to the one just described, is the mistaken belief that the physical world is a dream of some sort, a kind of insubstantial realm which pales into significance against a higher reality. This too involves the delusion of mistaking an appearance for Ultimate Reality. Although there are some similarities between wakeful life and the dream state, the two cannot be equated. The differences between them in terms of order, continuity and solidness are too large to ignore. Sometimes, the enlightened sage might say, for the purposes of illustrating the point that everything is an illusion of the moment, that the physical world is like a dream, but this is a long way short of saying that it is a dream.

Objects are never anything other than what they appear to be. When I perceive a chair, for example, the sheer physicalness of the chair is very real, even though it remains true that it is only an appearance. The chair does not present the appearance of being insubstantial or non-physical, so we should not pretend that it does. Trying to somehow change our perception of it so that it resembles a dream-like object is unnecessary and constitutes a form of madness. Everything about the chair speaks loud and clear that it is a solid three-dimensional object and we have no choice but to accept the reality of this. Even though the chair is nothing more than an illusion of the moment, it doesn t change the fact that during the time it is being perceived its physicalness is very real.

Another potential pitfall is the belief that enlightenment involves a mystical experience of some kind. Even though I often use the word "God", it should not be thought that I am talking about a religious or mystical entity. To me, God simply means Ultimate Reality. Apart from the fact that Ultimate Reality is timeless and responsible for the existence of all things, it has no religious or mystical connotations at all. Quite the contrary, it is completely natural and down-to-earth. It is as down-to-earth as the very earth itself. As such, people with a religious inclination will find little comfort or inspiration in my words.

The sheer formlessness of Reality dictates that there is no God at all - personal, or mystical, or otherwise. Any God that is perceived to exist, either inwardly or out in the physical world, will always remain in the realm of appearances, and thus will never be anything more than an illusion of the moment. The same is true of the mystical experience itself.

If the reader wants to comprehend the nature of Reality, then he has to abandon the belief that it can captured by any particular appearance. Even if a particular appearance seems profoundly spiritual, it still needs to be abandoned. "Neti, neti, .....", as some of the wiser Hindus used to say - not this, not this. Reality cannot be straightjacketed in any way. Any attempt to straightjacket it, in whatever conceptual framework, religious or otherwise, indicates a gross misunderstanding of its nature. Reality is not a spiritual, physical, or mentalistic entity. It is beyond all these things. It has no nature.

Another potential pitfall is the experience of anxiety and fear which can afflict those who are close to being enlightened, and which can sometimes be quite paralyzing. A common example is the fear that one is about to lose one s mind to a kind of void and that, if one goes any further into it, the possibility of returning to normal consciousness could disappear.

This is a fear which is created partly created by delusion and partly by the reality of the situation. As far as the latter is concerned, if the person approaching enlightenment still has a fairly strong attachment to the everyday world of ignorance, then fear can arise when he recognizes that his mentality is beginning to permanently change and he may never be able to go back. This is a perfectly natural reaction, which is probably best treated by slowing down one s intellectual development towards enlightenment and attending instead to the attachment that one still has for the deluded life. Perhaps he needs to step back into the world of ignorance for a while and investigate what he still finds so attractive about it. Then, at a later date, when he believes he is less attached to things, he can make another run for enlightenment.

Fear can also arise from a deluded understanding of Reality. If a person reasons his way to a point where he has a good, but not perfect, understanding of formlessness and emptiness, he can easily misinterpret it to be a kind of empty void. Again, this is just another case of mistaking a particular appearance for ultimate reality. He has wrongly associated voidness or nothingness with Truth and thus falls into the trap of thinking that if he goes any further he will lose his mind. In the end, this is something which can only be overcome by perfecting one s intellectual understanding.