First Book To Trigger Me-- Best Quick Reading Ever!

[Guest username]

I was going to put this in the book review section, but I wanted to put it in the main consciousness forum since the insights  from this work have been so quickly actionable in daily practice.

God is Nothingness by Andre Dolshim Halaw shattered a lot of my conceptions about the path. I was shocked when I came to the quick realization that I had still been grasping for something, as if the Nothing I had been looking for was a some sort of a physical substrate, despite the fact that I had been told hundreds of times over that this was not the case by a variety of spiritual teachers. Whenever you think you've found yourself, you are not that. I can't really explain why, but when I really internalized this, I felt a reflexive amalgamation of existential terror and pure frustration. It was awesome. I'm going to be referring back to this quick read MANY times throughout my journey.

I've noticed that putting the wisdom here into action has also brought about immediate tangible (no-pun intended) results in my practice. A lot of my stumbling blocks in self-inquiry have been resolved. I'm still yet to have my first awakening experience, but a lot of my confusion has been alleviated. 

[electroBeam]

@username I went through the exact same realization after doing Adyshanti's guided meditation. 

Good luck.

[Guest username]

@electroBeam Could you link me to the guided meditation?

[SOUL]

Well, "nothingness" isn't quite accurate either but it's close enough, that's part of the illusion, the mind thinks it understands it's "nothingness". It's just the paradox that we will take on this journey with a destination which cannot be charted because all we can conceive of is merely a reflection of what we think we know and can understand. So in calling it "nothingness" it is just another concept that our minds think we can understand and search for it with.

The reason I say this is because while the concept of "nothingness" may be useful to sort out some of the confusion when observing from a more dense "physical substrate", as you called it, eventually to continue on the journey with no destination we have to abandon all concepts in the mind...even the ones that have served us well. There is a reason so many fruitlessly seek enlightenment with thoughts of nothingness in their head, they refuse to give up the attachment to the notion that their minds have perceived it accurately.

 

[Guest username]

@SOUL Yeah, I maybe should have clarified that in the post. You're spot on and the book covers that as well.  Calling it Nothingness is just a necessity for communication, but no idea I have of Nothingness is it.  The author covers this by making a distinction between "nothingness" (which is our conceptualized nothingness) and "Nothingness", which is impossible to conceive and is the predicate to all things.

[SOUL]

@username Ah, that's interesting. Of course just capitalizing the word still fails to address a distinction that rarely ever gets made. The thing that people often refer to "nothingness", small "n", isn't an absence of anything, it's the presence of all things undivided, it's the all of everything in unity manifest without any delineation in the state of it that exists before any separation takes place in existence.

The "Nothingness" with the big "N" is another distinction that can be made but it's the type of understanding that comes from experience in awakened awareness of a personal revelation. Without it there is no way to describe the understanding to another person, it's actually possible to conceive of but it likely is impossible to communicate.

 

[Guest username]

@SOUL I think we're on the same page with this then. By saying it can't be conceived, I was saying it can't be conceptualized (is that right)? When you say it can be conceived, you're referring to direct experience, if I'm not mistaken,right?

Edited May 24, 2017 by username