Nobody knows anything

[Breakingthewall]

46 minutes ago, gettoefl said:

 

I agree with you that the fully integrated, frictionless self acts, chooses, and experiences reality, and that boundaries can dissolve so it moves without internal conflict. My point is nuanced: even in this state, the self will still experience reality as something it must harmonize with or preserve itself within. Integration alone will not automatically release the self’s sense that reality answers to it in some way. Will continues, movement continues and life continues, but the subtle epistemic assertion that “this is about me” still endures.

The distinction is all about how centrality is experienced. One perspective preserves a harmonious, boundary-dissolved self that still functions as the reference point for meaning. The other allows the sense of central authority to quietly fall away: the self continues to engage fully, but now will not judge, interpret, or claims reality as its own. Function remains intact, yet that existential foundation of authorship, that gnawing premise that “today has to go the way I want”, is no longer.

In my opinion, how the self interpret reality is irrelevant. It's just an interpretation. The point is for the self to stop closing itself off, which leads to an opening to the totality. Then the self recognizes its nature because it is open to its nature. It's not a question of whether it's the one who decides or not; it's a question of being open to what is, something that wasn't happening before.

When the self is open to its nature, it realizes that before, when it was closed off, it was in a prison of madness. Human beings adapt to everything and tolerate that level of existence, but it's awful. In this opening, the self recognizes itself as total reality. It's not that it knows, at a definitional level, what total reality is, but rather that it is open to it all the time. It is total reality, in the form of the self.

This doesn't imply that it knows anything about the mechanic of the relationship of form; it knows that it is, and what it is, for the simple reason that it is that. The mind empties itself effortlessly because the totality fills everything. The mind can continue deducing, but it does so knowing that it is creating geometry. Reality is not geometric, it is total, it cannot be mentally articulated.

But articulating things correctly is important, because there are mental configurations that create closure. If you believe in a creator god with a purpose, you're establishing an absolute limit and closing yourself off. You have to intuitively perceive what's closing you off and dismantle it. If you want the total openness, of course. Maybe you want anything else, anyone has it's choices 

[Mellowmarsh]

Nobody knows what the experience of being conscious is. We know we’re having the experience of consciousness. But, nobody, no one knows what Consciousness is, and why it disappears during the death of body / brain. 
 

 

Edited 8 hours ago by Mellowmarsh

[gettoefl]

1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

In my opinion, how the self interpret reality is irrelevant. It's just an interpretation. The point is for the self to stop closing itself off, which leads to an opening to the totality. Then the self recognizes its nature because it is open to its nature. It's not a question of whether it's the one who decides or not; it's a question of being open to what is, something that wasn't happening before.

When the self is open to its nature, it realizes that before, when it was closed off, it was in a prison of madness. Human beings adapt to everything and tolerate that level of existence, but it's awful. In this opening, the self recognizes itself as total reality. It's not that it knows, at a definitional level, what total reality is, but rather that it is open to it all the time. It is total reality, in the form of the self.

This doesn't imply that it knows anything about the mechanic of the relationship of form; it knows that it is, and what it is, for the simple reason that it is that. The mind empties itself effortlessly because the totality fills everything. The mind can continue deducing, but it does so knowing that it is creating geometry. Reality is not geometric, it is total, it cannot be mentally articulated.

But articulating things correctly is important, because there are mental configurations that create closure. If you believe in a creator god with a purpose, you're establishing an absolute limit and closing yourself off. You have to intuitively perceive what's closing you off and dismantle it. If you want the total openness, of course. Maybe you want anything else, anyone has it's choices 

I agree that openness is a decisive shift, and that a closed self is a form of quiet madness that most people normalize. Where I still differ is in treating interpretation as irrelevant once openness occurs. Interpretation does not cease simply because the system is open; what changes is what purpose interpretation is serving. An open self can still implicitly interpret reality as “what I now am”, namely as something that confirms its identity as totality. That move is extremely subtle, but it keeps a center in place, even if that center is expansive, fluid, and luminous.

Saying “the self is total reality in the form of the self” is precisely where I think a residual split hides. It sounds non-dual, but it still installs the self as the reference point through which totality is known, owned, or instantiated. Openness, in the deeper sense that I’m pointing to, is not the self recognizing itself as totality. Rather it is the quiet loss of the need to recognize anything at all. Totality does not need to be occupied by a self, even in an open form.

I also observe that death and threat are still doing important work in your framing. The self opens so it will no longer be under threat, no longer anxious, no longer imprisoned. That motivation assumes a center that must be safeguarded, even if now through openness rather than defense. What I’m pointing to is a shift where openness is no longer needed for the self, not to save it, complete it, or dissolve its fear, but happens seamlessly because the self is no longer the axis around which experience is organized.

So yes, articulation does matter. This isn't primarily to dismantle belief systems about gods, purposes, or metaphysics. It matters because certain articulations quietly reinforce a center that says, “I am what this life is about now, just without any friction.” The difference I’m teasing out isn’t between closed and open, or ignorant and enlightened; it’s between an open self that accomplishes merging with reality, and the end of the very need for any self to stand in that position at all.

Edited 8 hours ago by gettoefl

[Breakingthewall]

3 hours ago, gettoefl said:

Saying “the self is total reality in the form of the self” is precisely where I think a residual split hides. It sounds non-dual, but it still installs the self as the reference point through which totality is known, owned, or instantiated.

It's a description of a reality, not a belief that creates a dynamic of existence. I don't know if the point is clear. An open self isn't structured by the idea that it is reality, but rather that it is reality. So, if you want to articulate this fact in a structured way, you do so by saying: I, as a self, a structure that arises in reality, am reality structured in self mode. 

But the existence of that self does not revolve around that idea; it is the living reality in constant relational flow and is open to its unlimited nature. 

3 hours ago, gettoefl said:

also observe that death and threat are still doing important work in your framing. The self opens so it will no longer be under threat, no longer anxious, no longer imprisoned. That motivation assumes a center that must be safeguarded, even if now through openness rather than defense. What I’m pointing to is a shift where openness is no longer needed for the self, not to save it, complete it, or dissolve its fear, but happens seamlessly because the self is no longer the axis around which experience is organized.

The self is a reality, something that exists, just like the body or a stone. Its nature is self-preservation, the pursuit of the best and the avoidance of the worst, adaptation to the human social fabric, and alignment with a narrative. This will never, under any circumstances, disappear. It will change. Unless you undergo a lobotomy or have advanced Alzheimer's self exist. 

Jesus Christ or Buddha aligned themselves with their inner narrative as teachers, and created an ontological dissection between good and bad. 

3 hours ago, gettoefl said:

The difference I’m teasing out isn’t between closed and open, or ignorant and enlightened; it’s between an open self that accomplishes merging with reality, and the end of the very need for any self to stand in that position at all.

The idea that the self should cease to hold a position implies the belief that the self is a mistake, a very common concept in spirituality. This occurs because the energies of the self are perceived as closure, leading to the conclusion that the solution is to eliminate the self. The one who reaches this conclusion is the self, which values states of mystical ecstasy above worldly work, for example. But this is only the self's valuation.

I am 99.9% certain that if we were to speak in depth with mystics like Ramana Maharshi, Ramakrishna, Andamayi Ma, Tagore, Buddha, etc., we would find valuation, preference, desire. Even if that desire is the awakening of humanity or something else. Ultimately, it's the self. They are a self. 

You can be a businessman with the attitude of a knife and still be open to the total. The total denies nothing, it affirms everything, since everything is the total. And the self, of course, is an expression of the totality . The self is not the foundation, it's an expression, but is the self who is enlightened, not other.

The monks intuited that the self was closing, so the logical consequence was that the self must disappear for openness to be, or at least become very faint, practically nonexistent, without preference. But this isn't necessary; the self can retain its preference without the violent attitude of self-repression that the monks used to practice, but rather align itself with the flow of reality in such a way that separation disappears. In fact this is much more coherent attitude than denying the mundane as "bad" to be without preference. 

The monks, in order to avoid preference, prefer not to have preference😅

Edited 5 hours ago by Breakingthewall

[gettoefl]

51 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

It's a description of a reality, not a belief that creates a dynamic of existence. I don't know if the point is clear. An open self isn't structured by the idea that it is reality, but rather that it is reality. So, if you want to articulate this fact in a structured way, you do so by saying: I, as a self, a structure that arises in reality, am reality structured in self mode. 

But the existence of that self does not revolve around that idea; it is the living reality in constant relational flow and is open to its unlimited nature. 

The self is a reality, something that exists, just like the body or a stone. Its nature is self-preservation, the pursuit of the best and the avoidance of the worst, adaptation to the human social fabric, and alignment with a narrative. This will never, under any circumstances, disappear. It will change. Unless you undergo a lobotomy or have advanced Alzheimer's self exist. 

Jesus Christ or Buddha aligned themselves with their inner narrative as teachers, and created an ontological dissection between good and bad. 

The idea that the self should cease to hold a position implies the belief that the self is a mistake, a very common concept in spirituality. This occurs because the energies of the self are perceived as closure, leading to the conclusion that the solution is to eliminate the self. The one who reaches this conclusion is the self, which values states of mystical ecstasy above worldly work, for example. But this is only the self's valuation.

I am 99.9% certain that if we were to speak in depth with mystics like Ramana Maharshi, Ramakrishna, Andamayi Ma, Tagore, Buddha, etc., we would find valuation, preference, desire. Even if that desire is the awakening of humanity or something else. Ultimately, it's the self. They are a self. 

You can be a businessman with the attitude or a knife and still be open to the total. The total denies nothing, it affirms everything, since everything is the total. And the self, of course, is an expression of the totality . The self is not the foundation, it's an expression, but is the self who is enlightened, not other.

The monks intuited that the self was closing, so the logical consequence was that the self must disappear for openness to be, or at least become very faint, practically nonexistent, without preference. But this isn't necessary; the self can retain its preference without the violent attitude of self-repression that the monks used to practice, but rather align itself with the flow of reality in such a way that separation disappears. In fact this is much more coherent attitude than denying the mundane as "bad" to be without preference. 

The monks, in order to avoid preference, prefer not to have preference😅

 

I think this is where the disagreement becomes unavoidable, and I’ll state it starkly. Your central point is implacable insistence that “the self as total reality in self-mode” is merely a neutral description. I’m saying this isn’t the case. It is overtly an ontological move that installs the self as the locus through which totality is affirmed. You go one to say that the self doesn’t “revolve around the idea,” but the structure of the statement gives the self a vaunted position: reality is hereby articulated as self. That is not innocent. It is exactly how centrality survives without explicit belief.

You continue to reframe the issue as if the presented alternative were “eliminating the self” or treating it as a mistake. That’s a false dichotomy. No one here is denying the self, its preferences, its biological drives, or its narrative functions. What is being questioned is the necessity of the self remaining the reference point of meaning, even in an open, frictionless, luminous state. Do you not see that saying “the self is enlightened” still assigns awakening to a subject. The issue is not repression versus expression; it’s whether experience still orbits a fixed center that affirms, implicitly, here is what I am.

Concerning death and threat: you propose the self will always be oriented toward preservation and avoidance. At the biological level, of course. But you’re conflating organismic response with existential organization. The point is not that fear responses vanish; it’s that they no longer define what is at stake. As long as openness is framed as what frees the self from threat, anxiety, or imprisonment, the self remains at the axis. You’re right that monastics often got muddled here. but replacing repression with integration fails to resolve the deeper issue if the self is still what experience is assumed to be about.

Finally, when you say “it is the self that is enlightened, not other,” you’re pinpointing the exact limit I’m pointing to. That framing cannot see beyond itself because it assumes enlightenment must belong to someone. What I’m pointing to isn’t mystical ecstasy, holiness, or preference-erasure. It’s the collapse of the need for ownership of openness itself. Preferences can remain. Narratives can remain. Action can remain. What quietly falls away is the requirement that any of this confirm or instantiate a self as totality.

So yes of course, you are right that the self is an expression, not the foundation. But you are stopping short of letting that fact actually land. You allow the self to be not ultimate, yet still indispensable as the place where reality recognizes itself. Therein is the nagging split. And until that goes, the self did not dissolve into openness at all; it merely learned to speak the language of totality fluently.

Edited 4 hours ago by gettoefl

[UnbornTao]

On 1/29/2026 at 9:04 AM, vibv said:

But it isn't  

Probably.

On 1/30/2026 at 2:06 AM, Breakingthewall said:

Both are creations of the complex energy structure we call the brain. Seeing a tree seems direct,  but it isn't. First, there's the tree, which reflects the light entering the retina, and based on that, the brain creates an image that a center the brain itself constructs perceives, apparently receives that image.

If you like the tree, the brain, which is a quantum cloud of unimaginable complexity, takes the form of "liking," and the center created by that same quantum cloud "perceives." If you remember the tree you saw yesterday, the brain does the same thing; it takes a form that creates that image. In the first case, it does so nanoseconds after the light arrives. In the second case, it does so hours or days later. In both cases, there's a time lag, a creation of the image "tree" by the brain, and a creation by the perceiving center "self" that receives the perception. Qualitatively, it's exactly the same: reality expressing itself in coherent forms.

"Brain" is not something material vs spiritual. "Brain" is the form that reality is taking now. It's se same than a Galaxy, the gravity , the time or the light. Coherent possibilities that happens due the synchrony of the form. 

Easy there, you're gonna run out of concepts sooner or later. 

There is a difference made between perceiving something versus adding extraneous or complementary activities onto raw sensory input.

[UnbornTao]

On 1/30/2026 at 10:55 PM, Terell Kirby said:

Lots of knowing going on in here.

You all know Nothing! 

That's it - I'm picking you as my Lisan al-Gaib.

Edited 2 hours ago by UnbornTao

[Breakingthewall]

53 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Easy there, you're gonna run out of concepts sooner or later. 

There is a difference made between perceiving something versus adding extraneous or complementary activities onto raw sensory input.

Then raw sensory is the truth , and mental construction are lies. Well, this mental construction is your opinion. I respect it but I don't agree 

2 hours ago, gettoefl said:

think this is where the disagreement becomes unavoidable, and I’ll state it starkly. Your central point is implacable insistence that “the self as total reality in self-mode” is merely a neutral description. I’m saying this isn’t the case. It is overtly an ontological move that installs the self as the locus through which totality is affirmed. You go one to say that the self doesn’t “revolve around the idea,” but the structure of the statement gives the self a vaunted position: reality is hereby articulated as self. That is not innocent. It is exactly how centrality survives without explicit belief.

The self is how reality appears from the self. Without limits, any part is the whole, and the whole always manifests as a part. It is absolutely impossible for it to be otherwise. Every manifestation is relative to another. "Other" means another state, form, reflection. All these "others" are also the whole. There is no center, and at the same time, there are infinite potential centers. Therefore, the self is the whole manifested as self, and a neuron that is part of the structure of that self is the whole manifested as a neuron. Both are centers and parts at the same time.

2 hours ago, gettoefl said:

the self is still what experience is assumed to be about.

The self is a way in which dual experience is structured. There is experience without self, but there is no experience without duality. When reality manifests in the human structure, there is always self. Experience is not the foundation of the reality, is a possibility that arises

2 hours ago, gettoefl said:

the self did not dissolve into openness at all; it merely learned to speak the language of totality fluently.

The self dissolves into totality at the moment you die. Before that, it can open itself to limitless. Then it will be an enlightened self instead of a contracted self, but it will always be a self.

Edited 2 hours ago by Breakingthewall

[UnbornTao]

9 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Then raw sensory is the truth , and mental construction are lies. Well, this mental construction is your opinion. I respect it but I don't agree 

I didn't say that. Neither is true in the ultimate sense. Agreeing is part of the latter, by the way.

When you're hungry, you don't eat an image of an apple. This is the disparity I'm pointing out, since you said there was no difference between the two.

Even when you eat a so-called real apple, there's likely a lot in that experience that belongs to the category of mental construction, accompanying the simple act of eating a food item. 

Edited 2 hours ago by UnbornTao

[Breakingthewall]

2 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

I didn't say that. Neither is true in the ultimate sense. Agreeing is part of the latter, by the way.

When you're hungry, you don't eat an image of an apple. This is the disparity I'm pointing out, since you said there was no difference between the two.

There is no ontological difference between them; both are manifested reality. One as an image of an apple, and the other as an apple. You can't eat the image of an apple, but that doesn't mean that it's not real as an image. 

[gettoefl]

1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

Then raw sensory is the truth , and mental construction are lies. Well, this mental construction is your opinion. I respect it but I don't agree 

The self is how reality appears from the self. Without limits, any part is the whole, and the whole always manifests as a part. It is absolutely impossible for it to be otherwise. Every manifestation is relative to another. "Other" means another state, form, reflection. All these "others" are also the whole. There is no center, and at the same time, there are infinite potential centers. Therefore, the self is the whole manifested as self, and a neuron that is part of the structure of that self is the whole manifested as a neuron. Both are centers and parts at the same time.

The self is a way in which dual experience is structured. There is experience without self, but there is no experience without duality. When reality manifests in the human structure, there is always self. Experience is not the foundation of the reality, is a possibility that arises

The self dissolves into totality at the moment you die. Before that, it can open itself to limitless. Then it will be an enlightened self instead of a contracted self, but it will always be a self.

What I’m communicating here is that this position still upholds a separate self, only now in a more sophisticated, so-called totalized form. To say the self is “the whole manifested as self” may deny hierarchy, but it plainly keeps self as the operative site whence reality is affirmed, experienced, and spoken. For me this is but a refinement of the self, not an undoing. A realized perspective doesn't mean an enlightened or expanded self that fluently articulates totality; it’s the recognition that what seemed to be a self was never the focal point of reality at all. In that sense, nothing about the self becomes ultimate. What’s realized is precisely that there is no one there to occupy the center, refined or otherwise. And this opens the door to a new improved more intelligent kind of seeing, where experience is no longer organized around a ‘someone’ who has it.

[Breakingthewall]

Just now, gettoefl said:

What I’m communicating here is that this position still upholds a separate self

The separate self is real as a manifestation of the reality now. You could put adjectives as illusion or anything but the fact is that it is now. 

4 minutes ago, gettoefl said:

To say the self is “the whole manifested as self” may deny hierarchy, but it plainly keeps self as the operative site whence reality is affirmed,

Obviously it is, or do you think that it's an illusion? It's how reality appears, nothing else. 

4 minutes ago, gettoefl said:

For me this is but a refinement of the self, not an undoing

Exactly, enlightenment is a refinement of the self. Nothing else. The self can be unrefined, like, say, Donald Trump's, or highly refined, aligned in such a way that it perceives itself as the unlimited manifesting, like, for example, the self of Buddha, but both are self

7 minutes ago, gettoefl said:

it’s the recognition that what seemed to be a self was never the focal point of reality at all

That's just a change of perspective and it's irrelevant. That's what the neo-Advaita claim, that they realize the self isn't real and that's enlightened. No, enlightenment is realizing what the self ultimately is, not that it's an illusion. Enlightenment is perceiving the totality in all that exists. Perceiving it not as knowledge or a perspective, but as what reality is. 

12 minutes ago, gettoefl said:

What’s realized is precisely that there is no one there to occupy the center,

That would be structural knowledge. You know there is no center. That's the opposite of the fact that there is a center. But you remain closed to the essence, to what you truly are. You are the unlimited, period.

Imagine having a lobotomy and not knowing what a center is, or anything at all, but being completely open to the unlimited nature. Imagine your mind being a hole and everything that is perceived is the bottomless, living totality, the total being. You don't know that you can be damaged, or that you are a human, nothing. Just the totality alive open to itself. There is no time, no registration, no differentiation. Then there is not a center, not a self. But there is perception? Difficult to say, right? There is no time, cero time. There is not perception, it's deep sleep, nothing. Reality manifested. But reality in its absolute totality. Do you see the image?

Now imagine that they reverse that lobotomy and you regain a mental structure. You perceive the entire dynamic of form around you, you grasp all the nuances of relationships, and you feel the need to protect your body, and the timeline. You find it wrong to torture children, and women attract you, but you remain open to the essence of what everything is.

Then you would say: I perceive the nature of reality, what reality is, and at the same time I perceive that I am a self-preserving structure that appears as a center that perceives and registers the form .

This structure may be temporary or whatever, but it is. Right now, it is a reality. To make a mental shift to see it as an illusion or a dream of God is irrelevant and useless. It is what it is, a manifestation of the whole, like everything else. The point is perceive it's nature, the unlimited.