Awakening to the Dream

The Gift of Lucid Living

    *  ATTD News Letter Number 100   Sunday, February 18, 2007  *
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    Table of Contents.
    Q & A.
Question: According to most scientists, matter can neither be created nor destroyed. If this is so, then matter has neither a beginning nor an end. How then, can awareness/consciousness be said to be prior to matter/appearances?
Answer: When zooming in on a presumably solid object, all we find is empty space and energy, and its firmness turns out to be an illusion, or a 'relative truth' at best. Look, where does matter - or anything else- manifest? Is it not in consciousness? Does IT really 'matter' (solidify into matter) and what is 'matter' anyway?
Here matter is only known/experienced as sensory input . In other words, matter-itself is never really known, only various sensations in consciousness; and like ripples in water are nothing but water 'sensations in consciousness' are consciousness itself. In that sense we could indeed say that matter -or consciousness appearing AS matter- has no beginning or end. We could also say that consciousness is prior to matter in the same way that gold is prior to golden ornaments. Actually there is no difference between the ornament and its 'sub-stance' just like there is no difference between Consciousness and the way IT appears as matter: All there is, is Consciousness.
'Objective appearances' are also available in dreams where it is perhaps easier to see that solidity and fluidity manifest in -and out of- consciousness only.
Question: Also, how does matter/appearances/things manifest from awareness/no-thing? In other words, how does something arise from no-thing? Does 'ex nihilo nihil' not apply? Or is no-thing actually "something" but only no-thing to the "mind"?
Answer: On the one hand this nothingness is but a concept and utterly simple but, on the other hand, no-thing-ness is an unimaginable mystery. Just try to imagine absolute nothingness, this would include the absence of the one trying to imagine this, as well as the absence of total blackness, absolute blankness or space. It turns out to be an impossible assignment, as every-thing we think or say about IT is again 'some-thing.' Here the meaning of the word 'thing' is expanded to include all objects; including subtle objects such as space, time, thoughts and feelings. All so-called objects appear in, to, and from 'the Ultimate Subject' which cannot be made into an object and therefore is indeed 'something' that is 'no-thing' to the mind..
This 'Ultimate Subject' -prior to all coming and going- may be pointed to with concepts such as Consciousness, Awareness, The Void, Tao or no-thing-ness, and from 'this' all arises, just like in a dream. No 'matter' how we call it, there is this undeniable Presence; And -mystery of mysteries- even though it is clear that nothing can come from nothing, Here It Is.
Plop, there it is!
Nothing else than that, which is empty of matter, fills all corners of the universe!
Mountains, rivers, the entire world, you and all, they manifest the body of the One.
(Buddhist verse)

Art by: James Matuszak Title: 'Spiralling Matter'
Found at:
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    All the world's diversityUP

Benedictory Verse Addressed to the Self

1 May the unique Self, which appears as various objects in the same way that gold takes the shape of the mould into which it is cast, be our support and guide for composing this work, Sorupa Saram, which proclaims that the nature of the world is only consciousness.

2 Since the three kinds of differences do not exist, everything is only consciousness. The certainty of the existence of consciousness is stated in this way.
Since there is nothing at all that is different from consciousness, the five elements, along with the five senses and the five organs of sense, all these are consciousness only. Whatever is in the beginning, in the middle and in the end - all these are also consciousness. The indescribable illusion is also consciousness. The one who perceives everything and the act of perceiving are also consciousness.
3 Question: Is there a logical way of concluding that everything is consciousness alone?
Answer: Yes, there is.
All the world's diversity, which derives from the misperceptions of the mind and which appears to be real - is it not the witnessing consciousness alone? Hence, everything - beginning with liberation and including purity and impurity, joy and misery, that which is and that which is not - is only being.

From: Sorupa Saram
(The Essence of One?s Own True Nature
by Sorupananda
Sorupa Saram (also known as Swarupa Saram when it is spelt in the Sanskrit way) is a Tamil advaitic work that was composed by Sorupananda, a distinguished Tamil saint and Guru who lived near Virai, a Tamil town, probably around the end of the sixteenth century.
Art by: Jack Haas Title: 'The Splendor Kingdom of Harmony and Oneness'
(Deatail from larger image)
Found at:
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    Awakened PoetryUP

From: An Adamantine Song
on the Ever-Present

Rootless and baseless are appearance
and void, in the self-arisen rikpa
of every perception.
Vivid is the sense of noncessation:
luminous, the absence of object perception.

Within the voidness free of class distinction
all appearances dissolve, for their ground is lost;
The rikpa of liberation is spread evenly.
Subject and object are both void,
for their roots are lost.

The essence of self-arisen wisdom
and all duality are cleansed like the sky;
subjects and objects arise as free from bounds,
as naked dharmakaya!
This is the Great Perfection, free of cognition!

The self-arisen ground primordially pure,
the ultraversed path supremely swift,
the unsought fruit spontaneously savored,
such is the Great Perfection,
in the radiant dharmakaya.

    Quote of the Moment!UP

... the beginningless Brahman, ...
can be called neither being nor nonbeing.
It is indivisible, yet appears divided in separate creatures.
Dwelling in every heart, it is beyond darkness.
It is called the light of lights,
the object and goal of knowledge,
and knowledge itself.

From: 'The Bhagavad Gita'
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    Smile of the Moment!UP

Older but Wiser
A wealthy old lady decides to go on a photo safari in Africa taking her faithful aged poodle named Cuddles along for the company.
One day the poodle starts chasing butterflies and, before long, Cuddles discovers that he's lost.
The old poodle thinks, "Oh, oh! I'm in real deep doo-doo now!"
The young leopard is furious at being made a fool of and says:
Now, the old poodle sees the leopard coming with the monkey on his back and thinks, "What am I going to do now?", but, instead of running, the dog sits down with his back to his attackers, pretending he hasn't seen them yet, and just when they get close enough to hear, the old poodle says.

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