Friend: Dear Magdi,
It is undeniable that we all experience something. It is a miracle that there is anything in the first place. A mystery. What is it made of? Broadly can we group it under Perceptions and Thoughts? We also experience ourselves. That ‘I AM’ is undeniable. Also, in the absence of a thought narrative, this Experience seems unified. No divisions. No experiencer or experienced. Is this what the awakened teachers point to when they say: Experience, Awareness and I are ONE. Please elaborate on Experience, Perceptions, Thoughts and I.

Thank you

Magdi: Dear Ganesh
Keeping in mind that words are gross instruments to express the inexpressible, what we experience is consciousness and nothing else. Given only consciousness is real and given there is no-thing else, it is consciousness which is experiencing itself in all experiences.
The mind is an interpreter of a sort. It is wired for survival and procreation. It uses perception and depends on thoughts and concepts in order to increase its chance of survival. The distinction between a lion and a butterfly is an important one. The first may kill is and the second will not.
In terms of categorizing perception, our phenomenal experience consists of world perceptions, thoughts and bodily sensations. That is the phenomenal aspect of our experience. The noumenal aspect of our experience is the reality aspect. The reality which perceives, also referred to as consciousness/awareness.
The non-dual understanding reveals that there is one changeless constant, one reality in our experience, which is consciousness/awareness. While consciousness is changeless, the phenomenal aspect is constantly changing. The phenomenal aspect refers to time and space, meaning thought and perception. The noumenal aspect is eternal, meaning not in time. Time and space are appearances within changeless, eternal consciousness.
Further, while consciousness/awareness is self knowing, I know that I am, a tree or a thought is not self knowing. Rather, it is known by consciousness.
One more crucial understanding is about the reality of perception. Perception or mind, meaning thoughts, bodily sensations, world perceptions appear at zero distance to the perceiver. We perceive our perceptions of the world, body mind. Our perceptions are intimate with the perceiving aspect, one with consciousness, the reality which perceives. The reality of mind is not the mind. It is consciousness.
Consider waves on the surface of the ocean or currents in the midst of the ocean. Waves and currents do not exist from the perspective of the ocean. They are the movement of the ocean, from itself, within itself and to itself. Only the ocean is real.
You are this ocean ‘wave-ing’ and ‘current-ing’.
You are this formless noumenal consciousness.

Everything you experience, you do so out of your innate freedom and out of your sense of creativity. There is nothing apart from you/consciousness.
Once this is deeply understood, the virus of separation and duality is annihilated.

There is no need to maintain the belief and feeling of separation. It is not based on facts. It is not based on experience.

Friend: Thank you Magdi, for the uncompromising message that aligns with the Truth.

“It is Consciousness which is experiencing itself in all experiences. There is no-thing else” (Noumenal) Yes, there is no doubt there.
“Our perceptions are intimate with the perceiving aspect, one with consciousness.” (Phenomenal) Yes, there is no doubt there either.

There is still some un-clarity about how the noumenal and phenonmenal aspects co-exist. i.e. If all there is, is Consciousness then where is the question of ‘Our Perceptions’ ? But then when I ask myself the question, ‘What is the reality of the un-clarity’ ? That too must be Consciousness, Right? Then no problem..

As an aside, I find metaphors like the ocean no doubt, helpful initially, but they don’t go further. It is more like an Ocean that has somehow given itself the power to appear (to itself) as ‘waves’ where each wave believes ‘I am a wave, not the ocean.’

Magdi: Dear Ganesh,
You ask: “There is still some unclarity about how the noumenal and phenomenal aspects co-exist. If all there is, is Consciousness, then where is the question of ‘Our Perceptions’ ?”

Excellent question.
Keep in mind that all non-dual language is simply pedagogical. The non-dual teachings are like a thorn used to remove a thorn. Once the thorn is removed, we discard both thorns. Right?
The aim of the Dharma is to remove the illusion of separation. Separation is not real. When a child is afraid that there is a dragon in his closet, we use various strategies in order to invite the child to see that the dragon in the closet is not real.
Subject and object, perceiver and perceived, self and other, world body and mind…. are useful illusions. Meaning, they are mind stuff, most of which is useful in a practical manner in order to navigate this human life.
What we share in the non-dual teaching is the understanding about identification and its implications. Given it is unhappy, we explore the possibility of dropping identification. As this understanding establishes itself, the mind collapses into the heart, not to rise again.
It is from this perspective that the sages say: There is only God. There are no things. No other reality besides the reality of consciousness. No world body mind outside of God’s will.
Shiva/Shakti are one.
The realization of oneness brings an end to all questions and the conceptual realm continues to serve its practical function in this human dream, which, in fact, is God’s dream.

Friend: Thank you Magdi. I get it. Your words remind me of the verse from the Gita, which you often quote too: The unreal has no existence; the real never ceases to be. (Chapter 2, Verse 16). The questions are fewer than they used to be, but there is a curiousity (mostly academic), to know or feel the substance of this seemingly alive and throbbing world of sensations and thought, as Consciousness. Does Consciousness morph into all this, appear as all this? It reminds me of another verse in the Gita (9.4) “All this universe is pervaded by Me in My unmanifest form.”

Can this even be understood by the mind?

Magdi: Dear Ganesh,
You ask: “There is a curiosity (mostly academic), to know or feel the substance of this seemingly alive and throbbing world of sensations and thought, as Consciousness. Does Consciousness morph into all this, appear as all this?”

Our natural state, our reality, is oneness. You ask: ‘How does it feel?’
Where does this question arise from? For whom would oneness feel like this or feel like that? What are you assuming yourself to be as you ask this question?
Feelings are necessary mind narratives. They are essential for the survival of the organism. We feel fear when we come face to face with a tiger. This fear serves a very important purpose for the survival of the humanoid, and we run up a tree for safety. There is no personal self feeling anything. When it relates to the safety of the organism, fear is organismic.
The non-dual understanding is about imagined fear. Meaning, fear which arises from the false belief of being a separate entity, existing in time and space. This imagined fear cannot be settled by running up a tree. What is needed is to come to the profound understanding that there is no separate entity anywhere, and that separation is imagined.
Once this is deeply realized, our experience is void of unhappiness, void of imagined fears and void of the sense of lack.
You ask: How does it feel? How does happiness feel? How does love and peace feel? Can the mind describe that which does not belong to the mind? Although the sun shines onto the moon, can the moon describe the sunlight? It simply reflects it but does not know it as its own self. The sunlight belongs to the sun and not to the moon.
Further, contemplate that consciousness does not morph into anything. When you look up at the sky, and it is cloudy, the sky appears gray and limited. Once the clouds dissipate, the sky appears blue and vast. What we overlook is that in both cases, you, meaning the reality which perceives, is not limited when the sky is perceived as gray and limited nor are you expanded when the sky is blue and vast.
Consciousness is always free and non-finite. There is nothing separate from consciousness, no matter how it may seem to appear.

Friend: Thank you Magdi. I am glad you are not allowing me to deviate from the Truth, rather than explain the mechanics and substance of an illusion!

“What are you assuming yourself to be when you ask this question” – A character in the dream, with a dream question about the nature of the dream. An impossibility. I see.

Love the examples!