All Experience Occurs Within the Self – 09.13.12

Excerpt: “All experience occurs within the Self and can be modified by the Self because it is actually all part of the Self, and a creation of the Self. But the Self never appears as an object, and the Self, to all intents and purposes to the scientific mind, does not exist. And this is why many have called Advaita and Buddhism forms of religious atheism. You could say that, but they are not atheism in the same sense as the materialist [who] doesn’t believe in God. The materialist is simply refusing to believe in Sunday school stories. But if the materialist had to actually consider what is the ultimate transcendental condition of experience, then that would be a different matter. So when the atheists attack God, they’re attacking a straw God, a false God. But when you ask ‘Who is doing the attacking?’ ‘Who is the source of the consciousness with that attitude?’ you can take that consciousness back to a level which cannot be understood. But it is fair to say that Advaita and Buddhism are forms of transtheism because no concept of God can ever capture the Self, not even the word Self. And that is why we often will say the Self is no self. And the metaphor is often used that what the Self is, is the space in which consciousness occurs. But even that is only a metaphor because the Self constitutes whatever space it is in which experience occurs but is not Itself that space. And therefore the Self is absolutely transcendent of all conceptualization, and the only way to reach it is by letting go of the attempt to do just that.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, September 13, 2012.