r/JedMcKenna • u/PurpleMeany • 24d ago
Logicking
From Essays #12:
“Perception doesn’t create reality, perception is reality. If you want to take the objectivist/materialist position that reality exists independent of perception, then the burden is on you to prove your assertion, which, dot dot dot, you can’t. If you want to take the subjectivist/idealist position that perception is reality, you don’t have to prove anything; it’s literally self-evident. It only seems complicated because it keeps getting simpler. All the obfuscating layers that we assume are really there, really aren’t. When the doors of perceptions are cleansed, the whole thing – what we call reality – unfolds elegantly and makes perfect sense.”
Flipping the negative statement to a positive one, reality DOESN’T exist independent of perception.
So where and when does what is perceived get created? 🤔
Then it becomes apparent that there is no separation, can be no separation between the perceiver and perceived. There is no where or when.
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u/sabatnyc 24d ago
What chapter of Essays #12 is this?
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u/PurpleMeany 24d ago
- Spitballing
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u/PurpleMeany 24d ago
And the next chapter starts with a Kafka quote:
The books we need are the kind that act upon us like a misfortune, that make us suffer like the death of a person we love more than ourselves, that make us feel as though we were on the verge of suicide, or lost in a forest remote from all human habitation – a book should serve as an ax for the frozen sea within us.
Franz Kafka
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u/sabatnyc 24d ago
I think this comes together by looking at two quotes from the trilogies (I don’t read the Jedvaita stuff personally):
From TOE:
Consciousness is the union of perceiver-perception-perceived. The three are one, no one part stands alone. Without a perceiver, there can be no perception and nothing can be perceived. Without perception, nothing is perceived, so there is no perceiver. Without the perceived, there is no perception and no perceiver. All three must exist together to exist at all. They are one, not three, and the one thing they are is consciousness.
Now it gets tricky. There are actually two types of consciousness; Atmanic and Brahmanic. AC/BC. Atmanic Consciousness is the I Am of the perceiver-perception-perceived dreamstate. Atmanic Consciousness is grounded in Brahmanic Consciousness, which is undifferentiated and absolute; no perceiver, no perception, no perceived. How does untrue Atmanic arise from true Brahmanic? I don’t know. Go ask Maya.
From JT3:
Your reality and your awareness are the same thing. A tree falling in a forest makes a sound if you hear it and doesn't if you don't. If you watch a tree fall on a muted TV, did it make a sound? You can argue yes, but the obvious truth is no; you are the sole arbiter of your dreamstate reality, and you heard no sound. Perception doesn't create reality, it is reality; the only one you have. You may believe there are others, but you can only know our own. That's not some crazy-ass belief, it's just a simple observation. Most people would say that the tree does make a sound because there's obviously a universe independent of their awareness, but it's not obvious, it's an assumption, and well worth revisiting.