Andrew, you asked this:
And I will leave you with one last question. How can you achieve TRUE PEACE & LOVE within on your own when you yourself are IMPERFECT. There has to be a PERFECT & HOLISTIC concept/existence/source beyond all things to which with its help you CAN become PERFECT YOURSELF.
This SOURCE must not be corruptible or prone to any corruption. It is SHADOWLESS LIGHT, PURE LIGHT.
Presenting light as being somehow more divine or more pure than sound is a modern prejudice based upon our preference for a certain type of perceptual information. In fact, light, like sound, is something that arises solely in the mind. I am talking about what we can have a direct experience of, unmediated by our habit of discerning differences and labeling the results so that we can grasp them. We reach a point where we realize that there is only one sense — the mind — and the distinctions we make between different types of phenomena is empty of meaning and without reference. Hearing ends, vision ends, and only naturing remains.
But the kind of light and sound that will disclose the truth to us must be uncaused, not the result of physical processes, so the Light and Sound that is uncaused does not arise in the mind in the same way that our perceptions of light and sound arise.
You said:
If we focus on the sound, we may attain great qualities, but the sound is still a form of NATURING, it is against the background of Stillness.
Inner spontaneous sound and light is not natured. As I have pointed out, when we speak of mind, we are referring to naturing. Naturing gives rise to the world of bodies and things, and so, perceptions and thoughts, emotions — all that which has a physical manifestation. Inner spontaneous sound and light do not have a physical manifestation. They arise in mind, i.e. immanent within the naturing of our bodies and the world — all that activity. They are immanent within the activity, but are not the activity, nor a different form of activity. They are a big pointing finger, pointing at the naturing, for us to see and follow to that which is the essence of what we call mind. And the point of all traditional meditation is to have a direct experience of the nature (essence) of mind. How convenient we have a giant pointing finger to show us the way!
You said:
The point of unlearning & being AWARE, is to become AWARE that we are AWARENESS. This is the divine part of us that is at its core IMMORTAL & above all.
“Awareness” is an abstraction. What we are trying to say when we speak like this is that there is a spiritual aspect to all things, distinguishing the spiritual from the material. That distinction is necessary in the absence of a direct insight into the nature of mind, in which there is nothing to be distinguished. That is why I don’t talk about spirituality as something in opposition to the physical stuff. These distinctions are based upon a lack of direct insight, or they are used to try to distinguish between mundane experiences and understanding and super-mundane direct experiences and insight — for those along the way. Unfortunately, these ways of talking are taken as absolutes and fixate our understanding, forever locking us out of actually understanding anything at all. We must leave the conceptual behind.
However, that which these ways of talking are trying to point at are not immortal, they are timeless — not in time, not of time, otherwise than being something.
You suggest:
Would it not be more truthful for us to focus on STILLNESS instead? This is even more in-line with what you are writing about esp. in the proems. It is in the true heart of these teachings!
“Stillness” is another abstraction. The stillness you seek is not a thing to be found. It is the tranquillity that comes from directly experiencing the nature of mind. You cannot meditate on “stillness” until you still your mind — and that is the tranquillity that comes. There is nothing else to seek or find. After that, everything shines in a divine light, and sings a divine song. Everything.
