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Is absolute silence even possible on our planet or in our universe? I feel it's relative.
We have ears that pick up everything, so in our physical form, even if we sat in the most silent place imaginable and used earplugs, we'd still hear ourselves breathing :)

Yes absolute silence is possible; all of our senses are based on awareness and we can withdraw into inner silence and not be aware of any noise which might be around us. We see what we want to see; we ordinarily do not see everything that is taking place around us; it is the same for the other senses as well. That is why we call them senses, because we can sense experiences with them or choose to block out the sensing of experiences. This type of sensing requires focus and disciple; most people allow their senses to control them; they let their senses run wild dragging them from one thing to the other, instead of them focusing their senses and savoring the intake of their experience. Yoga techniques teach self control of the senses.

Silence has a presence which we can actually go into, and in the presence of silence everything is still; regardless of how much noise and activity is going on around us on the outside.

Your words echo with the sounds of the Silence we're speaking of, EZ -- Lovely!!!

"That is why we call them senses, because we can sense experiences with them or choose to block out the sensing of experiences."

Makes sense (pun intended:)

I agree that there are many benefits to having the discipline to block the senses and "go within".

Is it also possible that our miraculous physical bodies, with all their senses, could be vehicles that enable All That Is to experience Itself?

Rich,

Thanks for your continued responses and descriptive statements.

"Light's Totality and Ultimate Glory is a product of intellectual activity."

---Terms "Light's Totality" and "Ultimate Glory" are terms that were created in someone's mind and thus a product of intellectual activity. If these terms came from another source, then please supply further information. Nothing wrong with the two statements.

Other examples of terms or terminology(imo)that are a product of intellectual activity, are listed as follows,

"Is the Ground of All, Is the Holy Grail, Is the Father's Son, Is the Holy One, Is the One I Am, Is That Which I Am, Is All I can Be; Is the Son of God, Is God Manifest, Is the Holy Ghost, Is Paradise Found, Is the End of Days, Is the Eternal, Is the Absolute, Is Everlasting, Is Fundamental, Is What We All Seek, Is I as I Am, Is God in the Flesh, Is Being Ignored, Is Knowledge Itself, Is Pure Awareness."

Again, nothing wrong with these terms, however they are the product of intellectual activity. Dualistic activitities occur all the time.

Again, thanks for your continued comments.
Roger

Silence is a word that can take on many defintions. It could be the absence of terms, phrases, titles, and various expressions. Maybe, maybe not. Non-duality can never be understood from the point of view of duality. Duality does a great job of pointing to non-duality. In silence, this pointing, simply fades away. Blogging is duality, and no harm in such. In blogging representation and misrepresentations occur, still no harm done. It's just blogging.

Dear EZ,

RE: Intriguing stuff Rich; very metaphysical, and I concur with most, but zero is still a form and a “non-relative state” does not include form.

1) “Absolute Zero” is just a name pointing to That which Can’t be Named (or related to relatively) – the Absolute or Stateless State (Absolute Potential to Be Any and All in All Time and Space).

2) Don’t know whether I’ve use this metaphor here before but, whether I have or have not, it seems time to review the bidding with respect to the intent of the words being offered (and what then can and cannot do):

Coin Balancing: Although we cannot fully define an absolute state in relative terms, we can use analogies, metaphors and similes in an attempt to evoke or recall a direct sense or perception of that state. Thus, if I have an experience I wish to share, I can use a metaphor to indicate what it felt like with the hope of evoking a similar feeling in another. This is the verbal equivalent of having someone balance a coin to convey what balance feels like. This is because balance, as an absolute or non-relative state, cannot be captured in words, yet can be known as a direct experience. Thus, by moving a coin back and forth through its balance point, while progressively reducing said movements, one may get a feel for almost balanced. Then, suddenly, as the coin comes to rest, perhaps a direct sense of balance, as a non-relative state, may be experienced.

RE: So in my opinion silence goes beyond the equivalent of absolute zero. The Romans had no symbol for zero because they believed why have symbols for something that represents nothing.

1) I would suggest the reason to have a symbol to represent “No Thing” (re: Nothing that can be made a thing and related to relatively) is that said “Absolute No Thing” (or Infinite Potential to Be) is the necessary Fountainhead of Everything and, thus, the only “Thing” worthy of the name God, which I assume is a name the Greeks used for the “Ultimate Some Thing” (or State of Being).

2) And, from a more pragmatic or worldly perspective, ask a mathematician just how important zero “as a representation of no-thing” is to advanced mathematics and the flowering of the discipline when it was introduced.

Re: Once we put something in context, even to say that it is nothing, we have made it relative to something. No it is not my intent to play intellectual games.

I know your not, EZ.

1) This reminds me of a convention a friend once used to overcome the innate limits (as you suggest) of “words that are necessarily defined in terms of what they are not.” In this regard, he acknowledged that relative knowledge involves a seemingly endless number of apparently mutually exclusive opposites (re: “up/down, in/out, off/on, light/dark, positive/negative, life/death, good/evil, zero/one, absolute/relative...etc).

However, the catch is that all such seeming opposites are not really mutually exclusive, but rather “two ends of one stick -- a stick that the mind cannot see the totality or unity of because of it partial manner of perception -- or “opposite sides so a single coin” that the mind is constrained to see in an “either or way.”

So this friend of mind did was use the “/” to represent the Essential Unity that underlies all seeming pairs of mutually exclusive opposites -- more as a personal reminder to remember that neither end of the conceptual stick or coin is the whole coin.

2) Tradition trinities, “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” and Sat-Chit-Ananda,for example, are other ways of representing the One underlying the Apparent Twoness (or the Many) of Relativity or Relative Being: where the Son and Spirit are dualistic sub-sets or apparent divisions of the Father, and Chit and Ananda sub-divisions (apparent only). (Note: Obviously, I do not concur with the traditional interpretation of the Trinity representing “Go in Three Persons” (which can only be justified as a mystery, as an Absolute God is by definition Impersonal, as would be the Son and Spirit as Universal Principles).

3) Anyway, I have no problem with using “Absolute/relative” where Absolute (with a capital “A”) Represents (or points to) the Ultimate Relative State, as well as the Absolute Unity of which any and all such apparent relative states are sub-sets or divisions.

RE: In my perception relative-ness is illusionary as the oneness of being exists even in seemingly separate entities. I agree that the intellect does not create light rather it reflects it, and it is these reflections that create relationships or the appearance of relative-ness.

Agree. By Absolute Standards of Eternal Changelessness/Timelessness any relative-ness is purely a misperception and/or ignorance of the underlying Oneness of All

RE: Looking at the beginning of the whirlings, often symbolized by Sufi whirling dervishes, sound is the first matter and it precedes light; sound comes out of silence, but if silence is absolute zero then beyond silence is the non-quantifiable unknowable; well it does seem with this statement I have contradicted myself. From this perspective silence just might be perceived as absolute zero! While silence does not have form, and may be the absence of vibration, it does have a presence.

Bingo!!!

RE: “And you can't get There from Here (at least not with a relative state of mind and/or the self-reflective light of the intellect). You can, however, Be the Pure, Still, Silent Aware Space (that is, by definition, Absolute, Infinite, Eternal and implicitly Absolutely Still and Silent) You Always Already Are, if you die to yourself as the relative/carnal state of mind egocentric thought fabricates. “

Amen to that!

Amen to your Amen (I pronounce it as “Aaaahmen” as the Aaah sound is the Heart Sound and points to the Seat of the Self/I AM in the body – two inches to the right of the breastbone according to Sri Ramana as I recollect), my Friend.

RE: Thank you for your tireless sharing of wonderful insights.

Thank You for your Thank You!!!

Dear Rascally Rabbit Roger (or R-Cubed, if you like),

"Light's Totality and Ultimate Glory is a product of intellectual activity."

RE---Terms "Light's Totality" and "Ultimate Glory" are terms that were created in someone's mind and thus a product of intellectual activity. If these terms came from another source, then please supply further information. Nothing wrong with the two statements.

What’s wrong with the first statement, Roger, is that if it was "orginally intended and interpreted" as you claim than it was deliberately misleading and apparently intended to "entrap rather than enlighten."

What’s also wrong with the said statement, at least from a communication standpoint, is that it is needlessly confusing to those who might actually be interested in seeing What those “intellectual terms” (which are not the point) are actually pointing to (from many different directions for purposes of conceptual triangulation).

Yes, of course, the words (the menu) came from (or at least through) the intellect; but “What” those words represent is certainly not “produced” by the intellect -- not anymore than speaking about “sunlight” produces the “actual light” so conceptualized and referred to in words.

This is old ground, Roger, as we’ve more than once previously established that “the word is not the thing” (re: the word water will not quench one’s thirst).

Besides, even the “terms” you refer to, Roger, are only “formed” (and you can equate "formed to produced" if you like) by “intellectual self-refection” which does not, in and of itself, “create” the “Pure Light of Awareness” which becomes "Self-Aware as a Vibratory State of Itself called Consciousness (or Being)," and then subsequently formed into “letters, words and concepts” by the said intellect.

So let’s not confuse folks by implicitly equating “intellectual construction” with “creation” (unless by “product of intellectual activity” intellectual fabrication rather than “creation” was actually intended in the first place).

RE: Other examples of terms or terminology(imo)that are a product of intellectual activity, are listed as follows, "Is the Ground of All, Is the Holy Grail, Is the Father's Son, Is the Holy One, Is the One I Am, Is That Which I Am, Is All I can Be; Is the Son of God, Is God Manifest, Is the Holy Ghost, Is Paradise Found, Is the End of Days, Is the Eternal, Is the Absolute, Is Everlasting, Is Fundamental, Is What We All Seek, Is I as I Am, Is God in the Flesh, Is Being Ignored, Is Knowledge Itself, Is Pure Awareness."

All of these Names/Terms/Phases/Chacterizations, which are "only pointers" to THAT which can't be named, seem vaguely familiar (LOL).

RE: Again, nothing wrong with these terms, however they are the product of intellectual activity. Dualistic activities occur all the time.

The “terms” may be the product of “intellectual activity,” Roger, but What they point to most certainly is not.

We’ve already addressed this above and before, Roger, and I really do have to wonder why you would continue to fixate on the “conceptual fingers” being used to point to the Non-Conceptual Moon instead of the Moon Itself; unless, of course, there is some "rascally rabbit" subversive intent here, either conscious or unconscious.

One again, I am compelled to express the feeling here that these continued “word/mind games” are both off-point and counterproductive. However, knock yourself out -- have as much fun playing with the words as you like. But please, let's move beyond repeatedly pointing out that "the menu isn't the meal" and harping on the obvious fact that words can never transcend their own innate relativity.

PS: Still not doing a particularly good job "holding my Peace" -- but, then again, "holding what I actually Am" is an impossibility anyway.

Rich,

Thanks for your continued messages and descriptive statements.

I liked the “Rascally Rabbit Roger” title; I think it may fit well. Likewise, I like the “Rascal” description (I use)and found it from “Our Gang,” also known as the “Little Rascals” or Hal Roach's Rascals, a series of American comedy short films about a group of poor neighborhood children and the adventures they had together.

Yes, Rich my friend, within Subjectivity and Objectivity, One can find representations, misrepresentation, leadings, misleadings, entrapment rather than enlightenment, implicitly equatings, information, misinformation, conceptualism, non-conceptualism, Rascals and non-Rascals. No harm in such, no harm intended and hopefully interpreted. No bad statements, however, Rich we are here in a blog where all kinds of written messages are presented. We present our comments and receive replies.

Rich, I'm not that well read, and have a limited vocabulary. I need your help in the correct definition of some of your written terms and statements. Please feel free to explain the following:

1. “hold my Peace” in the face of such misinformation. - What is this Peace that needs to be held?

2. "funning/pimping/yanking my chain" - I have a chain in my garage, use it to secure my
lawn mower and weedeater from theft. Rich, is this yanking and pimping a religious/spiritual
ritual?

3. “word/mind games” - Is this mind game similar to that needed to play a Monopoly game?

4. “knock yourself out” -- have as much fun playing with the words as you like.” - Is this knocking
out another religious/spiritual ritual? Rich, where did you receive your training in such? Not
finding fault, just wondering.

5. "Zen duals" – Does this require a Zen Master to teach this dueling, at a Zen religious place?

Again Rich, thanks for any clarification on these terms you put into writing.

Rich, you did mention the following,

”Besides, even the “terms” you refer to, Roger, are only “formed” (and you can equate "formed to produced" if you like) by “intellectual self-refection” which does not, in and of itself, “create” the “Pure Light of Awareness” which becomes "Self-Aware as a Vibratory State of Itself called Consciousness (or Being)," and then subsequently formed into “letters, words and concepts” by the said intellect.”

---Yes, pure Presence pure Light of Awareness with Absence of conceptualization. Rich, this is a meaningful statement.

You then mentioned,

”So let’s not confuse folks by implicitly equating “intellectual construction” with “creation” (unless by “product of intellectual activity” intellectual fabrication rather than “creation” was actually intended in the first place).”

---Who within this EON blog is confusing folks by engaging in the act of “implicitly” equating?

Rich, as stated before, many thanks to you for your continued kindness and time spent
Many best wishes to you.
Take care,
Roger

p. s. - The “R-cubed” is totally KOOL