Friends Talk with Douglas 

February, 21, 2023

The nature of every small object is the nature of the whole world. A book consists of chapters; chapters paragraphs; paragraphs, and words.

A sentence consists of several words, and each word is independent and disconnected; but, connected to something beyond the mind.

A word likewise consists of several sounds, each being independent and meaningless, however, different sounds are also connected by the same principle that connects the different words of the sentence.

The sounds appear as sounds resulting from a connecting principle that goes into making the sound.

The substance of the sound and the world is the connecting principle which is Self- consciousness.

Whenever you do or understand something, or you do not understand something you are in your real nature, for you are always in your real nature no matter what you do.

This truth is manifested when you chant ‘aum’. During chanting the senses and the mind are arrested by the sound that slowly vanishes into the inaudible.

Along with the sound the mind also vanishes into the background which is our real nature, and what remains in peace.

I often recommend intoning ‘aum’ ( ar oo em) every night before going to sleep. All sounds can lead you to experience your real nature, and also when you are inactive you are never anywhere else.

The ego gives different meanings and limitations to words and sentences. A word should be consciousness coming from the Self; and only from an object with the ego. As such, when you know a thing you know yourself.

Self-Awareness is the ground of all true knowledge and experience. Both knowledge and ignorance are thought to exist as indeterminate and manifest as determinate, and it is alone the indeterminate that has to always be considered.

The indeterminate cannot be understood through a subject-object relationship, but only in identification. Everything known in identity is the ‘I’ principle and is indeterminate knowledge and the ignorance of the indeterminate are all the same ‘I’.

Between knowledge and ignorance, knowledge is needed to prove or disprove ignorance. Knowledge never needs anything else to establish itself, for it is self-luminous. As such, knowledge alone is real. By taking ignorance as unreal, we can say that indeterminate ignorance is real, so it would be better to say that indeterminate is reality and determinate is unreality.

Ignorance of a thing only appears in retrospect and never in the present. It is posited in the past and only after the perception of the object concerned is in the present.

Therefore ignorance is never experienced by anyone, and something that has never been experienced can ever be real.