The Natural Un-concealment of the Luminous Experience of Being in
Human Beings: A Phenomenology of Self-Illumination
Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D. Diplomate in Clinical Psychology, A.B.P.P.
The phenomenology of the unfolding elaboration of our capacity to know Being directly and as well as our experience to know Being through beings is the focus of this paper. I will focus on the phenomenological elaboration of our knowing of mind; the phenomenological knowing of direct awareness and the consequent simultaneous intertwining of knowing through mind and through awareness. This union of our mind and our awareness allows the knowing of Being through beings and knowing the indivisibleness of beings and Being. As the Dakini said to Dudjom Lingpa “You and I are indivisible.” Our paper begins with a phenomenological elaboration of the Two Ways of Knowing. This is a necessary and a most useful distinction for our knowing of both beings and Being simultaneously.
The Two Ways of Knowing: Mind Knowing Form and Awareness Knowing Being
Mind Knows Form!
Our mind knows forms, and things, both subtle and gross. Our mind knows beings and things. Our mind knows subject and our mind knows otherness. Our mind knows dualities .Our mind knows me and you, us and them and this and that. Mind knows time. Our mind knows the sense of the past, the sense of present and a sense of the future. The mind knows entities. Our mind knows difference. Our mind thinks conceptually, feels affectively, imagines through images, the mind senses sensation and the mind has memory. The mind always knows dualistically.
Our mind thinks and knows through thoughts, our mind feels and knows through feelings, our mind has sensations, knows through sensation and our mind has fantasy and knows through imagination. The knowledge of our mind is mediated through conceptualization and representational thinking. Our mind can even know the mind of others. However, our mind cannot know Being and our mind cannot know the Being-ness of beings. Our mind cannot experience Being. Our mind cannot know Being directly.
Awareness Knows Being!
Our awareness directly knows Being and our awareness can directly know the Being-ness of beings. Being itself is not a being and Being manifests beings, infinite numbers of beings. Being manifests Being within beings as their own being. Being itself is not an entity and Being is not a being. Being is not a thing. Being is non-duality. Being knows the non-duality of everything and anything. Being is oneness and pervasiveness. Being is openness, and Being self-manifests as radiant light. Being is compassionate creative resonance. Being manifests presence. Our awareness can know the indivisible presence of the Being-ness of beings within beings and between beings.
Being manifests duality, although Being is completely non-dual. By becoming aware of awareness, we experience primordial awareness which is the ground of being, which is Being itself. Awareness is Being. Awareness is Being knowing Being. Being knows Being and is the Being-ness of all the beings. Awareness can be timeless as well as awareness can be in time. Awareness can be timelessness and in time simultaneously.
The mind knows time and awareness knows timelessness. When our mind and our awareness are in union, then timelessness and time can be experienced simultaneously. In this union of our mind within the field of our awareness we can experience timelessness in time and time within timelessness. This experience is self-liberation.
Awareness has multidimensional range. Awareness is no thingness. Awareness has the characteristic of primordial openness, and self –manifestation of radiance. Awareness is luminosity creating everything and anything. Being is luminous no-thingness manifesting everyone and everything.
Being is Light!
Being is light. Being is radiance. Being is space and light. Being is openness and light. The light becomes energy and the energy becomes matter and form. Being becomes beings. The nature of matter is Being, the nature of matter is luminosity. The nature of Being manifests itself in us, as us, and as our own awareness. Awareness is not a thing, awareness is luminous no thingness. Being is luminous no thingness. You and I are in essence, this luminous knowingness which is awareness. The field of Pure Being manifests as our own innermost awareness. The field of Being is experienced within our own innermost luminous awareness. Awareness is no thingness, within the thingness of mind and body. Human beings are the intertwining of luminous no thingness and thingness. Our humanness is the intertwining of mind and awareness, mind and Being, embodied Being as our own being.
Our awareness as knowingness is openness and radiance. Radiance illuminates and is in intimate resonance with everything and anything. This intimate resonance is the great compassion. Compassion is not simply the empathetic wishing goodness for everyone and everything. Being is goodness. To experience the Being-ness of beings including one’s own being is to experience the bliss of Being, the bliss of existing-ness. Being appears and disappears as beings, but Being is neither born or dies. Being is awareness. Being is unborn and undying. Awareness is unborn and undying,
Awareness knows the light in itself and knows the light within beings and within all phenomena. Awareness knows Being within beings. Awareness knows awareness as Being within beings. Awareness knows the presence of Being within itself, and the presence of Being within beings. Awareness directly knows the non-duality of Being itself. Being is non-duality. When our awareness is in union with our mind, then we as the knower know the non-duality of Being within the duality of phenomena. Within our dualistic experience of phenomena, our awareness knows the non-duality of the Being of phenomena. As the Dakini said to Dudjom Lingpa “You and I are indivisible.”
The Luminosity of Awareness and Our Experience of Being’s Self- Manifestation As Spontaneous Luminous Presence!
Our experiential sense of the field of luminous awareness is the opening of our experience into the manifestation of luminous phenomena. The experience of the field of awareness unfolds as the presence of the trans-lucidity of our own awareness. This very same luminous awareness which is the self-manifestation of Being becoming present as forms, beings and things. Our field of awareness is the field of Being, the field of radiant light. Our own field of awareness can experience the field of Being becoming beings.
Our field of awareness is radiant knowing. This knowing is the experience of the radiance or shining of phenomena, the luminous appearing of appearance. Being both is and Being shines forth. Being gleams. Being radiates forth beings who are and who shine forth Being themselves. Beings both are and beings shine forth luminous Being. The experience of the self-luminosity of Being is the experience of Being manifesting our own being as Being within us and as well as Being within everything and everyone. Being is luminosity manifesting both as our luminous circumstance and as our own intimate innermost luminous awareness. Being is the light of our circumstances and the light of our knowing of the circumstances. Being is the light of the world, both the appearing of phenomena and seeing of phenomena. Being is not a being but Being manifests the luminosity of phenomena as phenomena. Being and phenomena are in non- duality.
Trans-lucidity!
There is the trans-lucidity of awareness and the trans-lucidity of phenomena. There is the light of personal awareness and there is the light of phenomena. The Dzogchen texts describe this LIGHT as the light unto phenomena. This is the light of circumstance. The light of our own awareness is personal and the light of phenomena is ultimately also personal. Personal awareness is who-ness of the field. Who-ness is in depth and breathe of the nature of awareness. Jung would declare the life world is anima mystic. The Vedic traditions describe this ontological knowing as primordial who-ness or as Purusha.
The Truth of Being and the Truth of Judgement!
There are two truths! The truth of Being and the truth of judgment. The truth of Being is the truth of Alethea. The truth of Alethea is the truth of revelation and concealment. The truth of Alethea is the truth of awareness as the self-manifestation of radiance. The truth of Alethea is the truth of the self-revelation of Being as phenomena and simultaneously the self-concealment of Being within phenomena.
The truth of judgment is the truth of mind. The truth of judgment is the truth the mind’s judgement of existence or non-existence, the truth of the judgement of right or wrong, the truth of the judgement of good or evil, the judgement of better or best, the judgement of truth or falsity. The truth of mind is the truth of facticity and the truth of thingness. The truth of mind is the truth of the equation of our judgment with the object of judgement.
The dynamic truth of Alethea is the truth as concealment and as revelation. Being’s manifestation of beings reveals the light of Being as the radiance of phenomena, as the radiance of experience and as the radiance of awareness. Being simultaneously reveals itself and conceals itself. Being unceasingly reveals itself becoming beings and through the beings themselves manifesting the light to each other. Beings resonate to the light of awareness within each other, and to each other.
Being conceals itself by the hiding the light of Being within phenomena. Phenomena hides Being. The light of Being is concealed by the very forms of beings that Being manifests. This is a foundational existential paradox. Being both reveals itself as light through the phenomena of beings and hides itself through and within the phenomena of the form of beings. This is the mystery of the immanence of Being becoming beings.
Mysterious Conjunctio of the Sun and the Moon!
To experience the light of a being, we must be simultaneously in the light of our mind and in the light of our awareness. The luminosity of mind must be integrated within the luminous field of awareness. Luminous mind knows beings and luminous awareness knows the Being-ness of the beings. Awareness knows the light of Being as the radiance of beings.
To experience the luminous Being-ness of a being, we know through our luminous awareness the luminous Being-ness of a being, and we know the singularity of a being through the luminous knowing-ness of mind. Because of the union of our luminous mind and our luminous awareness we can experience the duality of phenomena within the non-duality of Being and the non-duality of Being within the duality of phenomena. Our mind perceives the object as phenomena and our awareness perceives the Being of phenomena.
The Mysterious Conjunctio is the union of our luminous mind and our luminous field of awareness. This is the mystical union of the sun and the moon of the alchemical traditions. There is the union of gnosis of mind and the gnosis of awareness. Our luminous gnosis of awareness illuminates our luminous gnosis of mind.
The Immanence of the Being-ness of Being !
Phenomena opens and reveals the Being-ness of the being of phenomena. The being of phenomena opens as the light of phenomena opens. The secret of experiential phenomenology is the opening of the light of awareness within our own being, and within the luminous Being-ness of the phenomena of singular beings. All beings are the embodiment of luminous primordial awareness. Through our direct knowing-ness of awareness, the light of the being shines through a being as luminous Being itself. The embodiment of luminous awareness within the human being, opens and reveals the luminous awareness field of the knower. In our non-dualistic experience of awareness, the luminous knowing-ness of the knower directly experiences the luminous awareness field within the known being, within and through the phenomena of the known beings.
The primordial field of awareness is manifesting everything and everyone. And within everything and everyone is the field of light. The field of light is the self-manifestation of Being within beings. The light of our awareness can know the light within everything and everyone. The light within everyone can reveal itself to the knowing-ness within everyone. This is the power of the immanence of luminous awareness. This is the luminous aesthetics of the plane of immanence.
As the mystic theologian St. Thomas Aquinas declared in the 13th century the knower and the known are in oneness. This oneness of the knower and the known is the source of knowing inside to inside through direct knowing. This oneness of Being is the true source of inter-subjectivity. The light is both within the knower and within the known. The light is both within the knower as awareness, and the light is within known phenomena as luminosity. The same luminous primordial awareness is manifesting luminous phenomena as well as the luminous knowing-ness of the knower.
The Being-ness of our own awareness opens to us the experience of the Being-ness of the Being of beings. The self-arising of the openness of Being is the openness of the field of Being. Our felt sense of the field of awareness is the sense of Being manifesting its qualities. The field of awareness is the openness of Being, the openness of the light of Being. Awareness knows Being.
No Thingness and Thingness: Awareness as No Thingness
No thingness is a quality of our own singular awareness and no thingness is a quality of primordial awareness. No thingness is our own Being-ness and no thingness is the no thingness of Being itself which manifests everything and everyone. Our own subjectivity as awareness is no thingness. No thingness does not imply non-existence, as our innermost awareness is not a thing. We tend to equate existence with thingness. Our mind knows thingness and does not know Being or Being-ness. Being is no thingness.
Form can hide awareness which is pure no thingness. Thingness hides no thingness. Thingness can hide no thingness. The knowing of awareness is luminous no thingness. Luminous awareness is not a thing. This no thingness of luminous awareness is within us and is in essence us as person. No thingness is not impersonal, but is the very light of person. The light and spaciousness of awareness are in oneness. This understanding is both the essence of the existential Dzogchen and the essence of existential Phenomenology. Knowing-ness is both light and spaciousness. The knowing-ness of awareness is spacious openness and radiance .The place of luminous knowing spaciousness as awareness is embodied within the sphere of the thingness of mind and body. Mind knows thingness but does not directly know no thingness. Luminous awareness directly knows no thingness.
To experience the actuality of the Being as our own being, is to become liberated. Self-liberation implies experiencing the Being-ness of our own being and the Being-ness of other beings who are the sea of Being.
Difference Does Not Have to Hide Being-ness
In mind alone our experience of difference can hide oneness. The experience of difference is the manifestation of oneness of Being becoming infinite numerous beings as difference. There is a distinction of form within beings but there is no difference of Being within beings. Again, there is a difference of form within beings but not a difference of Being within beings. Our experience is simultaneously both of infinite oneness and infinite difference. Within our awareness field, difference does not hide the field of Being.
Mind -Awareness Continuum: the Dualistic-Non Dualistic Knowing Continuum!
Our Awareness is our Being knowing Being. And our Mind is knowing beings as forms and things. The natural development of mind can hide our awareness. The natural development of our mind that knows beings and things can hide the innate awareness that knows Being. The mind is personal and the primordial awareness manifesting itself within human beings as our human awareness is also personal. No thingness as knowing-ness within our embodiment of mind and body is personhood. The no-thingness of awareness can infuse our mind and infuse our bodies. No thingness is knowing-ness both as spaciousness and light embodied in time and space. The Vedic scriptures would describe this ontological personhood as knowing-ness as Purusha.
When our mind and our awareness are in oneness then we can know the oneness within difference and the difference that is within oneness. The mind knows duality and awareness knows non-duality. When our mind and our awareness are in oneness we can know duality within non-duality and non- duality within duality. We can know the indivisibleness within difference. As the Dakini said to Dudjom Lingpa, “You and I are indivisible.’’ There is a duality of a ‘you and I’ and there is our non-duality of indivisibleness.
Integrating Mind within the Awareness Field!
When our mind is integrated within our field of awareness, then we as a being can know Being through our own being. And we as a being can know Being through knowing the Being-ness of other beings. The experience of knowing Being through a being is love. Love is always the experience of knowing Being through a being. In truth a human being is Being expressed in singularity as singularity. This expression of singularity happens life after life and death after death. Human awareness is essentially unborn and undying. The nature of awareness is indestructible. The nature of awareness is deathless-ness. The nature of awareness is the continuity of Being. The continuity of Being life after life is the continuity of awareness which is the field of Being as our awareness.
Self-Liberation as Experiencing the Being-ness of our being and all beings!
To be liberated is to know Being in and through all beings. To be liberated is to know the very Being of the World, the Being of the Cosmos. To know directly the Being of the world is the experience of knowing the totality as non-duality. Being is essentially pure. The Being-ness of all beings is pure. The Being-ness of all beings is light. The Being-ness of all beings is knowing-ness as a being who is Being itself.
The Experience of a Form without Being, then Form Can Become a Thing
If we are only in mind alone, we will know only know forms. Everyone and everything can be experienced as form alone and to experience form alone can easily lead to experiencing form as thingness. Even our mind can become a thing. As things alone we will not know Being within us or Being within others. This is ontological suffering. This is existential suffering as thingness. Our own awareness as our own subjectivity is no thingness, our knowing-ness is no thingness. No thingness is never an entity. No thingness nonetheless is who-ness. The archetypal Purusha symbolizes this who-ness as person who is not an entity but which who-ness is luminous knowing-ness as pure no thingness within the thingness of mind and body.
Our mental objectification of a person destroys our experience of person as a Being. The person becomes a thing. In the mental objectification of mind alone, a person maybe experienced as a thing, and even one’s own sense of self becomes thing like. The world becomes a thing. The body becomes a thing.
Being without Form Is Incomplete Expression
If we are only in awareness we will know Being but we will not know the forms of Being which are beings. Some think, some really think that to know Being you must free yourself from all beings, from all forms. Some think, some really think to know Being you must dissociate yourself from form. This unhappy, limiting and contracting transcendental understanding splits the natural non-duality between form and Being. This transcendental splitting creates and concretizes dualism. This is a splitting between oneness and difference. This a transcendental splitting between the knowing of duality of phenomena and the knowing of non-duality of the Being of the phenomena
Transcendental Concealment
This is the splitting of source and phenomena. This limiting kind of understanding is a form of concealment and obscuration of the non- duality of the field of Being as beings. Many transcendental religious and philosophical traditions participate in this form of concealment. This limiting form of knowing characterizes most transcendental traditions. They wish to know Being without beings, without form. They split source and phenomena. They dissociate source and phenomena. They dissociate source and appearance.
Appearance and source are indivisible within the field of immanence. Appearance and source are disconnected and dissociated within the transcendental traditions!
In the transcendental traditions there is an ontological dissociation between appearance and source, between phenomena and Being, between appearance and primordial awareness. There is a splitting between duality of phenomena and non- duality of the Being of phenomena. There is a split between Beings and beings. A split between Divine Being and our own Being. This is concealment .This is hiddenness of Being. This split is the split between form and Being. This is the drama of dissociation.
The experience of Pure Being beyond phenomena is a limiting and limited understanding of the Divinity of Being as beings. This is the view of the ancient transcendental religions that have come into present time. This transcendental view is being challenged as incomplete and limiting to human awareness. The limitation is not that Being is not known in and of itself, but knowing Being as phenomena is foreclosed. Being as manifestation is foreclosed experientially. This is the loss of the divinity of appearance and divinity as phenomena. This is the incomplete truth of transcendental view. Within the view of the plane of immanence, Being is immanent within everything and anything.
Patriarchal and Theocentric Institutionalism as the Political Expressions/Support of
Philosophical Transcendentalism
Patriarchal and theocentric institutionalism is the political-social structural expressions of transcendentalism. Patriarchialness and theocentric institutionalism exist as a political expression and political –social support for the continuation of institutional transcendentalism. Transcendentalism in its limitedness and incompleteness hides the light of phenomena and the light within phenomena.
The Plane of Immanence
Patriarchialness and theocentric traditions hide the natural light of immanence. Phenomenologically immanence understands directly that phenomena and source are indivisible. Phenomenologically immanence directly understands that beings and Being are in oneness. Phenomenologically immanence’s understands directly that primordial awareness self-manifests itself within everyone and everything as everyone and everything. Phenomenologically immanence directly understands the non-duality of Being and duality of phenomena are in oneness. As the Dakini says, “ You and I are indivisible.”
Patriarchal Institutionalization
Patriarchal and theocentric institutionalization is the institutionalization of symbolic omnipotence and symbolic grandiosity. In the existential psychoanalytic view, patriarchal institutionalization is the institutionalization of the symbolic function of the name of the Father in the light of the Lacanian understanding of symbolic realm. In the Lacanian psychoanalytic understanding the symbolic realm of patriarchal and theocentric-ness is personalized within the patriarchal personality. This institutionalization encapsulates personal goodness within the unbounded power of archetypal inflation. This personal embodiment of this archetypal symbolic framing leads to the “as if personality function”. This archetypal symbolic function becomes concretely personalized and its concrete embodiment conceals authenticity. This personification conceals the ordinariness of self- illumination. This symbolic institutionalization destroys equality consciousness and brings forth hierarchical class structure described by Hegel as the Lord and Bondage relational structure. This structure is the master slave relationship. This is the endless drama of asymmetrical recognition by the one whose mind is supposed to know omnisciently.
People become captivated within this imaginative symbolic drama including the person who is the patriarchal teacher and leader. The symbolic Father Realm becomes the patriarchal institutional structure. Lacanian psychoanalysis articulates this institutionalization of the symbolic name of the father function as a relentless patriarchal structuring of human experience. This is both a personal experience and cultural experience.
This is the omnipotent position of being the ONE WHO KNOWS. This is the union of spirituality and royalty. This union of royalty and spirituality hides and conceals the natural visible-ness of Being becoming beings.
Being as the Field of Immanence!
Philosophical immanence does not require or need cultural patriarchialness and theocentric-ness to support the transmission of knowingness from one human being to another human being, from one generation to the next generation. Patriarchal and theocentric traditions think, really think that this patriarchal theocentric cultural posture is the method and the only method for the transmission of the knowing-ness of Being. These traditions consider patriarchal-ness and theocentric-ness as the required hermeneutical method of transmission. This is an unhappy assumption. This is also an unnecessary assumption.
In the 6th century the great Zen master Bodhidharma challenged patriarchal institutionalization as the source of transmission. He said “Beyond words and letters there is a transmission. This transmission does not belong to any tradition. The nature of this transmission is human awareness, this human awareness is the Buddha.” This is the introduction of immanence within the transcendental tradition of Buddhism.
Union of Royalty and Religion
Immanence does not require the union of royalty and the religion of theocratic culture to support the experience of gnosis or direct knowingness of our awareness of Being. Immanence does not need patriarchal structure or the union of the power of authority and religious royalty to bring forth the experience of Being within beings. Philosophically and phenomenologically the plane of immanence does not view the need for a stairway of royalty into the sky, to the sky gods who relentlessly require a patriarchal and theocentric culture in the steps skyward. Immanence does not need the hierarchal elaboration of all the participants. Immanence does not need institutionalization and the resultant passivity of self- agency and self-awareness. Immanence is equality consciousness. Immanence does not require the union of royalty and spirituality for political support. Immanence destroys the hierarchical framing of above and below, the framing of the have and have nots of knowledge. Immanence destroys the politicization of the direct knowingness of Being and Being-ness. Being and the awareness of Being cannot be institutionalized. Transcendental religions relentlessly attempt to institutionalize Being and beings.
Omniscience of Mind Is Not Required for Self-Liberation!
The path of immanence does not require the omniscient mediation of a Buddha Man or a Pope Man or a Godman or Prophet Man or Omniscient Man. Immanence does not depend on the one who knows.
Immanence is the bliss of the ordinary. Immanence does not required omnipotence of the omniscience leader. Immanence does not need the archetypal Senex to be the conveyor of the truth of Alethea. Age is neither the sign nor source of wisdom gnosis. The archetypal Senex is a political injunction and political fabrication of those inhabiting the symbolic dimension of the symbolic name of the father.
The Guru
Within this phenomenological field of immanence, the guru is not a singular person but the unfolding primordial process of self-revelation of human awareness within human awareness. The guru is within everyone. The guru is the unfolding process of self-revelation and cannot be institutionalized. When the guru as a singular person becomes institutionalized, the institutionalized person becomes a patriarchal icon. This patriarchal icon is simply an archaic symbol of the one who is supposed to know. This icon is often repetitiously expressed in light of the political union of royalty and spirituality. Authority and power are not the same. Most ancient transcendental traditions do not know this democratic difference between self-authorship and the power of domination and obedience to spiritual domination.
Lacanian Psychosis as both Personal and Cultural!
In Lacan’s language the institutionalization and the consequent personalization of symbolic name of the father can easily concretize and encapsulate the person and encapsulate the corresponding group culture. The person who internalized the symbolic function as the name of the father is concretized within domination, concretized within subjugation, and concretized within omniscience authority. The patriarchal symbolic function encapsulates the person as The One Who Knows! The person no longer relates to the symbolic function, but now is the concretized symbolic function. This is the form of union of the symbolic dimension within the dimension of the real, and the symbolic dimension within the imaginary dimension, and the symbolic dimension within actuality of the person. This symbolic fusion creates and brings forth forms of personal madness as well as cultural madness.
Subjectivity becomes possessed and consumed by the phallic symbolic dimension and this fused and confusing experience is both saturating and stunning. Jung consistently warns us about the concretization of the archetypal symbolic realm. This is the remnant of divine kingship. This divine kingship is union of royalty and religion. This is not the symbolic power of the people but symbolic archetypal power over the people.
The authentic self is both personal and archetypal. The personal and archetypal symbolic dimension can become possessed by the symbolic patriarchal phallic function. Who-ness is consumed by concrete symbolization and concrete personification. This is a form of cultural psychosis in the land of Lacan. The same consumption of person destroys the sense of self-agency of a person and the individual self- agency within the group culture. The self-agency of those who participate are dominated by the patriarchal phallic archetypal illusion and individuation becomes fragmented and disempowered in this crowd like madness. This the experience of the superior king becoming inflationary madness!
This symbolic function, as the phallic name of the father, brings forth and informs the patriarchal theocentric institutionalization that obscures the field of Being as beings. Institutionalization conceals the light of Being and the natural unfolding of the light within beings. The knowing-ness as the light is institutionalized in the hierarchal structure of domination and subjugation. The knowing and not knowing is a function of hierarchal signification. The natural transmission of the personal knowing-ness of Being becomes lost in the bondage of patriarchal institutionalization, patriarchal ritualization and patriarchal subjugation. Obedience becomes the doorway to the truth. This truly is one of the realms of The Divine Comedia.
The Realm of Immanence!
The realm of immanence is the realm of unfolding self-revelation of Being within equality consciousness. The realm of transcendence is the realm of the truth of judgement institutionalized as asymmetrical hierarchal-ness. The realm of transcendence is dissociative of form/phenomena and source.
Immanence is completely inherent and completely innate and completely within here and now, completely within us and everyone. The realm of immanence is fully and completely inherent within form. Immanence is spontaneous self-presence. The presence of Being is within beings as their very Being.
Spontaneous Presence as Immanence is the Bliss of the Ordinary and the Bliss of Equal Vision!
Immanence as Timeless Awareness in Time!
All experience is the manifestation of Being. The appearing and disappearing of phenomena is the self-manifestation of timeless awareness in time. To experience timeless awareness in time, and in time to experience timeless awareness is to experience self-liberation. Timeless awareness is the nature of Being. To be in time, is to be in the realm of beings. To be in timeless awareness and time simultaneously, is to experience duality of beings within non-duality of Being; and the non-duality of Being within the duality beings. To be in timeless awareness is to be able to experience non-dualistic Being in every event and every circumstance.
The Light of the Moon and the Light of the Sun!
When our luminous mind is integrated into our luminous awareness then luminous phenomena does not hide luminous Being. The trans-lucidity of phenomena is the luminous openness of Being within all phenomena. When our luminous mind is integrated within the trans-lucidity of awareness, then the trans-lucidity of phenomena is experienced as the light of Being. When mind is integrated within the trans-lucidity of awareness, then luminous phenomena is experienced as luminous Being itself. Being shines forth as the trans-lucidity of phenomena. There is one taste and the one taste of Being itself is within everything and anything, within everyone.
All Experience is the Manifestation of Being!
The experience of pain is the pain of Being itself, the experience of sensation is the sensation of Being itself, the experience of lust is the lust of Being itself, the experience of hatred is the hatred of Being itself, aloneness is the aloneness of Being itself, bliss is the bliss of Being itself, fun is the fun of Being itself, delinquency is the delinquency of Being itself, love is the love of Being itself, all faces are the face of Being itself, and all horror is the horror of Being itself. All beings are Being itself. All actions are Being itself. All experience is the experience of Being itself. Being is as infinite as is the infinity of experience and experiencers. There is no distance between Being and human experience. There is no distance. All human experience is the self-manifestation of Pure Being.
When our mind is integrated within the depth and breathe of the field of awareness then all phenomena can be experienced as primordial presence, spontaneous presence. When our mind is integrated fully within awareness then all dualistic phenomena and all dualistic experience can be felt to be the expression of luminous non-dualistic actuality of Being.
When our mind is integrated into our awareness, then the spontaneous presence of all phenomena is the divine presence itself. When our mind is integrated into our field of awareness then the difference of phenomena and within phenomena is completely experienced within the oneness of the field of Being itself.
The Mysterious Conjunctio: The Union of Luminous Gnosis of Awareness with the Luminous Gnosis of Mind!
All beings are the radiant self- manifestations of Being. All experience is the radiant self-manifestation of Being. What some call divinity is simply Being itself. All beings are the radiant self-manifestations of luminous Being. All beings are the radiant self-manifestation of divinity. This radiant pantheistic experience is naturalistic self-liberation. This experiential distinction between mind and awareness is extremely useful in our understanding of the nature of self-liberation. The luminous gnosis of awareness infuses the luminous gnosis of mind. The 11th century Dzogchen master Rongzompa describes this process of infusion of mind.
Divinity of Being is the Self Manifestation of Being as Human Beings!
What some call divinity is Being itself. What some call God is Being itself. All beings are the luminous self-manifestation of Being. Being is awareness knowing Being. Being is awareness. Being is knowing-ness, Being is awareness knowing itself as Being. All beings are the luminous self- manifestations of divinity. This pantheistic experience is naturalistic self- liberation. The pantheistic experience is the natural experience of immanence of Divinity in everyone and anyone, in everything and anything as everyone and as everything.
The distinction between mind and awareness is most useful in understanding the pervasive nature of Divinity. This difference within mind and awareness can give a clear path to experiencing the oneness of the knowing-ness of mind and the knowing-ness of awareness. The knowing- ness of awareness knows Being and the knowing-ness of mind knows form and beings and things. The unification of these two modes of knowing within your person is the path of natural liberation through circumstance. Whatever we experience, the experience is the path of self-liberation.
Who -ness As Knowingness!
Being-ness is not thingness but is who-ness. All awareness is who-ness. Who-ness is knowingness. All of us who’s are the luminous self- manifestations of primordial who-ness. In the Hindu traditions this ontological who-ness is Purusha. In Dzogchen who-ness is the manifestation of primordial awareness, primordial knowing-ness as our own direct knowing-ness in time and space. To use Heideggerian language Who-ness is both ontic and ontological.
One Knower! Two Modes of Knowing!
One knower within the two modes of knowing. Although there are two distinct modes of knowing, there is only one knower. The two modes when integrated within the one knower, brings forth the knowing of duality of phenomena within non-duality of Being.
Unborn and Undying is Being!
The Being-ness of a being is unborn and undying. Being as a being has many forms. The forms of a singular being changes throughout the life cycle of the being. Moreover the forms of a singular being changes throughout the cosmological cycle of life and death. The cycle of life and death is simply the cycle of appearing and disappearing and re-appearing and disappearing. We appear from Being as a being and we as beings disappear into Being itself. The Being-ness of a being is awareness and awareness is knowing-ness within the thingness of a being. Awareness is no thingness as knowingness.
Awareness is Being. Awareness is indestructible. Awareness within the human being is Being itself. Awareness is unborn and undying. Awareness is the continuity of Being and this continuity of Being is within the life cycle as we unfold and grow through the different developmental stages.
Ongoing Continuity of Being! Beyond Coming and Going!
Awareness as the ongoing continuity of Being also passes through the experience of the mind body disintegration unto death and is sustained as unborn and undying. The very nature of awareness is continuity of Being. The Dzogchen word Vajra symbolizes this actuality of awareness as Being itself in its manifestation, and its indestructibleness. Just as the form of the singular being changes through the life cycle of the being, moreover the forms of a singular being changes through the cycles of life and death. The cycle of life and death is simply the cycle of appearing and disappearing and reappearing. We appear from Being as a being and we disappear into Being as Being. And we reappear from Being as a being. A being is the Being-ness of Being. Being becoming beings is life, and beings becoming Being is deathlessness.
Sunyata as the Potential Space of Pure Being!
Being self-manifests as the different dimensions of the field of Being. Being manifests within different dimensions. The kayas are the different dimensions of Being. Being manifests the different dimensions of Being as itself. Being manifests our ordinary life world as itself. Being manifests the archetypal dimension of subtle luminous forms and luminous vortices of energy as itself. Ultimately, Being is the dimension of pure potentiality that self-manifests everything and anything, everyone and anyone as its self.
From pure potentiality’s self-manifestation there arises the manifestation the archetypal dimension of the luminous gleaming and glowing elemental luminous energies. This is the subtle realm of luminous forms and that can be experienced as apparitions. From within the archetypal dimension Being self-manifests as the ordinary life world. Being manifests the human realm of appearance and the phenomena of ordinary life world. To use the language of existential Dzogchen, this is the dimension of human emanation as Nirmanakaya and to use the language of Husserl, this is the ordinary life world. This is the world of human beings.
Primordial Being creates everything and anything. Being as No-thingness manifests itself as everything and anything in everything and anything. No thingness is sunyata. Sunyata is pure potentiality, the pure primordial ground of Being. This pure ground of Being is unbound luminous spaciousness of creative openness of the pure potentiality of pure Being.
Pure potentiality not only manifests everyone and everything, but pure potentiality is within everything and everyone. Pure potentiality is within our awareness as our own awareness. Pure potentiality is within us as our own awareness in time and in space embodied. To experience the pure potentiality of one own subjectivity is liberation. Your own subjectivity to use the language of existential Dzogchen is pure Dharmakaya in manifestation as you as knowing-ness.
Ground Awareness as the Ground of Pure Being!
In the Existential Dzogchen tradition this pure potentiality of existence is called Dharmakaya, or ground awareness or ground of Being. This is primordial awareness as source and as potential space. This is Being as source. This is ground awareness, the ground of Being.
Archetypal Realm!
Being as source manifests the Sambogakaya dimension, this is primordial archetypal dimension of subtle luminous forms of the elementals as light and energy becoming everything and anything. Sambogakaya manifests the Nirmanakaya dimension, becoming the ordinary life world. This is the archetypal dimension that is within everything and everyone and is articulated through various metaphors such as the mythic gods and goddesses, deities and dakinis, the cosmological energies of planets and stars systems. This is the realm of energy vortices and forces of light.
This archetypal Sambogakaya system in turn manifests the dimension that Dzogchen names as Nirmanakaya and what Husserl calls the ordinary life world. This is the human world and the sentient world of animals and trees. This is nature. This is our locus of human beings and animals and buildings. These three dimensions are distinct but completely the same as their nature is awareness and the very same nature of awareness becomes the various manifestations of the different dimensions of Being.
Pure awareness as Dharmakaya is pure ground potentiality without form. This is the formless dimension of Being. This is the realm of pure potentiality. The Samabogakaya dimension is the manifestation of becoming, in its becoming-ness of light and subtle energy forms. Subtle elemental energy forms is the subtle archetypal light that forms the physical dimensions of existence. This dimension can be experienced as apparitional luminous forms and energies. These energies are archetypal and mythic manifestations. These archetypal forms self-arise and manifest the world as appearance and phenomena, the Nirmanakaya dimension. The realm of flesh, to use Merleau Ponty’s language. This is the realm of ordinary life world.
These three dimensions are all within the field of immanence. These dimensions are within ‘us as us.’ All dimensions are different manifestations of the nature of one Being. This is the natural manifestation from formless to the forms of existing-ness. This is the understanding of the non-dual experience of immanence. Everything is within phenomena. This is the manifestations of divinity as the forms of phenomena. All phenomena is the purity of pure awareness.
Multidimensional Being!
The transcendentalist traditions have great difficulty with this understanding of the three dimensions of Being and the various dimensional manifestations. The transcendentalist with their phobia of phenomena dismiss the non-duality of self-manifestation by using the timid word “display” which does not have the direct immediate connation of immanence as self-manifestation. Display is a word within the transcendental alliance that uses the language of dissociation and language of separation between source and appearance, between Being and beings. Primordial ground as awareness actually self-manifests as the archetypal dimension which self-manifests as our ordinary life world. All phenomena, all dimensions and all experience are the self-manifestations of pure potentiality.
Immanence give equal validity to each of the dimensions as being exactly the same. Most transcendental traditions give validity only to the Dharmakaya or source. The archetypal dimension as luminous forms and ordinary life world appearance of phenomena is considered to be without actuality, to be illusion, to be unreal. Even the word radiance is only tentatively used by some of the transcendental traditions. Radiance implies the manifestation of the radiant light.
Radiance is the luminous manifestation of phenomena. The realm of potentiality is the realm of the radiance of Pure Being. Longchenpa, the great master of the 14th century establishes the nature of appearance and nature of archetypal manifestations as divine. This experience of divinity self-arises as direct experience as gnosis. Longchenpa’s great desire and accomplishment was to experience all phenomena as Dharmakaya, as pure luminous Being.
All Phenomena as the Purity of Being!
Longchenpa’s own understanding was greatly influenced by the great Dzogchen scholar Rongzompa. Rongzompa was a scholar of the 11th century who emphasized the divinity of appearance, the divinity of phenomena and the actuality of phenomena. Dudjom Lingpa states that the training of awareness is the training to experience the purity of all phenomena, since all phenomena are the purity of Being as beings.
Many transcendental traditions do not see human form and human experience as valid knowing or as even as actual existing or as really existing. Many of these transcendental tradition experience only source as the only actuality or the only reality. The same complaints against the life world of the Nirmanakaya dimension are formulated against the archetypal Sambogakaya dimension. The same dissociative invalidating approach is focused on the actuality of the archetypal Sambogakaya and ordinary life form of the Nirmanakaya. This transcendental views hide the nature of Being in its many manifestations as actual being and actual forms of Being. These forms are forms of divine light that become the forms of divine matter.
Self-Liberation through the Field of Immanence!
The ancient spiritual paths were often Transcendental. The transcendental paths are paths that are similar to the original invocation of Buddha which is go beyond, go beyond and go beyond phenomena. The ancient transcendental religious paths were and are profoundly dissociative.
Transcendental means not within phenomena. Transcendental is beyond phenomena. The transcendental path require our dissociating beyond phenomena, beyond appearance. Appearance in transcendental traditions is considered unreal and deluded knowingness. This is the course and path of the invalidation of human experience and the invalidation actuality of immanence. The fear of phenomena hides the divinity of appearance, the divinity of forms. The goal of the transcendental is to experience pure Being as separate from form and appearance.
The path of Immanence is inherent and innate and within us and within all phenomena. The path of immanence is the path of now-ness and circumstance. The path of immanence understands that the bliss of samadhi is the bliss of the world. The Being of beings is the experiential doorway of Being itself. The path of immanence is the path of the unfolding experience of the embodiment of the light.
All phenomena are the manifestation of the light just as the light is the manifestation of our own awareness. In this way the light of primordial awareness is indivisible with the light of phenomena. This is the non- dualistic experience of the light within the duality of luminous self- awareness and the light as the luminosity of phenomena.
Immanence: Being Both Manifest and Shines Through All Experience!
It is amazing and really useful to know that Being itself is the source and manifests the immanent flow of all lived experience. Your experience, your ongoing continuous lived experience is the seamless experience of the manifestation of Being. Being is the indivisible source of our ongoing lived experience. Within all experience Being is manifesting, radiating and glowing. So every experience is the openness of Being. Every experience is the manifestation of Being. Every experience is the presence of Being.
So through the duality of appearance of phenomenon we can experience the non-duality of Being. Being is not a distinct phenomenon from the stream of experience. Being shines through all experience, and the radiance of experience is the radiance of Being. Non-dual awareness is experienced within the non-duality of openness, of appearance and as interrelatedness. Being is experienced through being, our own being is the doorway unto Being itself. Your own being is the doorway both for yourself and other beings.
The indivisibility of Being manifests both as the manifested phenomena and as the knower of phenomena. This Being is manifest in you, as your own innermost awareness, as your own pure awareness. Being is manifested as your physical and contextual phenomena, as your embodiment as flesh and as the context of your circumstances.
All experience is the self-manifestation of primordial awareness. Being is the ground of all beings. Being is primordial awareness. This self- manifestation is immanence. All experience is the self-manifestation of primordial non-duality as duality. Being is self-manifesting Being within beings. Being is magical because it is beyond causality. Non-dual awareness and dualistic mind are intertwined. Psychology cannot be extracted from Being. Human beings are the intertwining of mind and body and Being. Human experience is both ontic and ontological.
The Field of Being Self-Manifests as Subjectivity!
Subjectivity is Primordial Awareness Manifesting in ‘us’ as our Own Innermost Awareness!
Subjectivity is primordial awareness manifesting within a being as Being itself. Primordial awareness is Being itself manifesting as subjectivity within the Being of beings. Subjectivity is the openness of Being itself within us as us. Being is luminous openness as our awareness. Being is the radiance of openness as our pure awareness. Being is pure potentiality of our innermost awareness. Being is the pure potentiality of our knowing-ness as awareness. Our own inner awareness is self-illumination infinite in its horizon, vast and multidimensional.
Human beings are the intertwining of Being within a being, the intertwining of awareness and mind. When mind and awareness are in oneness, then the knower can know the Being-ness of being through beings. The person can know duality within non-duality and non-duality within duality. A human being is the intertwining of thingness and no thingness, the intertwining of openness and thingness.
We have in this paper illuminated the illumination of Being and have also illuminated the manner and ways Being at times is hidden and becomes un- concealed and self- revealed.
Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D. Diplomate in Clinical Psychology, A.B.P.P.The Washington Center for Consciousness Studies and the Washington Center for Phenomenological and Existential Psychotherapy Studies