A Spiritual Explainer
We Can Never Know Spiritual Truth — So Why Talk About It?
[Updated September 5, 2022] The most important concepts in spirituality are impossible to fully grasp — but that doesn't stop us from trying.
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“No thought is consistent with realization.” — Sri Ramana Maharshi
I have concluded that the most essential and foundational concepts in spirituality are impossible to know or understand. It seems the more we talk about them, the more confusion arises and the less we know. 😕
Peter Brown suggests that this happens because the universe is infinite. The deeper we look into any things, the more we open to their infinity. And that is true for everything in existence, not just spirituality.
But that does not stop our human minds from attempting to know and understand things. We create spiritual stories for several reasons, including:
- Spirituality is entertaining. 😛 We like to hear ourselves talk (and think), and because there are no universal answers, we can talk endlessly about spirituality. Whether religion, philosophy, mysticism, quantum physics, or cosmology — they are all open to New Age interpretations. And everyone has an opinion about what others say. That is because…
- Spirituality is a subjective experience. 🤗 We each have a subjective reality we can talk about. Some even suggest that our subjective reality is all we ever can know. That alone is a favorite topic for bloggers — because, of course, everyone has an opinion.
- Spirituality can temporarily relieve subjective suffering. 🥰 The most common reason people seek spiritual explanations is to understand and overcome their subjective experiences of suffering. Some say it is the only reason. And while many believe a permanent spiritual solution to suffering exists (such as awakening/enlightenment), that does not seem to be the experience of most spiritual seekers.
In my last article ⬇ before this one, I summarized differences between the ego-self, soul-self, and the nondual-self (which is beyond description). Building on that article, the ego-self is the version of us most embedded in a 3rd Dimension/Density (3D) existence. Because only it uses words, the ego-self is the source of every story about the spiritual realms (our soul-self in other dimensions/densities) and that which is beyond all dimensions (our ultimate nondual-self).
This article is an ego-self story. I hope you find it entertaining (or interesting) and able to relieve temporarily the subjective suffering of your ego-self.
The following list are spiritual concepts that describe the reality of our soul-self /nondual-self. Some of us can partially understand as our ego-self. But I believe they are beyond full comprehension. (I could be wrong, of course.)
The reason they are incomprehensible is that they are the opposite of everything on 3D ego-self experiences. And almost everything in our 3D world reinforces those experiences and rejects anything that contradicts them. (That, however, may be changing.)
So, if you want topics to write or talk about endlessly, these are good ones to consider. (Which is what I do. 😯)
“Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth. And if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not.” — Carl Jung
The Most Incomprehensible Concepts
We often think we know what these concepts mean. But if we think deeply enough, we really do not fully comprehend them because they only really apply to a nondual-self (God/Source/The Absolute) perspective.
1 — Unconditional Love
- Loving everything exactly as it is, with no conditions or judgments. That includes the most evil and opposite things you can think of. Not wishing anything could be different from what it is.
- From our 3D ego-self perspective, all love is based on conditions. If the conditions are not met, then love is not available. The simple fact of so much hatred and fighting in the world is clear evidence of the impossibility of unconditional love.
2 — Perfect Universe
- We have unconditional love because the universe, which includes every reality that we can experience, is perfect exactly as it is. It cannot be anything other than exactly what it is because it is really only one thing. From an ego-self perspective, everything connects to everything else, and our every thought and action impacts our entire universe.
- From our 3D ego-self perspective, we don’t really know what “perfection” is, but we know that nothing is ever perfect. Our daily news stories are clear evidence of that. Some things come close when we lower our standards about what is perfect.
3 — Oneness (Nonduality, Pantheism)
- There is only one thing, which we call Source, God, and the Universe (among many other terms). The experience of separation and the diversity of things is an illusion (mirage, dream, game, or play) in which Oneness is trying to experience itself as duality.
- From our 3D ego-self perspective, it is so obvious that everything is separate from “me”, and so much of life is imperfect things that happen to me against my will. I must always be careful to protect myself.
4 — Eternity (No Time)
- The Oneness is eternal, meaning there is no past, present, or future. We hold a sense of time by continuously creating stories of the past, present, and the future from a moment point that is eternal and infinite, and as such does not exist. In that moment point, there is no beginning (birth) to anything, and nothing ever ends (death).
- From our 3D ego-self perspective, there is a beginning/birth and end/death to everything. Nothing is eternal and everything happens within time. Our clocks and calendars are clear evidence of that.
5 — Infinity (No Space)
- The Oneness is infinite, meaning there are no boundaries or limitations of any kind. The universe (reality) eternally expands into infinity within the moment point, which is everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. In the moment point, anything (every story or illusion) is happening, and none of them is happening, simultaneously.
- From our 3D ego-self perspective, what we can do is clearly limited by our intelligence, genetics, life events, education, income, physical condition, emotional condition, place of birth, our social groups, and the larger society and culture we live in. While these change over time, positive change is slow and often impossible.
6 — Emptiness & Silence (No Self & No Thing)
- The nondual Oneness is the unchanging permanence of emptiness and silence. It is the background without which manifested things could not be perceived. It is the permanence against which the temporary and forever changing story, with a separate self at the center, plays out like a movie. Beneath the stories is the silent emptiness that is the absolute no thing with no self.
- From our 3D ego-self perspective, I exist, and so do you. We are separate from each other, and we are continually changing over time. We only perceive the changing story (or movie). We may wish for the permanence and silence, but they are beyond our experience — it is like the character in a movie wanting to become the screen.
7 — Why? (Purpose & Meaning)
- The answer to every “why?” is a story. Our ego-self, being a temporary story, can only create temporary stories to answer “why?”. Our soul-self is closer to our nondual-self and might come closer to an understanding of “why?”, but of course we cannot know that from our 3D worldview. (How? and Who? are also unknowable in the same way.)
- From our 3D ego-self perspective, the best we can do is try to find the best stories we can and accept that we cannot know the ultimate meaning and purpose of anything. (How we define “best” changes with different states of consciousness.)
8 — Universal or Innate Intelligence
- Some kind of intelligence underlies (or is innate to) all reality. For example, how does our body know how to enable us to grow, live, walk, speak, think, and reproduce, etc.? How does our planet know how to rain, snow, spin, move continents, and grow living organisms, etc.? When we see cause and effect — how does that work?
- From our 3D ego-self perspective, we see logic in how our world works. But some things seem illogical (even evil) because we can not see everything involved in a phenomenon. Our scientists are forever discovering new perspectives on how things work. That search is infinite, and will keep them busy for eternity. Spiritually, we tend to externalize universal intelligence, assigning it to gods, other external beings, and our higher self.
9 — Consciousness
- Consciousness (or “pure awareness”) is the word we use to try to describe the fundamental “beingness” that “knows” something is happening in manifest/experiential reality. It is kind of like our eye, which sees our physical world, but cannot see itself. Like infinity, finite words can only point toward consciousness, which is why there are so many books and YouTube videos on this topic. It also is fundamental to all the other unknowable (1 through 8), above.
- From our 3D ego-self perspective, consciousness of experience is how we know we exist. We can experience different states of consciousness, but the only time we have no consciousness is when we are in an unconscious deep sleep (although some are conscious of that, as well).
The most important thing about spiritual teaching is to see ways in which it is wrong. …Because anything that can be said is wrong. It can be very pithy, and very meaningful, and very relevant, but it is not actually completely true. — Peter Brown (YouTube link)
Additional Challenging Ideas
We use a lot of words in our temporary illusion/story/dream/game/play to point to aspects of the nondual-self (Source/God/Infinity) perspective. But we really do not know what we are talking about. Words cause as much confusion as clarity.
Here are a some additional examples, though I am not going to discuss them. For each, think about, — What do these words mean? How do I define them? How many other definitions are there? — What is the source of these words/ideas? Can we find their origin within our individual mind? Within our collective minds? — Can I live without these words/ideas? What would that be like?
- Existence & Reality
- God, Source & The Absolute
- Awakening & Enlightenment
- Free Will/Agency & Fate/Destiny/Matrix
- Synchronicity & Chance/Coincidence
- Heaven & Hell
- Me, Myself, I, You, Them, Others
- Higher Self & Soul
- You Create Your Own Reality
- You Are God
- Death & No Death
- Good & Bad, Right & Wrong
- Sanity & Madness
- Thoughts & Imagination
(The philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote that the 3 things we can never know is God (a common source), the Soul (the ultimate self), and our World (its origin and nature). These are human creations used to try to make sense of our experience.)
“Both/And”
What should we (ego-self) do about this impossible situation we are in? Probably nothing more than what we have been doing. We (ego-self) cannot know, but we cannot stop trying to know. Allow that, but realize the despite our ego-self limitations, there is more to us.
But there is a part of us that somehow knows that the universe and life are an infinite and beautiful mystery. We can experience this in nature, art, music, and poetry, usually when we suspend our logical, thinking mind.
As I implied at the start (based on my last article), we are both a finite, temporary ego-self, and an infinite, eternal absolute-self. We are Both/And. We are a paradox.
Our absolute-self (which some say is not really a “self”) is closer to truth and is more subtle in its understanding of reality. It is not limited by the words, logic, and preconceived ideas that limit our ego-self. And it can fully grasp the “Both/And” paradox of existence.
A goal of this article, if it needs one, is to encourage our ego-self to give up trying, to surrender, to give up seeking (as suggested in the article below ⬇). That is one way of allowing our absolute nature, which is always there, to reveal itself.
For more on the paradox of reality, and the “Both/And” challenge, see…
So, this is our challenge, to discover that we don’t know. And from this vantage point of not knowing, then we can see, then it will show us what it is. — Peter Brown (YouTube link)
In addition to the quote above, Peter Brown (in the YouTube video below ⬇) suggests that simply becoming aware of the impossibleness of reality (of the concepts above), opens us up to infinity. The more we do that, the deeper we connect with infinity.
He asks, why do we have to make sense of our experience? When we are in a nighttime dream, we don’t stop and ask “does this make sense?” So why does our waking reality need to make sense?
He further suggests that direct experience is easy to perceive because we are already infinity. Infinity is always present and in our experience. And it is unstoppable, constantly changing and never repeating. We just need to turn our focus to that infinity and open ourselves (or surrender) to the sense of awe at something we can never understand.
That is one way of practicing being Both/And.
- For more on Peter Brown’s perspective on reality, see…
- I include a Peter Brown exercise in this ⬇ article, along with other ways to experience infinity in our normal experience…
Seth/Jane Roberts on the Limits of Intellectual Knowledge…
“…you need know nothing in intellectual terms. You know all behind [the] words, and in parts of you that are beyond speech. You do not need words. You do not need my words — -but I speak them. I speak the words so you will realize you do not need them.
… Now, I bless you, but the blessings must come from yourselves. The real blessings must come from yourselves. You must realize that you are one with All-That-Is, and within you is the only one who can give blessings, and you must be willing to accept the blessing that only you can give, and the joy that only you can give to yourselves and to one another.”
— Seth/Jane Roberts, The Early Class Sessions, Book 1, ESP class on February 25, 1969
A poem about Nonduality & the Limits of Words — by Nancy Neithercut
no one left home and no one returned… there was no path to nowhere…
the path collapsed the ground collapsed and any idea of a goal collapsed…
there never was a mountain or anyone to climb it… all there was was a story book character longing to jump out of the story… and found that all there was was the story…
no longer believed, it became a love dance, of one of two of many … of none…
in love as love through love… the song sings all of this… we seem to appear in these words… yet the words are neither empty nor full… there is no outside to this story… as inside and outside, like all this and that are made up… there is no form nor emptiness… no time or timelessness… no things to be permanent nor changing… no movement nor non movement… no center or edge… all separation is illusion… illusion is illusion…
a dream within a dream dreaming …
baseless echoes singing
reflections of reflections that have no source, nor non source…
anything said about the dream paints the dream of separation… even these very words…
what is going on can only be known conventionally through made up concepts like this and that and time and space…
this mentally fabricated world is often called the dream.
this dream of objectified separation is the only world we, as mentally fabricated individuals, exist in, yet there can be profound shift in perspective when the dream is no longer believed…
it no longer feels like there are separate things or events… or selves… it feels like time dies…
and this truly cannot be spoken of or kissed with words, as all attempts are like trying to describe an edgeless piece of paper using a pair of scissors…
- Nancy Neithercut (Amazon link), posted on her Facebook page, August 10, 2022
Related Resources
Despite what Seth suggests in the quote above, and the quote from Ramana Maharshi at the top of this article, here are some additional articles I have written related to the 7 impossible concepts the I discussed:
- (1) On Unconditional Love…
- (2) On the Perfection of the Universe…
- (3) On Nonduality and No Thing…
- (4) On Eternal Time…
- (5) On Infinity…
- (6) On Silence and Emptiness…
- (7) On Purpose in Life…
- Quantum physics seems to support some of the impossible concepts, at least from theoretical perspectives. For example…
- This (⬇) interview and discussion reviews the major theories of consciousness, including physicalism/physics and idealist/spiritual perspectives. The guest (Dr. Naidu) concluding that the human mind will never find the source of consciousness (or physics) because the deeper we go, the more unknown we discover.
- Here (⬇) are some tips on how to use our imagination to glimpse the silent infinity from which all manifest reality emerges…
- For more Spiritual Explainer Articles, see this collection…
- Note that the articles in that collection are behind the Medium paywall. For paywall-free access to my articles go to www.AlanLew.com, linked below.
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- Written in collaboration with my Energy Group/Higher Self. This is our perspective of the truth and not the whole truth of reality.
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