Continued from Verse Two
3. 'The world is real.' 'No, it is a mere illusory appearance.' 'The world is conscious.' 'No.' 'The world is happiness.' 'No.' What use is it to argue thus? That State is agreeable to all, wherein, having given up the objective outlook, one knows one's Self and loses all notions either of unity or duality, of oneself and the ego.
Commentary: The questions of philosophy about the exact relationship of the world to consciousness are impossible to answer in language. That’s because language & concepts are themselves based on the idea that the ego is real, that is, that the sense that “I am separate” is true. Only when you say “I am in here and separate” can you look out at the world and say “out there is not me,” and then divide the not-me into names and forms. From these names and forms we get language, and from language we get philosophical debates about the nature of the world. It all starts with that me/not-me distinction.
But the problem is that the very base assumption of the ego that “I am in here and separate” is incorrect. That is merely a thought, whereas what you actually are is beyond thought; you are the unthinkable Reality. That Reality is cannot be said to be in here, cannot be said to be separate, cannot be said to create any kind of boundary by which names and forms may be drawn.
Since the base assumption of the ego is incorrect, then “I am not in here and separate.” So all the stuff out there is not the not-me, and so all the names and forms based on those assumptions are in some profound sense incorrect — or, more accurately, meaningless. This is because names and forms are based on boundaries, but the original boundary that would allow them — again, the me/not-me boundary — is invalid.
This makes language, in a very certain and deep sense, meaningless, and that then makes philosophical debate about these concepts ultimately meaningless as well. Even ‘meaningless’ is too meaningful a word to be used, technically. It too is a child of language.
A philosophical framework can be useful provisionally for a seeker, but ultimately it has to be realized that Reality cannot be proven in language one way or another, since what is being indicated is beyond language.
From a practical standpoint, it’s wise not to get too bogged down in philosophical debates about the exact status of the world. The key point is that if there is abidance without the ego — that is, without the “objective outlook” to which Ramana refers, since the ego enables us to experience objects by assuming it is itself the subject — that is happiness. That state is beyond concepts of either unity or duality, beyond the concepts of the self and ego. All that vanishes, or rather, more than vanishes: whether it is there or it isn’t there is itself seen to be a meaningless point.
“Ego” and “existence,” are themselves concepts, and saying that they are false is also a concept. There is something beyond concepts, which can only be pointed to by language, but not actually described.
At any time, see all the forty verses posts that I have published so far here.