I believe you. And for me*, the greater satisfaction comes from viewing the different phenomena as parts of a whole. It's a lucky thing that there are so many different metaphysics around. There's one to appeal to (almost) everyone.

* D'you see what I did there? I'm trying out this 'and' instead of 'but' thing. It seems rather contrived to me, but I think I should give it a fair go because it seems that maybe there's an appealing principle behind it.

claims of not existing at all coming from your direction and what not... — Mongrel

I don't remember that, have you a quote?

And for me*, the greater satisfaction comes from viewing the different phenomena as parts of a whole. It's a lucky thing that there are so many different metaphysics around. — andrewk

I'm all aboard with everything being connected. 'Each thing is everything being that thing' is a fine and dandy way of understanding everything, but it is superfluous to mention it whenever one talks about a particular thing. In the case in hand it is in particular misleading, because even accepting that awareness ( distinguished from its contents) is universally the same, that is precisely what is not being reflected upon in self inquiry, but the particularity: which is to say the contents of awareness, i.e. the self. If I am the universe being aware, and you are the universe being aware, how come we are not aware of each other's awareness but only of our own? So the metaphysic you espouse fails to explain the phenomenon in question, but the gloss being given misleads one into thinking that it does.

No. I guess I must have misunderstood. You aren't silly enough to tell people that you're an illusion.

First let me say that this is a topic that really interests me, so although it may look like I'm arguing, I'm actually trying to explore the notion in the only way I have available (other than solitary reflection) which is dialogue.

What you've written there is very similar to what I sometimes say to myself. Often the 'everything is a manifestation of the one' vibe - which I first picked up a few years ago influenced partly by Alan Watts - is helpful to me, but sometimes it just seems silly.

The trouble is that, when I then try to get all hard-headed and rationalist about it and address what you call 'the case in hand', expecting to find a solid question that is amenable to rational consideration, I find that there is no clear question. Looking back at the OP, we see the question 'who are you'. When I try to approach this in a rational way, I only ever end up with trivial, reductionist answers - answers such as 'this sequence of episodes of consciousness' or 'this body'.

So when I am in that mode, I end up giving up, and concluding that there is no satisfying answer to be had via a rational approach to the question. I suppose that is because the question is so poorly defined. It is a mantra rather than a formal inquiry. But if it is a mantra, and there is no rationally precise answer to be had, then perhaps there is no information to be lost in offering a response that omits distinctions.

I wonder, is there any way of interpreting the question that allows an answer, but not just one that is either trivial and reductionist, or mystically holistic? If those are the only two choices, I will usually opt for mystically holistic, but being a lifelong rationalist, I could not resist a more rational answer if I could see one that was nontrivial - one that 'explains the phenomenon' as you rather elegantly put it.

First let me say that this is a topic that really interests me, so although it may look like I'm arguing, I'm actually trying to explore the notion in the only way I have available (other than solitary reflection) which is dialogue. — andrewk

I could have written exactly this, myself; we are of one mind. But I have been rather hard on the mystical expressions in this thread; I hope I can explain why.

It seems to me that there are two possibilities in the case of someone who makes the claim, "I am the the universe...'. The first is that it is an ego identification - a theoretical construct that one adopts as one might adopt 'I am a great leader', or 'I am an introvert', or whatever. In such a case one remains, to put it simply, self-centered. One talks the talk of oneness, but walks the walk of ego, accumulating for oneself the kudos of superior awareness and the fleet of rolls-royces of your average guru.

The dangers of sustaining such a contradiction, that I have mentioned earlier are that it leads one into speaking for the universe and sometimes into imagining magical powers of mind reading and influence, manifesting as the dreadful 'law of attraction' for example.

The other possibility is that one experiences a genuine feeling of unity with the universe. In such a case, (and this is a matter of logic - I am not speaking from experience) one must have the same care and affection for others as one has for one's own limbs. If you and I are indeed one, then I must inevitably and literally love my neighbour as myself.

I have just articulated an ideal of identity, which a thoughtful person might find attractive - I want to be that. And that thought leads towards the first possibility, not the second. So that is why I am rather hard-line about this; it is not just a matter of having a pleasant notion of the oneness of the universe, but a total transformation of experience and behaviour. Otherwise the truth of the thing is betrayed, and it becomes an ugly and dangerous lie.

Open your eyes. Look at what you have to accept about yourself to simply claim your humanity. If the Holocaust doesn't challenge you enough... I've got a history of Russia for ya. Six holocausts in a row.

If your soul is pristine enough that you can throw stones.... Be as hard line as you like. You have nothing to teach about unity.

Indeed, I am the universe annihilating the opposition. Not quite so attractive an identity.

If no moment has any intrinsic (any objective value), over any other moment, then the only difference is the value I give to one moment in relation to the next. I continually and repeatedly try to dominate my experiences, which are in them self indomitable, I think my self arises out of the dialectic of this process, whose abode is language.

Point was that Krishna isn't necessarily friendly. 'I am Time: destroyer of worlds. No matter what you do, Arjuna, the men before you are bound to die.'

I wouldn't use the love your neighbor test on that.

I think my self arises out of the dialectic of this process, whose abode is language — Cavacava

Are you saying that language is a necessity for the presence of your self?

Yes, language enables the self. What we learn and, how we value our experiences, how we conceptualize what we experience would not be possible without language. While language is not thought it is constitutive of thought.