Re relativity:
We often use words like ‘Awareness’ and ‘Consciousness’ as synonyms but when talking about the big picture, we need to be a bit more accurate.
Awareness is Absolute. Awareness is pure; there’s nothing but Awareness. Consciousness is relative. When you’re conscious, you’re conscious of something, so consciousness is relative to that which it is conscious of. So we should use the term ‘Awareness’ when it’s pure (God) and ‘Consciousness’ when it’s in relation to something (God’s dream).
Sure, let’s go with that.
From pure Awareness comes Consciousness and from Consciousness comes the dreamtime (time/space) and the 10,000 things.
So the relativity of somethingness is inherited from the relativity of consciousness. Is that right?
Re Nothingness:
This world is back-to-front, upside-down and inside-out. Virtually everything we hold to be true in this bizarre world is false and vice versa.
Okaaay.
The Western concept of ‘nothingness’ (little ‘n’) is an abstraction. It’s an empty placeholder that exists in duality but as a space yet to be filled.
Yes, it would have to be an abstraction. When we say there is nothing in empty space, we mean there is literally a complete lack of anything filling the emptiness. Nothingness as a concept, therefore, would have to be purely an abstraction. Turns out we’re wrong, however–quantum mechanics tells us that the void of space is teaming with virtual particles, energy waves, a frothing quantum foam, and even that space itself is more substance than space, but we regard this as an invisible something rather than change our concept of nothing to be closer to “something”.
Still, wouldn’t you say even the Eastern idea of nothingness is an abstraction (though maybe not purely)?
In Eastern philosophy ‘Nothingness’ – or No-Thingness – is everything, and everything is nothing. Nothingness is pregnant and bursting with potential. Nothingness is that from which everything arises. Nothingness was before time; it gave birth to time but it, itself, is timeless.
Nothingness appears black, deep and void but both consciousness and light are invisible until they strike something that reflects them. In Nothingness, there are no manifestations, no ‘things’ to reflect off so we don’t see things nor do we perceive the effects of Consciousness if it were possible to do so.
Way over my head, but it sounds like the something that isn’t a something. And it sounds like quantum physics gets us closer to the Easter idea of nothingness than classical physics.
“The Tao is an empty vessel; it is used, but never filled.
Oh, unfathomable source of ten thousand things!”
“Oh, hidden deep but ever present!
I do not know from whence it comes.
It is the forefather of the Gods.”
“This appears as darkness - darkness within darkness – the gate to all mystery”
– The Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu (6th-century BC sage)
Anyway, I’ll stop here because I began to ramble and drift all over the place; ironically, Nothing can get pretty deep. Think about black holes… think about the creation of the universe coming from nothing. In essence, according to the Advaita-based philosophies, Nothingness (Para Brahman) is that which gave birth to Awareness/Consciousness (Brahman) and, in turn, gave birth to the universe and the 10,000 things.
Note: ‘nothingness’ or ‘emptiness’ as it relates to Enlightenment, is something different. It’s about emptying, detaching from, or not identifying with, the content of Consciousness (thoughts, emotions, beliefs) but identifying with Consciousness itself – i.e. who You are. Again, the background (Consciousness) is what’s Real; the constantly changing thoughts, emotions and beliefs we hold in the foreground of our consciousness are not Real.