Hi James,

But dogma, ideology does.

You’re right. Even the ideology that there is nothing, that God is “total disappearing”:

The reason Being, God or Godhead cannot be claimed is simple: the so-called Godhead or God is total disappearing. There is no “me,” no experience, no awareness, no being, no life, no consciousness, no body, no universe, no state, no enlightenment, no mind, nothing at all exists there.

God is the Creator, James. From the singular consciousness, worlds are created. Including me and you. I’m sorry you’re insisting on nothingness, which is indeed nihilism.

I understand that you felt something akin to disappearing in your meditations, but these meditations happened, as Anita said, under extreme conditions, you living in darkness for an entire year, and spending 8-10 hours per day meditating.

I would love to hear more about how you came to the decision to spend a year in darkness… because it is a pretty radical one. I would like to hear more about your process.

I also understand that you went through some pretty tough medical trauma, and that you now feel lucky to be able to breathe (My celebration is breathing.). I know that, because I myself have debilitating health issues, perhaps not life-threatening like yours, but very limiting and causing me slip into hopelessness pretty regularly (but then I bounce back). So I understand when you say “life is suffering”…

Anyway, I’d like to talk about the issues you’re facing, but would not like to subscribe to the idea of nothingness that you’re advocating. I hope we can remain in conversation.

Best wishes to you!

Hi James,

About experience of meditation that, when recognition happened that any experience belongs to body and mind, therefore no one to there to claim. James is dead. Therefore, Body feels pain yet there is no one to suffer. And that’s what Love is.

Oh James, I wish I could erase the physical pain in my body simply by telling myself that I don’t exist. Well, I can’t… the thought, the idea, that I don’t exist, doesn’t erase the physical pain of a broken bone, or a worn-out cartilage in the knee.

I can pretend that pain is neutral to me, or that it’s even enjoyable, but that would be lying to myself. Because there is someone who is feeling that pain, who is receiving the sensations (nerve impulses) coming from the body to the brain. And someone who is observing that pain.

Come to think of it, the pain is gone only in 3 cases: 1) the body heals, 2) you take strong medicine/sedatives that take away the pain temporarily, 3) you die (physically, not metaphysically). I’ve just looked it up: even people in wheelchair often feel pain in their limbs (so-called nerve pain), even if they can’t use their legs.

Anyway, if my body is hurting, I can’t pretend I’m not suffering, even though I can reduce my suffering by various means, including self-suggestion and positive thinking. In Buddhism, there is a term “the second arrow of suffering”, which means that we can make our pain worse (be it physical or emotional pain) by catastrophizing and interpreting the events in a non-favorable way, which only increases our suffering. So if we keep telling ourselves that our situation is hopeless and beyond repair, our pain is likely to increase.

If I understood you well, you say that Love is when you tell yourself that you don’t exist (Body feels pain yet there is no one to suffer. And that’s what Love is).

Pretty strange definition of love… Because love is a relational phenomenon… God loves his creation (a tree, a flower, animals, humans…). A mother loves her child. A person loves their beloved.

Love is about relation. So I can’t really wrap my head around the idea that God-as-Nothing would love Me-as-Nothing? Or am I not understanding you correctly?