Samir: I feel like science would offer a limited view on reality. I'm someone who wants to get a holistic view of what reality is and I think pursuing a PhD might be just wasting five or six good years of life into knowing a very small bit of reality. I don’t know if it’s my calling or not.
iRealization: Indeed. Very simple question is… how do you know you’re waking or dreaming? If you don’t dismiss that question then you may find an answer.
Samir: I can’t know…
iRealization: Then you’ll dismiss it, no? You’ll go back to whatever you are doing and seeking.
Samir: No matter how much I want to know it, one has to continue with life, right? No matter if it’s waking or dreaming I’ll feel hungry, go to my kitchen and cook some food…
iRealization: That has no bearing in reality, has it? Even in dreaming you still do all those things but those are only dreams, right?
Samir: I agree but then what should one do? Not do anything physical, just sit and meditate?
iRealization: Inside of a dream, if you sit and meditate what will happen? When the dream ends what will happen? All activity will happen only inside the dream, isn’t it? So what is the use of meditation?
Samir: So how does one get there? One just waits for God or whatever to give it to you?
iRealization: First of all you have to understand what is realization. What is it exactly? See... you want something. You want realization but if you don’t know what it is you’ll keep on imagining something.
Samir: But how can I know something before getting there? Any statement I make will be based on my concept from something I’ve read or imagined…
iRealization: If that’s the case what you should say is that you don’t know what it is. Let's start there. First we start at “I don’t know what the hell this is”, otherwise you are wanting something based on some totally unclear and vague picture and taking action from that, and asking if it will work or not work. So that’s never going to happen, you know? You have to be precise and specific if you want something in this phenomenal universe, because the phenomenal universe is just matter and objects, all very specific. A pear is a pear, a mango is a mango.
Samir: But to ask or to start this question of having something you must know what that something is beforehand, if you don’t have the concept of mango I cannot ask for a mango.
iRealization: Right, so let’s back from this question of realization because we don’t know what that is, let’s forget about it. What we start with is whether you are waking or dreaming. Can you answer that for me first? You should know… See, when you are dreaming you don’t know that it’s a dream. Then, who is it that finds out that it’s a dream?
Samir: When I wake up my waking mind finds out that it was a dream.
iRealization: So the entire universe that you thought was real, just like this one, where you are unable to answer whether it's a dream or waking, disappears.
Samir: The dream universe disappears.
iRealization: The world in which you are unable to tell whether it is a dream or not, that world disappears. But you don’t know it is a dream, right? At that time. So therefore what you perceive as the “real” world, like you are perceiving now, you do not know if it is a dream.
Samir: Yeah, I can not say for sure.
iRealization: If you can’t say for sure why don’t you see the experience of what you can be sure of, which is what you call the dream. It is a whole universe that appears and then disappears. You don’t have to ask anybody else to know that. So you have to see with clarity what is happening, that all universes are appearing and disappearing.
Samir: I see that from my experience but then what?
iRealization: Now your question is realization. Realization means… the word “real” is in there…You want to find what is real. And now we are saying that all universes are appearing and disappearing and within one of them you want to find out some idea of reality.
Samir: *laugh* Yup.
iRealization: So where is the reality?
Samir: Must be outside of this disappearing one.
iRealization: Isn’t it? Because what appears and disappears is merely a disappearance, it’s not real. If something is real it cannot disappear, isn’t it? Real means what? What is exactly meant by “real”?
Sia: If I wake up and everyone agrees on what’s happening and it’s not freaked out by it, it seems quite real.
iRealization: But we are talking about actual reality, not conventional reality which is based upon agreement. Based on agreement we are all here talking and we don’t know whether it is real or not real, no? So…
Samir: Something that doesn’t need outside confirmation.
iRealization: Very good. It has to be self-evident, which means anyone who comes across it should immediately know it. If you have to have some kind of translation then it’s based on concepts and you have to rely upon that understanding.
Sia: So outside of me, everything is then a conventional agreed upon thing…
iRealization: Convention is required only for others. You don’t need a convention for yourself, no?
Sia: True.
iRealization: It implies somebody else. In other words it implies communication and the word is for other people, not for you. Take “mango”... do you need the word when you’re there eating it? Only to tell words do you need the word. So coming back to what is real, one thing is that it’s self-evident, anything else? What are the other properties of reality?
Samir: Must be constant, right? Not affected by something coming and going.
iRealization: Ah! In specific we are saying it cannot change. What is real is always real, will always be real and cannot stop being real. Can never change. It can never become real and it can never become unreal. In other words, it is eternal. This word, “eternal” turns conceptual when we drop the idea of beginning and end.
Samir: To be honest, this second criteria that I talked about comes from things I’ve read or maybe some outside concept.
iRealization: No, no. You see it yourself now! We are examining it and we are saying that if you decide that something is real and it had changed into being that thing, then how is it real? And if it’s bound to change, it might change tomorrow. Then how can you say that it is real? Reality cannot change, isn’t it? If something is constantly changing, can you claim it is real?
Samir: So that can be called relative reality, or temporary reality…
iRealization: Ah! Ephemeral, totally fleeting. Some thing in the moment may be perceived, but that is just perception, it is not reality. Perception is your own, so it is subjective or relative and we are talking about absolute reality. Saying that is already too much really because the minute we say “relative reality” it’s evident that it is not real. Everyone has to know the same reality, so there cannot be such a thing called “relative reality”, you see?
Samir: Then by this criteria or can also claim that the outside world is real because it’s in direct perception of the same people.
iRealization: It’s constantly changing, isn’t it? There is nothing in the universe that is not changing, every atom… this whole universe is in a constant state of entropy. Not a thing is static, at all! Zero. Even your body is changing.
Samir: From the point of view of a human person, people will collectively say that New York is a real thing.
iRealization: People say many things inside of a dream, no? Inside a dream many things are seen to be real and they agree that this or that is real, then you wake up to realize it wasn’t. There is no point in discussing conventional understanding within a conceptual world and saying “now we all agree, therefore it’s real.” Again, New York is changing, which New York? Yesterday, five years ago, ten years ago, one-hundred years ago’s New York? A thousand years ago there was no New York, so there is no reality there. We agreed upon that reality must be something that cannot change into being and appear real. By the very definition it cannot change, that is the confusion. It has to be self-evident, not conventional and requires no agreement, meaning it does not require other people. It’s always that because everyone sees it as self-evident. Any time that is seen it will be seen for the same thing, therefore never changes – eternal, without beginning and end. If it had a beginning it had a change in it. It went from zero to one. It cannot have even the slightest change. So, eternal, this is the property of reality you are seeking. If you keep seeking things which are changing you’ll never find it, by definition it is excluded.
Samir: So anything or nothing that I do in this framework of waking state won’t be of any use towards that.
iRealization: Absolutely correct.
Samir: So is it a matter to just live and wait for it to happen by itself?
iRealization: We have to go back. What is it that you are perceiving and what is it that you say happens? Any happening… is it not only happening inside a dream? If something happens and you wake up from the dream, what has happened?
Samir: I woke up from that dream.
iRealization: No, nothing has actually happened, right? Because the dream was there nothing actually happened.
Samir: Nothing has happened to the real me, yeah…
iRealization: Which real “me”? You only knew your “me” when you were dreaming, so which “me” are you talking about?
Samir: The one who goes to sleep and is not in the dream.
iRealization: See… you only know the one that is in the dream. The assumption is that there is somebody sleeping outside but that somebody is in the dream only.
Sia: So, you are saying that if you look around everywhere, at one point you’ll find something that has existed eternally and everything else that you are seeing and everything else that I was identifying with will then simply go away and the realization that I was just this the whole time but forgot, can dawn.
iRealization: Yeah! Isn’t it? You’re expressing it yourself because you know it to be true. This knowledge which is just coming out is not your knowledge. So, to see it happening as it is, that is called meditation. For simply seeing there is no activity, seeing is already happening. Without any effort seeing is happening. So to go on a journey and to meditate, and all that, first one has to investigate who is that “I” who’s meditating. It can only be in a limited consciousness and idea-driven notion of “I will meditate, I will realize…” It has no meaning because these are all words that are within the context of illusion or consciousness whereas the truth is outside as we said, and in fact there is no “outside” because both outside and inside are concepts based on the limited universes that we are familiar with. But what is the Universe of universes?
Samir: So what exactly does change when a “person” gets awakened?
iRealization: Anything that exists is only when the person exists.
Samir: I mean, in theory there has to be something that differentiates me from you, or from some unawakened to awakened.
iRealization: Pure imagination. That is also known as false knowledge, or I call it just knowledge, or ignorance, but they are all the same nature of information. Some people say correct information, some people say incorrect information, also known as knowledge versus ignorance, or the absence of true knowledge. These are all types of knowing and it’s based on knowledge and concepts. There is something that is not based on knowledge and concepts because otherwise knowledge and concepts would not exist.
Samir: So when does one stop imagining?
iRealization: First of all… who will stop it? You have to see whose imagination it is. Once you understand whose imagination it is then that question doesn’t arise, you know?
Sia: When you go to sleep and start dreaming, sometimes you might wake up in the dream and you’ll realize that one’s much bigger than this situation and the dream becomes lucid. So you don’t wake up from the dream and then go back to your original life, now the dream itself becomes lucid and you have more confidence and better execution.
iRealization: There is nothing called “lucid dreaming” because the minute you wake up, the dream disappears.
Sia: When you say “wake up” it feels that you wake up and you go back to your original life…
iRealization: You are mixing the two worlds. You see, when you say “wake up”, you will wake up from world A into world B so you will not know that you woke up. The one who will become awake disappears when the dream ends. What wakes up is none of the characters.
Sia: So how does one wake up, that is the question…
iRealization: That’s the point, there is nobody to wake up.
Sia: *laugh* It seems very circular.
iRealization: You are imagining that it is circular. See, there is only what is and the consciousness of itself is there. Do you need any explanation for yourself, to know “I am here?”
Sia: No.
iRealization: So, “I am” is not a doubt, is it? That’s all.
Sia: When you define “I am” you’re saying it is something transcendent…
iRealization: No, no, no! I don’t say anything I just say that I am. Don’t you know you are? That’s all I’m questioning, not if you are a transcendental being and all that crap. Do you know that you exist?
Sia: I know.
iRealization: How do you know?
Sia: From direct knowledge.
iRealization: What is that direct knowledge?
Sia: I can perceive the world.
iRealization: World is what you are seeing in the so-called world. I am asking… do you know if you exist?
Sia: Yeah, I know I exist.
iRealization: How do I know?
Sia: I don’t know how to describe it. I mean… I cannot doubt it, that’s all I can say.
iRealization: That experience of you being here, isn’t it there?
Sia: It’s there, yeah.
iRealization: Otherwise you would not know it. The knowledge from you being there comes from experience of you being there, isn’t it? So experience and knowledge, these two things go hand in hand. When you eat a mango you know that you ate it and afterwards can say that it is sweet and such. There is no separate knowledge needed apart from the direct activity of eating it.
Sia: When I’m in deep sleep I literally don’t know that I exist…
iRealization: Very good. Now we’re getting back into it because what is there when there is nothing? That experience is known to you everyday because you remember your own sleep.
Sia: When I am in deep sleep I don’t have the feeling of “I am.”
iRealization: How do you remember it then? You can’t remember something you didn’t experience, correct? Obviously experience is there. What is lacking there is the awareness of it but the experience of it is recollected upon waking. You know that experience was there, you just don’t experience it now. Nobody can experience a different state in another state. You cannot experience the dream state or sleep state now because this is the waking state, but you can recollect many things – ideas, concepts and some experiences – so the experience has been stored as “I’ve had a really peaceful sleep” where there is no identification of any kind.
Sia: True.
iRealization: That’s all, isn’t it? Right now, the problem is what?
Sia: The moment I wake up the identification comes back.
iRealization: Which means what exactly? Means I am Sia. Don’t do that, remain as your true self and it’s finished.
Sia: *laugh* How do I not illusion myself into this Sia?
iRealization: Anything and everything, whatever you may do is the illusion. There is nothing that you can possibly do or act towards that is not an illusion, is it?
Sia: I agree but…
iRealization: First of all, you have to become extremely clear that there is no activity that can take you there. Unless you are clear you’re going to keep doing it, isn’t it? Running behind the mirage. You’ll wake up in the desert, you see it and keep running behind it. People go mad in the desert! Not knowing is the problem, otherwise you’ll keep thinking that a ghost, which is not there, is real and then someday you’ll conquer it by going through great lengths, through a great hero’s journey and one day you are confident again to go out at night time. Have you conquered the ghost? The nonsense continues because there was never a ghost in the first place. So what is it that we’re talking about? We’re trying to realize something which is an illusion, isn’t it? So the realization itself is an illusion because any kind of realization can only be in conceptual form, isn’t it? We already know concepts are illusion. What do you actually want? Let’s come to that.
Sia: Freedom from thoughts because thoughts create illusion.
iRealization: You want to know, you want to be free because thoughts are constantly coming. “I want to know, I want to know reality”, isn’t it?
Sia: Definitely.
iRealization: But those are all thoughts based on the memory of somebody who did not know reality and that somebody can only see things conceptually because that somebody is conceptual.
Sia: Yes…
iRealization: Therefore whatever you seek is conceptual only. Is this clear? You are seeking something that is going to happen in consciousness, and in consciousness, whatever happens, is limited to that so-called happening and that particular perceiver whose consciousness belongs to. Any happening is within consciousness and you are trying to realize Consciousness or Awareness, or whatever you want to call it… the very source of every thing. So any thought that emerges out of what you are trying to see takes you away from what is there already, takes you into that limited idea of that thought, whereas we are discussing the very medium, the substrate of thought – what is thought made up of? It is made up of memories and mixed with imagination. You never remember the mango itself, you just remember that it was like this, like that, that it was so delicious… Whereas the mango has no opinion about it, it is inert matter. Just a bunch of energy and cells, nothing else. So what is it that you call experience and thoughts? Isn’t experience equal to knowledge? Otherwise you would not know that you had the mango, so the knowledge part is always operating.
The experience part is evident. When you say “I had it”, there is no doubt about your own experience. So those two parts are clear, consciousness of your own experience and the fact that it is there, existence itself – ” I exist” is never in doubt, right? So you are two out of three, from Sat-chit-ānanda. But what you are looking for is the ānanda portion, you want to be free of everything. You are living for that but first you have to become clear on the first two parts, sat and chit, which means existence and knowledge of that existence. The bliss part, ānanda, will be there when nothing else is coming on the way. It is inherent in being itself.
Sia: Yeah… *laughs*
iRealization: That pleasure is within you only. So the self delusion is the problem, giving meaning to that individual who’ll become realized, whereas there is nothing to realize and no individual.
Samir: But then it makes one nihilistic.
iRealization: Only if you think that there is somebody to be nihilist: “Oh, I don’t have any meaning”, another idiotic idea. It is a foolish concept of the ego, saying that “now I am a nihilist because there is no meaning.” Meaning is only in the context of the individual, it’s whatever they think, that’s meaning. Meaning to whom, you see? Meaning to the one who gives it meaning, as in the example of the mango… fifty reactions from fifty people tasting it. So to become clear on the nature of what is happening, that is called meditation.
Samir: So that is necessary on the path…
iRealization: What we call meditation, which is what? See all the things which are not true. The only way to get it is to see what it is not. Then what remains ultimately can not be negated and you’ll be left with it and it will take over what is there.
Samir: That part is not happening or I’m resisting it…
iRealization: It is already happening. You are imagining that it is not happening. Who gave you this thought? How did you start thinking about realization? That itself is happening on its own, my friend. You are taking credit for something: “Oh, I became interested in realization”, how did you even find out? What does that even mean? You didn’t even know what it means yet you are claiming credit for it. That whole free will principle has to be seen clearly because you are imagining to have free will constantly. Where is the question of free will? From the moment the Big Bang happened, it’s all a physics reaction. I’m asking you as a scientist, isn’t it all predetermined based on the Big Bang?
Samir: It is.
Photography - Courtesy of Saad Chaudhry
