530. Rick Archer at the 2019 SAND Conference – Knowledge/Reality is Different in Different States of Consciousness

Rick ArcherOpening points:

  • People get polarized in different perspectives. The more they focus exclusively on their perspective, the more justification for it they find.
  • Learning to appreciate paradox; accommodating different viewpoints within a broader perspective.
  • Enlightenment as Totality. Only Totality can realize Totality.
  • Totality has no difficulty reconciling paradoxes.
  • Getting comfortable with paradox might be conducive to our realization of Totality.

Examples of contradictory realities:

  • free will vs. determinism
  • personal self vs. no-self
  • Are we already enlightened, or must enlightenment be attained?
  • Is practice an aid or an obstacle?
  • Is the guru model dead?
  • Does non-duality imply that there are no stages of spiritual growth?
  • direct vs. progressive paths
  • patience vs. determination on the spiritual path

Additional points covered:

  • Acting in accordance with your own experience, not a concept of someone else’s.
  • Absolute reality does not negate relative realities.
  • Radically different realities at different levels of nature’s functioning are perfectly compatible with one another.
  • Incorporating universal and individual perspectives – ocean and wave, boundless and boundaries.
  • My experience in doing BatGap.

Recorded at the Science and Nonduality Conference, October 27, 2019.

Transcript of this talk.

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