NMT, No-Me Teaching 4

Note on true Happiness:

Happiness is felt, experienced, sourced & "contained" in the very heart of the conscious Mind. Happiness is in no way connected [affecting or deriving from] any external Object, but only in & from ourselves.  We, as Consciousness, are the One that experiences Happiness.  Though we seem to derive Happiness from external objects or experiences, the Happiness that we actually experience derives from Consciousness at the core of our Being.  Desire for Happiness, fear concerning its diminution or absence, such "thought–waves" or vrittis leave the Mind troubled & unhappy.  But "beneath" the superficial Mind, Consciousness ever remains peaceful & happy.

Agitation [rajas guna] in the Mind obscures [tamas guna] innate Happiness in the center of our Being.

Upon temporary satisfaction of obscuring desires, some temporary subsidence of such vrittis in the Mind is felt as "partial happiness" – all to the extent & for that interval consistent with the degree & continuance of subsidence.

That "partial happiness" is a "whiff" of the limitless innate Happiness that is Consciousness.  Sri Shankara, & before him the Buddha, among many sages from various traditions, delineated some details of this illusion of unhappiness.  Buddha’s 4 Noble Truths concerning the nature of Happiness could be roughly summarized as follows:

Life is of the nature of Suffering.

Suffering arises from Desire.

Desirelessness is Liberation.

Spiritual practice [as in his 8–fold Path ] is the way to Desirelessness & Liberation.

Further interpretive intuition implicit in the instructions of the Buddha could be extended thus:

Not getting what you want is Suffering.

Getting what you don’t want is Suffering.

Even getting what you want is Suffering, because deep down you know that the temporary enjoyment is fleeting & will slip away, so that future loss is already intuited & is already painful.

Sri Shankara contribute additional insights amid his thorough discussion of the nature of Happiness:

That an external object cannot produce Happiness is suggested by the fact that its enjoyment is less or even absent at certain other times & by certain other people.

Furthermore, increasing access to the supposed "happiness–producing" [such as having twice as much, etc.] does not increase the enjoyment proportionally, & sometime not at all.  Even reversal to aversion to excess of the imagined "happiness–source" can be the case.

Further, Happiness is not within the Mind.  Mental replay or memory of the supposed "happiness–producing" experience may be slightly enjoyable, but never to full extent of the immediate experience.  The Mind cannot fully [or at all] replicate a happy experience, thus possibly leading the former illusion of attributing the Happiness to an external Object.

In fact, it is removal of obscuring mental waves [vrittis], as mentioned above, that allows some glimmer, little or great portion of innate Happiness to shine through. Full & lasting Happiness, Liberation arises from transcendence of the Mind & naturally complete Renunciation regarding unreal external objects.

Generally, disturbance in the Mind obscures the calm Peace of the Self, which is Pure Consciousness.

To enjoy full & lasting Happiness, we need only return, consciously to the Mind-transcendence naturally but unconsciously experienced on a daily basis in Deep Dreamless Sleep. 

more Container Space analogies:

Just as Ego is the Reference “Origin” for thought & Mind, so is Now such for Time, Here for Space, & the Body for the World.  Each is in fact another form of Ego [my self]: my Now time, my place Here, my Body.

Thoughts or pieces of an Image, a Sound, any Sensation or Thought–form can be compared [within the analogy] to Coordinate Points within an appropriate Cartesian Container Coordinate Space, all defined with reference to their respective Origins.  So 2-D locations on the TV/Cinema/Visual–Screen of the Mind are referenced to the Origin of Central Focus or mental "Here" of the TV/Cinema Image Screen .  More proper 3-D locations in "Physical" [perceived that way] Space are referenced to the Origin of Physical Here. 

Thoughts, on the other hand, are referenced in Mind to the Ego–I or Me Origin.  The 1-D Linear Thought–flow & Sound–sequence are referenced, just as is Time itself  to the Origin of the Now Moment.  The 3-D Tactile & Visually Scanned World of Objects in Physical Space could be said to have one’s Body as the "Origin" which in this case is not an infinitesimal 0-D Coordinate Point like the other Origins.

In each case the premiere Sense Modality for each Coordinate Space analogy could begin with Hearing for the sequence of Sound, & by extension to the Flow of Time & of Thought. That Sense-association is of course "tight" for Sound Sequence even though some 3-D echo-location occurs as well, especially for bats, dolphins, etc.  The extension of this same Acoustic  Sense Modality to Thought & Time is by analogy.

For the 2-D "Screen" & 3-D Space, Vision predominates.  Tactile Sense comes in as well for the 3-D Container Coordinate Space of the World of Objects.  Each "great empty space" is perceived primarily by 1 or 2 Senses.

1-D:  Time, thought-flow, sound sequence                                             Hearing

2-D  “Window / Windshield” of the visualizing Mind                              Vision

3-D   World of Objects                                                                              Tactile 

In another vein, the various Coordinate Space analogies correspond to "classical elements" of phases of Matter.  Certainly Space is space & the World is space but also the solid earth.  "Airy" Time, Sound, & Thought-flow then "belong" to the gas phase.  To posit a 0-D thinking & imagining Mind with memory, etc. could by a stretch be connected to the Olfactory & Gustatory Senses where things may stink or taster sweet.

Mind of course includes Time, Space, & the World.  But specifically focusing on Mind itself as one of the Container-Spaces, ever with Thoughts as the Coordinate Points & the Ego–I or Me as there reference Origin, models for Mind appear in 5 different dimensional aspects:

0-D for the core [false] Ego Identity, Me

1-D for the sequence of Thought

2-D for the visual screen of the Mind

3-D for the theater of the Mind

4-D for lifetime identity Personality, born, growing, dying in Waking State Time

The 1-D Space of Time overlaps somewhat with the Mind's 1-D for the sequence of Thought, with Moments for the points on the Timeline with Now another Origin along with Ego.  Sound & other Sequences compare as well, with Auditory Sense most aligned with this 1-D as in the chart up above. Almost by default Olfactory & Gustatory Senses matched up with 0-D, in some vague way.  Olfactory especially aligns a bit with Ego, or at least the Limbic System in terms of fear & other Emotions.

Vision as been lined up internally with the 2-D Screen of the Mind & also 3-D via Perspective & internally in the Theater-Stage of the Mind.  But 3-D properly belongs to Tactile [somato-sensory Somesthetic, Proprioception,  Nociception, Haptic-touch including lateral motion, pressure, enclosure. contour following] & Vestibular-balance. Yet even Tactile Senses, like Vision creates 3-D one dimension at a time.  Using 1-D Time-sense we instinctively measure a visual scan or a feeling by how long it takes in context, all things considered. This gives us the 1-D of Length as a Perceptual Concept. In some orthogonal sense [generalized "perpendicular"], another Dimension is simultaneously "calculated" as Width & "multiplied so to speak " by Length to yield 2-D "Area" or general "expanse". Again in another orthogonal sense a 3rd Dimension is likewise "calculated" as Depth & "multiplied" again to fill 2-D "expanse" out into tangible "volume" or Mass.  In this way Tactile & Visual Sense , create a 3-D World or ant given Object, one Dimension at a time, quick enough to seem simultaneous.

So the chart op above loosely links the Senses with big-category concepts/mental-projections.  From there the ancient "elements" or phases are, by serendipity, loosely matched to both Senses & characteristic Dimensions, to some degree.  Even Fractal Dimensions can be worked into the Concept scheme.  For one example, a 2-D sketch could contain edges & outlines.  Some 2 ½  Dimension could indicate the shading & texture suggestive of 3-D.  Likewise, 4-D Space-Time has with Here & Now at (0,0,0,0) Origin.

So again, the World fills Space with Objects, etc. as points with an extended Macro-Origin reference as the Body. While Hearing naturally parallels Time in Sound & Music, all being mostly 1-D, Vision naturally scans 2-D Screens suggestive of 3-D Space. These Sense Perceptions along with Tactile, etc. Senses concretize a World. While the Body is an extended or Macro-Origin reference Origin for the coordinate space of the World, that same Body can be a Micro-Space in itself, with it own smaller Macro-Origin as perhaps the Brain. The Body-skin marks the inside–outside boundary in the World

All of this imaginative association serves only to reduce the "magical" function of the Mind to a repeated pattern of simple Ideas. To flesh out additional detail [among a number of imagined others] of these Container Coordinate Spaces, we can see the Body as a small Micro-Container-Space in itself.  The boundaries of a Micro-Container-Space constitute the line dividing Inner from Outer, in that latter case between the physically inner Me & the Outer World.  A Micro-Container-Space in 3-D Physical Space might be one’s Vicinity, in 1-D Time it might be one’s Lifetime.  A Micro-Container-Space around a 2-D map of Mind’s thought or a 3-D or 4-D Space-Time of such thoughts could be the Personality enclosing Ideas close around the Ego–Origin.

Back in the 3-D or 4-D World of Objects, where the Body, a Micro-Container-Space in itself, serves as the best practical Macro-Origin for Objects outside that Body. Similarly, the Lifetime Micro-Container-Space could be a Macro-Origin for a longer scale of Time, just as the Vicinity Micro-Container-Space could be a Macro-Origin for a larger scales of  Distance.  The infinitesimal Now & Here Origins still serve as Origins within the Time & Vicinity Micro-Container-Spaces. If pressed for a "more infinitesimal" Origin within the Body Micro-Container-Space, which alone best serves as a Macro-Origin for the World of objects, then such a more “inner” Origin might be the Brain within the Body, or the Cortex, neither completely infinitesimal, but still rather discrete. Each Macro-Origin/ Micro-Space is the same kind of "local neighborhood" in each case. Body – Planet – Star system – Galaxy – Galaxy Groups etc. are successively larger Macro-Origin/ Micro-Spaces or "local neighborhoods".

Mathematical categories & curiosities aside, the point of these simplistic models is to suggest that Mind, Time, Space, & the World are not objective "givens" with fixed qualities.   Different people experience these differently, & each of us also does so differently at different times.  However modeled, or not, these big-category concepts are mental projections, not fixed realities. The Coordinate Space models suggest that the same old "space with a center" Idea is repeated over & over again for Mind, Time, Space, & the World.  More importantly, these represent the net of Illusion that distracts us from recognition of our core Identity, the Non-Dual Brahman, the Self of Absolute Existence, pure Non-Dual Consciousness, & complete Happiness, Love, Bliss, Peace, & Liberation.

Moreover, the establishment of a Reference-Origin is a coalescence of an Ego or pseudo–Ego like Now, Here, the Body.  Given the  Ego or pseudo–Ego, a "world" appears, a "world" of Mind, Time, Space, … Lost in the Mis-identification of Ego & Superimposition of a "world" is one’s True Nature: including Happiness.  Mis-identifying Happiness, one fails to "do the right thing" due to chasing the wrong target. There results a World gone wrong where we need to "save the world", starting by recognizing the various forms of Ego & the loss of Happiness.