What Is the Boundless State Actually Like?

[00:00:00]What is it like to experience the environment without boundaries?

[00:00:07]What is it like to experience life without boundaries?

[00:00:15]I get this question frequently in interviews.

[00:00:19]People ask it um in question answer sessions and comments under my videos.

[00:00:27]And I do talk about it. I I talk about the direct experience of it uh in different ways, but it's it's actually rather difficult to talk about it because as I've said before, language is used to communicate a world that is divided up.

[00:00:49]Just in practical terms, if you're talking to someone using language, talking about where, when, or who, you are talking about a place that is divided from other places. You're talking about a time that's divided from other times. You're talking about a person that's divided from other people.

[00:01:10]Language is just designed to communicate a mental model to another person.

[00:01:18]It's almost as if you want to formulate this mental model here and then hand it to another person, right? And that mental model is made out of assumptions that reality is divided up. I think that's pretty clear in in the way I'm communicating it, but I I'm sure that it's accurate. If you just look at the way thoughts function, right? If your thought says I am this, it means you're not that. Like if you think I'm um I'm a mess, well that means you're not put together. If you think you're put together, it means you're not a mess. Um if you think I'm Joe from Mississippi, then you're not Josh from Tennessee and the other several billion people in the world. Um if you think this happened in 1972, this event then it didn't happen in every other possible time that you could imagine.

[00:02:16]Right now, of course, if you look more closely, it's all arbitrary, right?

[00:02:23]Because right now is not 1972. There's no other time but now. But the language assumes it into being in a sense.

[00:02:32]And the the funny thing about this is we know that we're not creating 1972 or recreating 1972 by saying it right now.

[00:02:39]We're not re we're not bringing a person who's not here into this physical existence right in this moment by talking about them. Right? If I talk about Joe, Joe doesn't suddenly appear.

[00:02:48]That's obvious. I know that's obvious.

[00:02:50]You know that's obvious. And yet when we use language with another person, our internal world actually perceives it as as if that's happening, right? That's the idea is to convey a mental model to someone else. Yeah. [snorts] So why do we have thoughts? Who the heck knows?

[00:03:08]But I think one really good theory, well, it's my theory and I'm sure others have this theory, but I think a a good way of looking at it is that thoughts are actually a byproduct of language lang and language is the medium of communication with other humans. It's one medium of communication, a specific time type of communication like planning or communicating complex things. So that may be the whole source of what thought is. thought is an internal reflection of external conversations or something like that. But the strange thing is the experience of it becomes so solidified as we grow up as we grow from younger to older children and then to ad pre-adolescence, adolescence and into young adulthood.

[00:03:55]we have an incremental increase in the binding feeling of those thoughts that that make it seem like, yeah, I'm here.

[00:04:02]You're there. That guy's the one that's causing the trouble. I'm the one that's suffering from it. Um, you know, this event's going to happen tomorrow, so it's not happening today. It didn't happen yesterday. It won't happen the day after. these thoughts that we that we kind of get stirred up with, right, that we get inter intertwined in in entangled in, they really make it seem like all that's kind of happening or going to happen or did happen start it feels sort of solid in a way. It starts to feel so real and then we communicate more and more com in more and more complex ways with other people around all this stuff as we grow older. Uh the and it becomes rather solidified. It sneaks up on us is what I think really happens. is we don't realize how uncomfortable and how elusory it actually is to live in that internal world um until something makes it feel uncomfortable. For some people it's just kind of always uncomfortable. For some people it's somehow overlooked until something really just blows up in their face. Some aspect of life that their mental model was there to prevent them from seeing um is quite possible and then it does happen, right? something like a disruption, a tragedy, a loss of a loved one, and then you can't hold that model anymore. You can't identify with the model anymore. Something breaks open. Yeah. Um and and that's when we realize, oh man, this really did sneak up on me. It it it was like the the boiler that just slowly turned the heat up and we never jumped out of the pot of boiling water until it was boiling. Uh that's that's the the the mental model.

[00:05:34]So that was a long way of saying anything I tell you is going to sound like its purpose is to give you a mental model of something that's dualistic. In this case, I'm doing something uncommon with language.

[00:05:48]I'm trying to use language to point you to something outside of that mental model right now, not later, right now.

[00:05:56]To I'm language to remind you that the mental model itself is an illusion and that there's something far beyond that experientially a dimension of experience. It's far beyond that in terms of how confining it is, how time based it is, and how dualistic it is. It's available to you right now.

[00:06:17]So, how do I use language to do that? I don't know. It's instinct sometimes.

[00:06:21]Maybe it's experience sometimes. But sometimes analogies work, right? An analogy works sometimes because if I use an analogy is a symbol, right?

[00:06:33]So if I and words are symbols, of course, if I use a word like chair, the word is just a word, but it's pointing to something that we you and I hopefully agree on what that is, right? Um, we could discuss whether or not there isn't even there's even form at all, but to the degree that we agree on form, we agree that a chair is something you sit on. generally speaking, right? That's kind of its function. Uh it may or may not have four legs, but it often does.

[00:07:00]It may may have a back to it, but sometimes it doesn't. But we kind of agree on that, right? So words are symbols pointing to something. So if I use a word like awareness, now I'm pointing to something more abstract, maybe more abstract, uh but it's more subtle. It's not so concrete. And certainly people are going to have different ideas of what it means. And some people will have no idea of what it means.

[00:07:21]So in that sense you can see how using certain words, certain symbols or using symbols in certain ways can help you open beyond form or open to something that's not so fixed in experience like a chair. That's why sometimes we use spiritual terminology and so forth.

[00:07:38]There are other ways of using language that that can be like a metaphor is kind of what I'm talking about today. A metaphor is a symbol but it's a kind of complex symbol. And that complex symbol's job is to actually turn your attention around inside that mind and see through the boundaries of the mind itself. That mind structure that that we hand to each other and say this is how the world is divided up. Me, you, time, space and all of it. So this kind of [snorts] metaphoric pointing is trying to use that mental model which we are familiar with. Well, we're going to agree on the mental model, you and I, because otherwise the symbol's useless.

[00:08:14]We're going to agree that the mental model is what it is. That that the model itself or the symbol itself is what it is. But the point is to use that model as a kind of catalyst to point attention to point your attention beyond the the modeling apparatus, beyond that confining dualistic temporal mind or thought process. That's the whole point of it. So, that was a very long- winded introduction, but hopefully that preamble helps a little bit to explain when I say this, I don't mean what you imagine in your mind immediately. That that's what I'm talking about. It's not exactly like that. The picture in your mind isn't what I'm talking about. I'm using this analogy to help you point past the picture in your mind. If you have a picture, maybe you don't have a picture. Maybe you have a narrative or thoughts or concepts. This pointing is to point you past those or to help those sort of break open in a way using an analogy that we agree on as the catalytic starting point. That's the whole point. So yes, you if I say this when I say this, you're going to have a some image in your mind or some idea.

[00:09:19]That's actually not what I'm talking about. But because you can relate to the symbol, I'm going to point out aspects of this symbol that help you to see through. That's the idea. Okay.

[00:09:31]So with all that said, um what is the non-dualistic experience like? What is the non-dualistic ongoing recognition like to live in? Yeah. So the analogy today, the the catalyst um the metaphor is it's kaleidoscopic. It's like a kaleidoscope.

[00:09:54]Again, it's not like you're looking at what a kaleidoscope looks like exactly, but if you can kind of vibe with what I'm saying here, one thing a kaleidoscope does is it endlessly changes, right? Even if you try to hold it still, there's all these little bits in there, then they're falling and kind of moving around a little bit probably, but certainly that's not the way it's used.

[00:10:14]The kaleidoscope is used by turning it almost always in some way or another.

[00:10:17]There's a mechanism to turn and [snorts] as you do it, the little tumb the pieces tumble inside. They could be little colored translucent pieces of material.

[00:10:27]They could be little sequins and little bits of whatever. Can be anything, right? But they're moving always, right?

[00:10:34]And they're moving and they're tumbling and changing constantly. So there's this endless flux when you're looking into a kaleidoscope. And there's something beautiful about that, right? There's something sort of creative. There's like a c it kind of opens that creative channel that creativity because creativity is unpredictable, right? Creativity is seems to be coming out of nothing at all. It doesn't come out of a mental model or structure. It comes out of its own its own instant display of what it is. It's it comes it's it's it's its own existence itself, its own way of being is creativity, right? It's kind of like the kaleidoscopic image that's just endlessly changing, right? Um, so it opens a sort of creative feeling and to me that feeling of creativity is not Angela being creative. It's it's the creation of this moment. Um, and it's a feeling of wonder. It's a feeling of wonder and even a feeling of the sublime. Can even be the feeling of the sublime. It kind of fluctuates for me between a feeling of kind of like this just this ease and wonder and it's always mysterious in my experience, but it it it sometimes fluctuates into this kind of like truly sublime um really wild but it's it is endlessly fluxing in that way. So that's one aspect of the kaleidoscopic image that that is accurate here. Um another aspect is that it is It's a mosaic in that there's this beautiful relationship between parts and the whole and in the kaleidoscopic image it's always changing but it it feels exactly like that where yes it's true that there's no appearance of form and yet appearances like this is an appearance right this is an appearance there's appearances and these appearances because we don't need to negate the convent conventional which is actually the mind putting a label on something but those appearances are perceived at least through thought or through the mind or through p the perceptive apparatus as separate individual objects.

[00:12:48]The realization shows that they actually aren't there is no actual object there.

[00:12:52]So there's a massive juxtiposition there and that to me is that mosaic quality where the parts are are really sort of clear in and of themselves as as a as an apparent part, but they don't exist apart from the whole because there's no actual form there.

[00:13:19]So a mosaic is not a mosaic without all the parts of it, right? Or it's just a part. So all those parts together are um sort of interacting with one another without ever coming into being. You could use a Buddhist term like dependent coising, something like that. It does have that quality. um that partness is dependent upon another part or um color is dependent upon that which is colored something like that.

[00:13:57]But these are getting that that can get a little heady. I'd rather just say there's a mosaic quality where the whole is just as interesting as each individual part and each individual part is just as interesting as the whole and the whole doesn't exist without that part and that part and this part or this one part at at one time there's one part that does not exist without the hole and the hole does not exist without that.

[00:14:21]Why why is that so clear? I don't know but it's very obvious. So that mosaic quality um is essentially always here that I say essentially because I it's hard for me to say anything in in a total generalization but it's it's it's part of this experience all the time. Um, another quality to this, the kaleidoscopic nature. Um, aside from that mosaic, every part is the whole and the hole is the parts and they all interpenetrate in this sort of creative beautiful pattern that's always changing. Another part that's really important is it is centerless. It is it is centerless. And center doesn't just mean a spatial center. Center is the center of importance, the center of being, the center of purpose, especially purpose.

[00:15:16]Um, it's there's no one to whom this experience is happening. Very important.

[00:15:26]This is all interrelated, of course, but it's experienceless. I think this is one of the things that tins tends to throw people. It's experienceless because to have an experience, you have to have someone having it. And that is notably not here. Not only is there not an experiencer, there is there is no entry and exit point. There's no one person or awareness or consciousness that's experiencing something and then the experience passes and it comes out the other side or it's it's always there and the experience appears and disappears within it. Neither of those are the neither of those are happening. It is truly experienceless.

[00:16:07]Um the only clear analogy I can give to the kaleidoscopic image [clears throat] with that is that a kaleidoscope never really forms anything real.

[00:16:20]Does that make sense? Like it's always abstract. You never you maybe sometimes you would look and go, "Oh, it looks like a dog. It looks like a you know we do that with clouds. Oh, it's a dragon.

[00:16:31]It's a dog. But with a collidoscope, it changes so much and so fast and so thoroughly that it kind of never seems to solidify into anything. At least in my experience. So that does correlate to what I'm saying in in that um there is no central purpose, character, role, spatial center. None of that's here. And all of it is actually the same thing. Those may sound like different elements. They're not. Um there. And again, I'm pointing at what's not here. This is really critical. What's not here? And when that's seen clearly to not be the case, that there is a center, a central role, someone to whom this is occurring, someone even someone who's directing it, all of that, someone who's enjoying it or not enjoying it, someone who's suffering from it. When that's clearly not there, then the free floating ambient nature free floating ambient self-responsive almost like it's almost like chaotic but cha chaos has a negative connotation a lot of times.

[00:17:40]It's not chaotic in any disorienting sense. In my in my experience, it's not now. Maybe in the past it was at times, but it's also not chaotic in that it's problematic in any way. It's chaotic in that there's no way to track anything and there's no need to track anything.

[00:18:00]Um, it just does what it does in the most beautiful way, in the most mysterious way.

[00:18:10]Another quality uh that may or may not be directly applicable or in your experience with a kaleidoscope is but maybe when you were a child like looking through a kaleidoscope the first time. If you ever watch a child doing something for the first time, right? They there's so much wonder in them. It's like they're they it's like they feel the whole experience, right? They're absorbed in the experience. Probably the first time a child looked through a kaleidoscope was like that, right? just this this wow wow but it's a felt experience of wonder. It's an immersion. There's immersion. So it may sound it could sound and probably through the ego lens it can only sound like if there's no central character there's no one that's happening to blah blah blah all the things I just said then it's kind of an empty feeling. Turns out it's actually the opposite.

[00:19:01]I don't want to say this thing that's inaccurate that I hear people say sometimes but it's not in my experience and I don't think it's an experience of others who have this clarity this kind of non-dual clarity but sometimes people will want to say this early on because the ego structure just wants to own everything it's like I am everything I am in everything I'm part of everything all of it is me it's not like that however and it couldn't be because there is no center there's no central character central point central consciousness. There's no background baseline basis fabric, none of that. It's just not here. However, it it's not empty. It's the it's it's felt very fully, but it feels itself. It feels itself.

[00:19:50]It's not like I'm feeling it. There's not a person feeling it. It's not it's not like an Angelo feeling this. It's it's feeling itself.

[00:19:59]itself.

[00:20:04]Oh, I almost feel like I need to make up new words for this. I usually often use the word um intimate. Now, I've been saying fully saturated.

[00:20:13]Um the a strange way of saying is self-absorbed, right? But we usually use that as a connotation for a person who is, you know, self-centered or something. But it's the the environment is absorb fully absorbed. It's fully saturated in its own existence the whole environment everything. So even though it's not a oneness, it's not a it's not a single thing, there's no thingness to it. Um there's a deep all I can say is there's a deep felt sense of right where you need to be. The only place you could be. Uh that's to put it into words. To put it into a felt sense, it feels like the warmest bath water ever. the perfect temperature. It feels like the universe inside to to get it more poetic with it that gets dualistic in language. Um, you could say it feels like I am everything, but there's no I to it. Uh, it's like, okay, a better way of saying this is like the tea steeping. The tea steeping, the smell of the tea steeping. Um it's it's everything steeping itself.

[00:21:38]It's um it's like universe steeping. Universe steaming.

[00:21:46]The taste is every possible taste. The taste, the sip, the one sip of tea is every possible taste. It's every sip of tea all at once.

[00:21:58]full complete experience is complete.

[00:22:07]Nothing is left out. No remainder, no missing part, no isolation.

[00:22:13]The missing part, the isolation, the scarcity, the seeking, those all come from overlooking what I'm saying. They come from a misperception. The dualistic mind that's always disassociating from experience. That's what comes with that feeling of being apart, being isolated, not having not having enough, etc., etc. So that's the kaleidoscope of non-duality.

[00:22:43]It's a it's a strange thing to even try to describe it too. Like some people would like do I get the comments on my videos like criticize me for even trying to talk about something you can't talk about. Um, but as I've said from the very beginning and in my book, the reason I talk about any of this is because what worked for me, what caused this initial shift and then the ongoing shifts for me was reading people who talked about it. Reading people who talked about what had happened to them, that worked for me and it works for others. So that's why I talk about it.

[00:23:10]Um, but again, it's kind of fun in a way because I to try to put something into words that's impossible to put into words. And there's something instinctually there's an instinctual love for it because I I know that it's sharing this will resonate with some and they'll tune into it at some point and and I see people waking up to this again and again, deeper and deeper. It's amazing. So, there's some value to doing this and yet it's it's it's so silly in a way. Um, it is very silly in a way to talk about what I'm trying to talk about because it's already everything. It's already your entire experience.

[00:23:50]All right.

[00:23:52]Yeah. Let me know what you think of my kaleidoscope analogies or if you have questions or for clarification, I'm happy to do