Posted by: "taotigeradmin"
Wed Mar 28, 2007 6:42 am (PST)

hi oldbushie.. :)

yes sources are available that point clearly to this conclusion. and they
are reliable insofar as they have the support of a few billion living
people.. more than a couple of articles - there are tens of thousands of
books voicing just this model of existence.. :)

one such tradition suggesting this is the Advaita lineage of mystical (being
the *meaning = all is One* rather than the *meaning =
occult/mysterious/esoteric*) experiential philosophy. Advaita (non-duality)
posits that indeed there is but a single essence comprising reality. yet by
this understanding in fact all is essential - to see 'all', or
any-'thing' otherwise is to be under the sway of illusion, or ignorance...
this essence may as well be called 'ether', for it is by definition
*formless*, and it is truly transcendent. that is, it includes, yet is not
limited to, everything. it is not "a separate entity from matter and
energy". it is all this and more... this tradition knows it by name as
"Brahman", and knows it far more intimately as the experience of Brahman,
which is the state of non-dual realisation, and the goal of the entire
philosophy, the continuing endstate...

of course, this is not the only philosophy to suggest an ether-like 'ground
of being'.

the Chinese have for many thousands of years named the ether as "Tao", that
which permeates and animates and is animated and the animation. like a
fluid cosmic soulness, the Tao is, just as ether and Brahman, truly
comprehensive - it is the matter and it is the flux, or ongoing change of
matter - energy and time and ego and emotion and life's drama... the Tao is
not separate from matter and energy, yet while matter and energy are the
Tao, the Tao is not matter and energy. at least, that is not all it is...
it is the Tao, and whatever name you speak, and whatever conceptual
formulation you propose, that is all Tao, and yet Tao is more than
just this. it is like the irreducible ether, containing in it, *as* it,
even the name 'ether' (or Tao.. or Brahman.. ). the "matter-energy
substrate" has been recognised for millenia. has been named for scores of
hundreds of years by a multitude of billions of people...

...and there are others who might call it God. but we won't dwell here,
because the name is so laden with ontological predjudices and half-formed
assumptions about how we are apparantly separate from this truly super-Man,
that the formless nature is so often eclipsed by a rendering of some
human-ish... creature. yet in truth the Christian/Catholic contemplative
tradition, as exemplified for example by Bernadette Roberts, allows for a
formless Absolute "Ethereal substrate" and superstrate - an Omni-strate -
which transcends and includes all matter and energy. even you and i and all
parts therof...

and the Zen school. they will rarely go so far as to name this unity as
other systems of complete-reality-naming do. however, the central
enlightenment experience is akin to the Self/God/Tao-realised states of
these other traditions. the enlightenment *experience*. a school of
practical philosophy doing away with descriptives of the ultimate entirely,
and which is wary of any writing purporting to express that which transcends
all concepts, Zen 'ether' is just as ungraspable conceptually through
experiment as the ether of the physical scientists. but it is 'knowable' in
an experiential sense... sometimes called "emptiness", though partially as
even emptiness is empty of emptiness. sometimes called Buddha-mind,
considered in poor taste as the setting up of something that we are not
already (as we are 'ether', supposing it exists). and more often than not
unwisely just "known", even though to know it is to definitely not know it -
unless this knowing is the experiential knowing without attachment to a
concept known...

now, one favourite of mine as far as theories concerning the non-dual and
transcendent nature of what we commonly perceive as "matter and energy" is
solipsism. absolutely unassailable by rationality (not that i am qualified
to defend it should anybody try), since all arguments reside within "my"
mind, all possible permutations of response similarly exist in "my" psyche.
however, this is not as satisfying intuitively as a "solipsism for all"
theory, whereby it is solipsism for me. and, solipsism for you. and you..
and him... and her... a paradox to the rational mind, sure, yet according
on one quite stable perceptual level with experience. somewhat
anthropomorphically unbalanced, though, are the traditional solipsisms (even
the "solipsism for all" variation). so, i am inclined to favour a general
"panpsychism" when accessing this stratum of conceptualising. not the kind
where all the rocks and trees and each blade of grass has a humanoid
consciousness. but, the kind where the "ether" is "Consciousness" - the
"Universal Mind"...

this really brings us back to Advaita. Ramesh Balsekar's statement that
"Evertything is Consciousness" is what Buddhist philosophers might label
"expedient means" - a penultimate teaching for leading the blinkered to the
light. yet the statement is not the light - it is the blinkers, and when
the human animal is coaxed from the stable of materiality by the relative
security of the blinkered state, there is only a small step to complete
illumination...

since most beasties are not equipped to remove the last remnants of partial
concept themselves, so it becomes necessary to first teach using these
incomplete means... and then to take off the occluding
"Consciousness-coloured glasses" (known to the Advaitins as "I Am") by force
of hand, to push... teaching the concept 'ether', only to forcefully
dissolve experience of anything *but* the ether (upon request, of
course...).

and another ether is born, or rather "unborn" as it was always ether - let's
say just sleeping, unaware of it's own true nature. once the matter as
matter and 'nothing but' in front of our eyes is removed we may effortlessly
*be* this ether (this is all premised upon, among other attributes of
reality, an absolute subjectivity as the requisite of existence. "it is
perceived, therefore it is"). no longer speculating, "is there ether, or is
there ain't...?" we can attest to this fact by our very existence *as*
ether, and while it cannot be conveyed by words alone, those who know
might tell a little here and a little there... then a slight shove when the time is
right. and suddenly another person also *experiences* the ultimately
ethereal nature of matter and energy...

cheers,
taotiger (www.taotiger.com).

ps - ...reliable sources can be found associated with any of these schools
of thought, teaching, practice, and being. the literature is vast. suggest
sticking firmly to *primary* source material written by only fully
enlightened masters of these traditions. that is, people who have been
confirmed by established masters to have experienced Moksha/Nirvikalpa
Samadhi/Nirvana/Satori/No-Self or the equivalent of these breakthrough
occurences, variously named in different cultures.