Scriptures 2013 (Meister Eckhart , 1 Kings , John , Derrida , Mundaka Upanishad)

All things are contained in the one

all multiplicity is one

is in and through the one

Then a great and powerful wind

tore the mountain apart

and shattered the rocks

before the Lord

but the Lord was not in the wind

God unites things with himself

Through him all things were made

without him

nothing was made that was made

in its present

with one stroke

this is how teeth become unclenched

the sewn up mouth opened

from the fullness of his grace

one blessing after another

it serves as a pathbreaker

for the seed

which therefore produces (itself)

and advances only in the plural

it is a singular plural

the One is not distinct from all things

all things

and the fullness of being

are in the One

Know him as the ONE

aside all other words

in the region

of the human heart

joy and light

in the supreme golden chamber

indivisible and pure

radiant light of all lights

when the wise seer beholds

in golden glory the Lord

the Spirit

he leaves good and evil behind

and in purity

he goes to the unity supreme

by the grace of wisdom

he can be seen

indivisible

in the silence of contemplation

(31-32)

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj & Tao

The personality (vyakti) is but a product of imagination. The self (vyakta) is the victim of this imagination. It is the taking yourself to be what you are not that binds you. The person cannot be said to exist on its own rights; it is the self that believes there is a person and is conscious of being it. Beyond the self (vyakta) lies the unmanifested (avyakta), the causeless cause of everything. Even to talk of re-uniting the person with the self is not right, because there is no person, only a mental picture given a false reality by conviction. Nothing was divided and there is nothing to unite.

***

The tao that can be told

is not the eternal Tao.

The name that can be named

is not the eternal Name.

***

The true knowledge of the self is not a knowledge. It is not something that you find by searching, by looking everywhere. It is not to be found in space or time. Knowledge is but a memory, a pattern of thought, a mental habit. All these are motivated by pleasure and pain. It is because you are goaded by pleasure and pain that you are in search of knowledge. Being oneself is completely beyond all motivation. You cannot be yourself for some reason. You are yourself, and
no reason is needed.

***

The unnamable is the eternally real.

Naming is the origin

of all particular things.

***

Can there be peace apart from yourself? Are you talking from your own experience or from books only? Your book knowledge is useful to begin with, but soon it must be given up for direct experience, which by its very nature is inexpressible. Words can be used for destruction also; of words images are built, by words they are destroyed. You got yourself into your present state
through verbal thinking; you must get out of it the same way.

***

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.

Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations

arise from the same source.

This source is called darkness.

***

What has been attained may be lost again. Only when you realise the true peace, the peace you have never lost, that peace will remain with you, for it was never away. Instead of searching for what you do not have, find out what is it that you have never lost? That which is there before the beginning and after the ending of everything; that to which there is no birth, nor death. That immovable state, which is not affected by the birth and death of a body or a mind, that state you must perceive.

***

Darkness within darkness.

The gateway to all understanding.

Scriptures 2013 (I Ching , Numbers , Derrida , Genesis , Meister Eckhart , Luke , Mundaka Upanishad)

Conjoining, Growing , Harvesting Trial

you are to bless

permutations

the associations

which you have already encountered

never mark an opposition

but rather a co-implication

that is utterly internal and irreducible

the Lord

make his face shine upon you

and be gracious to you

the Lord

turn his face toward you

and give you peace

the theater

I will wipe mankind

whom I have created

from the face of the earth

men and animals

and creatures that move along the ground

and birds of the air

God is in the innermost part

of each and every thing

only in its innermost part

and He alone is One

One day Jesus said to his disciples

“let’s go over to the other side of the lake”

what is above creation

cannot be attained by action

Upon OM

Atman

your Self

place your meditation.

Glory unto you

in your far-away journey

beyond darkness

(28-29)

Nietzsche & Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

If each us had a different kind of sense perception — if we could only perceive things now as a bird, now as a worm, now as a plant, or if one of us saw a stimulus as red, another as blue, while a third even heard the same stimulus as a sound — then no one would speak of such a regularity of nature, rather, nature would be grasped only as a creation which is subjective in the highest degree. After all, what is a law of nature as such for us? We are not acquainted with it in itself, but only with its effects, which means in its relation to other laws of nature — which, in turn, are known to us only as sums of relations. Therefore all these relations always refer again to others and are thoroughly incomprehensible to us in their essence.

(Nietzsche)

But I am the self! You imagine me as separate, hence your question. There is no ‘my self’ and ‘his self’. There is the Self, the only Self of all. Misled by the diversity of names and shapes, minds and bodies, you imagine multiple selves. We both are the self, but you seem to be unconvinced.
and bodies, you imagine multiple selves. We both are the self, but you seem to be unconvinced. This talk of personal self and universal self is the learner’s stage; go beyond, don’t be stuck in duality.

But in fact all experience is in the mind, and even his coming to me and getting help is all within himself. Instead of finding an answer within himself,
he imagines an answer from without. To me there is no me, no man and no giving. All this is merely a flicker in the mind. I am infinite peace and silence in which nothing appears, for all that appears — disappears. Nobody comes for help, nobody offers help, nobody gets help. It is all but a display in consciousness.

The pure mind sees things as they are — bubbles in consciousness. These bubbles are appearing, disappearing and reappearing — without having real being. No particular cause can be ascribed to them, for each is caused by all and affects all. Each bubble is a body and all these bodies are mine.

(Nisargadatta)

The drive toward the formation of metaphors is the fundamental human drive, which one cannot for a single instant dispense with in thought, for one would thereby dispense with man himself. This drive is not truly vanquished and scarcely subdued by the fact that a regular and rigid new world is constructed as its prison from its own ephemeral products, the concepts. It seeks a new realm and another channel for its activity, and it finds this in myth and in art generally. This drive continually confuses the conceptual categories and cells by bringing forward new transferences, metaphors, and metonymies. It continually manifests an ardent desire to refashion the world which presents itself to waking man, so that it will be as colorful, irregular, lacking in results and coherence, charming, and eternally new as the world of dreams. Indeed, it is only by means of the rigid and regular web of concepts that the waking man clearly sees that he is awake; and it is precisely because of this that he sometimes thinks that he must be dreaming when this web of concepts is torn by art.

(Nietzsche)

There is no power as separate from me. It is inherent in my very nature. Call it creativity. Out of a lump of gold you can make many ornaments — each will remain gold. Similarly, in whatever role I may appear and whatever function I may perform — I remain what I am: the ‘I am’ immovable, unshakable, independent. What you call the universe, nature, is my spontaneous creativity.
Whatever happens — happens. But such is my nature that all ends in joy.

Your asking is a part of the boy’s blindness. Because he is blind, you ask. You have added nothing.

His case is registered in consciousness. It is there — indelibly. Consciousness will operate.

all is contained in the boy’s blindness. All is in it — the mother, the boy, you and me and all else. It is one event.

All things contain their future. The boy appears in consciousness. I am beyond. I do not issue orders to consciousness. I know that it is in the nature of awareness to set things right. Let consciousness look after its creations! The boy’s sorrow, your pity, my listening and consciousness acting — all this is one single fact — don’t split it into components and then ask questions.

(Nisargadatta)

That immense framework and planking of concepts to which the needy man clings his whole life long in order to preserve himself is nothing but a scaffolding and toy for the most audacious feats of the liberated intellect. And when it smashes this framework to pieces, throws it into confusion, and puts it back together in an ironic fashion, pairing the most alien things and separating the closest, it is demonstrating that it has no need of these makeshifts of indigence and that it will now be guided by intuitions rather than by concepts. There is no regular path which leads from these intuitions into the land of ghostly schemata, the land of abstractions. There exists no word for these intuitions; when man sees them he grows dumb, or else he speaks only in forbidden metaphors and in unheard — of combinations of concepts. He does this so that by shattering and mocking the old conceptual barriers he may at least correspond creatively to the impression of the powerful present intuition.

(Nietzsche)

People are afraid to die, because they do not know what is death. The jnani has died before his death, he saw that there was nothing to be afraid of. The moment you know your real being, you are afraid of nothing. Death gives freedom and power. To be free in the world, you must die to the world. Then the universe is your own, it becomes your body, an expression and a tool. The happiness of being absolutely free is beyond description. On the other hand, he who is afraid of
freedom cannot die.

From my point of view everything happens by itself, quite spontaneously. But man imagines that he works for an incentive, towards a goal. He has always a reward in mind and strives for it.

He will create for himself incentives anyhow. He does not know that to grow is in the nature of consciousness. He will progress from motive to motive and will chase Gurus for the fulfilment of his desires. When by the laws of his being he finds the way of return (nivritti) he abandons all motives, for his interest in the world is over. He wants nothing — neither from others nor from himself. He dies to all and becomes the All. To want nothing and do nothing — that is true creation! To watch the universe emerging and subsiding in one’s heart is a wonder.

(Nisargadatta)

The man who is guided by concepts and abstractions only succeeds by such means in warding off misfortune, without ever gaining any happiness for himself from these abstractions. And while he aims for the greatest possible freedom from pain, the intuitive man, standing in the midst of a culture, already reaps from his intuition a harvest of continually inflowing illumination, cheer, and redemption — in addition to obtaining a defense against misfortune.

(Nietzsche)

Inertia and restlessness (tamas and rajas) work together and keep clarity and harmony (sattva) down. Tamas and Rajas must be conquered before Sattva can appear. It will all come in due course, quite spontaneously.

When effort is needed, effort will appear. When effortlessness becomes essential, it will assert itself. You need not push life about. Just flow with it and give yourself completely to the task of the present moment, which is the dying now to the now. For living is dying. Without death life cannot be.

Get hold of the main thing that the world and the self are one and perfect. Only your attitude is faulty and needs readjustment.

This process or readjustment is what you call sadhana. You come to it by putting an end to indolence and using all your energy to clear the way for clarity and charity. But in reality, these all are signs of inevitable growth. Don’t be afraid, don’t resist, don’t delay. Be what you are. There is nothing to be afraid of. Trust and try. Experiment honestly. Give your real being a chance to shape your life.

there is no such thing as peace of mind. Mind means disturbance; restlessness itself is mind. Yoga is not an attribute of the mind, nor is it a state
of mind.

What you call peace is only absence of disturbance. It is hardly worth the name. The real peace cannot be disturbed. Can you claim a peace of mind that is unassailable?

The self does not need to be put to rest. It is peace itself, not at peace. Only the mind is restless. All it knows is restlessness, with its many modes and grades. The pleasant are considered superior and the painful are discounted. What we call progress is merely a change over from the unpleasant to the pleasant. But changes by themselves cannot bring us to the changeless, for
whatever has a beginning must have an end. The real does not begin; it only reveals itself as beginningless and endless, all-pervading, all-powerful, immovable prime mover, timelessly changeless.

(Nisargadatta)

Scriptures 2013 (Derrida , Genesis , I Ching , Luke , Exodus , Meister Eckhart , Prasna Upanishad)

the beginning

is plied and multiplied about itself

elusive and divisive

it begins with its own division

its overnumerousness

the sons of God

went to the daughters of men

and had children by them

bringing these parts into contact

his kingdom will never end

I AM WHO I AM

I AM has sent me to you

united and sanctified

in the souls spark

untouched by either space or time

nothing but God

the passage from ‘nothing’ to here

nothing is impossible with God

As when rivers flowing towards the ocean

find there final peace

their name and form disappear

and people speak only of the ocean

all forms of the seer

flow towards the Spirit

and find there final peace

their name and form disappear

and people speak only of Spirit

(26-27)

Nietzsche & Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

What does man actually know about himself? Is he, indeed, ever able to perceive himself completely, as if laid out in a lighted display case? Does nature not conceal most things from him — even concerning his own body — in order to confine and lock him within a proud, deceptive consciousness, aloof from the coils of the bowels, the rapid flow of the blood stream, and the intricate quivering of the fibers! She threw away the key.

(Nietzsche)

They are all strung on the basic idea: ‘I am the body’. But even this is a mental state and does not last. It comes and goes like all other states. The illusion of being the body-mind is there, only because it is not investigated. Non-investigation is the thread on which all the states of mind are strung. It is like darkness in a closed room. It is there — apparently. But when the room is opened, where does it go? It goes nowhere, because it was not there. All states of mind, all names and forms of existence are rooted in non-enquiry, non-investigation, in imagination and credulity. It is right to say ‘I am’, but to say ‘I am this’, ‘I am that’ is a sign of not enquiring, not examining, of
mental weakness or lethargy.

There is no darkness in the midst of light. Self-forgetfulness is the darkness. When we are absorbed in other things, in the not-self, we forget the self. There is nothing unnatural about it. But, why forget the self through excess of attachment? Wisdom lies in never forgetting the self as the ever-present source of both the experiencer and his experience.

Yes, sadhana (practice) consists in reminding oneself forcibly of one’s pure ‘being-ness’, of not being anything in particular, nor a sum of particulars, not even the totality of all particulars, which make up a universe. All exists in the mind, even the body is an integration in the mind of a vast number of sensory perceptions, each perception also a mental state. If you say: ‘I am the body’, show it.

Only when you think of it. Both mind and body are intermittent states. The sum total of these flashes creates the illusion of existence. Enquire what is permanent in the transient, real in the unreal. This is sadhana.

(Nisargadatta)

We still do not yet know where the drive for truth comes from. For so far we have heard only of the duty which society imposes in order to exist: to be truthful means to employ the usual metaphors. Thus, to express it morally, this is the duty to lie according to a fixed convention, to lie with the herd and in a manner binding upon everyone. Now man of course forgets that this is the way things stand for him. Thus he lies in the manner indicated, unconsciously and in accordance with habits which are centuries’ old; and precisely by means of this unconsciousness and forgetfulness he arrives at his sense of truth.

The venerability, reliability, and utility of truth is something which a person demonstrates for himself from the contrast with the liar, whom no one trusts and everyone excludes. As a “rational” being, he now places his behavior under the control of abstractions. He will no longer tolerate being carried away by sudden impressions, by intuitions.

(Nietzsche)

Think of yourself by all means. Only don’t bring the idea of a body into the picture. There is only a stream of sensations, perceptions, memories and ideations. The body is an abstraction, created by our tendency to seek unity in diversity — which again is not wrong.

There is nothing wrong in the idea of a body, nor even in the idea ‘I am the body’. But limiting oneself to one body only is a mistake. In reality all existence, every form, is my own, within my consciousness. I cannot tell what I am because words can describe only what I am not. I am, and because I am, all is. But I am beyond consciousness and, therefore, in consciousness I cannot say
what I am. Yet, I am. The question ‘Who am I’ has no answer. No experience can answer it, for the self is beyond experience.

It has no answer in consciousness and, therefore, helps to go beyond consciousness.

(Nisargadatta)

Scriptures 2013 (Exodus , Meister Eckhart , I Ching , Luke , Derrida , Prasna Upanishad)

drew him up out of the water

when the soul enters the light that is pure

wise words of a sage

if you lose your horse

do not run after it

it will come back of its own accord

in these days

God sent the angel

to whatever happens between sites

alien in a foreign land

“Ego” the latin word for “I”

can be used properly by God alone

in his unity

that we may become this unity

and may remain within it

the three sounds

the wise who merge them

into a harmony of union

in outer, inner and middle actions

becomes steady :

he trembles no more

(24-25)

Diamond Sutra & Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

” … under countless buddhas; and their merit is of every kind. Such men, coming to hear these teachings, will have an immediate uprising of pure faith.”

(Diamond Sutra)

it is not the worship of a person that is crucial, but the steadiness and depth of your devotion to the task. Life itself is the Supreme Guru; be attentive to its lessons and obedient to its commands. When you personalise their source, you have an outer Guru; when you take them from life directly, the Guru is within. Remember, wonder, ponder, live with it, love it, grow into it, grow with it, make it your own — the word of your Guru, outer or inner. Put in all and you will get all. I was doing it. All my time I was giving to my Guru and to what he told me.

(Nisargadatta)

” … such men will not fall back to cherishing the idea of an ego entity, a personality, a being, or a separated individuality. they will neither fall back to cherishing the idea of things as having intrinsic qualities, nor even of things as devoid of intrinsic qualities.”

(Diamond Sutra)

In its own place and time nothing is wrong. But when you are concerned with truth, with reality, you must question every thing, your very life. By asserting the necessity of sensory and intellectual experience you narrow down your enquiry to search for comfort.

Find out for yourself. Question every urge, hold no desire legitimate. Empty of possession, physical and mental, free of all self-concern, be open for discovery.

(Nisargadatta)

“Wherefore? Because if such men allowed their minds to grasp and hold on to anything they would be cherishing the idea of an ego entity, a personality, a being, or a separated individuality; and if they grasped and held on to the notion of things as having intrinsic qualities they would be cherishing the idea of an ego entity, a personality, a being, or a separated individuality. Likewise, if they grasped and held on to the notion of things as devoid of intrinsic qualities they would be cherishing the idea of an ego entity, a personality, a being, or a separated individuality. So you should not be attached to things as being possessed of, or devoid of, intrinsic qualities. this is the reason why the Tathagata always teaches this saying: My teaching of the good law (dharma) is to be likened unto a raft. The buddha teaching must be relinquished; how much more so mis-teaching!”

(The Diamond Sutra, 22)

it is obvious that nothing is born and nothing dies, nothing lasts and nothing changes, all is as it is — timelessly.

Knowledge has its rising and setting. Consciousness comes into being and goes out of being. It sometimes not. When we are not conscious, it appears to us as a darkness or a blank. But a jnani is aware of himself as neither conscious nor unconscious, but purely aware, a witness to the three states of the mind and their contents.

To a jnani nothing has beginning or ending. As salt dissolves in water, so does everything dissolve into pure being. Wisdom is eternally negating the unreal. To see the unreal is wisdom. Beyond this lies the inexpressible.

(Nisargadatta)

“Does a man who has safely crossed a flood upon a raft continue his journey carrying that raft upon his head? So long as the mind is attached even to Buddha’s teaching as a basis, it will cherish the idea of “I” and “Other.”

(Diamond Sutra)

You cannot speak of a beginning of consciousness. The very ideas of beginning and time are within consciousness. To talk meaningfully of the beginning of anything, you must step out of it. And the moment you step out, you realise that there is no such thing and never was. There is only reality, in which no ‘thing’ has any being on its own. Like waves are inseparable from the ocean, so is all existence rooted in being.

The memory of yesterday is now only.

(Nisargadatta)

Scriptures 2013 (Proverbs , Ramana Maharshi , Derrida , John , Exodus , I Ching , Genesis , Prasna Upanishad)

knowledge of the Holy One is understanding

there is no duality

your present knowledge is due to the ego

and is only relative

relative knowledge requires a subject and an object

the awareness of the Self is absolute

and requires no object

what is at stake is language

streams of living water

will flow from within him

every boy

every girl

leads to the experience of meaning

borderline

topology

Life comes from the Spirit

Even as a man casts a shadow

so the Spirit casts the shadow of life

and, as a shadow of former lives

a new life comes to the body.

Prana itself lives in the eye and the ear

moves through the nose and the mouth

Samana rules the middle regions

distributes the life-giving

offering of food.

From Samana come the seven flames.

In the heart dwells the Atman, the Self.

Between the sun and the earth

there is space or Samana.

Air is Vyana.

Fire is Udana.

(22-23)

Nietzsche , Derrida, Psychoanalysis , Nisargadatta

Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of “world history,” but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die. One might invent such a fable, and yet he still would not have adequately illustrated how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature. There were eternities during which it did not exist. And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened.

(Nietzsche)

My giving it various names and pointing it out in many ways will not help you much, unless you have the capacity to see. A dim-sighted man will not see the parrot on the branch of a tree, however much you may prompt him to look. At best he will see your pointed finger. First purify your vision, learn to see instead of staring, and you will perceive the parrot. Also you must be eager to see. You need both clarity and earnestness for self-knowledge. You need maturity of heart and mind, which comes through earnest application in daily life of whatever little you have understood. There is no such thing as compromise in Yoga.

(Nisargadatta)

“it has no meaning (death drive) and it resists analysis in the form of nonresistance, for the primary reason that it is itself of an analytic structure or vocation. Some would be tempted to infer from this that psychoanalysis is homogeneous to it and that psychoanalytic theory, treatment, and institution represent the death drive or the repetition compulsion at work.”

(Derrida)

The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth, never a question of adequate expression; otherwise, there would not be so many languages. The “thing in itself” (which is precisely what the pure truth, apart from any of its consequences, would be) is likewise something quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for. This creator only designates the relations of things to men, and for expressing these relations he lays hold of the boldest metaphors.’ To begin with, a nerve stimulus is transferred into an image: first metaphor. The image, in turn, is imitated in a sound: second metaphor. And each time there is a complete overleaping of one sphere, right into the middle of an entirely new and different one.

(Nietzsche)

You are neither honest nor dishonest — giving names to mental states is good only for expressing your approval or disapproval. The problem is not yours — it is your mind’s only. Begin by disassociating yourself from your mind. Resolutely remind yourself that you are not the mind and that its problems are not yours.

(Nisargadatta)

“The inability to gather oneself, to identify with oneself, to unify oneself, all of this is perhaps tragedy itself, but it is also (the) chance and if there is no reason to dramatize, it is not only because that serves no purpose but also because it has not the least pertinence for this alliance of destiny, namely tragedy, and chance as the possible or the aleatory.”

(Derrida)

Unknown to you, your psyche will undergo a change, there will be more clarity in your thinking, charity in your feeling, purity in your behaviour. You need not aim at these — you will witness the change all the same. For, what you are now is the result of inattention and what you become will be the fruit of attention.

(Nisargadatta)

“If, however, resistance is not lifted by the revelation of its meaning, then, beyond all these discursive and intellectual situations that belong to the order of consciousness, it can only be lifted by the intervention of an affective factor.”

(Derrida)

So far your life was dark and restless (tamas and rajas). Attention, alertness, awareness, clarity, liveliness, vitality, are all manifestations of integrity, oneness with your true nature (sattva). It is in the nature of sattva to reconcile and neutralise tamas and rajas and rebuild the personality in accordance with the true nature of the self. Sattva is the faithful servant of the self; ever attentive and obedient.

(Nisargadatta)

“It calls upon the reader as witness in the way one might address oneself to a confessor or to some transferential addresse, some would say to an analyst, assuming that the reader is not always an analyst. Freud,then, has the premonition (Ich ahne) that something exceeds the analysis. The interpretation, the analytic deciphering, the Deutung of a certain fragment did not go far enough: a hidden meaning (verborgenne Sinn) exceeds the analysis.”

(Derrida)

Do not undervalue attention. It means interest and also love. To know, to do, to discover, or to create you must give your heart to it — which means attention. All the blessings flow from it.

(Nisargadatta)

In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the highest and most mendacious minute of “world history” — yet only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die. One might invent such a fable and still not have illustrated sufficiently how wretched, how shadowy and flighty, how aimless and arbitrary, the human intellect appears in nature. There have been eternities when it did not exist; and when it is done for again, nothing will have happened.

(Nietzsche)

The nature of the perfect mirror is such that you cannot see it. Whatever you can see is bound to be a stain. Turn away from it, give it up, know it as unwanted.

The entire world is a stain.

It is of tremendous value. By going beyond it you realise yourself.

All your life is connected with it. Your past and future, your desires and fears, all have their roots in the world. Without the world where are you, who are you?

And I am telling you exactly this: find a foothold beyond and all will be clear and easy.

You cannot change the image without changing the face. First realise that your
world is only a reflection of yourself and stop finding fault with the reflection.

You cannot change the world before changing yourself. I did not say — before changing everybody. It is neither necessary, nor possible to change others. But if you can change yourself you will find that no other change is needed. To change the picture you merely change the film, you do not attack the cinema screen!

It is not of myself that I am sure, I am sure of you. All you need is to stop searching outside what can be found only within. Set your vision right before you operate. You are suffering from acute misapprehension. Clarify your mind, purify your heart, sanctify your life — this is the quickest way to a change of your world.

(Nisargadatta)

We believe that we know something about the things themselves when we speak of trees, colors, snow, and flowers; and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for things — metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities.

Every word instantly becomes a concept precisely insofar as it is not supposed to serve as a reminder of the unique and entirely individual original experience to which it owes its origin; but rather, a word becomes a concept insofar as it simultaneously has to fit countless more or less similar cases — which means, purely and simply, cases which are never equal and thus altogether unequal. Every concept arises from the equation of unequal things. Just as it is certain that one leaf is never totally the same as another, so it is certain that the concept “leaf” is formed by arbitrarily discarding these individual differences and by forgetting the distinguishing aspects.

(Nietzsche)

The world of things, of energy and matter? Even if there were such a common world of things and forces, it is not the world in which we live. Ours is a world of feelings and ideas, of attractions and repulsions, of scales of values, of motives and incentives, a mental world altogether. Biologically we need very little, our problems are of a different order. Problems created by desires
and fears and wrong ideas can be solved only on the level of the mind. You must conquer your own mind and for this you must go beyond it.

(Nisargadatta)