The What-Is-Not

[Shannon]

The "rightness" of the answer, in this case, depends on how much it matches what I want you to discover through this process.

Well it certainly doesn't make it easier the way you wrote it!!!!

Simple answer; We all perceive things differently and that leads to this;

You say the answer depends on how much it matches what YOU want us to discover through this process.. hmm..
Then I'll say what I think you want us to discover is, that the flame is just what it is. It's just the way it is. It's a flowing energy. By playing with the energy other forms appears, like touching the flame etc...

hmmm.. made me think of everything is art if you want and everything is flowing energy...

Btw. we use labels and words so that we are can to relate in that way.

And again, the easy answer comes out. I'm not trying to get you to say "it is what it is". I want you to see it, and know what it is, but most importantly, what it is not. A candle flame isn't what you see when you look at the flame. Contemplate that for a while.

[mat422]

I'm gonna take a stab at this and say what popped into my head from the meditation.

Looking at the flame we have been told that's what it is. But a flame is not what it is because the word flame is merely a word or a label. What we see when meditating on the flame is there, but we can't truly say what it is.

This is the same with reality. How can we know what reality truly is if we never experience it outside of our personal beliefs? Beliefs create the reality you see around you. We live inside a Matrix of fabricated beliefs that we hold onto and take as the truth, as what is. But the same as the "flame", some of these beliefs represent what-is-not.

Phew, that was hard to get out of my head and the concept was very fuzzy. I think more meditation with the candle will show me even more. Maybe I came close, maybe I didn't.

[Spiral]

It is as I am.

[Hazard]

Sigh.

Gentlemen... ladies... let go of your ideas. Let go of your beliefs. Let go. Just gaze at the flame.

Ask yourself... what am I seeing? You think you see the flame, but it's not the flame you see. What is it that you see? What is it that you are looking at, which you don't see? Why can't you see what you're looking at, which you think you see but don't?

This isn't some mumbo jumbo everything is nothing nihilistic "if I say it confusingly enough people will think it's deep" stuff. It's a point so simple, so obvious, that we completely miss it on a daily, hourly and minute by minute and second by second basis. But by understanding this point, you can begin to see the matrix itself.

I want you to tell me, what is a flame, if not what you see when you look at it? Why and how can you see what it is not, and not what it is? The flame is not what you see. How can that be?

I didn't do the experiment but I wanted to just chime in. Not really guessing be relating to my own knowledge of things and questions I had.

Your mind is simply producing an illusion. You look at a flame and think "that is a flame" but what is it really? An image in your head. Your world is simply like a television going on in your head with responses that allow you to interpret the things going on.

The world is in your head. Not the other way around.

Ryan

[massagemaggie]

oh I liked that one, Ryan!
Hey I'm still waiting for Shannon to spill it instead of forcing me to figure it out on my own

[Ryan]

If I know Shannon... You're going to be waiting a while

Ryan

[RainbowAbyss]

There is no answer he can give-whether he 'knows' the answer it or not-because
any answer he gives will not really answer it if we did not come to the realization on our own.
Its a matter of insight/revelation/experience/satori/true seeing not information.
He can only confirm if we see and understand the same thing he does.
I'm guessing

[Patti]

I really gotta get to this, but I need to work on being able to get outta my own head! Not so easy for me.

[Yuri]

The Flame is nothing but what i believe it to be.

[Shannon]

Such dancing about to answer such simple questions.

When you look at a candle flame, you do not see what you assume you see. You are not seeing what you have set your mind to take for granted as seeing. What you are seeing is not flame. You automatically label it as a flame because that is the category and response you have attached to it. But what it actually is... you miss. Every time. Until you recognize that when you look at a lit candle, you are actually seeing... what?

Don't give me an answer that you got from a Kung Fu movie. Don;t give me an answer you got from books. Look at the flame. Then, consciously strip away all of your preconceptions of what you are looking at. Separate it into it's parts. Then understand that what you were taking as a flam is actually...

I should have just held up a flower.

[Spiral]

A living being.

[Yuri]

does this work with a lighter? dont have any candles =D

[RainbowAbyss]

...................................................

[Shannon]

It works with any flame. Candles are good for meditation.