09. Objects and Subject

Analyse the following statements:

I saw something

I heard something.

I smelt something

I felt something

I tasted something

I thought something

All these are sensations or ‘knowing’ arising in you. They happen effortlessly and you cannot stop, by any chance, arising of such knowing. So much for one’s freewill.

Now let us find out more about the relation between subject and object. We think that, we, as a body based entity, is the subject, that can know, whatever is outside of us, as our objective world. It seems that there is a ‘person’ to this body, that knows and whatever are the contents of knowing, is objective to such knowing or to this person. This case may be extended to thoughts, as if there was a thinker and also emotional feelings, to as if there was a person feeling it. In short, we are 'within' this frame called body, and the objective world is separate and outside of 'us', such that, what is not me is the world and what is not the world is 'me'.

Again the objects that we 'see' or what we call a ‘visual knowing’ is of a certain colour and shape ( normally called forms) is imagined to be existing in its own capacity independent of the 'see' er or of such visual knowing. It also implies that the 'see' er ( as a person) also exists in his own capacity or independent of the object. In a method of speaking or communicating, it implies that, for a seeing there should be a see 'er', the seeing and the object seen. Similarly a hearer for the sound, a smeller for an odour, a feeler for the feeling and thinker for the thoughts. But in our actual experience, knowing of pain itself is pain and knowing of sound itself is sound and knowing of world itself is the world. There could not be a sensed object, separate from the sensing of it. In other words, all there is –is just sensing, but feels as if, there are sensed objects, separate to such sensing, because the sensor is taken to be this body based person. Is it true? Can pain exist, outside the knowing of pain, or can the world exist, independent of knowing the world, or knowing itself is all there is, seemingly known to a knower, but not exactly.

We also think the all sensing is happening at one centre called the body mind where-in a person is residing with these subjective qualities and can be called a person.

If we watch closely or analyse what is happening in each case, the seeing is actually happening ‘at the object’ and not at the person, the hearing is happening ‘at the source’ or the speaker and not at any destination or at the ear, the tasting is happening at the tongue and not in any other place, the feeling is happening all over the body or at times inside of the body (stomach ache) and the thoughts are happening in a space called mind, of which we are not able to pin point a location to be inside the body or outside, as it doesn’t have any physical 'sensable' qualities that could locate its source. So all arising or all knowing is inside and outside and ‘on’ this imagined body boundary, making knowing, all over the place or space.In fact, this thought structure plays a game as if there is an assimilating of the sensations and concluding the objectivity of an object that is happening inside our body or the brains.

If we take an example of an apple, the roundness and redness are only the two qualities sensed and both of this sensing is happening at the apple, the smell is happening (hopefully) at the apple, the taste, after cutting is happening on the tongue, or at the apple on the tongue, the sound if we break or bite into in is happening at the apple and the hardness as a sensation is happening at the boundary of the body. So part of the sensing like seeing and hearing happens outside the body, partly on the body and partly inside the body. These inputs are further seen through a screen of knowledge or memory before objectifying the object into its thingness called as an ‘apple’. So ‘an apple’ becomes the objective thingness of that substance itself. ( which is but the ‘meaning’ that is made to that ‘form’ as a memory based concept in ‘our’ mind. So the thingness of forms is in our head, projected on the form and explained as if thingness is ‘there’ rather than ‘here’ as a thought.

For the thingness to happen, the shape that is called round comes from knowledge of shapes, the colour is that is called red comes from knowledge of colours, the smell is pleasant, the taste is sweet, the feel is hard and the sound is a crackle are all known only from knowledge. So all these sense inputs are weaned through knowledge or memory to ‘make meaning to’ or conceptualise or conceive knowing to known objects, that actually aren’t independent of such knowing or perceiving.

So, if a person ate an apple and he did not know or did not have knowledge, and he tried to explain and you asked him - was it hard, was it sweet, was is red, was it round etc, then you told him that what he ate was an 'apple'. Till then he assumed that he ate something else other than an apple.

So the 'appleness' of the object is in the learning, rather than in the apple or the eater. ( for that matter if a bird or animal or a worm ate an apple, it would have been thinking that it was eating food rather than an apple). So this apple objectiveness is linked to knowledge, happening at a mental level, rather than at the object. Meaning, we are forcing our knowledge onto the ‘form’, to be an apple and the apple is not confirming that it is ‘an apple’. After two or more, knowledgeable people agree that it should be called an apple, the form is forced to be that ‘object’. The apple itself, if it had a choice, would be screaming to say that it is 'only an appearance for God's sake' and not to make a character out of it. For that matter an apple is regarded as a ‘good’ thing like we have for a person a ‘good character’. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. What about rice or chapatti / bread slice or for that matter beer?, ‘Our’ opinion becomes the truth of the ‘form’ called object. So the ‘objectivity’ of forms is nothing but ‘our’knowledge.

All data about the apple are our thoughts regarding the forms, as learnt. These are not any data punched on the apple when the tree bears this fruit. It is not whether the object is useful or useless, but whether it is ‘an apple’ in the absolute sense. If we whip it in a mixer, will it still remain an apple or will it be change its thingness to ‘juice’ whilst the matter of it is still the same. Is the ‘name’ that we give to an object make it a ‘thing’?  Does cowdung become agarbatti or incense stick just because it is dried and labelled that way?. This is how we see the world, through labels made of them, which are purely conceptual or ‘learnt’ other than ‘what is’.The world of ‘what is’ or the non-conceptual world, is only of forms and no-reality of objectivity in them, taking the whole juice out of such seeing, to bring about any attachment, being purely mental or imaginary values to forms.

Names are given as per the appearance or to the form. Not to what the essence of the form is. The shirt may be cloth, cloth may be cotton, cotton may be hydrocarbon, and this may be molecules, and this may be atoms and protons and electrons and this may be just energy, and finally energy may be ‘nothing’ So, ‘nothing’ can ‘appear as’ energy, atoms, hydrocarbons,  cotton, cloth, shirt etc., just by a combination of arrangement of the basic non-material called ‘nothing’ or pure life intelligence, playing out as all appearance, ‘feeling’ like thingness to it. However as the arrangement or pattern of appearance changes, the thingness changes and the objectivity of it seems to change. So the see-er is not involved in the objectification of appearances, as only forms are seen. It is the knowledge about the seeing that seems to interfere and change the seeing of forms into seeing of objects, as separate from the seeing of it.

So, an object that 'appears' gets rolled into a ‘thing’ by the time we start talking about it. In other words there is a value addition from mere appearance to a thingness. The seeing is as an appearance and the concept bout it is its ‘thingness’.

When knowledge creates the thingness called 'apple' as an object in the mind, it simultaneously creates a 'knower' seemingly apart from that objective apple as a 'me'. This is the person. Every knowing is presumed to have a knower and a known. It assumes that every object seen has to have a subject see-er. As far as the appearance of the apple was seen, the see-ing happened at the apple. However it is taken for granted that the seeing is happening here of a form or object there.

Now, in seeing an apple we can confirm at least that the see-er or the subject is not the apple. And the object apple is not the subject. Meaning all objects are independent of the subject see-er. Meaning all that is seen can be classified as objects. So also one’s body. Our body becomes instantaneously an object to the subject or see-er. That means all that is seen is object and we cannot see the subject because if we can see, then it automatically becomes an object. Similarly, the subject cannot be heard or smelt or felt or thought or sensed. The subject which is ‘I’ will then have qualities as above that should never ever be known, cannot be sensed, cannot be objectified, cannot be identified and can never ever be a ‘sensed thing’. So the subject can never be an object. However without a subject, there cannot be an object. This means, subject and object are simply two names to one being, because they are not separable. So what is to be noted is that, when the understanding hits hard enough, subject and objects, which are just concepts of forms, fall away, leaving out only ‘what there is’ or only the ‘is-ness’ of all, as if they are not, separate from ‘is-ness’ of them.  

‘I am’ or the subject that is the capacity of such ‘knowing’ which is all there is, without any contents to the knowing, outside of such knowing and such knowing is all that there called ‘I am’. So ‘what is- is I am, and I am is what is, both being subject and object at the same time, collapsing the need for each other, other than as a hypnotic play, where nothing is happening, but only felt that way, with interference of knowledge, passed on from ages, to make feel that a dream is more seemingly a world of reality, separate from us, so that we can negotiate the world and survive until death.

So the subject that we are, is pure intelligence that ‘is a process of knowing’ ‘what is’ getting split up by magic to feel a ‘me’ and the world. So ‘presence’ or consciousness that knows, has this capacity, to make feel total absence as total presence of the world of objects, where in, each object ‘thinks’ he is the subject for the rest of world, to be his objects, but actually ‘not’. It is a fiction, played out to be reality and this is the comedy of errors, as ‘Maya’.

Finally, the ‘I am’ or knowing on consciousness or awareness or pure subjectivity or life is only the ‘Presence’ that is the ‘experiencing’ of the  world of sensations including the body, all of which fall into the category of objects but only as appearances in a dream. Knowledge converts such dream of appearances to reality of objective world, inserting a pseudo entity as a ‘knower’ and a pseudo entity as object to forms, which has then a pseudo bondage with the assumed reality. All this being purely mental assertions.    

If ‘one’ can understand that ‘knowing of contents’ doesn’t imply that there are contents to knowing, outside of such knowing, it can help, disconnect the pseudo ‘me’ to the pseudo ‘other’ there by collapsing subject object reality to is ‘source’ and ‘be THAT’.