Confidence arises from direct experience. If you stub your toe on a rock, there is no doubt about what happened.
If you have an experience of cosmic-consciousness, you directly experience oneness, so there is no doubt that any sense of separation is an illusion. Even after the experience ends, it is remembered, so the certainty of what happened and what was realized never goes away.
If you have an experience in which selfhood disappears, even for a short period of time, there is no doubt that such a thing is possible.
If selfhood is seen to be non-existent, as a realization rather than an experience, there is never any doubt about what was seen.
When gaps between thoughts first appear, the mind usually thinks, "Oh, silence has appeared," but that thought breaks the silence. Eventually, silence can occur and be known without any words or thoughts appearing. Sustained silence makes it obvious that discursive thinking is not necessary for most daily activities.
Cumulatively, a wide range of direct experiences and various realizations regarding the nature of reality generates considerable confidence concerning how mind generates the illusions underlying the trance-like state of mind most people mistake for reality.
Until someone tastes a lemon, one does not know how a lemon tastes.
Until someone directly experiences the vastness of the Infinite, one does not know what the word "infinite" points to. When the Infinite is directly experienced, it is not experienced by a separate person; the Infinite experiences Itself through some unknown faculty of perception that is not conceptual/intellectual. Any body/mind through which that occurs never forgets what happened, and always feels deep humility, awe, and reverence concerning what happened and what was perceived. In Christian terms any body/mind that experiences God directly never imagines that s/he IS God. The body/mind is conceived, whenever it is conceived, as an infinitessimally tiny fragment of being that is one-with the vastness of God.
AAR, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it! Ha ha
If you have an experience of cosmic-consciousness, you directly experience oneness, so there is no doubt that any sense of separation is an illusion. Even after the experience ends, it is remembered, so the certainty of what happened and what was realized never goes away.
If you have an experience in which selfhood disappears, even for a short period of time, there is no doubt that such a thing is possible.
If selfhood is seen to be non-existent, as a realization rather than an experience, there is never any doubt about what was seen.
When gaps between thoughts first appear, the mind usually thinks, "Oh, silence has appeared," but that thought breaks the silence. Eventually, silence can occur and be known without any words or thoughts appearing. Sustained silence makes it obvious that discursive thinking is not necessary for most daily activities.
Cumulatively, a wide range of direct experiences and various realizations regarding the nature of reality generates considerable confidence concerning how mind generates the illusions underlying the trance-like state of mind most people mistake for reality.
Until someone tastes a lemon, one does not know how a lemon tastes.
Until someone directly experiences the vastness of the Infinite, one does not know what the word "infinite" points to. When the Infinite is directly experienced, it is not experienced by a separate person; the Infinite experiences Itself through some unknown faculty of perception that is not conceptual/intellectual. Any body/mind through which that occurs never forgets what happened, and always feels deep humility, awe, and reverence concerning what happened and what was perceived. In Christian terms any body/mind that experiences God directly never imagines that s/he IS God. The body/mind is conceived, whenever it is conceived, as an infinitessimally tiny fragment of being that is one-with the vastness of God.
AAR, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it! Ha ha
