[written 1980 when I was 28]
In the following, an attempt will be made to avoid the use of "I," for it has not yet been proven. This immediately makes for difficult reading, but that is merely due to habit. Conversely, it should make it easier to "think oneself into" a different way or form of thinking which is ostensibly illogical or alogical, but in fact is not.
It is our usual way of thinking that is a-logical, because it distinguishes beforehand (a priori) between A and non-A WITHOUT SIMULTANEOUSLY PROVING THAT EXISTENCE IN ITSELF (AN SICH) NECESSARILY MUST BE DIVIDED INTO DISCONNECTED DUALITIES. Or to put it another way: our usual dualistic logic separates.
Thinking can only separate, for that is the only faculty the brain possesses or has been given. But just because thinking in itself (an sich) can only separate, it is not necessarily the case for existence regarded as a whole or totality that it must also be so. If it were — let us assume this for a moment — then thinking must be able to prove this from thinking itself. For thinking is thinking, theory is theory, and both are built upon thinking, i.e., a priori separation.
When thinking subsequently thinks from the a priori premise of dualistic separation, the theory or the thought can "logically" or "naturally" ONLY reach the single conclusion — for thinking is precisely thinking ABOUT existence — that existence itself (an sich) IS or exists in disconnected dualities or in separated non-separations.
AND THIS CANNOT BE TRUE. THINKING CAN REASON ITS WAY TO THIS. ERGO, THE A PRIORI PREMISE OF DUALISTIC SEPARATION WITHIN EXISTENCE ITSELF MUST BE FALSE.
But thinking must also prove this. That is to say, thinking must prove that it itself exists at all!
It sounds strange at first, but it must be so.
The first proof is immediately a proof, but it only truly becomes a proof when thinking can prove it based on absolutely no premises regarding the existence of anything at all, including itself.
My following thought process is logical, but simultaneously paradoxical. It could therefore be called paradoxical thinking, but what it is called is of secondary importance. In one, and only one, peculiar way, thinking must "catch" itself by the tail; or put another way: it must be able to pull itself up by its own hair. We know from physical matter or physical-material reality that the physical-material reality cannot do this, but that does not simultaneously mean that thinking cannot. For thinking IS NOT physical-material reality. We know this, but we have not yet proven it. Ergo, we must prove this as well.
Thinking must therefore, in what might be called a "paradoxical maneuver," seize both itself and its dualistic opposite in one and the same grasp or "moment" in order to TRANSCEND its own a priori premise of the dualistically separated duality: A and non-A cannot both exist simultaneously. This is how thinking thinks, and that in itself is fantastic, for the immediate perception of the world is that they do exist and continue to exist! ! !
If one suddenly did not exist simply because the other existed in that moment, how could it suddenly reappear the moment after?? Then one duality, and thus both dualities, would have to die and live in turns, and that cannot be true, for we understand death as non-existence. Something that is dead cannot suddenly live the moment after. Or can it? These and similar questions must a true theory of knowledge (epistemology) about existence be able to answer! ! And, mind you, within its own medium: the dualistic medium of thinking.
We presuppose absolutely nothing. The existence of existence, the existence of thinking, or the existence of experience is NOT presupposed! !
For the following reason:
If the theory starts from a single premise, it necessarily excludes the existence of the opposite of the premise. If the theory presupposed the existence of, for example, A and at the same time denied the existence of non-A, it must necessarily come to self-contradictory conclusions within its own medium. It would have to come to the conclusion that confirms the existence of the a priori 'set' ('gesetzte') premise and disproves the existence of non-A.
Example:
Mathematics and thus also atomic physics assume the existence of time because 'it is experienced as such.' Without proving this, i.e. that it 'really' is and must be so. In other words: the scientist trusts his immediate perception. And it is fantastic that he does this, because centuries of natural science have shown exactly what this can lead to. The earth is immediately experienced as flat. The scientist then had to, following his own way of thinking — and it says: trust the TRUTH of your immediate perception for the theory — mentally conclude (it is only thinking that can conclude, not experience!), that therefore the earth must be flat.
But natural science has previously shown that it is not. It is and must necessarily be round. However, one cannot immediately imagine that based on thinking alone. BUT one can imagine it AFTER, for example, having traveled the entire earth in the SAME direction and ended up where one started. Only NOW and THEN can thinking conceive that the immediate perception must be false.
This is just one example from science. Many others could be given.
The point of this and other examples from 'real life' — which we in theory do not deal with at all when we start in theory is to illustrate the self-contradiction of the so-called scientific way of thinking. The immediate perception and the eye thus deceive in some cases. Ergo, the scientist had to conclude: 'I cannot always conclude in thought from the immediate perception to the theory.' And this should be a theoretically absolute truth. It just is not. Science seems to be very forgetful !!
Note that I distinguish between the truth of the theory and the truth of perception, even though I have not yet proven that they are two different truths. I have merely given some examples from science where it has been shown through EXPERIENCE AND THEN THINKING that the immediate perception was NOT identical to the theory, which 'blindly' trusted the existential truth of this immediate perception.
And with these examples I am slowly trying to show the reader that thinking works in a special way, which differs at least in some cases from the truth of the immediate perception. I do not conclude from this that in all cases of immediate perceptions it must necessarily be so.
I am merely pointing out the case in some examples. And this is done to train the reader to always be in a thinking state, i.e. theoretically skeptical before there is anything proven irrevocable.
This must be the scientist's fundamental attitude or attitude towards theory and the whole of existence.
That it is rarely so in practice is actually paradoxical, when millennia of scientific development have shown that new insights have been gained precisely by the scientist who has doubted either an immediate perception or an immediately true theory (this is the same thing in the final analysis).
How is it that science has not learned more from millennia of experience? The whole answer cannot be given here, but one of the essentials is that there exists in our culture what the culture itself calls a taboo. And the culture itself — again a paradox — defines this taboo precisely as an apparent fact or absolute truth that the scientist or doubter must NOT doubt or question.
Mathematics and atomic physics, among other reasons, permanently end up not being able to find the actual truth. It ends up that it first starts from time and then has to introduce a transcendental concept: 'infinity' (because it transcends the concept of time) in order to be able to move forward. But then time as a concept no longer exists, because the concept of time cannot simultaneously exist with the concept of infinity. But that is the only solution for natural science.
But the point is that the scientist's own thinking can only think in dualities, not in transcendental concepts and SCIENCE FOR SOME REASON FORGETS THIS, because the scientist now continues his thinking with both logical and transcendental concepts — BECAUSE HE THINKS THAT HE IS THE THINKER — and necessarily comes into the self-contradiction of thinking: duality and the transcendence of duality cannot exist simultaneously in existence itself. Atomic physics therefore ends up in the final analysis with an apparent truth, which in the final analysis merely confirms the 'now unfortunately forgotten' assumption of thinking and theory itself: the a priori assumption of the existential existence of duality, or to put it another way:
It assumes that time and moment exist in reality, comes into self-contradictions, must now introduce 'infinity' to resolve the contradiction — BUT PRECIOUSLY HERE THE ASSUME NO LONGER VALID AND THIS THE SCIENTIST CANNOT THINK ABOUT, BECAUSE HIS THINKING CAN ONLY THINK IN SEPARATION AND NOT IN CONCEPTS OF TRANSCENDENCE — and then only continues by repressing the self-contradiction — he will have to. He now comes to the conclusion that existence must be infinite or transcendental, but since this contradicts his IMMEDIATE EXPERIENCE OR THINKING (for they are the same!), he rejects the actually true conclusion and thinks that there must be something wrong somewhere in the derivation of the theory. He now starts over, and the whole thing repeats itself again, etc.
Now comes the point why thinking cannot see itself:
The scientist believes that he is identical with his own thinking, because it is his immediate perception. And thereby he commits the blunder that millennia of science have shown, that one should NOT ALWAYS trust one's immediate perception. If and only if the scientist dared to see this question even in a glimpse and was really consistent, then he would have to sit down — possibly alone without telling anyone — and start thinking about the question: 'Who am me really?' or 'Am I even who I think I am?'
Maybe he will find out (most likely not), and maybe he will find out that his 'I' does not exist at all. And you can't tell others or claim that in a society whose biggest taboo is precisely this question.
In our society, you risk being locked up for insanity. And that risk most scientists don't dare take. Something else is — as I will show later — that in order to be able to prove it, you must have experienced the meditative state where precisely the 'I' 'dies' without dying anyway. That is, you must further take the risk of dying to find out whether the theory is really true also in practice. And now we are in deep water, if we haven't heard it from others, that the ego dies without the person dying or. etc.
And now back to the original.
I mention this in advance to illustrate the problem and at the same time I show how a science or theory even from false assumptions reaches the truth and then suppresses it. And further to illustrate the paradoxical way of thinking that I have borrowed from Bhagwan.
There is nothing illogical in the thinking itself and also in this thinking, but the result it arrives at is 'illogical'. The only difference is that thinking cannot understand it, because thinking can only think logically. But when the person identifies with the thinking, the person immediately experiences not being able to understand it. And that is the whole difference.
Any logical thinking must necessarily come to the conclusion that reality looks like thinking itself: namely, separated into dualities. Thinking reflects itself in itself (the thought existence!) and logically enough (!) gets its own mirror image back: existence is separated into dualities. 'This mirror image cannot be true', thinking thinks, 'I must reflect myself again and see whether what I saw was really true. And oh yes, the mirror image is separated. That was strange, I must look again' etc. etc.
The problem is that thinking cannot be seen or considered in external reality, because thinking is not in external reality. It is in internal reality. In order to see the thinking, I must close my eyes to external reality. This must be the only way to see the thinking. It is conceivable that this must be the only way out of the problem. This is logical, but I still call it paradoxical.
Now I have illustrated as much as I could from immediate perceptions and logical thinking. The conclusion of this was that I must close my eyes to observe the thinking. However, this presupposes that I am able to distance myself from my own thinking. And how is this done? It is no use sitting down and observing the thinking and still trusting in my immediate perceptions - for they would be 'I am the thinker.' And what now? Now I have taken the argument as far as it could be done by constantly doubting the immediate perceptions, and we end up with the conclusion that it cannot be done because it is impossible to distance oneself from one's own thinking, because no one has learned that in childhood or from one's parents, at school, etc.
But the doubter must continue. The theory says that this is the only possible way out of the problem. And now we are right at the result from this way of thinking. And it is correct, but it is NOT proven.
I don't know how to formulate my feelings and thoughts about what I feel is the greatest gift of my life, the greatest perception I've ever had (but I'll describe that after the presentation itself).
The following is the total sum of all my thoughts and perceptions. I have intentionally introduced the reader via so-called 'known' (but not proven) examples of paradoxical thinking, which IS logical, because thinking is in its very nature logical. (I'm going to repeat myself countless times, but this is necessary due to the nature of paradoxical thinking, as will be shown later.)