Contingent Beings?

Hello everyone. This is my first post. Long time lurker though. I recently read a quote from Richard posted here that I can’t find now. He was saying something to the effect that part of the misery of Being is that a feeling being is contingent. I know I’ve read that phrase before, Contingent Being. My question is, contingent on what? I read it to mean dependent on but didn’t understand what it’s dependent on. Thanks.

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Welcome Alexander!

Contingent meaning contingent on the particulars of people, places, and things - on them being a certain way and not being a different certain way. ‘Your’ identity as a good employee, for example, depends on ‘you’ feeling like ‘you’ accomplished a certain amount of ‘work’ that your ‘superiors’ have deemed necessary … and receiving praise and support from them. This identity is threatened if you fail or if things change etc … ‘you’ don’t exist on-your-own. And this is the same for an identity you find yourself being.

Whereas to be pure consciousness as evidenced in a PCE, you are not dependent on anyone or anything being a particular this way or that to exist. You simply are, what you are, exactly that, nothing more and nothing less. There are no impurities lacks or faults to be found anywhere. You , along with everything else , is seen and experienced to actually be unconditionally perfect, regardless of what is happening.

Of course to be alive is still dependent on getting enough nutrients , maintaining bodily integrity (ie no one or thing harming you) etc … so you don’t exist in isolation from the rest of the universe. But even so, your experience of yourself is to be unconditionally perfect , not to depend on anything to be that perfection.

Cheers and looking forward to corresponding with you and reading your posts,
Claudiu

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Thanks for the reply. Very concise.

“This identity is threatened if you fail or if things change etc … ‘you’ don’t exist on-your-own.”

Taking it a bit further, ‘I’ don’t exist at all in actuality and ‘I’ must know this on some level which leads to defending and justifying a feeling being of the imagination which leads to further suffering. Does that sound accurate to you? Anything to add? I’m fascinated by the fact that ‘I’ know that ‘I’ am little more than mental images and fickle emotions and the denial of that fact is what ‘I’ am engaged in most of the time.

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I just thought of an example of this. I find when I’m really enjoying being here the identity searches for something to worry about. As If to say “see you can’t live without me.” It’s crazy. This is probably pretty elementary for most here but it’s hard hitting for me.

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Yes stick with this fascination! The fascination will enable you to increasingly allow yourself to see ‘your’ true nature - and accept it more and more (very important) - which makes everything a lot more fun and easy :slight_smile:

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Yes I was going to write a reply following a similar train of thought. The way I always understood it is by comparing the identity (contingent) to the universe (not contingent).

The identity being separate from the universe knows deep down that one day it will ‘be’ no more, furthermore it will be forever separated from ‘the group’ which it belongs to. This is why life is always seen as a bitter sweet situation, why life is a vale of tears and why there is always a sense of tragedy inherent in existing within the real word.

On the other hand the universe is absolute in a sense that it is infinite and eternal and does not require upon anything for its existence. In that universe there is no tragedy as it is the only thing in existence, as such nothing could ever go wrong.

This is one of the reasons why whenever ‘I’ go into abeyance in a PCE it is always discovered with the same delight that nothing has ever been wrong or could be wrong, we are all simply here coming from nowhere and having nowhere else to go.

When the contingent being goes into abeyance then I as this flesh and blood body am the very universe experiencing itself as a human being, there is no separation between that infinite/eternal stuff and this body, it is one and the same thing.

So even though this body will one day stop being conscious, the very stuff it is made of is as old as the universe, it is simply here as it always has been. Living this understanding as an actuality each moment over is to have actual security, something ‘I’ (the contingent being) can never have.

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“The identity being separate from the universe knows deep down that one day it will ‘be’ no more, furthermore it will be forever separated from ‘the group’ which it belongs to.”

Never thought of it that way. Great post. Thanks for sharing.

I also remember a few months ago really starting to investigate and discover this. It was following a PCE where I saw what it would be like if ‘I’ never came back. Seeing ‘myself’ as nothing more than a contingent being was pretty startling and would bring up a lot of intense feelings of fear and sorrow.

It is kinda odd though looking at that predicament from the vantage point of the PCE, where there is an actual security for this body. And all ‘I’ have to do is agree to disappear to allow it. It’s like life is a tragedy but only because ‘I’ am so intent on remaining a ‘being’, the problem only exists because ‘I’ exist.
Good to have you posting on the forum @Alexander33 :grin:

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Kuba thank you

This is one of the most amazing posts that I have read :appreciation:

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