TWO: Great news, old chap, the greatest ever.
ONE: Excellent. That is to say?
TWO: I am reality!
ONE: As obvious as your nose, but congratulations on noticing it.
TWO: But it is terrific! I had idea life held such a thrill! I want to dance, or jump over the moon. I feel as if a fog had lifted, as though an insupportable burden had been lifted from my shoulders.
ONE: The I-concept is like being gagged, and bound with chains, is it not?
TWO: Yes, indeed. I had long believed the thing did not exist, but now I have come to know it. What a difference!
ONE: 'Believing' it was only the usual pretence; knowing it is still intellectual; when you experience it even gravity will no longer exist.
TWO: When I look, when I speak, when I listen, it is reality that looks and speaks and listens!
ONE: Who else could there be to look and speak and listen?
TWO: No one, but I didn't realise it. And what I see, what I say, what I hear - is reality!
ONE: Nonsense; it is nothing of the kind!
TWO: What do you mean? What is it then?
ONE: What you see, say or hear is only an interpretation of reality in a dualistic medium, and bears no recognisable resemblance to reality except in its suchness which can neither be seen, said nor heard.
TWO: And yet the 'I' that sees, speaks, listens, is reality? It seems illogical.
ONE: Reality knows nothing of logic; it has never been to school.
TWO: Even so ... But of course you must be right; come to think of it, what I see, say and hear could not be really real, could it?
ONE: It could not. What you see, say and hear consists of objects in consciousness, interpretations of reality in a context of time, space and duality.
TWO: Yes, yes, but why?
ONE: Because, of course, reality being outside time, without space, and non-dual - all of which are concepts only - cannot be perceived as it is via those limitations.
TWO: Then how can I really perceive?
ONE: You cannot - unless as an algebraic symbol, or, perhaps, as relation, as harmony for instance; you are normally seen as an object in consciousness, dualistically in time, and spatially as form.
TWO: My reality, my suchness, can only be inferred?
ONE: The inference is inescapable, but your suchness is imperceptible.
TWO: How, then, do I become perceptible?
ONE: By being clothed; you yourself are invisible, only your clothes are seen.
TWO: My clothes? What clothes, and where do they come from?
ONE: Your clothes are qualities, projected on to you by dualistic thinking.
TWO: What kind of qualities?
ONE: All kinds - size, weight, shape, colour, character ...
TWO: But those are all estimations, functions of their opposites, points on a scale of imaginary values, limited by the range of our sense, devoid of intrinsic reality!
ONE: You see that clearly; you have been reading the Diamond Sutra - 'Thus have I heard ...'
TWO: And stripped of these arbitrary and unreal dualistic estimations, what am I?
ONE: A hole in space.
TWO: Like everything else?
ONE: Like everything else sensorially perceptible. Like the whole universe as perceived by our senses and their mechanical extensions.
TWO: The suchness of no object can ever be perceived?
ONE: Obviously not.
TWO: But what are objects, when all is said and done?
ONE: Objectivisations of reality in the only way reality can be objectivised, that is, by the dualistic approach, comprising consciousness and objects thereof - all of which we are.
TWO: And consciousness includes all objects?
ONE: Everything that is cognisable. Nothing is outside consciousness, for there is no outside of that.
TWO: As subject, I am always real; as object, I am always relative?
ONE: Relativity meaning reality envisaged dualistically as Observer and observed.
TWO: Suddenly it seems simple!
ONE: Complications only arise in false problems.
TWO: How is it possible to identify oneself with an object, when one knows oneself as the subject?
ONE: It is not possible! You have been identifying yourself with an object instead of recognising yourself as being also the subject, that is all.
TWO: And yet I was eternally saying 'I', like everybody else!
ONE: That 'I' was an object, never the real subject when you used it conditionally, that is the reason.
TWO: So that is it; when one understands, realises, knows that one is I-reality ... it becomes obvious!
ONE: As obvious as a nose!
