Authored by Christoph Schaub

The pre/trans fallacy, simply put, is to confuse the innocence of a child with the self-realization of a saint. In other words, the pre/trans fallacy speaks to our attempts to understand the transrational reality of being with our rational thoughts, which causes us to arrive at irrational conclusions, such as our talk about the non-dual. Hence, we assert that everything is perfect, for example, while the world in which we live goes to pieces, unnoticed and unacknowledged, for everything that is, is perfect, isn’t it? What a concept! Surely, in regard to our non-dual concepts of self, everything indeed is perfect, with the exception that our concepts of self are not the territory of self; they are not to be confused with ‘what is.’ Because the non-dual does not exist in this world; it is a mere concept of the mind that prevents us from seeing and acknowledging “what is.”

While seeing ‘what is’ is immediate and, in a sense, unconditioned, it is not independent or separate from how we interpret or make meaning of life. In other words, seeing ‘what is’ encompasses as much as our interpretation of life admits. We cannot see whatever is beyond our conception of self; put differently, seeing ‘what is,’ is determined by the cognitive development of our mind. That said, there also exists another seeing, which is not derived from our conception and development of ’self,’ but from the ‘no self’; the link between the mind and the soul. This seeing, too, is informed by the culture to which we belong and associate ourselves with. The pure, unconditioned, unborn and uncreated seeing of ‘what is’ is only witnessed in the self-realization of ‘I’ and ’soul.’ Seeing ‘what is,’ which is derived from the ’self’ discloses our interdependent reality of being, whereas the seeing of ‘what is,’ which is derived from the ‘no self,’ reveals the reality of the greater whole, behind which we can see or come to re-cognize the unknown that is as dark and impenetrable to thoughts as light is to a black hole. The unknown is neither a theory nor a construct of the mind and whoever wants to approach it needs to leave the thoughts of the known behind. This is equal to the process of transcending language into which we are born as a human being.

The unknown causes us to re-cognize the known, which, in turn, makes us aware of the reality of the unknown. The re-cognition of the known necessitates the differentiation of “I” and “other,” which is absent in a newborn and has been transcended in a self-realized person; the process between these two polarities of being is what development and human life is all about. Creation emerges in pairs: be it form and emptiness; God and evolution; man and woman or simply life and death. In other words, whatever has a beginning also has an end and whatever exists is the cause of and caused by something, for cause and effect go together like day and night. However, to approach life as if we are the center of the universe only causes us to misinterpret it, for we only exist due to the interdependent arising of relationships. We are not self-caused, but a reflection of consciousness, or a re-cognition of God. We are not the absolute; and only those who have awaken to it can indeed claim to be one with God or a reflection of the absolute in person, even though the absolute is beyond creation. To enshrine the absolute in the form of those who have awaken to it, as is the case of the Buddha’s status in the East, for instance, causes us to turn it into a relative, because the absolute has no face to it. The same goes for God’s name, which does not represent the absolute. For instance, the word “Allah,” is only a finger pointing to the moon; whereas the absolute is behind the moo
n; it is the darkness that causes the moon to be seen when the sun’s rays illuminate it. Similarly, language merely illuminates the known; it does not reveal to us the unknown, in spite of all our talking about it. Our speculating about God is rather fruitless, for whatever we speculate is only our own thoughts of ‘what is,’ which are as far removed from seeing ‘what is’ as Pluto is from Earth.

The pre/trans fallacy speaks to our confusion of the concepts of the mind with the reality of life. The concepts of our mind are a natural result or consequence of interpreting or making meaning of life; one of the fundamental characteristics of being human. In other words, we cannot not make meaning or interpret life, just as we cannot not breathe or procreate, if we want to continue to exist. Meaning-making goes hand-in-hand with seeing, for where one is present, the other is there, as well. This, however, is not the case in relation to re-cognition, which is prior to meaning-making and beyond seeing. To re-cognize ‘what is,’ is empty; there is no picture, no thought or behavior associated with it, because re-cognition can only emerge in the absence of all our concepts and ideas we have about life. This is how new re-cognitions of life arise. We consider them ‘new,’ because they transcend the old without dismissing, but rather integrating it with the new expression or perspective of life. This is also the case in relation to parent and child. The child may transcend and include the perspective of her parents, which, of course, cannot be said if she simply dismisses or disassociates herself from the ground and shoulders on which she stands.

To date, we have come to believe that awareness facilitates the possibility of acknowledgment and re-cognition of ‘what is,’ which is, however, just another pre/trans fallacy belief. Why? Re-cognition precedes awareness; said differently, we re-cognize first and become aware of it after, simple because awareness, as such, does not do anything. Our ‘becoming aware of’ always takes place ‘in relation to,’ as exemplified by the philosophy of phenomenology. Put differently, what can we do in the company of ‘awareness’ Answer: Be. But since that proves to be difficult to do, we become ‘other’ than who we are meant to be. We become the person we believe ourselves to be and then confuse this person with who we are, due to our thinking that awareness does anything. A newborn can’t simply be and this is how we become ‘other;’ this is how ‘other’ becomes re-cognized in ‘mother.’ This is how the subject/object differentiation comes about that characterizes our relative human existence of becoming while being. It’s a process to which we can only submit, because it is a given; not because we have fallen from paradise or because we did wrong of some kind, but because of the creatures we are: human beings.

As such, we are bound to make meaning of this subject/object differentiation, which doesn’t mean, however, that we will understand it, for ‘what is’ is not disclosed to us by making meaning of it. For example, we do not really know why the things that happen to us in life happen to us; we only pretend to know why they happen to us, according to the meaning we make of them. Not to make meaning of the things that happen to us is just another form of meaning making, which is derived from our unwillingness to engage in life; to accept life, as it is. Hence, we refrain from making meaning about it. Life, in such case, is meaningless, which is the life we teach at our universities; the life we promote in public. This is why we are so interested in the lives of others; the life of celebrities and such, because our own life is meaningless. Hence, we aspire to become like them, be it famous or rich; we aspire to become noted, for without it, our lives do not seem to exist. How sad is that, yet the socio-cultural life we are living is built on this illusion, which we continuously perpetuate. Look at all our magazines, movies, TV shows, et cetera. It’s called consumerism. We consume in order to have a sense of existing, while living is experienced in giving. What makes us great is not how much we have, but how much we can relate to ‘what is.’ Greatness is not found by admiring others, but by fulfilling our own destiny. There is no greater achievement than that. Yet our destiny is not self-created; it is not what we want or are driven to attain. We have to render ourselves open to ‘what is’ in order to discover our life purpose, which is not fixed in stone, but evolves, just as we grow from a child to a youth and into an adult.

Ultimately, our life purpose depends on how we see life and this seeing is derived from what we make of the after life or death. Life’s meaning does not spring from life, but is derived in relation to that which transcends and contains it; just as who we are is not revealed to us in isolation, but only in relation to ‘Thou.’ For a ‘thou’ to exist, we have to claim ‘I am;’ there is no other way around it. Buddha’s ‘Thou’ is the Dharma, Moses’ ‘Thou’ is G_d and Mohammad’s ‘Thou’ is Allah. The importance is not by what name we call ‘Thou,’ but that we acknowledge its existence, for without it, we too do not exist. ‘I & Thou’ belong together. We can make our beloved or our teacher our ‘Thou,’ but we need always to remember that the absolute has no face to it and the moment we are giving it a face, we become attached to it and turn it into a relative. In relation to ‘Thou,’ there is no attachment and where there is attachment, we have to inquire to which ‘Thou’ we are relating. If the existence of our ‘I’ is threatened by forces that want to destroy it for no other reason than to become stronger themselves?in other words, to simply destroy it for our ‘I’ stands in the way of them; we are justified to defend it and fight for the sake of ‘Thou,’ which is not to be confuse with our own agenda. This is the meaning of Jihad; the holy war mentioned by the Qu’ran. It is not the war of terrorists of people who self-righteously go to war, as the administration of the United States of America did in relation to Iraq. There was no legitimate reason to invade that country, yet the U.S. administration did so in spite of this. This was not only a violation of international law, it is also a violation of the orders of love. How will the American people account for that? By starting a third-world war? For who, besides India and Pakistan, could do it? China?

Just like David found Goliath’s weak spot, so the so-called terrorists will find ours, for we have become Goliath against whom they will fight as fearlessly as did David. This is no joke, it’s just a question of time; and you and I are responsible for this when it happens, as there is no separation between us and them. Here you have your non-dual conception of self. Call it a projection. If we re-act again in the way we re-acted to at 9/11, we will be thrown into darkness and while some of us may survive, the majority of us will die. We cannot win a war against terrorists, for we created them in the first place. They are people like you and I; to simply call them fanatics does not change this fact, nor does it cause them to forgo their plans to attack. Nonetheless, we are living our lives as undisturbed as prior to 9/11; and then we acted surprised when it happened. We either do not want to acknowledge it or are simply ignorant of how close we are to the destruction of our very existence. The match is already lit!

To panic is just the flip side of denial, for as it has been said: “Those who want to save their lives will loose it.” We can only change the course of our lives by collaborating. There will be no Messiah, who will solve or take care of the challenges with which we are faced and created together, while becoming the individuals, cultures and nations we are. Of what use is it to claim to be ‘the one,’ as in the case of the founder of the Baha’i religion, Bah�’u'll�h? The myth of the one is not much different from the story of Santa Claus. It is a myth that fulfills a certain function and has a certain purpose, which is not to make us believe that Santa Claus really exists. Myths are to us what a blanket is to a baby, who cannot bear the open space of unboundedness into which it is born. Myths provide us with a home until we have developed to the stage of consciousness where we can acknowledge ‘I am.’ No Messiah can do that for us, and that is the story to which the myth of the Messiah speaks. There is meaning and purpose in this story, but not for someone like Bah�’u'll�h to assert that he is the one. His claim only proves that he was misled, just like a fish is caught with bait that it thought to be something else.

To renounce our gods, which we have created and become attached to, can be a challenging task, especially if we have reasons to believe that there is no use in renouncing them. Renunciation is not an act of destruction, but arises by inquiring into ‘what is,’ in the process of which we are liberated from the illusions we previously thought to be real. Renunciation is not something that we can make happen, just as we cannot simply let go of our attachments. It is a decision; the decision to inquire into ‘what is’ rather than to merely believe our own thoughts, concepts, theories, ideas, theologies and beliefs. Renunciation is an act of humility, for rather continuing to blindly believe in the things we love, we commit to look at them; for only in looking can we see ‘what is.’ To look at life as it is means accepting it in the way it is. Why run away from it in the hope of finding it somewhere else? Life is neither found in the arms of our lover nor in a monastery; life is revealed to us where we are present.

The pre/trans fallacy would have us believe that we are present when, in fact, we are mostly as present as the projected characters in a movie; but since we believe that we are present, we are prevented from re-cognizing our absent-beingness, of which we become aware when someone or something shakes us in our sleep. We taught ourselves to behave like machines; and many of us believe that technology will save us. A concept, similar to the movie ?The Matrix. We fight those who shake us in our sleep, like Trinity and Nino did in that motion picture mentioned. We fight whatever disturbs our sleep, in which we dream to be the one. There is no apparent need to awake from this illusion; on the contrary, we feel entitled to fight for our self-created existence, never asking ourselves in whose name we are fighting. But it has become so habitual and we have become so identified with our self-created identity of being that we simply perpetuate the fight, unquestioned and unconscious, like machines, thinking that we are real and that is what our life amounts to: competition! To question this conception of self has almost become impossible. Hence, we confuse our inborn potential with our will; just as we confuse the possibility of living together in peace with a dream from the past, for what we believe in is war.

It is easy to understand the pre/trans fallacy concept in theory, while missing what it speaks to in reality; as demonstrated, for instance, in the marketing of a book such as ‘Conversations with God’, as if God would talk to us in words, which is not how God communicates, but how we talk as human beings. Those conversations are nothing other than an expression of the collective unconscious, from which we have become separated in the wake of the age of enlightenment, where we lost our grounding not only to our planet, but also to our ancestors and family. What is expressed in the book mentioned are the unacknowledged hopes and thoughts of humanity as a whole. That which is communicated therein is derived from the same place a so-called shaman accesses when going unconscious in order to speak to the hidden symmetry of love in relation to the person, tribe or culture in question. To confuse this process, however, with conversing with God is like believing that we can disclose the unknown through thoughts. The unknown is where we meet God; it is beyond language and thoughts?and there is nothing to talk about. The religious Scriptures of old only point to the unknown; they do not reveal it. They only serve as guidance for how to get there; for how to arrive at the temple of God. To enter it, we have to leave everything behind, including our own conception of self, which is based on language, thoughts and behavior. This where the religious ends and the spiritual reality of being begins: in silence!