Emptiness: Insight and Limitation
If you would like to understand consciousness at a deep level then I have also created a complementary guide Autobiography of a Sorcerer Book 1-4: A Study of Toltec Shamanism, is a Bridge between Worlds of Power Sorcery, Yoga, Zen & Philosophy, click the above button for details.
When one looks deeply into what is often called the emptiness of infinity, one may indeed encounter nothing—no form, no object, no identity. There is silence, absence, and a vast stillness in which the familiar sense of self dissolves. This encounter is not imaginary, nor is it trivial. It is one of the most significant discoveries available to contemplative inquiry.
Yet what is often overlooked is that emptiness itself can still function as a reflection of self, rather than a complete transcendence of self-reference.
The self appears empty because the self is an illusion. To discover this through deep meditation is a genuine realization. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj articulated this insight with striking clarity in his declaration, “I Am That.” In that realization, the personal identity collapses, and what remains is impersonal awareness—silent, expansive, and ungraspable.
The crucial question, however, is not whether emptiness is real, but what remains witnessing that emptiness.
Two Interpretations of Emptiness
Across contemplative traditions—Advaita Vedānta, Buddhism, and other non-dual systems—there is broad agreement that when identification with thought and narrative ceases, what remains is often described as emptiness, silence, or non-duality. This convergence is significant. But a closer examination suggests that emptiness may function in two fundamentally different ways, depending on how it is understood and what follows from it.
Emptiness as Realization
(Non-dual insight)
In classical Advaita terms, emptiness corresponds to the recognition that the personal self (ahaṅkāra) is not ultimately real. The apparent subject–object divide collapses, and awareness is experienced as unbounded, impersonal, and self-luminous. Phenomena are seen as transient appearances, and the sense of doership falls away.
From this perspective:
Identity is recognized as conceptual rather than ontological.
Suffering diminishes as attachment dissolves.
Experience becomes less reactive, more equanimous.
Reality is apprehended as a seamless whole.
This insight is psychologically transformative. It resolves many existential anxieties by revealing the constructed nature of selfhood and the impermanence of all forms. Within Advaita, this realization is often taken as final: liberation is achieved through recognition alone.
The Structural Limit of Emptiness
However, from a different analytical standpoint, this realization may represent a clearing of content rather than a reconfiguration of awareness itself. The mind becomes silent, identity is negated, but awareness remains reflexively positioned within the same perceptual framework that generated the insight.
In other words:
The self is negated, but the structure of observation remains intact.
Awareness recognizes emptiness, but does not relocate beyond the conditions that made recognition possible.
Emptiness is experienced from within the human perceptual apparatus.
From this angle, emptiness is a necessary threshold but not necessarily an ontological exit. Awareness is no longer entangled in identity, yet it remains dependent on the biological and perceptual structure through which the realization occurs.
Emptiness as Structural Closure
When emptiness is treated as an absolute endpoint rather than a transitional condition, it can function as a form of closure. The conclusion that “there is nothing further” or “nothing more to be done” may feel experientially complete within the contemplative state, but it also forecloses further inquiry into what happens to awareness beyond the conditions of that state.
This interpretation tends toward:
Finality rather than exploration.
Ontological negation rather than transformation.
Acceptance of dissolution rather than investigation of continuity.
From a skeptical standpoint, this is not a failure of insight but a limitation of scope. The realization accurately describes the emptiness of the self—but remains silent on the fate of awareness once the conditions supporting that realization cease.
The subtle danger here is that emptiness, when absolutized, becomes the last refuge of self-reference. The mirror has not been shattered; it has only been cleared. One may still be the self observing the absence of the self. This is an extraordinary achievement—far beyond ordinary identification—but it is not yet freedom from the closed loop of self-observation.
The Toltec Reframing
Toltec philosophy does not dispute the insight of emptiness. Instead, it reframes it as an intermediate condition rather than a final truth. Silence, non-identification, and the dissolution of self are understood as prerequisites, not conclusions.
The critical distinction lies here:
Emptiness reveals that the self is illusory.
But awareness, once freed from identity, still faces the question of its continuity.
Where Advaita resolves the problem through recognition, Toltec philosophy extends the inquiry into mechanics:
What sustains awareness?
What happens when the biological structure collapses?
Can awareness operate independently of the perceptual system that produced emptiness?
From this perspective, emptiness is not freedom itself but the clearing that makes further movement possible. It is not the end of illusion; it is often the last illusion the self is capable of sustaining.
A Neutral Reframing
The disagreement, then, is not about whether emptiness is real—it is—but about whether emptiness exhausts the possibilities of awareness. One view concludes the inquiry at recognition; the other treats recognition as the beginning of a different line of investigation.
Both positions may be internally coherent. The difference lies in what question one considers final.
Emptiness may be the end of self—but whether it is the end of awareness remains an open question.
Feel free to drop your comment in the comment section and I will try to answer them, I would really appreciate it if you share your thoughts, and thank you for visiting the Ancient Wisdom Modern Mind blog.
I’m Jason your host signing off. Take care.
If you would like to understand consciousness at a deep level then I have also created a complementary guide Autobiography of a Sorcerer Book 1-4: A Study of Toltec Shamanism, is a Bridge between Worlds of Power Sorcery, Yoga, Zen & Philosophy, click the above button for details.
Letter of Support
Hello my friends, the patronage of regular followers is greatly appreciated and is the true spirit of mutual self-love… So, if you find any value or joy in the content, please consider becoming a Supporting Patron by downloading Podcasts for a small supporter’s remuneration or by purchasing Meditation audios or books from the Books & Meditation Audios page or by clicking the Supporters Link, and this one simple act makes a huge difference.
👍 share and Stay safe.
