Advaita Vedanta - ancient wisdom

[nen888]

..from an experiential perspective, the 'bliss' of the 'true nature' of reality..from the philosophical position of Advaita Vedanta, as i understand it ..

..in the Buddhist philosophical premise, all things are interdependent (dependent origin)..the mental premise of 'universe' or multi-verse, of space, or of omniscience relies on the notion of interdependence or rather interconnectivity..even if, as buddhism suggests, everything is dependent on everything else for existence there is (even if infinite) the whole..the only singular..absolute infinity..obviously this can't be experienced by linear or ordinary sensory (visual etc) means..in being everything, by inter relation, it has no form..it's beyond quantum bits..they exist from it.. it's sub-quantum..
in advaita awareness is existence..it's the means by which existence is known to exist..therefore advaita Vedanta describes the all experienced, experiencers, and experiencing itself, together as the existor.. That..
but experientially it's beyond description.. light or void or Om or Silence guide close to it..but it's beyond ..
..the conscious experience of completeness purely being is beyond the word, but it is like bliss..

why there are any appearances of things, beings and places is a more difficult aspect in advaitan philosophy..this is Maya..who advaitans quietly call 'the goddess'..
while it is true that there is just existence (of all)..within it is the potential..the most basic potential power is change..
via the movement of time (Kala)..the wave..Maya manifests as the three Gunas..activity, inactivity and non-activity ..Maya creates illusion..other
..Maya is said to neither exist nor not exist..but Brahman is said to be existence..is Maya therefore the impossible..some thing else?
monoist Shaktas would say this makes Adi Shakti (pure energy/primordial) the basis for consciousness..the womb..the mother..beginningless..Brahmavidya..
advaitans..say Ma and Brahman are one,..like wave & potential..beyond either attribute..
That ( or 'It' )
..which no sensory description can pinpoint, and is the same in all states of consciousness..
ordinary or non-ordinary..

..anyway, freedom from suffering is the point..by whichever way works..the Upanishads are chanted incidentally..thanks all contributions to the thread..
.

 

[nen888]

..the discussion of Maya (and Iswara) is found in the advaitan writings of Shankaracharya, Sureswarcarya (his disciple), Vidyaranya and Vivarana Sampradaaya..

..now, as i said i'm a student (of a few schools) ..initially it was the philosophy that caught my attention in Advaita Vedanta..
i should say that the danger of focusing on the conclusion alone is the very criticism made of 'Neo-Advaita'..to achieve lasting rather than transitory realisation of non-duality is, in the view of most traditional vedantans, a matter of work..it's a path..though not the same methods for all..

here is an article on Neo-Advaita by James Swartz

http://www.shiningworld.com/top/images/stories/pub-pdfs/Articles/%284%29%20Neo-Advaita.pdf

Perhaps the centerpiece of neo-Advaita teachings is the idea that there is no-doer, a traditional teaching that was carefully unfolded at the beginning of chapter seven. It has achieved considerable popularity in the Neo-Advaita world because it appeals to the something for nothing mentality. ‘You mean I can get enlightened without doing anything? Where do I sign up?’ It also dovetails nicely into the idea of enlightenment as the absence of ego. If I do any spiritual work, I am strengthening my ego, or so the logic goes.

One view that needs to be examined...is the notion that enlightenment can be transmitted in some subtle experiential way via the physical proximity of a ‘master.’ Traditional Advaita disagrees with this view for the reason that ignorance is deeply entrenched in the aspirant’s thinking and that it is only by deep reflection on the teachings that the ultimate assimilation of the knowledge is achieved... On the other hand, the transmission fantasy fits nicely into the Neo-Adviatic conception of easy enlightenment, as it does away with the need for serious practice.

.

but by whatever method works..good

thanks again zhoro for the Ellam Ondre link..

[YOUTUBE]

 

[zhoro]

nen888, the video is a great find. The swami is a funny guy - reminds me a lot of many of my former teachers, very similar style.

Let me say, though, that expositions like his make sense to the mind, entertain it, and temporarily relax it so that it even gets a bit of a taste of the sat-chit-ananda as it recognizes what is being said in its own experience, but they can only be the beginning. From there on, the mind needs to be trained to steadily reside in the 'I am' and dissolve into 'am', which it will oppose through its inherent tendency to extend to 'I am this' or 'I am that'. The more the mind is drawn to its source, the more the reality of sat-chit-ananda prevails in experience.

Yes, it takes work, but it also doesn't, because at some point the recognition arises that the work is and has always been taking place of its own accord, every seeming choice and effort on the way. Resting in the Self and effort are concurrent.

In a way, the neo-advaitins are not wrong: nobody really does anything. But as long as one feels one is a doer with independent agency, they will need to put in an effort.

P.S. If you like, set forth what you think is the most essential point of debate between what you consider shaktism and advaita vedanta, and I will see if I have anything useful to contribute.

 

[nen888]

^..ok ..when time permits i'll try to sum up the differences, though again i think, like buddhism, the end result (beyond philosophy and method) is the same..

..for now i should say that advaita vedanta has more than one school
..the philosophy of Shankaracharya and disciples is known as Mayavada..as briefly described above..i.e all that is real is Brahman and the rest is illusion, or ignorance..Maya, not truly real..

and within shaktism there are various differing schools of thought..but the form i appreciate is
Shakta Advaita - absolute non-dual shaktism..
so, in contrast to the Mayavadan approach to the world of objects (as mentioned above), as Sir John Woodroffe describes it:

Maya to the Shakta worshipper is not an
unconscious something, not real, not unreal, not real-unreal, which
is associated with Brahman in its Ishvara aspect, though it is not
Brahman. Brahman is never associated with anything but Itself. Maya
to the Shakta is Shakti veiling Herself as Consciousness, but which,
as being Shakti, is Consciousness. To the Shakta all that he sees is
the Mother.

..in other words everything is Shakti (or Brahman), including what seems less conscious..

..Shaktism is also a place where schools of vedanta and buddhism meet...via Tantra (in the true sense)
buddhist schools have adopted the goddess Tara from early vedantic Tantra..
Shaktas are Tantric in approach, emphasising ritual, mantra etc over philosophy..

in the end though non-dualism should all arrive at the same 'place'..
.

 

[○]

^
..in other words everything is Shakti (or Brahman), including what seems less conscious..

I really don't have much to add to this thread besides commenting on this above quote nen. This is how I exactly feel, most of the time. And when i breakthrough on DMT, this is how it feels to me. Everything is 'this'. It's an unshakeable feeling.

I have the Bhagavad Gita and the various Upanishads, which are my favorite. Read them many times over, and still, every time I read it I find another line that just strikes a chord.

I also feel, the whole story/dialogue of the Bhagavad Gita - the warrior prince arjuna brought in battle to slay the various opposing forces, and all the while he was in dialogue with krishna. The entire gita is this dialogue, krishna answering pretty much every possible existential question. The books essentially a dialogue between arjuna and his 'higher self', his 'boundless nature'. Alot of the answers krishna gives arjuna are pretty literal in translation, as long as you can see through the metaphor, it seems pretty obvious and in line with how i perceive myself and the world now after all these DMT experiences.

I find soo many parallels between these ancinet eastern spiritual texts and entheogenic states, via DMT especially.

Great thread!

 

[nen888]

^..thank you Tattvamasi..
indeed the Gita is like a vedantan spiritual manual for getting through life..the 'battle field'..

as for parallels with the DMT experience:
(from the Bhagavad Gita)

Chapter 11, Verse 10-11.
Arjuna saw in that universal form unlimited mouths and unlimited eyes. It was all wondrous. The form was decorated with divine, dazzling ornaments and arrayed in many garbs. He was garlanded gloriously, and there were many scents smeared over His body. All was magnificent, all-expanding, unlimited. This was seen by Arjuna.

Chapter 11, Verse 12.
If hundreds of thousands of suns rose up at once into the sky, they might resemble the effulgence of the Supreme Person in that universal form.

Chapter 11, Verse 13.
At that time Arjuna could see in the universal form of the Lord the unlimited expansions of the universe situated in one place although divided into many, many thousands.

.

ps. still to present the Shakta position more..

the most remarkable thing to me is that we experience anything at all..'straight' or with DMT..experience itself is 'spiritual'

 

[zhoro]

^..ok ..when time permits i'll try to sum up the differences, though again i think, like buddhism, the end result (beyond philosophy and method) is the same..

..for now i should say that advaita vedanta has more than one school
..the philosophy of Shankaracharya and disciples is known as Mayavada..as briefly described above..i.e all that is real is Brahman and the rest is illusion, or ignorance..Maya, not truly real..

and within shaktism there are various differing schools of thought..but the form i appreciate is
Shakta Advaita - absolute non-dual shaktism..
so, in contrast to the Mayavadan approach to the world of objects (as mentioned above), as Sir John Woodroffe describes it:

Maya to the Shakta worshipper is not an
unconscious something, not real, not unreal, not real-unreal, which
is associated with Brahman in its Ishvara aspect, though it is not
Brahman. Brahman is never associated with anything but Itself. Maya
to the Shakta is Shakti veiling Herself as Consciousness, but which,
as being Shakti, is Consciousness. To the Shakta all that he sees is
the Mother.

..in other words everything is Shakti (or Brahman), including what seems less conscious..

..Shaktism is also a place where schools of vedanta and buddhism meet...via Tantra (in the true sense)
buddhist schools have adopted the goddess Tara from early vedantic Tantra..
Shaktas are Tantric in approach, emphasising ritual, mantra etc over philosophy..

in the end though non-dualism should all arrive at the same 'place'..
.

Hi nen888, it seems to me that Adi Shankara would not have debated the proponents of Shaktism, at least the form indicated by Woodroffe, because there was no need to.

Shankara (and Ramana):

"The world is illusory;
Brahman alone is real;
Brahman is the world."

The world as world is illusory. The world, being Brahman - the real, is real.

It seems that the main concern in this hypothetical debate would be the proper attitute towards involvement in the world, i.e. should one throw themselves fully into service in/of the world, which is The Divine, or should one seek to withdraw from the world and merge into its Origin. I have very little inclination to engage in such a debate, though. One will do as One wills.

 

[nen888]

^..hi zhoro (thank you for your advaitan sharings)
....well, there never really was a debate ..as i came to at the end of that post...it's more that there are different sets of language to attempt to describe the Paramarthika Satta (absolutely real)

the differences in philosophy are subtle, perhaps semantic..and between shakta advaita and Shankaracharya, possibly non-existent..but they are two different traditions..leading to the non-dual..
some forms of shaktism could be seen (while being monist in principle) as 'practical dualism', such as folk shaktism involving trance mediums..or Ramakrishna singing to and asking questions to 'Ma' (Kali) ..Ramakrishna said Shakti and Brahman are One..

the difference in tone of the two doctrines is mainly in the position on Maya being the reason for the apparent world..the Shankara position summed up as:

Maya is not real, because it vanishes when you attain knowledge of the Eternal. It is not unreal also, because it exists till knowledge dawns in you. The superimposition of the world on Brahman is due to Avidya or ignorance.

Advaita Philosophy - Works of Sankaracharya, Advaita Vedanta and Hindu Sacred Scriptures

Advaita Philosophy - About Sankaracharya and his philosophy of Advaita Vedanta

www.sankaracharya.org

recalling that the Shankaracharya Maya philosophy in Advaita Vedanta is called Mayavadin,
Woodrolfe sees the difference as this:

Every one knows that there is consciousness in him, but at the same time he recognizes, that it is imperfect. The Mayavadin seeks to explain this by saying, that it is a false consciousness (Cidabhasa), which is again explained by means of two opposites, namely, unconsciousness, which is an unreality to which Cidabhasa adheres, and true consciousness or Atma, which, by virtue of its inscrutable power, acts as efficient cause in its production. This theory compels its adherent to ignore the world, the limited consciousness and Shastra itself in order that the perfection of Atma may be maintained, though at the same time, Shakti is admitted to be unlimited and inscrutable.

The Shakta's answer on the other side is, that there is in fact no false consciousness, and essentially speaking, no unconsciousness anywhere, though there appears to be some unconsciousness. In fact, Mayavada says, that the unconscious appears to be conscious through the play of Atma on it, whilst the Shakta says that, really and at base, all is consciousness which appears to be unconsciousness in varying degrees. All consciousness, however imperfect, is real consciousness, its imperfection being due to its suppressing its own light to itself, and all apparent unconsciousness is due to this imperfection in the consciousness which sees it. Mayavada seeks to explain away the world, from which nevertheless, it derives the materials for its theory. But it is argued that it fails to do so. In its attempt to explain, it brings in a second principle namely unconsciousness, and even a third Cidabhasa.
Therefore, the theory of Shaktivada which posits nothing but consciousness is (it is contended) a truer form of non-dualism.

Yet we must note, that the theories of both are made up with the imperfect light of man's knowledge. Something must then remain unexplained in all systems.

..the last sentence being quite poignant..
there is no description in language..
Brahman (or pure Adi Shakti) is not an object..it's..well, yes 'Neti Neti' (not this, not this)
..change is unchanging in it's ceaseless changing..the absolute is unchanging, though it has the power of change..

Shakti (Maya) really means 'power'..but like 'consciousness', that's just a word..and no language or mind can step outside or contain Reality..
though words give us bridges, reflections..

from the Isha Upanishad (Müller translation) :

"That one (the Self), though never stirring, is swifter than thought. The devas (senses) never reached it, it walked before them. Though standing still, it overtakes the others who are running. Mâtarisvan (the wind, the moving spirit) bestows powers on it.

It stirs and it stirs not; it is far, and likewise near. It is inside of all this, and it is outside of all this.

And he who beholds all beings in the Self, and the Self in all beings, he never turns away from it."



"...The light which is thy fairest form, I see it. I am [that] (so 'ham सो ऽहम्)..."

 

[nen888]

..one more advaitan pondering, and thanks all contributors earlier, wish you all well..


when the nature of Self is carefully observed with attention, 'That thou art'..
though i think there is an inherent problem at some points in fixating on the phrase 'I am That'.., however true it may be at a certain level..which is why i like to return to the wisdom of the sanskrit 'Neti Neti' - 'not this, not this'

while the all pervading, undivided, eternal Self (awareness, Brahman) can be experienced, the moment the mind becomes active and says 'ah! yes, I am that!' it is Not..what is being experienced then is a manifestation of illusory self..
that which thou art cannot be seen (even with entheogens), cannot be touched or smelled..it is not an object, nor a thought..anything that can be fixated on by mind, objectified by thought, or pointed to in space-time or dimensionally, cannot be It..as It is the means through which thought or object arise..

(as Adi Shankaracharya says, the seen, the seer and the seeing, collapsed into one.. )

it is like experience itself..but it is beyond..
whatever one tries to point at, or think of, is not It..
'Neti Neti' ..'not this, not this' (or sometimes 'not this, not that' )
i think this is sometimes a better descriptive concept to emerge in mind from the stillness of 'It' to the first initial thought which attempts to describe the experience..
'I am That', yes, but if fully that, am not the individual who thinks that thought..
try to grab it in the mind and it can't be…it's not this, or this..
a closer description for the mind to grasp that 'that'

'neti-neti' has it's roots in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (meaning The 'Great Forest Upanishad' ), one of the oldest of the vedic texts..from chapter 2:

Now, therefore, the description of Brahman: "Not this, not this"; for there is no other and more appropriate description than this "Not this."
Now the designation of Brahman: "The Truth of truth." The vital breath is truth, and It (Brahman) is the Truth of that.

.

a Shakta may say..when in the world, know the goddess, she is maya, and maya is the power..

ॐ

 

[Rising Spirit]

Thanx nen888, for this wonderful thread! :thumb_up:

As to your profound point, about the ineffable nature of Brahman... it is the most challenging and valuable aspect of the individual's deepest spiritual experience. For when the self is present, as a witness, the direct interphase within the Divine Being is impossible. This of course, is an oversimplification but the primary idea is that for a self to exist, there is a manifestation of duality. I AM, I EXIST, I SEE, I EXPERIENCE, I KNOW, etc...

When the eclipsing is total, the self is wholly dissolved from the transcendental shift in attention. Right before this unification, there is a direct perception of the unification. Immediately post eclipsing mode, there is a direct perception of the unification. Whilst in full Samadhi... there is can be no trace of self to cognize oneself or any other, this or that, material or spiritual, form or substance. Still, all of this is essentially That. Thus, we determinately meditate and deeply contemplate in vain, as our illusion begins and ends within the vortexial fulcrum of ourselves.

So, I guess what I am getting at is that were one not to re-emerge from the eclipsing of the individual self and the Godself/Omniself, experience of any self would collapse and so too, would the universe of our creation (from this singular vantage point, at least). Ultimately, the dream would cease to weave it's mesmerizing spell and the silence of the Infinite/Absolute/Eternal would envelope the relativity of the witness, experientially watching the phenomena endlessly manifesting as this or that. As you wisely state, "Neti, neti."

Ergo, to be the self engaging in the act of enlightenment, is merely another aspect of the dreamscape we project into reality, albeit seemingly the highest frequency we are capable of seamlessly interphasing within. Our immersion is a rather self-erasing journey at that. The sheer irony is that the force which makes all of this perceptual experience even possible, is also the force which devours the isolated dreamer, along with the dreamscape being dreampt (upon awakening, all that remains is an immeasurable silence). Beyond any dichotomy or division, what we might label God, resides in supreme splendor, unable to be separated from nor conjoined within itself, for it is indivisibly unmanifested... truly VOID of any aspect or characteristic. Yet, it is Divine beyond all of our finite definitions or human thoughts. 8)

Who watches the watcher, watching itself, watch itself?

 

[jamie]

you have to loose everything, to realize there was nothing there to loose to begin with.

It seems this is how it goes in life. When you fall so far you feel you must have hit rock bottom, there is god. Then you realize it. God doesn't exist. God is a 3 letter word, a fabrication within the poetic mythology of humans who have forgotten that all words spoken are myth.

For me, I had to fall so far I thought I lost everything that mattered to me. I remember thinking I wanted to die. I remember not eating, not sleeping, and then I stopped remembering...and at some point, for a brief moment, I was gone.

Plato said of myth that it serves to remind those who have forgotten. Once remembered, there never was anything there to forget in the first place.

You cant speak it
You cant touch it
You cant point to it or contain it

there is only a silent reverberation extending before and beyond any conception or inspiration within the divine imagination of the cosmos, animating all forms of which are expressions of such imagination.

and then, there is everything.

It is not happy or sad
or good or bad

but it is okay

 

[Rising Spirit]

..from an experiential perspective, the 'bliss' of the 'true nature' of reality..from the philosophical position of Advaita Vedanta, as i understand it ..

..in the Buddhist philosophical premise, all things are interdependent (dependent origin)..the mental premise of 'universe' or multi-verse, of space, or of omniscience relies on the notion of interdependence or rather interconnectivity..even if, as buddhism suggests, everything is dependent on everything else for existence there is (even if infinite) the whole..the only singular..absolute infinity..obviously this can't be experienced by linear or ordinary sensory (visual etc) means..in being everything, by inter relation, it has no form..it's beyond quantum bits..they exist from it.. it's sub-quantum..

.. in advaita awareness is existence..it's the means by which existence is known to exist..therefore advaita Vedanta describes the all experienced, experiencers, and experiencing itself, together as the existor.. That..
but experientially it's beyond description.. light or void or Om or Silence guide close to it..but it's beyond ..
..the conscious experience of completeness purely being is beyond the word, but it is like bliss..

Sweet, the above statement is beautifully eloquent in it's encapsulation of the dynamic of the Buddhist paradigm, as well as shedding considerable light upon the pearl of Advaita Vedanta. These crystalline ideals in conjunction with Sakyamuni's poignant emphasis on the impermanence of all things, balance-out to become the Middle Way. 'Tis a path which breaks away from the dualistic notion of things, non-things or anti-things.

When the minds stops and an awareness of the interconnection and indivisibility of all seeming components of the very Grid, the pulsing web of existential being, even this and that aspect of any frozen symbolism contained within the very idea/thought of what God or true reality quintessentially is... and what the illusion of Maya actually is, via our cognition of it's presence as a dualistic phenomenon. Pardon the run-on sentence.

On the glaring surface of things, the notion that there is any dichotomy at all is right back to the pendulum of duality in play. But living, loving and experiencing human birth are fraught with pairs of opposites, balancing themselves in the whole of the circle. Science, philosophy and religion each attempt to map out that data which can be gleaned from the five senses, instinct, intuition and logical deduction... yet, each of these is subject to the factor of paradox. And besides, what could possibly prepare the individual self or Jiva, for the eventuality of it's own impermanence? I have discovered within my own small bubble of consciousness, that meditation, contemplation and deep self inquiry (direct observation of the here & now) truly work wonders.

One really does have to shift attention and exert a single point of focused intent, to reliably move beyond the known and knowable, past the membranes of one's very self and one's cherished Ishta (our highest deity or ideal). Even our reverence for the Sacred Unity must be fully released to a quiet stillness, to effectively interphase within the ecstatic fulcrum of Satori/Nirvikalpa Samadhi/Spiritual Rapture. :thumb_up:

I would imagine that sequentially, the witness and experiencer of Ananda (ecstatic-bliss), becomes evaporated and experimentally extinguished. No mind, no dreamer, no self. All is God and if all is God, naught else exists but God. Again, it is evasively free of capture, "neti, neti". All of this Omniversal drama is inseparable from it's very source in the formless Spirit, attribute-less, undifferentiated non-being. The eclipsing of seer and seen, as one within the Unified Field of Being (i.e. The Divine).

This thread came to mind last evening, as I was reading an e-book, Kabir - Spiritual Commentary by Sri Sri Shyama Charan Lahiri Mahasaya. Sant Kabir was born Islamic but learned Yogic sadhana and was equally loved by Muslims and Hindus, Sufis and Yogins alike. Admittedly, there is undeniably a biased interpretation presented by Sri Lahiri and so, his words provide a glance through the lens of Kriya Yoga. Even so, I personally feel that his insights seemed relevant to this thread.

Kabir proclaimed that Atman/soul has merged with Brahman/God: the Universe has become known as Brahman-filled, due to which all is the Great Presence. All things have been pulverized like a ground-up/crushed rock - meaning: all things have become (returned) to Brahman. When there is no division, duality or separation, who can attach a name to anything separately?

Within this bodily Jiva, is also Atman - the knowing of oneself in the Par Avastha of Kriya, via the Satguru (as the Guru is the higher self within each of us). When Govinda bestowed his mercy - meaning: when I saw the 3 worlds dissolve within the Particle of Brahman, it is then that this Grace is suddenly revealed. And verily, it is that Atman has merged with Paramatman and fully become That.

So any verbal discussion precipitates and perpetuates some modicum of duality, even from an emphatically non-dual perspective. Still, we have to come out of our trance-states and our mind-shattering epiphanies, to be quite active and often proactive, within an ever-changing environment. For it is one in which we evolve to dance through our 3-D dreamscapes, seeking some meaning and purpose for our existence as the single, isolated person struggling to awaken from it's own cage, it's own virtual illusion spread across the hologram of the ego-fabric woven by countless participant in this multiverse. The mind must surely stop it's propensity for objectifying everything it perceives. Even so, the same can be said for any message expressed through speech, as our concept of Brahman/God, The Tao or lofty state of Nirvana... is NEVER the reality of That. Is suspect this is why it is known from within without even thinking at all, when the mind stops projecting it's nearly ceaseless propensity for definitions and an internal silence is suddenly experienced and the ego dies, prompting a re-birth of sorts?

It may be as simple as flipping on a light switch, it may be as difficult as transcending and transmuting one's innermost self, like polishing a water-clear crystal in a mountain brook or like beach glass upon the sandy shores of Eternity.

So we do utilize some aspect of dualism to even feasibly converse about what is beyond any kind of description. One must exercise one's intent, shift one's attention consciously and willfully (whihc becomes a kind of surrender). As Alan Watts once said about spiritual practices, like meditation and concentratedly centering upon the sheer emptiness beyond all manifested forms.
"It's like trying not to try."

For while the mirage of Maya creates the appearance of the many separate parts, distinctly existing apart from one another and conversely, the immediate realization of Brahman, which un-incrementally leads to a direct erasure of one's individuated self and all of it's conceptual banter... only to then be shifted towards a heightened frequency and expanded by ever-widening degrees, into that state of blissful emptiness, that glorious pause within the vortexial spin of mind, to find limitless peace of of Nirvana shimmering within the Clear Light of the Void. Now's that for a over the top, run-on sentence?

By releasing oneself from our own conceptual mesmerism, is not technically the misnomer that nothing is ever happening, period, per se. Existence blooms and in so doing, curiously glances at itself, glancing at itself. Trite as it sounds, all is irrefutably one. Without any other numeric counterpoint to divide the one from another, the zero-point is wholly present in the jewel of the illuminated awareness (as contradictory as that may seem, since who is aware of said zero-point?).

The mysterious Tao... it precedes any existential being and permeates all of said existential being, touching all but remaining untouched, as any given substance or thing. Ironically, it is the very fabric of the Grid and the core fulcrum of all phenomena (ever-present, as the all-in-all). It is thought to be free of the duality of everything and nothing. Brahman seemingly resides quietly centered within the roaring silent effulgence of the Ineffable Void.

But as mere specks in the Grand Scheme of Things, we human beings do return to material dimensions, no matter how high we get or how blissful the Samadhi is... we begin where we left off, however enlightened or inspired by the experience, we believe we may be awakening to an turning on to. We all come down to walk amongst our fellows, we by necessity surrender by choosing a harmonious path and adopt an understanding that the changing forms and appearances are undeniably spontaneous and in a cosmic sense, and are wholly organic expressions from the undifferentiated source of all manifested phenomena. 8)

 

[Rising Spirit]

you have to loose everything, to realize there was nothing there to loose to begin with.

Agreed! When we release our fixed concepts about this or that, we find out just how much of a mirage, how much self-created mesmerism everything the ego-self projects, truly is. Hallucinations and holographically created thought forms, manifested from a buzzing between the mental parameters we entertain and the backdrop of potentiality (observed by the subjective watcher of this whole drama). And so, ego death results and the self we once thought was our truest epicenter, dissolves into so much cosmic dust, scattered like confetti in the breeze by the force of the universal pulse.

It seems this is how it goes in life. When you fall so far you feel you must have hit rock bottom, there is god. Then you realize it. God doesn't exist. God is a 3 letter word, a fabrication within the poetic mythology of humans who have forgotten that all words spoken are myth.

I must playfully and lovingly contest this assertion. God is not simply a 3 letter word. God is existence itself. No, not some power tripping, narcissistic, anthropomorphic deity... rather, Brahman is a limitless field of existential being. All human notions are thought projections, agreed, but the thought or word representing the Divine is hardly the reality which inspired the ideas born from our conceptual dynamics.

The One is pulsing with an interconnected energy, an indivisible web of infinite consciousness inhabiting and simultaneously, remaining unbound by any differentiated substance. And it seems to be the undifferentiated power igniting the spiraling play of duality, as it blooms spontaneously. 'Tis light more blinding than any known luminosity and a Omniscient force present within all of this material reality, which we all share within this physical dimension and beyond, i.e. The Eternal Tao.

While I do strongly agree with you, jamie, that all of our conceptualized ideologies are fabricated from the mind itself, and only exist as aspects of the dreamscapes we project... but still, I feel that it's more the case that without the compression of an isolated self-paradigm, everything would be freely perceived as wholly Divine and Sacred, no matter what the appearance, substance or form.

"Myth" implies a kind of fairy tale? A false or make-believe notion of a Supreme Being as causative source, quintessential presence inherent within all knowable things. I believe that the individuated witness to this reality we all perceive, is symmetrically identical throughout the multiplicity of everything, well, at least in it's subtlest level. But to your insightful statement, what isn't a game of smoke and mirrors about the human experience, anyway... for are we not dreaming all of this stuff up?

For me, I had to fall so far I thought I lost everything that mattered to me. I remember thinking I wanted to die. I remember not eating, not sleeping, and then I stopped remembering...and at some point, for a brief moment, I was gone.

I for one am happy that you returned to this inter-meshing pattern we co-weave together, as an Earth community. We are the people of the here and now. The magikal present is our domain. May we all awaken to higher frequencies of conscious-awareness and far, far subtler vibratory rates. Let's all oscillate with purest intent!

Plato said of myth that it serves to remind those who have forgotten. Once remembered, there never was anything there to forget in the first place.

Right, it might reasonably be seen from the perspective that the ego can never become "enlightened", as what is not actually real, never was real and certainly cannot realize the splendor of the Godhead and remain an isolated component of the totality. The formed expression of any modicum of self, seems to manifest as a separate piece of the whole, surely not the whole, itself still unbroken and forevermore unborn.

Paradoxically, it's the will of the ego which drives the fearless internal explorer to transcend the sheer folly of the belief in the permanence of oneself or one's soul. The Atman is the same within each of us, as the central core or hub of each of us... and is the only thing which is truly infinite about human existence. On some waaaaaaay deep level, we are all the same being, the very same awareness peeking out from myriad refractions. Hence my penchant for the term Omniself. Meanwhile, on the outside of this epicenter, 'tis a vast multiverse thriving with tremendous diversity. 8)

You cant speak it
You cant touch it
You cant point to it or contain it

there is only a silent reverberation extending before and beyond any conception or inspiration within the divine imagination of the cosmos, animating all forms of which are expressions of such imagination.

and then, there is everything.

It is not happy or sad
or good or bad

Word. Right on, Brother!!! :thumb_up:

 

[nen888]

..thank you Rising Spirit and jamie for your reflections..


jamie wrote:

you have to loose everything, to realize there was nothing there to loose to begin with.

..often the loss of things we hold dear (or are attached to) in the world can bring us closer to the reality that these things are transient and do not last..lasting happiness cannot be found outside..
the realisation inside is timeless..and complete..

similarly, in high level entheogenic experiences all sense of objects and linear body-mind-self can be dissolved..there are no personal memories (or attachments) anymore..and yet awareness remains..this is eternal..and what is ultimately real, not any worlds or entities (including the ordinary self)

..what we desire or fear, and change itself, are transient projections of the absolute..Brahman..
(manifestations of that which has no form..for shaktas, Adi Shakti)

You cant speak it
You cant touch it
You cant point to it or contain it

indeed..truly Vedic words..

Rising Spirit, your discourses are most welcome, and insightful..i am reading them a few times and enjoying..

for now,
you wrote:

Who watches the watcher, watching itself, watch itself?

very well put Rising Spirit..a fine distillation of attentive observational enquiry..




..to quote again from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (Ch VIII), on Brahman:

"[It] is never seen but is the Seer; It is never heard, but is the Hearer; It is never thought of, but is the Thinker; It is never known, but is the Knower. There is no other seer but This, there is no other hearer but This, there is no other thinker but This, there is no other knower but This."

.


ॐ

 

[○]

Excellent thread.

Nothing to say, because there really is.. nothing to say.

similarly, in high level entheogenic experiences all sense of objects and linear body-mind-self can be dissolved..there are no personal memories (or attachments) anymore..and yet awareness remains..this is eternal..and what is ultimately real, not any worlds or entities (including the ordinary self)

indeed..

 

[joedirt]

similarly, in high level entheogenic experiences all sense of objects and linear body-mind-self can be dissolved..there are no personal memories (or attachments) anymore..and yet awareness remains..this is eternal..and what is ultimately real, not any worlds or entities (including the ordinary self)

I have experienced this state a few times on psychedelics. I have even referred to it as the Godhead.

Buddha, however, takes it one step further. The logic would go something like: For awareness to exist there must be an object (object in this sense can be anything. A thought, an emotion, a tree, river, solar system..etc) to be aware of. So eternal awareness would still imply permanent duality. It is said the first Jhana in Buddhism is equivalent to giving up the doer. The next 7 Jhanas are progressive levels of giving up the witness.

My thoughts are that in the end there can't be a witness if there is nothing to witness...or if the witness is only witnessing itself...then it doesn't really even make sense to refer to it as a thing or a nothing. It is the only. There isn't an other or an it. There is only. To say more about nirvana is to essentially lie. The best anyone can really do is say what it's not. It's certainly not an eternal witness staring at itself... that would eventually get boring in my opinion. Besides the witness arises in conjunction with the doing. If there is no doing there is no witnessing. Which implies to me that both the doer and witness are constructs of dualistic thinking.

Both doing and witnessing are one and the same. One depends upon the other.

 

[nen888]

thank you joedirt for your perspective (and earlier contributions) ..
i think, as i said earlier, there is no difference in the end between buddhist and advaitan non dualisms..

i don't think the full realisation of what is called 'Brahman' in the Upanishads occurs commonly or easily in either entheogenic experiences or deep meditation..on going practice benefiting, regular meditation being the most core sustained practice..
by what i think you may mean by the 'godhead '..it is beyond

'awareness' is the word i usually choose rather than 'witness', as in advaita the concept of Brahman is the dissolution of object, subject and relationship between them.. collapsed into one..it's beyond the 'witness'..the essence, the pure awareness equates to pure existence itself, without dichotomy of subject and object..if we were to use the term witness, then it is not witnessing itself as an object, as it is the means of witnessing..the states i was referring to involve no object being witnessed, and has itself no action..without attributes
'comprehension', or it's basis..whatever is being comprehended..emptiness or fullness, or whatever that comprehension is..the Clear Light of the Void or Turyia..
but the basis of comprehension is not the act itself..the comprehension itself is not comprehending..
advaita vedanta is saying that anything other than this pure comprehension, or basis, itself is transient, and illusory, as the actual basis for it all remains the same..the comprehension is still 'there' in the absence of anything to comprehend..Brahman is not a 'thing'..
'Nirvana' was comprehended..it's where there is no Buddha, but there is the comprehension..

this comprehension is not an object or subject..in advaita vedanta it is seen to be not personal nor multiple, but essentially the same..like in physics a Field, rather than individual particles..the field is a whole..it itself is not an action..

what is the 'true' nature of reality?
i agree we can only really say what it isn't (Neti Neti)
'it' isn't 'staring at itself' because it is 'self'..it can't step outside itself (as there isn't outside it) ..it has no actions..it is..
it is not linear, and does not change, hence it is said to be eternal, but timeless is probably a better word..the way many interpret 'eternalism' is still within a temporal context..

as i tried to say earlier, i think there is no difference between 'Nirvana' and 'Brahman'..the difference is in the approach taken in trying describe the non-dual state..or nature of reality..
.

 

[Rising Spirit]

Buddha, however, takes it one step further. The logic would go something like: For awareness to exist there must be an object (object in this sense can be anything. A thought, an emotion, a tree, river, solar system..etc) to be aware of. So eternal awareness would still imply permanent duality. It is said the first Jhana in Buddhism is equivalent to giving up the doer. The next 7 Jhanas are progressive levels of giving up the witness.

Exactly! Without some degree of separation and individuality, there can be no awareness of existing, being the internal watcher or witness. Even Paramatman is an illusion, for there is naught but... That. How could "That" feasibly split itself into a dualistic paradigm and in so doing, observe it's own existential beingness? Yet, here we are. Our awareness blooms abd we look deeply into the mirror of perception, thus we dream and we surely suffer because of the division... or do we? Knowledge, like the self, is yet another veil obscuring the reality behind and within the impermanence of all of this phenomena, spiralling around and around and around... 8)

 

[joedirt]

thank you joedirt for your perspective (and earlier contributions) ..
i think, as i said earlier, there is no difference in the end between buddhist and advaitan non dualisms..

i don't think the full realization of what is called 'Brahman' in the Upanishads occurs commonly or easily in either entheogenic experiences or deep meditation..on going practice benefiting, regular meditation being the most core sustained practice..

I completely agree. In fact the only time I have achieved these satori like states are when I have been actively meditating during the experience. Progressively letting go of every finer parts of myself. In the end though I personally believe these tools can only take us so far.

I suspect there really is something to a mind calmed from years of mediation in seclusion... Just a few years watching the mind and you begin to realize just how much of what you think about is influenced by the world around you... We are the environment. The crazy thing is we have science literally proving it today and yet people still just don't quite grasp it...or want to grasp it.

'awareness' is the word i usually choose rather than 'witness', as in advaita the concept of Brahman is the dissolution of object, subject and relationship between them.. collapsed into one..it's beyond the 'witness'..the essence,

I often times substitute witness and awareness. However, awareness still implies an awareness of something. I'd go so far as to say awareness is THE fundamental particle of the universe if you will. There is literally nothing in the entire universe that exists outside of awareness. Two uncharged particles in a vacuum are aware of each other. Electrons are aware of other charged entities... The very foundation and fabric of the universe is awareness between things...

What happens when even the awareness is dissolved? Science has shown that subatomic particles effectively dance in and out of existence. What exactly is non existence? I think I made a compelling argument that existence is essentially awareness right down to the most fundamental level. What is the other side of the coin? Where do these particles 'jump' to.. Personally I don't think it's a place. To use Buddhist words ( sorry they are the ones I know best at the point) it is the unbecome. Nirvana being the end of becoming... If becoming is rooted in awareness then perhaps unbecoming is simply the absence of this awareness as well?

as i tried to say earlier, i think there is no difference between 'Nirvana' and 'Brahman'..the difference is in the approach taken in trying describe the non-dual state..or nature of reality..

I wonder.. I sometimes agree with this... and sometimes I wonder if there is a subtle difference? Either way I think just getting people to wake up to the fact that what they call 'themselves' is nothing more than an arbitrary division in the universal whole would be a phenomenal thing. If there is something past that well who honestly knows. I certainly haven't achieved any sort of experience like this though I have experienced feeling utterly one with the universe... awareness fully in tact. Knowing simultaneously the vibration of every atom in my body and the interactions of galaxies countless light years away. It was beyond anything I could fathom.. and yet I was still aware of it all...aware like being aware of myself when I look at my hand. What if the awareness was dropped and the entire process of becoming dissipated like a candle flame burning out? It truly would be non dual in the ultimate sense.

Buddhists seem adamant that there is a difference. The best explanation I can give for that difference is what I outlined above. Whether it is a real difference between the two schools or simply divisions in the minds of students is not really for me to say. In the end though I think it's the experience of it that counts far more than the intellectual understanding of it...though the intellectual understanding does lead to some radical changes in people.

Peace brother.
BTW I love this thread and the conversation that have unfolded within it.

 

[joedirt]

BTW nen I didn't respond to the parts of your post about comprehension being the basis of final state. I rather like this notion and want to meditate on it... Buddha obviously understood nirvana.. he comprehended it. Though it wasn't a thing at all and not something he could talk about. Fascinating perspective. I will meditate on this avenue of thinking for sure.

Peace