Monthly Archives: July 2012

Tattvāloka at Advaita Vision

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Advaita Vision is proud to announce a new collaboration with this prestigious journal from Sringeri Sharada Peetham, one of the four centres established by Sri Adi Shankara in the 9th century. Its principal objective is to spread the traditions and values taught in the scriptures. The journal is issued monthly and showcases Vedic knowledge and wisdom, with articles written in simple style by well-known authors from India and overseas. It has a readership of over 100,000.

Initially, we will be serializing a presentation of upadesha sAhasrI. This is the prakaraNa grantha which is agreed by most experts to have been written by Shankara himself and is an elaborate unfoldment of the essence of Advaita. This presentation is compiled by R. B. Athreya from the lectures given by Swami Paramarthananda in Chennai.

Subscribers to Advaita Vision are also offered special rates on the journal and on books published by Tattvaloka. See the full introduction and part 1 of the new series.

The Karma Yoga Attitude is One of Worship

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The other night I saw a film titled ‘One Track Heart.’ It is the story of the evolution of the kirtan singer, Krishna Das, from hippie, to seeker, to devotee of the Indian saint, Neem Karoli Baba, to lost soul, to family man, to drug addict; and then back to devotee and kirtan singer again. It is very much the story of redemption, a theme with which so many of us resonate.

After the movie Ram Dass gave a beautiful and eloquent talk about his own relationship with his guru, Neem Karoli Baba. Ram Dass indicated that it is Maharaji whose messenger he is. 

Ram Dass’s talk reminded me of the teaching of Karma Yoga that Lord Krishna gives to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita.

 Continue reading →

Am I awake yet? – Fred Davis

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So, am I awake yet, or what?

by

Fred Davis

 

I edit Awakening Clarity, a Nondual blog, and as a result of that I get emails from the four corners of the worlds.  A fair number of them express confusion.  The writer has had some sort of spiritual experience.  And now they want to know where they are on the spiritual map.  One response that arises here when someone asks me something along the line of, “Hey, am I awake, or what?” is exactly this:

“If you’re concerned about whether you’re awake or not, then you’re not–at least not right now.”  Such a question simply would not occur to conscious awakeness. Generally, in fact, given the nature of the situation the person is writing in about, and their choice of language their letter contains convincing evidence that they are not awake right now–at least not in the way they are asking about.  In truth, everyone is always equally awake, so all we are ever talking about is whether or not we are consciously awake, knowingly awake–right now. If we can get clear on this we can see that there’s no room left for higher or lower, better or worse, more spiritual or less.  All of those things spring from beliefs, opinions, and positions (BOPs), which conscious awareness simply doesn’t have.  The apparently separate being it’s working through will certainly have a broad array of BOPs–that’s essentially what a separate being is–but not the awakeness behind it.  You will understand, of course, that language is failing us here; we do what we can. Continue reading →

Self ‘knowing’ the Self (Q. 317)

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Q: Nisargadatta Maharaj (especially in his later books) emphasises that the “I am” or Consciousness is not the final Reality which he calls Parabrahman or Awareness. He goes on to state that Awareness is “unaware of itself”. However, others such as Francis Lucille and Rupert Spira seem to disagree. Francis Lucille, for example, specifically states that Awareness (in the sense Nisargadatta means) is aware of itself as itself.

 I am not exactly clear what Nisargadatta was meaning. It could be interpreted as the Final Reality being essentially almost a nihilistic eternal stupor rather than the more appealing (at least to this body/mind) satchitananda. I rather suspect not, and that he was merely indicating the essential non duality of reality perhaps along the lines of Ramana Maharshi’s comment : “Although (the Self) is consciousness, since there is nothing for it to know or to make itself known to, it is said to be different from the sentient and the insentient.”

 Nevertheless, it perplexes me that if Awareness is not aware of itself as itself as Francis Lucille suggests then do we not have the situation whereby an enlightened sage such as Ramana Maharshi is before his “death” not only aware as the Self but conscious thereof and in a better position, so to speak, than Final Reality which is not so aware? Continue reading →

Who is the teacher? – Patrick Dunroven

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I call myself an Advaitin, but lack the rigor of scriptural or linguistic (Sanskrit) study attained by other writers on this site. When I feel “left out”, I call myself a mystic or perhaps a Zen Buddhist. I am reminded of a recently told joke of a cowboy who sits down in a bar next to an attractive lady and is asked what he is.

“I am a cowboy. I rope and brand cows, fix fences, and break horses. Who are you? What do you do?”

“I am a lesbian. I dream of women, of running my hands all over them, of having ecstatic sex.” Continue reading →

Inspire Me Today

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Just a brief announcement.

My publisher asked me to write something for this website – Inspire Me Today – to promote my new book (Advaita Made Easy).  The site is actually all about inspiring people with personal recommendations about how to be successful, happy, realize your (material) ambitions etc, so I didn’t really think it appropriate. But I wrote something anyway, pointing out that this sort of thing was never going to make you happy, whereas realizing the truth pointed out by Advaita would put you forever beyond such petty concerns! I didn’t expect them to want to publish it but they did!

It is a 500-word essay (the recommended limit) and it appeared on 27th July. Here is the permanent link to the article.

Three stages to the advaita vision

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1. Recognising: “I alone, the Self, the knower, am consciousness.” Consciousness is known to be the Self in one’s own mind, i.e. as the svarūpam [intrinsic nature] of the knower, distinct from the body-mind-sense complex and the external world. 
Various analytical methodologies, prakrīyas, are used (in conjunction with studying with the teacher) to arrive at this step of understanding: logic and scriptural study are both employed. The prakrīyas include dṛg dṛśya prakrīya [seer-seen analysis], avastā traiya prakrīya [analysis of the three states of experience: waking, dream and sleep], pañca koṣa prakrīya [‘5-sheaths’ analysis]…

2. Understanding: “I, the consciousness behind the mind, is one and the same in all the minds, and behind everything in the universe.” (This is like understanding that H2O, the truth of the name and form ‘wave’, is the same as the truth of every wave and also the truth of the entire ocean.)
The prakrīya used to arrive at this is the pañca koṣa prakrīya [‘5-sheaths’ analysis]…

 After these two stages, jīva-Īśvara aikyam [oneness of individual and Lord, the cause of the universe] is firmly established. This is arrived at by understanding that the truth of the individual is consciousness, and that this consciousness is nothing but Īśvara at the cosmic level.

3. Seeing: “I, the consciousness alone, am satyam, and everything apart from consciousness is mithyā [not non-existent, not absolutely existent, but ‘as though’ existent]” And that mithyā is ultimately nothing but consciousness itself. This creation is nothing but ‘I’, the consciousness + name and form ‘universe’.
The prakrīya used to arrive at this is the kāraṇa kārya prakrīya [cause-effect analysis]…

 After this stage, jagat-Brahma aikyam [oneness of the universe and Brahman, the absolute Reality] is established, i.e. everything is resolved into the one-without-a-second Reality. Brahman alone exists.

This is the advaita vision.

 

Repetition of practices (Q. 316)

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Q: I can see that whatever is seen cannot possibly be me, the seer, the perceiver. The perceiver cannot be perceived because it is perceiving. That seems really obvious and clear (usually, not always, don’t need to claim any more than is really the truth at present.)
 
Whatever practices, meditations I’ve ever done always end up at the same place: I come back to I/me, the perceiver. Whatever experiences of bliss, ecstasy, I’ve had always end up going away. I come back to: I, the perceiver. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t care whether some bliss state occurs because I know it won’t last, and, ha, it took many years of going through the same thing over and over again. I’d have that bliss state, or whatever we might want to call it, try to hold on to it, be disappointed when it went away and then “work”
to get it back again!!! Seems absurd now…
 
…the question is: I guess I continue to understand that I can’t be what I perceive, whether outwardly, in the world, or inwardly, persona maybe….just continue to come back to “I” perceiving all this? There is no particular joy in this or happiness, in the sense that I know all these experiences don’t last. But there seems to be some bed-rock perceiver which doesn’t go away except in deep, dreamless sleep…As I’m writing this I think again that I really need a teacher, but don’t see that happening anytime soon. In the mean time….books, being the perceiver and not the perceived…I guess!!! Thanks. Continue reading →

Truth versus Truth or Apples versus Oranges

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The other night I had dinner with a young friend.  She is someone whom I would describe as a sincere spiritual seeker.

She isn’t familiar with the traditional teachings of Advaita/Vedanta.  She asked me a lot of questions about my life and journey, and I began to speak about the importance of a teaching which uses a methodology, versus satsang teachers who may or may not have recognized the truth, but who do not have methodology to use when they teach.

When I tried to explain to her that the value of Advaita/Vedanta is that it has a very clear teaching methodology—a way of pointing to the truth of one’s being that works for the student—right away and much to my surprise I found myself engaged in an argument.  What I was saying sounded to her like the dogmatic teachings of the Catholic Church, the religion in which she was raised.  She took my words to mean, ‘My way is the only way to the truth, and everything else is false.’ Continue reading →