Greetings!
The Advaita take of the ocean-waves-water analogy is the waves are objects (nāma-rūpa), and the water is brahman. Assuming this is right, what is the ocean?
Merci. 🙂
Category Archives: Rick
Question about mananā and nididhyāsana
Greetings!
I often apply the śravaṇa-mananā-nididhyāsana approach to the Advaitin teachings I am studying. I understand the role of śravaṇa. But I am unclear on the distinction between mananā and nididhyāsana, the boundaries between them seem hazy, overlapping.
Please help me distinguish between mananā and nididhyāsana. It would be good to take a real-world situation: Say I am studying the māhāvakya, Prajñānam brahma प्रज्ञानम् ब्रह्म “Consciousness is Brahman.” What would mananā entail, and what would nididhyāsana entail?
Thanks!
Rick
Question about anubhāva
Would Shankara be likely to agree or disagree with the passage (from an AI): “In Advaita, the emphasis given to experience is not about experiencing Brahman as an object, but rather about realizing one’s own nature as Brahman through the direct, immediate experience of consciousness itself.”
YAQ (Yet Another Question) About Brahman and Experience
Greetings fellow seekers! 🙂
1. The argument goes: Brahman cannot be experienced because it is not an object. But is there perhaps another form of experience that needs no object? In Buddhism, for example, you can be aware of something (object), and you can also simply be aware (open awareness, no object).
2. Is the statement “You cannot experience Brahman, but everything you experience is Brahman” valid?
Thank you for your help. 🙂
Rick
1. The argument goes: Brahman cannot be experienced because it is not an object. But is there perhaps another form of experience that needs no object? In Buddhism, for example, you can be aware of something (object), and you can also simply be aware (open awareness, no object).
2. Is the statement “You cannot experience Brahman, but everything you experience is Brahman” valid?
Thank you for your help. 🙂
Rick
In Search of Brahman, Part 5
sat-chit-Ananda is often used to describe that which ‘lies beyond’ description, Brahman.
sat is being, chit is consciousness, Ananda is bliss.
Is love there too? Kindness, empathy, compassion? Does enlightenment awaken these qualities?
Free will question
Greetings all ’round! 🙂
Per Advaita, does one (jiva) have free will? (This obviously applies only to vyavaharika, in paramarthika there is no jiva, freedom, will, etc.)
If yes, who or what exercises this free will? And what is the proper way to do so?
If no, should one simply surrender to what-is, sit back, relax, and watch what’s happening as if it were all a movie?
Thanks!
Rick
In Search of Brahman, Part 4
Hi everyone. 🙂
From the (as if) paramartha level, the level where one thinks and talks about ultimate Reality, can one (correctly) say anything positive about brahman? E.g. Brahman is … <whatever>. Or is it only correct to negate that which is not brahman (neti neti)?
In Search of Brahman, Part 3
Thanks to you guys for helping me see that I am going around in circles with my attempt to fathom Brahman. I often enjoy circling, the repetition is soothing. But it slows down the forward momentum of my path.
So for now I’ll put my Brahman obsession on the back burner. If Brahman comes up in my studies, I’ll think of it in the way that has given me least trouble over the years:
Brahman is what-really-is.
Dennis suggested my next stop be Swami P’s commentary on the Vivekachudamani. Onward ho!
Rick
In Search of Brahman, Part 2
The scriptures tell us that everything is constantly changing … thus ultimately not-real.
EXCEPT for Brahman.
Why this EXCEPTion?
Why is it seen as impossible that everything, no exceptions, is constantly changing?
It would be great, for me, if we could discuss this drawing mainly upon common sense rather than doctrine. My issue with doctrine is that it is considered to be irrefutably correct and thus discourages, perhaps even prevents open investigation.
Thanks!
Rick
In Search of Brahman
Hi everyone! I’m new to the blogger community here. To set some context: I’m a spiritual eclectic who draws from different traditions, mainly Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism, and Krishnamurti/Bohm. I’m also a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic, a passionate via negativa guy: Neti neti all the way up and all the way down.
I realize that “In Search of Brahman” is an odd title for a blog on an Advaita website, because Brahman is not an object that can be lost or found. But the title is symptomatic of where I’m at in my personal journey, so I think it’s appropriate.
Ever since I first ran into the term Brahman (about a decade ago in one of Dennis’s books) it’s been a source of great wonder and equally great confusion for me. Continue reading