Theorem: I am awareness. Proof: In plane geometry there are a few axioms, e. g., a point has no dimensions; a straight line has no width and is infinite. They are axioms because they are obvious and taken as proved. The axioms are necessary to prove geometrical theorems. In the same manner, there are three axioms, namely, (1) I am different from what I am or can be aware of, (2) I can be aware of what I am not, and (3) awareness is different from object of awareness.They are obvious and do not need any proof. Call them vedantic axioms in the present context. Now let us try to find out the things which I am aware of. It is simple to accept that I am aware of objects in the world outside. For example, I am aware of tree and building. Therefore I am not the tree or the building. What about my body? It is also true the I am aware of different parts of the body and the complete body. I am aware of eyes, ears, etc. Thus I am not the body including the sense organs. What about the mind? Mind in simple terms is where thoughts arise or which gives rise to them. Thoughts are in the form of ideas, emotions, memory, feeling, etc. My experience is that I am aware of my thoughts. It would follow that I am not the mind. To understand this fact is a crucial step.I am aware of all the worldly objects including my mind and body. Therefore, I am different from them by application of axiom (1). After excluding/ negating the worldly objects, the mind and the body, two entities are left, namely, I (negator) and awareness. It is another important step. As this awareness is without any object, it is pure awareness. Now analyse the validity of statement, ‘I am aware of awareness’. It is not valid because vide axiom (3) it would mean that awareness is different from awareness, an absurdity. Thus I cannot be aware of awareness. By virtue of axiom (2) it leads to the conclusion that I am not different from awareness. In other words, I am awareness.
The Illusion of Reality
Did Einstein write: “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one”?
Albert Einstein actually wrote:
“People like us, who believe in physics, know the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, albeit a stubborn one.”
That quote has itself been a recurrent one, but, as a very accomplished acquaintance of mine, Tom McFarlane, has written:
“There is no source for that, because Einstein didn’t say it. It is not consistent with his views. For Einstein, reality is what is true, not what is illusory.
Continue readingNeo – Advaita & Traditional Advaita
Martin. In this seeming world of so-called saṃsāra (or vyavahāra) language and understanding, is there an entity or entities that understand, judge, etc.?
Neo-Advaitin. This is simply ‘life’. ‘Being’ appears to talk to ‘Being’ about things that ‘Being’ already knows (and need no reminding). It is just ‘playing’.
Since there is never an actual central ‘self,’ there could be no separate entity that asks a question or makes a reply. There is no separate entity that asks or answers. It is simply Life answering Itself.
But it seems that you don’t get this, or are not able to discuss it without going back into concepts and the need to find the correct label to assign, whether that is ‘nihilism’, ‘Advaita Vedanta’, ‘spontaneously self-realized’, ‘abhāsa’, etc. I suggest you drop all that, all those presumed ‘things you know.’ Freedom lies in the unknowing, the moment-by-moment un-nameable, not in the knowledge, information, and labels that the ‘mind’ thinks it has gathered. Who is the ‘you’ called ‘Martin’ writing this question?
Continue readingAtmajnAnopadeshavidhi
It is well known that Shankara had written many precise and specific treatises on Advaita Vedanta for the benefit of the followers within his Ashram system. “Atma jnAna upadesha vidhi” (“The Way To Impart Self-knowledge”) is a much valued and revered prakaraNa grantha among the saints but not that popularly known outside the circle of monks. Swami Ananda Giri has a special love for this text.
I give below a short Review of this monograph of Shankara written by Mahamandaleshwar brahma Shri Maheshananda Giri Maharaj, Pontiff of the Shri Dakshinamurti Peetha, Varanasi, India, published in 2004. Continue reading
What exactly is “Self-Knowledge”?
There is a lot of earnest discussion, here and elsewhere, on self-knowledge, self-realisation. But what exactly is it? What does knowing that ‘I am Brahman’ actually mean, when Brahman cannot be known?
For all the words that have been written by Sankara: on creation, on satyam / jnanam / anantman, on ‘tat twam asi’, on knowledge rather than action – what is the essence of it all?
Surely the essence is this, and this only. Self-Knowledge is the utter dis-identification with the not-Self, the most difficult of which is the body-mind.
And That (which remains, which cannot be defined) is the ananda, the peace, of a jivanmukta.
The sruti is the means of knowledge, in that it points this out. Sruti is said to be the only means of knowledge, because normal sense perceptions and reasoning would not inevitably lead to this very radical self-challenge: I am not what I fundamentally believe that I am.
The seeker hears it, mulls over it, develops the conviction that it is true that s/he is NOT the body-mind, and lives on the strength of it. And in so doing that habitual body/mind – identification is dissolved. Hence why desirelessness is both a path to and a fruit of knowledge – if there is no body/mind identification, then what desires can there be?
And sruti tells us that utter desirelessness is the cause of the highest joy.
Rationalism and metaphysics
How do Vedantins argue against Sam Harris’ comment on spirituality?
If Sam Harris defends rationality the way he does, he appears not to be quite reasonable or wise. He defines himself as an atheist (though he seems now to want to distance himself from that epithet), and such posturing is dogmatic in the way ‘agnostic’ is not.
His defense of rationality is flawed in other respects, and he should realize that; first, apart from science, there is feeling and emotion, fundamental and definitory of man the way he is constituted. Second, modern science does not have all the answers even within its own field of expertise – in any area.
The strictures SH has with respect of religion and the religions (their in-fights, rivalries, etc.) are widely shared by many people, and particularly in Advaita Vedanta, though, it must be said, religion has to 1) be accepted as being an attraction and consolation for the multitudes – a given fact, 2) it can be an intermediary step towards real knowledge of the reality of the world and us (as Iswara is with respect to nirguna Brahman), and, finally, 3) its aspects of surrender, love, participation, and esthetic beauty cannot be dismissed out of hand.
Neuroscience is still a science in its cradle. Not only does it lack many answers related to the brain and its functions, but some of its unknowns are insurmountable, such as what is the nature of consciousness (the ‘hard problem’) as taken from its own perspective. Consciousness or awareness cannot be explained by empirical science; it will always be a purely subjective experience (including objectless consciousness), an ultimate, irrefutable, and irreducible fact.
From the viewpoint of traditional Advaita (Shankara and Gaudapada primarily), there is no reality other than Consciousness (Atman-Brahman – which is/are just names or symbols). Phenomena are the way Consciousness or Atman manifests itself (a sort of play- maya). Multiplicity, space, time, and causality are illusory – that is, from the higher perspective, while they seem to be real from the lower, empirical one.
Empirical scientists have no truck, no real interest, in any of the above. They cannot touch it. Paul King, a prominent neuroscientist, wrote this not long ago in Quora:
“Ultimately, the question of whether or not subjective experience is an irreducible fact may come down to metaphysical stance and not anything that can be “decided” with a rational process.”
Nigun Brahman, Sagun Brahman and AvatAr
Swami TadAtmAnanda of Arsha Bodha Center, in one of his talks on Bhagavad Gita, explains the above three with the help of the metaphor of a dream. I have attempted to improve it with a lucid dream, i.e., the dreamer knows that it is a dream. X sleeps in a bed. His mind projects a dreamer Y and a dream out of vasanas. Y is different from X. They belong to two different orders of reality. X is in the waking world and Y is in a dream world. There are many characters in the dream world and for them, the dream is not a dream; it is a waking state. Y is a special dream character as he knows that it is a dream. To avoid confusion, the dream character Y is named Z. Y is the creator, sustainer, and destroyer of the dream. The dream characters have no idea at all about X of the waking world. X belongs to a higher order of reality. X is transcendental so to say and is like Nirgun Brahman. Y is like Sagun Brahman (Ishwar). Z who knows that it is a dream is like an Avatar.
Note: As it is a metaphor it has some limitations.
Shankara at 1.4.10, brihadAraNyaka
Revered Shankara is by nature a perfect and committed bhAShyakAra (Commentator) that he never deviates from the text on which he is commenting upon. He always stays within the bounds of the purport of the textual line. He abhors to venture out to exploring the connected lanes and bylanes related to the topic or give vent to his own ideas based on his knowledge. However, in the entire corpus of the bhAShya literature of his, there are a few places where he takes liberty to make certain observations of his own on the verse/mantra that he happens to be commenting on. Very rare precious gems, unavailable for the reader anywhere else in the whole gamut of shruti and smriti lore, come out from his pen at those few occasions. One such instance that immediately comes to mind is his expanded commentary at 13.2, BGB where he lets out the fact that the ignorance of not knowing one’s own true nature belongs to that very person who thinks he has ignorance. He raises the question and answers it himself: Continue reading
Q.512 Direct Path vs Traditional – Pt. 5
Part 5 – Teaching method
Q: Regarding the quote by Jean Klein: In “The Book of Listening”, Jean talks about how he thinks “books are dead” and do not carry the ‘perfume’ of the words, which is what is really transformative. And that what is important is the live meetings with a true teacher, who speaks words that ‘come from silence and lead back to silence’. In many books by Jean Klein he says to not emphasize the words, that which is behind the words. To put it crudely, Jean Klein’s main method, I would say, is that of transmission. So the books of Jean Klein should be read with that in mind. So I do not think everything he says should be taken literally. There is a lot more to his teachings, but the above is a very rough summary. Whether or not this technique (transmission) is effective is another matter.
Regarding the other quotes, they are just providing descriptions of what experience is like, but I never took it that realizing that this is true alone will make you enlightened. For example, Rupert, often says that it is not enough to know what we are not, it is necessary to see what we are [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOxfCkbWTZA around 01:30 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmDTwg8fAlE around 02:05] In other words, he’s saying that it is not enough to know what experience is, you must also ‘go’ to yourself and investigate the nature of that which is aware.
Continue readingMistakes and Misconceptions In Vedantic Investigation – 2/2
Historically, Buddhism and Zen came to the West prior to the Advaita philosophy. Their teachings made a deep impact on the Western mind. Particularly, the Mountain and River Sutra and the Return of the Bull to the Market are well-remembered today even by those who moved on to the Advaita philosophy. The Mountain and River Sutra runs something as follows:
“When I first began to practice, mountains were mountains and rivers were rivers. As I trained, mountains were not mountains; rivers were not rivers. Now that I am established in the way, mountains are once more mountains and rivers are once more rivers.”
However, when viewed from an Advaita philosophy angle, the last line above gets modified roughly as: ‘Now that I am established in the Advaita way, I find that mountains are the Self, rivers are Self, and there is Self Alone and no second (thing).’ In the second story too, the fulfilled seeker would usually end up with no interest in the market or conducting transactions within it, because his/her sense of doership – experiencership (kartrutva – bhoktrutva) doesn’t continue after Self-realization is fully achieved.
But the Western Advaita teachers like to hold that “nothing needs to change” on the attainment of Self-realization and that the multifaceted world and their interactions within it will continue. In order to buttress their argument, they tell us that Ramana quotes Shankara to say that, “brahman is the universe” and being already brahman, the world cannot get affected. From their own personal code of conduct and behavior (see The Pre-requisites, we referred to in Part – 1), an observer gets the impression that they would, as though, like to keep their one leg entrenched in the dualistic world and its allurements.
[Note: True, nothing needs to change ‘out there.’ But a change does happen in one’s “vision” after Self-realization, as we will see towards the end of this article.]
The Ramana quote claiming brahman is the world does sound a bit strange; It’s like saying all Gold is ring. But did not Shankara Continue reading