Tag Archives: mind

Questions to AI-Dennis

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I have been writing on the subject of Advaita in all its aspects for over 25 years and have written some 13-14 related books. It occured to me that it would be useful to gather together all of my writing (excepting emails, newsgroup/mailing list discussions) and load them into NotebookLM AI. This then enables it to answer questions based solely upon what I have myself written. If readers ask me questions, I can then get AI to answer for me in my own words and I just have to check through and ensure that I (still) agree with the answer!

I think I have now loaded in as much as I reasonably can so am able to give it a try. Here then is my first question:

Q: What is the relevance of the saṃnyāsa lifestyle?

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AI and Consciousness (Part 5)

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*** Go to Part 1 *** *** Go to Part 4 ***

Q: A few comments:

Given that Advaita tells us that sarvam khalvidam brahma, that means that you are also Consciousness. And the teaching of karma and reincarnation tells us that a plant and an animal are jīva-s just as much as is a human. The ability of a plant to respond to external stimuli is much less than is your own, while your effective intelligence is much greater than most humans.

A jīva needs to be ‘alive’ in order to function in a ‘self-aware’, intelligently responsive manner. But what does ‘alive’ mean here? And how does that differ from an AI LLM needing electricity and coolant in order to function. Is the organic, neurochemical operation more than functionally different from the inorganic, electronic operation of a microprocessor?

How would Advaita cope with these sort of questions? Are you sure you are not conscious?

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Four Verses from Bhagavad-Gita

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 [This Blog Post is presented for advanced students of Advaita Vedanta as a case study in ‘Reflection’ (mananaM).]

It seems to me, as though, there is a fine thread of commonality running through the four verses 4.24; 6.29; 9.4 and 9.5 of Bhagavad-Gita, coming from the Chapters titled respectively, jnAnakarmasamnyAsayoga, dhyAnayoga and rAjavidyArAjaguhyayoga.

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kenopanishad

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Review of the commentary by Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Dennis Waite, ca. 2011

kenopanishad, Swami Dayananda, Arsha Vidya Centre Research and Publication, 2008, ISBN 978-81-906059. (230 pages), $12 from Arsha Vidya Bookstore, Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, Institute of Vedanta & Sanskrit, P.O. Box 1059, Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, 18353, USA Tel: 570.992.2339 (http://books.arshavidya.org/) The book has an Introduction, Chapter-by-Chapter Index to the mantras, an alphabetical index to mantras, which are in Devanagari with Roman Transliteration and word-by-word meanings. There is extensive commentary and some quotations from Shankara’s bhAShya are included in footnotes. There is also a Conclusion and a section at the back with the complete Upanishad in Devanagari.

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Traditional versus Neo-Advaita (Part 3)

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*** Read Part 2 *** *** Go to Part 1 ***

Advaita refers to the unchanging reality by the Sanskrit term paramārtha and to the constantly changing appearance by vyavahāra. Within this phenomenal realm, separate individuals and objects are recognized and a creator-god, Īśvara, uses the power of māyā to obscure the truth and project the apparent world. It thus affirms that our experience does not tally with its non-dual claims. It acknowledges an appearance of duality, which is at odds with the reality. It also states that we can never directly know the reality. Accordingly, its effective teaching strategy is to successively negate the appearance. That which ‘remains’ and cannot be negated must be the reality. Once the reality is thus effectively (but not literally) known, then it is also realized that the appearance, too, is that same reality.

This process inevitably takes time, from the vantage point of the seeker who is still mired at the level of appearance. The ignorance that prevents the immediate apprehension of reality is effectively in the mind and it is at the level of the mind that this ignorance must be removed. Knowledge must be introduced in such a way that the mind can accept it, using reason and experience. Just as a student is unable to appreciate the subtleties of quantum physics without having the preliminary grounding in mathematics and science, so the seeker is unable to assimilate the ‘bottom-line’ truth of Advaita since it is so contrary to his everyday experience.

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Traditional versus Neo-Advaita (Part 2)

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*** Read Part 1 ***

There are also two significant dangers regarding the Neo-Advaita ‘movement’. Firstly, there is the clear possibility of charlatans who, having read a little or heard the fundamental elements of ‘descriptions’ of reality, can devise a few ‘routines’ of their own and then advertise themselves on the circuit. Providing that they are good speakers/actors, it is certainly possible to make a living from deceiving ‘seekers’ in such a way, without ever giving away their true lack of knowledge or the fact that they are no nearer any ‘realization’ than their disciples.

Secondly, seekers themselves may be deluded into a belief that some specious realization has been obtained when, in fact, all that has happened is that they have come to terms with some psychological problem that had been making life difficult. The ending of such suffering could well be seen as a ‘liberation’. Of course, such a thing would not be at all bad – it simply would have nothing to do with enlightenment. Indeed, such people might well go on to become teachers in their own right, not charlatans in the true sense of the word, since they genuinely believe that ‘realization’ has taken place.

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Brain and Mind

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Q (Quora): How does the brain understand philosophy?

A (Martin): The brain… understanding philosophy? My reply to this is similar to the one I gave recently to another question, which was based on Socrates’ answer to an observation that someone was making. The man saw a pool of water being stirred by a stick held by a man and said that the stick was stirring the water. To which Socrates replied: ‘Is it the stick, or the man moving the stick?’ (Which one is the real agent – the material, or the instrumental cause, in Aristotelian terms?).

Equally, is it the brain, or the mind that which ‘moves’ the brain which moves the stick, which stirs the water?

Is it the brain, or the mind that which (using the brain as an instrument) understands philosophy?

Rather, it is consciousness (as a substrate) using the mind using the brain… Consciousness itself does not do anything

Traditional versus Neo-Advaita

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This will be a multi-part post, triggered in part by Ramesam’s recent post ‘Liberation is Disembodiment’, following which I promised a separate post. First of all, I will repost an article on the subject from advaita.org.uk, with which readers may not be familiar. Secondly, I will post an article on the subject that I apparently wrote in 2006 but do not seem ever to have published. Finally, I will add a new section and make a radical suggestion (as promised in my comment).

The word ‘neo’ means ‘new’ so that ‘Neo-Advaita’ is an impossibility. Advaita means ‘not two’, referring to the non-dual reality that always was, is and will be – unchanging because change would necessarily be from one thing into another, which would be contradictory. There cannot, therefore, be an ‘old’ and a ‘new’ Advaita, only the one truth.

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Q. 557 Detaching from the mind

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Q: Many modern teachers of Advaita seem to make much of the need to detach ourselves from the mind, or even destroy it, before we can become enlightened. I am confused by instructions such as these. If there is only Brahman, then there isn’t actually any mind (or even world) to separate ourselves from. There are not really even any words to talk about this! Can you clarify?

A: This is a confusion of ‘levels’ of reality.

In reality, there is only Brahman. That is the ‘bottom line’ and nothing more can be said. (Even that is saying too much.)

But the empirical level – appearance of world and you in it – continues until death of the body-mind (i.e. when prārabdha karma expires). Your body-mind is inert (and mithyā), functioning only as a result of non-dual Consciousness ‘animating’ it. You are the Consciousness, not the body-mind.

But Consciousness itself does not do anything, does not know anything – there is nothing else! It is your inert mind, ‘animated by Consciousness’ that appreciates this. ‘Enlightenment’ is an event in the mind, when it realizes all of this to be true.

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Upadesha SahAsri Chapter 19 Conversation between AtmA and the mind (Part 1)

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Introduction It is a ‘dialogue’ between AtmA and the mind. AtmA is free from action. As such the dialogue is figurative. Nevertheless, it is a unique method of nidhidhyAsanA which is the third phase of jnAna yoga after sravan and manan. The aspirant has clear knowledge of AtmA and he needs to assimilate it to make it a living knowledge. The aspirant knows that his essential nature is consciousness which is different from the mind. The locus of knowledge is the mind. It is a peculiar situation where the mind tells itself that the real nature of the aspirant is consciousness which is different from the mind. The mind has to further tell itself that consciousness is changeless and eternal whereas the mind is mithya. It is as though the mind splits in two parts, one part takes the role of AtmA, the subject and the other part is the mind, the object. AtmA uses the mind to talk to the mind and while talking, considers Itself different from the mind. There are Upanishad’s sayings that a knower of Brahman is Brahman and AtmA is Brahman. A Self-realized person and AtmA are used interchangeably. In some verses, there are repetitions of the same idea. Repetition is not a defect when the teachings are complex and are to be assimilated.

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