/lit/ - Literature

Where does one start with Advaita Vedanta?
Should I read Adi Shankara?
Guenon?
What texts?
More importantly - what's its relationship with buddhism?
Any recommendations on books that explore the relationship between the two?

>>11396279
>Is this liberation only achievable by human beings? Even then it seems like only a tiny minority of humans are able to get to this stage

All living beings in the universe are capable of it, there is nothing that would ever make it entirely impossible for beings to realize the truth of non-duality. Of course though without having the capacity to transmit and receive complex information through language regarding doctrine and instruction the chance of it happening randomly are much smaller. The Upanishads talk about various gods like Indra acquiring knowledge of the Self.

>I guess my point is that it seems like there's a lot of Atma in the world and not a lot of chance for it to be liberated, do the billions of years of cycles take care of it all?

From our perspective at this exact moment of time in our lives as manifested beings it may seem that way but the billions of years in a cycle of universal manifestation are themselves but a blink of an eye in eternity. Then there is also the fact that by the far greater portion of Atma/Brahman is contained within the unmanifest. The portion of Brahman that manifests is nothing compared to the unlimited nature of the unmanifest. Another thing to consider is that this viewpoint of your post implies connotations of many souls undergoing suffering and tribulations over the course of eternity with the hope of an eventual salvation. This is not how it actually is. Brahman is itself undivided, eternally at rest, pure all-pervading awareness, unchanging and unaffected by anything, beyond bliss. Ignorance exists only in a conventional sense within it, but the Atma at the heart of beings is this same undivided, unchanging Brahman, it just remains for them to realize it. Their Atma was unblemished and omnipresent bliss all along and this was only obscured temporarily (a nanosecond of eternity) by a bout of ignorance. In Advaita anytime things like birth, death, liberation and so forth are used they are meant in a conventional and not absolute sense because Atma is unchanging, the only changes happening with regard to and within the forces of manifestation such as Maya, Prakriti and the Gunas

As Gaudapada says in his Mandukya Karicka: "There is neither dissolution, nor birth; neither anyone in bondage, nor aspirant for wisdom; neither can there be anyone who hankers after Liberation, nor any liberated as such. This alone is the supreme Truth"

Okay, so one can be indignant at others for recieving a good that is not deserved. What is a word that amplies that indignace inwardly and what are good books that portray this. To reiterate, this is the anger one feels when one believes that they themselves have gotten some form of good despite not deserving it.

How would a Thomist respond to the process ontology of Buddhism?

It's a meme, but seriously- start with the Greeks. Unlike many other disciplines, in order to fully rationalize (which is necessary) later works, you need to build your schema from the ground up. Philosophy is about the dialogue, and a large part of contemporary philosophy is built up from prior works, which often is a continuation of even more prior works. Someone can read Hegel or Marx, but to truly understand an argument, one has to see the foundation that the premises are based on. This applies to eastern philosophy as well, albeit in a different way.

Will someone please explain to me how the absolute monism of Advaita Vedanta doesn't ultimately lead to nihilism not only of morality, but also truth therefore contradicting itself?

>>10997613
>Let me know if you think I'm missing anything important

Well, for one you are missing anything from one of the great centers of ancient and classical civilization (India). Secondly 'religious' texts (Guenon would say metaphysical) are far more important for understanding the national psyche/cultural attitudes centers of eastern civilization than mythology or historical works. Of course this extends to their literature too.

As a minimum for China you should read the Tao Te Ching and the analects of Confucius (this would just be scratching the surface though).

For India the Bhagavad-Gita and some of the more important Upanishads would be goods, maybe the Ramayana, and/or abridged Mahabharata. If you want a synthesis of Advaita Vedanta (i.e. the metaphysical core of Hinduism) read the Richards translation of the Ashtavakra Gita.

>How wonderful I am! Glory to me, for whom there is no destruction, remaining even beyond the destruction of the world from Brahma down to the last clump of grass. 2.11

>How wonderful I am! Glory to me, solitary even though with a body, neither going or coming anywhere, I who abide forever, filling all that is. 2.12

>How wonderful I am! Glory to me! There is no one so clever as me! I who have borne all that is forever, without even touching it with my body! 2.13

>How wonderful I am! Glory to me! I who possess nothing at all, or alternatively possess everything that speech and mind can refer to. 2.14

>Knowledge, what is to be known, and the knower — these three do not exist in reality. I am the spotless reality in which they appear because of ignorance. 2.15

>Truly dualism is the root of suffering. There is no other remedy for it than the realisation that all this that we see is unreal, and that I am the one stainless reality, consisting of consciousness. 2.16

>I am pure awareness though through ignorance I have imagined myself to have additional attributes. By continually reflecting like this, my dwelling place is in the Unimagined. 2.17

>For me here is neither bondage nor liberation. The illusion has lost its basis and ceased. Truly all this exists in me, though ultimately it does not even exist in me. 2.18

>Recognising that all this and my body too are nothing, while my true self is nothing but pure consciousness, what is there left for the imagination to work on now? 2.19

>The body, heaven and hell, bondage and liberation, and fear too, all this is pure imagination. What is there left to do for me whose very nature is consciousness? 2.20

>I do not even see dualism in a crowd of people, so what do I gain if it is replaced by a desert? 2.21

>I am not the body, nor is the body mine. I am not a living being. I am consciousness. It was my thirst for living that was my bondage. 2.22

>Truly it is in the infinite ocean of myself, that, stimulated by the colourful waves of the world, everything suddenly arises in the wind of consciousness. 2.23

>In the infinite ocean of myself, the wind of thought subsides, and the world boat of the living-being traders is wrecked by lack of goods. 2.24

>How wonderful it is that in the infinite ocean of myself the waves of living beings arise, collide, play, and disappear, in accordance with their nature. 2.25

Is the Advaita Vedanta the best Eastern Philosophy work there is?