/lit/ - Literature

>>14702859
>>14699422
>you still have to explain why there is a distinction (a duality) between reality-as-indifferenz-point and reality-as-normally-experienced i.e. reality as differentiated.
Because of Brahman's power of maya, this distinction seems to be empirically real right now, but in spiritual realization it is sublates, vanishes and is revealed as never having existed to begin with
>Why would a truly nondual reality "seem" to do anything at all, other than just be what it is, an undifferentiated monad?
The Upanishads simply tell us that it is the power of Brahman to do so, some Advaita texts discuss this and say that for various reasons it is just the nature of Brahman to effortlessly do so, just as it is the nature of the sun to always be emitting light in all directions for as long as it exists. Shankara writes in his Brahma Sutra Bhasya that it is comparable to the rhythm of in and out breathing, i.e. it follows as a consequence of this infinite being existing.
>"Seeming" then becomes a second kind of thing, with ontological status.
an apparent status which vanishes and is shown to be unreal
>Saying that maya ultimately resolves into Brahman doesn't explain why Brahman needs to be resolved in the first place.
It doesn't need to be, as Brahman is completely unaffected by His own power of maya and is immutable. There only seems to be the need for resolution from our perspective and not Brahman's so long as you are still inside the false illusion
>Again, that just creates a dualism of resolved/unresolved Brahman.
Only from our perspective which is unreal, and not from the perspective of truth/reality itself.
>At best it's an emanationism.
Advaita teaches a causation theory called 'vivartavada' where the effect is only an appearance of the cause and never actually emanates, emerges or is created as a separate existing entity or even as a modification of the unchanging basis, it remains only a false appearance which is eventually sublated.

>>13909111
The Ashtavakra Gita is a lucid introductory Advaita text, you can read a translation of it online in a fairly short time,

https://realization.org/p/ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita.html

If you decide that you want to study Advaita in-depth, the best way to do so is to read through Adi Shankara's commentaries, although if you want to do this you'll have to read at least one book on Advaita or Hindu philosophy in general first or there will probably be a lot that you wouldn't understand. The books on those subjects by Rene Guenon, Eliot Deutsch and Chandradhar Sharma are all very good. The single best short intro book about it is probably Deutsch's 'Advaita Vedanta: A Philosophical Reconstruction'

>>12711053
The translated primary texts from all the spiritual doctrines and traditions that the Traditionalists write about explain exactly how to do so quite clearly. Nobody can hand it to you on a silver platter, you have to do the reading and necessary reflection yourself. Studying them under a qualified teacher and also learning from said person is ideal, but there is already so much available material that has seen high quality translations with all the right footnotes and background info provided that even if you are self-taught with enough reading you can still have earth-shattering revelations and reach ineffable bliss.

>>12382742

good Buddhism intro's:

What the Buddha Taught - Rahula
In the Buddha's Words - Bodhi
Buddhism as Philosophy - Siderits (more an overview of the core doctrines of each school)
Dhammapada is a primary text but is not complex and can itself serve as an intro

Some people may recommend you to read the works of X Buddhist thinker first (i.e. that guy who posts Mahāprajñāpāramitā in every thread) but that just reflects their personal preferences and you should wait until you've read some intro books first or else you will not understand a lot of the context and ideas. Generally it's the Mahayana and Vajrayana that has the most interesting philosophy, Theravada is usually more centered around meditation but there is some Theravada metaphysics/philosophy too. There are loads of primary texts and sutras but you should just read Siderits book first to figure out which ones you want to read.

With Hinduism most people on /lit/ are generally interested in the philosophy and not the ritualistic or devotionalistic aspects and so my usual recommendations are geaed towards that. There is a lot of very interesting Hindu philosophy and thinkers too as with Buddhism, but you need to get a grasp of the basics before you would be able to understand them. Below are some intro books and general non-sectarian texts which are revered by most schools.

Essentials of Hinduism - Bhaskarananda (covers more than just Hindu philosophy)
Essentials of Indian Philosophy - Hiriyanna
Bhagavad-Gita & Principal Upanishads - Radnakrishnan has good translations of both with helpful notes
Intro to Hindu Doctrines - Guenon (only read if you are okay with Perennialism and an anti-modern worldview, if you are though its good)
The Puranas contain a mix of spiritual teachings and myth/history and can be interesting e.g. Vishnu Purana, Siva Purana, Bhagavata Purana etc

The Mahabharata and Ramayana are more Homeric-style Indian epics than religious texts but there are occasional religious teachings in them, mostly in the Mahabharata.

Vedanta is a very interesting school of Hindu philosophy, Advaita Vedanta has the most stuff translated to English, but you can find texts from other Vedanta schools too, some good beginner Advaita texts include Ashtavakra Gita (not Byrom's translation it's trash), Avadhuta Gita and Atma Bodha. There are also various Hindu sages from the 19th-20th centuries who are considered to be examples of modern people who have reached liberation while living (Jivanmuktis), and you can read their collected talks and writings, Nisargdatta Maharaj, Ramana Maharshi and Ramakrisha are all great.

>>12382850
>>12382872
There is nothing wrong with doing this approach OP, this would help you understand the cultural background and context of a lot of Hindu texts/stories/philosophy better although it isn't necessary to fully understand the philosophy/metaphysics as presented in a given text.

>>12203893
>What would Vedanta say about intentionality?
Advaita Vedanta holds that intentionality does not inhere in Atma/Brahman and that it's part of the illusionary sense of individuality.

>Since you have been bitten by the black snake, the opinion about yourself that “I am the doer,” drink the antidote of faith in the fact that “I am not the doer,” and be happy. 1.8
>Burn down the forest of ignorance with the fire of the understanding that “I am the one pure awareness,” and be happy and free from distress. 1.9

Vedanta explicitly identifies the mind (manas), and ego (ahamkara) as unreal, the Atma is the unchanging awareness which observes these. So, in the (Advaita) Vedantist view intentionality belongs to the illusionary phantom of (embodied and qualified) self-hood, every aspect of which is observed by the real Self separate from it. Brahman is not a doer or actor and never does anything, it not even really being possible for 'action' to take place when there ares no 'objects' aside from Brahman in relation to which action could take place. The illusion of doership comes to an end with total Self-knowledge, at which point one can still walk around, speak with people etc but it would all be done with the awareness that one is not really doing anything and that one is just interacting with dream-like phantoms that have their origin in none other than the unchanging Self pervading everything.

>If consciousness always needs to be consciousness of an object, does that mean the atma isn't as self-sufficient as they believe
This is not what Vedanta teaches, they don't believe that Consciousness/Atma needs to be always consciousness of an object, this poster >>12203915 mentions that it does not make sense because consciousness still exists in sleep even if one is not conscious of objects and Advaita Vedanta makes literally the exact same point in their texts. Advaita holds that objects and the subject-object distinction are both unreal, they are considered basic elements of the illusion of duality. The Mandukya Upanishad and Gaudapada's Karika on it are central to Shankara's version of Advaita, in them it talks about how in the first two states waking and dream (Vaisvanara and Taijasa) there is awareness of (unreal) objects, how in the third state of dream-less deep sleep (prajna) that conciousness simply exists in an undifferentiated state without awareness of an objects but that it is still characterized by ignorance of reality (the simple absence of illusion not being the same thing as active knowledge of reality); and that the fourth state and final state of Turiya has this same absence of illusion but also includes knowledge of reality/truth.

>>11548693
>>11548980

Samkhya is in a sense basic metaphysical speculation, it mostly adheres to the Vedas (like all the Darshanas) while at the same time not relying exclusively on them for its speculation. Samkhya is similar to Vaisheshika although it differs from it in that Samkhya concerns itself more with 'cosmological' or 'spiritual' speculation instead of a study of 'things as they appear/natural phenomena'. Samkhya is where detailed ideas about things like Purusha/Prakriti, the theory of the Gunas etc were formalized after taking the portions of the Vedas that briefly mention or hint at them and then developing those ideas further. Samkhya largely focuses on these ideas themselves without putting them into an all-encompassing doctrine that completes the Vedas, this is where Vedanta comes in. Vedanta largely agrees with Samkhya and incorporates most of its ideas, but Vedanta goes further than Samhkya by taking Samhkya's ideas and fitting them into an understanding of the Vedic teaching in its whole, synthesizing all the Darshanas into a common understanding that together complete the Vedic doctrine; as an example of this Vedanta accepts and further fleshes out things like Purusha and the Gunas while understanding that they are just ancillary and complementary ways of approaching how the Vedas teach the path to the final stages of realization and liberation, but that these stages in themselves go way beyond speculation about these things.

I myself have reread certain chapters of 'ITTSOTHD' and understood them better the second time around. Rereading them is definitely a good idea, although it's especially good to do so after you have already read some primary Hindu texts. Some short primary texts that you could read to help you get a TLDR of what Guenon is talking about would be the Atma Bodha, Yoga Yajnavalkya, Ashtavakra Gita and the Bhagavad-Gita. The Bhagavad-Gita is best understood with a really in-depth commentary (like Shankara's) but reading a simple and dumbed-down like Easwarans only takes a little time and helps you see an example of how a bunch of Hindu ideas are combined into one coherent understanding. For the Ashtavakra Gita I'd highly recommend John Richards translation (which is sadly only online and not in any book). Here are some short texts that you can read on your computer or phone.

Atma Bodha (takes 10-20 minutes to read)
http://www.lovebliss.eu/Download/Atma%20Bodha.pdf

Ashtavakra Gita (1-3 hours, very good)
https://realization.org/p/ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita.html

>>11489540

The rest of the pages of that chapter are not really worth addressing because it would just be repeatedly explaining how there is no contradiction in things that he thinks are a contradiction when you have a non-dualistic god comprised of both the manifest and unmanifest; and a good deal of the thinkers he cites appear to make the same mistake. Sufism and to some extent Neoplatonic forms like Ismaili are the main branches of Islam that intuitively get these concepts, you'd think that as a Sufi he would be more understanding of them but at times it seems he takes a view opposite to what is considered generally Sufi thought in order to refute his bugbear or perennialism. One might object and say well Islam is obviously not non-dualist but that's actually not very clear. There used to be a very good paper on how there are many implicitly non-dualistic quotes in the Quran at this link but its down now for some reason (those darn Wahhabists probably)

http://www.perennialfoundation.org/resources/Documents/PDFs/Peter%20Samsel%20-%20Islam%20and%20the%20Vision%20of%20Non-Duality%20(1).pdf

There are quotes in the Quran that emphasize Allah as an all-powerful other but also ones that emphasize him as an all-pervading being inside everyone and everything who is the witness of all. There are very similar passages in the Vedic texts which periodically describe Brahman as an other (considered from the view of someone in their default non-spiritually realized state but then in the very same texts it explains a non-dualistic view as the summary and point of the text. If you believe as the Sufis do that Muhammad himself taught Sufi doctrine as a sort of alternative way then that would strengthen these views further because it would mean that Muhammad himself was aware of these concepts and so it was not just people mistakenly attributing it to him many centuries later. If the understanding of God held by Sufism (which is legitimate because of it being taught by Muhammad) is a kernel within Islam, than it means that the verses in the Quran which seem to be strongly dualist have to be understood within a context that also allows for a quasi-non-dualist all-pervading transcendent god in addition to the more typical exoteric understanding. If we interpret Quranic verses in this sense they do not really violate the views of the traditionalists. Just to cite some of the Quran verse cited by Keller as an example:

>>11308148
Start with Guenon's 'Intro to Hindu Doctrines' he does a great job of explaining important background information and the exact relationship between the various schools of thought and the nature of things like caste, orthodoxy etc.

After that OP's pic is also good for beginners because it's simplified and easy while still being good and true to the spirit of the original. After that you can start reading more serious texts such as the Puranas and Agamas, the Sruti, the Vedanta commentaries and Vedantic non-commentary texts etc.

>>11310914
Part of Brahman in a conventional sense from our perspective but the Upanishads are pretty clear that from the perspective of ultimate truth there is no difference.

>>11310957
He is good for beginners, if you want to really understand it then read Allahi Mahadevi Sastri's translation of Adi Shankara's commentary on it, but honestly reading Easwaran's first (it's very short) would help prepare you greatly for reading Shankara's commentary (assuming you've read Guenon's intro book first otherwise you will probably be like wtf?)

>>11313027
Prabhupada seems pretty heterodox and is best avoided IMO

>>11278161
>>11278285

continued

>Aryanism became degenerated in India when "the identity between the atman and brahman was interpreted in a pantheistic sense that reflected the spirit of the South. Brahman was no longer conceived, as in the earlier period described in the Atharva Veda and in the Brahmanas,

Evola is ignoring that the sruti is and always has been regarded as infallible in orthodox Hindu thought and that the sruti is overwhelmingly non-dualist. Furthermore even in the very oldest 'Aryan' texts like the Rig-Veda (one of the oldest texts in any Indo-European language) contain many non-dualist passages such as

>Lord of creation! no one other than thee pervades all these that have come into being.
>10.121.10

>All this is He-what has been and what shall be. He is the Lord of immortality. Though He has become all this, in reality He is not all this. For truly, He is beyond the world. The whole series of universes-past, present, and future-express His glory and power; but He transcends His own glory. All beings of the universe form, as it were, only a portion of His being; the greater part is invisible and unchangeable. He who is beyond all predicates appears as the relative universe; He appears as all sentient and insentient beings.
>x.90.1-5

>brahman was instead conceived as the One and All from which all life forms proceed and into which they are redissolved. When it is interpreted in such a pantheistic fashion, the doctrine of the identity between atman and brahman leads to the denial of the spiritual personality [the Purusa of Samkhya] and is transformed into a ferment of degeneration and promiscuity

Again, wrong for the reasons explained in the previous posts, it seems Evola was too much of a brainlet to have read any of the primary sources but if he had he would see countless passages that extol chastity as necessary for the highest realization, that condemn lust as a cause of bondage to transmigratory existence and as a source of suffering etc and so on.

>[the Vedanta doctrine of Sankara] was essentially oriented to the [pantheistic] theme of the formless brahman ([unqualified]-Brahma), in regard to which all determined forms are nothing but an illusion and a negation, a sheer product of ignorance.

Does he not see the extreme irony here in that this is essentially what Buddhism teaches and that he wrote a book praising this same doctrine as being 'Aryan'? Evola is an embarrassment. Anytime I see people posting his viewpoints I can almost always tell they have never read any of the primary texts themselves because they repeat basic misunderstandings about the doctrines they talk about.

>>11022203
>How fortuitous! that something that has only been around for 150 years conveniently explains the ultimate meaning of all thought that has occurred in the 200,000-300,000 years that humans have been anatomically modern. What are that chances?!?! Surely we've got it right this time and it's our special and correct view of Psychology that doesn't have any of that religious or superstitious nonsense. It's not like we are one brief moment in many millennia of humans using thought to examine itself, no we're different this time because we're professional and scientific.

If you unironically think the ultimate meaning of things like eastern religions is uncovered by reducing them to psychological explanation than I have only pity for you anon.

>>10782092
>>10782611


Dharmic teachings such as Hinduism and Buddhism actually represent some of the highest peaks of Aryan thought. The European descendants of the Indo-Europeans/Aryans lost the traditional wisdom and only retained the cultural influences and deities. Western philosophy exemplifies Aryan ingenuity and cleverness but ultimately is the result of when the transcendental teachings are lost and the wise men are left to feel around in the dark trying to search for a replacement for what was lost.

>>10782906

>Not knowing the differences between and implications of Dualism, Non-Dualism and Qualified Non-Dualism.

>>10783825
>>10783894
>>10783914


The oldest Vedic texts contain numerous passages that describe star alignments, solar/lunar movements and other contextual clues that clearly describe a community living within the arctic circle and near the north pole. Read 'Arctic Home in the Vedas' if you want to learn more. This article also discusses some of the evidence.

https://www.systematics.org/journal/vol1-3/SJ1-3c.htm

This stage was the earliest phase we are aware of in history of the Aryans. This was likely the formative stage where the proto-Indo-European culture and language developed in isolation from the other people living in northern Eurasia and central Asia. It was from here that the Indo-Europeans fled when it was no longer inhabitable which is when they suddenly appeared around the Urals and Black/Caspian sea after heading south.

The Vedas are the only body of religious and philosophical/metaphysical texts found in any Indo-European culture that possesses a clear link to this early era. All the European Indo-European traditions lost the connection, keeping many of the same archetypal gods but losing the traditional wisdom that was taught alongside them. The Vedas were passed down orally for thousands of years before being finalized and written down shortly after the Aryans arrived in India. Thus, while we can obtain have an idea of the rough structure of the original Indo-European religion from looking at the dieties of any Indo-European culture, the Hindu Vedic tradition is the only one that still continues on the actual doctrines of the Aryans and so it's the closest relic we have as the other anons have pointed.

Later Hindu developments that came after the finalization of the Vedas such as Vedanta and other movements are themselves just elaborations on Aryan thought, since the central criteria of orthodoxy in Hinduism is whether something adheres to the Vedas or not and so almost all the post-Vedic developments in Hinduism are the natural continuation of Aryan though. Even Buddhism, which explicitly rejects the Vedas as a source of authority, really just continues the teaching of the underlying metaphysics of them but with a different emphasis.