/lit/ - Literature

>>22453110
>Self-luminosity for yogacara is the self-luminosity of appearances. Appearances are described as self-luminous, sights, sounds, sensations, tastes, smells, thoughts, are all each ‘illumined by themselves’ without any consciousness or awareness apart from the presence of appearances.
Dharmakirti and Dinnaga don’t posit any additional separate awareness beyond the purportedly self-luminous mental acts of seeing, hearing, thinking, but if you actually read their works and pay close attention they actually split the awareness-appearance into two aspects, the object form (arthākāra) and the subject form (grāhakākāra), the former is what possesses the phenomenal content being conveyed and the latter is the subjective witnessing aspect of the cognition as the ‘grasper’ of the objective content of the same cognition.

Upon inspection, the grāhakākāra just turns out to be pure reflexive awareness without any parts or phenomenal content, and the arthākāra just turns out to be that is which is other than the witnessing subject, i.e. the insentient phenomenal content. Dharmakirti thus makes the mistake of lumping insentient phenomenal content together with awareness as one thing, even though he admits that it has two qualitatively different aspects into which it splits, only one of which can truly be said to be the “knower” or “sentient” or “aware”. The argument that Dharmakirti uses in an attempt to establish the identity of the arthākāra and the grāhakākāra is that they always occur together and so they should be assumed to be the same. This argument doesn’t hold water because there are examples of things which always occur together despite being different (e.g. gravity and mass). To use an expression of Shankara, it cannot reasonably be accepted as “a hard and fast rule.”

What’s more, this conception is unable to coherently explain our experience, because the separate and transient subject-forms associated with each particular cognition of a sound, a sight, a thought etc would have no way of combining to produce our smoothly integrated conscious experience whereby sounds, sights, smells etc all flash forward in a display that is known all at once, because the individual subject-forms have no means to know each others respective object-forms, and there is also no separate awareness/knower in whom they are all integrated, or for whom they all appear.

Shankara refutes the Yogachara explanation of conscious experience on this point by noting in Brahma Sutra Bhashya 2-2-28 that “To claim that a cognition is like a lamp, and that cognitions are therefore able to manifest of their own accord without depending on anything else to illumine them, is as much as to affirm that they are inaccessible to any means of knowledge and have no one to know them. It would be like talking of the radiance of a thousand lamps that were enclosed invisibly (and individually) in the hallows of a thick mass of rock.”

>>20820606
You are most kind anon

>>20285972
>>It doesn’t ‘exist’, it is just falsity
>exactly it "IS" falsity, it needs to exist in order to manifest as falsity,
Incorrect, saying "it IS falsity" is just denoting the status of the illusion, it's not saying the illusion has existence. Now you are retreating back to a fallacious argument that I have already pointed out numerous times is the logical fallacy of circular reasoning. When you are trying to disprove that falsity is neither existence nor non-existence by asserting that falsity has to exist in order to be falsity, that's the logical fallacy of circular reasoning since you are citing the conclusion you want to be true as the reason why that same conclusion is true, and that's self-refuting nonsense. You seem unable to stop yourself from committing logical fallacies.

Manifestation means "to appear" or "to reveal something", and illusions appear and are revealed to observers, so just because illusions manifest (appear) as illusions doesn't in fact entail that they exist, because non-existent falsity already entails manifestation (appearance) by virtue of it being falsity or a false appearance, which distinguishes it from non-being (which doesn't manifest/appear ever).

>if something can manifest without being then it has more reality than being itself, it has more metaphysical substance, since is more independent
Falsity cannot manifest (appear) without itself being contingent upon the being of Brahman who is casting it, that doesn't make falsity more real than reality (Brahman) itself, the contrary is true, what is contingent (falsity) is less real than the independently-existing being that the contingent (falsity) is contingent upon. Falsity is not a substance (that which exists independently) because falsity is contingent upon the being of Brahman and therefore it's logically impossible for falsity/maya to be considered something that is independent.
>thus making the whole thing ilogical
What you just wrote above was pure sophistry that tried to imply that falsity appearing *without itself possessing being* amounts to falsity appearing independently i.e. not in dependence upon anything, but since is obviously wrong since falsity only appears *without itself possessing being* BECAUSE it's contingent upon the being of Brahman casting that falsity, which refutes the claim that falsity is independent or that it appears independently.

>>19692355
Utterly based

>caste is based
Shankara

>>19496991
>there was also the version where they added the merchant gang with steve jobs
yeah there isnt a good res version of it, although the anon who made it told me the lowering res represented the lowering of caste kek

>>18472091
>Is the consciousness aware that the knower and the known are the same?
It's not aware of two separate things that could be considered as being the same, it's not as though the non-dual consciousness is both AA (non-dual consciousness that is the knower) and AB (non-dual consciousness that is known) and these two AA and AB are the same, this is the wrong way of understanding it. Instead, there is just A existing in a perfect undivided unicity by itself whose reflexive self-knowledge is identical with its presence, its knowing is the same as its being, it's redirected back upon itself, but at no point is there any identifiable separation that we can pick out or trace between the knower and the known, at any point you can try to pick out in the non-dual awareness knowing itself every "point" is the exact same thing as any other point, it's all just equally A alike that contains no junctions, partitions, steps, or relations. Any seeming separation is just due to the inherently dualistic nature of all language that we are forced to use to describe it, language being inherently dualistic.

>>18427104
>advaita refutation general?
A hopeless endeavor, as Advaita is impossible to refute. In that whole series of greentexts, not a single argument against Advaita was quoted, only name-calling. There are no logical contradictions in Advaita and it's impossible to show that there are.

>>18385109
>>18385283
>which is even more reliable since you know some day you will die
There is no empirical proof that one's own consciousness ends when the body dies, so that's not actually "more reliable", it just seems that way to your crypto-materialist beliefs. You haven't added any new argument for how or why it can be shown that consciousness is conditioned or changing, your vague appeal to "consciousness sensing its own conditionedness" fail to explain how this is possible when all the things that can be described as changing are non-conscious things that are known through consciousness.

>but you can't think or argument any logical way this awareness that depends entirely on phenomena could survive or exist without immanence
Yes I can easily, Awareness is not dependent upon phenomena first off, but is instead self-revealing; the self-disclosing of awareness to itself as non-dual immediate formless consciousness is always constant, and other things appear within the span of this awareness and are illumined/known by it always after this immediate fact of self-revealing immediate existence, consciousness isn't dependent on the phenomena. If consciousness wasn't self-revealing it would have to be known by another awareness in order for it to be known, but that would lead to an infinite regress that would make knowledge of anything impossible because the first would have to be known by a 2nd, but since the 2nd is not self-revealing it would have to be known by a 3rd, and the 3rd by a 4th and so on infinitely and nothing could ever be known because none of them would ever emerge into the light of knowledge but its flashing forth in consciousness would always be perpetually delayed.

This self-revealing independent consciousness simply continues on when the body dies, either the subtle body its observing transmigrates or its a liberated man who simply remains as eternal independent consciousness even after the body dies.

>Buddhist calling anyone else a crypto-nihilist
lol

>>18305935
Made a thread without a lot of replies there :
>>18309410
A discussion about Hindu saccidânanda in regard to the christian Trinity.

>>18308534
>>18308578
Very cringe, read tthe thread quoted above.

lets settle this once and for all: knowledge or bhakti?

>>18241287
based

>>17050418

>*blocks your path*

The philosophy of the Buddha has now been refuted. We next go on to refute the philosophy of the Naked Ones (Digambara, here a collective name for the Jainas as a whole). The latter accept seven principles, namely soul, non-soul (the totality of inanimate beings), inflow (of particles of subtle matter into the soul leading to obscuration of its powers and to further worldly experience), arrest (of further inflow), destruction (through ascetic practices of the contents of previous inflow), bondage and liberation. To put it briefly, however, there are only two principles, soul and non-soul. For they think all the rest can be somehow included in one or the other of these two.

They have another way of analysing these two principles, namely into five ‘masses of being’ (asti-kaya) — those of soul, matter, cause of movement, cause of arrest of movement and space. All of these include many sub-divisions, which they dilate upon in terms of their own system. Everywhere they apply their method of the seven standpoints — from one point of view it (anything) exists, from one point of view it does not exist, from one point of view it both exists and does not exist, from one point of view it is indescribable, from one point of view it is existent and indescribable, from one point of view it is non-existent and indescribable, from one point of view it is both existent and non-existent and also indescribable. They apply their method of the seven standpoints even to such items as oneness and eternity.

To all this we reply that the relativism of the Jainas is not justified, because, as the author of the Sutras puts it, ‘of the impossibility (of directly contradictory attributes) in one and the same thing’. You cannot have contradictory attributes such as ‘existent’ and ‘non-existent’ at the same time in the same substance, any more than the same thing can be at the same time hot and cold. The seven principles, which they regard as existent and as having definite natures, must either exist with those natures or not exist. If all that we have is the indefinite knowledge that a certain thing might be of such and such a nature, or of a different nature, or not of that previously assumed nature, then our knowledge is like doubt and has no cogency.

>>14976427
>because you have in effect just turned Hinduism into Buddhism and called it a victory
B A S E D!

>>14706819
ngl p cool quote very wholesome

>>14702851
>>14698495
>Am I misunderstanding Shankara? I thought according to him there only was an absolute reality? So you are saying there is on the one hand an absolute reality and on the other there is a universe, so two realities, one absolute and the other not absolute?
There is in absolute reality, only Brahman-Atma. Through His maya there appears to be another lesser conditional reality which seems empirically real to us as embodied beings, but this conditional reality doesn't truly exist in absolute reality and is sublated in moksha and the associated spiritual realization and is revealed when it's sublated to have never actually existed to begin with.

>>14698517
>lmao so Brahman is dual?
No, the Nirguna- or Para-Brahman alone is truly real and is itself the Paramatma which Svetasvatara 6.15. says alone exists, the appeareance of Saguna Brahman as the lesser poise or form of Brahman is due to maya.

>>14699380
>>its seeming reality stems from the actual reality of Brahman.
>If Brahman is the only reality then nothing can "stem" from Brahman, seemingly or otherwise.
I used that phrase figeratively, assuming that you would read the next sentence and understand that I was using it in the sense that I explained in the second half of that post of it stemming from Brahman's power of maya whereby He has the abiltiy to present the unreal as though it were real.
>>Brahman's ability to present
>If Brahman is the only reality there is nothing to "present" nor anyone for it to be "presented" to.
Indeed, this is why maya etc are not actually real because Brahman is the only reality, one without a second. Maya is not some tool whereby Brahman interfaces with some lesser reality, but it is the mysterious and enigmatic power of God or Brahman to cause the false appearence of a world of multiplicity that doesn't actually exist and is sublated, and at the same time maya is itself that world and those beings in it. The observation of maya seems to take place because Brahman is the unaffected and unattached inner Self of all the unreal beings within maya and endows them with seeming individuality and agenthood because of the proximity of the light of His consciousness which they identity with their intellects and bodies. The text Atma-Bodha illustrates the idea with such helpful illustrations as these:

-Emotions and other faculties which belong to manas (mind) are attributed to our Self through ignorance, as one attributes the agitation of waves in water to the moon whose image they
reflect
-When the organs of sense are in action it appears to the ignorant that it is his Self which is acting, as the moon itself appears to be moving when clouds pass across it, .

>Just explain how anything can be or seem to be or be sublated into anything else or seem to be sublated to anything else if all reality is NON-DUAL
It has been explained thoroughly in these series of posts.

>"Śaṅkarācārya is undoubtedly one of the greatest philosophers of the world and a realised saint. He is gifted with extra-ordinary intelligence, a deeply penetrating mind, critical insight, logical reasoning, philosophical analysis, religious purity, sublimity of renunciation and profound spirituality. His literary excellence makes him shine as a writer of exemplary Sanskrit prose and soul-inspiring philosophico-religious verses."

- Chandradhar Sharma, 'The Advaita Tradition in Indian Philosophy'

From the moment in which the superimpositions are removed the truthknower enters
immediately into that which permeates everywhere, as water in water, air in air, fire in fire.

The fulfillment after which there is nothing to desire, the happiness beyond which there is no
greater happiness, the understanding above which there is no higher understanding, may one
know that is Brahman!

The object of vision, beyond which no further vision can be desired, the being in union with
which no further birth is possible, the knowledge beyond which one needs no further knowledge,
may one know that is Brahman!

That which fills all superior, intermediate, and inferior worlds, being, awareness, bliss, one
without a second, infinite, eternal, may one know that is Brahman!

That which is designated in the Vedantic texts as the timeless being which renders illusory
all which is not Him, that permanent bliss, may one know that is Brahman!

Admitted to a portion of the bliss of that being which is eternal happiness, Brahma and the
other gods attain a partial happiness.

All things rest in Brahman and He moves all things; He is universally diffused through
everything, like butter in the mass of milk.

That which is neither small nor large, neither short nor long, neither subject to birth nor
death, that which is without form, without qualities, without color, without name, may one know
that is Brahman!

That by the splendor of which the sun and the stars shine while not being illuminated by
them, that which illuminates all things, may one know that is Brahman!

Penetrating everywhere within and without, illuminating the whole universe, Brahman shines
from afar like a globe of iron rendered incandescent by a flame.

Brahman is not of this world; nothing in reality is, but Him. If anything appears to be other
than Him, it is but a vain show, like a mirage in the desert.

All that is seen, all that is heard, is Brahman. Through understanding this, Brahman is
contemplated as the real, aware, nondual being.

The eye of knowledge contemplates the being which is life, intelligence, and all-pervading
happiness; but the eye of ignorance cannot contemplate That, just as a person who is blind
cannot perceive the shining sun.

The mind, enlightened by sacred tradition and other means, warmed by the fire of
knowledge, and freed from all impurities, becomes brilliant as gold purified by fire.

When Atman, the sun of understanding, rises in the space of the heart, it disperses
darkness; permeating all and sustaining all, it shines, and all is light.

He who undertakes the pilgrimage towards his own self, the unique Atman, going
everywhere without regard to the state of the sky, the country, or the weather, indifferent to heat
and cold, and acquiring eternal happiness; free from impurity, such a one becomes all-knowing,
all-pervading and immortal.

>>13411742
These are all good unabridged translations of his commentaries. Recommended reading order is to start from the top of this list and head down. You don't need to read all his Upanishad commentaries before his Brahma Sutra and Gita ones but the more of his Upanishad commentaries you read first the more you'll be prepared for and the deeper you'll understand his commentaries on the later two texts.

http://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-Vol-1.pdf
http://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-vol2.pdf
https://archive.org/details/Brihadaranyaka.Upanishad.Shankara.Bhashya.by.Swami.Madhavananda
https://archive.org/details/Shankara.Bhashya-Chandogya.Upanishad-Ganganath.Jha.1942.English
https://archive.org/details/BrahmaSutraSankaraBhashyaEnglishTranslationVasudeoMahadeoApte1960
http://estudantedavedanta.net/Bhagavad-Gita.with.the.Commentary.of.Sri.ShankaracharyaN.pdf

>>13060519
>>outright steal Nagarjuna's ideas but replace every mention of "emptiness" with "brahma"
All the stuff people accuse him of taking from Nagarjuna is already found in the pre-Buddhist Upanishads that Shankara cites extensively in his works, really go on, try to name something that he takes from Nagarjuna that you think isn't in them. The pre-Buddhist Upanishads explicitly say that Brahman is unborn (brihadaranyaka for example) and discuss a higher absolute truth which is "the truth of truth" (ibid). The concepts of the two truths and non-origination predate buddhism, and were assimilated by Buddha from the Upanishads along with many other concepts into his teachings and from Buddha to Nagarjuna, Shankara gets it straight from the source (which is not to say that different people cannot reach the same conclusion independently, but if there was a causal relation viz where the idea comes from here it played out like this).
>ask basic babby "gotcha" questions that have been answetered time and time again like "if there is no self in experience then what gets reborn?"
he btfos a bunch of hinayana and mahayana doctrines dozens of times in his works but pointing out how they are inherently self-contradictory and illogical, while not a single classic buddhist author/thinker ever wrote a comprehensive refutation of the doctrine of Advaita (if they could they would have) aside from a few scattered briefs mentions in some texts, don't pretend like you've read or have good responses to his arguments

>>13004485
>Śaṅkarācārya is undoubtedly one of the greatest philosophers of the world and a realised saint. He is gifted with extra-ordinary intelligence, a deeply penetrating mind, critical insight, logical reasoning, philosophical analysis, religious purity, sublimity of renunciation and profound spirituality. His literary excellence makes him shine as a writer of exemplary Sanskrit prose and soul-inspiring philosophico-religious verses.

he did the whole 'everything is one' and 'the absolute coming to know itself' thing a millennium before Hegel did

>>13000042
He's just taking after the Indian thinkers he likes like Śaṅkarācārya who in his commentaries in addition to establishing the correct tradition of scriptural exegesis also takes the time to refute Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mimansa, Samkhya, Buddhists, Jains etc all in the same text.