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/lit/ - Literature

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>> No.23007228 [View]
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23007228

>>23006178
>they say Nirvāṇa is no annihilation, but they also deny its positive objective reality.
I'll let the Nagarjunists speak for themselves, but the Buddha didn't do that. Nirvana is a phenomenon, subject to the same abhidharma rules of analysis as any other dharma (phenomenon). It's just that since it's the unconditioned phenomenon, there isn't too much to be said about it.

>such empty useless speculations
Speculative view is something that the Tathagata has put away, for the Tathagata sees directly (MN 72).

>> No.18220409 [View]
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>>18219222
Intuition can be misleading, the greater problem with Buddhism is that its metaphysics are logically inconsistent and its philosophy of mind is NPC-tier in its denial of us having a singular and continuing center of consciouses
>>18219253
ignorance is prior to and more fundamental than attachment
>>18219447
>Does any one else find this annoying?
yes
>>18219486
Its hypocritical of Buddhists to say “Buddha refuted Vedism with his arguments” and then when people turn around and point out the logical contradictions in Buddhism then Buddhists on /lit/ are all like “uuhhh... thats just pointless intellectualizing it doesn't matter”
>>18219496
> It doesn't exist
Then there would be nobody to witness phenomena and no experiencing of them, but we do have the experience of phenomena as an intelligent presence which is different from them, so the Self obviously does exist

>> No.16488896 [View]
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16488896

>>16485375
> So the argument made here against Nagarjuna is taking the self (or consciousness) and the computer and the whatever else to be absolute and necessary when they are no more than conceptual fictions, relative, dependently originated.
Okay, but if Nagarjuna can’t even explain how consciousness works without it leading to contradictory and absurd consequences such as making knowledge of anything impossible (thus the undeniable fact of us having knowledge of things invalidating his understanding of consciousness) then that discredits everything he writes about it and his attempts to deny the self

>>16485427
>sense-of-Self is only yet another process dependent upon other things.
senses of things such as a sense of self, or a sense of fear or joy are perceived by you, if you perceive something, you cannot be that very thing, for that is a reflexive relationship which Nagarjuna says is impossible, awareness must of necessity be different from that which it perceives, or otherwise fire can burn itself and light illuminate itself and then Madhyamaka will contradict and thus invalidate itself

>Certain meditative states can produce an altered sense-of-Self, as can drugs or mental disorders.
the alterations of senses and thoughts due to mediation, drugs, mental illness and physical injury to the brain are all perceived by sentience, and that sentience must of necessity be different from the things which sentience apprehends in order for Madhyamaka to be internally consistent

> If the sense-of-Self can be removed, or altered AT ALL, then we've just demonstrated that it is impermanent, and can be changed, and as such, is only conventionally-real.
your are confusing normal egoistic awareness with the more subtle and basic primordial awareness which permeates every moment, but regardless, see above, alterations and changes are only discernible by a thread of sentience, and those alternations in things which are different from the sentience which apprehends them provides us with no meaningful informational about that very sentience, and if you dispute otherwise then a cardinal axiom of Madhyamaka is invalidated and the school becomes inconsistent

>The fact that you can actually sit down, meditate, and observe your own thoughts as they arise and break them apart and observe the pieces is a demonstration that yes, your consciousness can be broken apart, and analyzed.
Consciousness cannot be broken down and analyzable into its constituents for the very reason that the very mental act of breaking down and analyzing of thoughts are themselves mere insentient thoughts about that idea (for Madhyamaka cannot admit that thoughts are self-aware) which are observed by consciousness, so what you are talking about is not actually breaking down consciousness into its parts and analyzing them but is just thinking. In order to analyze itself the subject must become its own object which Nagarjuna says is impossible.

>> No.14702836 [View]
File: 507 KB, 1147x1338, atma_chariot.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
14702836

>>14702826
>VII. The Self Cannot be Pure Consciousness
>Here Ramanuja argues that the Self cannot be identical with pure consciousness. His argument is as follows. The Self is really the knower, which is the substrate of consciousness, for the knower has permanence or continuity of existence (which is true of the Self), as is shown from a knower at any time being able to recall an object seen earlier. There is a persisting “I,” but this persisting “I” is not identical with consciousness since consciousness is not permanent, as is shown from our saying “I knew this” or “I forgot that.”
When Advaita talks about the Self being Pure Consciousness they also mean that Pure Consciousness is the persistent and enduring knower, that is to say, that there is a persistent field of unchanging attributeless Consciousness to which is presented the sensory data, mental activity etc. The example that Ramanuja gives does not disprove this because when Ramanuja says the I is not identical with consciousness he gives the example of memory/attentiveness, i.e. "I knew this" "I forgot this", however memory is not the Pure Consciousness that Advaita is talking about but rather belongs to the activity of the mind which Advaita says is observed by the Knower/Consciousness, all memories and objects of attentiveness while themselves changing are presented to the unchanging Knower. Ramanuja is confusing the Consciousness of Advaita with the little "c" consciousness of memory and wrongly trying to say, "the Self is not Pure Consciousness because memory/attentiveness changes and flutters in and out", to which Advaita responds, "we never said that memory and attentiveness are the Pure Consciousness and Self in question, quite the contrary in fact"

>Compare this argument to what Ramanuja argues later (BS, 41), namely that in deep sleep the “I” persists but consciousness does not. Therefore the Self (which is the “I”) cannot be identical with consciousness, pure or otherwise. “I slept happily,” not “I was pure consciousness.”
Advaita agrees with Ramanuja that the "I" i.e. the Knower persists throughout deep sleep and dream while (little "c") consciousness doesn't. Ramanuja's argument here is predicated on the same misunderstanding as above, but I would also add the point that one would never have the sense "I was/am Pure Consciousness" anyways until after spiritual enlightenment because the Self is normally wrongly identified with the intellect (because of avidya), as stated in Brihadaranyaka Up. 4.3.7: ""Which is the self?" "This purusha which is identified with the intellect".

>> No.14209460 [View]
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>>14208865
>He states out clearly that reality of becoming is the same as reality of non-being in that they exist in so far as there's no core that holds them together and thus allows for things to become/change/etc
The point is that in order for Nagarjuna's arguments against his opponents to work he is forced to resort to inconsistent logic, in some passages he will define what's real as that which is manifested and arisen and then in other passages say that what's real is that which has never arisen, and is beginningless and eternal. These two definitions cannot both be true at the same time, and so they will only work against one of the opponents arguments that Nagarjuna uses them against but not both, Nagarjuna wants to have his cake and eat it too.
>You're(and the critique guy) still stuck with the idea that for a thing to exist there must be something that must be "itself" part from the parts. When if that's the case, then that thing can never change, never interact, etc and these things cannot cause the changing world to be.
Exactly, that's why Brahman in Advaita is immutable, unchanging and as the all-comprehensive principle in which everything is contained never "interacts" with or "causes" anything, but only through It's power of maya (it being the very svabhava of Brahman to effortlessly wield maya while remaining as unchanging Bliss just as it is the nature of the sun to emit light) appears to create an illusory world of phenomena, a world which itself is sublated by right knowledge and is revealed as never having really existed to begin with in moksha. The effect is only an appearance of the unchanging cause, the ultimately unreal manifested world never enters into a direct causal relationship with the cause of Brahman just as it is superimposition which causes the appearance of the snake at night and not the underlying rope where the snake is seen that itself causes us to perceive it as a snake. Nagarjuna's argument here is one that only supports the Advaitic view (Advaita uses similar arguments against Vedanta schools who don't accept the Advaitic maya and who want to believe in a completely-real creation directly caused by Brahman), in case you weren't aware Nagarjuna didn't know what Advaita was and so none of his critiques really apply to it, he mostly attacked Nyaya and Samhkya which are quite different.

>> No.13796297 [View]
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13796297

>>13795882
Brahman remains the focus of the discussion for most of the Upanishads. Adi Shankara was an important Hindu philosopher who wrote wonderful commentaries on the Upanishads and other scriptures explaining their meaning. You can read about Brahman in his commentaries below here, which is where the picture OP posted is from; his writings are some of the best that there are on that topic

https://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-Vol-1.pdf
https://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-vol2.pdf

If you felt like you dont understand his writing or didnt know a lot of the words than just read an intro to Hindu philosophy/Vedanta book such as any of the ones below and it will make sense

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.506393/page/n3
https://archive.org/details/VedantaHeartOfHinduismHansTorwesten/page/n7
https://archive.org/stream/reneguenon/1925%20-%20Man%20and%20His%20Becoming%20according%20to%20the%20Ved%C3%A2nta#mode/2up

>> No.13406398 [View]
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>> No.13068136 [View]
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>>13068052
The earliest extensive discussions of "fearlessness" in recorded literary history occur in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad from around the 9th-8th century BC

>> No.12889597 [View]
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>> No.12556385 [View]
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>>12556305
you're welcome, good luck in your journey

>> No.12367412 [View]
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>>12367121
>>12367168

It entirely will depend on how you present it and what disclaimers you make. If you begin the book with an introduction stating exactly what you described here, namely that it is you trying to make non-dualism accessible to people without all the added technical details and sanskrit vocab, I don't see why people would object. There are already books with the name non-dualism in the title on amazon which cover more than just Advaita.

The only reason people would feel upset with you was if you were dishonest or deceitful in some way such as if you presented your book as something that it weren't (i.e. the authentic and authorized representation of the teachings of a certain school). As long as you say that the book is just your personal attempt to integrate those ideas and make them accessible, most religious traditions would probably actually greatly appreciate you helping to disseminate teachings it would agree in principle with.

>Am I allowed to do this, and use concepts like Atman-Brahman, without aligning with everything in Advaita, or letting my text become part of said tradition?
Of course! although if you do so you should provide the above disclaimers and make it clear you think Advaita agrees with or is in alignment with the truth rather than that it is specially the Hindu tradition of Advaita which is the absolute truth and nothing else

>I don't want Westerners to skip over the text because they think it involves elements foreign to them, and to understand that the fact that Eastern cultures spoke of monism best does not make the concepts themselves Eastern.
Well then all you have to do is not use eastern words in the title, and to make it clear on the blurb on the back that it's not just a presenting of an eastern idea. All you have do is give a title involving 'transcendental', 'mystic' 'unity' etc and people will be able to get the idea.

>Will people come after me if I use concepts from these traditions, but do not subscribe to them entirely? Am I expected to learn every Sanskrit term and agree with every existing doctrine? Am I allowed to even make my own "school of thought", mixing some of the existing ideas with my own contributions?
No not at all, this is so long as you take the right precautions explained above and present the work as being the product of your own views and experience etc. In fact, you would probably easily find Swamis willing to write approving reviews/blurbs promoting your book (if its good) for helping to make spiritual teachings more accessible.

btw I would be interested in your book and would be happy to offer my feedback/advice/thoughts, if you wanted someone to talk to about it you can reach me at matt92457@gmail.com I live in America

>> No.11640730 [View]
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>>11640687
>I was also thinking about studying traditionalism, it seems to be helpful to get westerners into this mindset

Guénon's 'Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines' (free online) is generally recommended as the starting point because as his first book it provides an intro to his thought and all the terminology he uses (and which are reused by Evola, Eliade, Schuon et al.), while also serving as a helpful intro to Hinduism, with a focus on Vedanta particularly; although much of it applies to understanding Daoism and Sufism too.

>> No.11489544 [View]
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11489544

>>11489542

>He, God, is One; God is the Ultimate; He did not beget, nor was He begotten, nor is there any equal to Him (112:1-4)

This is a classic example of a Quran verse that is equally valid when applied to the Brahman of Advaita (many such cases)

>And whoever seeks anything as a religion but complete submission to Allah shall not have it accepted of him and in the afterlife shall be ruined. (3:85)

From the Traditionalist viewpoint it is a verse demonstrating that the fundamental religious task in life is to understand and submit oneself to the truth of the all-pervading reality of god. By virtue of someone not doing this they do not achieve the ultimate ends, which in comparison to the bliss and peace of final liberation is hell-like. One could even interpret this as riffering on the same Advaitic point that it is knowledge (of the truth) which alone leads to liberation, and that submitting oneself to this knowledge (as a preparation for the eventual personal realization of its truth ) is required to achieve the ultimate ends.

>Allah does not forgive that any should be associated with Him, but forgives what is other than that to whomever He wills" (4:48)

One could literally interpret this as non-dualism, there is nobody associated with Him, there is only Him, and that remains true in an absolute sense which means that everything we perceive including our selves is a manifestation of Him.

etc and so on, you could find hundreds of examples like this

Furthermore there is the point that Sufism is nearly identical with many aspects of the eastern doctrines in particular Daoism and non-dualistic forms of Vedanta. This anon here goes into it a bit >>11485934, in particular the first part of his post explaining Sufism is like a basic TLDR of Advaita Vedanta. The idea that only one path within one set of prescriptions and vows is valid and correct is silly when it leads to virtually the same sort of state as the end-goals and spiritual realizations of the other paths. Who is to say how one even got there when one is immersed in the bliss of escaping the lesser self experiencing everything as divine. If case you had any doubt that they were similar, Advaita itself teaches that Advaita doctrine is all only a support for realization but that the final realization and being itself goes beyond all names and forms.

>> No.11463150 [View]
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11463150

>>11461807
>>11461830

OP here is an update to the Advaita list copypasta in case you make any more threads. The ones in the current list only includes 8 when Shankara wrote 10 Upanishad commentaries, here are the other two.

>Brihadaranyaka Upanishad commentary of Shankaracharya
https://archive.org/stream/Brihadaranyaka.Upanishad.Shankara.Bhashya.by.Swami.Madhavananda

>Chandogya Upanishad commentary of Shankaracharya
https://archive.org/stream/Shankara.Bhashya-Chandogya.Upanishad-Ganganath.Jha.1942.English

Also here is another good text to list in the secondary texts part of it (assuming it's still enough to fit in one post)

>The Kaivalya Navaneeta (Cream of Liberation)
http://ramana-maharshi.weebly.com/uploads/2/4/7/2/24723372/kaivalya_navaneeta_-_cream_of_liberation.pdf

>> No.11342191 [View]
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>>11341439
>you say that the negative ones don't even exist in the manifested world you are plainly contradicting yourself

Not that the negative ones don't exist but that the actual reality underlying everything transcends any positive/negative qualities. Any sense whatsoever of positive/negative can only be considered as existing in our mind, from when we try to impose our flawed perspective on reality. No one aspect of Brahman contradicts any one other. There is no contradiction of there being a 'false' or 'negative' which exists simultaneously with something that's 'positive'. Nothing in the manifest and unmanifest contradict the other, the former just existing as an actualization of an infinite set of possibilities contained in the later.

>This means that the goodness of dharma is entirely arbitrary if both principles are equally of Brahman, and this also means that since ignorance is necessarily a divine emanation falsehood shares in the same truth as truth itself does, if there even is any truth to be found.

If by what you mean here is that ('goodness of dharma and truth/falsehood become arbitrary if both of them are ultimately Brahman) Again this is the wrong view, because the alleged falseness that was supposedly existing in the first place in no way reflects the underlying reality but exists only as an apparition or mirage in the minds of the ignorant. There is no falsehood which exists at the same time as truth. It remains true that within the infinite ocean of Brahman there are an indefinite amount of beings who all perceive themselves in varying degrees as being different from Brahman. The fact that there are these portions of Brahman perceiving themselves as non-Brahman does not contradict Brahman itself. All the various beings in the various stages of realization are all themselves suspended in and emanating from Brahman.

>So limit doesn't exist but our limited perspective does? Or our perspective doesn't exist because it's limited which means that very statement and all of the truth in it doesn't actually exist? Both are contradictions.

The Absolute reality is non-dual One. It is infinite and limitless, this is the only reality; all other realities being conventional. Limit does not really exist. Our limited perspectives do exist, but only in the sense of that within the all-encompassing unity there are various beings more or less ignorant of the truth.

>> No.11313135 [View]
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>>11311660
>I wouldn't say so, there isn't really an equivalent to Plato, Sankara was much later and was mostly a commentator while Plato is all original works. The principle Upanishads are mostly earlier and are foundational, maybe they're the closest.

In my original post that you relied to I meant that in the sense that he is the Plato of Hindu thought insofar as he was the central and most important Hindu thinker in historical times. Of course there are important texts existing before him like the two Itihasas, Upanishads and the Brahma Sutras, but barely anything is known about their authors Vyasa, Valmiki or Badarayana, we only know about them from the traditional stories and myths. Many people think Vyasa actually denotes a group of people rather than one person. Adi Shankara is the first major figure who clearly lived at a certain point in the historical record, who composed many texts, who is recorded as having traveled around writing, debating, establishing monasteries etc. The difference between him and the previously mentioned authors is that they are shadowy figures that we only know about from fragments of tales about them but Shankara is clearly established as having lived in the 8th century.

He is also similar to Plato in that he was super influential upon Hinduism like Plato was for western philosophy. Non-dualism had been taught in India long before him (Its found all throughout the prasthanatrayi for example) but it was due to how comprehensive and authoritative his commentaries were that he helped establish non-dualism as the main orthodox understanding of Hindu doctrine; not to mention that he traveled around setting up many monasteries that continued teaching it. The English translations of his Prasthanatrayi commentaries are more than 3,000 pages and he also wrote dozens of philosophical texts and devotional poems. A number of the monasteries he set up still exist today, many sannyasa orders trace their initiatic lineage back to him, and he is also credited with reestablishing the popular Smarta tradition.

Despite that he disagreed with Shankara on some points Ramanuja (who studied under an Advaita teacher) and Vishishtadvaita are also greatly indebted to Shankara because they basically teach the same thing but with a slightly different emphasis. Dvaita has only had very minor influence historically compared to Advaita, which along with the closely related Vishishtadvaita have formed the main understandings of Hindu doctrine for most of history. Almost all Hindu texts composed after him display significant Advaita or Vishishtadvaita influence. Out of all the historical figures in Hinduism that are clearly known to have existed at a certain time and place there is nobody else who even comes close to him.

>> No.11277923 [View]
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11277923

>>11277917

VASISTHA continued: Established in this realisation of the truth, the great sages lived for ever in peace and equanimity. They were free from psychological predisposition and hence they did not seek nor reject either life or death. They remained unshaken in their direct experience like another Merumountain.Yet, they roamed the forests, islands and cities, they travelled to the heavens as if they were angels or gods; they conquered their enemies and they ruled as emperors—they engaged themselves in diverse activities in accordance with scriptural injunctions as they realised that such was appropriate conduct. They enjoyed the pleasure of life; they visited pleasure gardens and were entertained by celestial damsels. They duly filfilled the duties of the household life. They even engaged themselves in great wars. They retained their equanimity even in those disastrous situations where others would have lost their peace and balanced state of mind. Their mind had fully entered the state of satva or divinity and was therefore utterly free from delusion, from egoistic notion ('I do this') and from the desire for achievement, though they did not reject such achievement or the rewards for their actions. They did not indulge in vain exultation when they defeated their enemies nor did they give way to despair and grief when they were defeated. They were engaged in natural activities, allowing all actions to proceed from them nonvolitionally. Follow their example, O Rama *. Let your personality (egosense) be egoless and let appropriate actions spontaneously proceed from you. For the infinite indivisible consciousness alone is the truth; and it is that which has put on this appearance of diversity, which is neither real nor unreal. Hence live completely unattached to anything here. Why do you grieve as if you are an ignoramus?

>> No.11191051 [View]
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11191051

>>11190855
>but I ultimately his critiques have their foundation in wacky hyperborean UFO flying Arctic Aryan lunacy.

The ultimate irony is that it was actually in fact Indo-Europeans living in hyperborean regions who composed the vedas thousands of years ago, but the ultimate teachings of the vedas themselves transcend any type of categorization or differentiation such as race and culture and that when people get hung up on the racial aspect of this it prevents them from viscerally understanding the deeper metaphysical truths involved.

>> No.10287500 [View]
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10287500

no, this is.

reading in itself is not good nor bad.

it is only properly assimilated reading that is useful for the mind and so for life. so, those who rely only on experience remain blind, but those who rely only on books wont be able to use what they read. the assimilation method cant be told, it has to be found out on ones own.

>> No.9618296 [View]
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9618296

>they havent realized buddhism is the medicine and vedanta the actual food

keep feeding on ur medicine and remaining attached to your unattachment. we cant change how the human mind works, only get to know how it does it and then live by it

>> No.8171929 [View]
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8171929

post pics that explain more than thousands of words.

>> No.8151228 [View]
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8151228

>>8150899
hinduism > buddhism

buddhism didnt come out of a vacuum. it is just an unorthodox hinduist way that, presenting itself as new, borrow and builds on all the hinduist concepts and general worldview. buddhism is therapy for hinduists. but only a temporal one, one sort of escapism that can only be ultimately solved by facing the hinduist contradictions, not by avoiding them. vedanta does this. but to get it you first have to be a hinduist, then try buddhism, or jainism, or carvaka, or ajivika (the 4 nastika or unorthodox views) live them, see that they dont solve it and then, by all you learned there, solve the initial problems.

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