/lit/ - Literature

>>15144667

>>14998685
>How does the rest support non dualism? The fact the soul is eternal also means the eternal self, the eternal I of each person, will transcend both the cosmos and history and not dissolve into the "oneness".
People who have not studied non-dualism often assume that it about one's consciousness dissolving into the 'oneness' of Brahman. In reality what Advaita teaches is that Self (Soul) does not undergo "dissolution" and there is not a confusing melting of a multiplicity of souls into an all-engulfing ocean which snuffs out their individuality; instead what is taught in Advaita is that one's innermost Self is rather completely identical with and non-different from God, and that in liberation one realizes the actual divine nature of the Self. Both before and after the death of the body the same Self of the aspirant is already identical with God in His undivided totality and when the body falls there is no difference in or dissolution of one's Soul, rather its true nature as the unlimited Infinite is able to shine forth completely unobscured once it is no longer associated with the limiting adjunct of the body. God's consciousness is never actually separated or divided up, what we think of as our individual consciousness is just the individual non-conscious intellect (in the subtle body) being illuminated by the light of the eternally conscious undivided Self of God and in the process seeming to become an individual consciousness itself similar to how a crystal placed next to a red cloth appears to take on the color of the cloth. God's consciousness is the only consciousnesses in existence, what we thought was our eternal souls was just the one consciousness of God appearing to be an individual soul because of its association with the body just as the crystal appears to take on the color of the cloth. As God's consciousness was never separated from It's own essential nature It does not need to be reunited with or dissolved back into Itself. Until you understand this we are not even talking about the same thing.

>>14973784
>It's similar to how Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj said there is no one that suffers when questioned about a genocide.
It's not a problem when ontological non-dualists like Vedantists such as Nisargadatta Maharaj say this instead of epistemic non-dualists like Madhyamaka and related Buddhist thought, because the ontological non-dualist actually admits the existence of a higher reality transcending illusion whereby the consciousness that appeared to be suffering isn't actually suffering but instead is safe and untouched forever abiding as eternal bliss but the epistemic non-dualist Buddhist does not admit any such absolute reality different from our embodied experience and instead says that the absolute reality Nirvana is non-different from Samsara and that we cover up and falsify the former with conceptualization

>>14966419
>But I don't understand how a complete confusion, dissolution into an all-engulfing impersonal oneness
Is that really an even-handed portrayal of Advaita? Have you read Shankara? Can you point to anything specific he ever wrote which is confusing? Advaita does not teach that there is any confusion or anything confusing when one realizes the non-difference of God and the Self, but Self-knowledge is held to be a perfect knowledge, a divine illumination which permanently uproots and destroys all vestiges of ignorance and confusion. The Self (Soul) does not undergo "dissolution" and there is not a confusing melting of a multiplicity of souls into an all-engulfing ocean which snuffs out their individuality; instead what is taught in Advaita is that one's innermost Self is rather completely identical with and non-different from God, and that in liberation one realizes the actual divine nature of the Self. Both before and after the death of the body the same Self of the aspirant is already identical with God in His undivided totality and when the body falls there is no difference in or dissolution of one's Soul, rather its true nature as the Infinite is able to shine forth completely unobscured.