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/lit/ - Literature


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14197045 No.14197045 [Reply] [Original]

Where to start with Shankara and why is his system better than Theravada?

>> No.14197074

>>14197045
https://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-Vol-1.pdf
https://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-vol2.pdf

>> No.14197211
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14197211

>>14197045
>Where to start with Shankara
I'd strongly recommend beginning with his shorter Upanishad commentaries that this poster already linked >>14197074. The first volume begins with some shorter Upanishad commentaries by him that are around 20-100 pages each that are much easier to digest than his much longer works, reading those first gives you some time to adjust and grasp his ideas before you proceed to deeper levels. If you are having trouble understanding it, you can use as reference-points "Advaita Vedanta: a philosophical reconstruction" by Deutsch, or the chapter on Vedanta in "The Advaita Tradition in Indian Philosophy" by Sharma (both books are on lib-gen)

>why is his system better than Theravada?
There are several reasons why I see it as better. It's a much more comprehensive metaphysics which answers all the questions that Theravada leaves unanswered or gets wrong. Theravada posits dependent-origination as the cause of samsara, which was destroyed as completely illogical by both Vedantists and Mahayana thinkers. There is the exception of certain small groups of Theravada which don't teach this, but they along with Mahayana have no answer at all for what causes samsara, which makes me question whether they really know how to be liberated from it. If you don't know how you entered into a vast Labyrinth, how can you expect to find your way out? Advaita solves this by having Brahman be responsible for samsara via His power of maya which is the only plausible answer that I've ever seen. Second, Theravada largely accepts the doctrine of momentariness which Shankara also completely destroyed as illogical and contradictory to our experience. Third, Theravada largely holds to the view of there being no Self or Atma which is absurd. Shankara destroyed most Buddhist arguments against there being no Self in his writings and explains how when you play close attention none of them accord with our actual conscious experience. Lastly, there is also the point that reading through Shankara's writings themselves can directly induce transcendental experiences when read comparable to the heights of those reachable through meditation, mantra-repetition, yoga etc. Shankara has an amazingly lucid mind and wonderful prose such that he is a great joy to read, he constructs a staircase and leads you up it by the hand. No Theravada material that I'm aware of is like that, I find the Pali Canon to be a chore to read, repetitive, pedantic and uninspiring, and the same goes for books about Theravada.

>> No.14197251

>>14197211
Thank you for your reply. I find it very informative and useful. I'm lost and I don't know where to find truth. I've tried to read the Upanishads but the feeling I get when I read is too strong. I feel too excited, too joyous to the point where it becomes uncomfortable. Why do you feel as if Shankara's writings are more truthful than Abrahamic religion?

>> No.14197361
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14197361

>>14197251
>Why do you feel as if Shankara's writings are more truthful than Abrahamic religion?
It's hard to explain, you'll really just have to read him yourself to find out why. If I had to answer though, it's that I agree with the arguments raised by different Platonic, Christian, Muslim, Hindu etc thinkers for the existence of God and I agree that the notion that the universe could appear by chance or for no reason is nonsensical. God or the One is really the only thing that explains why there is something instead of nothing and why there is so much pre-established harmony. At the same time I disagreed with the notion of the Abrahamic God as being someone with preferences, wishes etc who involves himself in the affairs of earth, destroyed cities etc. Advaita for me satisfies all the requirements of a conception of God that could explain why there is a universe but without all the baggage that comes with viewing the Biblical God as that being. Additionally, he is a very compelling dialectician and I found myself agreeing with all his arguments that he uses against the various devils-advocate opponents whom Shankara debates in his writings. There was also that when I paid really close attention I found that what Shankara wrote about the nature and phenomenology of consciousness, awareness and the mind remained true to my actual experience and accurately described how I perceive and interact with the universe. At a certain point it starts to become self-evident that what he is saying is true.

>> No.14197398

>>14197361
do you practice some form of yoga?

>> No.14197750

>>14197211
>Lastly, there is also the point that reading through Shankara's writings themselves can directly induce transcendental experiences when read comparable to the heights of those reachable through meditation, mantra-repetition, yoga etc.
Are there any other testimonies of mystical experience just from reading Shankara besides those coming from anons of 4chan?

>> No.14197818

>>14197750
None immediately come to mind. In the various books about Vedanta written by scholars some of them mention a process where you gradually discover that it's true as you read the texts. Towestan's book on Vedanta as well as Sharma's I believe talk about this at some point. On the wikipedia page of the Yoga Vasistha there is a quote from someone describing something very similar from the reading of the text

>Indian freedom fighter Vinayak Damodar Savarkar has praised Yoga Vasistha. Quotes from his Autobiography "My Transportation For Life":[55]
>"All of a sudden I fell upon the Yoga Vashistha, and I found it of such absorbing interest that I have come to regard it ever since as the best work on the Vedanta Philosophy. The propositions were so logical, the verse is so beautiful, and the exposition is so thorough and penetrating that the soul loses itself in raptures over it. Such a fine combination of philosophy and poetry is a gift reserved only for Sanskrit poets"
>"When I used to be lost in the reading of the Yoga Vashistha, the coil of rope I was weaving dropped automatically from my hands; and, for hours on end I lost the sense of possessing the body and the senses associated with that body. My foot would not move and my hand was at a stand still. I felt the deeper yearning to surrender it all. All propaganda, all work seemed such a worthless task, a sheer waste of life. At last the mind and the matter asserted their sway over the body and swung it back to work again"

>> No.14197976

>>14197045
Temple of Doom

>> No.14198112

>>14197211
Enlightened anon, would you recommend I read the Upanishads and then move on to Shankara's commentary or should I read them side by side?

>> No.14198727

>>14198112
It's not needed to read the Upanishads first without commentary. Shankara's commentaries includes the entire text of the Upanishad being commented on, so when you read his commentaries you are also reading the Upanishad in full.

>> No.14199594

>>14197398
No, I would like to study and practice it more in depth in the future but my life is pretty busy right now and I don't have the time. I try to read Hindu and other mystic/eastern metaphysics for at least an hour or two every day which sort of fills the space of yoga for me. It's considered more important in Vedanta anyway to maintain a continuous memory and awareness throughout the day of non-duality, which Vedanta texts explain how to do, that is also something I do which constitutes one of the main spiritual practices that I have.

>> No.14199598

Is ramunaja my best bet if I cant let go of the idea of God being personal?

>> No.14199610
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14199610

Start by reading a history of Indian philosophy that is not written by a Hindu nationalist. Try to avoid ones published by contemporary Indian presses, or by Buddhist presses. Take anything you read with a grain of salt. For example on /lit/ there is a neo-Vedantist poster who shills the Hindu nationalist position. Everything he says is taken from pro-Advaita biased sources.

Example of dissenting opinions from a major historian of Indian philosophy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surendranath_Dasgupta

According to S.N. Dasgupta,
>Shankara and his followers borrowed much of their dialectic form of criticism from the Buddhists. His Brahman was very much like the sunya of Nagarjuna [...] The debts of Shankara to the self-luminosity of the Vijnanavada Buddhism can hardly be overestimated. There seems to be much truth in the accusations against Shankara by Vijnana Bhiksu and others that he was a hidden Buddhist himself. I am led to think that Shankara's philosophy is largely a compound of Vijnanavada and Sunyavada Buddhism with the Upanisad notion of the permanence of self superadded.

>> No.14199619

>>14199598
yes, vishishtadvaita is true hinduism

notice all the advaita people are westerners or western expats, who only read western/westernized writers

>> No.14199620

>>14199594
“30 minutes of meditation every day. If you are too busy and cannot make time for 30 minutes of meditation, 1 hour is needed.”

>> No.14199676

>>14197211
Buddha fags utterly destroyed and exposed!

>> No.14199701

>>14199619
>notice all the advaita people are westerners or western expats, who only read western/westernized writers

This is sadly true. They spend too long away from India and they lose touch with their own culture, and they turn into weed-smoking Neoplatonists and bootleg mystics. Guenonfag would rather read one page of Parmenides in Paris than live in his own country.

>> No.14199717

>>14199619
>>14199701
Not an argument. Kashmir Shaivism hails from India and its Advaita Vedanta.

>> No.14199747

Can we all agree that ISKCON is garbage?

>> No.14199748

>>14199619
hello gora larper

>> No.14199765

>>14199747
Why?
It was pretty authentic until the guru died
Modern iskcon is just a movement without a leader

>> No.14199772

>>14199717
Did you read that in a book while living in Idaho, Guenonfag? Plastic pandit.

>>14199747
Agreed.

>> No.14199798

>>14199772
>Guenonfag
You guys are obsessed with that anon, seeing him everywhere and under your beds. Get help.

>> No.14199822

>>14199798
If it's not you then my apologies, he's a neo-Vedantist and former Blavatsky follower who had a big "conversion" through Guenon and shills him here. But he's basically still a theosophist and somehow thinks he's a real Hindu, so he misleads a lot of people.

>> No.14199868

>>14199765
Not just ISKCON but the whole Bhakti movement is such a fall from
The Vendantic higher back to popular theism.

>> No.14199880

>>14199868
Vedantic Height*

>> No.14199945

>>14197211
>If you don't know how you entered into a vast Labyrinth, how can you expect to find your way out?

Exactly why I am all the more impressed by Theravada and convinced of it's authenticity both historically and philosophically. Nothing could be easier and more dishonest than pretending to have it all figured out by solving and "destroying" other thoughts, and nothing could worsen the experience of samsara than needing a brahman boogeyman to attribute it too.

>Leads you up a staircase by the hand

That's exactly the kind of thing to fear in any philosophy. Just by around by the hand, don't worry I solved everything!

>The verses are more beautiful
I'm not even going to bother with why that has absolutely no effect on truth or any notion enlightened thought.

>> No.14199992

>>14199945
>Theravada
before the other posters swoop in to debate you, I’d like to recommend a book that you will probably appreciate a lot as a Theravadin:
https://www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hamburg.de/pdf/5-personen/analayo/compassionemptiness.pdf
it is all based off the Nikayas and goes over very important teachings

>> No.14200073

>>14199598
Ramanuja or Abhinavagupta are probably good ideas to read if that's the case, yes. I see them as being different from Advaita but still valid approaches to non-dualism that are more suitable for householders.

>> No.14200081

>>14200073
Advaita is philosophically incomplete, is the problem. It's a sanitized system closer to Buddhism than Hinduism, borderline heretical.

>> No.14200091

>>14200081
I disagree completely and consider Advaita to be the most orthodox school but that's okay, everyone is entitled to their own opinion

>> No.14200107

>>14199992
Thanks for the recommendation. And it's not like I don't appreciate and gather a great deal of wisdom and truth from other traditions. I just feel like I constantly read critiques and proof of the new schools validity and it's always so irritating and makes me raise an eye. I hope there are not Theravada scholars out there "trashing" and "destroying" the other traditions with logic and better, prettier verses. It would be humiliation beyond imagination. I'm sure there is a great deal of useful thought in Shankara, but I don't think I will ever be able to come to a declaration of absolute validity of any tradition as so many if his followers seem to do, at least not in this lifetime. It takes so much time pointing out the irony of trashing Theravada and expecting anything other than a shrug.

>> No.14200155

>>14200107
one more recommendation, if you’re up for some serious reading (again, exclusively examining the nikayas):
https://www.dhammikaweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/the_magic_of_the_mind.pdf
https://ahandfulofleaves.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/concept-and-reality-in-early-buddhist-thought_nanananda_1971.pdf
http://lirs.ru/do/sutra/Nibbana_Sermons,Nanananda.pdf
desu I recommend these even more than the other book, but they are a bit dense (not to say they aren’t very lucid and incredible, they are)

>> No.14200167

>>14200091
That is true, and I respect your right to yours obviously.

>>14200107
Well said anon, like the above person said, everyone's entitled to their view. It's always ugly when someone has to be so bitter and angry about dismissing another's ideas. Ironically it makes them and their philosophy look worse than their opponent's.

>> No.14200218

>>14200167
Cool beans, I will save those and have a look.

>> No.14200241

>>14199992
>every chapter is called "compassion + x"
So i take it this guy is one of those western Buddhists that thinks Buddhism is just a cult of morality?

>> No.14200281

>>14200241
on the surface it might seem that way but it’s about compassion as it relates and is inextricably tied to transcendental wisdom in the Buddhist tradition.
Denial of the prominent role of compassion in Buddhism would be equally as bad as reducing it to a cult of morality

>> No.14200365

>>14200281
Alright. I'll check it out. I just try to avoid the morality types that are so prevalent in some Theravada circles, and I googled the guy and his teacher is Bhikkhu Bodhi who goes around basically saying Buddhists can't vote Trump and shit like that.

But yeah I do not deny a prominent role of compassion in Buddhism. But I also think Buddhism is about becoming a arhat and not about building hospitals or teaching African women to read. However mundanely good those things are.

>> No.14200432

>>14200365
>But I also think Buddhism is about becoming a arhat
you’d probably like those PDFs I posted a lot more then:
>>14200155

>> No.14200453

>>14199868
????
Upanishads is basically a textbook to bhakti

>> No.14200565

>>14200432
Nice, I missed those in the thread. Looks more up my alley. Thanks!

>> No.14200817

>>14199945
>Nothing could be easier and more dishonest than pretending to have it all figured out by solving and "destroying" other thoughts
Is that why the Buddha is constantly debating and attacking the views of other people and schools in the Pali Canon? What a hypocritical thing to say

>> No.14201021

>>14199620
meditation is less important than knowledge

>> No.14201095

>>14197045
>>14197074
>>14197211
>>14197251
>>14197361
>samefagging again
typical guenonfag

>> No.14201101

>>14201095
i think you missed a couple of his typical "Based!! Thanks based Advaita anon!!" replies to himself making recommendations to himself

now we wait for him to reply "Guenonfag?? Who is this Guenonfag?? Y'all are obsessed haha. I've never seen this Guenonfag.. He sounds like quite the hunk though.." reply to these posts

>> No.14201152

>>14201095
>>14201101
obsessed

>> No.14201158

>>14201152
learn sanskrit, neovedantist

>> No.14201296
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14201296

>>14201101
>>14201152
New OC

>> No.14201321

>>14201296
absolutely obsessed

>> No.14201341
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14201341

>>14201296

>> No.14201361

>>14201341
got em

>> No.14201482

>>14198727
I see, thank you very much enlightened anon. I tried reading the Upanishads but they seem so dense I was a bit worried I wouldn't grasp everything

>> No.14201519

The goal should ultimately be to realize non-duality.
Understand that shankara GREATLY respected ideas like bhakti and understood that ultimately one must follow the yoga which best corresponds to his nature.
So to reach that state of blissful awareness by brute forcing shankara method will not work for all people.
Keep contemplating the upanishads and study the wide realm of vedantic thought.
If you haven't read the bhagavad gita it should always be your starting read for any vedic philosophy and read before the upanishads.

>> No.14201538

>>14200817
The Buddha literally asks people to critically examine his doctrine you brain-dead shitshitter

>> No.14201804

>>14197211
Based anon, thank you so much!

>> No.14201875

>>14201804
based on what?

>> No.14201971

>>14201321
>doesn’t deny he is Guenonfag
lmao

>> No.14201978

>>14201296
This is perfect, thanks. Wait, let me do a Guenonfag: Based!!! Thanks so much for this. I bet you're very handsome :^)

Here's Guenonfag's most embarrassing recent freakout for anyone who missed it
>>/lit/thread/S14177852#p14185535
>It's been 24 hours and none of you ming-mongs have replied to this. All the more embarrassing considering YoU CaN't HaVe Up WiThOuT dOwN mY dUdEz loooooollzzlz lmafaooo :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!1!111! was intended to be the epic GOTCHA retort. Writhing animals.

>> No.14202565
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14202565

>>14201978
obsessed

>> No.14202722
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14202722

>>14202565
>having been found out and embarrassed, the timid guenonfag resorts to repeating 2016-era 4chan vernacular

>> No.14202793
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14202793

>>14202722
>may all beings be liberated from suffering, but not guenonfag, may that faggot burn in hell, how dare he criticize the blessed tathagata
>what time is it? good heavens, I need to go on 4chan and accuse anyone talking about Hindu philosophy in a positive way of being guneonfag
>it's part of my mission as a bodhisattva to patrol an anonymous sri lankan tea-cultivation forum to make sure nobody is being led astray from the tathagata
>Nirvana is the absence of objectification, and the Buddha showed the way to end suffering and we should ... huh! a Hinduism thead! I must quickly abandon what I'm doing and go in and post the same troll/bait copypastas and accuse everyone of being guenonfag
>haha you proved your guenonfag, everyone who points out I'm acting like schizo is actually guenonfag, checkmate! lmao

>> No.14202842

>>14202793
cringe

>> No.14202848

>>14202793
imo the buddhists don’t get disrespectful when talking about the actual doctrines and philosophy, it’s only the people who argue about the history who get really mean

>> No.14202866
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14202866

>>14202793
>throw autism tantrums online 24/7 about how Advaita is correct and perfect, Buddhism is wrong and other sophistry
>when people reply telling you to fuck off, they're the ones lacking compassion and being obsessed
The absolute state of guenonfag.

>> No.14202918

>>14202722
He really does that a lot too. He makes a lot of forced memes too.

>>14202793
Are you fucking nuts, Guenonfag? The whole reason people recognize you immediately is how insanely vicious and hostile you have consistently been for several years. You started out doing it in your own threads, which is why they would get deleted. At some point you started prowling the Buddhist threads and picking fights over the pettiest shit.

I still remember, and I will always remember, the time some guy had a good faith discussion about materialist philosophies in the Upanishads, you two didn't agree at all and you were a dick, and then literally the next day you claimed "that guy agreed with me in the end that Advaita is correct about everything." Then he turned up in the thread 10 minutes later and rightfully said what the fuck.

You make me sad dude. Maybe someone was a dick to you at some point, I don't know, but you take out your anger on everybody indiscriminately, and you're creepily manipulative in samefagging to boost your own posts. I really hope you get some help.

>> No.14202950

>>14202918
He won't get any help but on the other hand he'll also never attain enlightenment. Maybe he's realized that too and it's the reason why he keeps this whole circus going still.

>> No.14202964

>>14200817
Debating and attacking views are part of the critical process of discovery. You should also debate and attack your own views to critically asses what you believe to understand.

That is a far different thing than claiming to have all the answers and having solved all dharmic questions and represent the complete and only truth of all possible traditions.

>> No.14202983
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14202983

>>14202918
>>14202950
Yes, I'm supposed to be the angry and deranged one and yet here you both are, angrily attacking people and making accusations in a thread about Shankara where people were just minding their own business talking about him... how amusing

>> No.14202988

>>14202950
pretty much all dharmic traditions accept that if you get involved or invested in the dharma to this extent in your life, even if you don’t attain enlightenment in this life, you will in a near future lifetime. You’ve created the karmic ties to dharma teachings, and will be attracted to them or even given births to lives most conducive to practicing it, in the future.
So consider that he will get enlightened in a future life at least for sure, as will everyone else with an earnest interest

>> No.14202992

>>14202983
>No u
>Tries to ignore the OP directly bringing up Theravada

>> No.14202993
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14202993

>>14202983
>where people were just minding their own business talking about him

>> No.14203004

>>14202988
Whatever helps you sleep at night

>> No.14203007
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14203007

>>14202983
>minding their own business

guenonfag: expert at minding his own business

>>14202988
i hope so but he's certainly doomed himself in this life, living in the UK and spending weekday afternoons on the dole getting butthurt about buddhists on the internet

>> No.14203032

>>14197045
>why is his system better than Theravada
Poo detected

>> No.14203232

>>14201296
maybe the way he replies to himself pretending he’s another person, is some performance art metaphor representing brahman pretending to be different people when they are one and the same, like waves of the ocean waving to each other

>> No.14203233

>>14203232
Deep

>> No.14203520

>>14197211
>Lastly, there is also the point that reading through Shankara's writings themselves can directly induce transcendental experiences when read comparable to the heights of those reachable through meditation, mantra-repetition, yoga etc.

While I won't comment on the validity of your experiences, I will say that reading these testimonies in your posts always makes me chuckle. Imagining someone experiencing a growing spiritual orgasm everytime they re-read their favorite theologian's writings. I'd also caution, from my personal experience, not to confuse one's belief in conceptual profundity for the actual, pleasurable states attainable through meditation. Our minds can very easily tell ourselves that we've at last found "the truth", and produce it's own elation at the fact, when really it was only a mentally-caused feedback loop. Kind of like when virtually every Christian ends up believing that the Holy Spirit chose them, or that they *know* Jesus is the truth, but it's not something they can explain rationally and you just have to pray for God to grant the realization to you. Let your elation emerge not from your own belief in your pre-existing ideological system, but in the undeniable pleasures experienced through belief-less meditation, which anyone of any ideological background can access.

>> No.14203742

How does Hinduism differ from Buddhism? What are the differences between each school of Hinduism? How should one meditate, and what will it accomplish? How should one live their life?

>> No.14204183

>>14203742
I'm not affiliated with either, but Buddhism is a teaching on suffering and the end of suffering through enlightenment while Hinduism is the generic name for various Indian spiritual beliefs which don't necessarily have anything to do with suffering. I'm not aware of all of its schools but Advaita Vedanta also has a focus on enlightenment. Unlike Buddhism however it has more explicit things to say about metaphysics, something the Buddha refused to speak about perhaps to avoid confusing or alienating the less instructed people he intended to reach by giving them a practical road to realization. Pick whichever one you like better. Meditation as it is typically conceived of is a way to build concentration in order to allow you to attain enlightenment, but physically sitting down and focusing on the breath may not be the best way for you specifically to do that, so you may investigate and choose whatever activity suits you (as a personal tip, notice whatever you do that best helps you "forget yourself"). As for how to live your life: "To avoid all evil, to cultivate good, and to cleanse one's mind — this is the teaching of the Buddhas."

>> No.14204689

>>14202866
Just stop you pathetic excuse for a being.
Guenonfag is based af, we love him here.

>> No.14205526

Guenonfag rox

His haters suk