/lit/ - Literature

-Refutation of the concept of Advaita

In the text Paramokṣanirāsakārikā, Sadyotjyoti analyses the concept of Advaita as non-duality put forth by the Vedānta system. According to this, Brahman, the supreme reality which is of the form of consciousness is considered to be the only reality and hence it is the material cause (upādānakāraṇa) of the entire universe, and that, liberation consists in the complete merger of the self with Brahman without any trace of duality. Sadyojyoti controverts this view by objecting, if the self were to completely merge with Brahman, the material cause, then the self would be reborn, in which case, it cannot at all be considered to be mukti.

Rāmakaṇṭha develops further the arguments in his commentary on the Paramokṣanirāsakārikā. He continues by stating, if it is said that these types of questions cannot be fully explained since such views are beyond the reach of human logic and hence inscrutable and that therefore, the Veda (Śruti) is the only means for such conclusions, then, Sadyojyoti retorts by saying that other than Brahman, now the Veda is also held to be a reality by the followers Advaita Vedānta. This consequently destroys the very notion of non-duality as both Brahman and the Veda (as the means of supreme knowledge) are held to be real. In order to save the concept of Advaita if the Vedas as the means of knowledge are held to be unreal, then it is asked, what is the final source of Advaita knowledge since an unreal means cannot bring forth a real realization. Moreover, all logical relations between a means of knowledge (pramāṇa) and the object of knowledge (prameya) implies only complete duality. Thus, this view of Advaita Vedānta leads to the logical fallacy of infinite regress. If all means of knowledge are held to be unreal (asatya) by the Advaita Vedānta followers then the very knowledge of Advaita (that Brahman is the only reality) and of Brahman are also unreal, which Rāmakaṇṭha criticizes as leading only to nihilism and as an absolutely wrong interpretation of the Veda. If the Advaita Vedāntin says that even though the Vedic passages are unreal they generate the real knowledge [of Advaita], then Rāmakaṇṭha refutes it by saying that it is nothing but a trick by the Advaita Vedāntins to deceive others (mugdhaśrotriyapratāraka) and it is nothing but wishful thinking (manorājya), thus pulling down the entire edifice of Advaita Vedānta. The Ratnatraya of Śrīkaṇṭha also brings out the same logical fallacy of the Advaita view.

Rāmakaṇṭha states that Advaita Vedāntins cannot say that the Vedas are a valid means of knowledge in so far as they present the entire manifested world as the effect of nescience (avidyā) [and therefore unreal] and also indirectly a means of knowledge in presenting the non-dual Brahman as proclaimed in such Upaniṣadic passages, “neti neti ātmā”. For, if the Vedas have the unreal world as their purport (as claimed by the Advaita Vedāntins), they cannot be the means of knowledge and therefore cannot establish the non-duality of Brahman. Here also Śrīkaṇṭha adds his share of criticism of the Advaita Vedānta view: He says, if the Vedas are a means of knowledge and therefore, real, then, logically all that the Vedas speak is also real since they cannot have unreal or illusory objects as their purport. This fully shatters the Advaita Vedānta view of non-duality.

Further, as the Mrgendrāgama puts it, there will be the inevitable raise of the quadruple (catuṣṭaya): pramāṇa, prameya, pramiti and pramātā—the means of knowledge, the object of knowledge, the act of knowing [through the means of knowledge] and the knower [the self]. This definitely shatters the concept of non-duality of Advaita Vedānta.

Next, the Mrgendrāgama continues, as the Advaita Vedāntins hold there is neither agency of any action nor is there karma, there would be the contingency of similitude of experience [irrespective of one’s nature of karma] (bhogasāmya) since it is accepted by all that one’s own karma is the basic deciding factor according to which one is happy or miserable. Aghoraśiva in his sub-commentary on Nārāyaṇakaṇṭha’s commentary here, adds that since there are found to be different experiences (bhogavaictrya) in different selves, it proves that there are many selves (ātmanānātva) and not a unique self as held by the Advaita Vedāntins. For, experience is nothing but the actual undergoing of pain or pleasure by the individual self which is an undeniable fact and which naturally points to the existence of numerous selves. Thus, the Advaita Vedānta view that there are not many selves but only one, is demolished.

Refutation by Aghoraśiva: Neither the assertion of uniqueness of Ātmā nor the mukti by its realisation is possible. The assertion that the perception of duality is caused due to ignorance is also incorrect; For, avidyā is always removed by knowledge and it is different from the Ātmā, the highest unique reality. Thus the Advaita is self-defeating. If vidyā alone is real and the avidyā is unreal then since avidyā is unreal like the hare’s horn, to remove such an unreal avidyā resorting to knowledge as in the passage, ‘ayamātmā jñātavyo mantavyo , etc’ (this atman is to be known through contemplation) becomes useless like the effort to remove the hare’s horn.

The concept that Brahman is the material cum instrumental cause (abhinnanimittopādānakāraṇa) held by the Advaita Vedānta system is also criticized by the Śaivasiddhānta. Nārāyaṇakaṇṭha argues that if Brahman is held to be the material cause of both the sentient beings and insentient world, then the Brahman itself should be composed of consciousness as well as inertness, since according to the general rule, the qualities of the cause inhere in the effect. This would lead to the fundamental logical inconsistency of opposite qualities of sentience and inertness inhering in Brahman, which would inevitably lead to the destruction of the very same substratum. To accommodate this mutually opposing qualities, Brahman cannot be held to be partially conscious and partially inert, as that would make it prone to destruction, since anything composed of parts is liable to be destroyed and Brahman, in all the Vedic passages is declared to be whole. Further, it is the general rule and an observed fact that that which is the material cause [of another] is inert, just as the clay in the case of its effect, pot. So, Brahman, if held to be the material cause by the Advaita Vedāntins, then, it would be an inert object like clay, which is totally against Vedic passages.

Rāmakaṇṭha in his commentary on the Paramokṣanirāsakārikā of Sadyojyoti further refutes the Advaita Vedānta view according to which Brahman serving as Bimba (prototype) is erroneously (due to confusion) reflected as numerous individual selves, and which is ultimately unreal (asatya); He asks, there cannot be any confusion in Brahman which is held by Advaita Vedāntins as absolute consciousness. As the knower of supreme Brahman, each self should be real and this fact is also evidenced by the Upaniṣadic passage "tameva bhāntamanubhāti sarvaṃ tasya bhāsā sarvamidaṃ vibhāti" (When he shines, everything shines after him; by his light all this is lighted).

Aghoraśiva elaborates it in his commentary as follows: The Advaita Vedānta holds there is only a unique conscious substance which is the only reality; its blissful nature has been covered, and by knowing its real nature is the only cause for mokṣa. Śrīkaṇṭha refutes this view by saying that this is only the conception of those who, bereft of any joy, interpret the śruti passage, “ānandaṃ brahma” (happy brahman) as worldly joy which in reality means undiminished supreme bliss. This also shows that those who propound such a view are fully covered by the mala. He states that those Vedic passages that apparently express non-dualistic views have, in fact, a different meaning which is an implied one. Briefly Aghoraśiva refutes the view of Advaita Vedānta: The uniqueness of self is impossible to be established. For, there exist many śruti passages which fully establish that the selves are innumerable; those passages which seem to talk of the uniqueness of self have a different purport. Moreover the experience of birth, death, etc. by every self are undeniable.

We finally concluded the complete refutation of Advaita Vedanta with a verse from the Pauṣkarapārameśvara:
>na mokṣaṁ yānti puruṣāḥ svasāmarthyāt kadācana .
>muktvā prasādaṁ devasya śivasyāśivahāriṇaḥ
“Men never attain mokṣa just by their own effort without the supreme Grace of Śiva, the only remover of all evils.”

OM

bunch of horse shit desu

>>16009616
explain Tejobindu Upanishad, 3.1-3.12 then

>>16009616
take meds schizo

Retarded.

>gets even more entangled in maya
>here guys, i refuted advaita
Next thread.

>>16010330
Explain to me how realization of Brahman does not happen in and through maya? The simple fact that you realize that THIS is not real is a dependence on the very unreality in order to attain reality.

>>16010330
This x100

it's why I prefer Buddhism rather than the fucking mess that is Hinduism

>hurr prove this, durr refute that
these people are destined for perpetual samsara

>>16010471
Yeah, buddhism is valuable for its radical apophaticism, just like sometimes advaita is. But denying the reality (in its due degree) is nonsensical. Gudapada and Shankara affirm the world is neither real or unreal. The nondual indistinction of Brahman is just a counterpart of the world of multiplicity, it is not apophtic in any way.

>>16009616
>They point out some such inherent logical fallacies, namely, if Brahman alone is held to be real and unique then the means of such a cognition, namely, the Vedas, that speak of Brahman and only through which one comes to know about Brahman (as for example, the Upaniṣadic passage that states: taṃ tvaupaniṣadaṃ puruṣaṃ pṛcchāmi) and which is accepted as the highest pramāṇa, will have to be held to be unreal by the adherents of Advaita Vedānta.
When Advaita says that the world is unreal, they mean 'real' in the sense of absolutely real, i.e. uncaused, eternal, undecaying, unchanging; only Brahman possess this degree of absolute reality. Hence objects and the world are not absolutely real because they are not undecaying and unchanging. Objects and the world are not simply said to be "unreal" but are conditionally real, which recognizes their appearance in awareness while denying their absolute reality. It is the nature of Brahman's power to maya to cause the inexplicable appearance of the world which cannot be classified as 'real' (in an absolute sense) due that world being composite, changing, subject to decay, but at the same time it cannot be classified as unreal like a barren women's child or the antlers of a tiger because unlike the former examples the world actually appears in consciousness as something which is experienced, hence the world/maya is anirvachaniya, inexplicable and inexpressible.

The Upanishads belong to this world of conditionally real objects and are not absolutely real like Brahman is, but this not a problem because the main purpose of the Upanishads is to completely destroy ignorance. In Advaita, liberation is both an eternally present reality and the true nature of the Self, which is obscured by Brahman's power of maya, when ignorance is uprooted by the Upanishads and the guidance of the teacher then the already present reality of the Self as omnipresent liberated consciousness shines forth of its own accord like the sun after the clouds obscuring it have passed away. It is not a knowledge which is produced by another instrument like a pramana. Shankara in bhasya on the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad verse I.4.10. writes “It only removes the false notion, it does not create anything”. The Upanishads don't have to be absolutely real just like Brahman to eliminate ignorance, the mere fact that they are supernaturally revealed scriptures which are emanated (in conditional reality) from Brahman endows them with the capacity to destroy ignorance. An 11th century advaitin named Ānandabodha in his work Pramānamālā wrote the question "If the universe is unreal, the scriptures are also unreal, and so how can they be valid in regard to Brahmin?' to which Ānandabodha answered "Just as in a reflection, which is unreal, can indicate the prototype, which is real."

>>16010998
>>16009619
> liberation consists in the complete merger of the self with Brahman without any trace of duality. Sadyojyoti controverts this view by objecting, if the self were to completely merge with Brahman, the material cause, then the self would be reborn, in which case, it cannot at all be considered to be mukti.
This appears to be based on a misunderstanding. Brahman is unchanging in Advaita and never engages in any action, Brahman never actually creates or emanates the world, but simply wields or expresses It's power of maya which causes the false perception of the world. Brahman/the Self is unaffected by that maya and the world, the status of being a bound soul which transmigrates is falsely superimposed on Brahman/the Self by the jiva but it doesn't actually inhere in Brahman or bind Brahman, "just as the Sun is not tainted by the ocular and external defects, it being transcendental" - Katha Upanishad 2.2.11. Hence Brahman Itself is never actually transformed into the world or undergoes transmigration, hence a liberated soul which had realized and attained its identity with Brahman would not automatically be reborn, because Brahman never enters into embodiment or transmigration and never transforms into creation, but these are all only false concepts of the jivas.

>Sadyojyoti retorts by saying that other than Brahman, now the Veda is also held to be a reality by the followers Advaita Vedānta. This consequently destroys the very notion of non-duality as both Brahman and the Veda (as the means of supreme knowledge) are held to be real.
Here he seems to not understand that there is an absolutely real and conditionally real accepted in Advaita, and so he is trying to trip Advaita up on a contradiction which is not actually there (but which would be if Advaita only accepted real and unreal and not also the validity of the concept of conditional reality),
>In order to save the concept of Advaita if the Vedas as the means of knowledge are held to be unreal, then it is asked, what is the final source of Advaita knowledge since an unreal means cannot bring forth a real realization
This is addressed in the response to the first post above, the conditionally real scriptures which emanate from Brahman simply eliminate ignorance which when it disappears leaves the already present supreme reality shining in its wake.

>>16011008
>Thus, this view of Advaita Vedānta leads to the logical fallacy of infinite regress. If all means of knowledge are held to be unreal (asatya) by the Advaita Vedānta followers then the very knowledge of Advaita (that Brahman is the only reality) and of Brahman are also unreal,
False, because the complete realization of Brahman is the same as being Brahman, to know Brahman is to be Brahman, "He who knows that highest Brahman becomes even Brahman" - Mundaka Upanishad 3.2.9. The knowledge (which shines forth after ignorance is uprooted) that one is omnipresent unbound spotless non-dual awareness is a liberating knowledge which is not different from the absolute reality of Brahman's self-luminous consciousness shining in Its true nature untouched by ignorance. Hence the complete knowledge of Brahman as the only true and absolute reality is not unreal, hence there is no infinite regress.

>If the Advaita Vedāntin says that even though the Vedic passages are unreal they generate the real knowledge [of Advaita], then Rāmakaṇṭha refutes it by saying that it is nothing but a trick by the Advaita Vedāntins to deceive others (mugdhaśrotriyapratāraka) and it is nothing but wishful thinking (manorājya), thus pulling down the entire edifice of Advaita Vedānta.
This is simply a rhetorical attack which doesn't make any point worth refuting

>>16009622
>For, if the Vedas have the unreal world as their purport (as claimed by the Advaita Vedāntins), they cannot be the means of knowledge and therefore cannot establish the non-duality of Brahman. Here also Śrīkaṇṭha adds his share of criticism of the Advaita Vedānta view: He says, if the Vedas are a means of knowledge and therefore, real, then, logically all that the Vedas speak is also real since they cannot have unreal or illusory objects as their purport. This fully shatters the Advaita Vedānta view of non-duality.
This is just repeating the charges which were already addressed above

>>16011015
>there will be the inevitable raise of the quadruple (catuṣṭaya): pramāṇa, prameya, pramiti and pramātā—the means of knowledge, the object of knowledge, the act of knowing [through the means of knowledge] and the knower [the self]. This definitely shatters the concept of non-duality of Advaita Vedānta.
I'm not sure what point he is trying to make here. Those things in Advaita are considered to be experienced and created in conditional reality by the Self's power of maya, so the fact that we experience them in normal life doesn't refute Advaita since Advaita already admits this. If he is talking about the non-dual liberating knowledge of Brahman than this is wrong since in Advaita this knowledge is a supramundane spiritual realization which transcends and doesn't occur within the framework of normal subject-object relations. Subject-object relations occur in the mind and not in the Self, when ignorance is destroyed the Self shines forth as non-dual self-luminescent awareness without any accessories to that awareness like pramanas.

>Next, the Mrgendrāgama continues, as the Advaita Vedāntins hold there is neither agency of any action nor is there karma,
False, Advaita accepts that there is karma and this affects which lives the jives transmigrate into, karma is simply part of the conditionally real world and only applies to the jivas and not the Self/Brahman

>Aghoraśiva in his sub-commentary on Nārāyaṇakaṇṭha’s commentary here, adds that since there are found to be different experiences (bhogavaictrya) in different selves, it proves that there are many selves (ātmanānātva) and not a unique self as held by the Advaita Vedāntins. For, experience is nothing but the actual undergoing of pain or pleasure by the individual self which is an undeniable fact and which naturally points to the existence of numerous selves. Thus, the Advaita Vedānta view that there are not many selves but only one, is demolished.
The Upanishads repeatedly explain that the seeming multiplicity of selves cannot be taken as a reason for accepting the real existence of a plurality of selves or consciousnesses, because the Upanishads state that there is in truth one inner Self of all beings, as in for example "There is one Supreme Ruler, the inmost Self of all beings, who makes His one form manifold." - Katha Upanishad 2.2.12., or "This is he, the internal atman of all created things" - Mundaka Upanishad 2.1.4.

>>16011021
What is the relation of the plurality of beings to the Supreme Self? The answer is given in "Just as all the spokes are fixed in the nave and the felloe of a chariot wheel, so are all beings, all gods, all worlds, all organs, and all these individual creatures fixed in this Self." - Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.5.15. So does that mean that these beings and world fixed in this Self are completely real? No, this is denied when the Svetasvatara Upanishad in verse 6.15. states that "the Supreme Self alone exists". But if the Supreme Self alone exists, then how to account for the seeming existence in consciousness of a plurality of beings and the world which the Brihadaranyaka Upanishads says are fixed in the Self? The answer is given when the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad in verse 2.5.19. states that "The Lord on account of Maya is perceived as manifold" and when the Svetasvatara Upanishad states in verse 4.9. states that "Brahman projects the universe through the power of Its maya." But surely since the world is experienced as a changing and transient emanation of Brahman than it must be real? No, only the unchanging basis is real and not the apparent modifications, "By knowing a single lump of earth you know all objects made of earth. All changes are mere words,(existing) in name only. But earth is the reality." - Chandogya Upanishad 6.1.4. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad in verse 3.7.23. denies the existence of any of consciousness aside from Brahman's when it says that "there is no other witness but Him, no other hearer but Him, no other thinker but Him, no other knower but Him. " The perception of the reality of multiplicity, diversity, difference, plurality etc are equated with ignorance and are tied to further transmigration and the non-attainment of moksha in the Brihadaranyaka and Katha Upanishads when they both state that, "What is here, the same is there and what is there, the same is here. He goes from death to death who sees any difference here." Katha Upanishad 2.1.10., and "Through the mind alone is Brahman to be realized. There is in It no diversity. He goes from death to death who sees in It, as it were, diversity." - Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.4.19. To appeal to our common experience of the world as sufficient proof of the existence of a plurality of selves is to ignore one of the central teachings of the Upanishads.

> The assertion that the perception of duality is caused due to ignorance is also incorrect; For, avidyā is always removed by knowledge and it is different from the Ātmā, the highest unique reality. Thus the Advaita is self-defeating.
False, because as was explained above knowledge of the Self is to be the Self, hence Self-knowledge is not different from the Self

>>16011027
>If vidyā alone is real and the avidyā is unreal then since avidyā is unreal like the hare’s horn, to remove such an unreal avidyā resorting to knowledge as in the passage, ‘ayamātmā jñātavyo mantavyo , etc’ (this atman is to be known through contemplation) becomes useless like the effort to remove the hare’s horn.
Here he mistakenly believes that Advaita believes avidya/maya to be completely and totally non-existent like the hare's horn, whereas in truth avidya in Advaita is held to be a part of conditional existence, and does not have complete non-existence like a hare's horn. The Upanishads uproot ignorance about the reality of the world and the reality of a plurality of beings by explaining that they are only apparently real creations of Brahman's maya which causes the reality of Brahman to shine forth and leads the jiva to the knowledge that its innermost consciousness is ultimately none other than Brahman.

>>16009625
>Nārāyaṇakaṇṭha argues that if Brahman is held to be the material cause of both the sentient beings and insentient world, then the Brahman itself should be composed of consciousness as well as inertness, since according to the general rule, the qualities of the cause inhere in the effect. This would lead to the fundamental logical inconsistency of opposite qualities of sentience and inertness inhering in Brahman, which would inevitably lead to the destruction of the very same substratum.
This would only be a valid objection if Brahman actually materially transformed into the world as clay is transformed into a pot which would require an explanation of why the clay and the pot have different characteristics but this is not what Advaita teaches but instead says that Brahman through his power of maya causes the appearance of the conditionally real world while remaining Itself unmodified. To deny that Brahman through His power can cause the false appearance of a world that has non-conscious components while Himself being conscious is to deny the omniscience and omnipotentence of Brahman. In any case there is not a truly existing world with separate conscious and non-conscious parts, since there is only the infinite consciousness of Brahman and not individual consciousnesses, and in this consciousness appears the false world engendered by Brahman's maya, in other words consciousness projects the illusion of a non-conscious material world within Itself while remaining unchanged, and it doesn't transform from infinite consciousness into non-conscious objects and individualized consciousnesses and so there is no contradiction

>>16011034
>He asks, there cannot be any confusion in Brahman which is held by Advaita Vedāntins as absolute consciousness.
Confusion does not inhere in or taint Brahman but is only experienced by the jivas, when moksha is reached the jiva realizes that the awareness animating it was actually non-dual liberated infinite awareness all along and that the world and avidya never had any absolute (real) existence.
>As the knower of supreme Brahman, each self should be real and this fact is also evidenced by the Upaniṣadic passage "tameva bhāntamanubhāti sarvaṃ tasya bhāsā sarvamidaṃ vibhāti" (When he shines, everything shines after him; by his light all this is lighted).
This is refuted in the long discussion above where the Upanishad passages are cited which deny the truth of plurality and difference.
> Śrīkaṇṭha refutes this view by saying that this is only the conception of those who, bereft of any joy, interpret the śruti passage, “ānandaṃ brahma” (happy brahman) as worldly joy which in reality means undiminished supreme bliss.
This is wrong, Advaita interprets the bliss of Brahman to mean undiminished supreme bliss and not worldly joy, Shankara agrees with the Chandogya Upanishad in his commentary on it when in verse 7.23.1. it says "There is no happiness in the finite. Happiness is only in the infinite."
> Briefly Aghoraśiva refutes the view of Advaita Vedānta: The uniqueness of self is impossible to be established. For, there exist many śruti passages which fully establish that the selves are innumerable; those passages which seem to talk of the uniqueness of self have a different purport. Moreover the experience of birth, death, etc. by every self are undeniable.
This has already been addressed above

>>16011015
Ignorance and Knowledge (realization of Brahman) are either completely separated, unmixed or conjoined and mixed. If the former then how does this realization happen, how is there a way from ignorance to knowledge if they are wholly separated? Knowledge lies latent separated from the superimposed ignorance, without touching each other. What cleans that ignorance?
If the latter then the unreality of the world shares in the reality of the Reality, since they are not separated.

OP Here,

Here’s a TL;DR for everyone: a bunch of Indian horseshit

bump

>>16010377
>>16010695
>>16011332
waiting for the advaitins to answer these

bump

>>16011332
> how is there a way from ignorance to knowledge if they are wholly separated?
Because the eternally liberated Self is the underlying reality of everything and one's own essential nature, when the superimposed ignorance is removed, non-dual knowledge of the Self shines forth naturally. There is no way required other than the removing of ignorance, because when that ignorance is removed, the Self is discovered right there as though it were waiting.
>Knowledge lies latent separated from the superimposed ignorance, without touching each other. What cleans that ignorance?
The teachings imparted by the Upanishads and by one's teacher destroys that ignorance. That the Upanishads are a revealed text which emanate from Brahman are enough to guarantee this, although as a supporting argument, in the text Advaita Bodha Deepika, in response to the question 'how can something which is a part of the world of ignorance lead to the destruction of ignorance?' gives the answer that this can be so just as a forest of bamboo can rub together in the wind and generates sparks which start a fire which burns down the whole forest, leaving no forest behind.
>>16010377
The realization of Brahman does in a sense initially begin happen through maya, since through the maya-world one learns the preliminary teachings and acquires a purely verbal and theoretical grasp of non-dualism at first, but the actual liberating realization of Brahman or the Self is a remembrance or experiencing of one's true nature as unlimited spotless awareness. One is not realizing Brahman through the lenses of maya here, but the self-luminous awareness of the Self is basically directly manifesting to Itself once the obscuring clouds of avidya have vanished. The Self's luminescent unbound awareness as the Self's essential nature is really always 'manifested' or 'revealed' to the Self just as the sun always manifests light, but this is obscured to the jiva by ignorance, hence once that ignorance vanishes the already liberated Self makes itself known as the underlying reality; just as when the curtain is pulled back at an opera, the stage is automatically revealed by that very pulling back of the curtain, without requiring any additional action or accessory to make the stage known to the audience.

bros what ever happened to that one guy who was falsely doxed as guenonfag, is he ok? he had an inspiring story

>>16015107
are you using some kind of delirium generator?

>>16010471
Hinduism >>>> Buddhism

Buddhism is pleb stuff

>>16016746
OP makes me interested in buddhism, I don't want to become a fag spitting horseshit like this

>>16016746
Both are alright, it depends on the person. Guenonfag makes hinduism look like shit, some buddhists are just as bad for buddhism. Have to look past those fags at the good stuff.

>>16016746
Hindus literally plagiarize a lot of shit from Buddhists though. Case in point, guenonfag's responses to OP have mainly been 'advaita considers them conditionally real, whereas x is ultimately real'. This is Buddhism's 2 truths doctrine at work. In any case, I'd be embarrassed as a white man to say 'im hindu' in public. They'll just look at me as a drugged up 70s hippie who chants hare krishna all day. Whereas if I say 'im buddhist', they'll look the other way at best or call me a starbucks sipping liberal at worst.

>>16016988
guenonfag isn't white though, he's some kind of mixed race so maybe he can get away with it

>>16016993
I was referring to myself but didn't he post a pic of himself naked somewhere?

>>16017010
yeah and his distinctly non aryan fingernails too, he has US citizenship but he's possibly a beaner

>>16017045
>distinctly non aryan fingernails
You have to go back >>>/pol/

>>16016746
why does no-one care about sikhism, the other dharmic religion?

Why do you fags care so much about this? I bet none of you are Indians. I'm Indian from the priestly caste, some of my family members are full-time priests. A few heading some major temples. Let me tell you, none of them are thinking about this shit.

>>16017780
>Let me tell you, none of them are thinking about this shit.
That's because you follow perverted leftovers of a school of philosophy that ancient white men left you.

>>16017767
same crap as hinduism, muh rituals muh sacrifices

>>16015107
Thank you for answering. So we can’t discard maya as unreal, it is sustained by Brahman and, as you pointed, it has the force to lead someone back to his source, writings were revealed.
I think regarding existence here as some purely illusory prison in a gnostic fashion is naive, it has existence because of god and it was not randomly created but created in a way that reflects god himself in all natural symboliques, and the hindus knew this making natural analogies to sketch that which surpasses everything.

>>16010998
answer me coward >>16009722

>>16009722
Mediation in the Upanishad is copied from the Jains, because the Vedantists completely missed it in the Vedas.

>>16018251
you're full of shit

Hinduism is where it's at.

Anons cucking for Buddhism are low IQ morons.

>Hinduism is where it's at. Anons cucking for Buddhism are low IQ morons.

>>16009619
Consciousness consists of meridians of quantum energy. “Quantum” means a redefining of the karmic.

Today, science tells us that the essence of nature is flow. The goal of electrical impulses is to plant the seeds of transcendence rather than yearning.

Imagine a maturing of what could be.

Faith is the knowledge of aspiration, and of us. We exist as ultra-sentient particles. Nothing is impossible.


The network of intention is now happening worldwide. We are being called to explore the solar system itself as an interface between purpose and fulfillment. The future will be an amazing redefining of conscious living.

Humankind has nothing to lose. Who are we? Where on the great mission will we be guided? Our conversations with other spiritual brothers and sisters have led to a flowering of hyper-astral consciousness.

Reality has always been electrified with dreamweavers whose hearts are engulfed in stardust.
Turbulence is born in the gap where conscious living has been excluded. The complexity of the present time seems to demand an unfolding of our hopes if we are going to survive. You must take a stand against discontinuity.

>>16018325
Not an argument. Buddhism is followed by low IQ cucks.

>Not an argument. Buddhism is followed by low IQ cucks.

>>16018357
>avg IQ of india: 82
>avg IQ of east asia/upper SEA: 95-105
"Buddhism is followed by low IQ cucks"

>>16018369
Not an argument. Buddhism is followed by low IQ cucks.

>>16018384
Pajeet BTFO

>>16018384
Yup. Buddhism is moronic philosophy.

>>16018391
Lmoa talking to Germanic, you shitskin.

>>16018396
then why are they more high IQ?

>avg IQ of india: 81

>>16018283
This

Proud to be a Shaiva Siddhantin. Bhakti-yoga is supreme! OM

>>16018427
Based

>>16018427
Based and Om-pilled

Literally ALL of this shit is schizo pseudobabble.
Learn math and physics and read Kant, faggots.

>>16018462
>Kant
He was BTFO by Guenon and should be discarded and ignored

>>16018204
What is there to explain? That Upanishad section is talking about non-dualism and agrees with Advaita, it seems pretty self-explanatory

>10. I am self-revealing by nature, as I am the essence of self-radiance. Like space, I am without beginning, middle, or end.
>11. I am the nature of unlimited being, the bliss of consciousness, and eternally pure. I am Being-Awareness-Bliss, eternally wise, virtuous, and one.
>12. I am the eternal support of the world. I am the nature of supreme space, beyond form, and transcendental.

The same sort of passages saying identical things can be found in Advaita works like Vivekachudamani

>>16009616
Why do Hindus hate Advaita so much? Is it because it's a fringe cryptobuddhist sect?

>>16016988
>Case in point, guenonfag's responses to OP have mainly been 'advaita considers them conditionally real, whereas x is ultimately real'. This is Buddhism's 2 truths doctrine at work.
The distinction between absolute and conditional reality is a Hindu teaching which was later adopted by Buddhism. Buddha never taught the two truths, the first text in Indian philosophy to make the distinction is Mundaka Upanishad verse 1.1.4, and then many centuries later Nagarjuna adopted the idea, probably after studying the Vedas and Upanishads since he was raised in a Brahmin family. It's amusing how Buddhists accuse others of stealing something which first appeared in Hindu scriptures.

>>16018625
Where are you seeing Hindus hating on Advaita?

>>16018686
>Buddha never taught the two truths
Contemporary scholarship suggests that the Buddha himself may not have made any explicit reference to the two truths BUT recent studies also suggest that the two truths distinction is an innovation on the part of the Abhidhamma which came into prominence originally as a heuristic device useful for later interpreters to reconcile apparent inconsistent statements in the Buddha's teachings (Karunadasa, 2006: 1; 1996: 25-6 and n.139, The Cowherds, 2011; 5). This distinction is however not entirely disconnected from the Buddha's teachings. The antecedent hermeneutic distinctions drawn in the Anguttara Nikaya (AN II.60) between two linguistic concepts (paññatti) – nitattha (Skt. nitartha) and neyyatta (Skt. neyartha) – provides us a useful insight into the rationale basis from which later develops the formulation of the two truths distinction. This latter pair of terms deals with the hermeneutic strategies explaining the purported meaning of the Buddhist scriptural statements. Nitattha is a statement the meaning of which is "drawn out" (nita-attha), definitive and explicit, taken as its stands, and neyyattha is a statement the meaning of which is "to be drawn out" (neyya-attha) and interpretive (Karunadasa, 1996: 25). The commentary (Anguttaranikaya Atthakatah II.118) on the Anguttara Nikaya II.60 explores nitattha/neyyattha distinction's connection with the sammuti/paramattha distinction. This simple heuristic device however stimulated rich philosophical exchanges amongst the Buddhist philosophers and practitioners, not to mention the exchanges with traditional Hindu thinkers. The exchange of different ideas and views of the two truths between the early Buddhists, among other factors, gave birth to Buddhism as the philosophy we know today.

>the first text in Indian philosophy to make the distinction is Mundaka Upanishad verse 1.1.4
The earliest Upanishads explicitly deny truth as being in two forms
>What you call truth is one. There cannot be two truths, three truths, four truths, five truths, etc. There is only one truth – satyameva jayate. II.12, 5th Brahmana - Br Up

Furthermore there is no evidence Mundaka was composed before the 2nd Buddhist council. The Mundaka itself is difficult to estimate though it's a rather late upanishad and probably post-Buddhist according to scholars (who estimate that the date for late upanishads falls around 300-200 BC). This coupled by the fact that Mundaka shows signs of Buddhist influence where other upanishads don't and the fact that the Mahasamghikas of 2nd Buddhist counil were already the majority sect and who professed the 2 truths, gives credence to the theory that Mundaka was a post-2-truths-doctrine upanishads.

>>16018699
Most Hindu scholars seem to have a negative reception towards it (Ramanuja, Madhva, Bhaskara, Yamanucharya, Desika, Sadyojyoti, Narayanakantha, Ramakantha, etc.).

>>16017780
>none of them are thinking about this shit.
It's ok. Even the Bhagavad Gita tells us that castes will become a dumpsterfire.

>>16018686
>and then many centuries later Nagarjuna adopted the idea
Wrong, it was an idea already held by early Buddhist schools.

>>16018686
The Two Truths Doctrine is in the Pali canon, and is mentioned in numerous commentaries by Buddhist authors predating Nagarjuna. Of course the Buddha never mentions "the Two Truths Doctrine", he didn't speak English.

A more likely idea, and indeed one supported by literally all scholarship on the subject, is that Shankara wasn't actually aware of what the Buddha taught, as his claim that the Buddha taught a doctrine of the Self and that Buddhists just misunderstood him is contradicted by the Buddha himself (numerous times, but most openly in the Satipatthana Sutta and the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta).

Your usual rebuttal to this, that the Buddha plagiarized a man born over 1,000 years after his death via time travel, is as usual, ludicrous.

>>16018736
>Hindu scholars from other schools, on a continent that is historically known for it's philosophical diversity and competiton, are criticising one of their opponents

>>16018776
>Buddha plagiarized a man born over 1,000 years
That's a retarded strawman. Both the Buddha and Shankara got the Two Truths from the Upanishads, nobody plagiarised anybody.

>>16018699
Most Hindu schools view Advaita Vedanta as atheism, outright nihilism, and a pernicious kind of crypto-nihilism. In particular, they argue that Advaita Vedanta strips the personhood and action from Brahman, and indeed from the divine period in its denial of the multiplicity of Gods and Goddesses, in favor of what culminates in enlightenment via your own intelligence, wherein the relationship between man and divine is nothing more than a sense of smug satisfaction at holding the right opinions. This is emphasized by Advaita Vedanta's support of in-this-life Moksha, which most Hindu schools find to be completely ludicrous and outright contradictory with the Vedas and the Upanishads.

The Shaivist position on Advaita Vedanta is that Shiva made Buddhism to hoodwink atheists into worshiping him anyways, and then made Advaita Vedanta to shock Buddhists into becoming Hindus out of embarrassment at their doctrine's similarity to something so dumb and bleak as Advaita Vedanta. Make of that what you will.

>>16018776
>The Two Truths Doctrine is in the Pali canon
It's actually in the Abhidarma Pitaka (post-Buddha), and wasn't explicitly mentioned by the Buddha during his life time. In fact the Mahayanists (then known as Mahāsāṃghika) appropriated the 2 Truths Doctrine from the Sarvastivadins (or rather the preceding school known as Sthavira-nikāya).

The two truths doctrine was really a heuristic device used by Abhidharmikas to interpret the Buddha's words in accordance with the warning given in Neyyatha Sutta (AN I.60) that a meaning within a discourse was to either be clear and not inferred, or a meaning within a discourse was to be inferred and not be presented as clear. The solution to this was to separate the ultimate meaning (paramārtha-satya) of a discourse with its conventional meaning (saṁvṛti-satya), this way the Neyyatha Sutta would be upheld.

>The question of which discourses of the Buddha are of explicit meaning (nitattha) and which require interpretation (neyyattha) became one of the most intensely debated issues in Buddhist hermeneutics. Starting with the early Indian Buddhist schools, the debate continued in such later Mahayana sutras as the Aksayamatinirdesa and the Samdhinirmocana. The controversy continued even beyond India, in Sri Lanka, China, and Tibet. The Pali commentaries decided this issue on the basis of the Abhidhamma distinction between ultimate realities and conventional realities. Manorathapurani (II.118) states: "Those suttas that speak of one; person (puggala), two persons, etc., require interpretation, for their meaning has to be interpreted in the light of the fact that in the ultimate sense a person does not exist (paramatthato pana puggalo nama natthi) . One who misconceives the suttas that speak about person, holding that the person exists in the ultimate sense, explains a discourse whose meaning requires interpretation as one whose meaning is explicit. A sutta whose meaning is explicit is one that explains impermanence, suffering, and non-self; for in this case the meaning is simply impermanence, suffering, and non-self. One who says, 'This discourse requires interpretation/ and interprets it in such a way as to affirm that 'there is the permanent, there is the pleasurable, there is a self/ explains a sutta of explicit meaning as one requiring interpretation." The first criticism here is probably directed against the Puggalavadins, who held the person to be. ultimately existent; The latter might have been directed against an early form, of the tathagatagdrbha theory, which (in the Mahayana Parinirvana Sutra) affirmed a permanent, blissful, pure self. (B. Boddhi, 2000)

>>16018844
Wrong, it likely predated the Hindu claim to the two truths (which is only sparsely mentioned in a likely post Buddhist upanishad and is at odds with the upanishadic doctrine of one truth). At best you could say the Rshis independently came up with it, but Buddhists arrived at it in a different way so it couldn't have been plagiarised

>>16018851
Interesting

>>16018844
The Two Truths doctrine is not in the Upanishads (you have, in the past, argued this), however, and you have in the past argued that it is ludicrous and "nonsensical".

So, which is it? Is it in the Upanishads and the Buddha was clearly just plagiarizing Shankara, as you have claimed, or is it not in the Upanishads, and it is abhorrent and nonsensical, as you have claimed?

>>16018779
I mean its more than criticism, they outright savage it (Ramanuja calls it crypto-buddhism, Madhva considered its followers as 'deceitful demons', etc).

They clearly do not like it.

>>16018851
Any text you would recommend to noobs to Hinduism?

>>16018880
Yes, both these philosophers were brahmins and had interest in the perpetuation of the brahmin rule, through the continuation of sacrifices - which were condemner by Advaita and a large part of the Upanishadic complex. So they had a political reason to character assasinate Advaita as much as they could in the eyes of the people.

>>16018869
The Two Truths Doctrine is referenced in the Anguttara Nikaya, which is indeed the Buddha's words, as it is part of the Sutta Pitaka.

In any event, the Mahayana position on the Two Truths Doctrine is exactly the same as the Theravada, they don't disagree, the Theravada position is just that (as with most things) the Mahayana are making mountains out of molehills, when the Buddha already dealt with the mountain in the first place. Anything more than that is really beyond the matter being discussed, and gets into finer points of discussion well beyond "what was the Buddha saying when he was walking around".

>>16018898
But Advaita Vedanta directly upholds Brahminism, and Shankara himself was a Brahmin and a defender of Brahminism against Buddhism's attacks on it. You yourself in the past have argued this, and have argued that Buddhism is wicked and evil for going against Brahminism.

>>16018898
Condemned? Didn't they regard all practical rites necessary on a particular stage of spiritual progress? Can you post anything from the Vedas, shruti scriptures, condemning these rites altogether instead of saying that to someone in an advanced spiritual stage they don't mean anything anymore?

>>16018891
pic related is probably it, most books written by Hindus clearly show some level of sectarian bias so I usually recc academic non-hindus

>>16018898
so they did hate Advaita then? Ok that just proves my point

These threads are like a circle in time. They always contain the exact same words, I start to think that either the guenonfag is playing both Shankara and the anti-Shankara sides for fun, or you retards are all a bunch of 70IQ automatons that spew pre programmed replies.

>>16018851
You are right in condemning advaitavada for stripping personhood, action and intelligence from Brahman, since it is obvious that Maya is from Brahman and its creation is not a random, insensible creation, this is interesting for advaitins employs natural analogies to talk about what is most inexpressible.
But they are right in rejecting worship of multiple divine functions.

>>16018943
wow in threads about advaita vada and hinduism in general they always say the same words like brahman, advaita, shankara, maya

>>16018591
i thought i was replying to op, apologies

>>16018943
Yes, I feel like I've seen that photo of Shankara sitting thousands of times by now, is this the cycle of Saṃsāra we are trapped in anon?

>>16018979
It's the same pictures used every time and huge walls of text that you always get in these threads

>>16018983
take the Nibanna-pill

>>16018998
You just proved my point.

>>16018998
Based

>>16018998
>that BVDDHIST Chad in the right
holy dharma.......

>>16018995
It's the exact same words, not a comma in plus or in minus. It's like they have word documents prepared and just copy paste them when they see fit

>>16019017
>advaitins too low IQ to come up with new shit, just recycled pastas from a notepad file
what else do you expect from Hindu anons? They're literally 82 IQ (india tier)

>>16018983

>>16018995
there is literally ONE picture of shankara, the most famous representant of advaita vedanta WHICH IS BEING DISCUSSED IN THIS THREAD, and ONE picture of guénon, the greatest expositor of the doctrine WHICH IS BEING DISCUSSED IN THIS THREAD in the west.
they always post pictures of plato and socrates and plotinus in threads about platonism, wow they always post pictures of shakespeare and mention hamlet in threads about shakespeare...
>huge walls of text
so you can see that there is actual rational discussion in threads like this one, which is a rarity in this shithole of a place with people like you.

>>16019026
The buddhists are doing the same thing. It's the third time this week that i read about the mountain and the molehill. And that's because I only browsed three of these threads.
You are all mentally retarded.

>>16019038
>The buddhists are doing the same thing
Meh, I wouldn't put them in the same lunacy as Advaita threads, which are clearly copy-paste walls of text.

>>16019037
Let go of your anger and attachment anon, it's all Saṃsāra

ohmmmmm

ohhmmmm

oohmmmmm

>>16019037
>guénon, the greatest expositor of the adviata
this is your brain on traditionalism

>>16019046
I'm talking about the buddhists on the advaita threads.

>>16019038
i think the people here mocking hindus for posting the same things are the very people who are posting them and posting against themselves. same people who passed as guenonfags and at the same time their oppositors. this has been happening in this board for more than a year in a desperate attempt at excising any legitimate discussion about guenon and advaitavada

>>16019037
Just because he's the only one you've read doesn't make him the greatest

>>16019055
.............in the west.
tell me a single other western who did anything close to what he did in his Man and His Becoming. I'll be here waiting.

>>16019061
any legitimate discussion about guenon and advaitavada was ruined long ago by that 1 Schizo

>>16019069
Do indians even know he is? Probably not...

>>16018943
Are you yearning to a return for the days of excellent discussion with our friend Guenonfag?

"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."
>guenonfag 2019

>>/lit/image/fG9nvXFvjBzGFskbe5usYg

>>16018924
Thanks for the recommendation.

However, can't you use the same argument for non-Hindus writing books on Hinduism? They will have their own biases.

>>16019063
see >>16019069

>>16019074
I'm still waiting for an answer to what I asked you (and yes there were indians who lauded him).

>>16019058
Advaita threads usually post the same rehashed content, no surprised its countered by other rehashed content however at least they aren't making the same threads with the same topic and same image.

>>16019069
As a Guenon fan I have a question for you anon, are you initiated into a genuine tradition?

>>16019085
no really if he's the face of Advaita/Shankara, why does no one outside these threads know him?

>and yes there were indians who lauded him
1 or 2 of his colleagues lol, I have yet to meet an indian who knows him (trust me I've met plenty, even the religious ones)

>>16019109
You are right. Indians don't know about this guy at all.

Source: Indian

I literally only came to hear about this guy from right wing Western Traditionalists

>>16018924
>most books written by Hindus clearly show some level of sectarian bias

This is so fucking annoying. It activates the full range of indian autism, same as when you read a random wikipedia page about an obscure Indian topic and suddenly the neutral tone becomes "Guru Bhandahdnadhad is the wisest tallest most handsome gentleman in history and everyone agrees he is correct about everything. His very important wise good philosophy is good and very excellent."

>>16019092
Dude, it's the same people posting both sides. There is no guenonfag at this point on the board. For all I know you could be one of them too.

>>16019109
I know you're not here for any serious discussion, the evasiveness of your posts screams what you hide. I'm still waiting, though.

>>16019125
>i-im still waiting!

>>16019124
Not the person you're talking to, but yes, you are right. Look at this: >>16019109, >>16019114.

>>16018719
>Contemporary scholarship suggests that the Buddha himself may not have made any explicit reference to the two truths
Exactly, he never taught it, the Mundaka Upanishad is the first to make the distinction explicitly, hence it is a fundamentally Hindu idea which quickly also became a part of the Buddhist schools within a few centuries. The belief that Buddha implicitly taught or accepted a higher and lower knowledge distinction based on something else which they read that idea into is akin to a religious belief, it is not an objective fact.

>>16019125
Are you initiated into a Hindu tradition?

>>16019109
I only heard him via Steve Bannon, long before traditionalism was posted on this board. Other than that he is a non-entity.

>>16019133
>guénon is not the best expositor of advaita vedanta in the west
>ok cite someone better

>proceeds posting wojaks

thank you for proving i'm right.

>>16019135
wrong

>>16019135
What am I looking at here?

>>16019135
9114 is my comment. Are you saying I'm lying? About what?

>>16019146
>guénon is not the best expositor of advaita vedanta in the west
>do likely practitioners of advaita even know him?
>DURRR ANSUR QUESTION IM WAITING
kek

>>16019139
no, i am not an hindu, i think they were right about some things and have an interest in them but i dont think they apprehended the whole Truth.
why do you ask?

>>16019146
Dude, he isn't even the best expositor of Traditionalism in the west, let alone Advaita. Evola had far more influence than Guenon.

>>16019166
Where does Evola discuss Advaita? I'm interested where him and Guenon had differences

>>16019079
You've posted that exact quote 24 times since November 2019 alone, imagine being this obsessed with someone online and spending so much time following someone around and pathetically whining about them every time they post.

>>/lit/?task=search&ghost=yes&search_text=It%27s+been+24+hours+and+none+of+you+ming-mongs

>>16019174
you have autism or just bad reading comprehension? I said he isn't a better expositor of Traditionalism than Evola.

>>16019158
I'm very interested in what you practice, and which (if any) doctrine contains the whole Truth in your opinion, Guenon's work resonates with me

>>16019156
>indians
>practitioners of advaita
i know you can't be coherent, but yes there are many advaita practitioners (many of whom are perennialists) who know and have respect for guénon. now can we go back to what was being contested in my post, that is: THERE IS NOT A SINGLE WESTERNER WHO ACCOMPLISHED THE PRECISION OF GUÉNON'S WRITINGS ABOUT ADVAITA VEDANTA

>>16019176
you look more obsessed by keeping track of the times some anon posted your quotes

>>16019184
>but yes there are many advaita practitioners (many of whom are perennialists) who know and have respect for guénon
List them

>>16019179
How is that bad reading comprehension? It's misleading sentence structure on your part. I've read Guenon but not Evola so I was just interested if Evola talked about Advaita as much as Guenon had.

>>16019182
platonism and christianity. guénon is excellent as critic of modernity, expositor of traditional mentality and society, advaita vedanta, but he was wrong about christianity and mysticism. and his opinion on philosophy was partially mistaken too, understandable though.

>>16019176
It's not just me posting it, but I do find it really funny that it makes you mad every time it gets posted.

>There's no Guenonfag here guys!!
>YOU HAVE POSTED THAT QUOTE OVER 17 TIMES IN 5.5 MONTHS

Hi Guenonfag. Let this thread be proof to you of what everyone was telling you all last year, that you are building up distrust and ill will and giving advaita/guenon a bad name here. Reap what you've sown, autist.

>>16019196
He isn't even the best expositor of Traditionalism in the west, let alone Advaita. Evola was a better expositor of Traditionalism than Guenon.

There, happy now autist?

>>16019199
Thanks, I feel the same from what I've read of him so far. Have you read Jean Borella and if so would you recommend him? I'm going to read him after some more Guenon

>>16019192
we see here your desperation, lmao. as i said i know you are not serious, but im only at it because it is funny.
>cite any thing that contradicts what i said, since you're contesting my statement
>diverges the issue
>is answered
>asks of me what he was incapable of answering in the first place
lmao

also
>all advaita practitioners must have been known worldwide to have their names spread throughout the world

>>16019226
>cope: the post
you can't even name them lol

>>16019218
Yes thanks :)

>>16019221
no, i haven't but i really want to read him too. i still haven't taken time to read about borella, so i'm not the right person to point anything concerning his works.

>>16019231
>cope
>wojak memes
lmao, brave anon, brave, you're making this whole thing a lot funnier.
i'll scare you once again: cite any westerner who wrote about advaita vedanta and surpassed guénon.

Or one just reads Plato's Theaetetus-Sophist-Statesman, Parmenides, and Philebus; then Plotinus; then Essays on the Metaphysics of Polytheism in Proclus Edward P. Butler; then Damascius' Problems and Solutions Concerning First Principles, which proves that the One can only be approached through not two but three paradoxical principles, from afar it is absolutely monadic (showing how far away Shankara was) but the closer one is the singular light is divided by the Nous into three and One which cancel and affirm each other into the Ineffable—of which oneness can neither be affirmed or denied, likewise the One, of Second One which is also the triad, is both One and then All, All and then One, and One-Many. These are the same as Plotinus three Hypostases but lifted up into the same transcendent diacosm, the one world of all worlds.

>>16019303
No

>>16019267
>seething this hard because he got caught out
pic related: you rn

>>16019239
no problem, just pointing out that Evola is the face of western traditionalism ;)

>>16019303
Are you Edward P. Butler by any chance?

>>16019312
>is confronted with the name Guénon
>noooooooooooo you can't throw facts at me proving guénon to be precise about something i need to counter your factual claims with wojaks!!

>>16019038
That's a common English phrase, dude. It originates in the fucking 1500s. Are you seriously suggesting that only Buddhists say "making a mountain out of a molehill"?

>>16019245
No worries mate
What do you think of this for a reading list for platonism? >>16019303

>>16019080
>They will have their own biases.
At best they could have a western bias, but those are usually applied toward Hinduism itself and not any one specific sect (ie they are all or nothing). It is worth noting Flood specializes in Shaivism but only because it's one of the 2 major divisions of modern hinduism, it isn't likely that he has anything against Vaishnavism or is ignorant of it just that he devotes his analysis on of them.

>>16019376
gonna correct myself, should've said *At worst

>>16019376
I'm getting your point. But do you think an 'outsider' will get the intricacies and nuances of it that even a Hindu who's not-of-that-sect can get?

Or is this not a valid point?

>>16019351
It's the same fucking text dude, same words copy pasted. Don't defend them, you know it's true.

>>16019417
Of course it's a valid point. There is often great difficulty for outsiders to understand the subtleties of a culture, language and history foreign to their own, its why they devote decades worth of study to it. The most ideal way to get into Hinduism therefore is to read both perspectives and investigate for yourself. However given the sectarian nature of Hinduism, it is rather difficult to approach it from a single Hindu author without being mislead into a certain way of thinking more conducive toward the authors flavor of Hinduism.

I'm not saying there aren't completely unbiased Hindu authors out there, just that they do not come by as often as the big name Swamis and would probably read worse from a purely literature aspect.

But besides the intricacies, which in the grand scale of things presents only a minutiae of doubt, those western scholars have done their due diligence and have likely interacted with practitioners themselves for years, enough to get the big picture of Hinduism without the baggage of sectarian bias. This is why I mostly recommend them as starters.

>>16019318
Don't think he is because Edward P. Butler is a cuck in real life that have pronouns in his bio, and I've never seen this Neoplatonic poster ever talk about any chastity wearing routines or whether or not free bleeding pleases the gods.

>>16019372
Good but too concise for a novice, in my opinion. Not that one should read all dialogues from Plato, but read and meditate a little more on them, read commentaries from other platonists. I haven't spent too much time on Iamblichus but knowing how a profoundly religious consciousness envelops the whole platonic tradition is indispensable in order to understand both its origins (from egyptians) and its fulfillment (in christianity).

>>16019771
>its fulfillment (in christianity).
stopped reading here

>>16019771
Okay thanks I'll take note of that. Do you know anything about Algis Uždavinys and his work?

>>16019783
>stopped reading here
At the very end of the post? So you read the whole thing

>>16019801
Yes so if you would be so kind and make sure to let everyone know that you're a christcuck and that your whole purpose is to subvert legitimate philosophical schools just to get more butts in the pews in the beginning of your posts in the future, please. That would be greatly appreciated!

>>16019454
Well, yeah, that's because it's a common idiom dating back to the 1500s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_a_mountain_out_of_a_molehill
We knew you were ESL because of the whole "RETROACTIVE REFUTATION" thing, you don't need to keep demonstrating it.

>>16019783
Thank you for reading my post entirely, this is a rarity in this board. I should write addenda on this particular finality in case you are genuinely interested.

>>16019786
Yes. I think that his Golden Chain is a superb book in order to make evident what I told you about the religious consciousness in Platonism. The first two parts are a concise presentation of the indirect influence of this consciousness through pythagoreanism. I would recommend being somewhat familiar with egyptian mysteries and theopoesis before reading his books on theurgy and his Philosophy as a Rite of Rebirth.

>>16019771
>its fulfillment (in christianity).
Why not Islam?

>>16019819
>subvert philosophical schools
either philosophical schools don't exist or they themselves are a process of subversion of philosophy.
The religious consciousness of philosophy is completely disregarded not only by moderns but even late greek philosophers. It is just too much to unpack to someone like you, I promised myself to follow Thales' advice to Pythagoras: ''Don't waste time in this life''. Prove otherwise and I will clear things to you.

>>16019846
Thanks for all of your thoughts anon, his Golden Chain is on my reading list. Have a good one :)

>>16019855
I am not familiar with Islamic theology but I'm sure the intellectual revelation which the platonists helped to preserve and develop is present in it. But Christianity has a more complete realization of the numinous consciousness standing not only on this intellectual truth but on symbolique one (one may say on par with that of the egyptians themselves, but I, as a christian, superior, since The Symbolique was Incarnated).

>>16019819
I would love to see a list of what you consider to be the legitimate philosophical schools. Were you raised christian and now resent your parents for it?

>>16019872
>The religious consciousness of philosophy is completely disregarded by late greek philosophers
Wrong. It was a highly religious pursuit, and is why Christianity was so thoroughly rejected by them. Atheism was often applied to Christianity in late antiquity.

Anyway, not interested in debating with someone that uses philosophy as a way to intellectually cope with his prescribed religion.
>>16019901
>I would love to see a list of what you consider to be the legitimate philosophical schools
Pretty much all except Christianity and Islamic ones. It is impossible to do philosophy with revealed religions, only theology.
>Were you raised christian and now resent your parents for it?
I was not. Christianity died; thank the gods, a long time ago here.

>>16019898
I'm not criticizing, I'm just curious because usually these sorts of posts go
>Plato was right
>ergo, there's one god
>ergo, Christianity
But then, why Christianity as opposed to Islam, given that Islamic theologians incorporated huge amounts of Platonism into their religion as well (or , at least, certain ones did)? Surely, if you're just saying "Plato's One is the Christian God", it'd be easier to do that with Islam's Tawheed rather than the Trinity (which, as I understand it, is rooted in Aristotelianism, so if you're only using Plato a lack of the Trinity means you only have to use Plato anyways). The obvious answer is "well Christianity is true for reasons other than Plato", but then if we're going outside Plato the entire question is moot anyways.

But if you don't know anything about Islamic Platonism (I don't, and I wouldn't blame a Westerner for not knowing anything about this) then it's sort of a pointless question.

>>16019938
>Pretty much all except Christianity and Islamic ones
Very convenient, no resentment here whatsoever
>Christianity died; thank the gods, a long time ago here
Where is here?

>>16019961
>Where is here?
Europe.

>>16019977
And what a great state we're in here in Europe
>thank the gods
Is this contrarianism or do you believe in some sort of polytheism, out of interest?

>>16019938
>It was a highly religious pursuit
Atomism? Sophism? Stoicism? Pyrrhonism?
I said late greek philosophers, not late antiquity in general, but we see pagans trying to reconcile both paganism and christianity (Ammonius Saccas, teacher of Plotinus), others platonism and christianity (Origen). Late platonists saw Christianity as a religion for the masses, but this was the case because Christianity at that point was alraedy established as official religion, so ~500AD, even though I don't disagree altogether with what Olympiodorus said, since it is not purely an intellectual school like Platonism was. Iamblichus criticized this purely intellectual pursuit of platonists and never said anything against Christianity.

>not interested in debating with someone that uses philosophy as a way to intellectually cope with his prescribed religion.
You subvert philosophy.

>>16019939
In short, Christianity has the conclusion of apophatic thought. Platonism is a process, from the Monad through pythagoreans, through triadic hypostases of plotinus, through triadic henads, to Damascius' Ineffable. All this began with the unity-trinity of the egyptians.

>>16019318
No but he's a practicing Proclean so it's simpler reading Butler's summaries of Proclus instead of 2000 pages of long drawn out arguments (which are fantastic, but it's a big undertaking).
I'm not a Proclean.

>>16019938
>it is impossible to do philosophy with revealed religions
you absolute retarded subhuman, platonists considered their knowledge revealed and considered much of it derived from revealed religions. you have no idea about what you are talking, just leave this thread, holy shit.

>>16020011
>do you believe in some sort of polytheism
Yes, as I am convinced of Neoplatonism.
>>16020040
>a bunch of lies about Ammonius Saccas supposedly being a Christian and Iamblichus not criticizing Christianity implying anything at all
Pointless drivel and a completely unnecessary post.
>reconcile both paganism and christianity
Impossible as Christian doctrine literally commands its followers to seek out and destroy paganism wherever they find it. And what would you know, it played out just like that.

Now that Christianity is once again on the back foot you people want to claw yourselves back to relevancy by subverting and lying about there being no contradictions and hopes for mutual understanding. Any well-reasoned man will call you people out on this nonsense and not accept your calls for perennial unity. No, Christianity is not some sort of completion of Neoplatonism, it is the destruction of it and the parasitical devouring of the vestiges that remain. Or in the words of Basil
>‘We, if wise, shall take from heathen books whatever befits us and is allied to the truth, and shall pass over the rest,’ St Basil, Address, IV
Passing over in a Christian context of course meaning utter destruction as it is also Christian doctrine seize the means to maintain knowledge.

Keep the Christians out of the Neoplatonic academies or be forced to flee to Persia.
>For if indeed Julian had caused all those that were under his dominion to be richer than Midas, and each of the cities greater than Babylon once was, and had also surrounded each of them with a golden wall, but had corrected none of the existing errors respecting divinity, he would have acted in a manner similar to a physician, who receiving a body full of evils in each of its parts, should cure all of them except the eyes.

>>16020173
You think Christianity is dead in Europe but Neoplatonism is alive and well? Your experience of life must be quite strange

>>16020202
>You think Christianity is dead in Europe but Neoplatonism is alive and well?
I don't. But any revival must at the very least have a clear and firm understanding of what destroyed its first flowering.

>>16020173
>Ammonius Saccas
It is manifest he was trying to reconcile both pagan theology with christianity. His parents were christians and is not for certain whether he was a pagan or a christian (interestingly the christian Ammonius pagans refer to as being a christian has no information apart of this very reference).

>Impossible as Christian doctrine literally commands its followers to seek out and destroy paganism.
This just proves how ignorant you are of both pagan theology and christianity in all its aspects. Your knowledge of them is the superficial misinformation the masses (even christian laymen themselves) are fed on. There are fathers commenting on the utility of pagan productions, even today it is said that we should discern what is good and what is bad from these doctrines; Platonism and Aristotelianism form great part of the intellectual pilllar of christianity, Aquinas, Maximus, they all avow how these kind of pagans (the right ones btw) had some grasp of truth and employed, developed their thoughts in their own.

>you people lie
This is the level of the discussion here? I know you are not someone worth receiving proper education and much less spending time with, but you are repeating this word over and over again when it is a fact that you are wrong as I pointed out. Anything diverting from the essence of Platonism (pythagoreanism, orphic mysteries included obviously but I need to make it clear to someone like you) is subversion of philosophy.


>Any well-reasoned man will call you people out on this nonsense and not accept your calls for perennial unity.
Yet you have diverted from the main point of our discussion (that late greek philosophy) to your own childish opinions on what you don't understand. There is no perennial unity, truth is one and its degrees of understanding are attained differently, but only Christianity possess it in its entirety.

>Christianity is not some sort of completion of Neoplatonism.
It is for the reasons I have posted two or three times now. Intellectual pursuit is converted, fulfilled, realized in numinous consciousness, this is perfused in Platonic writings and explicitly in Plato and Iamblichus, but you have never read anything about it. Just like aristotelianism was a corrupted science sustained by a profane (rationalistic) metaphysics is fulfilled in Christianity (here it has a reciprocal sustenance).

You have absolutely no intellectual realization about Platonism, this is why you are attached to external, mundane conflicts, which platonists themselves didn't care.

waiting for the logical argument that will make me understand and instantly become enlightened. too bad it isn't in this thread

>>16020219
>>16020173
>>16019938
also, you /pol/tard dog, platonism is not european. I know you are completely ignorant of it, but feeding a rabid dog like you is harmful to healthy people.

>>16020309
huh?

>>16020332
Wrong lol

>>16020332
>platonism is not european

>>16020352
>>16020368
we could say in its form (rationalistic), maybe, only if you consider mediterranean to be europe, but in its content it is eastern.

>>16020390
>akshually
shut the fuck up

>>16020390
I would disagree. Of course there are similarities between Platonism and "Eastern" religion AKA Islam and Judaism, Islam was deeply influenced by Platonism. If you mean Egypt, no, there is no evidence that Plato got anything from Egypt, it was a common Greek meme to attribute anything new to actually being Egyptian to lend it an air of age (this was heavily satirized, the Greeks were well aware of the silliness of this practice). If you mean Asia, no, there is nothing at all similar between Platonism and East Asian, or even Indian at the time of Plato, religion.

This is to say nothing of Zoroastrianism, which differs radically from Platonism in a number of ways.

>>16020425
>he thinks the theory of forms is from plato and not LITERALLY neteric influences
>he thinks the myth of er has nothing to do with the psychostasia of the weighing of the soul
>he disregards everything Pythagoras, Plato, Proclus, Iamblichus, Olympiodorus, Diogenes Laertius, Clement of Alexandria said and wrote about the egyptians
>he thinks Thales and Solon didn't journey to Egypt and that Orphic mysteries also somehow have nothing to do with it
>he ignores that many greek words had their origins in egyptian accounts

now make an affirmative claim as to how platonism has no connection with egypt theology. all you did was affirm your own opinion without any substantial ground.

>>16020425
oh forgot how pertinent plotinus' claim, about how unoriginal the doctrines of the platonists were, is. also more importantly: have you read any platonic dialogue? this is the level of this board!

>>16020425
there were literally greeks writing how it was common for them to travel to egypt in pursuit of knowledge, people writing about plato going to there, plato himself avowing it in his writings, just to cite the most direct evidences, and you tell me there is no evidence.

>>16020487
>>16020511
>>16020537
Why are you samefagging?

>>16020425
>>16020537

he posted that shit last week and i found it strange then, especially now. even the religions are similar enough to suggest heavy inflow between the two. osiris and dionysus are essentially the same myth. and maybe plato didn't go to egypt himself, but perhaps socrates or pythagoras did?

>>16020425
Huh?

>>16020487
>>16020511
>>16020537
I literally addressed this. It's well known that the Ancient Greeks attributed novel ideas and inventions to the Egyptians in order to make something seem important and mystical because it was old. We, presently, do this exact same thing with the Ancient Greeks. There is no indication that anything Plato said came from Egypt.

If you believe otherwise, cite your source, because as I've demonstrated no, "Plato said so" doesn't work.

>>16020559
No they aren't, unless you count "they both die and come back in some manner", which is so general as to be pointless, and the differences between the two are so radical that you might as well say "of course they're the same god, they're both male".

>>16020559
i think socrates didn't go, but plato certainly did. this is clear from both plato himself and ancient writers sectarians and non-sectarians of platonism. plato's writings show how different it is when plato depicts and writes about socrates and when he writes about things socrates never taught or said.

>>16020557
i'm just adding to and sustaining my point.

>>16020610
you didn't adress and you are still ignoring everything i posted about it.
It was common because it was a fact that the egyptians influenced the greeks profoundly. Why would they write about HUNDREDS of greeks traveling to egypt when it was not attested by any one, when it was merely a fact of saying this is from egyptians?

>We do the exact same thing with ancient greeks
Do we say we traveled and met the ancient greeks? This denounces your own point as false and absurd, they had contact with egyptian writings, people and because of this were heavily influenced by them.

>IF you believe otherwise
no, peabrain, i'm avowing and proving I know otherwise.

>cite
>>16020487
>>16020511
>>16020537
can you read?

also any archeological and superficial reading on comparative religion will confirm my point.

>>16018776
>is that Shankara wasn't actually aware of what the Buddha taught, as his claim that the Buddha taught a doctrine of the Self and that Buddhists just misunderstood him is contradicted by the Buddha himself
Shankara never claimed this but he attacked Buddhists and Buddha in his writings for teaching no-self, how many times will you keep posting that mistake?

>>16020721
Your obvious unfamiliarity with the Greeks is h i l a r i o u s. Do go on!

>>16019939
Allah is not immanent only omnipresent, even if poets confuse this, Christianity in immanent through the function of the Logos and incarnation of that logos.
Islam can't even rationalize how an utterly 'unlike' being can interact with created being.
Don't take this the wrong way, I'm not Christian.

>>16020721
I noticed that you didn't cite your source. So, do you, or do you not, have a source?

>>16020738
It will keep being RETROACTIVELY REFUTED until you stop making the claim. Don't like being refuted? Stop being wrong.

>>16020610

http://alkman1.blogspot.com/2006/12/osiris-and-dionysos-compared.html

this guy has basically complied all of the similarities between osiris and dionysus, and what greek philoosphers and historians had to say. if you're saying all of this is wrong then you're ridiculous

>>16020754
read what i posted in those cited posts. can you not read? Plotinus, Pythagoras (and pythagoreans), Diogenes Laertius, Olympiodorus, Iamblichus.
>Plato literally writes how some greeks traveled to egypt and how his doctrines derived from them
>no u cant cite plato!!
you also ignore every direct influence from egyptian theology and myth.

you either say anything substantial apart from your own retarded opinions or i'm leaving this conversation.

>>16020154
He's regurgitating Jay Dyer talking point, "muh bible revealed, Platonism is natural theology", as if that means anything when one of the axioms of Plato is anti-naturalism. We literally believe Plato was divinely inspired to be the manual of how to read all the thousands of revealed hymns, prayers, lamentations, poetry, epics, and philosophy not directly influenced by Plato (like Vedas, presocratics, Egyptians, even Eddas). Platonism is the holy lens through which these divine texts are to be interpreted. Even the OT can be read by this revealed Method, and made coherent with Platonism proper.

>>16020742
So the Platonic-Christian argument is that Allah, although causing all things, is still separate from what he's causing, whereas God is at some level "part" of what he's causing such that he's not totally clearly 100% separate? I have no idea if Muslims believe Allah is 100% totally clearly separate from that which he creates, but I do know that they claim, via Occasionalism, that he does actively and constantly cause all things.

>>16020425
>pic related is literally Platonism through and through, thousands of years before Plotinus

>>16020815
"in him we live and move and have our being" acts 17, a section of a prayer about Zeus/dionysus.

>>16020771
Here in this photo is Shankara BTFOing the Buddhist doctrine of no-self, now try to find any source where Shankara says Buddha taught that there is a self, you can’t because it doesn’t exist

>>16020796
And none of those indicate that they're the same god. At best, you could argue that they were later syncreticized, but that's not the same thing as "they're the same god". Many of those comparisons are outright non-sensical ("Osiris had green skin, and Dionysus wore a laurel wreath, ergo they're the same guy").

>>16020806
So, you do not actually have a source stating that Plato got his doctrines from the Egyptians, rather this is your interpretation of what Plato says? Because we have nothing from Pythagoras, or any Pythagorean, and the rest of those authors are just citing Plato, which as I have already mentioned we cannot 100% trust as we know for a fact that the Greeks attributed novel things to the Egyptians in order to give them an air of age (this ignores that in saying Plato's doctrines are Egyptian, we're also saying that Plato is wrong, as he says he/Socrates invented them, so we're caught in a bind as assuming Plato to be 100% literal introduces self-contradiction).

So, do you, or do you not, have a source comparing Platonic doctrine to Egyptian thought? Or is this just your interpretation?

>>16020850
I'm sorry Guenonfag, but once again, you have been RETROACTIVELY REFUTED.

>>16020897
based

>>16020850
cringe

>>16020806
You obv skipped Diogenes idiot. You aren't fooling anyone, lol

>>16020754
>>16020740
>>16020610
>>16020425
Thales was member of Lydian government, he HAD to travel everywhere. Many of his assertions recall egyptian ones, his piety and his assertion of the word being created by God screams this. Read anything about the egyptian paideia, Plato's writings are full of indications to initiatory practices and references. In sum, READ A FUCKING BOOK FOR ONCE.

>>16020869
>"Osiris had green skin, and Dionysus wore a laurel wreath, ergo they're the same guy"
this is literally your argument: osiris is called osiris, dionysus is called dionysus hence they have no connection whatsoever. can't you see how much of a dumbfucked retard you are?

>His work, a commentary on Timaeus, is lost, but Proclus, a Neoplatonist of the fifth century AD, reports on it.[30] The passage in question has been represented in the modern literature either as claiming that Crantor visited Egypt, had conversations with priests, and saw hieroglyphs confirming the story, or, as claiming that he learned about them from other visitors to Egypt.[31]

>Crantor also says that Plato's contemporaries used to criticize him jokingly for not being the inventor of his Republic but copying the institutions of the Egyptians.

We do have pythagorean writings and pythagora's teachings, you idiot. Even though it was a notably traditional sect with oral imparting, I ask you: What is the Golden Verses? Who is Nicomachus of Gerasa? Numenius of Apamea? Archytas? Hippocrates of Chios? Hierocles? All of these left written works, and I'm not citing all of pythagoreans who left written teachings. Euclids' Elements had essential points influenced by pythagorean teachings (which were derived from egyptian sacred geometry, ever lauded in ancient greece).

Dude, I literally showed you how platonic theory of forms is the same as neteric influences, how many ideas from platonism are shown in a myriad of egyptian texts. Literally open at any page in Iamblichus' De mysteriis. Read the more than 10 different writings on the life of pythagoras attesting a direct egyptian influence. Read Proclus. READ FRICKING PLATO HIMSELF.

there is no way you are being serious here. you have not addressed what i said here >>16020721 about our citing ancient greeks and their LITERALLY WRITING that people traveled to egypt, which was a common thing among every people of the mediterranean and near east.

All of this and you say nothing about how this opinion of yours is sustained. Cite anything whatsoever that is not your own words.

>>16020850
>the buddha plagiarized the upanishads
>shankara is just restating what is clearly in the upanishads
>you have, in this thread, argued both of these things
>ergo, the buddha copied shankara
so, which is it? did the buddha not just copy the upanishads? or is shankara not just restating the upanishads? which of these claims that you have made are you saying is wrong?

>>16020933
what are you talking about you mentally ill nigger

>>16020869
>>16020754
>>16020610
>>16020425
i have only one thing to say to you: read (if you are able to, it seems you are not) plutarch's isis and osiris. he describes in detail some dozen of greeks who traveled to egypt and the symbolical influence of egyptian myth on greece. farewell i hope you get better.

>>16021064

'buddhism' and 'hinduism' aren't even things. buddha called his ontology 'the path to brahman'. the brahmins would not have had a separate tradition, especially since most of them were illiterate. information was passed down orally

>>16020869
Neoplatonis Around 500+ AD
>Let us now come to the third problem in our discussion, or rather, to the third principle of all things. It would seem that there is something from this [third] principle that pertains to the two first principles. Let us by all means investigate the Unified, which we have always ranked as third, and inquire what it is, why we rank it third, as well as why Plato and the other Platonists designate it as “the mixed,” as did Philolaus even earlier, in addition to other the Pythagoreans. It is not only for the reason that Philolaus [specifies] that Being is the concretization of the limited and the unlimited but also because [the Platonists] placed the third principle after the monad and the indefinite dyad as the unified triad. But everything that is Unified is mixed, since in fact the Unified is a trace of the one and the many. Therefore, we must inquire from which [principles] it is mixed. As Orpheus says: “Then great Chronos fashioned the shining egg with the divine aether,”

>>16021048
>Golden Verses
We have no indication that these actually came from Pythagoras, given their first attestation is centuries after his death.

>Nicomachus of Gerasa
A second century mathematician born long after Pythagoras's death.

>Numenius of Apamea
A second century mathematician.

>Archytas
A fourth century BC mathematician; only mathematical works by him survive.

>Hippocrates of Chio
A fourth century BC mathematician; only mathematical works by him survive.

>Hierocles
Various figures all dating to the fourth century or later.

So, I'm going to ask again: Do you actually have a source comparing Egyptian thought to that of Plato, or is this just your personal interpretation?

>>16021397
From Orpheus:/ Zeus the beginning of everything, Zeus the middle, Zeus the end; / Zeus the highest, Zeus is both of the earth and of the sea, / Zeus male, Zeus female / again / and Zeus all things, / shining on all things in a circle, Zeus the beginning, middle, end; / and Zeus has power over everything, Zeus himself holds everything in himself.

Dionysus. . .is the Soul of the universe, which is divided and yet retains its indestructible unity. The Titans represent the evil principle of division, which is hostile to the abiding aspiration of the universe toward unity.. . .The heart of Dionysus, which is saved by Athena, is the undivided Mind, which is approximate, but superior, to Soul.

>Plato in this present passage too says that he creates while looking toward the Paradigm, so that by thinking its contents he becomes all things and gives existence to the sense- perceptible cosmos. [The Paradigm] was everything in the Intelligible mode, he himself was everything in the Intellective mode, and the cosmos is everything in the sense- perceptible mode. For this reason the theologian also says, “Having concealed everything in turn, he intended to bring it forth / back again into the delightful light from his heart, doing wondrous things.”291
Zeus represents the center- point between the Forms as they exist only in the realm of the Intelligibles and the particular instances of the Forms as they appear in the sense- perceptible universe. “By thinking” about the contents of the Paradigm, the Demiurge “becomes all things,” thus absorbing the Forms, and he “gives existence to the sense- perceptible cosmos.” It is from Zeus on the level of Intellect that the lower levels of the metaphysical system flow, and it is from these lower levels that the physical universe comes into being. Elsewhere Proclusasks,
>How else would [the Demiurge] be in a position to fill all things with gods and make the sense- perceptible realm resemble the Living- Thing- itself unless he stretches out toward the invisible causes of the universe and, himself filled with these, is in a position to “bring forth back again from his heart wondrous deeds”?

>>16021488
>>16021519
>>16021397

>>16020836
>>16020850
>>16021397
>>16021519
why do people do this? respond to a simple question with pages upon pages of schizo walltext?

>>16021529
So, it's just your interpretation, then? You're not getting this from some other author?

>>16021529
>>16021488
Read Philolaus. https://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/app/app39.htm
Nobody after him thought his Pythagorean teachings were innovations.
>>16021558
Uzdavinys is the most recent.
>>16021544
then read pic related

>>16021569
>Uzdavinys
Thank you, this is what I have been asking for for the past five posts.

>>16021569
picrelated is Iamblichus in de mysteriis some time around 300AD
Nobody in the third century could read the hieroglyphs in the pic related of the post I'm responding to.
>aka perfect transmission of wisdom

>>16021397
>>16021519
>>16021569
>>16021638
/lit/ need ID's. Are these all one guy? Is he pro-Egyptian origin or anti? Who is winning? Is this based or cringe? How the fuck am I supposed to make sense of it all?

Give ID's or make it impossible to respond to ones own posts.

Can someone explain to me why reality has come into being?
Reality is an expression of the Power of Brahman, correct? Like one who in a joyous state expresses his joy as a song ( for no reason other than its own sake) so too does Brahman wield His Power to express His Bliss spontaneously (Brahman cannot be bound by Cause and Effect, I believe)?

>>16021488
All of them were pythagoreans. All of them have extant writings reflecting Pythagorean teachings. You said there were no pythagorean writings.
Yes the Golden Verses probably was composed by another pythagorean, but it is a PYTHAGOREAN poem reflecting pythagoras’s doctrines.

>>16021835 not me

>all me
>>16021638
>>16021569
>>16021529
>>16021519
>>16021397
>>16020836
>>16020807
>>16020742
>>16019303
there's another, or two, honorable gentleman arguing the same case

>>16021638
where is this from

>>16021894
Because the unlimited doesn't know how it is to be limited. You can claim kataphatically that God knows how it feels to no be God and not know whether he himself exists without these ever existing, not even potentially; but this is absurd, and not merely paradoxical but contradictory. God's (as in the One-Being) essence is to know himself as Different and Same---Being IS Knowing, thus the ultimate Being is ultimate knowledge, therefore for he to be in himself ultimate knowledge he has to be All Beings (one and many). And that is how we are Being, and one reason why we and All are. Aka God is the Limit and Unlimited and their perfect Harmony, which are made manifest in Being.
To Platonists all beings have necessary existence, there never was a time were Time and Becoming came to be.

Another reason is pic related.
The answer can also be extracted from Sophist 242a-249d

Monism is literally basedboy philosophy

>>16022238
that specifically is from "Neoplatonic Philosophy: Introductory Readings" I downloaded the pdf just before I posted to print-screen that page.
Here's the same page+ from the same translator but slightly different. Starting from "2".

>>16022281
not the same person but don't all beings have necessary existence because of God's Thought and Will? Time and Becoming are, has always been, and will always be, but in the Logos.

>>16022309
oh so that part is from iamblichus de mysteriis?

>>16022336
yes
>>16022320
effort post cooomin through at the death of thread
Following mainly Plotinus, it is because of the GOOD's free Will, he being nothing in himself but this pure Will for "otherness" to be, and therefore otherness is; primally the Indefinite Dyad which is yet isn't the One. (This isn't really explained by Plotinus.) Going by Damascius (and Iamblichus), this second 'Henad' is the principle of Otherness, which one might coin "chaos". This can symbolically be related to the Pupil of the Eye, how it is nothing, utterly devoid, this is true Matter (as opposed to supposedly derivative matter that we exist in), the Womb of existence. This empty eye is 'Intellect' (Nous) "before" he turns upon himself....
gonna have to post this before thread dies

>>16022009
>All of them have extant writings reflecting Pythagorean teachings
This is incorrect, their extant writings are almost entirely mathematical treatises. There are fragments belying their leanings, but of those we can't say much because they're fragments. Many people held Pythagoras in high esteem, that doesn't mean we have any attestations as to what Pythagoras actually taught. This is especially the case because most "Pythagoreans" are also Platonists and/or Neoplatonists.

We could separate Pythagorean teachings from Platonic teachings if we knew what Pythagoras taught, but we don't know what he actually taught other than some kind of metempsychosis, numerology, vegetarianism, and that the Earth was round (assuming this even comes from Pythagoras at all).

We have no "Doctrine of Pythagoreanism", or anything of the sort. We simply do not have enough text to conclusively say what he, and his followers, believed as separate from Plato. Perhaps he was saying basically the same thing as Plato, Forms and all. That's entirely possible, but just as we lack the text necessary to say that's not the case, we lack the text necessary to say that it is. All we can say is that certain men claimed influence by Plato and Pythagoras, and we have some works on math by them.

>>16022417
so yeah, the receptacle in plato's timaeus is matter right? guénon hints at it when he shows that the word matter has a parallel with the latin Mater and the Prakriti principle. So matter, materia prima, is truly unintelligible, right? It may lead to some interesting parallel with Hegel's Being and Nothing and Becoming, Philaret of Moscow's saying that creation is placed on the Logos, above them the divine pleroma and below their own nothingness. So Matter does not exist, the egyptians were right when they saw the natural world as supernatural, since it is quality, multiplicity which makes creation what it is, bodies having inherent qualitative attributes?
But what you said about Time and Becoming having no time where they came to be implies this world is eternal and that is my main issue here, that what is eternal is the logoi in the Logos and not their instances.

>>16022417
In this 'moment' (as Damascius puts it) before time, you cannot think of as in 'steps of time', you can imagine the sun in eclipse, or an eye without Iris. There's now only the pupil, flowing forth; in fact, it itself is the flowing forth. Can light see itself?
Thus the Indefinite Dyad becomes 'Intellect' by becoming the object of its own vision, or rather, Intellect is the object of its own vision, the vision is the One as Monad and the Subject is the Indefinite as Intellect (again, following Plotinus); before Intellect beholds the One and distinguishes the Dyad from the One there is no difference, it is the Act of objectification that in turn produces 'Soul', which "just" is a "repetition" of the above, which could be said to be the 'Iris' of the Pupil, even in the literal etymological sense.
The light which this Eye of god sees is the light from within itself, being itself, since there's not yet anything else.
This is what we call Epistrophe.
Mone, Proodos, Epistrophe.
These three words surmise the entirety of "Neoplatonism" and existence, it is the Myth of Er.

>>16022493
yes, Plato sneakily says it all in Timaeus 51, or around there.

. We also must understand that if the imprints are to be varied, with all the varieties there to see, this thing upon which the imprints are to be formed could not be well prepared for that role if it were not itself devoid of any of those characters that it is to receive from elsewhere. For e if it resembled any of the things that enter it, it could not successfully copy their opposites or things of a totally different nature whenever it were to receive them. It would be showing its own face as well. This is why the thing that is to receive in itself all the elemental kinds must be totally devoid of any characteristics. Think of people who make fragrant ointments.They expend skill and ingenuity to come up with something just like this [i.e., a neutral base], to have on hand to start with. The liquids that are to receive the fragrances they make as odorless as possible. Or think of people who work at impressing shapes upon soft materials. They emphatically refuse to allow any such material to already have some definite shape. Instead, they’ll even it out and make it as smooth as it can be. In the same way, then, if the thing that is to receive repeatedly throughout its whole self the likenesses of the intelligible objects, the things which always are—if it is to do so successfully, then it ought to be devoid of any inherent characteristics of its own. This, of course, is the reason why we shouldn’t call the mother or receptacle of what has come to be, of what is visible or perceivable in every other way, either earth or air, fire or water, or any of their compounds or their constituents. But if we speak of it as an invisible and characterless sort of thing, one that receives all things and shares in a most perplexing way in what is intelligible, a thing extremely difficult to comprehend, we shall not be misled.

Since being repeats, this not merely applies to he demiurge and creation, but to the most primal act of all. This translation isn't poignant enough tho...

>>16022482
Can you just stop posting whatever you feel like and actually read a book? Pythagoreanism has no ''mathematical'' treatises but sacred mathematics which served principally as a mathematical theology. Some of pythagorean theology is clothed in mathematical symbols and mathematical symbols converted in theological poesy. See the Tectratys, read Nicomachus Introduction to Arithmetic and his Manual of Harmonics.

>that doesn't mean we have any attestations as to what Pythagoras actually taught.
Holy shit I just pointed you to like six pythagoreans with extant works. What did they wrote? Pyrrhonism? Atomism, you idiot? Just like the Platonists developed their theology they always, all the time cited and commented upon Plato. The pythagoreans were not different.

>most "Pythagoreans" are also Platonists and/or Neoplatonists.
Not really. Most pythagoreans were strict, ''orthodox'' pythagoerans in their mathematical mysticism, the platonists were the ones who explicitly revered pythagorean teachings for the similitude of their doctrines (and you know why they are so similar????? yes, egyptians).

We have the Golden Verses about which I already told you two times, we have commentaries on it too from other pythagoreans.

>We have no "Doctrine of Pythagoreanism".
Not in a systematic way. But we have access to many of the elements of their doctrines by pythagoreans themselves!

>We simply do not have enough text to conclusively say what he, and his followers, believed as separate from Plato. Perhaps he was saying basically the same thing as Plato, Forms and all.
As I said above, yes they were pretty much saying the same things because of what I also said. But we can see the difference each of them, pythagoreans and platonists, dealt with it.

>we have some works on math.
Read above.

>>16022579
Aristotle's, and several other's, testimony is that Plato held there to be the One (here as the Monad) and the Indefinite Dyad. Limit and Unlimited.
A mistake here is to confuse the Limit/Monad with the One proper, and make the Indefinite Dyad some duality of evil pre-existing chaos. This why the 'Triad', and not Monism, is the answer. As the Egyptians say: "All the Gods are Three:" >>16021397
And no this isn't a defense of the trinity since the trinity are three useless copies,

>>16022629
where does aristotle say this? and explain what you mean by the trinity being ''three useless copies''.

>>16022579
>Rather, if we describe her as a Kind invisible and unshaped, ALL-receptive, and in some most perplexing and most baffling way (ineffable) partaking of the intelligible, [51b] we shall describe her truly.

Naturally, 'All' is more than merely the cosmos.

>>16022653
physics and metapysics
Metaphysics Α 6, 987b18–25
likewise the fragments of plato's immediate successors talk of it

>>16022689
>>16022653
Since the Forms are the causes of all other things, he thought their elements were the elements of all things. As matter, the great and the small were principles; [20] as substance, the One; for from the great and the small, by participation in the One, come the numbers.4
But he agreed with the Pythagoreans in saying that the One is substance and not a predicate of something else; and in saying that the numbers are the causes of the substance of other things, he also agreed with them; but positing a dyad and [25] constructing the infinite out of great and small, instead of treating the infinite as one, is peculiar to him; and so is his view that the numbers exist apart from sensible things, while they say that the things themselves are numbers, and do not place the objects of mathematics between Forms and sensible things. His divergence from the [30] Pythagoreans in making the One and the numbers separate from things, and his introduction of the Forms, were due to his inquiries in the region of definitory formulae (for the earlier thinkers had no tincture of dialectic), and his making the other entity besides the One a dyad was due to the belief that the numbers, except those which were prime, could be neatly produced out of the dyad as out of a plastic material.

>>16016701
no

range ban Indian ip and the board IQ will triple.

gosh I hate Indian sophistry so damn much. So and bath in cow shit or something.

>>16022653
>explain what you mean by the trinity being ''three useless copies''.
the three hypostases are indentical to each other,you can't even call them three person since all their Acts are acted together as one, which means their thought is one thinking, their will is one will, their, there's only one seeing one perception, one understanding, one speaks, one who hears; what I'm saying is there aren't three subjects but only One Subject and Actor in the Trinity; going by most definitions of a 'person' the trinity is one person, it's just Christians who have a nonsense idea of what "person" means.
Of course protestants have no idea of what I'm tailing about.
The only this that distinguishes the trinity is that it's ONLY the Father who begets the son and proceeds the spirit. So much for shared Energia, does the Father have two natures?, they can't answer this paradox...
Unless you ask a catholic then the Son also persnally (whatever that means) proceeds the spirit individually, but this breaks the whole ontology of he trinity and creates two Arches/Principles of divinity, which is true polytheism. Unless you say that the Father somehow only shares his processional act with the son who then does it secondarily, but that's not what the filioque implies, and this only doubles the uselessness of the plurality of God in Christianity (for Catholics who use the Filioque, Orthodox trinity is also ontologically useless).

>>16022825

>"Even the loftiest philosophy of the Europeans, the idealism of reason, as it is set forth by Greek philosophers, appears in comparison with the abundant light and vigor of Oriental idealism, like a feeble Promethean spark in the full flood of heavenly glory of the noonday sun—faltering and feeble, and ever ready to be extinguished."
- Friedrich von Schlegel (1772 – 1829)

>"When we read with attention the poetical and philosophical monuments of the East, above all, those of India, which are beginning to spread in Europe, we discover there many a truth, and truths so profound, and which make such a contrast with the meanness of the results at which the European genius has sometimes stopped, that we are constrained to bend the knee before the philosophy of the East, and to see in this cradle of the human race the native land of the highest philosophy."
- Victor Cousin (1792 – 1867)

>"It is impossible to read the Vedanta, or the many fine compositions in illustration of it, without believing that Pythagoras and Plato derived their sublime theories from the same fountain with the sages of India."
- Sir William Jones ( 1746 – 1794)

>"Vedanta is the most sublime of all philosophies, and the most comforting of all religions. If philosophy is meant to be a preparation for a happy death, or Euthanasia, I know of no better preparation for it than the Vedanta philosophy."
>"I spend my happiest hours in reading Vedantic books. They are to me like the light of the morning, like the pure air of the mountains - so simple, so true, if once understood."
- Max Muller (1823 – 1900)

>"In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavat Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial…"
- Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862)

>(The Bhagavad Gita is) "The most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue ....perhaps the deepest and loftiest thing the world has to show."
- Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767 – 1835)

>"I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad-gita. It was the first of books; it was as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882)

>"In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life -- it will be the solace of my death. "
- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860)

>>16022837
>Upanishads =/= shanked hairy

>>16022588
>look, just because it's an ancient philosophy without any extant texts by actual practitioners doesn't mean that my schizo ramblings arent what they actually believed
read a book, moron

>>16022588
If you believe your personal theories are more convincing than literally all contemporary scholarship on the issue, then publish a book explaining how you have access to some kind of text elaborating on what the Pythagoreans believe that no one up until now has had.

That or take your meds. Either way, fuck off, nobody cares about your schizobabble.

>>16022872
death and rebirth is the principal feature of our theology
Why shouldn't the faith and tradition suffer the same Fate?

This is not the first Hinduism related thread to end up turning into two people arguing with each other about whose take on western esoteric history was more on point

>>16022837
BHIKSHUKA 1-UPANISHAḌ
OF
ŚUKLA-YAJURVEḌA
>Then the Hamsas should live not more than a night in a village, five nights in a town, and seven nights in a sacred place, partaking daily of cow's urine and cow's dung, observing Chānḍrāyaṇa 3 and striving after moksha alone through the path of yoga. Paramahamsas like Samvarṭaka, Āruṇī, Śweṭakeṭu, Jadabharaṭa, Ḍaṭṭāṭreya, Śuka, Vāmaḍeva, Hārīṭaka and others take eight mouthfuls and strive after moksha alone through the path of yoga. They live clothed or naked at the foot of trees, in ruined houses, or in burning grounds. With them, there are no dualities as ḍharma and aḍharma, gain and loss, and purity and impurity.
---------
>In Srimad Bhagavatam 10.6.20, it is described that, after being breast fed by Putna, a demoness, Lord Krishna was given a bath with cow urine, Goraj (dust raised by cows feet) and cow dung was applied over body of Lord Krishna by gopis.

Fuck off poojeet

>>16022829
>the three hypostases are indentical to each other
The relation of the Three Persons of the Godhead can be understood only apopahtically: Father is neither Son nor Spirit; Son is neither Father not Spirit; Spirit is neither Father nor Son. In the same way we understand that there is a difference between the begetting of the Son and the procession of the Spirit, but the nature of the difference is not communicable.
So yes, Three Persons, One Will, One Logos. The Son is the Image of the Invisible God, the Holy Spirit the Perfection and Providence of the divine Will, that is why One Will.
>So much for shared Energia, does the Father have two natures?, they can't answer this paradox...
I don't understand this. What paradox?
Where did you get from that the Son proceeds the Spirit individually?

>>16022882
>tell the peanbrained anon to check all what I'm saying in books
>your own theories
Literally reading books is something foreign to you people. The absolute state!

>>16022882
>who is Gerson, Dillon, Finamore, Uzdavinys, Sara Ahbel Rappe, George Boys-Stones, Clement Salaman, Emma Clarke...

>>>16022930
>Son nor Spirit; Son is neither Father not Spirit; Spirit is neither Father nor Son.
Augustine is not the textbook of doctrine, the Augustinian Shield is flawed.
>I don't understand this. What paradox?
There's only One work, one actor.
> There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5 There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. 6 And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. 7 But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: 8 for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.

There's is only one nature does only one source of Action. This more focused in on in Orthodoxy, but Catholic supposedly have the same doctrine. When God creates, you don't have the Logos doing 33.33..%, Holy Spirit doing another 33.33..%, and Father doing another 33.33..% they all do the doing that is 100%, it isn't partitioned between them. But the thing is they do ALL acts as one, the Trinity is one Mind, one Will, one Subject, one Voice, ONE CREATOR, one Listener, one Giver of many Gifts and one Giver of Grace, ONE thinker (presuming they think).

>>16023014
In a way the Father is the God that does everything 'God' does, being font out of which all comes, but he does all these things through the Son and Spirit they merely act as funnels of his works, since "their will" (or rather lack thereof) is the father's will; it is, literally, a hive mind.

>>16022930
>Where did you get from that the Son proceeds the Spirit individually?
that's what reading the Filioque means
"from the the father and the son"
this implies two sources

>>16023014
That has nothing to do with Augustine.
What one does the others do, what one thinks the others think, what one creates the others create. The Three are One and this One is Three.

>>16023097
>individually
Where did you get this from, I ask you again?

>>16023109
AND THE SON
it doesn't say "and through the son"

>>16023101
>>16023101
>What one does the others do, what one thinks the others think, what one creates the others create.
no, there's only one will, none of them do anything that the other's don't simultaneously will to want to yo do and then will to do, they all want and will and do as one, aka one person. Because willing and doing and wanting is what a person, no an abstract concursion

>>16023259
is what a person does*

>>16023235
yes and it doesn't say individually, as you said.

>they all want and will and do as one, aka one person.
you were right until here. will is according to nature, not person. read some maximus.

>>16023292
>will is according to nature
according to the heterodox church teaching, but willing is something a subject does, it isn't something that is a quality of nature (while the particularities of X Will depends on the nature). We are what we will, we don't will what we are.

>>16023317
>heterodox church
what you base this upon? as I said saint maximus, orthodox father, wrote extensively about it.
also,
>The Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 475, states: "Similarly, at the Sixth ecumenical council, Constantinople III in 681, the Church confessed that Christ possesses two wills and two natural operations, divine and human. They are not opposed to each other, but co-operate in such a way that the Word made flesh willed humanly in obedience to his Father all that he had decided divinely with the Father and the Holy Spirit for our salvation. Christ's human will 'does not resist or oppose but rather submits to his divine and almighty will.'"

will is a power, and a power is from nature, not person.

>>16023332
Heterodox as in an unorthodox definition, not some hypothetical "heterodox church", I'm a bit under the influence of Dionysus (if you know what i mean) right now and can seem to type properly.
Christianity doesn't even have a doctrine of Power (as internal act) if it did they'd have even more problems, which would perhaps force them to rectify the errancy.
Will is something you power, or rather empower, thus making it an act (a power, aka internal act), this is what the philosopher's call our being. Being to them is the whole of our essence energy power subject and will and everything.
Something the Oriental Orthodox understand. The EO dialectic of essence and person (the latter not meaning anything since they make everything happen through the nature) is erroneous. The irony is that you disregar this duality when it comes to the Father, now all of a sudden Hypostais is source of the act and will of begetting and proceeding and sharing of his nature. But again "we don't talk about that".

>>16023390
ii'll ake a thread in towmmorow 10 20 hours about orthodoxy and will and internal-act vs external act, being and essence, pathos, subject means something, person that means nothing, gonna have to speedread Dr. Beau Branson phd essay
i must pass into the dreams of Night

>>16023425
perhaps I'll ask the question

"what does 'person' mean in orthodox chrisianity?" will be a rumble, because it means literally nothing

perichoresis was a word I was looking for before, it's not compatible with the "shield of the trinity", it's also a fancy way of saying hive mind.

>>16023492
what's the root there, peri + chorus? as in around/about the chorus

>>16023390
>Heterodox as in an unorthodox definition, not some hypothetical "heterodox church"
what? i understood you meant heterodox as in unorthodox

>The irony is that you disregar this duality when it comes to the Father, now all of a sudden Hypostais is source of the act and will of begetting and proceeding and sharing of his nature.
The Will is not disordered Will of Person, but of the Godhead. The Will ''passes through'' the apophatic relational order of the Persons. It is not from One of the Persons, but the passes from the Father, through the Son in the Spirit.

>Christianity doesn't even have a doctrine of Power (as internal act) if it did they'd have even more problems.
Palamite essence-energy distinction?

>Will is something you power, or rather empower, thus making it an act (a power, aka internal act).
Energeia from nature. Haven't you read Proclus?

>this is what the philosopher's call our being.
yeah being = nature (or essence) + its natural energies (+ hypostasis in the case of humans, angels, daimons and other divine beings).

>>16023425
>subject means something, person that means nothing
I would say subject is more an impersonal, individual ens, while person, hypostasis is something personal, perhaps superior part of soul, intellect.

>>16023434
''according to the fathers there is between ousia and hypostasis the same distinction as between common and particular''

>>16021125
>buddha called his ontology 'the path to brahman'
source?

Did you know that the blue guys are actually caucasian? Thats why theyre painted differently.

>>16018851
>Shiva made Buddhism to hoodwink atheists into worshiping him anyways, and then made Advaita Vedanta to shock Buddhists into becoming Hindus out of embarrassment at their doctrine's similarity
That sounds almost exactly like something that belongs at the bottom of one of these memes. Idk, my sleep deprived mind found that way funnier than it would have otherwise been.

Is there a concept of inherent human worth in hinduism? Don't they basically believe we're all part of one entity, brahman?

>>16025443
>Is there a concept of inherent human worth in hinduism?
Yes, all living souls are often seen in many Hindu schools as being intrinsically sacred, and in comparison to the other souls in animals etc, humans are seen as especially exalted since humans are in one of the best positions to be able to come to know God or Brahman
>Don't they basically believe we're all part of one entity, Brahman?
many of the schools do, more or less

>>16023743
https://youtu.be/Oo_9UNFh9Zs
>>16023743
>Energeia from nature. Haven't you read Proclus?
we don't have subject-ousia distinction, in a way 'ousia' is the person; following Damascius (and supposedly Iambilchus) the nature of the true soul is Change, meaning whatever we will (choose) to participate we become. It is this way that the true 'Soul' is alike Matter with no inherent properties, and rather the empty eye that descends and ascends changing as it goes. The who is what has properties, it makes no sense to talk about 'who' and 'that whose whatness' as two distinct things. As I Orthodoxy don't either, truly, for the Father's hypostasis has properties distinct from the "divine nature", such as Monarch and Father of the Trinity. Only the Son has the property of Son, "but essence is the whatness of a thing" so how then is only the Son 'the Son' if he supposedly has the same whatness as the Father?

>>16023743
>yeah being = nature (or essence) + its natural energies (+ hypostasis in the case of humans, angels, daimons and other divine beings).
And Orthodoxy does not have (or rather don't use) this term.
>>16023743
>Palamite essence-energy distinction?
Power is internal act.

pic related is Damascius wrestling with all of this.

>>16026981
you absolute cunt

Have any of you learned Pali yet?

>>16026986
Was Damascius a Greek living in Damascus or a Syrian?

What book is the egyptian translation in >>16021397

>>16027094
James P Allen Genesis in Egypt.
>>16027040
He was from Damascius and it is postulated that he moved back there, together with Simplicius (the latter at least also moved to somewhere around Syria), once he was allowed to return to the empire after their Exile.

>>16019303
>which proves that the One can only be approached through not two but three paradoxical principles, from afar it is absolutely monadic (showing how far away Shankara was)
This is not an actual substantial criticism of Shankara's thought though but it's just assuming Neoplatonism to be correct and then saying "Shankara is wrong because he doesn't autistically formulate doctrine in THE EXACT SAME WAY as Damascius does", which doesn't prove anything

>>16027115
>>16027040
as in he was probably a Greek from Damascus

>>16027148
the whole "mission" of Platonism from Philolaus to Olympiodorus has been to affirm multiplicity in face of the real existence of the One. They all as a whole contradict Shankara.

SOCRATES: Let us be very careful about the starting point we take.
PROTARCHUS: What kind of starting point?
SOCRATES: Let us make a division of everything that actually exists now in the universe into two kinds, or if this seems preferable, into THREE. PROTARCHUS: Could you explain on what principle?
SOCRATES: By taking up some of what has been said before.
PROTARCHUS: Like what?
SOCRATES: We agreed earlier that the god had revealed a division of what is into the UNLIMITED and the LIMIT.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Let us now take these as two of the kinds, while treating the ONE that results from the MIXTURE of these TWO as our THIRD kind.

This simple section is the TL;DR, of Damascius Problems and Solutions.
But I won't handhold you through the way.

what Socrates refers to earlier is:
SOCRATES: It is not very difficult to describe it, but extremely difficult to use. For everything in any field of art that has ever been discovered has come to light because of this. See what way I have in mind.
PROTARCHUS: Please do tell us.
SOCRATES: It is a gift of the gods to men, or so it seems to me, hurled down from heaven by some Prometheus along with a most dazzling fire. And the people of old, superior to us and living in closer proximity to the gods, have bequeathed us this tale, that whatever is said to be consists of one and many, having in its nature limit and unlimitedness. Since this is the structure of things, we have to assume that there is in each case always one form for every one of them, and we must search for it, as we will indeed find it there. And once we have grasped it, we must look for two, as the case would have it, or if not, for three or some other number. And we must treat every one of those further unities in the same way, until it is not only established of the original unit that it is One, Many and Unlimited, but also how many kinds it is. For we must not grant the form of the unlimited to the plurality before we know the exact number of every plurality that lies between the unlimited and the one. Only then is it permitted to release each kind of unity into the unlimited and let it go. The gods, as I said, have left us this legacy of how to inquire and learn and teach one another. But nowadays the clever ones among us make a one, haphazardly, and a many, faster or slower than they should; they go straight from the one to the unlimited and omit the intermediates. It is these, however, that make all the difference as to whether we are engaged with each other in dialectical or only in eristic discourse.

>>16027115
any other ancient egyptian authors you recommend?

>>16027148
Just talk about jivatman and other concepts that describes methexis in advaita vedanta

>>16026981
You’re saying that you conceive no distinction between ousia and hypostasis? Because just like I said about the difference between them being that between common and particular would make no sense in your view and all ens, beings, would be distinguished solely by natures and not individuals and particulars. Nonsense.

>nature of soul being change, meaning whatever we will, choose to participate we become.
So whatever you become is not an idea present in a logoi of yours in the Logos? That does not sound platonistic in any way! Aren’t we “empty” of our own selves, our own Ideas precisely to receive through will all that which is possibly present in our Ideas, being actualized through our will here in the corporeal world? We are images here of our own selves, drawing ourselves according to our logoi (reason) from the Logos.
>for the Fathers hypostasis has no properties distinct from the divine nature such as Monarch and Father.
I don’t understand your point here. The Monarch is the Father. The Father is the Monarch, all of this because of the relational position of the Father with the other Two Persons. Each Person is what She Is because of the Other Persons of the Trinity.
>how the Son is the Son if he has the same whatness of the Father
See above. Ousia-Hypostasis distinction and the distinction between the relations of positions of the Persons as I said above too.

>>16026986
>cunt
Aren’t we discussing in friendly terms? I respect a lot of the platonic attempts at an integral intellectual doctrine. Why would you not respect its full realization within Christianity?

>>16027589
"Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many" has become the theological leadoff for anything about Egypt.
Assmann's "The Search for God in Ancient Egypt " is a response to that, both have been revised.
"One God Or Many?: Concepts of Divinity in the Ancient World" also responds to these two, plus incursion into all the other mythologies around Egypt. But it's out of print and expensive as fuck...
then there's of course Uzdavinys, but you should read him with a pinch of salt, since he was inspired by the "traditionalists" like Shuon and Coomaraswamy, and he has some speculative fringe proposals.

>>16027689
i called myself a cunt for not adding the picture

>>16027689
>we're just discussing respectfully why would you not respect that Christianity is the full realization and everything else is just pisspoor proto-renditions of the Christian truth you *implied mental midget neoplatonist*
Christians have truly perfected the art of taking on the passive aggressive air of superiority, doling out parental advice and judgement from their high seat wherever they are.

>>16027698
lmao, ok anon i'll believe in you

>>16027780
i thought you were referring to me as a cunt in that post, so i really did intend to provoke in this more polished way, lol. don't take any offense, mainly concerning platonism which i regard a fundamental aspect of the intellectual part of christianity.

>>16027696
where can i find the One God or Many? book? i have been planning to read for a while but cant find it anywhere.
and why read both the one from erik hornung and from assmann? i think assmann is too biased

looking for books about the yugas. any recommendations

>>16028301
The Bible. It's condensed Kali yuga.

>>16028350
are you people even human?

>>16028350
i've been skimming here and there through the kjv.
I'd love to hear a few sentences on your point of view to that conclusion. :)

>>16028029
I bought it used for 30 bucks on amazon, if you're American it probably exists in university libraries.
For Egypt you'll get everything out of the Baines translation of Hornung, since his Essay is a summary of that book which the rest of the essays address.
then Versnels' essay follows this book
https://1lib.eu/book/922439/6fbe7d
Here's one section of the book
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiXvtzuh_3qAhVqo4sKHcnZCOQQFjABegQIChAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aina.org%2Farticles%2Fmiaa.pdf&usg=AOvVaw2PJPzUEVs_aWibQWfpouKU

>>16028301
Yuga by Marty Glass

>>16027236
> has been to affirm multiplicity in face of the real existence of the One
Affirm multiplicity in what way? If you don’t explain why it’s a meaningless statement. Affirm multiplicity as something which has a contingent existence which is dependent on its source, which we perceive in our consciousness, and which exists in its own right independent of our perception of it? Shankara also affirms all those things about multiplicity.

Or do you affirm multiplicity to be absolutely real, just as real as its ultimate source, eternal, beginningless, undecaying and immutable? To apply these labels to the changing world of composite objects results in many contradictions. If you don’t affirm these about multiplicity as Shankara does not, than what even is your point of contention?