/lit/ - Literature

He wrote that btw 1/2

2/2

>>17300145
deaf read about music, again

>>17300145
Anon at some point you're going to have to realize the oneupsmanship nature of language and why the different combinations we can manage ultimately crest at unfalsifiability and yield to go beyond this point.

>>17300362
Yup, the only way to understand these things is to eat a mountain of shrooms and acid

>>17300373
Wow. I never thought about it before but it seems true.

>>17300402
Why not just a void, anon?

>>17300416
A void, just like before you were born?

>>17300432
To be fair, who the hell knows.

>>17300449
I posted that image in regard to the notion of the significance of one's experiences with psychoactive substances, nothing related to theology.

>>17300446
The ride never ends, anon. You're here forever (in existence).

>>17300471
I'll repeat myself, to be fair, who the hell knows.

>>17300465
I deleted that comment because you (or someone) answered.
But about the substances, it's not confirmation bias if it gives you ideas you'd never thought of before, which is what happened to me.

>>17300145
>for the Absolute to have meaning for us, it cannot be causally disconnected from the world. And that which is causally connected to the world is conditioned.
I odn't understand, was he trying to refute Theravadin "dualism" with this?

>>17300471
Do we ever get to rest?

>>17300145
What is a "self" anyways? If the self is expanded by imagination or realization what is stopping me from extending myself beyond the Buddhist concept of consciousness?

>>17300673
The Self or Ātman is the sentience in which everything else takes place

>>17300955
Linguistic tripe, once you use the word "everything" you have simply reached the end game of language. This is no achievement. A child can say "everything".

>>17300563
he's talkin about vedanta u moron

>>17300966
The Self is the sentience by which the taking place of things, objects, concepts etc are known

>>17300673
>What is a "self" anyways?
A miserable little pile of secrets.

>>17301060
Do only sentient things have "self"?

no shit

advaita vedanta is inconsistent, but buddhism is still cringe, read ramanuja instead

>>17301060
buddhists dont deny sentience and deny the self

>>17301060
so nothing because there's nothing there and it's only manifested through negativity

>>17301208
All animate and inanimate things are suspended in the Self which is omnipresent. What we call sentient things are just agglomerations of material into such an arrangement which allows them to have intellects, which itself acts as a receptible for the light of the Self to be reflected in. This light of the Self exists everywhere, but objects such as rocks are not 'sentient' because they don't have intellects which can be receptacles for the light of the Self to enter into. There is no sentience anywhere aside from this light. Deprived of the light of the Self, the agglomeration of the body and its receptacle of the intellect themselves have no sentience, they are as insentient as the rock. We falsely ascribe by way of speech the sentience of the Self to the insentient bodies which it is reflected in.

>>17301350
>if I enter into a pitch-dark room where I can't see anything, my eye is nothing and doesn't exist since its only manifested through the perception of objects via the medium of light

>>17300373
was thinking this exact thing.

>>17301392
yeah that's self for you

>>17300145
>For example, that consciousness is always relational

To what?

>>17301375
So humans define sentience? What gives us this position?

>>17301375
Proofs?

>>17301392
That’s eye-consciousness. Your eyes still exist because they are only the eye-base. Eye-base and visual objects are necessary causes of eye-consciousness. Take away one and you don’t have it.

>>17301648
Yes it sounds primitive in comparison with modern but Buddhist phenomenology is still basically correct.

>>17301541
The Self is always self-revealing, you have never had a conscious experience of nothingness or non-existence, you have never known nothingness, only gaps in your memory. But in deep sleep your sentience does not cease to exist but it witnesses the 3rd state of Mandukya Upanishad, Prajna, which corresponds to absence of duality in deep sleep and regular yogic samadhi (which is different from moksha). In the same way that people doing samadhi meditation temporarily cease to experience duality without their sentience ceasing to exist, in the same way in Prajna during deep dreamless sleep the ultimate background of sentience doesn't cease to exist, it is the abiding container in which the Prajna takes place, like space in relation to physical objects.

Sentience is the 4th state which different from both waking, dream and the 3rd state, sentience observes the other 3 states. At every moment of your existence, the 4th state Turiya is observing either waking life, dream, or the state of prajna. But Turiya never ceases to exist in the same unchanged and unaffected way while observing the interplay of the other 3 states, and that's why we have the experience of being the same sentience who wanders in and out of dream, sleep and the waking state, instead of being a newly existence sentience creature every time we transition state.

>>17301664
What are the fundamental and primary texts that discuss kundalini and chakras?

>>17300373
Damn anon this might be your finest hour.

>>17300373
books on this?

>>17301569
There must always be an object for consciousness to cognize. Without the object, consciousness doesn't exist; without the consciousness, the object doesn't exist. Consciousness is perception, it is a relation.

>>17301810
And Gaining access to kaivalya still requires a consciousness to cognize that nothing is there. Like a blind man who has never had working eyes, when you ask him what he sees, he says "I see nothing!"

>>17301828
Yet, in order for him to see that nothingness, there must be a cognition of that nothingness. Therefore, the nothingness is the object of cognition,.

>>17300673
It's created by those who raise us and build the environment around us. Our "selves" are built from the ground up now. Media covers all major situations most humans will experience and endows the individual with a "self" that responds to the situation in the appropriate manner according to the predominant system in place. It's not an isolated process though. Society directly creates the selves, but the selves are the ones who run society.

>>17300145
You all keep talking about buddhist metaphysics, comparing it to hinduism, discussing the existence of the atman etc.

You all miss the point. The goal of buddhism is to reach contentment. The buddha himself said that you don't need to blindly believe in what he says, but rather that you should practice and see for yourself.

How many of you meditate yourselves? I bet probably not a lot, which is a shame

>>17301810

You cannot produce the Rational from the Phenomenal, even the Phenomenal from the Phenomenal, both can only be produced from the Rational. Vulgarly verbing some nouns, I always world, the world never mes.

>>17301810
So without me to cognize God he doesn't exist? And the cognition proves his existence?

>>17301928
Describe the difference between meditation and daily life

>>17301928
I've been trying to do samatha meditation lately but I always get distracted from the breathing.

>>17301664
the way I see it this sentience is a negation of the object

>>17301375
and this is why sentience is not self but merely a tool of specific manifestations of self
true self is the driving force of creation that wills itself into existence through varying degrees of objectification, including rocks and humans

western dialectic is better

>>17301989
Daily life can be meditation if you are mindful

Most are not mindful however during their daily activities (for example, notice all the people who wear earphones and listen to music in public), so there's a big difference between the two

>>17302029
Keep it up, I'm sure you'll succeed if you keep trying

>>17302404
What is the difference between mindfulness and non-mindfulness? Is it different from person to person? Is it restricted to people?

>>17300145
>For example, that consciousness is always relational, therefore conditioned.
That depends on what you mean be consciousness. If you mean 'consciousness' in terms of the types of consciousness in Buddhism such as ear-consciousness and eye-consciousness then those are not really consciousness but they are objects of consciousness; they are objects which are presented to or which appear within the span of consciousness as such, which we can also call sentience or intelligence. The objects of consciousness are relational, but consciousness as such, or sentience is non-relational and completely unconditioned, all relations presuppose a pre-existing knower of them who can know both terms of the relation, and that knower is sentience.

Sentience is distinct from the objects of sentience which come and go in it. This is what allows us to perceive the flow of time as an uninterrupted continuum, because despite the coming and going of different mental states and sensory input the background of sentience is there persisting throughout. If sentience was not there we would not have an effortless and natural sense of identity (i.e. uninterrupted being) from moment to moment, but our normal everyday conscious experience would instead be characterized by a continuous series of abrupt ruptures in one's sense of identity at every moment based on the constant and abrupt variation in the exterior inputs like sounds, sights etc which the sense of identity would be based on if it were not rooted in a persisting sentience, but this is not how we experience things. This is one reason why we can tell that sentience is distinct from its objects.

Another reason we can tell that sentience is distinct from the objects of consciousness like is that mental phenomena like thoughts and emotions appear to us as experienced things in the same way that exterior objects and their presentation by the sensory organs do, that is to say they are flashed before us before vanishing sooner or later, it is our immediate experience of them and our ability to recall them in memory which both allow us to know that we had the experience of seeing a tree or the experience of feeling elation at seeing a friend. But these two experiences of the tree and of the elation don't differ insofar they are both presented to us, like images flashed on a screen, despite the tree being external and the elation being a non-physical mental sensation not produced by any sensory organ. We can establish that mental and physical sensations both occur to the same presence from the fact that they do not crowd each other out, they are not mutually exclusive but we can have the experience of both at the same time.

>>17302463
Mindfulness is about listening - listening to yourself and to your surroundings. It is about being in the present moment and seeing things for how they are.

>>17302619
When experiencing emotions like love or anger, you don't lose your eyesight of the world around you and your ability to hear and see the people that you are talking with at the moment of sensing that emotion (imagine if this were true how often people would suddenly lose their eyesight in boxing matches), but mental phenomena like thoughts and emotions are simultaneously overlaid with the sensory perceptions of things onto the same background of sentience; that this simultaneous overlay of sensory perceptions and mental phenomena like thoughts and emotions is experienced by us naturally implies that our conscious presence is different from those sensory perceptions and mental phenomena in manner analogous to how seeing a tree implies that the observer perceiving that tree is different from that tree. There is something there dwelling in the midst of the mosaic of mental phenomena and sensory perceptions, and that is the inner light by which you know them.

Another reason we can tell that sentience is distinct from the objects of consciousness is to analyze the absurd contradictions that would follow from taking a contrary position.

1) If sensory perceptions and mental phenomena were not witnessed by a sentience who was different than them, then they must be perceived or witnessed somehow, for it is undeniable that we experience or seem to experience them
2) If we have no separate sentience, then the only way that perceptions and mental activity can be known is if A) these things either are self-knowing, self-illuminating, or B) they can not be self-knowing, but the occurrence of them in a stream one after another generates our sense of knowing things in a series of ordered moments, with each snapshot of that moments arrangement of perceptions and mental activity perceiving the previous moments arrangement (but not itself) and then with that constant perceiving of the previous arrangement being transmitted to the next moment and passed on in turn. But both of these have irresolvable flaws which reveal them to be untenable, leaving the position of a separate abiding sentience being the only reasonable explanation:

>>17302629
A) If there is no separate sentience and instead thoughts and sensory perceptions are self-knowing, how can they know each other in the way that they necessarily must do in order that they can all be integrated into the united understanding and knowing of them that we possess? The sense of smell being based on the olfactory organ cannot comprehend or witness thoughts and the sense of sound. The different self-knowing sense-organs based sensations and however many self-knowing types of mental phenomena you enumerate would be like a bunch of tiny lamps burning in tiny little holes far away from each other inside the recesses of a mountain, with no way for them to witness each other, the incapability of the senses to observe the others would not be able to produce the integrated sense of knowing all of them that we have. Also, if thoughts are self-illuminating without being witnessed by any sentience or self, how do thoughts know each other such that it allows us to form patterns of rational and structured thought? Does the self-revealing thought witness both its own self-revealing content as well as the content of the previous thought with which it is mutually connected during deliberation and rational thought? Then if that were true we would never be able to stop thinking about whatever specific content we thought about until going to sleep because the content of the previous thought would invariably form the content of the next self-revealing thought, since the next thought would consist of itself as well as the knowing of the previous thought, which since that previous thought itself is partitioned into itself and the content of the previous one and so on ad infinitum going back in time. You could never unthink about the first thing you saw or thought of when waking up in the morning. Sentience being different from thoughts doesn't face this same problem since if sentience observes thoughts then sentience is not invariably identical with and constituted by the contents of the former or current thought by it is that which illumines them.

>>17302625
And what defines this state? A belief that you are in this state?

>>17302636
B) If thoughts and sensory perceptions are not self-knowing, but they just perceive one another another in a stream without being observing by a separate sentience, that results in an infinite regress which makes it impossible to do anything. In order for me to write and post this message, I first would have to look at my computer and have the cognition “this is my computer and I am going to write something”. Then I would have to act upon that cognition by deliberating about what I was going to write and then intentionally type and post it. If there is no sentence and thoughts just perceive one another there is no way for me to actually the transition in my mind from "this is my computer" to "I am going to write a 4chan post about this subject", because in order to be connected these thoughts have to witness one another, but as the individual thoughts are not self-aware, nobody is actually aware of them until they are perceived by another thought, but as there is no other sentience or "end-thought" which finally witnesses and has the conscious perception of the stream of thoughts, they just continue on ad infinitum without being known, there is no way to ever actually know those thoughts and act upon them, because that would require a final awareness which knew the insentient or non-self-knowing stream of thoughts, which itself didn't need to be observed by another to be conscious. There is never a moment when the insentient thoughts are witnessed by someone who can act on them.

So, from the above discussion it's clear that sentience or consciousness as such is distinct from that which it knows. "This Atman must be distinguished from external perceptions, bodily sensations, feelings, and thoughts. It must be directly seen as the eternal witness of these activities as a king is seen watching over his ministers" - Shankara, Atma-Bodha. This takes us to the next point, that sentience is absolutely unconditioned, and as consciousness or sentience is incapable of acting upon itself, just so it is incapable of adducing any evidence of its own conditionality. Things do not act upon themselves, but only upon other things, fire does not burn fire, light does not illumine light etc.

>>17302649
Wolfgang Fasching write about this in one article:

>The reason why I cannot find my consciousness as a phenomenon of its own in addition to what I am conscious of is simply that consciousness is just this: consciousness. It does not consist of any contents of consciousness – some inner pictures, feelings or the like – but is precisely consciousness of whatever contents I am conscious of, i.e. it is my being aware of them. And to be conscious of some content means nothing other than that this content is there for me. Consciousness is the presence-for-me of whatever I am conscious of. If it were a further content in addition to the content it is conscious of, it would be precisely just another one of the contents present to me and not the presence of the first content.

The neo-Kantian philosopher Paul Natorp similarly observed about consciousness:

>When I am told to attend to whether I have a particular sound-impression, I will not attend to anything other than to the very sound I am supposed to hear and maybe I will then hear it. Whoever additionally hears or otherwise […] perceives his hearing, I can perhaps envy his manner of perception, yet I could not follow suit with him. ‘The sound sounds to me’ and ‘I hear the sound’ are not two different facts to me – neither two successive ones nor two simultaneously experienced ones […]. […] [M]y consciousness (e.g. hearing) is only there or takes place insofar as the content (e.g. sound) is there for me; its thereness for me is my consciousness of it” (Natorp 1888, 17 f.)
>“In the basic phenomenon of consciousness there is no manifoldness and specificity whatsoever, it is absolutely simple […]. Rather, all richness, all manifoldness lies exclusively in the content. The consciousness of a simple sensation does not, qua consciousness, differ at all from the consciousness of a world; the factor of consciousness is just the same in both of them, the difference lying exclusively in the content” (Natorp 1888, 19).

Husserl was inconsistent on this and at times he disagreed, although he once admitted that "“all differences that are predicable at all are eo ipso differences of content” (Husserl 1984, 397)

The Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna himself agrees that consciousness or sentience is incapable of acting upon itself by grasping itself as its own object. He ruled out such reflexive relations as untenable

>That very seeing does not see
>Itself at all.
>How can something that cannot see itself
>See another?
- Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 3.2

>>17302619
>>17302629
>>17302636
>>17302649
I would be careful about reading Advaita Vedanta interpretations such as Shankara's as a commentary to the Upanishads, they are extremely reliant on Buddhist philosophy (Shankara is called a "cryptobuddhist" by most Hindus, and most scholars agree). If you want to read the Upanishads, work through them with editions and commentaries that aren't sectarian, or at least read an interpretation that is closer to the original meaning of the Upanishads, rather than Shankara's 9th century AD quasi-buddhism.

>>17302659
So, there is absolutely no basis for asserting that sentience is conditioned, because sentience is nirākāra or formless, it has no distinguishable features which can be marshalled forth as evidence of its conditioned nature but all things which can be asserted about sentience are non-sentience things observed by sentience, not sentience itself. So the Buddhist has no basis whatsoever which they can argue that consciousness or sentience is conditioned. The subject cannot both be the knowing subject and the object known at the same time, it is a logical impossibility, but this would have to take place in order for consciousness to observe itself and detect that it was conditioned. If Madhyamaka Buddhism and other forms of Mahayana/Vajrayana Buddhism followed an internally consistent logic then they would accept that due to reflexive relations being untenable that there is no way for them to establish whether or not consciousness/sentience is conditioned and they would instead refuse to take a position on it like the unanswered questions in the Sabbasava Sutta and other texts that Buddha referred to as a "fetter of views". Buddhist logic is not internally consistent though so Mahayanists and Vajrayanists will pick and choose from Nagarjuna's positions according to what helps or harms their arguments and they try to act like consciousness can observe itself as its own object reflexively and deduce its own supposed conditioned nature that way, despite it involving something Nagarjuna ruled out.

>That for the Absolute to have meaning for us, it cannot be causally disconnected from the world. And that which is causally connected to the world is conditioned.
The Absolute, the Paramātman is unconditioned. It has no real causal relation with the world but transcends the web of causality, it is the wielder of maya and the basis upon which samsara is imposed through avidya, but the real and the unreal have no real relationship except through one's deluded presuppositions. " The presuppositions of the severely deluded can never affect the underlying reality, just as the great torrent of a mirage flood cannot wet a desert land. Like space, I am beyond contamination. Like the sun, I am distinct from the things illuminated" - Shankara, Vivekachudamani.

>>17302673
Advaita doesn't admit of any higher meaning than the undivided and eternally free reality of Brahman, this has meaning for human beings though despite being not directly in a causal relationship with the world, because what we experience as this world is just this underlying reality appearing otherwise, so once the ignorance causing the wrong perception is removed the Absolute directly reveals itself as it always has been, but now without the false appearance superimposed on top of it. Thus, humans and other sentient beings have an intrinsic link to this Absolute reality through how it allows them to participate in relative existence, and this allows them to experience it directly in spiritual illumination without It becoming tainted or enmeshed in the web of causality, the Absolute of the Supreme Self is eternally unconditioned.

G-2.18-The Atma cannot be known through any of the pramanas {means of knowledge}---see Sankarabhashya on ‘aprameya’ in Vishnusahasranama. Being devoid of sound, form, taste, smell and touch, Atma cannot be known by pratyaksha pramana. Nor can it be known by anumana {inference} as it has no mark {linga} which can be the basis of inference. It cannot be known by upamana {analogy} as it has no parts and as analogy functions by comparing one part of a thing with the corresponding part of another thing. Arthapatti {implication} too cannot apply. Atma cannot be known by the criterion of abhava {negation} because it is always existent and is the witness of all negation. Nor can Atma be known by means of the scriptures, because it is devoid of any peculiar features that can be deduced from the scriptures. Then it may be asked, how is it said {in Brahma sutra 1.1.3,}that the scriptures are the valid source of knowledge of Brahman? The answer is- The Atma is the witness of all pramanas, being the Supreme light and so it cannot be the object of any means of knowledge; yet nescience superimposes on Brahman something which it is not. What the scripture does is only to remove this superimposition. Then Brahman {or the Atma} shines in its own light.

>>17302678
>What to read to fully understand the Buddhist critique of substance? Of Advaita?
I'm not expert on Buddhist literature but I do know that there is no real Buddhist critique of Advaita that they ever wrote. They never even tried to answer Shankara's arguments whereas before Shankara they had tried to often write responses to the anti-Buddhism arguments of people like Kumarila Bhatta or various Nyaya figures. It's surprising that they didn't even try to mount a response to Shankara's arguments given how extensively and thoroughly Shankara critiqued Buddhism. Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśila in the Tattvasangraha are the one group of Buddhists I'm aware of post-Shankara who tried to write a criticism of Advaita, again, they don't even respond to Shankara's attacks but they try to attack what they regard as the Upanishadic monism but they don't even realize that in Advaita that sentience is different from its contents, their whole criticisms hinges on this and some related misunderstandings. You can see their attack on Advaita explained line by line to be wrong here in this thread.

>>/lit/thread/S16894953#p16904797

Bhaviveka tried to write a critique of Gaudapada's Advaita before Shankara came later and further systemized it into a metaphysics, but as Andrew Nicholson notes in 'Unifying Hinduism', Bhaviveka in that work confuses Gaudapda's Advaita with the positions of Bhedabheda Vedanta (difference and non-difference) and then his critiques center around finding the contradictions between Gaudapada's Advaita and those other positions Gaudapada didn't accept. It seems that Hindus generally took the time to thoughtfully critique Buddhism including its various sub-schools, but when it comes to Buddhist engagement with Advaita they consistently seem to have gotten the basic facts about it wrong every time they wrote about it in the medieval and early-modern era.

>>17302640
Where are you aiming to go?

>>17302640
yes, it's a fad, 'being' in the moment requires a manufacture of 'the moment'

>>17302660
>followers of Madhva argued that Shankara championed monism because he was so stupid that he could only count to one
kek

>>17302701
Why would buddhists critique buddhist arguments that arbitrarily add brahman at the end? Advaita just dissolves into buddhism, its followers are quasi buddhists. It critiques itself.

>>17302701
>they try to attack what they regard as the Upanishadic monism but they don't even realize that in Advaita that sentience is different from its contents, their whole criticisms hinges on this and some related misunderstandings.
If sentience is different from its contents then how is that non-dualism? Sounds like the Advaitins didn't understand their own positions.

>>17302673
>Buddhist logic is not internally consistent though so Mahayanists and Vajrayanists will pick and choose from Nagarjuna's positions according to what helps or harms their arguments and they try to act like consciousness can observe itself as its own object reflexively and deduce its own supposed conditioned nature that way, despite it involving something Nagarjuna ruled out.
This is rich coming from someone whose great guru believes that Sanskrit grammar constitutes the universe, and that we are all actually god but just can't remember.

>>17302865
>If sentience is different from its contents then how is that non-dualism?
Because you are confusing mind-body dualism with the separate topic of ontological non-dualism. They are not mutually incompatible positions.

>>17303448
So you've reconciled Descartes with Spinoza? Let me guess, one is conventional truth and the other is absolute truth?

>>17303538
I consider both to be kind of irrelevant in the grand scheme of things and not worth reading (except if you want to know how they influenced later western philosophers etc) in comparison to the much better writing on metaphysics and religious philosophy out there, following Schopenhauer's maxim about not reading bad books.

You can regard consciousness as being qualitatively different from physical matter including the body and subscribe to a form of mind-body dualism that way while simultaneously accepting a metaphysics where both the qualitatively different things are included within a greater non-dual existence in which they are encapsulated. Dozens of metaphors abound in the pre-Buddhist Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya Upanishads about this.

bump

>>17300160
Sauce?

>>17303760
>I don't read unnecessary books
>I read one english translation of a french muslim's summary of a buddhist interpretation of the Vedas
>And then I repost my own posts (and other people's posts for me to respond in argument to) for 3 years on /lit/
Yes you are a busy man guenonfag

>>17302640
It's alertness, being consciously aware of your actions, mental events, and your surroundings. Everyone knows they spend a significant part of their life just going on autopilot, like when you're driving, or working/doing chores.

>>17304531
NPC detected

>>17300373
not language but the intellect, language is how we express the intellect though it doesn’t have to be.

>>17304551
Intellect is irrelevant when it comes to a syntactic structure that is unfalsibiable.

>>17302619
>says there are object of consciousness
>says consciousness isn't relational with anything
Pick one

>>17302619
If consciousness has no form of relationship with anything, how can it see the objects of consciousness? All consciousness presupposes a relationship between what perceives and what is perceived. What is relational is conditioned. The primordial consciousness, and therefore the absolute, is not cut off from the world: it is one side of it. The sacred interconnection of Indra's net reveals its process.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

>>17304655
>Pick one
The Atman isn't the immediate subject of the subject-object distinctions, it is the transcendental subject in which the subject-object distinctions of the jiva appear, but the Atman is not tainted or affected by that which belongs to the jiva. The Atman is not the experiencer, but the presence and background in which the experiencing of the jiva occurs.

B.S. I, 2, 8
Just because Brahman has some relationship with the hearts of all beings, it does not follow that Brahman experiences happiness and sorrow like the embodied souls; for there is a difference. There is forsooth a difference between the embodied soul and the supreme God. The one is an agent, an experiencer (of happiness and sorrow), a source of merit, demerit etc., and possessed of happiness and sorrow, while the other is just the opposite, being possessed of such qualities as freedom from sin and so on. Because of this distinction between the two, the one has experiences, but not the other. If from the mere fact of proximity, and without any reference to the intrinsic nature of things, a causal relation with some effect is postulated, then space, for instance, can as well become burnt, (it being connected with fire).

>>17301732
Wittgenstein.

>>17304687
>If consciousness has no form of relationship with anything, how can it see the objects of consciousness?
Because the self-revealing eternal consciousness which no relation with anything because its the only thing that exists in absolute reality provides a basis for the subject-object distinctions of the jiva to appear in, those delusions of the jiva are superimpositions which cover up the self-revealing knowledge of the Self from the jivas perspective, but not for the Atman-Brahman which is always eternally free, omnipresent, and unaffected by maya. The only sentience that exists is that of the Atman which is forever liberated, but from the perspective of the jivas which are beginningless images of Brahman, the self-revealing knowledge of the Atman appears to the jiva as samsara because of the jivas false presuppositions being projected onto the underlying reality through which they the partake of existence.

Awareness itself is non-dual, the subject-object distinction of the jiva and the sense of being embodied is something that falsely seems to endow the underlying Awareness with its character, as a red cloth might seem to make a crystal ball appear red when placed behind it. But the red cloth is a superimposition caused by avidya and when it vanishes it liberation its reveal that it never had any real relation with the crystal ball, just as the snake we thought the rope was never had any real relation with the rope lying on the ground.

>>17302890
both of those claims are not true

>>17302640
>>17302771
it's just consistent awareness of present experience and the cognitive habits and changes that go with it. not being heedless, distracted, or caught up in mental worlds. mindfulness is a marketing buzzword too tho. you can critique the concept but it produces a result so.

>>17300145
That guy's reading of Whitehead was kinda dubious then. Whitehead makes one of the best and most interesting aspects for the existence of God that I've ever seen, and indeed his idea of him/it is so revolutionary it both fits well within basically any religious context and would be deemed completely heretical by orthodoxies.
>One of these [three ultimates], corresponding with what Whitehead calls “creativity”, has been called “Emptiness” (“Sunyata”) or “Dharmakaya” by Buddhists, “Nirguna Brahman” by Advaita Vedantists, “the Godhead” by Meister Eckhart, and “Being Itself” by Heidegger and Tillich (among others). It is the formless ultimate reality. The other ultimate, corresponding with what Whitehead calls “God”, is not Being Itself but the Supreme Being. It is in-formed and the source of forms (such as truth, beauty, and justice). It has been called “Amida Buddha”, “Sambhogakaya”, “Saguna Brahman”, “Ishvara”, “Yaweh”, “Christ”, and “Allah”. (D. Griffin 2005: 47).
>[Some] forms of Taoism and many primal religions, including Native American religions […] regard the cosmos as sacred. By recognizing the cosmos as a third ultimate, we are able to see that these cosmic religions are also oriented toward something truly ultimate in the nature of things. (D. Griffin 2005: 49)

I think the problem is most Buddhists insist on assuming the Absolute has to be a being, and thus, limited in some manner instead of something that transcends being in itself.

>>17300145
That guy's reading of Whitehead was kinda dubious then. Whitehead makes one of the best and most interesting cases for the existence of God that I've ever seen, and indeed his idea of him/it is so revolutionary it both fits well within basically any religious context and would be deemed completely heretical by orthodoxies.
>One of these [three ultimates], corresponding with what Whitehead calls “creativity”, has been called “Emptiness” (“Sunyata”) or “Dharmakaya” by Buddhists, “Nirguna Brahman” by Advaita Vedantists, “the Godhead” by Meister Eckhart, and “Being Itself” by Heidegger and Tillich (among others). It is the formless ultimate reality. The other ultimate, corresponding with what Whitehead calls “God”, is not Being Itself but the Supreme Being. It is in-formed and the source of forms (such as truth, beauty, and justice). It has been called “Amida Buddha”, “Sambhogakaya”, “Saguna Brahman”, “Ishvara”, “Yaweh”, “Christ”, and “Allah”. (D. Griffin 2005: 47).
>[Some] forms of Taoism and many primal religions, including Native American religions […] regard the cosmos as sacred. By recognizing the cosmos as a third ultimate, we are able to see that these cosmic religions are also oriented toward something truly ultimate in the nature of things. (D. Griffin 2005: 49)

I think the problem is most Buddhists insist on assuming the Absolute has to be a being, and thus, limited in some manner instead of something that transcends being in itself. In particular, I think your friend's conclusions must stem in part from that part where Whitehead describes God as "the fellow sufferer who understands".

>>17307403
This is NPC cope

>>17307875
How? Not everything has to be some mystical knowledge only available to initiates. Mindfulness is just focused attention and it can bring about new conscious experiences, both good and bad. Some of the stuff meditators mention sounds a lot like dissociative episodes they've learned to enjoy, and those can cause all sorts of problems.

>>17307899
>Mindfulness is just focused attention
This is why 'right' mindfulness is taught by Buddhism, as opposed to the 'happy-cows' wellness sloganeering of commercial therapeutic philosophy.

>>17307926
Fucking lol. Let me guess, you think buddhism is a "warrior religion". It's true right mindfulness is just one of the prerequisites for starting the buddhist path, but the meditation techniques, particularly samatha are very similar to what most mcmindfulness entails. Aside from that and the eightfold path you're allowed to go crazy in your route unless you're a monastic. It's then, ludicrous to pretend there's anything wrong with the standard karen style mindfulness from a buddhist perspective aside from making people lose their sense of belonging to a cool secret spiritual club.

>>17307943
No if I were a too-cool-for-Nietszche-superfascist I wouldn't be studying Buddhism of all things nor bothering to post about it. Evidently the mindfulness stereotypical of 'Karens,' the therapeutayana, does not work, since they are infamously short tempered, difficult to work with, entitled, aggressively demanding, etc.; it is simply them 'turning their brains off' for a few minutes, which while beneficial to industrialized people accustomed to high-stress regimented segmented time, is also quite far-removed from a Buddhist context, which is not about making your inane makework less burdensome.

>>17300145
Whitehead is hard as balls to read, but I think I know where that 200 IQ BVDDHIST is coming from. I'm definitely butchering process theology, but the gist of it is Whitehead postulates God creates the universe, or infinite universes in the sense it gives them a ground to be and the possibility to be anything since he is infinite, he then saves them all in the sense, impermanent things and processes are given eternal being in him. Conversely we "create" God in that we fill his infinity, we give him events and processes that pass onto him. Otherwise he'd be unable to be anything other than an eternal blank canvas. Whitehead also postulates creativity as the ultimate metaphysical principle as someone mentioned here >>17307750, but he doesn't say it is somehow separate from God, or from ourselves. God has creativity, but so do we, and it entails the possibility of existing or bringing other processes into existence. For whitehead, the ultimate reality is still God.

So, as I understand it, this is what led your guy to conclude Whitehead's God, or Whitehead's Brahman if he was a Hindu, is merely another way of looking at the entire conditioned process of conventional reality, and thus, still within the duality Buddhism seeks to transcend. This would be a misreading of Whitehead's metaphysics, as they don't imply a simple two-sides-of-the-same-coin setup, with the possibility of something that transcends it. His creativity isn't a separate thing, being, dimension, but just a common characteristic to God and the world. In fact, it is something that God endows the world with and the only thing he can have separate from what our processes fill him with. The key point to to understand here is that God is necessary for things to exist, but the world isn't a prerequisite for God to exist in himself, so he isn't really conditioned even if it's easy to miscronstruct it that way at first glance. What this means for Buddhism or Hinduism isn't for me to decide, but it's worth mentioning Whitehead believed he was in a way completing them, in his words "true upping" them with ideas they had failed to conceive, or rejected without fully considering.

>>17307968
Study harder then, since you're clearly too attached to views.

>>17301957
>STILL no replies

The ABSOLUTE state!

>>17301664
>being enlightened means being asleep

the state of poos

>>17302619
>The objects of consciousness are relational, but consciousness as such, or sentience is non-relational and completely unconditioned
that's completely false in Buddhism, hence in reality too.

>>17300145
>>
>He was vajrayanin, btw.
into the trash he goes

>>17307750
>>>One of these [three ultimates], corresponding with what Whitehead calls “creativity”, has been called “Emptiness” (“Sunyata”) or “Dharmakaya” by Buddhists, “Nirguna Brahman” by Advaita Vedantists, “the Godhead” by Meister Eckhart, and “Being Itself” by Heidegger and Tillich (among others). It is the formless ultimate reality. The other ultimate, corresponding with what Whitehead calls “God”, is not Being Itself but the Supreme Being. It is in-formed and the source of forms (such as truth, beauty, and justice). It has been called “Amida Buddha”, “Sambhogakaya”, “Saguna Brahman”, “Ishvara”, “Yaweh”, “Christ”, and “Allah”. (D. Griffin 2005: 47).
this is crap in buddhism

>>17300373
Your statement refutes itself, axioms are falsifiable.

>>17308547
>>He was vajrayanin, btw.
>into the trash he goes
NPC detected

>>17307750
>>17308077
He identifies the Âdi-Buddha with the God of process. There's a whole passage in the book I have where he explains the Buddhist position on deity and how it relates to Whitehead's thought, but I'm not going to post the pages one by one. Pic related +
* http://www.integralscience.org/whiteheadbuddhism.html
* https://www.religion-online.org/article/mosa-dharma-and-prehension-nagarjuna-and-whitehead-compared/

>>17308679
>Pic related
forgot, fixed

>>17307053
You don't answer at all. How can the primordial consciousness, which perceives everything, perceive anything without being in relation to what it perceives? If you deny the relation of perception between the perceiving eye and the perceived object, you deny the perception and thus the sentient nature of this primordial consciousness. There cannot be consciousness without relation, since consciousness is by nature relational: it is a relation between "what perceives" and "what is perceived". Being relational, it is conditioned, and is an integral part of the causally interconnected world.

>>17307750
what the fuck is so innovative about this? sounds exactly like advaita

>>17308679
>>17308684
bonus

>>17300145
>>17301375
>>17301664
>>17302619
"Any kind of consciousness whatever, whether past, future or presently arisen, whether gross or subtle, whether in oneself or external, whether inferior or superior, whether far or near must, with right understanding how it is, be regarded thus: 'This is not mine, this is not I, this is not my self.'

"Bhikkhus, when a noble follower who has heard (the truth) sees thus, he finds estrangement in form, he finds estrangement in feeling, he finds estrangement in perception, he finds estrangement in determinations, he finds estrangement in consciousness.

"When he finds estrangement, passion fades out. With the fading of passion, he is liberated. When liberated, there is knowledge that he is liberated. He understands: 'Birth is exhausted, the holy life has been lived out, what can be done is done, of this there is no more beyond.'"

>>17308826
Holy... Advaitins are retroactively one upped by the Buddha it seems.

>>17307899
My comment had nothing to do with mysticism, mindfulness cannot be meditation only an auto-pilot NPC would think "just be attentive bro" is meditation.

>>17308615
Except when they aren't you child

>>17300373
KICK THE FUCKING LADDER DOWN LUDWIG!

>>17308948
They are, otherwise they'd be useless.

>>17308958
You don't know what words are.

>>17308981
There are falsifiable axioms and yet you claim that they can't be true if conveyed with language.

bump

>>17308543
>that's completely false
Where is your evidence that consciousness or sentience is conditioned?
>in Buddhism, hence in reality too.
Buddism isn't real, it was refuted by Adi Shankara
>>17308720
>How can the primordial consciousness, which perceives everything, perceive anything without being in relation to what it perceives?
Because it is the omnipresent God and Supreme Lord of the universe, and through the power of maya which It possesses, it gives rise to the contingent world of samsara, which does not exist on the level of absolute reality. The seeming relation of the underlying non-dual awareness with the unreal thing associated with it is capable of happening due to God's wielding his power maya in a way so as to cause it to happen, but as this contingent world does not exist in absolute reality, there is no real relation that takes place, the relation that seems to take place is unreal, and it is sublated in liberation as non-existence, like how when you wake up from a dream into the waking state your dream is sublated.
>If you deny the relation of perception between the perceiving eye and the perceived object, you deny the perception and thus the sentient nature of this primordial consciousness.
That's not what the relation is of the Atman and the sensations observed in it to the intellect, this is exactly my point. Until you understand this you don't even know what you are trying to critique. The Atman is not the perceiving eye in relation to the perceived object, the Atman is the non-dual awareness in which the subject-object delusions of the jiva come and go, but the Atman is untouched by and unaffected by that subject-object delusion of the jiva, the Atman just illumines that via its proximity. The Atman is non-relational because it doesn't engage in a subject-object relationship ever but is always non-dual undifferentiated consciousness. The Atman's nature is not to be a perceiver, the jiva's intellect is the perceiver of disparate things when it is invested with the light of the Atman but the Atman simply reveals its own non-dual Awareness to itself eternally in liberation. Once you isolate the objects of awareness from awareness there is just non-dual non-relational awareness remaining.
>>17308826
>Any kind of consciousness whatever, whether past, future or presently arisen, whether gross or subtle, whether in oneself or external, whether inferior or superior, whether far or near must, with right understanding how it is, be regarded thus: 'This is not mine, this is not I, this is not my self.'
This is foolish for Buddha to say because only a conscious being can say "this is not mine", so whatever they are looking at, there will always be a consciousness behind that not being observed when Buddhists say "this is not mine", it will be the consciousness which observes that thought through the intellect.

>>17309276
>and through the power of maya which It possesses, it gives rise to the contingent world
that's a relation

>>17309276
>The Atman is not the perceiving eye in relation to the perceived object, the Atman is the non-dual awareness in which the subject-object delusions of the jiva come and go, but the Atman is untouched by and unaffected by that subject-object delusion of the jiva, the Atman just illumines that via its proximity.
so the atman is a close substance, which don't not perceives anything, and never touch the world or is touched by it : it's a super-object utterly insignifiant to us

>>17309299
>is a
closed* substance
without windows to the world, without relation with it, so without sentience

>>17301732
Black and/or blue books by Wittgenstein.

>>17309291
It's a relation which only seems to take place for the jiva, and which only has validity for the jiva, but it doesn't exist in Absolute reality, and eventually it is revealed to the jiva that the relation never existed to begin with, it was a false perception like silver in mother of pearl or a mirage in the desert. So it's not a relation that makes the Atman relational, because it doesn't compromise or change the Atman's non-relational but is a subjective delusion of the jiva.
>>17309299
>so the atman is a close substance,
Atman is not a substance because it is formless self-revealing sentience, a formless substance is an oxymoron
>which don't not perceives anything, and never touch the world or is touched by it
Yes
>it's a super-object utterly insignificant to us
False, because we participate in existence through it, and without the light of the Self illumining the intellect we would not have the sense of being human beings

>>17309365
>>which don't not perceives anything, and never touch the world or is touched by it
>Yes
here is the key problem of your doctrine
the ultimate proof that the atman-brahman CAN'T explain consciousness
because atman is totally closed and has no windows to anything, it's utterly insignifiant to us
it's a dead object without sentience, an unrecheable object

>>it's a super-object utterly insignificant to us
False, because we participate in existence through it,
that's a relation

>>17309365
>>which don't not perceives anything, and never touch the world or is touched by it
>Yes
so the source of consciousness is an unreachable dead object without sentience that don't perceives anything
and this is somewhat a better explanation of consciousness
kek

>>17300145
Op there is nothing you can read to understand emptiness or non self. You have to meditate and discover it on your own. There is no other way. Start doing vipassana and you will start to see clearly. This is also for everyone else in this thread arguing about views of self: remember they are all views. Reality can only be understood by analysis, aka meditation. Good luck

>>17309468
>because atman is totally closed and has no windows to anything
False, it is the light which allows other things to manifest, it is the window through which they do. Without this light they are deprived of any existence. Atman-Brahman is not 'closed' but is completely infinite, omnipresent, all-pervasive.
>it's a dead object without sentience, an unrecheable object
False, It's the only living thing and the only thing with sentience. Thoughts have no awareness, emotions have no awareness, the body has no awareness, memories have no awareness, they are all illumined by a sentient awareness who is different from them, but when this awareness is isolated from the contents were normally associate with and superimpose upon it we find that it consists of non-dual, non-relational, non-individual, formless, homogenous, partitionless, unconditioned, transparent and immediately self-revealing knowing. Some people can intuitively discern it, it takes other people many years of careful study and practice to do so, and some people just don't get it.

It is through the apparently real relation of the contents superimposed upon this Awareness that we have experiences in the world, but this relation is not real is absolutely reality and the image doesn't affect or enter into a casual relationship with the basis Awareness.

>False, because we participate in existence through it,
>that's a relation
Yes, but the relation only seems real to the jiva, but it doesn't actually exist as some sort of real causal relation between Brahman-Atman and the jiva's delusions of dualistic experiences, so it doesn't make the Brahman-Atman conditioned in any way, in absolute reality there is the unconditioned Brahman-Atman alone without any relation with anything else, I have already explained this once already, try to pay closer attention into of just repeating 'muh relations' like a mantra.

GSB—2.69—Tatra api pravartaka-pramana-abhave --------sambhavati.----{the validity of all pramanas holds good only so long as knowledge of the Self has not arisen}. Pramatrtvam hi atmanah ---iva prabodhe. ---Once the Self is realised, it is known as bereft of all limiting adjuncts and is therefore no longer looked upon as a seer, etc. The Self is just pure consciousness. It becomes a seer, hearer, etc, only when looked upon as associated with the limiting adjuncts in the form of the body, etc. After the eradication of this wrong association by the knowledge of the real nature of the Self, attained through the teachings of the Vedas, the Vedas themselves cease to be authoritative for such a person. This is like the objects seen in a dream becoming non-existent on waking up. The sruti which is valid in the state of ignorance {of the Self}, and whose injunctions and prohibitions are binding, loses its validity in the case of a person who has realised the Self, even though the realisation was achieved only with the help of the sruti.

>>17309592
>False, it is the light which allows other things to manifest, it is the window through which they do. Without this light they are deprived of any existence. Atman-Brahman is not 'closed' but is completely infinite, omnipresent, all-pervasive.
that's a relation
so either atman-brahman is relational, and conditioned
or either it's not relational, and closed, unreachable, not sentient

>, It's the only living thing and the only thing with sentience.
you just said atman don't perceives anything

>Yes, but the relation only seems real to the jiva,
a relation is a link between two terms
either there is a relation between the world and the atman, and the atman is conditioned
either the relation is illusory, and ultimately there is no relation with atman, and atman is closed and unreachable

>>17309592
>it is the window through which they do
So atman is relational
Or it's has no windows through and it's closed

>>17309486
>so the source of consciousness is an unreachable dead object without sentience that don't perceives anything
>and this is somewhat a better explanation of consciousness
If consciousness consisted of those subject-object experiences themselves instead of the light that illumined them that would mean your consciousness would end and arise anew at every moment at every new change in the co-location of causal conditions, the subject of subject-object experiences being predicated in relation to the object. But the continuum of consciousness as presence that we experience indicates that sentience is rather more like a light which is separate from and illuming the subject-object experiences.

>>17309648
> sentience is rather more like a light which is separate from and illuming the subject-object experiences.
Thats relational

We're going in circles, so I'm not going to continue, and I'll let you think about it. Consciousness is by nature relational: it is the perception that links "what perceives" and "what is perceived". Without this relation, there is nothing perceived and nothing that perceives, there is no link between the both. Even in the case of a consciousness without object, or self-luminous, there is perception of emptiness-of-objects or of self-luminescence, therefore object of perception, therefore relation. What is relational is conditioned, because it is determined. I could also insist on other points to show how Brahman is determined, therefore conditioned. The fact is that no description of the Absolute, or of Consciousness, that says they are separate/closed/unconditioned, holds up to criticism once it is finely analyzed. A substance is a self-sufficient world, with no window to the rest. The Buddha explains to us that nowhere substances exist, nothing is self-powered. Neither can the Brahman be self-powered, because he is either conscious and sentient, therefore relational and conditioned, part of the sacred interconnection, or he is closed, monadic, without a window to the world, and therefore unreachable and dead. Invoking Maya does not answer the question. To say that there can be a non-relational consciousness is to say that there can be a nexus of perception without perception. A blind eye. Everything is conditioned, the Buddha reveals the sacred interconnection of Indra's net, far from the onto-theologies and their dreams of Being, their substantial crystallisations. Pic related.

>>17308661
Vajrayana is just weird bullshit

>>17309622
>that's a relation
All relations in Advaita exist only on a contingent level of reality, but not in absolute reality, thus the unconditioned absolute reality of the Atman-Brahman remains intact. The contingent level is sublated and vanishes as you ascend upwards, leaving the absolute reality as the only remaining thing, and as the only thing that had been existing all along, so the whole time the Atman-Brahman is totally unconditoned. Any time people speak of a relation between the Nirguna Brahman and the world it is a relation which is not real in absolute reality, it is only relatively real like dreams, it doesn't exist as a real causal relation with the basis, with this one point, is rendered totally meaningless every attempt to say that the Atman-Brahman in Advaita is conditioned.
>so either atman-brahman is relational, and conditioned
>or either it's not relational, and closed, unreachable, not sentient
It's neither, open and close are dualistic presuppositions which don't exist in absolute reality, since absolute reality is non-dual, from non-duality flowers all duality and all dualistic presuppositions like open vs close, good vs bad, up vs down, pain vs pleasure, heat vs cold, etc which are all inherently contingent and which don't exist in absolute reality. The Atman-Brahman is infinite and non-dual, and also unconditioned.
>you just said atman don't perceives anything
I know, the jiva that perceives is not actually sentient but its intellect as a receptacle for the light of the Self to be reflected in, this reflection endows the jiva with a semblance of consciousness that allows it to function. But the subject-object experiences of the jiva and its volition are like insentient objects they are not really sentient, the sentient light and basis by which those jiva-experiences take place is just the non-dual non-relation self-revealing Atman's knowing of Itself, the Atman doesn't have the jiva's subject-object delusions for Its object.
>a relation is a link between two terms
agreed
>either there is a relation between the world and the atman, and the atman is conditioned
>either the relation is illusory, and ultimately there is no relation with atman, and atman is closed and unreachable
It's the second, that the relation is illusory. This doesn't make the atman closed because closed vs open are unreal dualistic distinctions which vanish in absolute reality, and the Atman is not unreachable because the self-revealing knowledge of the Atman is the infinite and all-pervasive basis in which the illusion takes place (but illusions never have a real relation with their basis, they exist only subjectively and not as real distortion of the basis or as something that has a causal relation with the basis), so when the illusion vanishes there is the absolute reality left alone as eternally-free liberated non-dual Awareness.

>>17309642
>So atman is relational
see >>17309757
>All relations in Advaita exist only on a contingent level of reality, but not in absolute reality, thus the unconditioned absolute reality of the Atman-Brahman remains intact. The contingent level is sublated and vanishes as you ascend upwards, leaving the absolute reality as the only remaining thing,
>>17309652
>Thats relational
see above

>>17309648
>We're going in circles, so I'm not going to continue, and I'll let you think about it.
No, you just didn't understand what I was saying and just repeated low-IQ 'b-b-but that a r-relation' posts over and over.
>Consciousness is by nature relational: it is the perception that links "what perceives" and "what is perceived".
If consciousness is the perception, who observes or illumines that perception? For perceptions don't observe or illuminate themselves but they consist of their content which arise and fall in awareness, if there is just the perception alone, then there is no awareness in which they occur. Motion can only be observed if one is not moving at the same speed of that motion, if consciousness arose as a perception each time, it's duration would coincide with that of its specific content and it wouldn't be able to experience and witness from a position of non-arising the continuous interplay of contents changing by arising and falling out of awareness, but we do observe this from a position of non-arising.
>Even in the case of a consciousness without object, or self-luminous, there is perception of emptiness-of-objects or of self-luminescence, therefore object of perception, therefore relation.
False, because the in non-dual Awareness of the Atman, knowing is identical with being, Its immediate and self-revealing knowledge of Itself comprises and is inseparable from Its own existence, there is no real relation between them but its describing the same thing under two aspects, such is the nature of self-revealing non-dual consciousness that transcends knower and known.
>What is relational is conditioned, because it is determined.
Atman Brahman is no relational, see here >>17309757 if you need a refresher
>I could also insist on other points to show how Brahman is determined, therefore conditioned.
and they would all be wrong, but you can try and have me explain to you that you don't know anything about Vedanta again

>>17309738
I replied to the first part of your post in this post here >>17309910
>The fact is that no description of the Absolute, or of Consciousness, that says they are separate/closed/unconditioned, holds up to criticism once it is finely analyzed.
I've explained why your criticisms are wrong over and over in your own thread, you are the one giving up already
>A substance is a self-sufficient world, with no window to the rest.
The Paramatman is formless, i.e. not a substance
>The Buddha explains to us that nowhere substances exist, nothing is self-powered.
Buddha is refuted by the reducto ad absurdum that he lands himself in by trying to say that co-dependent origination is self-sufficient to account for itself when that's like saying a daughter gives birth to her own mother, only God/Brahman etc can explain why the universe exists without contradiction
>Neither can the Brahman be self-powered, because he is either conscious and sentient
Brahman is self-sufficient, conscious, sentient, the Supreme Lord, who possesses the power of maya. At the level of absolute reality, there is just the unconditioned Brahman alone, being non-dual Awareness of Itself does not make Brahman conditioned.

>>17309652
he always does this, he doesn't realize the paradox

>>17310183
the relation of the light illumining the subject-object relation of the jiva exists only from the perspective of the jiva, but not from the perspective of the Atman-Brahman, thus the jivas alone are conditioned and not the Atman

>>17310368
I think you're supposed to achieve the coincidentia oppositorum through mysticism, not just posit both A and not-A simultaneously, in rapid alternation, in a 4chan thread. The principle of non-contradiction is still operative at the level of everyday speech you know. You can't just go "nuh huh, it both is and isn't relational!" repeatedly.

Actually apparently you can.

>>17310412
>not just posit both A and not-A simultaneously, in rapid alternation, in a 4chan thread.
I'm not
>The principle of non-contradiction is still operative at the level of everyday speech you know.
Advaita doctrine does not violate the law of non-contradiction or the law of the excluded middle

>’real’ and ‘unreal’ in advaita are used in the absolute sense. Real means ‘absolutely real’, eternal and unchanging, always and everywhere, and Brahma(n) alone is real in this sense; unreal means ‘absolutely unreal’ in all the three tenses like a ‘skyflower’ or a ‘barren woman’s son’ which no worldly object is. And in this sense, these two terms are neither contradictories nor exhaustive. Hence the Law of Contradiction and the Law of Excluded Middle are not overthrown. The Law of Contradiction is maintained since all that can be contradicted is declared to be false. The Law of Excluded Middle- is not violated because, 'absolutely real' and 'absolutely unreal' are not exhaustive and admit of the third alternative, the ‘relatively real’ to which belong all world-objects. Again, since avidya is only a superimposition it vanishes when the ground-reality, the Brahma(n), is immediately realised, just as the rope-snake vanishes for good, when the rope is known. Avidya can be removed only by the immediate intuitive knowledge of Reality, which is the cause of liberation. Removal of avidya, Brahma(n)-realisation and attainment of moksa or liberation are one and the same.

>Vyâsatïrtha, like Râmânuja against avidyà, says that as being and non-being are contradictories, which are exclusive and exhaustive, there can be no third alternative and therefore both cannot be denied. Everything must necessarily be either being or non-being. The denial of both is against the Law of Excluded Middle and also against the Law of Contradiction. Again, ‘different from being* means ‘non-being’ and ‘different from non-being* means ‘being’; so ‘different from being and nonbeing’ means ‘both being and non-being’ which is admitted to be self-contradictory by the Advaitin himself.
>Madhusūdana (Sarasvatī) replies that being and non-being are not exhaustive as these are used by us in their absolute sense and between the two is the third alternative, ‘the relative being’ to which belong the entire world-objects. So the Law of Excluded Middle is not violated. Again, as being and non-being belong to different orders of reality, there is no contradiction in their simultaneous affirmation or simultaneous denial. Moreover, non-contradiction is admitted as the test of truth and that which is contradicted is said to be false, so the Law of Contradiction is maintained in tact.

>>17310483
Hey if it makes you happy who am I to complain, I'm just telling you that I and about a dozen other people have had this circular conversation with you where you repeat the same thing and post walls of text and other anon keeps replying ".....but that would still be relational, then" and you reply "False, Advaita is my best friend" and it goes on until they give up.

If you're convinced maybe that's all that matters but lots of people are independently telling you it makes no sense.

>The Law of Excluded Middle- is not violated because, 'absolutely real' and 'absolutely unreal' are not exhaustive and admit of the third alternative, the ‘relatively real’ to which belong all world-objects.
I'm not even the other guy but, relative means relational, it means relative to something else. So, brahman is relational.

>>17310532
>it means relative to something else. So, brahman is relational.
But that relative only exists for the jiva, not for the Brahman, so the Brahman in Itself without that relation, who doesn't possess it, is unconditioned

>>17310572
So the jivas exist who relate to brahman therefore there is a relation. "Relative existence" = a kind of existence.

Nobody is denying the brahman is the "ultimate" or "absolute" reality. Any absolute idealist or monist believes this, any emanationist believes it.
>is unconditioned
This is logically distinct from what you are saying. Of course God or Brahman or the One is unconditioned, and conditions all other things that depend on it. That doesn't mean it doesn't have relations to the things that depend on it. You are acknowledging the existence, however relational or dependent, of things that depend on brahman and then saying they don't "really" exist. But you are confusing "real" existence with absoluteness, which is different.

No one is saying the jivas are absolute. They are saying that they have some kind of status or secondary "relative" (relational) existence, because this is what you are saying. That would make you a differentiated monist, not an absolute nondualist monist. It really seems like you don't understand your own philosophy/religion that you've built your whole worldview around.

You've spent years having this exact same argument and posting screenshots of your own rants at people and I have never seen you agree with anyone. Even other advaita types.

>>17310631
You know he's batshit insane and you're still arguing with him. Why?

>>17310631
>So the jivas exist who relate to brahman therefore there is a relation.
Yes, but the imagined relation is one-sided, it doesn't inhere with one end in Brahman but the jiva just falsely believes it to, the imagined relation doesn't taint the underlying basis of Brahman in the same way that talking about Nirvana as the unconditioned that Buddhists can reach or know doesn't make Nirvana a conditioned thing, in both cases they are beyond the conceptions that the mind projects onto them, and are not tainted by them. Brahman only becomes conditioned if there a real existing relationships that it has with other things, if the relations are not real then Brahman remains unconditioned in truth/reality.
> That doesn't mean it doesn't have relations to the things that depend on it. You are acknowledging the existence, however relational or dependent, of things that depend on brahman and then saying they don't "really" exist.
I'm saying they don't really exist in absolute reality, which is not inconsistent with anything else that I have said
>But you are confusing "real" existence with absoluteness, which is different.
real existence is the absolute reality, although this of course is beyond the normal mental conception that people have of 'real' and 'unreal' and 'existence' and 'non-existence' as it is the transcendental non-dual which is the source of those dualistic conceptions in the intellect
>No one is saying the jivas are absolute. They are saying that they have some kind of status or secondary "relative" (relational) existence, because this is what you are saying.
Yes, this is correct, the point is that the relationship only holds true on the level of apparent reality for the jiva, and not in absolute reality, and that underneath this superimposition of the jiva exists the unconditioned Brahman alone who is not subject to this superimposition of false ideation and false relations, and does not exist in relation with anything because in absolute reality there is nothing else existing with which Brahman could enter into a relation.
>That would make you a differentiated monist, not an absolute nondualist monist.
False, Advaita holds to the Vivartavada doctrine, not the emanationist/differentiationist Parinamavada. It never actually differentiated in truth (which is absolute reality alone) but only virtually for the jivas. But the whole time it remains the absolute unconditioned Brahman alone and experiences Itself as such always without any samsara.

>>17309022
You are literally just unaware of the constraints of language

>>17309738
>>17310183
I agree with your arguments, but that :
>>17309910
>If consciousness is the perception, who observes or illumines that perception?
is actually a good point. because if consciousness is this relation, what perceives the relation? This seems to start an infinite regress, a homunculus argument : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus_argument

>The reason why this is a fallacy may be understood by asking how the homunculus "sees" the internal movie. The obvious answer is that there is another homunculus inside the first homunculus's "head" or "brain" looking at this "movie". But that raises the question of how this homunculus sees the "outside world". To answer that seems to require positing another homunculus inside this second homunculus's head, and so forth. In other words, a situation of infinite regress is created. The problem with the homunculus argument is that it tries to account for a phenomenon in terms of the very phenomenon that it is supposed to explain.[2]

>>17311219
>This seems to start an infinite regress
That argument was already refuted by Adi Shankara over a thousand years ago

Shankara: And that other entity which reveals consciousness (ideations) is the self—the intelligence (sentience) which is different from that consciousness (ideation).

Objection (by the Buddhist): But that would lead to a regressus in infinitum.

Reply (by Shankara): No; it has only been stated on logical grounds that because consciousness (ideation) is an object revealed by something, the latter must be distinct from that consciousness (ideation). Obviously there cannot be any infallible ground for inferring that the self literally reveals the consciousness (ideation) in question, or that, as the witness, it requires another agency to reveal it. Therefore there is no question of a regressus in infinitum.

Objection (by the Buddhist): If consciousness (ideation) is revealed by something else, some means of revelation is required, and this would again lead to a regressus in infinitum.

Reply (by Shankara): No, for there is no such restriction; it is not a universal rule. We cannot lay down an absolute condition that whenever something is revealed by another, there must be some means of revelation besides the two—that which reveals and that which is revealed, for we observe diversity of conditions. For instance, a jar is perceived by something different from itself, viz. the self; here light such as that of a lamp, which is other than the perceiving subject and the perceived object, is a means. The light of the lamp etc. is neither a part of the jar nor of the eye, But though the lamp, like the jar, is perceived by the eye, the latter does not require any external means corresponding to the light, over and above the lamp (which is the object). Hence we can never lay down the rule that wherever a thing is perceived by something else, there must be some means besides the two. Therefore, if consciousness (ideation) is admitted to be revealed by a subject different from it, the charge of a regressus in infinitum, either through the means or through the perceiving subject (the self), is altogether untenable. Hence it is proved that there is another light, viz. the light of the self, which is different from consciousness (ideation).

- Shankara, Brihadaranyaka Upanishad commentary 4.3.7.