/lit/ - Literature

>>17329380
I personally recommend beginning by studying Advaita, since it influenced a lot of later Hindu thought that came after it.

Advaita Vedanta - Adi Shankara’s works
Vishishtadvaita - Ramanuja’s works
Kashmir Shaivism - Abhinavaguptas works

>>17329476
are there any translations in specific you can recommend? Im going to learn the language at some point if I want to continue studying it but thats not happening until I finish French, and I dont want a poor translation since Im aware a lot can be lost when going to english

>>17329499
>are there any translations in specific you can recommend?

For Advaita: Shankara's most important works are his long commentaries that he wrote in prose on the Upanishads, Bhagavad-Gita and the Brahma Sutras. These have all been translated into English by Gambhirananda and Madhavananda, and the translations are good.

These below are Gambhirananda's translations of 8 of the 10 Upanishad commentaries that Shankara wrote, this is where I recommend that people begin when reading Shankara's works (after first reading a book on Vedanta or Hindu philosophy to prepare for reading these)

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

Ramanuja - I have no idea
Abhinavugpta's works - Boris Marjanovic's and Jaideva Singh's translations

>>17329586
Thank you so much friend, youve saved me a lot of time, hopefully I can get started soon. Been really curious about eastern philosophy for a while now

the gita, the upanishads, the list could go on

>>17329740
Did you enjoy what you’ve read from them anon? Do you feel like more westerners should try to read and understand it?

>>17329764
honestly they're pretty comfy wisdom texts. if you liked the wisdoms/poetics in the bible you'll like them

>>17329499
>>17329476
>>17329586
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.

>>17329380
>>17329476
>>17329499
>>17329586
>>17329731
>>17329909
like clockwork

>>17329855
sounds like my kinda thing honestly Im hype
>>17329909
noted thank you fren

>>17329380
If you need a primer to get in hindu headspace and have some context for the philosophy, check out the epics (the Ramayana or the Mahabharata). Ramesh Menon does a good job of modernizing them without losing the spiritual core.

Read Nagarjuna, Advaita is gay. I'm only i

>>17329909
All is right in tje world.

The Only worthwhile Hindu philosophy IMO is Trika Shaiva and Nyaya-Mimamsa, otherwise, take a look at Buddhism, specifically Yogacara and Madhyamaka.

>>17330665
It's so tiresome. These motherfuckers follow a script.

>>17332990
>Buddhism
retroactively refuted by Shankaracharya

Shankara was a Proto Kantard who didn’t understand the meaning of sunyata

How come this thread has been up for several hours and no one named a single root vedic text? Rig Veda, Sama Veda, Yajur Veda and Atharva Veda*, from where the Upanishads sprinkle as interpretations and simplifications of diverse philosophers and gurus.

>>17333520
There is no reason to lend much credence to Madhyamaka and Sunyata when they cannot even account for what is the cause of samsara, pratityasamutpada cannot account for its own existence because the aggregation of the 12 links into their relationship that allows them to impart causal efficiency in an orderly way is (as an action or effect) itself caused by pratityasamutpada, but pratityasamputpada relies upon the 12-links existing in such a structured aggregation to begin with in order to function, so it’s as illogical as saying a daughter gives birth to her own mother. So already, Buddhists cannot even account for why they exist being reborn in samsara over and over. This puts them on a less solid footing than other doctrines which can explain the origin of samsara, you wouldn’t trust someone who doesn’t know where the entrance is to lead you out of Plato’s cave. And this is not even to get into all the other problems with Madhyamaka, like its internal inconsistencies or that its theory of mind makes no sense

>>17333535
>How come this thread has been up for several hours and no one named a single root vedic text?
Because its a thread about Hindu philosophy and the pre-Upanishad layers of the Vedas have less clearly-evident philosophical/metaphysical content than the Upanishads and later Hindu texts

>>17329380
>>17329476
>>17329499
>>17329586
>>17329731
>RTH again

>>17333535
Because the Vedas are IE-centric Dvaita-Bhakti texts, whereas the Upanishads are mainly Buddhist style Monism. Advaitins are ashamed of the earlier, they can only cope with 2 short Upanishads.

>>17329380
Introduction to the Study of the Hindu doctrines and after Man and His Becoming According to the Vedanta. (Don't trust the haters).

>>17329380
Most of the philosophical might of India stems from Buddhism. Hinduism is just nonsensical African tier voodoo and it shows in the state of the country with the most Hindus. I suggest to read the Pali Canon and then Mahayana texts, look into Nagarjuna ie the most important philosopher in Buddhism.

>>17334195
That’s completely wrong, the Upanishads were composed by the same Sanskrit-speaking Aryan Brahmins who composed the Vedas. And Buddhism is not monism but some of the main teachings of Buddhism involve a rejection of monism like anatta, pratityasamutpada and sunyata; so it makes no sense to call monism ‘Buddhist-style monism’. Shankara rekt you Buddhist pseuds so badly that you can only cope by making up falsehoods about the Upanishads as part of your dissimulation and gaslighting.

>>17334219
>Most of the philosophical might of India stems from Buddhism.
Nonsense, Buddhism is a contradictory pile of nonsense that was refuted by Shankara and others. Buddhism is basically just a drab moralism combined with skepticism and an NPC-tier theory of mind.
>Hinduism is just nonsensical African tier voodoo
Lol, I wonder why so many physicists like Heisenberg were into Vedanta or why Schopenhauer praised the Upanishads as the highest wisdom ever produced
>I suggest to read the Pali Canon and then Mahayana texts, look into Nagarjuna ie the most important philosopher in Buddhism.
Nagarjuna is the most important sophist in Buddhism you meant to say. As Richard Robinson showed in his infamous article (pic related) Nagarjuna uses flawed logic and sophist tactics in the MMK, don’t bother reading him OP save your time for more valuable philosophers and scriptures.

>>17329380
Take it from someone who's well read into Hinduism from the RigV to contemporary neo-vedantist literature. You won't get a better conclusion with Hinduism because it has no common thread within all the traditions it possesses. It is like a circus, the next act has no relation to the previous and is a shitshow of ideas mangled together, all of which claiming dogmatically to be the only truth. Expect to see lots of allegories related to farming when they discuss the philosophical side of things (ie lots of cows and milk nectars and ploughing and yoking etc.).

This is in stark contrast to Buddhism, where it is more philosophically refined and logically consistent. It gets abstract with Mahayana texts but it is similar to the western canon in the sense that the chronological complexity builds on the previous simplicity, therefore it is easier to follow. Cheers, have a good read.

>>17329380
Yea Hinduism seems kinda gay and effeminate, like their deities. Go for Buddhism first if you're trying to tie it into western philosophy, it seems like the more compatible discipline.

>>17334175
why do Advaitins samefag like this? who are they trying to fool? Genuine question.

>>17334326
They can’t attract followers using their defunct philosophy, so they astroturf online forums hoping people catch on to their scheme. It obviously fails as in the case of that lone advaitafag itt.

>>17334219
Any texts in particular related to Buddhism?

>>17334302
>Lol, I wonder why so many physicists like Heisenberg were into Vedanta or why Schopenhauer praised the Upanishads as the highest wisdom ever produced
Because neither of them read anything from Advaita Vedanta, and the Upanishads can be (and are) used to justify literally anything you want. The Upanishads are used to justify the dualistic schools of Hinduism, for example. If you look at what these men are actually saying and are interested in, it's pretty clear that what they're actually finding novel in Advaita Vedanta is the diluted version of Dependent Origination, which in light of advances in Quantum Physics demonstrates the complete incoherence of philosophies like Thomism and Advaita Vedanta.

But then, Indian thought has found Shankara incoherent and idiotic since he opened his mouth, so that's not exactly saying much.

>>17334305
The problem is that "Hindu Philosophy" is like "Western philosophy plus Russia oh btw Paganism never died btw this is going on for twice as long". It's hundreds of competing traditions all divining different ideas out of the same texts. The fact that there's like four monistic schools and eight dualistic schools all claiming that the Upanishads (which are a collection of oral verses that have no relation to each other) support their particular doctrines. So, right off the bat, man's relation to Brahman is completely up in the air before we've even gotten to what Brahman is.

>>17334346
Start with What the Buddha Taught, then read the Heart Sutra. From there, either branch into the Pali Canon (go to accesstoinsight.org and do what they say) or into the Mahayana. If you want Mahayana, read the Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way, by Nagarjuna. Another good Mahayana text is the Diamond Sutra. The Lotus Sutra and Flower Garland Sutra are also important, but they're big and chunky. You can fit the Heart Sutra in a 4chan post, the Lotus Sutra is a fucking book.

>>17334346
In The Buddha's Words and/or What the Buddha Taught. Those cover most of Buddhism's core ideas, from there you can read other anthologies of the Pali Canon or browse sites like accesstoinsight like the other anon said and freely read different suttas to your hearts content (note it doesn't contain all suttas).

Next read some Mahayana texts, some of the main ones are
>Heart Sutra
>Lotus Sutra
>Brahmajala Sutra
>Lankavatara Sutra
>Mahaparinirvana Sutra
>Prajnaparamita Sutra
>Various Pure Land Sutras
>etc.

You could then go on reading Zen Buddhist koans, Buddhist tantra text (there's a ton of these so search 'vajrayana' in google) or delve into specific schools of thought (Madhyamika is a notable one since it forms the basis of Tibetan Buddhism and is influential in east asian Buddhism).

>>17329380

>>17334346
This was my first foray, simple enough for me I suppose.

>>17334357
>in Advaita Vedanta is the diluted version of Dependent Origination,
Wrong, dependent origination is garbage and itwas refuted by Shankara, its not accepted by Advaita
>which in light of advances in Quantum Physics demonstrates the complete incoherence of philosophies like Thomism and Advaita Vedanta.
Lol no it doesn’t, what a reddit thing to post
> The fact that there's like four monistic schools and eight dualistic schools all claiming that the Upanishads (which are a collection of oral verses that have no relation to each other) support their particular doctrines. So, right off the bat, man's relation to Brahman is completely up in the air before we've even gotten to what Brahman is.
It’s the exact same thing with Buddhism where every school disagrees over every minutiae of the Pali Canon

>>17334495
>Lol no it doesn’t, what a reddit thing to post
Yeah, squeeing over two Jewish physicists gushing about Advaita Vedanta was pretty reddit of you.

>>17334516
>Yeah
False, this view is gaslighting.
>squeeing
Wrong, I have never squeed in my life.
>over
Incorrect, as Shankara demonstrated in his commentaries on the Brishnayapapantapajprapatpaptatpetpa Upanishad, it is in fact, under.
>two
False, as Shankara demonstrates, any number except one is incoherent.
>Jewish
Wrong, as Shankara demonstrates the Vedas is holy and revealed.
>physicists
Incoherent, gaslighting.
>gushing
More gaslighting.
>about
False, Shankara demonstrates in his commentaries on the Hibbitybibbity Upanishad that it is in fact around.
>Advaita Vedanta
BASED! Did you know that RENE GUENON talked about MYSTICISM and TRADITION? The ONLY THING that REALLY EXISTS is ALLAH!
>was
Gaslighting, it still is.
>pretty
Wrong, it's ugly.
>reddit
Incoherent, Shankara's commentaries demonstrate that reddit is good, and autistically going line-by-line to completely dodge the context of a post is in fact the highest form of discourse.
>of
Wrong, as Shankara demonstrates possessives do not exist.
>you
Incorrect, there is only Brahman, except for the Jivas.

>>17334516
I was only casually citing them as examples of scientifically and philosophically astute minds taking Hinduism seriously, as a reason why the other anon’s claim that Hinduism is just voodoo nonsense was a ridiculous claim. There are various other pieces of similar evidence I could have posted but since that was just a dumb comment it wasn’t worth the time. By understanding Vedanta in their hearts they transcended the spirit of Jewishness.

What IS reddit is making unsourced claims of muh quantum physics in an argument about doctrine or metaphysics in order to put a fig leaf over the holes in your doctrine

>>17334576
>By understanding Vedanta in their hearts
schopenhauer and heisenberg both rejected the idea of atmans and brahman as absurd

>>17334576
What works of theirs have you read? You haven't read anything by Nagarjuna and have a lot of opinions on him, so I can't really trust your opinions on Heisenberg and Schopenhauer without some confirmation that you've actually read anything by them.

>>17334575
If you dont conceive of your personal identity as being intrinsically connected to Buddhism than it wont be so upsetting for you when I refute it on 4chan

>>17334626
> heisenberg both rejected the idea of atmans and brahman as absurd
wrong

>Schrödinger essentially regarded the Vedantic worldview as an adequate theory for quantum mechanics, famously writing, in What is Life? ‘The unity and continuity of Vedanta are reflected in the unity and continuity of wave mechanics. This is entirely consistent with the Vedanta concept of All in One’.

>On the question of the unity of consciousness, Schrödinger is quite clear that the ‘quantum reality’ – that is the recently encountered empirical properties of the certain objects at a sub-atomic scale – is entirely compatible with a general Vedantic inspired view of human consciousness. In the frame described by among other things the texts of the Upanisads the quantum characteristics of the human mind are compatible with ‘classical’ characteristics:

>There is obviously only one alternative, namely the unification of minds or consciousnesses. Their multiplicity is only apparent, in truth, there is only one mind. This is the doctrine of the Upanishads. And not only of the Upanishads. The mystically experienced union with God regularly entails this attitude unless it is opposed by strong existing prejudices; this means that it is less easily accepted in the West than in the East.

>Schrödinger explains that since consciousness is closely connected with ‘the limited region of matter’, namely the physical body, and since the different states of the body – over the course of life and through different physiological conditions – have patent influence on our different states of mental being then it is simply plausible that multiple minds exist in unity within the individual. In a chapter entitled ‘The Vedantic Vision’ he continues, ‘the plurality that we perceive is only an appearance; it is not real. Vedantic philosophy, in which this is a fundamental dogma, has sought to clarify it by a number of analogies, one of the most attractive being the many-faceted crystal which, while showing hundreds of little pictures of what is in reality a single existent object, does not really multiply that object’.

>>17334784

>Of quantum multiple worlds theory and, implicitly, quantum entanglement, he advances:

>it is not possible that this unity of knowledge, feeling, and choice which you call your own should have sprung into being from nothingness at a given moment not so long ago; rather this knowledge, feeling, and choice are essentially eternal and unchangeable and numerically one in all men, nay in all sensitive beings. […] Hence this life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of the entire existence, but is, in a certain sense, the whole; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance. This, as we know, is what the Brahmins express in that sacred, mystic formula which is yet really so simple and so clear: Tat tvam asi, this is you. Or, again, in such words as I am in the east and in the west, I am below and above, I am this whole world.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0305829818782862

>>17334786
>>17334784
Whoops, I thought you said Shrodinger, not Heisenberg, oh well, the points still stands that some physicists took it seriously. And the fact that so many people are now looking at panpsychism as a solution to the hard problem of consciousness is another point in favor of it as well, ultimately all this is irrelevant though since science is not a arbiter of ultimate truth and the truth or validity of something can only really be determined through one’s personal experience of that thing in the end. But it’s worth noting for the sake of the present conversation that there is no shortage of accomplished people who take it seriously.

>>17329380
chetan bhagat

Is this the Guenonfag embarrassing himself thread?

Remember when he posted this?
>Lmao no one can even respond to Shankara's refutation of Buddhism? It's been 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.

Remember when he posted his own naked pictures thinking he would become an epic meme? Remember when he then reposted them in /lit/ humor threads as if he was a different person going "lmao guenonfag is so crazy!" and then replied to those posts complimenting his body?

Remember how he has Christian parents but all his worst spamming was literally on Christmas eve, two years running?

Remember how he recently dug around in the archives for a 2 year old Buddhist thread so he could repost its OP and then argue with the OP as himself in it?

>>17334575
Made me laugh, well done. Surprisingly accurate.

>Incorrect, there is only Brahman, except for the Jivas.
Best part

>>17335200
You are like the adoring fan in oblivion, but for guenonfag

>>17335251
I am part of a guild of esoteric proctologists dedicated to studying your eternal asspain. Membership is easy to get, you just have to browse /lit/ more than once a week, which is the minimum amount necessary to notice that there's a crazy butthurt guy making the same 5 threads every week and talking to himself in them about how he isn't butthurt.

>Heheh you love reposting that quote of me embarrassing myself, you must really have a crush on me ;)
Remember two or three times ago that it was posted, you dropped this charade and started freaking out and admitting you're mad about it? As Guild Chronicler, I remember.

>>17334432
actual cope

>>17335291
I am never asspained, my 4chan posting brings me great amusement, that’s why I keep doing it. It’s especially rewarding when I refuted Buddhism in so many threads and the pseuds here can only rant and make schizo posts about me in apoplectic impotent rage

>>17335336
i think i'm converting to buddhism. can you stop me from do so?

>>17335336
>I am never asspained
t. guenonfag
>>Lmao no one can even respond to Shankara's refutation of Buddhism? It's been 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.
>theosophists are gang stalking me!!! why won't you guys just like me!!! the buddhists started it!!
t. also guenonfag, melting down about how no one takes him seriously last year

>>17335349
I would direct you to Shankara’s arguments against Buddhism and ask you to read those. If you read and ponder them but still feel the desire to become Buddhist, then in a certain sense you’ll deserve what you’ll get out of Buddhism and so it wouldn’t be my place to intervene. If after carefully parsing those arguments people still can’t discern that Buddhist metaphysics and theory of mind are retarded, then they probably weren’t meant to become a Hindu or other such soul-accepting person in this life.

>>17335336
Hi im writing an essay for a class and i want to know how jivas are distinct from brahman and also not. How does nondualism allow for totally separate perspectives? Can you redpill me? Please dont talk about sunbeams or light or the sun I dont want metaphors I dont get it. Thanks

>>17335432
yeah i think i know but here's my argument (and i will look into shankara):
1. i left buddhism but i realized there's a lot of dreaming under the surface of it
2. dreaming makes emptiness worth it and it's a good phenomenological framework for investigating minds ability to dream and fall asleep
3. I can always supplement that with fulfilling things like prayer/magic/psychoanalysis and the occult. Or daydreaming.

>>17335478
buddhism seems relevant to these things, *sorry i mean

>>17335379
That was not me who made that post, I remember that thread though, someone else was also challenging Buddhist dogma and none of the Buddhist pseuds in the thread could answer his question despite him asking for a reaponse, none of them ever have answered it which makes it more funny that you keep posting that.

the three marks of existence: we are always unconscious dreams. just have to make the most of it.

>>17335532
>That was not me who made that post
On several of the last 20 times you've gotten mad at people reposting it, you've said things like "when I posted that" or "you keep reposting some post I made." As usual your attempts to control the narrative just make you more creepy because you're so bad at lying. I hope you find peace, cryptobuddhistanon.

>>17335478
Not the guy you're replying to here, who by the way is an asshole and only responding to you to further some internet crusade or gimmick personality he's trying to create, but I feel the same way about buddhism. It's more method than doctrine. Have you read about tantra or yoga at all? Not the lame surface things normies like, but real deal.

>>17335456
>Can you redpill me?
I can try but if you want a more informative and in-depth answer then go on libgen and download Sharma’s ‘Advaita Tradition in Indian Philosophy’ or download AJ Alston’s ‘Sankara Sourcebook’, I can’t vouch for this download for Alston below because I’m phoneposting at the moment, it used to be on libgen but I dont see it anymore. Once you’ve downloaded one or both texts, just Crtl-F ‘jiva’ or whatever other keyword to see Sharma or Shankara himself discussing it, that will be more informative than reading my 4chan posts, I’ll provide a quick summary though.

https://dokumen.pub/a-sankara-source-book-1-6-6-volume-set-2nbsped-0854240551-085424056x-0854240578-0854240586-0854240594-0854240608.html

>i want to know how jivas are distinct from brahman and also not.
The jivas are beginningless images of Brahman existing only at the level of contingent, conditional reality, what Advaita calls vyavahara or samvriti-saya; like everything else which belongs to vyavahara or samvriti-saya, the jivas don’t exist in absolute reality, or Paramartha, where the non-dual Brahman exists alone. The Atman-Brahman is said to dwell in the heart of the jiva illuminating its thoughts and body, but that same Atman in the heart is identical with the omnipresent Brahman, it’s not really enclosed off but only appears to be from our perspective like how objects appear to create junctures in the space they are placed in despite space in truth being without junctures.

The term Jivatma refers to the illusory jiva and its seeming association with the omnipresent, already-liberated Atman illumining it. The jivas are distinct from Brahman in that they are the products of maya, subject to delusion, they suffer and are doers and experiencers etc, none of those things are true of Brahman.

Brahman is the consciousness in which the jivas appear, and Brahman is the wielder of maya, and in this sense jivas have their existence contingent upon Brahman, but they are not identical with Brahman, only the Atman residing at the heart of the Jiva is, the jiva and Atman can be described together with the term Jivatma but one of the main lessons of Advaita is to realize that the Atman inside the Jiva actually is not that Jiva and does not belong to that Jiva but that It is actually omnipresent and supra-individual; so It’s not identical with the jiva if speaking of the jiva in its totality, because then the jiva would have to possess such traits as being free from sin, hunger, thirst etc which only Brahman possesses and not the jiva.

>How does nondualism allow for totally separate perspectives?
Separate in what way? In that there is the false sense of individuality and multiplicity among humans etc? Advaita allows for it because Brahman sustains these different subjective experiences of the jivas as He is the omniscient wielder of maya.

>>17330665
I'm wondering if this >>17329909 is a copypasta because I'm sure that i have read this word for word before...

>>17336147
It is, you can search it in the archives to see that someone has spammed it hundreds of times. Buddhists are so intellectually devastated by Vedanta that some of them gave up trying to argue against it so they just constantly repost low-quality bait images about it instead

>>17334302
I don't see how that article is itself anything other than sophistry.

>>17335641
>you've said things like "when I posted that" or "you keep reposting some post I made."
I have never once said that about the ming-mongs quote, I remember what is and isn’t mine. I even remember the original dude who posted that calling out the Buddhists some weeks later after his original post for never answering his question after you reposted it the first dozen times

>>17336207
Wow, nice debunking, I especially liked the part where you explained how what Robinson wrote is wrong and why

>>17336194
I wasn't commenting on Vedanta vs Buddhism btw - It's just funny to see how repetitive these conversations are - just go meditate in a cave ffs

>>17335641
No, I haven't unfortunately. Any recs?

A friend of mine warned me that /lit/ was swarming with vedantards. I was hoping that at least some of y’all were more into Ramanuja or Nimbarka (at least they remind me of Spinoza) but nope just a swarm of Shankara fags

bump

>>17336325
try geoffrey samuel on tantra and yoga

>>17336645
it's one schizo advaita guy and he has only read taht one sharma book he constantly posts, he is the most notorious /lit/ tripfag and kind of a running joke. he probably isn't pic related but the similarities are uncanny. we used to have good vishishtadvaita and traditionalism threads but the schizo ruined them all, now he is reduced to begging buddhists to take part in his endless flamewar. he apparently thinks it's the same people every time he talks to someone.

>>17336645
Have you read the writings of Ramanuja or Nimbarka? You’ve read and comprehended their Brahma Sutra commentaries? Oh you haven’t but are just interested in Hinduism to the extent that you can identify their ideas with certain western philosophers? Then you probably don’t have anything very valuable or interesting to share on the subject and your opinion on it is frivolous.

>>17336720
>we used to have good vishishtadvaita threads
lies, there have never been regular vishishtadvaita threads, they cannot be found in the archives, I have never seen a single person on 4chan who has ever indicated that they have actually read Ramanuja or that they could discuss the intricacies of his doctrine from memory.
> now he is reduced to begging buddhists to take part in his endless flamewar.
You forgot what thread you are in you moron, this is a thread about Hindu philosophy which you came into and started unloading your autism in

>>17336759
>>17336838
ok guenonfag, it must be every other person you've ever talked to who is wrong, not you. the universal hatred for you is all a big misunderstanding.

>>17329380
What specifically are you looking for when it comes to Indian philosophy?

>>17336867
Hey Guenonfag, remember when you used to manicpost about how you are being stalked by Kantians and renegade Buddhists? You've really come a long way, haven't you? I remember when you were still obviously new to 4chan and hostile and bitchy to everybody you interacted with. Do you think posting here actually socialized you to an extent? You're still bitchy, but you no longer have huge paranoid meltdowns.

That year where you were learning mspainting 500 forced cringy Shankara and Guenon memes must have been a real crash course for you in 4chan culture. You've almost acclimated. You still samefag too obviously, but at least you stopped making entire threads just to ask questions and answer them like multiple people. Well, until recently, since you're doing that again apparently.

>>17336867
I’m not the person who posted those images, I sometimes will answer peoples questions or otherwise participate in debates about Vedanta or I’ll call out Buddhist sophism, but I have better things to do than spam the same image and sentence over and over for 1 or 2 replies each time, I’d rather just read over doing something so pointless. Because you’re a dumb neurotic schizo though you think that every post and joke related to Guenon made on this board is by me.

>>17336957
Not every one, some people are obviously meming. But you're always detectable by how you can't take a joke and how you obviously samefag like >>17334175 and recently when you reposted a whole OP from several years back just to be able to argue with it. Are the hundreds of times you posted the same Robinson critique of Nagarjuna verbatim not you, too?

I notice you never talk about Robinson anymore even though it was your obsession for a year or more. Is it because he BTFO Advaita and proves that it's crypto-buddhism? It is isn't it?

>>17336937
I was not the person who posted those threads, I saw someone else say in another thread the other day that your various guenonfag image compilations that you’ve created reek strongly of schizophrenic apophenia, a diagnoses with which I’d agree

>>17336982
>Is it because he BTFO Advaita and proves that it's crypto-buddhism? It is isn't it?
Robinson never did that, he doesn’t seem to like it but he failed to btfo advaita or offer any substantive critique/refutation of it

>>17337004
Thanks for demonstrating how easy it is to prove it's you, as always.

Hey I never notice you talk about Olivelle anymore either Guenonfag. What happened? He used to be your boy, you used to say he was the one trustworthy scholar on the Upanishads, but he says Advaita is late and not the one true Vedanta of the Upanishads either. How come all your favorite guys like Robinson and Olivelle let you down? Is it because you never actually read them and don't know their views (about how Advaita is crypto-buddhism)?

>>17337022
>Hey I never notice you talk about Olivelle anymore either Guenonfag. What happened? He used to be your boy, you used to say he was the one trustworthy scholar on the Upanishads,
I never said any of that, he is just one of many scholars who say that the early Upanishads are pre-Buddhist, I dont care about Olivelle or his views at all, or that of anyone else in academia. I merely cited him before to show an example of someone taking that position viz chronology. That I would cite him on this doesn’t mean that I do or should care about his personal views about other things.

>but he says Advaita is late and not the one true Vedanta of the Upanishads either. How come all your favorite guys like Robinson and Olivelle let you down?
None of them are my favorite, I’m suspicious of academics as a rule.

>>17337082
Guenonfag why do so many scholars and also most Hindus say Advaita is crypto-buddhism? I keep trying to remember your wise words, "it's not crypto-buddhism, they are BTFO, I refuted them," but there are so many. The vast majority of Hindus, Ramanuja, Madhva, any modern bhakti practitioners, even neovedantists who like Shankara all say that he copied everything from Nagarjuna and Mahayana. Even the book you recommended here >>17336119, Sharma, says that Shankara is a crypto-buddhist. It's modern scholarly consensus, even for the scholars you like, that Shankara was crypto-buddhist.

How can I keep your refutations firm in my mind? Is the trick to say "btfo" more? Or post more quotations about how Heisenberg praised vedanta once?

>>17337087
>why do so many scholars and also most Hindus say Advaita is crypto-buddhism
Scholars who say this are just being stupid and are most likely repeating uncritically what they read elsewhere. Shankara and Nagarjuna disagree on like 99% of things, and the remaining 1% they dont even agree fully.

As for why some Hindus say this, the reason is most likely that they read texts by other people that they thought represented Shankara’s Advaita, but which didn’t. Already by the time of Ramanuja there were many different followers of Shankara and different sub-schools of Advaita, some of them advancing claims and positions which Shankara himself totally rejected. It is not in fact clear whether Ramanuja ever actually read the works of Shankara, as Ramanuja attributes to Shankara positions which Shankara rejected, it is likely that Ramanuja read the work of an Advaita sub-school person written over a century after Shankara and mistook those views for Shankara’s. For example, Ramanuja in his works acts as though Shankara denied that objects exist as objects, on the level of empirical reality. Shankara never claimed this and in fact he disagreed with and attacked this position which is espoused by some Yogacharin Buddhists. Ramanuja also implies that in Advaita Brahman is bound and liberated which is completely rejected by Advaita. The two alternatives then become either that Ramanuja DID read Shankara, but falsely misrepresented him, or that Ramanuja never actually read Shankara and didn’t know his actual views.

An example of non-Advaita views creeping in is the text the Yoga Vasistha, which despite being mainly an Advaita text claims at several points that objects don’t exist outside of us perceiving them, Shankara attacked this view as retarded and completely rejected it. And the Yoga Vasistha also teaches that knowledge and work combine to produce liberation, a position which Shankara also attacked.

> Sharma, says that Shankara is a crypto-buddhist
False, I know that you cant help but lying but in that book by Sharma he explicitly says in the section on Gaudapada that Advaita did not take any doctrine from Buddhism and that non-origination and the absolute vs apparent distinction are already taught by the Upanishads. And I know that you know this because I’ve posted the screenshot of it and seen you post your dumb schizo shit in response to it. Why bother lying about something we both know isn’t true?

>How can I keep your refutations firm in my mind
Search both ‘refuted’ and ‘Shankara’ on warosu and you’ll find links to various posts explaining how Buddhist doctrine is nonsense. I thought the thread recently about where I wrote the refutation into a false Pali Canon passage was quite funny, nobody in the thread could even refute the point it made about dependent origination being nonsense.

>>17336759
It’s not that I feel compelled to compare them to western philosophers, it’s that I feel compelled to give a benefit of the doubt to Vedānta. It’s not even the best Hindu philosophy- From what I’ve seen, Mimamsa is far more based. Hell I’d take Shaiva or Nyaya.

>>17337889
Can you elaborate on why you feel that way?

>>17329855
The Upanishads especially are quite esoteric and can be hard to understand. The dialogues in them are the closest they come to Biblical wisdom texts, otherwise I'd say they're quite different. There isn't really an equivalent in the Bible. The correspondences between the micro- and macro-cosm still bend my mind. I get the gist that the actions of the body, the rituL actions of the sacrifice, and the cosmic actions of the universe/gods are mystically connected. But there are dozens of overlapping and contradictory correspondences, like the sun being the ritual fire and the eye of the sacrificial horse and an object blocking the doorway to immortality and more.

>>17338269
most of the apparent major contradictions between the various Upanishads are reconciled in the Brahma Sutras and the various bhasyas on it

>>17337794
>I thought the thread recently about where I wrote the refutation into a false Pali Canon passage was quite funny
Well yes it was funny since it was plagiarised from a Buddhist thread.

>>17341019
you just bumped a shit guenonfag thread from literally page 10, samefag potential high

>>17334302
>As Richard Robinson showed in his infamous article (pic related) Nagarjuna uses flawed logic and sophist tactics in the MMK
Him https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Robinson_(Buddhism_scholar) ?
What did he think of advaita vedanta?
Do u have a link to his paper?

>>17334357
>what they're actually finding novel in Advaita Vedanta is the diluted version of Dependent Origination, which in light of advances in Quantum Physics demonstrates the complete incoherence of philosophies like Thomism and Advaita Vedanta.
Please elaborate theses claims

>>17335432
>I would direct you to Shankara’s arguments against Buddhism and ask you to read those
Links?

>>17337794
>I thought the thread recently about where I wrote the refutation into a false Pali Canon passage was quite funny, nobody in the thread could even refute the point it made about dependent origination being nonsense.
Link

>>17337794
How do u understand isvara vedantabro? Is it what the thomistics arguments talks about?

>Hindu literature on toilets and/or streets
Book recommendations for this topic?

Bump

>>17342253
Dependent Origination holds that there are no "essences" to things. A chariot is made up of wheels, a cart, a thill, and an axle, but it lacks an "atman" (to use the Hindu term). The Buddha comes up with a system wherein atmans aren't needed (tl;dr an atman's existence is identical to its non-existence, the parts work even without the atman; this is why Hindu thinkers have criticized Shankara's system, as Brahman's existence is identical to its non-existence in Advaita Vedanta).

Back in the Western tradition, we start off with the Pre-Socratics, who are trying to find a fundamental monistic prime-stuff. Plato introduces more complicated ideas of transcendent realms. This leads to Aristotle who tries to unify the two (sort of). Time goes by, and we get to "Modern Atomism", which holds that Atoms are the most fundamental units of reality. This means that there is no essence, no atman, there's just a very large series of parts that make up a thing. The problem is, however, that we end up discovering that Atoms aren't fundamental either, they're made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons. And those, in turn, are made up of quarks. At the time Heisenberg and friends are alive, there isn't a totally coherent theory of quarks, but the basic idea of "atoms aren't fundamental, and what makes up them isn't fundamental" is in the air.

More coming.

>>17342757
The basic insight of quantum physics is that at certain scales certain things behave interchangably like a wave AND a particle. Electrons do this (electrons don't actually "orbit" a nucleus), as do photons. The model of these things as little balls is explanatory for certain instances, but it fails in others, where we use a model of them as a wave. The problem is, both of these are false. The reality is much greater, and much weirder, than common natural language can make it out to be. Mathematics can offer more detail, but that also has its problems. The takeaway here is that these men are noticing that there are no discrete borders to things, and that things are not composed of discrete wholes but instead continuous parts.

Which just simply is the world that the Buddha came up with 2,500 years ago. Remember, at this time, there's basically NOTHING about Buddhism in English, and only a little bit in German, that actually gets at Buddhist philosophy. There is, however, through Crowleyism and Theosophy, vague inklings of Advaita Vedanta. Advaita Vedanta is just a shoddy attempt at re-Hinduizing Buddhism, but it does carry through some Buddhist ideas. If we look at what Heisenberg and friends are actually saying they want, they don't want Atmans and Brahmans, they want Dependent Origination, they want Sunyata, they want Emptiness, and a philosophical system that choose delusion over illusion (Advaita Vedanta chooses illusion). They want a philosophical system that allows for things to occur without having to have any fundamental substance of reality, which is exactly what Buddhism provides.

>>17341019
The only thing that was similar was that they were both spoofed Pali Canon quotes, yours was simping for Buddha though and mine BTFO’d him with facts and logic.
>>17342305
>Link

>>/lit/thread/S17285294

>>17342284
In the above linked thread are posted links to screencaps of Shankara’s arguments, scroll down a bit and you’ll see them

>>17342757
>this is why Hindu thinkers have criticized Shankara's system, as Brahman's existence is identical to its non-existence in Advaita Vedanta
I don't see how?

>If we look at what Heisenberg and friends are actually saying they want, they don't want Atmans and Brahmans, they want Dependent Origination, they want Sunyata, they want Emptiness
I'm not sure anon. I am a great fan of the philosopher Schrodinger, and in his texts he makes it clear that he loves advaita vedanta for his philosophy of mind: for the idea that there is only one consciousness. Such an idea is much closer to the Vedantic Brahman in its classical comprehension than to the Buddhist Shunyata in its classical comprehension (one would have to enter into very particular interpretations of shentong and tathāgatagarbha to get close to it, but there would still be differences.). If you are interested in the link between Buddhist thought and quantum physics, I recommend the lectures or books by Michel Bitbol.

>and a philosophical system that choose delusion over illusion (Advaita Vedanta chooses illusion).
Please explain.

>>17342782
Btw the idea that everything is interconnected is also found in Hinduism with Indra's net, so I'm not sure they would need dependent origination.

>>17342798
Thanks

Byw

>>17342757
>this is why Hindu thinkers have criticized Shankara's system, as Brahman's existence is identical to its non-existence in Advaita Vedanta).
This completely false, the Atman is the indwelling light of sentience. Without the Atman existing in Advaita, there is no consciousness there illumining one's thoughts and sensory perceptions, to say nothing of that it is the source of all existence.

So no, it's totally false that "Brahman's existence is identical to its non-existence", this is in fact a made-up strawman which you have invented and have been repeating on 4chan, despite it having no basis in reality. What's more, you have continued to post it here despite being told already multiple times how and why it's wrong.

Here are three different examples of you using the blatantly false "Brahman's existence is identical to its non-existence" strawman argument three times in the past month and each time it was explained to you that what you were saying is retarded, but for some reason you keep saying it. Is it because you have no good philosophical arguments against Advaita Vedanta that you have adduce and repeat made-up arguments that don't make any sense and which don't even accurately describe and critique any real Advaita doctrine?

>>/lit/thread/S16991945#p16993130
>>/lit/thread/S17051665#p17068733
>>/lit/thread/S17285294#p17287557

>>17342798
Btw

>>17336119
>Brahman is the consciousness in which the jivas appear, and Brahman is the wielder of maya, and in this sense jivas have their existence contingent upon Brahman, but they are not identical with Brahman, only the Atman residing at the heart of the Jiva is, the jiva and Atman can be described together with the term Jivatma but one of the main lessons of Advaita is to realize that the Atman inside the Jiva actually is not that Jiva and does not belong to that Jiva but that It is actually omnipresent and supra-individual; so It’s not identical with the jiva if speaking of the jiva in its totality, because then the jiva would have to possess such traits as being free from sin, hunger, thirst etc which only Brahman possesses and not the jiva.
This is relational

It is impossible for the Brahman to "illuminate" the jiva without entering into some kind of relationship with it, hence the metaphor of the sun and its rays. What is relational is conditioned, etc.

>>17342874
>Without the Atman existing in Advaita, there is no consciousness there illumining one's thoughts and sensory perceptions, to say nothing of that it is the source of all existence.
Relational

>>17342874
How do u understand isvara vedantabro? Is it what the thomistics arguments talks about? Is it helpful to pray it?

>>17342242
>What did he think of advaita vedanta?
I think he thought it was similar to Buddhism but I've only ever seen a few throwaway comments that he wrote about it, but I've never seen an indication that he studied it in depth, or its textual sources, and I'm not aware of any critique he wrote of Advaita's logic or anything

The full Robinson paper critiquing Nagarjuna's logic may be read here, or if you copy the DOI from here and enter it on scihub, only a large portion but not all of the paper is posted in that thread with the screencap

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1397681?seq=1

>>17341023
The Clozapine anon, take it

>>17342344
I understand Isvara to be the Saguna Brahman, Advaita teaches that while in absolute reality or Paramartha that the Supreme Brahman is unchanging, down at the level of vyavahara or conditional reality, the Isvara is sustained as an image of Brahman by Brahman's maya, and that this Isvara or Saguna Brahman is what directly maintains the universe since the Supreme Brahman is uninvolved. I'm not totally sure but I would venture that the Thomistic arguments or many of them would apply to the unconditioned Supreme Brahman, since the Supreme Brahman is the source of the Isvara's existence and the latter is dependent upon the former in its contingency. One could argue that the Supreme Brahman is the unmoved mover and final cause/origin, but one cannot say that about the Isvara.

>>17342882
>Relational
Anon, we already had a whole thread here where you sophistically argued that everything was a relation.

>>/lit/thread/S17300145#p17311300

The conclusion of that thread was that I explained to you why you were wrong repeatedly, and all you could do was write the word relation over and over without even making any meaningful points.

The thread ended when you tried to argue that being the witness of sensory perceptions results in an infinite regress, and then I cited a passage from one of Shankara's Upanishad commentaries where he refuted your argument about an infinite regress word-for-word over a thousand years ago. Then you stopped replying and the thread died, the post where Shankara refuted your argument was the last post in the thread. If you really want to we can argue about this again, but the same answer is true. Your arguments are still wrong for the same reasons that were already explained in that thread.

The relation of illumining only exists for the jiva, from the jiva's perspective. But that relation is a projected false conception of the jiva, a superimposition due to ignorance, that imagined relation doesn't actually enter into any real causal relationship with Brahman ever, and so Brahman remains unconditioned forever and ever. In the same way Buddhists admit that Nirvana is beyond human conception and that the mind cannot delimit or grasp it, that the minds labels and concepts do not make Nirvana conditioned since it is untouched by them, in the same way in Vedanta the false conceptions of jivas/humans don't delimit, taint or otherwise make Brahman conditioned.

didnt look at the thread yet but
>111 11

surely this is a sign right? What are the chances that I see this thread for the FIRST TIME when it has 111 replies and 11 images? Maybe Brahman is telling me something. Maybe reading Hindu lit is the way

>>17342876
>It is impossible for the Brahman to "illuminate" the jiva without entering into some kind of relationship with it, hence the metaphor of the sun and its rays. What is relational is conditioned, etc.
What kind of relationship are you talking about? Do you mean a causal relationship where one things imparts an effect or causal efficiency unto the other? Or another kind of nebulous and undefined relationship that doesn't actually exist? There is no causal relationship between the Brahman and the jiva, causality is not real in absolute reality and is a product of maya.

>>17329380
I am reading Sarvepalli Radhakrishnans principal upanishads at the moment. As a beginner I still find it understanable and 'heavy' enough.

>>17343057
>The thread ended when you tried to argue that being the witness of sensory perceptions results in an infinite regress, and then I cited a passage from one of Shankara's Upanishad commentaries where he refuted your argument about an infinite regress word-for-word over a thousand years ago.
Yet you used the same argument against me

>Then you stopped replying
I was busy

>The relation of illumining only exists for the jiva, from the jiva's perspective.
So atman is closed, unreachable, in relation with nothing. The source of consciousness is blind, lol

>What kind of relationship are you talking about?
Any kind

>>17342874
>This completely false
U contradict urself:

>No no, Atman doesn't do anything, its existence is identical to its non-existence, because it is luminous, but also does not emit light, as it is transparent.
>>/lit/thread/S17285294#p17287064

>>17342994
>One could argue that the Supreme Brahman is the unmoved mover and final cause/origin, but one cannot say that about the Isvara.
What about the cosmological arguments that points to a personal and moral supreme source?

>>17343057
>But that relation is a projected false conception of the jiva, a superimposition due to ignorance, that imagined relation doesn't actually enter into any real causal relationship with Brahman ever, and so Brahman remains unconditioned forever and ever.
So ultimately the Brahman isn't in relation with anything
So he is closed, without windows to the world
Inreacheable, he doesn't perceives anything
He's blind, dead and means nothing to us

The Absolute is in relation with the world, he's not closed and distinct from it
It's a process

>>17343646
Pic related.
God is not a super-object, he's in a real relation with the world

>>17343665

The amorality of Brahman is a problem btw

>>17343618
It's seems it's not u, my bad

The Vedas says that the universe operates according to Sanskrit grammar, ergo, it is true. The Buddha denies that the universe operates according to Sanskrit grammar, despite it being in the Vedas. There, case closed, because 99.99% of the trouble guenonfag has with Buddhism comes down to believing that subject-object duality is ontologically real (despite, ironically, Shankara's system being completely incoherent and unable to defend this view).

>>17336119
>level of contingent, conditional reality, what Advaita calls vyavahara or samvriti-saya; like everything else which belongs to vyavahara or samvriti-saya, the jivas don’t exist in absolute reality, or Paramartha, where the non-dual Brahman exists alone
This is just the 2 truths doctrine, which is unique to Buddhism. Before you cite the post-Buddhist Mundaka 1.1.4, notice that it doesn't specify conditional or ultimate reality, just that the knowledge of the Vedas and Sanskrit is below the knowledge of Brahman. And before you say Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.3.1, notice it only explains the forms (rūpa) of Brahman. Hinduism has always maintained that truth (satya) is singular, this is affirmed by a verse from the same Brihadaranyaka Upanishad:
>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 - Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

In contrast, the early Buddhists constructed the two truth doctrine to rectify the problem apparent in the Neyyatha Sutta (AN I.60) in which the Buddha warned not to construe clear meanings with inferred meanings and vice versa.
>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)

Advaita is false and contradictory because it recognizes that the Absolute is necessarily supra-rational, and yet its awakening is an intellectual cognition (jnana) and not a yogic vision (dhyana/samadhi). This is why the Guenonfag spends his time reading texts and improving his sophistry instead of meditating and intimately realizing the Absolute by himself. Hindu yogis are closer to the truth than the vedantins. Pic related.

>>17343802
>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)
Theravadin cringe

>>17343824
I'm not theravadin, but he was right in the earlier instance since many Buddhists share the same perspective on the origin of the 2TD.

>>17342242

>the pup RAN away
What happened to 'pseuds here can only rant and make schizo posts about me'. When push comes to shove he cowers and stutters to make a coherent response. I guess we should give him some time for him to concoct his usual walls of senseless babble, like the time he bumped a thread for 17 hours just so he could release a 7+ post 'refuting OP line by line' because he got owned by him (oh and of course he saved his screencap of that proud moment).

>>17343630
I'm not familiar with them, can you provide a quick summary or a link to a good website that summarizes some of them?

>>17343904
Kek

>>17344091
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/hinduism-and-morality/
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/are-we-justified-in-believing-in-objective-moral-values-and-duties/
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/objective-or-absolute-moral-values/
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/question-answer/P20/our-grasp-of-objective-moral-values
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/scholarly-writings/the-existence-of-god/the-indispensability-of-theological-meta-ethical-foundations-for-morality/
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/those-who-deny-objective-moral-values/
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/other-videos/how-can-we-demonstrate-that-objective-moral-values-exist-to-a-nihilist-who-/

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/a-question-from-india-on-gods-personhood/
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/personal-god/
https://youtu.be/W-4QMf1Truw
https://youtu.be/v2mFogzBO-Y

is it possible to be a nastika vedantin ? i'm more a yogi-type person >>17343806
and i don't want to believe in all the bs the vedas contains
but i like the vedanta metaphysics

>>17342876
>It is impossible for the Brahman to "illuminate" the jiva without entering into some kind of relationship with it
What is the causal effect that the object illuminated imparts to the source of its illumination, the sun?

Icarus exists 5 billion light-years from earth, when we detect just the faintest trace of the illumination coming from Icarus through powerful telescopes, we do not have any impact upon Icarus or exert any kind of causal effect upon it.

Are things really conditioned by other things which they exert causal effects upon (or falsely seem to, as Brahman transcends the web of causality as the wielder of maya which is the source of the webs appearance) without being subject to any reciprocal causal relation by that thing upon which it exerts its effects or upon which it seems to?

No, they are not really conditioned by those things in those scenarios. They are only conditioned in the sense that the apparent relationship, itself denoted from the impact produced upon the thing impacted, structures the way in which our mind conceives of the relationship and the terms involved, but that is not the same thing as an actual casual effect exerted upon the source of the illumination or some other conditioning affecting the source of the effect which is caused by the object illumined. Ironic since buddhists often accuse others of 'reifying' their mental conceptions.

>>17343904
>even robinson confirms advaita is cryptobuddhism
Guenonfag destroyed
>>/lit/image/fG9nvXFvjBzGFskbe5usYg
>>/lit/?offset=24&task=search2&search_media_hash=fG9nvXFvjBzGFskbe5usYg

>with the same ease as with which our friend Richard Robinson defnestrated Nagarjuna, I wonder why...
"Our friend Richard Robinson": Advaita is cryptobuddhism. Guenonfag cannot recover from this

Seriously though click the warosu links and go look his autism if you haven't. That's probably 1/20 of the times he posted it, since the image changed.

>>17343601
>Yet you used the same argument against me
The infinite regress arguments are applicable to the Buddhist theory of mind because they deny the self which is different from mental ideations, but they are not applicable to the Vedantist theory of mind because Vedanta admits that there is a presiding intelligence who is different from the various mental ideations. If you want me to I can explain why in detail.
>So atman is closed, unreachable, in relation with nothing. The source of consciousness is blind, lol
False, False, Correct, False
>closed
Closed vs Open are a duality, non-duality transcends both and thus so does Atma,
>unreachable
In the same way "reachable" and "unreachable" both presume a multiplicity of factors in terms of reacher and the thing reached, these are more dual pre-suppositions, Atma is non-dual and thus transcends "reachable" and "unreachable"
>in relation with nothing
Yes, such is the case when It's the only thing that exists absolutely, It's the only thing which exists in reality.
>blind
No, the Atma always knows Itself, the jiva knows the Atma indirectly under a layer of illusion, but the Atma is self-revealing, omnipresent, undecaying sentience that consists of non-dual knowledge of Itself that transcends the categories of knower, known and means of knowing, so It's never blind.

You already recycled this same argument in the last thread and it's already been explained to you why its wrong. The false and completely sophistic way in which you are trying to trap Advaita's position into the false binary of either "closed and blind" or "in relation and thus conditioned" is transparent. It's not clever at all and is not pointing out any real contradiction in Advaita, but you are only once again demonstrating the timeless truth that Buddhist philosophy and ways of arguing largely amount to sophism.

>>17344966
He doesn't seem to be arguing in sophistic ways at all, you seem to be doing that. You want to claim relations aren't relations. Another anon said specifically don't give me a sun metaphor and you used sun metaphors. If what you're saying is so convincing, why have you never convinced anyone of it any of the thousand times you've had this very argument.

>>17343646
>So ultimately the Brahman isn't in relation with anything
>So he is closed, without windows to the world
>Inreacheable, he doesn't perceives anything
>He's blind, dead and means nothing to us
all refuted here >>17344966

>>17343630
So, I couldn't read everything, but I didn't find the arguments that I read to be very convincing for me personally, for example:

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/a-question-from-india-on-gods-personhood/

>1. For an impersonal God to exist, the universe has to be eternal because an impersonal God cannot freely create the universe.
Why can a sentient God who consists of impartite and eternal self-knowing sentience not wield his power to give rise to the universe if it is that very God's timeless and uncaused inherent nature to do so, and that this God has always been doing so without any beginning, such that time has itself been flowing from and sustained by this power, while the wielder of this power is outside time? I cannot think of a good hypothetical reason why God could not do that.
>2. But the universe is not eternal because it had a beginning.
Advaita would say that *this* universe had a beginning, but that every universe created through the eternal reoccurring cycle of emergence and dissolution are all just different modifications of the same root primordial matter, or mula-prakriti, which is itself inseparable from the maya that is the Lord's power. But since Advaita adheres to the Vivartavada doctrine all this is only taking place 'as it were', and so the arguments against an infinite universe don't fully apply to the Vedanta model of the eternal cycle of universes, since the whole array of universes is sublated in liberation as unreal and as never having truly existed to begin with (in absolute reality), so trying to figure out contradictions in that and then disproving Vedantic doctrine that way (such as al-Ghazalis argument against an infinite succession of moments on the basis we could never arrive at the present moment) is like trying to figure out what the illusory snake superimposed on the rope by ignorance eats and how digests its food that it doesn't really eat. The arguments don't apply if the thing itself doesn't truly exist in the end. Shankara speaks about this point exactly somewhere in his Brahma Sutra bhasya where he mentions that though the mutual relation between karma and ignorance is beginningless, that it's eventually sublated as not having really existed to begin with.
>3. Therefore, an impersonal God cannot exist.
Or can it?

>>17345254
>Why can a sentient God who consists of impartite and eternal self-knowing sentience not wield his power to give rise to the universe if it is that very God's timeless and uncaused inherent nature to do so, and that this God has always been doing so without any beginning, such that time has itself been flowing from and sustained by this power, while the wielder of this power is outside time? I cannot think of a good hypothetical reason why God could not do that.
God needs to be free, so personal. Otherwise:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-4QMf1Truw

>>17345254
There is an error common to all the theisms trapped in Platonic substantialism. In these theologies, the Supreme Being transcends Nature (His creation) and is ontologically radically different from it (''totaliter alter''). In scholastic philosophy (and, more broadly, in Judaism, Christianity and Islam), the Divine essence (''Dasein'') is for God alone, while His existence (''Sosein'') can be shared with His creatures (if He wishes). God exists in a radically different way from contingent beings, it is the Islamic ''"wahdat al wujud"'.
For Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274), the relationship between God and the world is called "relatio rationis", not reciprocal. This scholastic notion can be explained by taking the example of a subject apprehending an object. From the point of view of the object, only a logical, rational relationship persists. The object is "unaffected" by the subject's apprehension of it. From the point of view of the subject, on the other hand, a real relation manifests itself, since the subject is "really affected" by the perception of the object. There is an intention, an interest, an "imprint" of the apprehension of the object.
The onto-theological postulate shared by all substantialist theologies (whether polytheistic, henotheistic or monotheistic) was beautifully formulated by Thomas Aquinas: God is not affected by the world, and therefore God is like an object, not a sentient subject! The world, being created, is affected by this God-object.
Such a God is clearly not an "Emmanuel", God-with-us. Therefore, the relationship between God and the world is bound to be non-reciprocal. In this case, the world only contributes to the glory of God (''gloria externa Dei''). The finite is nothing more than a necessary ''explicatio Dei''. It is the only means by which the world can contribute to God. But this contribution does not affect the Divine essence, or His will. Being omnipotent, He is the only absolute and autocratic dictator. He decides life and death, freedom and punishment, peace and war.
The Buddha disapproves. Not only is a substantial (''svabhava'') and independent (''svatantra'') Supreme Being untraceable, but absolute reality exists in a conventional way (pansacralism). This is a fundamental difference between the theistic models and the modal view. The world is a "Totality without limits", and although a Supreme Principle can be identified (Adi-Buddha), it does not exist by itself, separated from cyclical existence and its illusory essentialism. On the contrary, the Adi-Buddha exists in actuality, "with us": the Absolute is a face of the world, a point of view, not a substance separate from it.
In the continuation of this reasoning, the monotheistic God, like a Caesar, is omnipotent and omniscient. This means that God knows what is possible as possible, what is real as real and the future of what is real (predestination).

>>17345342
In addition, God can do what He wants and is therefore directly responsible for all events. This position, however, makes it impossible not to attribute all possible evil, such as the massacre of the innocent, to God. Whether it is His perfect or permissive will, it transforms the Good Lord into a brutal monster, thereby proving that He cannot exist (cf. Sartre). Obviously, free will cannot be reconciled with this view of God as the sufficient condition of all things, since freedom can only be reconciled with a God seen as a necessary condition.
Buddhadhadharma rejects substantial theology without denying the existence of God (monotheism) or any of its henotheistic manifestations. Adi-Buddha is omniscient, since he is aware of the absolute interconnectedness of Indra's net. However, and although he knows the past and present completely, he does not know the future, only "the most probable result". The latter can nevertheless be changed at any time by the decisions of sentient beings, especially humans, who possess a strong free will. God is not the creator or author who creates "ex nihilo", but a co-generator or architect of the universe. The latter emanates from the First Principles: primordial energy (the zero-point energy), information (the code of life) and consciousness (the Dharmakaya of Adi-Buddha).
The Primordial Buddha is not omnipotent, otherwise sentient beings would not cause their own suffering. He is, however, omnipresent, so close to each sentient being, conscious of his suffering and always present when they open themselves to the Dharma, making the joyful effort of ''just sitting'' on the rock of Milarepa. This God is very close to the theology of the process of Whitehead and Hartshorne.
The difference between Adi-Buddha and the God of Substantialist theologies is an irreversible division between, on the one hand, all forms of theisms and, on the other hand, Buddhism and Taoism. This abyss between substantialist thinking and process thinking cannot be bridged. For from the point of view of process, substance is artificial and is born of a mental hallucination. From the point of view of substantialism, the process seems to lack reality and to stand on nothing.
An "existential choice" arises.
Each human being has to make up his own mind on the question. But a change of opinion is always possible. No theology should kidnap individual freedom. Only direct experience is important here. If the inconsistencies of theistic ontology are not convincing enough, and personal predispositions lead us to seek refuge in the God of the scriptures, so be it. But if philosophical clarity is important, then the Buddhadharma holds the strongest position, inviting us to take a radical leap away from substantial obsessions and their "dreams of Being.

>>17344966
>The infinite regress arguments are applicable to the Buddhist theory of mind
An infinite regress is only a fallacy if you argue that an infinite series of events must happen instantly. If you allow for an infinite historical past, as Buddhism does, there's nothing fallacious about saying "history goes back forever" because history just goes back forever.

>>17344987
>You want to claim relations aren't relations
No, I asked the person to clarify whether or not they were speaking about causal relationships, or another kind of relation. They didn't clarify because their argument relies on falsely blurring the line between causal relationships and non-causal ones, as well as between mutual causal relationships and one-sided ones. But I noticed.

>>17345365
>They didn't clarify
False. I said : any kind.
>>17343601
Every kind of relation is a determination, so a condition.

>>17329380
The Mahabharata is an amazing epic

>>17343112
Non-dualism does sorta explain synchronicities
>>17343694
Why would you think so? In 'Indian Thought and the Problem of Evil' by Arthur Herman he explains and examines using logical diagrams the various philosophical and religious solutions to the problem of evil and he ends up concluding in the book that only non-dualist metaphysicians like Shankara and Ramanuja have feasible solutions to it.
>>17343775
>The Vedas says that the universe operates according to Sanskrit grammar, ergo, it is true.
Source? You keep saying this but you've never cited any proof
>believing that subject-object duality is ontologically real
False, Advaita says that absolute reality is non-dual
>>17343806
>and yet its awakening is an intellectual cognition (jnana) and not a yogic vision (dhyana/samadhi).
False, awakening is not an intellectual cognition in Advaita. The writing in your picture is talking about the doctrines of the (dualist) Samkhya-derived Yoga school as represented by Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, it has very little or nothing to do with Advaita Vedanta. Please read more about Advaita before trying to critique it, this is just cringe-inducing to watch. Awakening in Advaita consists of the removal of ignorance and the Atma revealing Itself.

>The type of knowledge in which subject and object are one is the “thought that thinks itself” that Aristotle attributed to the Prime Mover, and Plotinus calls such knowing “primal intellection.” When the mind cognizes something external to it the act “cannot be the primally intellective since it does not possess the object as integrally its own or as itself—the condition of true intellection” (VI.6.1). He calls primal knowing “a unity in duality … being dual by the fact of intellection and single by the fact that its intellectual object is itself” (VI.6.1). This primal act of knowing, in other words, is simply an ultimate self-awareness. It is absolutely opposed to what is usually called knowledge, which is awareness of an other. It simply annuls all ordinary knowledge. One must turn one’s back on all ordinary acts of thinking and knowing in order to know primally. Similarly in the Vedantic schools, knowledge of brahman (para- vidya-) is opposed to and in fact annuls all other acts of knowledge (apara vidya) because it is nondual knowledge. This nondual knowledge is so primal that every sentient being is regarded as already permeated with it at a level so basic and personal that one cannot even see it. “It does not have to come and so be present to you,” says Plotinus, “it is you that have turned from it” (VI.6.12). And Śankara: “It only removes the false notion, it does not create anything” (Commentary on the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad I.4.10).

>>17345457
>Awakening in Advaita consists of the removal of ignorance and the Atma revealing Itself.
...through cognition (jnana). You only have to read the criticisms that the vedantins make of the yogic states.

>>17345319
I'm not going to watch and respond to a youtube video argument, another time I might, but I'm just not in the mood right now, if you want to make a quick summary with numbered points I'll share my thoughts. I don't think that free is the same as personal.
>>17345342
>There is an error common to all the theisms
Your spiel starts off with that but then doesn't explain why its wrong
>Not only is a substantial (''svabhava'') and independent (''svatantra'') Supreme Being untraceable
Because the source of form which is anterior to it will naturally not be capable of being grasped and delimited through form, I don't know why this is so hard for Buddhists to grasp. Dependent origination as an alternative explanation for the world fails on the point that the details of it are analogous to the paradox of the daughter giving birth to her own mother.
>>17345400
>False. I said : any kind.
One-sided causal relations (in which A only imparts a causal effect unto B but B doesn't impart one back to A) don't produce any change or any other condition which inheres in or manifests in that which is the source of the causal effect, hence the example of the sun and the objects illumined fail to establish that Brahman is conditioned.

>>17345472
>cognition (jnana)
Cognition of things in the sense you defined it (intellectual cognition) happens through the intellect and through the pramanas, jnana does not always mean intellectual knowledge but it can also mean non-discursive and intuitive knowledge. The realization of Atma in Advaita does not occur through the pramanas, or through negation, or through inference, or through analogy; hence its not an intellectual cognition which occurs via the intellect or mind.

>>17345553
>One-sided causal relations (in which A only imparts a causal effect unto B but B doesn't impart one back to A) don't produce any change or any other condition which inheres in or manifests in that which is the source of the causal effect, hence the example of the sun and the objects illumined fail to establish that Brahman is conditioned.
if the relation is one-sided : atman is closed, unreachable, has no relation with the world, so don't perceives anything, he's blind, dead, means nothing to us

>>17345364
>If you allow for an infinite historical past, as Buddhism does, there's nothing fallacious about saying "history goes back forever" because history just goes back forever.

>>/lit/thread/S17300145#p17302619

Those regress arguments discussed in the previous thread linked above don't have to do with the impossibility of an infinite series of events, they involve regresses having to do with being unable to act upon mental ideations, or to do with being unable to unthink things once you've thought them, if you reread the post you'll see what I mean. Just because you accept an infinite historical pass it doesn't rescue you from those regresses, which don't concern ontology so much as theory of mind.

>>17345631
>if the relation is one-sided : atman is closed, unreachable
False, by saying this you are asserting that dualistic presuppositions hold true in non-dual absolute reality, which Advaita rejects and which you have not offered a good reason for accepting as true.
>has no relation with the world,
The rope has no real relation with the snake superimposed upon it, at no time does the snake exist, nor do the snake and rope have a direct causal relationship with one another, but the rope remains unchanged and untainted, and the subject projects the conception of the snake onto it.
>so don't perceives anything, he's blind, dead, means nothing to us
already answered and refuted here >>17344966 in this post where it explains why calling Atma 'blind' is wrong. Are you just going to keep copying and pasting the same arguments over and over again and then ignore when I explain why they are wrong?

>>17345706
>Are you just going to keep copying and pasting the same arguments over and over again and then ignore when I explain why they are wrong?
that's exactly what you are doing, are you actually trolling? i can't tell anymore

>>17344350
Just read Shankara's works and decide for yourself. You may find that he reconciles it in such a way that you don't have to belief in anything unreasonable or ridiculous, or you may not find that. But the only way you'll really know is if you read him yourself.

>>17345553
>I'm not going to watch and respond to a youtube video argument,
bro that's literally 2min

>>17345722
All the other poster is doing is repeating the same false binary, and then ignoring and not responding and not substantiating his own allegations after I explain that this is a false binary and that these are not the only two options.

>>17345788
u don't answer to anything
>use reason
>we oppose an argument
>but m-muh brahman surpasses ur reason
cope harder

>>17345788
>the same "false" binary keeps coming up 5000 times whenever i talk about this
>i never succeed in explaining it so they agree
>damn all those 5000 people must be really wrong

>>17345647
>linking to your own posts where you got btfo'd
why do you do this?

no, really, why? all you're doing is driving people away from the very philosophy that you're shilling.

>>17339543
You offer literally zero insight and just parrot your same points again and again. Try contributing something. Point out the exact verse in the Brahma sutras that addresses my post.

>>17345839
>u don't answer to anything
I did here >>17345706 and here >>17344966

I don't consider it to be correct that "open" and "closed" are true categories which remain true in absolute reality, and why should I? It seems entirely unreasonable, they are defined in relation to one another. Assuming that this is the same person who here >>17343775 falsely accuses me of believing that "The Vedas says that the universe operates according to Sanskrit grammar, ergo, it is true", they are hypocritically doing what they are falsely accuse me of by insisting that absolute reality/truth must adhere to one of the two binary and dualistic terms of 'open' or 'closed'. As a Buddhist he probably doesn't even accept that himself but he is just being a sophist for the sake of arguing, or maybe it comes naturally to him.

>>17345884
>Point out the exact verse in the Brahma sutras that addresses my post.
If you want to cite here the exact verses which you are alleging contain an unresolvable contradiction, then I'll check my copy of the Brahma Sutras to see if I can find where it mentions them, it's too much to remember it all but it's arranged by topic in the index so I can check.

>>17345850
>blindly insisting without any logical reasons for it that absolute reality can't be non-dual and thus beyond dualistic concepts is a good argument
lol

>>17345319
This argument would work better if WLC located God's will in time, but he doesn't. I fail to see why a timeless act of divine will can create a temporal world but a timeless, impersonal cause cannot do the same.

>>17345973
I didn't say there was an irresolvable contradiction, I said the Upanishads are esoteric and make overlapping and contradictory cosmic connections which are difficult to understand. Whether the contradictions are only apparent or not isn't mt point it's just that they're confusing. What's annoying is you parroting from your set of debate responses when I was just explaining an aspect of the Upanishads I find interesting.

The different identifications of the sun I mentioned are from Chāndogya Upanishad 8.6.5, Brihadāranyaka Upanishad 1.1.1, and Agni being the ritual fire is ubiquitous throughout the Vedas.

>>17346245
Relax, all I did was make an observation that I consider the Brahma Sutras as having reconciled most of the apparent contradictions in the Upanishads, that's not an attack on you or your post.
>The different identifications of the sun I mentioned are from Chāndogya Upanishad 8.6.5, Brihadāranyaka Upanishad 1.1.1
So, you mean

> Om. The head of the sacrificial horse is the dawn, its eye the sun,
https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/the-brihadaranyaka-upanishad/d/doc117893.html
and
>The sun is the gateway to Brahmaloka. Those who known the meaning of Om and think of it at the time of death enter Brahmaloka, but those who are ignorant of it have no chance of entering.
https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/chandogya-upanishad-english/d/doc239451.html

From what I understand, the answer to this is given in the Chandogya Up. when it says:

>The person who is in the sun and the person who is in the eye are the same.
- Ch Up. 1.7.5

They are just different identifications of the sun with the unqualified Brahman or with the qualified form of Brahman as Hiranyagarbha/Prajapati (in which the subtle bodies of all jivas reside, and which forms them as well as the cosmos) at various levels, the "person in the eye" is mentioned through the primary Upanishads, in Br Up. 1.1.1. the sun is mentioned in the context of a meditation on the horse sacrifice, the presiding deity of the horse sacrifice is Prajapati/Hiranyagarbha and in the meditation the cosmos are symbolically identified as forming the body of sorts of Prajapati as the horse. Consistent to the concept of the "person in the sun" spoken of throughout the Upanishads, when the horses (Prajapati's) body parts are identified with various parts of the cosmos, its eye is identified with the sun. This sets up the narrative for later on in Br Up. 1.2.7. when Prajapati sacrifices himself the horse in order to give rise to the world or cosmic egg as his body. Because Brahmaloka is the realm of Hiranyagarbha, the consistent symbolism is maintained throughout as the Prajapati/Hiranyagarbha entity who is the presence in the eye is also the same entity inside the sun, who is the gatekeeper and gateway to the Brahmaloka that is his realm.

>>17347165
>He desired, ‘Let this body of mine be fit for a sacrifice, and let me be embodied through this,’ (and entered it). Because that body swelled (Aśvat), therefore it came to be called Aśva (horse). And because it became fit for a sacrifice, therefore the horse sacrifice came to be known as Aśvamedha. He who knows it thus indeed knows the horse sacrifice. (Imagining himself as the horse and) letting it remain free, he reflected (on it). After a year he sacrificed it to himself, and dispatched the (other) animals to the gods. Therefore (priests to this day) sacrifice to Prajāpati the sanctified (horse) that is dedicated to all the gods. He who shines yonder is the horse sacrifice; his body is the year. This fire is Arka; its limbs are these worlds. So these two (fire and the sun) are Arka and the horse sacrifice. These two again become the same god, Death. He (who knows thus) conquers further death, death cannot overtake him, it becomes his self, and he becomes one with these deities.
- Br Up. 1.2.7

The Upanishad elsewhere explicitly confirms what is made symbolic through the meditation on the horse sacrifice, that Brahman creates Prajapati and then Prajapati himself creates the cosmos and various devas and creatures when it says:
>Satya is Brahman. Brahman (produced) Prajāpati, and Prajāpati the gods.
- Br Up. 5.5.1.

The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad later speaks about Prajapati, spoken of as Virāj, realizing his role in the emanation and formation of the cosmic egg:
> He knew, ‘I indeed am the creation, for I projected all this.’ Therefore he was called Creation. He who knows this as such becomes (a creator) in this creation of Virāj.
- Br Up. 1.4.5

The Chandogya Upanishad informs us that the Prajapati or Hiranyagarbha who is in the eye is the same as the person in the sun who is the lord of the cosmos and the gateway to Brahmaloka:
>The person who is in the sun and the person who is in the eye are the same.
- Ch Up. 1.7.5

The Chandogya Upanishad later also refers to the person in the eyes as the supreme Atman-Brahman in verse 4.5.1., and not as Saguna Brahman or Hiranyagarbha, although this is not inconsistent with it also being identified else with the Saguna Brahman as the unqualified Brahman is the indwelling Atma of all sentient beings including Brahma, Hiranyagarbha, Prajapati etc So Prajapati is both in the eye and in the sun as the jiva's subtle body and as the gate to Brahmaloka, and in both capacities Brahman is Prajapati's indwelling Self

>>17346171
>This argument would work better if WLC located God's will in time, but he doesn't
wrong
https://youtu.be/pQS5LFzhWrg?t=22

bump

dump

>>17342994
>The validity of Nagarjuna's refutations hinges upon whether his opponents
really upheld the existence of a svabhdva or svabhdva as he defines the term.
>Those who uphold the existence of a svabhava are clearly self-contradictory.

why do u quote him while he contradicts you?

>>17348673
he doesn't actually know what nagarjuna thought as he refuses to read nagarjuna, so its sort of a moot point

Don't worry guys, the Supreme court will save Trump's presidency!

>>17334175
lmao

>>17349207
is this a bot? why did he post it in this thread

>>17329380
Anyone interested in a non-dual or consciousness-centric explanation of reality should read this:

lawofone.info

I started out reading into Advaita but after discovering the above book series I traded in the former's framework for the one offered by the latter. They overlap in many places, but the link above is something I consider much more comprehensive and less tethered to the particularities of any individual culture, being universal in the way that the framework of the natural sciences attempts to be. I still appreciate Advaita for introducing me to this section of thinking, but without the material above I wouldn't consider myself to hold as coherent a worldview as I now consider myself to. I won't explain what the link above involves, so just read it yourself with an open mind and try to align yourself with the framework it offers. See what you think, and take what you like from it.

has anyone become enlightened based off of one of these shit threads? what does true non dual bliss feel like?

>>17350158
That's my point >>17343806

>>17349859
Mediumnic shit (urantia etc) is hella cringe. I don't like this bs.

>>17351255
The purported origins can be disconnected from the surrounding content itself. I'm not a fan of many "New Age" conventions myself, channelled or otherwise, but I don't allow this perception to influence my perspective on any individual work I encounter. If you are averse to the work because it claims to be channelled, then I would encourage you to read it regardless of this bias and then base your opinion on the information it offers beyond this aspect. If you have dislike the framework it presents, then that is a valid judgement which I won't attempt to change. I included the link to the book series because it is extremely similar to the Advaita Vedanta philosophy, while also presenting them in a framework which was more accessible to people like me than Advaita's was, and also one that encompasses more of reality and is more integrable into the framework found in the natural sciences. Having read into both my preference is towards the former, but it is of course not a competition and something I'm only sharing as an alternative for those interested in non-dual/consciousness-centric philosophy, one which can even compliment their understanding of the latter (should they choose to believe any of it).

>>17351255
To add, I'm not a fan of the Urantia material either, but not because of the "genre" we formally place it into (i.e "New Age channelled material"), but simply because the content it contains are unbelievable for me.

The more I read these kinds of threads, the more I think that Vedantins and Buddhists do talk about the same reality, but with different conceptual systems. Vedantins have a classical onto-theological logic, a bit like Thomists. Buddhists have a metaphysics of process, à la Whitehead. They therefore reject the substances that the Vedantins assert ("atman/svabhava"), and their "God" is itself a process (like Hartshorne's God of process). Buddhists also refuse to talk about the self, and hold to their doctrine of non-self, because it is useful to give up everything and consider nothing as mine. But these are all conceptual differences. In the end, both seek the supra-rational experience that makes ignorance go away. Which reveals the non-dual truth, which is consciousness (Vedanta) or luminous mind (Buddhism). Both seek charity, compassion, realization.

These threads are cringes. Both consider theoretical systems to be rafts, useful but only conventionally true, good to leave once the shore is reached, and yet they fight over who has the best raft.

Instead, discuss compassion, morality, encourage each other in your practice, give each other meditation tips, share the wisdom of your respective traditions, no?

>>17351799
based

>>17351799
this

Have guenonfag and frater ever argued?

>>17352289
>frater
Who?

>>17351799
>compassion, morality,
thats gunna be a cringe from me dawg

>>17352289
I usually like and appreciate his posts, one time we debated over some of the differences in the positions of Advaita and Tantric Shaivism. I was phone-posting while out with people and didn't have the time to fully get into it with him. Despite being knowledgeable about many things he seemed to have some misconceptions regarding Advaita such as believing that Brahman undergoes nescience.

>>/lit/thread/S17150457#p17155142

>>17352462
Vajrayana>all

>>17352462
what do u think of >>17351799

>>17352708
he can't deny it.

>>17352659
fact

>>17352929
Yes, I can. Classical Advaita is an amoral metaphysics, it doesn't have the cringe moralism and proselytizing about muh compassion that Buddhism does. The differences between Advaita and Buddhism do not amount to mere conceptual differences but they classify and understand their conceptions of the absolute and liberation very differently. Most Buddhists understand the luminous mind to still be empty, and not as the ultimate or Nirvana. Most Buddhists insist that sentience is conditioned, subject to decay etc, you have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find Buddhist schools who reach the same position as Advaita, and as a rule when they occur they are so thoroughly permeated with Taoist or Shaivist-derived Tantric influences that its not even clear if those doctrines are really Buddhistic.

Many or even most of the highly respected teachers and philosophers in each religion were known polemicists and debaters who engaged with and attacked other doctrines vigorously. It's true that Vedanta follows more onto-theological thinking and Buddhism tends to focus on processism, skepticism, deconstruction etc; but even when placing the writings and arguments of both schools in that context, there still remain essential differences which are not merely conceptual. There are inevitably going to always be debates between the advocates of different spiritual/religious/doctrines, I'm in favor of avoiding rancor and drama but that's not a good reason to try to shut down or dissuade the inevitable debates over the comparative feasibility of various doctrines which are going to occur.

>>17353461
>it doesn't have the cringe moralism and proselytizing about muh compassion that Buddhism does
One day close your books and meet a real Vedantin guru, like Sri Ramana Maharshi. You will see if compassion is not essential. Ananda.

>>17353836
The real Gurus are those who belong to a Guru parampara and who follow its practices and continue its lineages by taking disciplines in turn. Ramana didn't take disciples, he didn't initiate people. Ramana himself was not initiated into sannyasin but only took the upanayana initiation as a child that most twice-born castes take, he was not even fully qualified to initiate people himself. You can find the real, orthodox Vedantin gurus at the main Advaita mathas and other temples in India, maintaining the Advaita lineage.

Here is a documentary about one such Guru

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OOxm0KCFRw

>>17353920
He gave darshan to many people.

>You can find the real, orthodox Vedantin gurus at the main Advaita mathas and other temples in India, maintaining the Advaita lineage.
They recognize Sri Ramana Maharshi.

>>17353836
>>17353920
Also

>You will see if compassion is not essential
Compassion is not listed among the sādhana-catustaya or the fourfold discipline which are the necessary and central path to reach liberation according to Advaita. Adi Shankara lists them in his works as being Viveka (discrimination), Vairagya (dispassion), Samadi-sakta-sampatti (cultivation of the six qualities) and Mumuksutva (the desire for liberation)

The six qualities or Śamādi ṣatka sampatti are:
Śama (control of the antahkaraṇa or internal organ, i.e. mind).
Dama (the control of external sense organs).
Uparati (the cessation of these external organs so restrained, from the pursuit of objects other than that, or it may mean the abandonment of the prescribed works according to scriptural injunctions).
Titikṣa (the tolerating of tāpatraya (suffering/pain).
Śraddhā (the faith in Guru and Vedas).
Samādhāna (the concentrating of the mind on God and Guru).

So, as you can see, compassion is not essential in Advaita

>>17354005
What is ananda? :)

>>17354005
Wtf
It wasn't a meme
The more I read to you the less I am interested in advaita védanta
I see a true Buddhist spirituality, which cultivates compassion, moral qualities, and yogic states.
And your cold and amoral philosophy that doesn't seem to have liberated or improved you one iota.

>>17353939
Yes, but darshan is not the same as diksha. Some forms of diksha may involve darshan, but taking darshan does not mean that you have automatically joined a sampradaya
>They recognize Sri Ramana Maharshi.
As a jivanmukti, but not as someone who belonged to or who brought others into formal membership of any sampradaya. And if you really went to them and asked them to respond sentence by sentence to some of the collected talks of Ramana Maharshi they would most likely end up disagreeing with him over where he accepts Drishti-srishti-vada due to Ramana being influenced by the Yoga Vasistha, as it's a doctrine which is not accepted by Shankara and classical Advaita.

>>17354067
>As a jivanmukti
and what did he said about compassion?

>>17353920
>You can find the real, orthodox Vedantin gurus at the main Advaita mathas and other temples in India, maintaining the Advaita lineage.
u mean this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shankaracharya#Establishment_of_the_tradition ?

>>17354038
>"the nature of the Self"

>>17354050
That's exactly right. There is on one side a dead, intellectual spirituality, a shell, on the other side a living, compassionate, dharmic spirituality. In whom are miracles still alive today? Are reincarnations controlled? Is Dharma manifesting itself at the present time? The Tibetan Buddhists.

>>17354118
I am talking about the Advaita spiritual lineage or Guru parampa going back to Shankara as maintained primarily by the Dashnami Sampradaya. Shankara is also included in the Guru parampa of the Śrī Vidyā Shaktist sect in the Srikula Sampradaya.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampradaya#Advaita_Vedanta_Sampradaya

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashanami_Sampradaya

>>17354211
I didn't understand anything
your first link seems to be about the same thing as mine

>>17354224
I wasn't disagreeing with you but was just providing you with more information. Most of the major sects of Hinduism have their own organized Sampradaya with its own Guru parampa, and in the case of Advaita this is mainly the Dashnami Sampradaya, who are found among other places at the four main Advaita temples or mathas in India which the Advaita tradition maintains were established by Shankara.

>>17354168
>In whom are miracles still alive today? Are reincarnations controlled? Is Dharma manifesting itself at the present time? The Tibetan Buddhists.
so simple yet so true

>>17354336
>>17354168
>bro just believe in unverified miracles like rainbow body and controlled reincarnations of a non-existing self, that's how you know Vajrayana is real
the more things change, the more they stay the same

>>17354386
>unverified miracles
ure so cringe
just because you vedantins don't have miracles anymore doesn't mean they don't exist
a sure acquaintance witnessed a Tibetan monk levitate
even the Catholics have miracles in our time
maybe if you did less mind games and more real spirituality you would have some too

>and controlled reincarnations of a non-existing self
u really dont understand buddhism
yet criticize it everyday

>>17354386
>rainbow body
based and explains the death of Christ

>>17354410
If you have to rely on claims of miracles in order to get someone to take interest in your doctrine to begin with then that's an indication that something is wrong with your doctrine. They are a distraction from the spiritual path and people and groups who make grandiose claims of them to induce you to join deserve to be treated with suspicion.

>>17354502
>If you have to rely on claims of miracles in order to get someone to take interest in your doctrine to begin with
not the case

>>17354502
Tibetan monks hardly talk about it and don't use it to convince. I just see where Dharma is still alive and manifest in our times.

>>17354570
Based

>>17354556
>not the case
>I'm just shilling them in a thread about Hindu philosophy

>>17355090
V
>>17354570