Why the Hindus are wrong

[Anonymous No.15288268]

The thesis that the Buddhist Nirvāṇa actually refers to a True Self, the idea that the Buddha only attacked the false egotistical self, seems to me to be false and unconvincing. It is promoted, to my knowledge, only by Vedantins, in the long lineage of Hindu syncretism. Historically, it does not hold up, because this interpretation cannot be found in any of the schools of primitive Buddhism. The Buddha was very clear in his refusal of any form of atman, he even expressly refused to identify the self with cosmic consciousness.

> Monks, there are these six grounds for views (ditthitthana). What six? Take an uneducated ordinary person who has not seen the noble ones, and is neither skilled nor trained in the teaching of the noble ones. They’ve not seen good persons, and are neither skilled nor trained in the teaching of the good persons. They regard form like this: ‘This is mine, I am this, this is my self.’ They also regard feeling … perception … choices … whatever is seen, heard, thought, known, sought, and explored by the mind like this: ‘This is mine, I am this, this is my self.’ And the same for this ground for views: ‘The self and the cosmos are one and the same. After death I will be permanent, everlasting, eternal, imperishable, and will last forever and ever.’ They also regard this: ‘This is mine, I am this, this is my self.’

[Anonymous No.15288274]

>>15288268
> But an educated noble disciple has seen the noble ones, and is skilled and trained in the teaching of the noble ones. They’ve seen good persons, and are skilled and trained in the teaching of the good persons. They regard form like this: ‘This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’ They also regard feeling … perception … choices … whatever is seen, heard, thought, known, sought, and explored by the mind like this: ‘This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’ And the same for this ground for views: ‘The self and the cosmos are one and the same. After death I will be permanent, everlasting, eternal, imperishable, and will last forever and ever.’ They also regard this: ‘This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’
> MN 22

The Buddha experimented the cosmic consciousness, and discovered that it was still not the Absolute that he was looking for, the solution to the cosmic suffering-satisfaction (dukkha). The Buddha had learned and mastered the meditative states of his time, which Hindus still teach (sat-cit-ananda). Indeed, infinite consciousness is reached by the one who attain the formless jhānas (arūpajjhāna) :

> (...) Furthermore, a monk — ignoring the perception of earth and the perception of the dimension of infinite space —focuses on the oneness dependent on the perception of the dimension of infinite consciousness. (...)
> MN 121

[Anonymous No.15288285]

>>15288274
The Buddha has been very clear: even consciousness is impermanent.


> Monks, form is impermanent. What is impermanent is suffering.What is suffering is nonself. What is nonself should be seen as it really is with correct wisdom thus: ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.’ When one sees this thus as it really is with correct wisdom, the mind becomes dispassionate and is liberated from the taints by nonclinging.
> “Feeling is impermanent…. Perception is impermanent…. Volitional formations are impermanent…. Consciousness is impermanent. What is impermanent is suffering. What is suffering is nonself. What is nonself should be seen as it really is with correct wisdom thus: ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.’ When one sees this thus as it really is with correct wisdom, the mind becomes dispassionate and is liberated from the taints by nonclinging.
> SN 22.45

And he is quite right: consciousness being what perceives, how could it be permanent and static, when our perceptions are constantly changing? Consciousness is a flow, a river of instants and experiences that we reify in a fixed substance, in a self. Like the river of Heraclitus, consciousness gives us a sense of unity as it is constantly changing. Consciousness is also a relationship; there is never perception without perceived, subject without object. What is relational is conditioned.

> They contemplate the phenomena there—included in form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness—as impermanent, as suffering, as diseased, as an abscess, as a dart, as misery, as an affliction, as alien, as falling apart, as empty, as not-self.They turn their mind away from those things,and apply it to the deathless:‘This is peaceful; this is sublime—that is, the stilling of all activities, the letting go of all attachments, the ending of craving, fading away, cessation, extinguishment.’Abiding in that they attain the ending of defilements.
> AN 9.36

And what's conditioned doesn't save.

> There is, monks, an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned. If, monks there were not that unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, you could not know an escape here from the born, become, made, and conditioned. But because there is an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, therefore you do know an escape from the born, become, made, and conditioned.
> Ud. 8.3

[Anonymous No.15288290]

>>15288285
A serious study of the Scriptures (nikāyas) shows that Nirvāṇa cannot be a consciousness, however high it may be. What it is about is the complete cessation of all attachments:

> The only way of moving towards consensus on the controversial subject of the nature of Nibbāna is by appealing to the sole source of authority common to practically all Buddhists: the Nikāyas/āgamas. In the present paper I will first give an overview of the usage of the term Nibbāna in the Nikāyas. I will then argue that, according to the Nikāyas, Nibbāna cannot be regarded as a self. Next, I will point out that the Nikāyas do not see Nibbāna as a form of consciousness, including such exceptional kinds of consciousness as anidassana viññāṇa and appatiṭṭhita viññāṇa. Nor can Nibbāna be regarded as equivalent to mind, or any particular state of mind. In the final section I aim to show that the most reasonable interpretation of the Nikāyas is that final Nibbāna is no more than the cessation of the five khandhas.
> Bhikkhu Brahmāli, 2009,What the Nikāyas Say and Do not Say about Nibbāna,https://journals.equinoxpub.com/BSR/article/view/7139/4835

The Buddhist doctrine of non-self is both a strategy and an ontology. A strategy, because it invites the meditator to let go of everything, to retain nothing, to consider nothing as his own. An ontology, because it absolutely denies any form of self, of substance; in short, of reification of the processes that are all phenomena, marked by the seal of impermanence.


But this doctrine remains conceptual, in the end, it will also have to be abandoned.

> Monks, I will teach you how the Dhamma is similar to a raft: it’s for crossing over, not for holding on.Listen and pay close attention, I will speak.”
> “Yes, sir,” they replied.The Buddha said this:

[Anonymous No.15288299]

>>15288290
> “Suppose there was a person traveling along the road.They’d see a large deluge, whose near shore was dubious and perilous, while the far shore was a sanctuary free of peril.But there was no ferryboat or bridge for crossing over.They’d think,‘Why don’t I gather grass, sticks, branches, and leaves and make a raft? Riding on the raft, and paddling with my hands and feet, I can safely reach the far shore.’And so they’d do exactly that.And when they’d crossed over to the far shore, they’d think,‘This raft has been very helpful to me.Riding on the raft, and paddling with my hands and feet, I have safely crossed over to the far shore.Why don’t I hoist it on my head or pick it up on my shoulder and go wherever I want?’
> What do you think, mendicants?Would that person be doing what should be done with that raft?”
> “No, sir.”
> “And what, mendicants, should that person do with the raft?When they’d crossed over they should think,‘This raft has been very helpful to me. …Why don’t I beach it on dry land or set it adrift on the water and go wherever I want?’That’s what that person should do with the raft.
> In the same way, I have taught how the teaching is similar to a raft: it’s for crossing over, not for holding on.By understanding the simile of the raft, you will even give up the teachings, let alone what is against the teachings.
> MN 22

Because attachment to the views is also an obstacle. The absolute is supra-rational.

> ātmety api prajñapitam anātmety api deśitam |
> “Self” is just a designation, and even “not-self” is just a teaching.
> buddhair nātmā na cānātmā kaścid ity api deśitam ||
> The Buddha taught that there’s not even such a thing as self nor not-self.
> nivṛttam abhidhātavyaṃ nivṛttaś cittagocaraḥ |
> What is nameable has ceased, the scope of consciousness has ceased
> anutpannāniruddhā hi nirvāṇam iva dharmatā ||
> For the nature of extinguishment (nirvāṇa) is like the cessation of what has never arisen.
> sarvaṃ tathyaṃ na vā tathyaṃ tathyaṃ cātathyam eva ca |
> All is real, and not real, and both real and not real
> naivātathyaṃ naiva tathyam etad buddhānuśāsanam ||
> and all is neither real nor not-real: this is the teaching of the Buddhas.
> - Nāgārjuna, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā

[Anonymous No.15288421]

PS : The truth is, there might not even be a Vedantic view of the Self without Buddhism, pic related.

[Anonymous No.15288467]

I'm reading the Upanishads right now and it's beautiful, I now understand what Jesus was preaching

[Anonymous No.15288506]

>>15288467
Of course it is, but it's not the absolute teaching. The Upanishads are surely the highest mundane teaching, they can lead to the summit of Being, but it is NOT the absolute that is supra-mundane. All religions are trapped in a substantialist view of things. This is precisely the difference they all have with the Buddha's message, this is the radical point of his doctrine: the negation of substances. That's why infinite consciousness is NOT the goal of Buddhism, but only one of jhānas without form. The Buddha reached it and understood that it was not the solution. The Nibbana well is beyond that.

[Anonymous No.15288511]

>>15288506
The Nibbana is well** beyond that

[Anonymous No.15288751]

Up.

[Anonymous No.15288753]

>>15288268
read MahaPrajnaParamita-Sastra by Nagarjuna

[Anonymous No.15288781]

>>15288753
Why

[Anonymous No.15288835]

>>15288781
words cannot explain how ilI appreciate this book.
it's a sum of philosophy, psychology, sociology, cosmology, psychoanalysis, metaphysics, anthropology, ethics, theology and etc. but in a united way. you will have wonderful experiences reading every single chapter.

[Anonymous No.15288864]

>>15288835
Ty anon

[Anonymous No.15289479]

>>15288864
Anon, if you are following Buddhism, you are on the right track. Good luck

[Anonymous No.15289707]

>>15288268
This is a nice compilation but could you explain it to me in layman's how it relates to Hinduism and why is surpasses it? I don't see much mention of it in the text you posted and I'm not very knowledgable in it

[Anonymous No.15289736]

>>15288467
>I'm reading the Upanishads right now and it's beautiful,
>I'm reading the Upanishads right now and it's beautiful,
Kill yourself.

If you are reading the Upanishads and do not realize that Jesus was a mental midget retard then you're not understanding the Upanishads.

[Anonymous No.15289897]

>>15289707
In short: because the infinite consciousness to which the Hindus attribute the Self (atman-brahman) is not the absolute. The Buddha reached this state and surpassed it.

[Anonymous No.15289970]

>>15289897
>be Buddhist living in America
>find Japanese hornet crawling around on the ground
>what do?
And since we all know what the Buddhist response is we can therefore reject Buddhism.

[Anonymous No.15289976]

>>15289897
Thanks bud

[Anonymous No.15289982]

>>15288268
>seems to me
who?

[Anonymous No.15289999]

>>15289970
Why would squashing it nullify Buddhism?

[Anonymous No.15290025]

>>15289999

[Anonymous No.15290038]

>>15288506
Who perceives these jhanas but consciousness?

[Anonymous No.15290056]

Why are "Buddhists" on /lit/ and r/buddhism total assholes? It's very unbuddhist .

[Anonymous No.15290065]

>>15290025
The Five Precepts are taken by the laity, monks take far more than just five. Many laymen do not take the 1st and 3rd precept. You can pick and choose which you take and which you don't. You should try your hardest not to kill, or steal, or lie. Sometimes these things must happen to prevent a greater evil from occurring. If these hornets are as bad as they say (assuming this), then yes, it would be entirely permissible within Buddhism to kill them to keep them from hurting others. There's a quote by the Dalai Lama where he's asked what one should do if someone tries to shoot you with a gun, and he responds with "shoot them with yours first".

If you're a monk, yes, you should come up with some alternative solution to killing the murder hornet. If not, you have to work with what you've got. The Buddha instructed to meet people where they were at. Sometimes that means doing something bad to prevent other bad things.

[Anonymous No.15290084]

But the two longest Upanishads are pre-buddhism. And we can see the Buddha taught many things that were from them. Many scholars admit the Buddha never denied the Self.
I will cite Ken Wheeler again here, who has videos about the original buddhism. Again, you can ad hominem him but please refute what he has been saying about buddhism for years.

[Anonymous No.15290110]

>>15288506
>beyond Being
Now you're just talking nonsense. By definition there can be nothing beyond Being.

[Anonymous No.15290115]

>>15290084
>Many scholars admit the Buddha never denied the Self.
They're wrong. The Buddha, several times, makes it very clear that he is teaching a doctrine of No-Self.

One could argue that the Buddha didn't know what he was teaching and that there is in fact a Self there (as Shankara tried to do), but the Buddha literally says "I am teaching a doctrine that denies the Self, at least in the sense of an eternal permanent Platonic Self that exists outside of other things acting upon it".

[Anonymous No.15290126]

You got a bad translation bro

[Anonymous No.15290161]

>>15290115
does the Buddha literally say PLATONIC SELF? lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEnb2cFWKBs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPZLSrfgimc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkHREw19eg8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOMgzn2Vrc0

here, watch these videos and try to formulate something better than ''they are wrong!!'' please.

[Anonymous No.15290171]

>>15290115
The Buddha literally said that he is denying an eternal permanent Platonic Self?

[Anonymous No.15290184]

im starting to think buddhism is the most toxic, retarded ideology. i have never met an honest, affable buddhism in my entire life. pannobhasa bikkhu perhaps is the only one (and the Buddha himself would be too but i think he didn't even exist and was like a copy of the Hindu Vyasa, a collective of people who gathered together to compose buddha's sayings)

[Anonymous No.15290187]

>>15290161
Nobody cares about what some camera obsessed schizo has to say on this subject. Ken Wheeler should take his meds and read literally anything about Buddhism, because he has not.

>>15290171
I meant to put parenthesis are everything after the comma and forgot to like a retard. He literally denies that he ever taught a Self, and in one Sutta calls a monk an idiot for suggesting that he did. One could argue that there's a thing that we could call a "self" that is a bundle of aggregates that exists because other things acted on it (which exist because other things act upon those, which exist because... etc), which the Buddha does NOT deny, but this "self" is impermanent, whereas the Buddha does explicitly deny teaching a "Self" that is permanent and exists independent of other things acting on it (which was can roughly call a Platonic Form).

[Anonymous No.15290191]

>>15290184
>an honest, affable buddhism
*buddhist

[Anonymous No.15290192]

>>15290161
Do you have the link to his translation of the Dhammapada?

[Anonymous No.15290198]

>>15290161
>(emoji) NATURES DEEPER SECRETS OF_MAGNETISM
lmfao

[Anonymous No.15290199]

>>15290184
White larper ≠ Buddhist

[Anonymous No.15290220]

>>15290187
hahahah always the same thing. the guy cites scholars, intellectuals who have perused both hindu doctrines and buddhist ones and you tell me they are all wrong and should be ignored and that is it? you buddhists are all a joke.

[Anonymous No.15290226]

Reminder

[Anonymous No.15290263]

>>15290056

[Anonymous No.15290272]

>>15290084
>citing Ken Wheeler

[Anonymous No.15290280]

>>15290226
Reminder

[Anonymous No.15290286]

The doctrine of Maya? It's first mentioned by name in Brihadaranyaka (2.5.19) and alluded too many times elsewhere in the same text and in Chandogya. Monasticism? The Brihadaranyaka praises it and describes it as the course that Janaka follows after becoming enlightened in (4.4.22 & 4.5.2). The self-luminosity of the Self being taken from Yogachara? The Brihadaranayka describes the Self as self-luminous in (4.3.6). Advaita idealism being taken from Buddhist idealism? The Aitareya Upanishad (which according to a review by Olivelle et al is pre-Buddhist) directly says "consiousness is Brahman" in (3.1.4.).

The unborn doctrine? The Brihadaranyaka states that Brahman is unborn many times in (4.4.22., 4.4.24. & 4.4.25.), and says that Brahman is only seen as manifold because of Maya (2.5.19) and says that really there is no diversity in Brahman and that people who see diversity go from death to death (4.4.19). The Chandogya says in line (6.1.4.) "By knowing a single lump of earth you know all objects made of earth. All changes are mere words, (existing) in name only. But earth is the reality" and then repeats the message with the example of clay, gold etc in other lines. Hence, the pre-Buddhist Upanishads deny that change, multiplicity etc are real and attribute it to maya and ignorance, and they say that he underlying reality which is the basis of those illusions is unborn and unchanging.

The distinction between absolute knowledge and non-absolute knowledge? The Mundaka Upanishad while not pre-Buddhist mentions supreme and non-supreme Brahma-knowledge in line (1.1.4.) hundreds of years before Nagarjuna who is the first Buddhist to mention higher and lower knowledge (Buddha never did). The pre-Buddhist Brihadaranyaka also makes a distinction between a higher and lower understanding of Brahman in line (2.3.1.) when it says that Brahman should be known in two forms, the one gross, mortal, limited and definite and the other subtle, immortal, unlimited and indefinite.

That's a quick summary of everything people claim Shankara took from Buddhism, but as you can see it all appears first in the pre-Buddhist Upanishads, if anything it would indicate the Buddha himself and Buddhists like Nagarjuna obtained concepts from the early Upanishads.
>>15290280

[Anonymous No.15290306]

Why do people wrap occult mysticism in a veneer of philosophy? Do you really need millennium old South Asians to tell you, "don't kill or lie"?

[Anonymous No.15290331]

>>15290306
Because it's more complicated than that and if you think everything boils down to "lmfao just be a good person bro" then you're wrong, and the half-thought-out Liberalism you're hawking is too.

[Anonymous No.15290336]

>>15290286
>The distinction between absolute knowledge and non-absolute knowledge? The Mundaka Upanishad while not pre-Buddhist mentions supreme and non-supreme Brahma-knowledge in line (1.1.4.) hundreds of years before Nagarjuna who is the first Buddhist to mention higher and lower knowledge (Buddha never did). The pre-Buddhist Brihadaranyaka also makes a distinction between a higher and lower understanding of Brahman in line (2.3.1.) when it says that Brahman should be known in two forms, the one gross, mortal, limited and definite and the other subtle, immortal, unlimited and indefinite.
The theory of two truths, as we know it today, may be unknown to the earliest start of Buddhist thought in India. Contemporary scholarship suggests that the Buddha himself may not have made any explicit reference to the two truths. The early textual materials such as Pali Nikāyas and āgamas ascribe to the Buddha does not make explicit mention of the distinction of the two truths. Recent studies also suggest that the two truths distinction is an innovation on the part of the Abhidhamma which came into prominence originally as a heuristic device useful for later interpreters to reconcile apparent inconsistent statements in the Buddha's teachings (Karunadasa, 2006: 1; 1996: 25-6 and n.139, The Cowherds, 2011; 5). This distinction is however not entirely disconnected from the Buddha's teachings. The antecedent hermeneutic distinctions drawn in the Aṅguttara Nikāya (AN II.60) between two linguistic concepts (paññatti) – nitattha (Skt. nitārtha) and neyyatta (Skt. neyārtha) – provides us a useful insight into the rationale basis from which later develops the formulation of the two truths distinction. This latter pair of terms deals with the hermeneutic strategies explaining the purported meaning of the Buddhist scriptural statements. Nitattha is a statement the meaning of which is "drawn out" (nita-attha), definitive and explicit, taken as its stands, and neyyattha is a statement the meaning of which is "to be drawn out" (neyya-attha) and interpretive (Karunadasa, 1996: 25). The commentary (Aṅguttaranikāya Aṭṭhakatah II.118) on the Aṅguttara Nikāya II.60 explores nitattha/neyyattha distinction's connection with the sammuti/paramattha distinction. This simple heuristic device however stimulated rich philosophical exchanges amongst the Buddhist philosophers and practitioners, not to mention the exchanges with traditional Hindu thinkers. The exchange of different ideas and views of the two truths between the early Buddhists, among other factors, gave birth to Buddhism as the philosophy we know today.

The earliest Upanishads explicitly deny truth as being two
>What you call truth is one. There cannot be two truths, three truths, four truths, five truths, etc. There is only one truth – satyameva jayate. II.12, 5th Brahmana - Br Up

[Anonymous No.15290347]

>>15290336
Furthermore there is no evidence Mundaka was composed before the 2nd council. The Mundaka itself is difficult to estimate though it's a rather late upanishad and probably post-Buddhist according to scholars (who estimate that the date for late upanishads falls around 300-200 BC). This coupled by the fact that Mundaka shows signs of Buddhist influence where other upanishads don't and the fact that the Mahasamghikas of 2nd counil were already the defacto orthodox group who professed 2 truths doctrine, gives credence to the theory that Mundaka was a post-2-truths-doctrine upanishads.

[Anonymous No.15290364]

Reminder

[Anonymous No.15290567]

>>15290306
reminder that secular humanists did not outlaw lying, outside their court of law

[Anonymous No.15290762]

>>15288268
bear with me here anon, When I think of the ultimate state of being in Hinduism, I think of Moksha, Are Hindu's not searching for that same state of Liberation of life and death? Krishna tells Arjuna that all things terminate into the divine. I think of Shiva especially, the lord of "that which is not" Im guessing you're saying that Hinduism is the observance of these universal ideals but Buddhism is the striving to connect to them?

[Anonymous No.15290786]

>>15289897
This is just buddhist polemics. Every sect likes to elevate its guru to the highest godhead or beyond. Buddhists are no different. What really happened is that his later followers invented the illogical doctrines of no-self and attributed it to him.

[Anonymous No.15290847]

>>15289970
put it in a jar and toss it outside retard

[Anonymous No.15291038]

>>15290786
I've heard scholars on the subject say the same thing, that there's many ways to the top and the Buddha found just one of those paths.

[Anonymous No.15291076]

>>15290847
And as such Buddhism must be rejected.

[Anonymous No.15291098]

>>15291038
My view is that he was a yogi, like many others, and found "the way". Then he tried to teach this to people and most didn't understand, so his teachings became corrupted, as always happens, and then we end up with all these different schools with different philosophies they or some monk invented and which had no connection to the Buddha. The same thing happened with Christianity. Jesus found the way and tried to teach it to others, his followers didn't understand and started arguing among themselves on how whether or not Jesus was really God and God in what manner. If you go to India even today you will find many of these kind of groups where some guru taught some things, he dies and his followers end up elevating him to the highest deity and worshiping his as creator of the universe.

[Anonymous No.15291202]

>>15291098
agreed

[Anonymous No.15291273]

>>15290161
Ken Wheeler was btfo as a person shilling random things for personal gain already. Please refrain from posting him as an authority.

[Anonymous No.15291317]

>>15290084
Upanishads can be interpreted however you want, Suttas that say directly that Nibbana is not self cannot.

[Anonymous No.15291323]

>>15290161
i'll sum up all of his videos:
>you dumb people
>im the biggest expert on the word anatta
>nikola tesla
>magnetism
>you dumb people ahah
>i own the rights of rama's works
>im enlightened, you dumb people

[Anonymous No.15291330]

ananda's works*

[Anonymous No.15291415]

>>15288268
>It is promoted, to my knowledge, only by Vedantins
Both the founder of Yogachara Asanga as well as certain Vajrayanists like the Jonang school talk about the 'true self' in their writings' as do some of the Mahayana Sutras like the Mahaparinirvana Sutra

>The Buddha was very clear in his refusal of any form of atman, he even expressly refused to identify the self with cosmic consciousness.
This "identity with cosmic conciousness" is not what Advaita Vedanta teaches, there is a subtle but important distinction to be made. In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad it's taught that Prajapati/Viraj is the first being of every cosmic cycle who then creates all the rest of the beings and forms himself into the cosmos. Prajapati is not Brahman and is described as possessing fear and still being subject to ignorance. The Upanishad talks about how certain meditators can attain the status or Prajapati and then in the next cycle of universal manifestation one of those people incarnates as the first being Prajapati. Anything "cosmic" pertains to Prajapati, within the manifested worlds, the universe being part of manifestation. The Supreme (or Nirguna) Brahman completely transcends the cosmos, being far beyond and untouched by them. Hence, it makes little sense to connect Buddha's rejection of the 'cosmos as Self' theory, because in Advaita the cosmos are Prajapati, not Brahman and are not the Self. The cosmos are transient and dissolve back into Brahman in every mahapralaya where there is neither cosmos nor time nor space etc left but only Brahman. The cosmos are not eternal and undecaying as Nirguna Brahman is and so from an Advaita perspective if someone said "the cosmos are my self and it is eternal and after death I will live on as the eternal cosmos" they would be considered to be completely deluded. This is not the first time I have seen Buddhists make this mistaken claim. Advaita is not pantheism or monism and Nirguna Brahman is transcendent to the world. I'm not arguing that Buddha taught an Upanishadic Self by negation but I just wanted to point out how this rejection of 'cosmic being' doesn't actually amount to a rejection of the Advaita position.

>which Hindus still teach (sat-cit-ananda).
This is a not a meditative state but the very nature of the Absolute

[Anonymous No.15291441]

>>15288285
>Like the river of Heraclitus, consciousness gives us a sense of unity as it is constantly changing.
Wrong, conciousness is unchanging and one

The fact of consciousness is entirely different from everything else. So long as the assemblage of the physical or physiological conditions antecedent to the rise of any cognition, as for instance, the presence of illumination, sense-object contact, etc., is being prepared, there is no knowledge, and it is only at a particular moment that the cognition of an object arises. This cognition is in its nature so much different from each and all the elements constituting the so-called assemblage of conditions, that it cannot in any sense be regarded as the product of any collocation of conditions. Consciousness thus, not being a product of anything and not being further analysable into any constituents, cannot also be regarded as a momentary flashing. Uncaused and unproduced, it is eternal, infinite and unlimited. The main point in which consciousness differs from everything else is the fact of its self-revelation. There is no complexity in consciousness. It is extremely simple, and its only essence or characteristic is pure self-revelation.

The so-called momentary flashing of consciousness is not due to the fact that it is momentary, that it rises into being and is then destroyed the next moment, but to the fact that the objects that are revealed by it are reflected through it from time to time. But the consciousness is always steady and unchangeable in itself. The immediacy of this consciousness is proved by the fact that, though everything else is manifested by coming in touch with it, it itself is never expressed, indicated or manifested by inference or by any other process, but is always self-manifested and self-revealed. All objects become directly revealed to us as soon as they come in touch with it.

Consciousness is one. It is neither identical with its objects nor on the same plane with them as a constituent element in a collocation of them and consciousness. The objects of consciousness or all that is manifested in consciousness come in touch with consciousness and themselves appear as consciousness. This appearance is such that, when they come in touch with consciousness, they themselves flash forth as consciousness, though that operation is nothing but a false appearance of the non-conscious objects and mental states in the light of consciousness, as being identical with it. But the intrinsic difference between consciousness and its objects is that the former is universal and constant, while the latter are particular and alternating. The awarenesses of a book, a table, etc. appear to be different not because these are different flashings of knowledge, but because of the changing association of consciousness with these objects. The objects do not come into being with the flashings of their awareness, but they have their separate existence and spheres of operation.

[Anonymous No.15291446]

>>15291441

Consciousness is one and unchanging; it is only when the objects get associated with it that they appear in consciousness and as identical with it in such a way that the flashing of an object in consciousness appears as the flashing of the consciousness itself. It is through an illusion that the object of consciousness and consciousness appear to be welded together into such an integrated whole, that their mutual difference escapes our notice, and that the object of consciousness, which is only like an extraneous colour applied to consciousness, does not appear different or extraneous to it, but as a specific mode of the consciousness itself. Thus what appear as but different awarenesses, as book-cognition, table-cognition, are not in reality different awarenesses, but one unchangeable consciousness successively associated with ever-changing objects which falsely appear to be integrated with it and give rise to the appearance that qualitatively different kinds of consciousness are flashing forth from moment to moment. Consciousness cannot be regarded as momentary.

For, had it been so, it would have appeared different at every different moment. If it is urged that, though different consciousnesses are arising at each different moment, yet on account of extreme similarity this is not noticed; then it may be replied that, if there is difference between the two consciousnesses of two successive moments, then such difference must be grasped either by a different consciousness or by the same consciousness. In the first alternative the third awareness, which grasps the first two awarenesses and their difference, must either be identical with them, and in that case the difference between the three awarenesses would vanish; or it may be different from them, and in that case, if another awareness be required to comprehend their difference and that requires another and so on, there would be a vicious infinite.

[Anonymous No.15291454]

>>15291446

If the difference be itself said to be identical with the nature of the consciousness, and if there is nothing to apprehend this difference, then the nonappearance of the difference implies the non-appearance of the consciousness itself; for by hypothesis the difference has been held to be identical with the consciousness itself. The non-appearance of difference, implying the non-appearance of consciousness, would mean utter blindness. The difference between the awareness of one moment and another cannot thus either be logically proved, or realized in experience, which always testifies to the unity of awareness through all moments of its appearance.

It may be held that the appearance of unity is erroneous, and that, as such, it presumes that the awarenesses are similar; for without such a similarity there could not have been the erroneous appearance of unity. But, unless the difference of the awarenesses and their similarity be previously proved, there is nothing which can even suggest that the appearance of unity is erroneous. It cannot be urged that, if the existence of difference and similarity between the awarenesses of two different moments can be proved to be false, then only can the appearance of unity be proved to be true; for the appearance of unity is primary and directly proved by experience. Its evidence can be challenged only if the existence of difference between the awarenesses and their similarity be otherwise proved. The unity of awareness is a recognition of the identity of the awarenesses, which is self-evident.

[Anonymous No.15291463]

>>15291323
It's too late, anon. You've drawn the ire of Guenonfag. Unluckily for you, he's a NEET, so he has nothing better to do but rain autism upon this thread.

[Anonymous No.15291717]

>>15291415
>>15291441
>>15291446
>>15291454
good posts, where are these last ones about consciousness from?
what is the difference between nirguna brahman and brahman?

[Anonymous No.15291908]

>>15291717
The 3 posts about consciousness are from one of the chapters on Advaita doctrine in 'A History of Indian Philosophy', by Dasgupta. The whole book is on the wisdom-library site, the exact chapter which I copied the paragraphs from are this one below. I don't agree with all the conclusions the author makes and I disagree with his editorializing but when it comes to simply summarizing the doctrine of different schools it's a good source, if a little dated.

https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/a-history-of-indian-philosophy-volume-2/d/doc209866.html

[Anonymous No.15292017]

>>15291717
I forgot that you had a second question, In Advaita Nirguna Brahman is the Supreme (para) form of Brahman, His real true form. Nirguna Brahman is formless, odorless, soundless, partless, eternal, beginningless, undecaying, actionless, immutable, unconditioned, limitless all-pervading pure Bliss-intelligence. Nirguna Brahman posses the power of maya, which it is the nature of Nirguna Brahman to effortlessly wield always just as it is the nature of the sun to emit light. Through the power of maya, there appears the cosmos, time, space, duality etc and also the conditioned form of Brahman with qualities (Saguna) which is regarded as the creator, preserver and destroyer of the cosmos as well as its inner controller. The Nirguna Brahman never actually has any involvement with the manifested cosmos etc and is transcendental to them, the power of maya at once generates a cosmic illusion of the universe as well as the more father/ruler-like Saguna Brahman who is the one who deals with and maintains the cosmos. The Saguna Brahman is only as real as the cosmic illusion however, and in reality there is just the Nirguna Brahman alone without any second entity, object or realm adjacent to It. When people are talking about Advaita and they say "Brahman" they usually mean Nirguna Brahman unless otherwise specified.

[Anonymous No.15292149]

>>15288268
Ligotti sums up why Buddhism is fucked as well:
>There is nothing more futile than to consciously look for something to save you. But consciousness makes this fact seem otherwise. Consciousness makes it seem as if (1) there is something to do; (2) there is somewhere to go; (3) there is something to be; (4) there is someone to know. This is what makes consciousness the parent of all horrors, the thing that makes us try to do something, go somewhere, be something, and know someone, such as ourselves, so that we can escape our MALIGNANTLY USELESS being and think that being alive is all right rather than that which should not be.

[Anonymous No.15292223]

>>15290038
Consciousness is a process in the brain, it makes quick and dirty models. It models itself as well. It models itself as a spooky ghost. It also models white light as no color and high brightness.
But we know that white light is actually all the colors.

Graziano Ted Talk for slow children:
>Consciousness & the Social Brain | Michael Graziano | TEDxCornellUniversity
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Zjak6YgCVdc

[Anonymous No.15292254]

>>15292223
Consciousness is what sees the mind make the models. It is separate from that though.

[Anonymous No.15292377]

>>15292223
Consciousness is not a process, but rather is a persisting self-luminous (i.e. self-revealing) presence. You are confusing consciousness with the mind/intellect. The mind and intellect engage in thoughts but these thoughts are observed by consciousness. The mind conceptualizes things, make models, falsifies, makes assumptions, works out relations etc, consciousness does none of these things but only observes the mind do them. Any identifiable mental activity or process, being identifiable as something that occurs, cannot therefore be the awareness which which identifies that very process, just as the eye cannot see itself. Any process you want to ascribe to conciousness by you attempting to point it out and identify it necessarily ends up a mental object which is ineradicabley different from the subject who apprehended it, and therefore it cannot be used to say things about that subject of witnessing conciousness, just as you cannot infer things about the status of your eye based on differences in the types of objects which it observes, because they tell you nothing about the witnessing eye itself.

Also, the Neuroscientist reductionist model of consciousness can either be true or Buddhism can, or any variety of other unmentioned 3rd options, but both the neuroscience model and Buddhism cannot be true as they contradict one another, it's stupid to take a neuroscientists presentation as backing up the Buddhist position. Brain processes that are produced as an emergent property of neuronal activity cannot accumulate karma and be reborn. The whole Buddhist cosmological model completely falls apart if you try to unite it with materialism.

[Anonymous No.15292551]

>>15292377
There's no consciousness left over when you remove all mental objects. This can be demonstrated by removing mental objects, but also if consciousness is not mental and not physical then what does it consist of? This looks like some kind of meta dualism.

[Anonymous No.15292617]

>>15292551
>but also if consciousness is not mental and not physical then what does it consist of?
also if you don't think that your talking about consciousness means that it exists then ignore this bit. I just want to know what you mean because I don't get it

[Anonymous No.15292712]

>>15292551
>what does it consist of
It has no parts.

[Anonymous No.15292722]

>>15292712
Then its being consists of nothing?

[Anonymous No.15293046]

>>15292712
Listen I think I might have figured out about what you mean by consciousness. Consider this illustration:

not contained=unseen=consciousness: {everything seen=mental world:[everything that is not-self=external world:(the self=internal world:(thoughts)+non-self(representation of physical world)]}
unknown=not contained=everything that is unseen{god? other people? physical? weirdness?}

[Anonymous No.15293070]

>>15292722
Its being consists of intrinsic self-luminous sentience, self-revelation, in relation with time and space it is experienced as an abiding presence

>>15292551
>There's no consciousness left over when you remove all mental objects.
Where is your proof for this? You are merely asserting this as a truism. Some meditators and Yogis would disagree with you and say that in states of samadhi etc they are able to abide without mental objects but that the light of conciousness is still there, they don't lose conciousness when doing this.

>This can be demonstrated by removing mental objects
And how pray tell can we verifiably remove mental objects from our mind? And once these have been removed how can you then tell that there is no conciousness remaining? It's an impossibility, if you are able to remove all mental objects and then realize or perceive "there is no conciousness here" then there is still conciousness remaining or you wouldn't have been able to have that realization, a lack of conciousness cannot experience itself or anything else, there is no way to prove or show that there is no consciousness remaining when mental objects are removed because the experience of that is de facto impossible, experience being dependent upon consciousness.

[Anonymous No.15293257]

>>15293070
Then it does have parts! Self luminous sentience, self-revalation, and a relation with time and space, those are three properties right there. Please explain more about them because I'm getting the feeling that those are some properties of my mind that I can more or less "see" or at least come to know that they are going on by some intuition.

>You are merely asserting this as a truism.
I have personal experience of observing my eye of consciousness in a truly mindfucked way that requires chasing my own tail and looking at my own looking without having the looking move away from my looking which is very tricky because looking moves it but it can be done. Perhaps this is not what you consider consciousness but it remains very neat.

>And how pray tell can we verifiably remove mental objects from our mind?
I use the unexpected method of removing things by counting them! Everything I manage to lay my attention on, is "tagged", and counted out from the situation. I am able to do this to all reality, I think, so if nothing remains then consciousness has nowhere to hide and can be ruled out. But I mean this from your perspective, on my semantics is that consciousness and mind are synonymous.

also how about those equations

[Anonymous No.15293370]

>>15293070
To clarify my position since I haven't really said much, consciousness and mind are synonymous in my own semantics, but I think that what you refer to as consciousness is what I think of as my attention. I regard attention as a kind of mental object, and I regard my mind as a sort of space where all objects exist, so only perceptions or impressions exist. so to me "mind" contains everything and I think we're both have the same thing in mind when we talk about consciousness, but I think that I can identify it within my mental space, which is why I said that if I remove all mental objects then "consciousness" is gone too = I think it simply is a mental object which is attention. I attribute to attention some(maybe all?) of the properties you attribute to consciousness, but I regard them as relations between "attention" and other mental objects. so mental objects are "illuminated" when a relation is satisfied between them an attention, that relation being a spatio temporal relation = they have to be in the same place at the same time. literally the thing I pay attention to, is the object of my attention. My strategy is to show that consciousness has perceptible qualities which must make it a mental object, and it must have those qualities because then you will have a hard time explaining it or coming to know it.

[Anonymous No.15293372]

>>15292722
>its being consists of nothing
God is being and is not made up of parts. Complexity does not imply parts.

[Anonymous No.15293386]

>>15293370
>I think we're both have the same thing in mind when we talk about consciousness
>have the same thing in mind when we talk about consciousness
>have the thing in mind
Pun was not intended, this is simply an accident that happens when your ontology is so in tune with the nature of the universe that you can't even casually speak without revealing the truth. Pardon.

[Anonymous No.15293399]

>>15293372
I take it that being consists of at least one part, namely oneself
>one
;^)

[Anonymous No.15293441]

>>15293257
Not him, but bare consciousness may seem to have parts at first. On closer inspection they are only parts so long as they are reified through language and the words we give them. Time and space are within consciousness, but pure consciousness is outside of them and is unfettered. Likewise, the mind is within consciousness, not the other way around, and that is how the mind abides in the present existent moment. If the mind were not inside of this pure self-luminous and self-seeing existence, then it would not be able to be found anywhere. Nothing would see the mind then, not even the mind itself.

[Anonymous No.15293469]

>>15293441
>>15293399
>I take it that being consists of at least one part, namely oneself
>>one
>;^)

[Anonymous No.15293509]

>>15293441
I feel you are being too prejudiced against words and language. We also reify with our juicy, meaty, definitely-not-arbitrary-symbol, concepts. A property is precisely such a reified being, created through the purest nonverbal abstraction.

[Anonymous No.15293634]

>>15293399
In Vishishtadvaita Vedanta they interpret the Upanishad passages saying that Brahman is partless as figurative and say that the souls are parts of the all-encompassing unity of Brahman. However, Advaita Vedanta takes these passages in the literal sense and says that Brahman is without any parts and that each seemingly individual soul when stripped of its illusory components is actually the undivided Absolute itself, wrongly being perceived as an embodied individual being through the lenses of maya, just as the one undivided moon can falsely appear as thousands of moons when reflected in so many puddles. Unlimited seemingly individual beings all telescopically extending back to the same single undivided consciousness observing them all as projections of Itself. In one essay Coomaraswamy uses the metaphor of a person with 360 degree vision sitting on a throne at the center of a circle inhabitated by multifarious brings observing all of them.
>>15293257
>Then it does have parts! Self luminous sentience, self-revalation, and a relation with time and space, those are three properties right there.
Self-luminous sentience and self-revelation are more or less synonyms and not different attributes. The relation with time and space is not an inherent attribute either but to Advaita would be considered an unreal superimposition on consciousness, the apparent relation with time and space is not inherent in consciousness as a real property of it.

[Anonymous No.15293873]

>>15293509
>I feel you are being too prejudiced against words and language. We also reify with our juicy, meaty, definitely-not-arbitrary-symbol, concepts. A property is precisely such a reified being, created through the purest nonverbal abstraction.

[Anonymous No.15293903]

>>15293634
I see no contradiction between our views, only the same contradiction within our views! A being regarded as a property is a part, a unit, an indivisible; that same being regarded as a relation is a composite, structure, a pattern, a relation between multiple...but a relation is again just a property, abstracted from that collection of elements, but an abstraction is yet again a relation, a form, or a shape that takes place between entities....but a form is an item, a concept, or thought.... endless bullshit can be generated in this fashion, but it does actually matter just which particular species of bullshit you do generate, because it will have a very real existence in your mind. I also agree completely with time and space being a relation. An appearance arises in the mind. Afterwards it arises again. When we compare the two we get time. An appearance arises up in the mind. A different appearance arises in the mind. When we compare the two we get space. And comparison is a relation, that again is a property, and becomes its own being in the mind. And the nature of the comparison relation is such that it is satisfied when overlaying or overlapping multiple generates a product. Time and space are the product of our mind being hit and impressed by appearances, which have lingering effects that builds up over time, in memory.