What does the Self know?

[Anonymous No.17697491]

Because consider this: it said that the nature of the Absolute is non dual being-knowledge-bliss. But knowledge of what? Every knowledge presupposes a knower and a known, and therefore duality. The Greeks have already discussed this question. Aristotle's God is thought thinking itself, which again necessitates a knower and a known. This led to the separation between the One and the Intellect in the Platonists. According to Plotinus as soon as the One turns upon itself duality is born, and with the hypostasis, which is dual (knower and known). Curiously, Aquinas even discusses that the duality between knower and the known justifies the Trinity. The Son is the the Father's Idea of himself and the Spirit the Will. Knowledge divides unity. If Advaita holds that the Absolute is being-knowledge-bliss, then it destroys itself. But if the Absolute doesn't know anything than it is like Schopenhauer's Will. Just a blind, deaf and dumb yearning. Please clarify my doubts, resident advantins.

[Anonymous No.17697495]

>>17697491
>and with the hypostasis
*and with it the hypostasis of the Intellect

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17697538]

Will, knowledge and Action are the manifest powers of the triune shakti of Shiva which is the trishul he wields, their true form is Para; Para-Para and Apara, Will, Knowledge and Action. At no point is shakti is ever separated from shiva and creation is nothing but the revealing of the nature of shiva through Shakti. Here’s an entire essay I wrote concerning this which deals with Maya, para-Brahman as parashiva and so forth and how tantra reconciles all this.

https://pastebin.com/AjzfzFTk

[Anonymous No.17697568]

>>17697491
What?

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17697603]

>>17697538
By para I mean the Infinite, thus Shiva is manifest in his absolute infinity as perception of the Will; the interaction of Infinite with Finite through knowledge and as the finite through actions. As such knowledge is his shakti but all of the tattvas and shakti-forms are simply divisions revelations of the divine immensity, all tattvas ultimately being simply formal distinctions which fade at higher levels of Nondual realization and perception as there is only the fully manifest Bhairava who is identical to your own body who is identical to the nature of paramsiva.

As to tackle this doctrine more specifically, manifestation is a process of particularization, a revelation in the perception of particular aspects of nature and Godhead. Attaining the higher levels and coming closer to the nirguna form drags the lower tattvas back into their universality/abstract unity as potentiality within the higher tattvas, thus their essential aspects still exist because of divine simplicity and as perfect and as they exist in eternity (and thus not bound to the maya Tattva of parts, partiality, divisions.) thus the knowledge is all knowledge hidden in rest. But again the essay goes into all of this.

[Anonymous No.17697605]

>>17697538
Interesting. Will read.

[Anonymous No.17698179]

Bumping to see the Vedanta answer

[Anonymous No.17698210]

>>17697491

According to Advaita Vedānta, the Ātmā always knows Itself in a manner that is non-dual, in other words it transcends the dualistic distinction of the knower and the thing known. It is pure, immediate and continuous sentience that is always self-revealing, self-manifesting, the unchanging ground and luminous presence by which everything within the intellect and mind seem to be illumined from the jiva's perspective. The Ātmā doesn't really know or observe what goes in the jiva's intellects because instead the Ātmā always abides in non-duality, without any cognizing, knowing or revealing of anything other than Itself; that the Ātmā seems to be illumining and witnessing the thoughts and sensory impressions of the jiva is one of the jivas false conceptions, the intellect and its contents are superimposed out of ignorance on the underlying Ātmā. When for the jiva there is the luminous Ātmā with the false contents superimposed in it, it seems one is illumining the other, but for the Ātmā as It dwells in Itself, It has no superimpositions and so it doesn't see what the jivas see and It doesn't perceive duality "Sanatkumāra said: ‘Bhūmā [the infinite] is that in which one sees nothing else, hears nothing else, and knows [nothing else. But alpa [the finite] is that in which one sees something else, hears something else, and knows something else." - Chāndogya Upaniṣad 7.24.1.

To the claim that every knowledge presupposes a knower and known, Advaita says that this is only true of the intellect/mind and not of consciousness, and that it is only because of there being a self-revealing Ātmā coinciding as it were with the intellect and illuming it as it were that the intellect can know anything at all. If there was not something that was ultimately self-knowing involved in or forming the basis of consciousness and intellection, it would result in an absurd infinite regress because nothing would be known until it was known by another successive thought, because in the absence of anything that was self-knowing, nothing could form the contents of our stream of thoughts and be known by us without being witnessed by another thought, but as that thought would require another to know it, and so on, it would continue on forever without arriving at any point that would allow these thoughts to be apprehended in or appear in our knowledge/sentience. So, there must necessarily be something self-knowing involved in or forming consciousness, and to suppose otherwise is absurd. And we can infer that this self-knowing thing is not the intellect which thinks, because intellection appears to our sentience, thoughts don't know themselves but instead we are the unchanging continuum of sentient presence in which thoughts arrive as appearances within consciousness and from which they depart.

[Anonymous No.17698222]

>>17698210

If you have a pure self-revealing consciousness which always persists as an immutable sentient light, always having the immediate revelation of itself without any change or decay, where do you find a knower and a known to identify? If there is only self-revealing sentience abiding in Itself, there is not any separate thing which can be identified as a separate entity or component that is known. In the absence of any other thing for it to know, if one still insists on saying that consciousness is both the knower and the known, one is breaking the law of non-contradiction by applying two mutually exclusive statuses to consciousness, without a clear justification for doing so. Instead of violating the law of non-contradiction by saying that consciousness is at once knower and the known, it's more logical to say that consciousness is non-dual and self-revealing, because this allows us to explain what is the self-knowing thing underlying intellection, but without falling into the pit of simultaneously ascribing two mutually-exclusive things to this thing in the form of consciousness. So, there is a logical basis for saying that consciousness in its immediacy and self-revelation transcends the distinctions of knower and known, which really inhere in the intellect as something different from consciousness.

[Anonymous No.17698717]

bump

[Anonymous No.17698898]

>>17697491
>it said that the nature of the Absolute is non dual being-knowledge-bliss. But knowledge of what?
Of itself. It does not need to think/learn, it simply knows what it needs to. The absolute does not need to be told about the nature of life as it is life.It does not need to learn and contemplate good/evil as it is both and yet beyond both ideas.

It is like the simple innocence of beasts. The bird does not need to be told about months and years to feel that winter is coming. Nobody teaches it how to build a nest. It doesn't debate the merits of eating one seed over another. These things are intrinsic and known on a level that does not require "knowledge"

I think people make this idea too convoluted. Taoism states it much clearer and simpler, IMHO:
>The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
>The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
>The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
>The named is the mother of ten thousand things.
>Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
>Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.
>These two spring from the same source but differ in name;
>this appears as darkness.
>The gate to all mystery.
"Darkness" is sometimes translated as "confusion" or "obfuscation".

[Anonymous No.17700180]

up

[Anonymous No.17700189]

[Anonymous No.17700196]

>>17697491
>Every knowledge presupposes a knower and a known, and therefore duality
For the vedantafags, to "know" is to "be", so there is no knower-known duality.

[Anonymous No.17700275]

>>17697491
>Every knowledge presupposes a knower and a known, and therefore duality.
huh no

[Anonymous No.17700542]

just meditate bro yeesh stop thinking about it too much.

[Anonymous No.17701212]

don't worry about it. go back to your breath. nothing to do, nowhere to go.

[Anonymous No.17701932]

>>17700189
Why shouldn’t I become a Buddhist? Why should I pay lip service to Hindu texts and traditions when they are clearly not important? In fact why should I even become a Buddhist when I can just read their texts and meditate on my own?

[Anonymous No.17701955]

>>17701932
>Why shouldn’t I become a Buddhist
Because Buddhism is fake and gay and was refuted by Shankaracharya (pbuh)

[Anonymous No.17702002]

>>17701955
Woah. Case closed.

[Anonymous No.17702048]

>>17701955
Of little consequence
>>17701932
There's no need to "be Buddhist".

[Anonymous No.17702145]

>>17702002
many such cases!
>>17702048
>following teachings that are wrong, illogical and which gaslight you about the existence of your own self are of little consequence

[Anonymous No.17702162]

>>17702145
There are many ways to the top of the mountain.

[Anonymous No.17702333]

>>17702162
Buddhists only ever use that type of rhetoric when trying to lure people into Buddhism, the other 99% of the time it’s just “X is wrong view and will make you suffer”

[Anonymous No.17702468]

>>17701932
>In fact why should I even become a Buddhist when I can just read their texts and meditate on my own?
Because the rules of the fallen world (kali yuga) make it highly unlikely (impossible?) for someone to attain 'deliverance' or 'realization' by just reading texts and navel gazing on their own.

Because humans are easily duped and self-deceived when judging themselves without an objective metric or teacher to correct them.

And because anyone who is serious about the truth will want to assimilate it and practice it fully, otherwise one is a hypocrite. This isn't a part time job or side hobby you do, it should be all encompassing in how you live, how you behave and even the things that surround you in your home and daily life.

[Anonymous No.17702539]

>>17702468
>why should I become a Buddhist
>because of the Kali Yuga

The same Hindu texts which describe the Kali Yuga (the Puranas) also say that Lord Vishnu incarnated as Buddha for the purpose of teaching false doctrines to some demons so that they would lose their powers and be weakened so that they could be massacred.

It's true though that joining a tradition so that one can have a proper teacher is better than only self-studying, but that is not an argument for joining Buddhism over other traditions.

[Anonymous No.17702644]

>>17702539
>but that is not an argument for joining Buddhism over other traditions.
I was arguing in favor of taking a tradition seriously, not which particular path to choose. The questioner seemed interested in buddhism but in a lukewarm manner. Better not to even bother with that attitude desu

[Anonymous No.17703146]

>>17702539
Puranas also mention Shiva becoming a brahman in the kali yuga to teach the false doctrine of mayavada (which is described as cryptobuddhism in the same verse) in order to destroy the world.

[Anonymous No.17703349]

>>17703146
The Puranas are all apocryphal and sectarian texts which often make contradictory claims which cannot be true simultaneously. They are not revealed scriptures like the Sruti so nothing they say has to be accepted or viewed as authoritative. I'm not someone who accepts what the Puranas say as the truth, nor do I recommend others doing so, I was only pointing out that it's kind of silly for Buddhists to cite Hindu teachings from the Puranas when those same texts explicitly undermine the validity of Buddhism. The Padma Purana passage also says that Shiva will teach the identity of the soul and the Lord to mislead people, but this position is explicitly taught in dozens of Upanishadic verses which are revealed scriptures unlike the Puranas, so it's clear which claim has the real authority.

[Anonymous No.17703488]

>>17702468
>tfw no qt Asian gf

[Anonymous No.17703521]

>>17702468
>Because humans are easily duped and self-deceived when judging themselves without an objective metric or teacher to correct them.
Ah yes I could easily dupe myself, so why don't I kiss some bearded Indian godman's ass because he clearly knows better and isn't a total dogmatist. 'self-deceived', give me a break.

[Anonymous No.17703560]

>>17703521
>so why don't I kiss some bearded Indian godman's ass
This is not something that happens in real life.
>because he clearly knows better and isn't a total dogmatist
Saying that you can either self-study or subject yourself to dogmatism is a false dichotomy. In many cases dogmatism is not even the right label, because the Indian traditions have a long history of dialectical argumentation with various other schools Hindu and non-Hindu, and they subject their own claims to critical scrutiny as part of showing that they are logically coherent. When schools of thought do this it's by definition not dogmatic since dogmatism involves doing the opposite of this.

[Anonymous No.17703570]

>>17703349
Plenty of Hindu philosophers studying the upanishads and brahma sutras also consider mayavada to be adharma citing those texts. Yes the Puranas are sectarian but its reflective of competing interpretations on Sruti, unless of course you take the dogmatic position of assuming mayavada to be the true and only expression of vedanta.

[Anonymous No.17703612]

>>17703570
How is that possible? What is the difference between mayavada and what Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita?

[Anonymous No.17703614]

>>17703349
>Upanishadic verses which are revealed scriptures
lol

[Anonymous No.17703625]

>>17701932
Being a buddhist when there is no buddha is insanely hard.

[Anonymous No.17703634]

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.

[Anonymous No.17703642]

>>17703521
>Ah yes I could easily dupe myself, so why don't I kiss some bearded Indian godman's ass because he clearly knows better and isn't a total dogmatist. 'self-deceived', give me a break.
an authentic teacher would help you overcome your pettiness and pride, but there's the risk you end up choosing a proud charlatan I suppose, pride attracts pride

[Anonymous No.17703653]

>>17703560
Traditional schools and the requirement of Guru is a relic of the past where it was understandable, in fact necessary to be part of the club in order to learn the conventions and practices that were appropriate in order to reach a goal. But now that we have public libraries and the internet, you could undergo self study, self practice, and dialectical argumentation with other like minded people and it would essentially be the same thing. The fact those orders still remain to this day is indicative more of a power play than anything else, its just they stuck to esoteric mumbo jumbo and 'transmitting' knowledge in order to stay relevant as a social group.

Are you part of a school btw? or did you self study your way?

[Anonymous No.17703677]

>>17703642
The only authentic teachers are found in university halls of the eastern philosophical department. Not some poor Ashram.

[Anonymous No.17703680]

>>17703653
>im gonna interpret all this shit myself
>i know best! me!
>thanks for the scriptures SUCKERS
how very western, protestant and modern, divorcing texts from their proper context and practice and seeing yourself as the final arbiter of truth

[Anonymous No.17703708]

>>17703570
>Plenty of Hindu philosophers studying the upanishads and brahma sutras also consider mayavada to be adharma citing those texts.
The Smriti doesn't cancel out the claims of the Sruti, that's backwards to how it is supposed to work

Brahman projects the universe through the power of Its maya. Again, in that universe Brahman as the jiva is entangled through maya.
- Svetasvatara Upanishad 4.9
"Know, then, that prakriti or nature is maya and that Great Lord (Mahesvara) is the mayin (the illusion-maker)
- Svetasvatara Upanishad 4.10
"May the non-dual Lord, who, by the power of His maya, covered Himself, like a spider, with threads drawn from primal matter, merge us in Brahman!
- Svetasvatara Upanishad 6.10
The Lord on account of Maya is perceived as manifold
- Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.5.19:
Verily, this divine Maya of Mine, made up of the gunas is difficult to overcome; those who take refuge in Me alone, shall cross over this Maya.
- Bhagavad-Gita 7.14.
Although I am unborn, the Lord of all living entities, and have an imperishable nature, yet I appear in this world by virtue of my own maya
- Bhagavad-Gita 4.6.

>b-b-but it actually doesn't mean what it says...

>>17703612
Other schools aside from Advaita usually interpret maya just as being the creative power of Brahman, but this is not what the word means etymologically in Sanskrit, and this is not the context in which the word is used in the Upanishads and the Gita, but rather the context in which the word maya is used in those texts is connected with the mentioning of entanglement, covering, false appearances etc.

[Anonymous No.17703717]

>>17703677
That's wrong, because the teachers in university halls almost always have no actual direct knowledge of the doctrines in question but have only studied it from afar as outsiders, which is not real knowledge of it.

[Anonymous No.17703735]

who is supposed to be compassionate, and toward whom if there is only one consciousness and no self?

[Anonymous No.17703768]

>>17703735
Advaita says that the infinite consciousness is the true Self. Advaita is also an ammoral (not immoral) metaphysics which doesn't view compassion as an end in itself, so that's not a problem for them.

[Anonymous No.17703769]

You're going about your business performing fire sacrifice to the gods in order to obtain wealth and cattle as your ancestors always did when this guy comes around and says
>bro, you are not your body, bro! All is, like, one, bro! Just meditate and merge with the one, bro!
That sounds like fucking buddhism, you fucking buddhist.

What do?

[Anonymous No.17703782]

>>17703768
If it's ammoral then why bad karma can turn you into a tape worm as a dark skinned shudra and good karma can turn you into a god? Who judges what is good and bad? What is the standard?

[Anonymous No.17703823]

>>17703769
>What do?
I open the Sruti and read it where it says that the results of sacrifices are transitory and that they don't lead to liberation, including in the Chandogya Upanishad, which predates the life of Buddha.

"Everything perishes, whether it is something you have acquired through hard work in this world or it is a place in the other world which you have acquired through meritorious deeds. Those who leave this world without knowing the Self and the Truths which they should know are not free, no matter where they go. But those who leave this world after knowing the Self and the Truths which they should know are free, no matter where they are."
- Chandogya Upanishad 8.1.6

"These ignorant men regarding sacrificial and charitable acts as most important, do not know any other help to bliss; having enjoyed in the heights of Heaven the abode of pleasures, they enter again into this or even inferior world."
- Mundaka Upanishad 1.2.10

"The eighteen persons necessary for the performance of sacrifice are transitory and not permanent and karma in its nature inferior, has been stated as resting upon these. Those ignorant persons who delight in this, as leading to bliss, again fall into decay and death.
- Mundaka Upanishad 1.2.7

and this is further confirmed in the Smriti where Lord Vishnu says

"Thus abiding by the injunctions of the three Vedas and desiring desires, they are subject to death and rebirth."
Bhagavad-Gita 9.21

[Anonymous No.17703892]

>>17703782
Advaita accepts that karma and transmigration exist within the conditionally-real universe, what they say is that karma, morality etc doesn't exist in absolute reality where there is just Brahman alone, just like time, directions, objects, all opposites like heat vs cold, etc don't exist on that level either where there is just the infinite Brahman alone. The Upanishads enjoin ethical behavior like non-violence and truth-telling but they don't say that these things are ends in themselves or ultimately real, they instead present Self-knowledge/moksha as the ultimate end.

[Anonymous No.17703935]

>>17703892
Thanks for the reply. But speaking only about the conditionally-real universe. Who is responsible for the laws of physics and ethics? Ishvara? Like, in spiritualist movements, they believe that there are beings who are responsible for weighing and administering the fruits of karma and your next life. Are there such beings in Hinduism or is there a different mechanism? Where can I find more about this?

[Anonymous No.17703963]

>>17703935
Vishishtadvaita and dvaita, not advaita.
>In the beginning this world was only brahman, only one. Because it was only one, brahman had not fully developed. It then created the ruling power, a form superior to and surpassing itself, that is, the ruling powers among the gods—Indra, Varuna, Soma, Rudra, Parjanya, Yama, Mrtyu, and Isana. Hence there is nothing higher than the ruling power.

>Brahman still did not become fully developed. So it created the Vaisya class, that is, the types of gods who are listed in groups—Vasus, Rudras, Adityas, Allgods, and Maruts.

>It still did not become fully developed. So it created the Sudra class, that is, Pusan. Now, Pusan is this very earth, for it nourishes this whole world, it nourishes all that exists.

>It still did not become fully developed. So it created the Law (dharma), a form superior to and surpassing itself. And the Law is here the ruling power standing above the ruling power. Hence there is nothing higher than the Law.

[Anonymous No.17704036]

>>17703935
>Who is responsible for the laws of physics and ethics? Ishvara?
Yes, Isvara or the Saguna Brahman. Shankara actually uses Isvara and Paramisvara fairly often in an interchangeable way to both refer to the Supreme Nirguna Brahman in his works by the way, and he will use other words or make it clear from the context when he is referring to the non-Supreme form of Brahman, so for that reason I try not to use Ishvara and Saguna Brahman interchangeably. Advaita says that Brahman is eternal and immutable and that it's Brahman's eternal uncreated nature to always be manifesting maya at the lower level of contingent and conditional existence. This gives rise to the qualified or Saguna Brahman, who then fulfills most of the roles that are held to be God's by the more typical forms of theism, including maintaining the laws of physics and distributing the results of karma in accordance with peoples actions.
>Where can I find more about this?
If you want to learn about the Advaita perspective on this subject, you can read a book about Advaita Vedanta or read some of Shankara's commentaries. The perspective of the other schools of Hinduism is different though, and some of them assign the same functions to the Supreme Brahman which Advaita Vedanta assigns to the lower and conditionally-real Saguna Brahman which arises out of maya.

[Anonymous No.17704092]

>>17703935
I agree with this: >>17704036
>If you want to learn about the Advaita perspective on this subject, you can read a book about Advaita Vedanta or read some of Shankara's commentaries.

Hirst is a good place to start with or an introduction to Advaita. It's also endorsed by /lit/'s biggest advaita fan. See here >>17700189

[Anonymous No.17704200]

>>17704036
>This gives rise to the qualified or Saguna Brahman, who then fulfills most of the roles that are held to be God's by the more typical forms of theism, including maintaining the laws of physics and distributing the results of karma in accordance with peoples actions.
why is this necessary?

[Anonymous No.17704205]

>>17697491
The self knows that these arguments will never lead anywhere
Eastern phil is so fucking autistic

[Anonymous No.17704281]

>>17704200
According to Advaita there is no logically consistent way to say that God or Brahman is at once directly involved in maintaining the world, distributing karma, manifesting and dissolving the series of universes in cycles etc without those things involving changes which would make Brahman mutable, conditioned and non-eternal. Having Brahman exist in His lonesome in absolute reality, with everything else just being projected at a lower level of contingent existence ensures that Brahman does not engage in any activity or function which would compromise His immutability and eternity. And the act of wielding maya does not do this because it is His eternal and uncreated inherent nature to do so and so it doesn't involve taking any specific actions which have a beginning or end.

[Anonymous No.17704319]

>>17704281
is this also one of those things where the steward/lesser brahman is the knowable aspect? is the supreme brahman knowable through some mode of spiritual attainment? this seems a recurring pattern in theology, that there is a knowable form and an eternally aloof form, but where the knowable form adequately manifests something about the aloof

[Anonymous No.17704326]

>>17702333

[Anonymous No.17704353]

>>17704281
>according to advaita there is no logically consistent way to say what advaita says (but it says it anyway)

at least you admit it. don't worry you don't have to respond since we're both the same person agreeing that we're brahman anyway bro

[Anonymous No.17704383]

>>17704281
>logically consistent way
isn't the whole point that God is not bound?

[Anonymous No.17704385]

>>17701932
>Why shouldn’t I become a Buddhist?
Because you could become a Vaishnava instead

[Anonymous No.17704428]

>>17704319
Sort of, they say that the Supreme/Nirguna Brahman is not knowable as an object of knowledge through the intellect, but when spiritual ignorance and its consequences are eliminated the Nirguna Brahman reveals Himself to oneself as one's own consciousness. The Saguna Brahman is the mechanism through which the scriptures revealing the Supreme Brahman are transmitted and so on, so the lower forms of Brahman help to guide one to the Supreme Brahman.
>>17704353
>>according to advaita there is no logically consistent way to say what advaita says
That's incorrect, what Advaita says is totally different from the other schools. Vivartavada is totally different from Parinamavada. Advaita's position is logically coherent for the reason that Brahman remains unchanging and is not directly involved in anything that goes on in the contingent realm.

[Anonymous No.17704441]

>>17703963
What does it mean for the ruling power of the gods and dharma to be higher than Brahman? Am I misunderstanding something? That passage has always confused me

[Anonymous No.17704444]

>>17704428
So there is a contingent realm?

[Anonymous No.17704446]

>>17704428
>and is not directly involved in anything that goes on in the contingent realm.
except the creation of the Saguna Brahman? or is that an expression of maya? I don't really get maya.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17704473]

>>17704446
There’s more or less enough proximity between the Vedanta and tantric metaphysics/ontology that reading the essay I posted here will probably be enough to explain, except that the phrasing in tantra is more Nondual and embracing of maya than Vedanta normally is.

>>17697538
It’ll go deep into the topic of Maya.

[Anonymous No.17704480]

>>17704383
Advaita agrees that God is not bound, but they hold the view that it's still logically problematic to do things like ascribe mutually contradicting things to Brahman (i.e. that He is unchanging but also engages in specific actions that have a beginning and end). Advaita doesn't say that human logic and the intellect are infallible, they actually condemn independent reasoning not guided by revealed scriptures as something which is bound to be wrong; but taking the Hindu scriptures as their basis they still consider it important to have as logically-consistent a metaphysics as possible, while remaining rooted in scripture.

[Anonymous No.17704490]

>>17704473
Hey Frater, what do you think of bardo?

Also do you know that native american professor of occultism from /x/? I can't remember his name.

>>17704480
But how do they prove the scriptures are revealed? Do you just have to take that on faith?

[Anonymous No.17704503]

>>17704473
>It’ll go deep into the topic of Maya.
I've actually read parts of it before and found that interesting. Generally I browse lit to kill time when I'm too tired to do anything else, and as last time I figure I am really too tired to do any qualitative reading. But it's in my browser history now, so maybe later.

[Anonymous No.17704527]

I don't think attaining mystical union has made me a more compassionate person. if anything it has made me more confused.

[Anonymous No.17704549]

>>17704444
According to Advaita there is only a contingent realm seeming to exist because of ignorance, not on the level of absolute reality. A common example they use is the observer superimposing the mental image of a snake onto the rope laying on the ground in the dark. When the observer correctly perceives the substratum of the illusion that is the rope, they no longer perceive that there is a snake there. At no point when this happens did the snake actually exist, before the observer superimposed the image of the snake, at the same time the observer is doing so, and afterwards when the rope reveals itself for what it really is, at no point did the snake actually exist as a real entity. In the same way the universe in Advaita belongs to the domain of ignorance, and when one attains liberation/enlightenment in Advaita it's taught that at that time it's revealed that the universe/duality/multiplicity never actually existed, just like the snake never actually existed but was superimposed on the rope out of ignorance.
>>17704446
>except the creation of the Saguna Brahman
No, because that's something within maya and it is not a separate act from the wielding of maya itself. Chandradhar Sharma in his book 'The Advaita Tradition in Indian Philosophy', which can be found on lib-gen, does a good job explaining what Advaita means by maya/ignorance in his sections in the book on those concepts.

[Anonymous No.17704555]

>>17704527
That means you are the right path

[Anonymous No.17704565]

>>17704527
Ego death is the highest ego trip.
These people go around their gods. Their the most deluded and puffed that there are.

[Anonymous No.17704568]

>>17704549
I know the rope example from Buddhism but I don't understand why illusion is possible in the first place. If Brahman is absolute reality, everything that happens is contingent upon it. So why is illusion contingent on it? Why would absolute reality have the possibilty of illusion at all? Why not just have no maya?

[Anonymous No.17704571]

>>17704565
*thinking their gods

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17704609]

>>17704490
>Hey Frater, what do you think of bardo?

As in the Tibetan Bardos or as in franz bardon? The Tibetan bardos are a fascinating schema for the afterlife since they more or less mirror the 7/49fold model of the planets in relation to our planetary stuff and thus are very easy to unify when using something like dream yoga with our western esoterica.

As for Bardon, people take far too extreme of stances regarding him. Bardon isn’t exceptional nor is he really terrible, some people get angry at him because he calls his stuff hermetic when he’s really giving you his own unique yogic-western esoteric inspired model, and you know, it’s a decent beginner model, gives you meditation, yoga, evocation, invocation and a workable enough Kabbalah system. It’s not traditional and I wouldn’t shill it to anyone asking about say Solomonic magic or hermeticism BUT it does what it’s supposed to do well and good enough. There’s some very large errors in his work, for example calling the Shem angels mercurial spirits. But again he’s fine.

>Also do you know that native american professor of occultism from /x/? I can't remember his name.

You must mean Ape of thoth. Ive known him and his group for a long while back when they were known as frater K. I mean he’s fine he studies, he’s an absolute edgelord and will gladly mess the arguments and meaning of various doctrines to shill his edgy schlock, He took up a teacher in satyr who claims to be more or less the level of siddhartha, who I had quite a bit of conflict with for putting himself that high, and daring to argue with him when he made bad or silly points. He and his group started claiming I’m possessed by their conception of what amounts to Satan and began a little satanic panic around me, so routinely I would troll them by going in, arguing against them with full philosophical depth and mocking them for you know, their rather negative history such as the time frater K admitted he fucked a puppy for a ritual and the time Satyr let his entire lodge fuck his wife according to his own book that he published. Last I heard their entire group fell apart because

1=K/ape and satyr couldn’t see eye to eye because K saw value in things like tantra and cultus sabbati and the like while satyr began arguing anything that isn’t thelemic hermetic Kabbalah or basic western zen is basically evil

2= various interpersonal drama iirc related to the library of occult texts gathered

3=interpersonal drama relating to how satyr treated everyone more or less like scum

Also while k/ape is native he’s still like college last I check still studying for his degree, not yet a professor.

But enough of this drama far too off topic, while it’s all laughs and funny to me due to the measure of distance, I’m sure they would consider all of this very serious gossip. Oh well. Back to the topic of Vedanta.

[Anonymous No.17704614]

>>17704490
>Do you just have to take that on faith?
Yes, one of the Śamādi ṣatka sampatti or 6-fold qualities that Advaita says one has to cultivate in order to attain liberation is Śraddhā, or faith in the truth of the Sruti scriptures. The cultivation of these qualities is one of the four sādhana-catustaya or fourfold discipline that someone who has been initiated into Advaita as a monk follows in order to attain or actualize liberation. Part of the purpose of the Vedanta writings and commentaries though is to remove the obstacles to one's faith by addressing possible objections to the doctrine and through that removing any doubt that what's taught is logically coherent and believable.

[Anonymous No.17704633]

If everything is Brahman then is all sex just masturbation?

[Anonymous No.17704638]

>>17701932
>Why shouldn’t I become a Buddhist?
just remain an atheist and spare everyone the drama.

[Anonymous No.17704657]

>>17702539
buddha being added to hindu mythology was a defensive move by hindus during the mauryan empire to stop buddhists from converting everyone.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17704688]

>>17704527
Do not confuse a basic samadhi for the ultimate moksha/anuttara, do not confuse a few experiences, visions and states with the cultivation of true wisdom and the attainment of right knowledge.

There once was a man who was raised in the city and he was sent word that his father had died in the next country, thus he went out of the city and traveled to the place of his father’s death, before he crossed he reached a little village and two men came to him and told him that he had reached the country and the place of his fathers death, thus the young man broke down in tears, wailing and so forth. But then the two men laughed at him and said “you still haven’t left this country!” Thus he got up and continued towards the foreign country.

When he finally reached the place of his fathers’s death, he was not so influenced or emotionally overwhelmed by it.

[Anonymous No.17704698]

>>17704527
I got into esotericism and mysticism some time ago and my conclusion after a couple years is that it's all bullshit and a complete waste of time. None of the experiences you've had have any more meaning than a drug trip. Nobody fucking knows, it's all conjecture at best, larping at worst.
I'll probably get seething replies but honestly it's the truth

[Anonymous No.17704705]

>>17704688
what's your take on the metaphysics of compassion?

[Anonymous No.17704707]

>>17704568
>but I don't understand why illusion is possible in the first place.
It is possible because Brahman is there, here and everywhere existing as its substratum
>If Brahman is absolute reality, everything that happens is contingent upon it. So why is illusion contingent on it?
You stated that everything is contingent upon Brahman because He is the absolute reality, and then asked why illusion is contingent upon Him even though you already stated why in your question. I think I know what you meant to ask though, which is how does Brahman give rise to the contingent, according to Advaita this is because Brahman is not an inert and lifeless object which is insentient and powerless, but according to Advaita He is sentient, omniscient and omnipotent. If you just have a reality or force that was insentient like the pradhana of the Samkhya, then it would truly be a mystery as to how it could give rise to anything at all. But because Brahman is sentient and has an eternal uncreated inherent nature to always manifest maya at the level of conditional reality out of His omnipotence etc, that is considered sufficient by Advaita to explain why and how there can be maya.
>Why would absolute reality have the possibilty of illusion at all? Why not just have no maya?
It would have the possibility of illusion if it is the uncreated eternal nature of that sentient reality to produce it at a lower level of existence. The question of "why just not have no maya" is not answered by Advaita, they consider it to be an irrelevant hypothetical question since as we clearly do exist on some level here as beings in the world there obviously was some act of creation or maya or whatever.

[Anonymous No.17704774]

>>17704707
No, you misunderstood me, I was asking why one particular thing that is contingent upon brahman, illusion, has even contingent being instead of having no being at all.

>The question of "why just not have no maya" is not answered by Advaita, they consider it to be an irrelevant hypothetical question since as we clearly do exist on some level here as beings in the world there obviously was some act of creation or maya or whatever.
Okay that does answer my question, I guess there just is not an answer in Advaita about why we exist or why we were created in this way.

[Anonymous No.17704806]

>>17704774
>I guess there just is not an answer in Advaita about why we exist or why we were created in this way.
Consider this: if Brahman or God were subject to a reason for doing a certain thing, if He were impelled by that reason and caused to do it by that reason (reasons for things are really just causes for things but spoken of differently), then He would be subject to causation and He would no longer be unconditioned and the anterior/transcendent source of causation, He would then be enmeshed within the web of causality and one would be unable to explain how God is the source of causality while at the same time being subject to prior causality in the form of reasons for why God does something.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17704819]

>>17704705
To me it is a question of Love and not compassion, as I am not a buddhist but a Christian and a tantrik.

First to quote hegel.

“ When we say, “God is love,” we are saying something very great and true. But it would be senseless to grasp this saying in a simple-minded way as a simple definition, without analyzing what love is. For love is a distinguishing of two, who nevertheless are absolutely not distinguished for each other. The consciousness or feeling of the identity of the two – to be outside of myself and in the other – this is love.”

Second to quote Angelus
“ Love is the Queen; the Virtues are The Maids who wait upon her;

The serving-women, Work and Deed

Which wilt thou choose to honour?”

If desired I can post a long phenomenology analysis demonstrating via meditation the essential nature of love as the root most aspect of nature but without going into depth, I am of the belief that God in his most transcendental and also most personal mode is identical to the Nondual love which the persons of the Godhead partake of which interpenetrate with creation through the power/shakti of God. And in this regard if you are to reflect the nature of God, you must also love, that all laws of God are identical to love, that mystical samadhi is nothing but the love shared between shiva and shakti, my I and the other, that love of nature, man and most importantly God are all essential to closeness with God.

Love is God's nature. He can do naught else. Wouldst thou
Be God, then likewise love in every instant's Now.

Beauty is born of Love alone.
The Countenance Divine
Hath all its Loveliness from Love—
Else it would cease to shine.


Who is the greatest saint? He who is most in love.
For saintship Love alone is warranty enough.
The more thou lovest—Love's the very heart
Of Holiness—the holier thou art.


The entirety of mysticism, of the holy mysteries, of relationship with godhead, the fiery soul of belief and all faith and devotion and the key to the great mystery is itself Love.

[Anonymous No.17704821]

>>17704806
this assumes God is law-bound though, and subject to such reasoning. maybe "reason" is an inadequate word for whatever God does

[Anonymous No.17704825]

>>17704806
No I understand that the absolute is absolute. But that is my point. If it is absolute it is not caused by anything external to act in a way that generates maya. Maya comes from itself. So why would a blissful divine and perfect being create illusion?

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17704843]

>>17704825
This is also explained pretty easily in the tantrik doctrine, I know I’m shilling it hard but much of this is explained.

>>17697538
Read here.

[Anonymous No.17704890]

>>17704819
>The entirety of mysticism, of the holy mysteries, of relationship with godhead, the fiery soul of belief and all faith and devotion and the key to the great mystery is itself Love.
there could be a milion reasons why I do not live up to this love, I don't know, but the particular conundrum is with the non-personhood. "Outside myself and in the other" I know that we are one. But my understanding is that our being one is on terms which are outside of contingent "reality", whereas all manifestation belongs to "reality". Therefore what there exists for "me" to love is not "you". My understanding is that "we" are parts of a whole that for some reason have been deluded into self-hood. So the real, non-contingent I is the real non-contingent You, they are one. The contingent I and the contingent you- the deluded- if I am to act upon their reality then we are not one. You see it mixes ontology: if the reason that I love you is that we are one, then you can not exist and therefore neither can the love. Can I say that I love myself/us? On what terms? I/We have nothing discernable to love that I know of, other than that we were made by the One who Loves. My understanding is that the shared one-consciousness is only defined by its having no defining features. To have defining features is to be relative, and to be relative is to be contingent.

[Anonymous No.17704896]

>>17704825
This.

I can add, if Brahman is all there is an he knows himself (is all-knowing), whence ignorance then?

[Anonymous No.17704934]

How does knowledge give rise to ignorance?
How does unity give rise to multiplicity?
How can light project a shadow?

How how how?

[Anonymous No.17704951]

>>17704934
>anthropomorphising Gods attributes
ngmi
jk lmao I dunno, but why -does- the dao give rise to 1?

[Anonymous No.17705026]

>>17704821
>maybe "reason" is an inadequate word for whatever God does
Of course we can't know whether God is law-bound or not, but if one still insists on saying there must be a reason, purpose or cause for God doing something, then Advaita would say you are trying to have your cake and eat it too by also maintaining that God is outside causation as the transcendent source of all causation. Advaita places a premium on not saying anything about Brahman that would violate the law of non-contradiction, the conditional reality can contradict what's going on in absolute reality without breaking the coherency of the metaphysics, but you cannot do this with God where both sides of the contradiction exist in absolute reality without it violating the LNC, and for Advaita it's more important to avoid doing this than to come up with a reason for Brahman doing things that satisfies the human urge for it to be explained.
>>17704825
>Maya comes from itself. So why would a blissful divine and perfect being create illusion?
The only answer Advaita gives is that it's Brahman's eternal and uncreated nature to do so, and that if there is a "why" which is other than Brahman's eternal uncreated nature, then it results in a dualism of Brahman and the primordial "why" coinciding as a beginningless cause existing eternally alongside Brahman which Brahman is subject to and impelled by.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17705027]

>>17704890
This is why the importance of shakti and perichoresis is key, the Infinite in its divine perfection contains both the one and the infinite, if the absolute did not contain the finite it would not be the absolute, and in fact the particular and universal break down in difference to the highest godhead. Neither God with attributes or god without attributes encompasses the true absolute God which both has all and none and both and neither reconciled within his nature.


>there could be a milion reasons why I do not live up to this love, I don't know, but the particular conundrum is with the non-personhood. "Outside myself and in the other" I know that we are one. But my understanding is that our being one is on terms which are outside of contingent "reality",

Within perception, the other is nothing but your own perception and there is no hard division between maya and Brahman. Relative reality is nothing but the expression of the interior quality in particular manifest forms of the ultimate nature of Brahman. Maya is shakti, the illusion is awareness of particular portions of Godhead. There is nothing untrue about Maya when you look clearly for each manifest form is the emblem of the absolute. It is only a matter of perception that we do not see this nature of Brahman. This relative world is not so neatly divided with the absolute as you think it is, it is not cut up like a cake or levels in a game. It is a question of perception.

>whereas all manifestation belongs to "reality". Therefore what there exists for "me" to love is not "you".

I and you have no meaning,context or relation without the unity of Godhead, and our multiplicity is not an illusion, rather it is the manifest being and nature of Love of the godhead, this my Ego, my empirical existence in time is Bhairava himself, this illusion is the lover of the supreme truth and is Nondual to it, thus there is no falseness in it.

>My understanding is that "we" are parts of a whole that for some reason have been deluded into self-hood.

You cannot divide God into parts, only in the perception is this the case and deluded is a strong word, it is the play and pleasure of God for his own sake through his own sake. God intoxicated upon God. God ever in love with God.

>So the real, non-contingent I is the real non-contingent You, they are one. The contingent I and the contingent you- the deluded- if I am to act upon their reality then we are not one.

We are both multiplicity and divided and yet all aspects of us interpenetrate in the nature of maya, of shakti and every part of it is Nondual to Brahman/paramsiva. Our unity is not a static monad but an active and passive harmony. Once more I elaborate upon all of this in the link.

Cont

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17705047]

>>17704890
>You see it mixes ontology: if the reason that I love you is that we are one, then you can not exist and therefore neither can the love.

At no point can shiva be without his shakti, at no point is Brahman without maya. If Brahman is the totality and absolute he must contain all, all contains the finite and particular, the relative. As such Brahman is never separate from the nature of maya, and in reverse, the nature of Maya is made of Brahman, filled with Brahman, and it is not a veiling of Brahman, rather maya unveils the diverse infinity of the Brahman.

> Can I say that I love myself/us? On what terms?

See above.

> I/We have nothing discernable to love that I know of, other than that we were made by the One who Loves. My understanding is that the shared one-consciousness is only defined by its having no defining features. To have defining features is to be relative, and to be relative is to be contingent.

See Above.

Within the supreme ultimate this distinction of relative and divinity is annihilated.

[Anonymous No.17705308]

>>17705047
what I can tell you is that it has never clicked for me- as you can probably tell- how "this world" could adequately manifest God. At the same time obviously I read scripture in the hopes that it could point to God, as I suspect you mean a proper perception of His attributes manifest would point to Him.

I read your posts and decided I should read your pastebin. The odd thing, and why I'm writing you now instead of reading, is that I do think that there was some form of experience of this
>"absolute existence, it is the point prior to being and the essential nature of reality. Its nature can be called empty and nothing, for it lacks any particular parts or aspects, nothing for it is like nothing that we can conceive of or speak of."
what I wrote about not having defining features above- it is possible that this is what I meant. This I have experienced and understood as the pre-requisite, but in my experience I thought it to be the pre-requisite of being *as being becomes through being observed*, which is to say all being relative to all knowing. I was unsure if anything could be which was not known. Well that's where I was. I'm gonna read some more.

[Anonymous No.17705330]

>>17705308
ah, reading a few more lines, shiva is probably a better reading

[Anonymous No.17705395]

>>17697538
>Will, knowledge and Action
so these are taken to be essentially part and parcel of consciousness? this, if anything, is what I understand to be the metaphysic of love, that there is direction inherent in Shiva

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17705560]

>>17705395
>Will, knowledge and Action
>so these are taken to be essentially part and parcel of consciousness? this, if anything, is what I understand to be the metaphysic of love, that there is direction inherent in Shiva


Shakti is awareness/consciousness, shiva is the self which pervades consciousness and is Nondual to it. Prior to maya as perception, shakti exists in its triune form as the three para’s which are Will, knowledge and action. All is the love and self relationship of shiva and shakti. I know I’m beating a dead horse but much of this is explained in the pastebin.

[Anonymous No.17705573]

>>17704698
But gurus and monks say those experiences are indeed vacuous. "Whatever is subject to origination is subject to cessation" is an iron law. Sounds like you never distinguished spirituality from sentimentalism.

[Anonymous No.17705618]

>>17705573
Yes as you say it's all vacuous
There's no point to any of it, I mean certainly you can find personal meaning in it but in the end none of the stuff you do will actually give you access to the absolute truth or whatever. Only death might and even that's far from guaranteed.

[Anonymous No.17705632]

>>17705560
>All is the love and self relationship of shiva and shakti
not Paramsiva?

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17705665]

>>17705632
There is no difference between paramsiva and parashakti, shiva and shakti, nor this the heart of man and individuality nor of maya. Once more give that write up a read.

[Anonymous No.17705675]

This is all well and good but, I'm not sold on Advaita yet. It's too counterintuitive.

[Anonymous No.17705734]

>>17705665
I'm sorry if I've wearied you with inanity.
what's your take on war Frater? and on political religion in general?

[Anonymous No.17705754]

>>17705665
>Frater
That's masonic/thelema cringe bro. People see that and think of a fat bald virgin who tries to get into sex magick to lose his virginity.

[Anonymous No.17705798]

>>17705675
That's why you have to try reading Shankara's commentaries and judging it yourself that way instead of basing it on 4chan arguments, or better yet, try to find an argument of his that you think you can disprove.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17705806]

>>17705734
>what's your take on war Frater?

I am no Pacifist nor do I mindlessly glorify war. I see in war an opportunity for man to express all of his force and power, but also as much as it may help in development it costs much in resources. As such war is a question of calculation and ultimately is as pervaded by God as any other thing. My opinion isn’t much different from the one in the gita insofar as State’s and groups must protect and fight for their own interests and betterment. This is their role in this world.

>and on political religion in general?

In general I find obsession with politics as an identity to be weak and foolish, I find the abuse of religion by political bodies for their agenda to be disgusting however I do believe it is something that should be done if it can lead to betterment of the society, group and individuals. I am not of the belief that there can be some kind of peace on earth established through a state enacting the Will of god, because I am of the belief that all states and governments inherently enact the Will of God through their relationship to history. (But I am a Christian and a Hegelian so this is to be expected)

But in any case I’ll stop I do not wish to go too off topic, would be rude of me ya know.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17705832]

>>17705754
Yeah I know, I trip to To save conversations, save critique, key posts, arguments, recommendations and so forth. Also a matter of sentimentality, a group of friends of mine would all use the frater name and though we no longer speak regularly, I still like em. If there was no archive I wouldn’t use it. I don’t really trip for reasons of pride so if anons get the wrong idea and think I’m sillier than I am it’s really not that big of a deal. Apologies for producing the ugly mental image.

[Anonymous No.17705838]

>>17705806
>But in any case I’ll stop I do not wish to go too off topic, would be rude of me ya know.
shit I forgot all about that.
thanks man

[Anonymous No.17705839]

>>17705618
No, what I mean is that you thought those experiences were the goal, found them, realized they wear off, and are now writing off spirituality, but those experiences were never the goal, just something that can happen on the path.

[Anonymous No.17705873]

>>17705832
I'm the one who's sorry for being a dick. You sound like a cool dude.

[Anonymous No.17705874]

>>17705839
No, I'm saying the goal itself is vacuous. You may think you've reached nirvana or union with god or whatever your goal is but it's nothing.
I'm writing off spirituality in the sense that I do not believe any spiritual practice will make you reach the truth

[Anonymous No.17706098]

>>17704934
>How does knowledge give rise to ignorance?
Ignorance doesn't exist as a real entity like knowledge of something does, ignorance is just the lack of proper knowledge of something, the negation of something which exists doesn't have its own existence which needs to be accounted for because it's simply the lack of something that does have actual real existence. Ignorance is beginningless because God is anterior to time (which is along with duality etc perceived out of ignorance) as its transcendental source which can only be expressed in terms of time by saying that God is beginningless or outside time, and so by virtue of possessing knowledge of Himself as the omnipotent source of everything it is effortless and natural for him exercise His own omniscient use of His own power to grant them to grant to individual beings the semblance of existing in a multiplicity which is its own lack of the eternally true self-revealing constant and knowledge of Himself as immortal sentient bliss that He always possesses, while also granting the end of their ignorance through the very same eternal, natural and inherent wilding of His omniscience that granted them ignorance in the first place, all without paying any attention to to any of them as individuals or without their ignorance arising as a visible object that interrupts or disturbs His own eternal non-dual constant revelation of Himself to Himself as infinite and eternal sentience.
>How does unity give rise to multiplicity?
Because the infinite entity that is the Lord is completely united in His own partless and undivided unicity He is capable of producing the semblance of any finite thing out of itself like how if you multiply one by an unlimited amount you can come up with an unlimited number of specific numbers, at all times it remains undifferentiated as Himself though, the multiplicity only being a semblance of it arising from Him being the transcendental source of the ignorance that is the origin of our experience of time, space, causation etc which results in us seeming to experience it as the true reality.
>How can light project a shadow?
In the same way that the concept of non-existence can only be imagined or conceiving of in any form or fashion by virtue of that mental concept occurring at the same times as and by the self-illuminating light of our own conscious experience of our thoughts and other mental phenomena. these and other such thoughts come and go within the same continuous span of uninterrupted awareness that cannot be reduce down to its constituents because it is formless and partless.

[Anonymous No.17706804]

How do I become a secular Advaitin? I accept the basic premise of Shankarian non-dualism but not the unscientific components of it.

[Anonymous No.17707101]

>>17697491
I don’t understand

[Anonymous No.17707130]

>>17706804
You just have to read through his works and figure out yourself whether or not you can integrate it into your own life and whether or not it can be reconciled with science and if so how much, some people travel to India and become Advaita monks, some people in the west become monks with the Ramakrishna order that has branches in the west, other people combine their acceptance of Advaita with other religions and join other religions or other sects of Hinduism while also viewing Advaita as true in a perennialist manner, this is basically what Guenon did with Sufism. Some people just enjoy reading the philosophy in their spare time and don't worry about specific labels like "do I need to X to be a proper Y?".

The orthodox answer is that you cant become a real Advaitin and attain liberation without being initiated into it as a real monk anyway but short of that there is still a whole spectrum of ways in which one can still study it oneself or with others and have that be meaningful for oneself and permanently change one's perspective on things. Until you've familiarized yourself with his writings and judged them for yourself though its all purely hypothetical. You may have already but from your question it sounds like not really.

[Anonymous No.17707156]

I was watching capeshit on disney+ yesterday and noticed something shankarian/nagarjunian about this scene.

[Anonymous No.17707825]

>>17706804
>im okay with metaphysical and universal Truth but only if it conforms to my modern materialist presuppositions and scientism
Wow I love soience! gaping_mouth_wojack.jpg

[Anonymous No.17707849]

>>17703680
Are you self studied or part of monastic order under a wise Guru?

[Anonymous No.17707851]

>>17707825
>im okay with metaphysical and universal Truth but only if it conforms to my modern materialist presuppositions and scientism
Unironically yes

[OP No.17708001]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEJcYrlv4y8&ab_channel=ArshaBodhaCenter-SwamiTadatmananda

I'm listening to this guy's lectures and he translantes sad-cid-anad as existence-consciousness-fullness. So instead of "knowledge" he has "consciousness".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEJcYrlv4y8&ab_channel=ArshaBodhaCenter-SwamiTadatmananda

In the 48:30 he says that consciouness doesn't think, only the mind thinks. Consciouness makes knowledge possible, but does not itself 'know'. Only the jiva knows.

That solves the problema for me. Thanks guys, your responses have been really well thought out, but this guy seems like he knows what he's talking about and his explanation seems more philosophicaly satisfying to me.

Cheers

[OP No.17708006]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEJcYrlv4y8&ab_channel=ArshaBodhaCenter-SwamiTadatmananda [Embed]

I'm listening to this guy's lectures and he translantes sad-cid-anad as existence-consciousness-fullness instead of being-knowledge-bliss, as I incorrectly stated in the OP. So instead of "knowledge" he has "consciousness".

In the 48:30 mark he says that consciouness doesn't think, only the mind thinks. Consciouness makes knowledge possible, but does not itself 'know'. Only the jiva knows.

That solves the problema for me. Thanks guys, your responses have been really well thought out, but this guy seems like he knows what he's talking about and his explanation seems more philosophicaly satisfying to me.

Cheers

[Anonymous No.17708716]

>>17707851
>Unironically a midwit
based brainwashed secularist

[Anonymous No.17709003]

>>17708716
I'd sooner be a secularist than a cringey orientalist larper

[Anonymous No.17709009]

>>17709003
That would be a tough one to decide.

[Anonymous No.17709215]

>>17709003
westerners are better suited for Christianity or Islam, maybe Platonism if they have the potential to apprehend it within them.

[Anonymous No.17709345]

>>17706804
learn science, to see it's all bogus too

[Anonymous No.17709360]

>>17706098
Yeah God didn't give humans knowledge from the start, in order to make human suffer. It's retarded and similar to judaism.

This is why Buddhism is better, since they don't rely on god.

As usual the theists dont have e a come back to the problem of evil.

[Anonymous No.17709520]

>>17709360
>This is why Buddhism is better, since they don't rely on god.
Nirvana is the unconditioned, eternal, omniscient aspect of God viewed impersonally. It's what the buddhist path seeks to realize and conform to in order to escape the problem of suffering and contingency in maya.

>As usual the theists dont have e a come back to the problem of evil.
The Fall explains it. You can't have evil with a universal, unchanging divine moral arbiter.

In terms of metaphysics evil has no substantial existence in itself, it's the deprivation of the Good, a lack.
Creation implies a separation from God. Since creation is not equal to God this separation creates the possibility of evil. Furthermore all evil is basically virtual and transient, in the final calculus evil will be judged, mended, healed, reconciled and God will be ''all in all''.

[Anonymous No.17709535]

>This is why Buddhism is better, since they don't rely on god.
Nirvana is the unconditioned, eternal, omniscient aspect of God viewed impersonally. It's what the buddhist path seeks to realize and conform to in order to escape the problem of suffering and contingency in maya.

>As usual the theists dont have e a come back to the problem of evil.
The Fall explains its origin. You can't have objective morality without human agency and God as judge and arbiter.

In terms of metaphysics evil has no substantial existence in itself, it's the deprivation of the Good, a lack.
Creation implies a separation from God. Since creation is not equal to God this separation creates the possibility of evil. Furthermore all evil is basically virtual and transient, in the final calculus evil will be judged, mended, healed, reconciled and God will be ''all in all''.

[Anonymous No.17709666]

time+self relative

'the tao that can be spoken is not the eternal toa
or some such

rationality will fail you with all of this because rationality has presuppotions, and cultural+ancestral patterns caked in

[Anonymous No.17709677]

>>17704473
nice to see you again tantrabro
you recommended some reading to me awhile back (I post Kali pictures with questions)
appreciate your posts

[Anonymous No.17709714]

>>17704473
>more Nondual and embracing of maya
tantra is full embrace of maya conceptually
the current iteration of maya, or the current illusion, is what is subject to change

more immersion and embrace of reality
just which reality

[Anonymous No.17709726]

>>17704527
confusion is closer to truth
there is only a wheel
what way do you currently feel like going/growing

the only true sin is stagnation

[Anonymous No.17709733]

>>17704565
>Ego death is the highest ego trip.
this is apt imo
remember that it is YOU in this state. It is contextual to YOU and the current time you find yourself in.
it will give you a lot of belief and that will ripple out.

you don't need to address is though, really.
you can just embrace maya and let the energy run it's course

[Anonymous No.17709798]

>>17703708
>but this is not what the word means etymologically in Sanskrit
Actually that's exactly what it means, in older Vedic texts it means the magical power of gods. And your citations show that it is used to mean God's power that he uses to project the universe from himself. Krishna doesn't describe it as illusion.

[Anonymous No.17709816]

>>17704825
>So why would a blissful divine and perfect being create illusion?
to play

[Anonymous No.17709828]

>>17704633
lmaaooooo
actually legitimate question

[Anonymous No.17709846]

>>17709003
thats a Shiva worshipper
and if u believe in indoeuropean connection then I don't see how this is cringe

[Anonymous No.17709853]

>>17709828
has no body

[Anonymous No.17709861]

>>17709846
i was going to say that while india is in asia it's a bit stupid to call it oriental.

[Anonymous No.17710411]

>>17709360
>This is why Buddhism is better, since they don't rely on god.
Except that this isn’t true because as Shankaracharya pointed out Buddhists are unable to explain how pratityasamutpada exists at all, they deny that it’s uncaused and eternal and according to their metaphysics its unable to be self-caused but at the same time Buddhism doesn’t admit any principle exterior to pratityasamutpada from which it can arise. Absent anything which can permit pratityasamutpada to exist it wouldn’t exist at all and so Buddhism is unable to provide a logically coherent explanation of what permits pratityasamutpada to exist at all and through that give rise to everything.
> As usual the theists dont have e a come back to the problem of evil.
non-dual Vedanta solves the problem of evil, you can read “Indian Thought and the Problem of Evil” by Arthur Herman for a full book-long explanation of why and and how.

[Anonymous No.17710422]

Are there any mahayana critiques of advaita or do they not really care

[Anonymous No.17710440]

>>17709816
play presupposes a lack of fulfillment to begin with which is fulfilled by play, but Brahman cannot be unfulfilled, i.e. in need of fulfillment as its contrary to the Upanishads and logic

[Anonymous No.17710496]

>>17710422
The Mahayanist and Vajrayanist Buddhists attempted to critique Advaita several times, but each time they didn’t study it very well and they got a bunch of stuff wrong about it and each time their critiques largely consist of attacking Advaita for doctrines which are not even taught by Advaita to begin with. None of the Mahayana or Vajrayana Buddhists ever attempted to actually reply to or refute any of Shankaracharya’s extensive arguments against and refutations of Buddhism either. In this thread linked below you can see Shantaraksita’s and Kamalasila’s arguments against Advaita quoted, and it explained how their arguments are wrong.

>>/lit/thread/S16894953#p16904797

And in this thread you can see Mipham’s arguments against Advaita quoted and it explained how his arguments are wrong as well

>>/lit/thread/S17461767#p17466352

Another Mahayana Buddhist Bhaviveka also attempted to critique Advaita also, although it was just the pre-Shankarite Advaita of Gaudapada, and as Andrew Nicholson in his book ‘Unifying Hinduism’ notes, Bhaviveka did not understand Advaita either but his arguments against what he thought was Advaita stem from Bhaviveka confusing Advaita with Bhedabheda and attributing to Advaita a contradictory mix of the views of both schools.

[Anonymous No.17710523]

>>17710496
Interesting thank you, I hope some buddhist will reply as well so I can see both sides of the story

[Anonymous No.17710659]

>>17709798
>older Vedic texts it means the magical power of gods.
It’s uses sparsely in the Vedas, and some people interpret it as being used in the sense of creative act in the Vedas but it’s clearly used in the sense of illusion in the Upanishads and this is why the Upanishadic passages that mention maya also mention it in connection with appearances, entanglement and covering. If maya was just the Lord’s creation then it would be celebrated and praised in the Upanishads as evincing the glory of the handiwork of He who wields it instead of being described as something which causes entanglement and which covers Brahman from us. The Upanishads also say that Brahman is to be known from the Upanishads alone, and not from the Upanishads in combination with the non-Upanishad mantras, aranyakas, brahmanas and so forth, so maya being used slightly differently in a few Vedic verses does not supercede or cancel out the clear connotations of bondage and illusion that its usage in the Upanishads has. According to the Upanishads they effectively supercede whatever the Vedas say about the Lord, the Vedas deal with karmakāṇḍa that is apara-vidya and the Upanishads constitute the Jnāna-Kāṇḍa that is the para-vidya. And the verses in the Upanishads which say that multiplicity is unreal and that the perception of multiplicity leads to further transmigration (i.e. in the Brihadaranyaka and Katha) supports this interpretation.

[Anonymous No.17710670]

basically there are a bunch of spiritual/metaphysical things which to human reason seem to imply a singular creator, but the thing is that human reason is created and deals with what is created on the terms of the created, but the creator does not exist on the terms of the created, and therefore the value of the human judgement that spirituality points to a creator is of limited value.

[Anonymous No.17710680]

>>17710670
>human reason
or unreason for that matter. the point is that we reach a highest level, and that level implies a single creator, but how could any implication do?

[Anonymous No.17710723]

>>17708006
He and Advaita would still say that consciousness intuitively knows itself or has its own conscious presence constantly revealed to itself in a manner that doesn’t involve thinking (which is what the mind/intellect does and not consciousness) and which doesn’t involve taking itself as its own object of knowledge either. He doesn’t mean that consciousness is blind.

[Anonymous No.17710752]

>>17710670
Most metaphysics already accepts that human reasoning is not able to infallibly deduce the nature of God down to the last detail, that’s not something which undermines the validity of metaphysics but it’s a basic insight which they already account for.

[Anonymous No.17710761]

>>17710752
but doesn't that heavily favor the buddhist position of leaving the matter alone? rather than theism I mean?

[Anonymous No.17710770]

>>17710440
play doesn't need a reason

[Anonymous No.17710777]

>>17710761
>>17710761
>>17710761
I suppose, again, that this comes back to the fact that neither position could be favored for any real reason. it is, perhaps, "only" logical to say that saying nothing is more right than wagering a guess. but the problem with "creating" a Creator of language is that He, whatever he is, is for certain not contained in language. I suspect this is what they are trying to avoid: any Creator you can speak of is not it, so better not speak

[Anonymous No.17710803]

>>17710777
as soon as you presuppose what reality is, you plant a seed and act from that point then begin to alter reality from there

[Anonymous No.17710825]

>>17697491
Is it weird I feel like I can smell that image? I can never take anything from India seriously or view them as a civilization in any sense despite them very clearly deserving the credit, because they smell bad and look like they smell bad too.

[Anonymous No.17710853]

>>17710803
what I'm after is that I have yet to uncover any theology that exlains why what is manifest is what it is. What you arrive at is something like the islamic doctrine of the Divine Attributes of God, and that all of creation exists to manifest these. But why are these the particular attributes being manifested? Why is God "the loving" for instance, and not "the hating"? I believe there is a line in the Quran to the effect that a creation of another character than the particular character of God would tear itself to shreds, but I doubt I could google my way to it effectively. In that case one could say that the single set of attributes that caused creation is the only possible set, but that begs a whole number of other questions about what goes on beyond that Veil of veils.

Same thing with the brahman worship: the question of "why a karmic order" goes unanswered, remains unanswerable. Something is according to some order. Why this particular order? This is where I mean that one can find an implication of a Creator, but where the terms that cause the Creator to favor this order are inherently unknowable.

One could easily settle, and many have, on the One that can be known and which one can join into. The one through which all creation happens. But there still appears to be an inherent order to that One, which Frater summarized above as Will, Knowledge and Action. When the One exists, these exist. That is a contradiction and yet seems to be something like what all traditions arrive at. How can no-being be compassionate for instance? It is this character that is the great mystery and which I think many take as evidence of a Creator, but, as I've said a number of times now, that hinges on logic.

[Anonymous No.17710961]

>>17710853
>exlains why what is manifest is what it is
how would you ever conclude an answer
my guess is this place was a shell and then "souls" brought energy here and shaped it.

anyway you can't bring rationality to this stuff as I said earlier
your rationality has language semantics, cultural and ancestral conditioning/pattern conditioning, and pre-established values.

I don't think "god" is "the loving" or "the hating" just that it is understanding of your situation. Pretty hard for something all knowing to be hateful of you when you are just the cascading of reactions. The tests or events "god" puts forward are more like to alter you in some way.
To me, it is a mirror. It reflects or matches what you offer it.
And when you "love", you have sacrificed yourself, your energy. You are both creating and giving energy at the same time. But you have sacrificed yourself in a certain direction so you get certain knowledge. You have offered yourself to this reality in some way so you get some knowledge. God is very invested in this place. Seeing others get invested and make offerings is what love is. So when you do this you are afforded more awareness of what's going on here. Processes you weren't aware of before. You get more agency here, if you want it. You are then free to use that as you wish.

Karma, imo, is just a way of personally selling the individual on the need for balance. This thing is self contained meaning it relies on self producing energy. Balancing give and take.
I could get more into karma but that's the jist for me.
The "order" is about energy balance and...contracts, I suppose you could say.

>But there still appears to be an inherent order to that One, which Frater summarized above as Will, Knowledge and Action. When the One exists, these exist.

You're playing games with yourself bro
1. Will - gumption, reason, drive
2. Knowledge - awareness of your surroundings and self
3. Action - self explainatory

From a personal tantric POV, you are not separate from God. You are part of God. You are part of gods process. You can steer the wheel the more you follow those 3 principles.

Separating self from God imo just cucked everyone.

>logic
Always starts with a presupposition
These are just word games man
If you want to know god, go act and -feel- it

[Anonymous No.17711011]

>>17710961
would you say that this approach favors belief in a Creator or that it does not, and why?

[Anonymous No.17711084]

>>17711011
Creator is a word that presupposes a start
I can't comment on something like that

Do I think there is something, or various aspects of that something that has/have more awareness and agency over this place beyond my own understanding? Yes absolutely
I also think it's possible for me to ascend and gather more awareness and agency myself

This is taking an individuated perspective
Like I said you can't talk about this stuff without making it something
All things are connected, earth is like a biome and it's inside a "bigger" biome. You are part of it. I think the thing itself is "alive", ALL of it. But is there a force/forces with agency over all of it? One that can change any and all of it at will?
Idk lol probably

How should any of us know
Like I said we make it something by presupposing and it biases all our action
Change God from he to she, everything change
Drama, to game, to experiment, to simulation.
Everything changes.

No one knows. Were just making this shit up. Presupposition acts as a projection. When someone talks to you about what this is, it's all self projection because we don't know.
I think it's just a sandbox that other "things" or "stuff" has more agency over than I currently do.

[Anonymous No.17711342]

>>17697491
It is knowledge-without-a-knower nor an object of knowledge. The hypostasis that procceed from the One are the One insofar as they are. How can one limit the unlimited? How can one give borders to that which shirks all borders? Seeing this contradiction will break you to thauma, wonderment. All conceptions of the nondual (apollon, that without parts) are self-destroying, and in that iterative self-negation, in the dynamis of unsaying, the Absolute can be glimpsed.

t. plotinian neoplatonist

[Anonymous No.17711354]

>>17711342
Also Plotinus tried to go to India to study with the gymnosophists but he had to dip when Gordian III got wasted like a bitch

[Anonymous No.17711418]

>>17710853
Ramana Maharshi says all gods were just created to tell the unrealized something about ultimate truth they can understand, but to the realized there is no God or gods. The Ashtavakra Gita ends in asserting there is no God, among other things, so I don't think it's just Sri Ramana.

So you're getting caught up on a tale made for the unliberated, not on a literal statement on reality, which is not possible as reality cannot be understood verbally.

[Anonymous No.17711474]

>>17697491
no, you're right

[Anonymous No.17711481]

>>17710761
No, because beginningless pratityasamutapada fails to withstand logical analysis as something which can account for the existence of itself and samsara as Shankaracharya points out in his works. Instead of going with "There's no way of knowing for sure but let's go with this explanation which is unable to account for its own existence and which shouldn't exist to begin with because of that" it makes more sense to say "we can't know for sure but let's go with this explanation which is able to satisfactorily account for the existence of samsara because it has an eternal and beginningless existence as That which samsara is contingent upon, and which also explains the unfathomably deep levels of order and fine tuning which work together to sustain the universe or samsara, which it is absurd to think arose by chance or unintelligent aggregates combining with each other.

[Anonymous No.17711569]

>>17710523
In order to be able to dispute any of that and in order to be able to say with any authority whether or not those arguments of the Buddhists were correct, they would have had to have read through most of Shankaracharya's writings so that they could either confirm or dispute that it's indeed true that the Mahayanists and Vajrayanists completely misunderstood Advaita and that their arguments fail because of that, but many Buddhists would consider reading through Shankaracharya's writings to be anathema.

[Anonymous No.17711879]

>>17711481
>>No, because beginningless pratityasamutapada fails to withstand logical analysis
Not relevant. pratityasamutapada is verifiable and your mental gymnastics about the spook of ''being logical'' is blown the fuck out and only intellectuals who prefer their mental proliferation over reality are butthurt about it.

Also applying logic outside formal logic exposes you as retard who have no idea what he is talking about

Anyway, buddhism is way better than the Hindu view that ''brahman forgot to give you knowledge of brahman lol''

[Anonymous No.17712347]

>>17711879
>Not relevant. pratityasamutapada is verifiable
No it's not

>One finds such a list as nescience (avidya), the will to sense-experience which leads to the formation of an empirical personality in a future birth (samskara), consciousness as the core of the individual (vijnana), the psycho-physical organism in its rudimentary state (nama-rupa), the six areas of contact (or sense-experience) (sad-ayatana), sensation (sparsa), pleasurepain feeling (vedana), thirst (trsna), activity based on thirst (upadana), changeful bodily existence (bhava), resulting from the merit and demerit of activity, birth, old-age, death, grief, lamentation, pain and despair. No one, they claim, can possibly deny this chain of causation beginning with nescience. And once the whole causal chain beginning with nescience is admitted to exist, and to be revolving continually like a wheel with buckets at a well, it is found to imply that the formation of aggregates must be possible.

>But this is not right, as the causes so far mentioned lead to production (of the next effect in the series) only (and not to aggregation of any kind). An aggregate could be admitted if an intelligible cause were assigned for it. But it is not. Nescience and the rest may cause one another mutually in your cycle, but they only cause the rise of the next link in the chain. There is nothing to show that anything could be the cause of an aggregate. True, you claimed that if nescience and the rest were admitted, an aggregate was necessarily implied. To this, however, we reply as follows. If you mean that nescience and the rest cannot arise except in the presence of some aggregate and so are dependent on it, then (if you wish to defend your system) you still have to explain what could be the cause of the aggregate. Now, we have already shown in the course of our criticism of the Vaisesikas that aggregation is unintelligible even when supported by such assumptions as that of the existence of eternal atoms along with eternal individual experiencers who serve as permanent loci for the conservation of the effects of past action. So it will be all the less intelligible in a theory in which only atoms of momentary existence are admitted, without any permanent experiencer or any permanent locus for anything. If the Buddhist now claims that it is this causal chain beginning with nescience that is the cause of aggregation, we ask how this causal chain could ever be the cause of aggregation when it depends on aggregation for its own existence.

[Anonymous No.17713010]

how does one know if one is attached? I'm sure most people in this thread have read and on some level believe in the transcience of all phenomena and the danger of attachment to them. Well, the phenomena are there. How do I know if I am attached?

[Anonymous No.17713174]

>>17713010
Detachment is being indifferent to these phenomena.

[Anonymous No.17713255]

>>17713174
desu I think the one thing I have a hard time letting go of is my financial insecurity. I worry about it. I have a creeping suspicion that what would set me free would be some realization pertaining to free will. Or to suffering, I guess, in a scenario where I really do let go

[Anonymous No.17713262]

>>17701932
>In fact why should I even become a Buddhist when I can just read their texts and meditate on my own?
Because Buddhism isn't just meditation?

[Anonymous No.17713336]

>>17713010
Can't let go

[Anonymous No.17713390]

>>17713174
Working with Tantra and Maya I find it a lot different than what everyone else expresses
Would also like to say that this experience changes for men and women I find

But essentially, it feels like I am to get very caught up and immersed in the illusion. To obsess and make it my whole life. To be utterly married to it.
And then for a few different (tantric oriented) reasons, be able to utterly dissociate from it. Either by simply checking out and totally sucking myself out of maya (Shiva) or finding a new illusion to play in (shakti)

[Anonymous No.17713539]

>>17713336
actually the one thing I really can't let go of is the salvation game

[Anonymous No.17713556]

>>17713336
Does this include family?

[Anonymous No.17713628]

Are mayavadins perverse or just deluded vaishnava bros?

[Anonymous No.17713969]

>>17713556
It's that when you need to let go, you can
That if it's just that time (you will have to determine that)

It doesn't mean enabling everything, you still exist and express

[Anonymous No.17715266]

is it just the auto-erotic oesphyxiation of the obdurate soul keeper?

[Anonymous No.17715329]

>>17715266
>oesphyxiation
no, that would be buddhism

[Anonymous No.17716323]

>>17697491

>The perception of pain becomes paradigmatic of the type of apperception or awareness he envisions when discussion self- awareness as unmediated perception, i.e., a non-discursive, non-conceptual and non-propositional type of knowledge that, nonetheless, constitutes a mode of knowing distinct from discursive knowledge. Similar to pain, self-awareness provides yet another illustration of this type of epistemic process. In this manner, Suhrawardi is able to explain the knowledge of both an individual self-awareness of its self and the awareness of other external objects of knowledge. The unmediated nature of this process characterizes both the soul’s self-awareness and the soul’s awareness or knowledge of external objects of knowledge, such as dominating (intelligible) light-entities, and even provides the conditions for possible glimpses of the Light of Lights, God, it may catch (Suh. 1993a, 72–3, 487–9; cf. Kaukua 2015, 130–1).

>The concept of self-awareness informs the epistemological and ontological aspects of Suhrawardi’s metaphysic of lights. Building upon a basic type of self-awareness found in Avicenna (but without its inference to the substantiality of the human soul) and the selfhood (of the contemplative soul) of the Arabic Plotinus, Suhrawardi introduces a pre-cognitive level of self-consciousness or self-awareness, logically prior to any distinction between subject and object (Kaukua 2011, 141–4). Self-awareness of human beings is equated with the self-awareness that incorporeal lights possess and share. Suhrawardi writes, “It has been shown that your ego (ana’iyya) is an incorporeal light, that it is self-conscious, and that the incorporeal lights do not differ in their realities. Thus, all the incorporeal lights must apprehend their own essences (dhat), since that which is necessarily true of a thing must also be true of that which has the same reality” (PI, §127; cf. Kaukua 2011, 150). He thus distinguishes the ‘object of cognition’ from the ‘subject’, the latter embodied in the ‘I-ness’ (ana’iyya) coined by Suhrawardi to identify the “mode of being proper to a cognitive subject”; self-awareness, as mere apprehension and existence, is now distinguished from the awareness of separate objects (Kaukua 2015, 113; Marcotte 2006).

[Anonymous No.17717753]

>>17711879
>''brahman forgot to give you knowledge of brahman lol''
kek

[Anonymous No.17717789]

>>17711879
Oh nonono. Advaita aka Buddhism lite completely destroyed!

[Anonymous No.17717926]

>>17717789
Advaita is Mahayana. Buddhism is none of those 2

[Anonymous No.17718281]

>>17697491
The self is a void.

total, empty darkness.

close your eyes and what do you see?

nothing. that is the darkness you will return to.

only the world feeds your senses. everything you know, you have seen. and in the end you will return to the endless void of a self. you may be brought back again, depending on how great the yearning is, in the void.

but the self is empty. only the world is real.

[Anonymous No.17718296]

>>17718281
The self is a composition of the world
An uprooted aspect of it

[Anonymous No.17718451]

>>17713010
>How do I know if I am attached?
>How do I know
>if I am attached?
>do I know
>if I am
>I know
>I am
>I
>I

[Anonymous No.17718466]

>>17704657
The Buddha himself was a Hindu and claimed to be the 7th Avatara of Vishnu, Lord Ram, reborn in the Jataka. I have always seen him as a Hindu reformer whose followers sprang a new religion rather than a man actively trying to start a new one

[Anonymous No.17718484]

>>17697491
You're wrong. That is not the nature of Brahman. It's the nature of Paramatman.