/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19074558]

Mundaka Upanisad. I.ii.10

>10. 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.

Are the inferior parts of the Vedas unnecessary for full realization of Brahman? Or is what is being said that these rituals are necessary but only as a stepping stone to full enlgithenment? I feel that it must be the former because of what is said earlier in the same Upanisad:

>5. Of these, the Apara is the Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sama Veda, and the Atharva Veda, the siksha, the code of rituals, grammar, nirukta, chhandas and astrology. Then the para is that by which the immortal is known.

>6. (By the higher knowledge) the wise ralize everywhere that which cannot be perceived and grasped

So clearly a disctinction is made between all the different Vedas and the true understanding of Brahmand lies in knowledge alone, wholly independent of all other practices. Shankara also says earlier than this that in Brahman all actions cease because all distinction is lost in nonduality. So why would the inferior rituals of the Vedas be necessary? And if they are unnecessary for the highest realization why are they in the Vedas at all?

[Anonymous No.19074634]

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.19074645]

>>19074634
>>19074558
>Shankara OP
>This response
Are these just two bots going at it? I've seen this exchange so many times on this board.

[Anonymous No.19074648]

>>19074634
if you actually understand anything you're talking about than answer my question

[Anonymous No.19074699]

>>19074645
I always thought it was one guy arguing against himself, but the first 4 posts are by 3 different users. Maybe he's using a computer and a phone to do it? I legitimately have no idea why these threads even exist.

[Anonymous No.19074727]

>>19074699
I assure you I am a real person. Being in incognito mode might be messing with the post counting. I'm pretty sure the "careful-poster" has at this point become a meme to spam on Shankara threads.

[Anonymous No.19074840]

>>19074558
>Are the inferior parts of the Vedas unnecessary for full realization of Brahman?
Yes, only the knowledge imparted by the Upanishads is.
>Or is what is being said that these rituals are necessary but only as a stepping stone to full enlightenment?
Shankara in his works says that they are optional, but for people who are concerned with fulfilling desires and who are not ready to be sannyasin, performing Vedic rituals with the right intention and attitude helps one to ‘burn off’ accumulated sins, which can then indirectly lead one to liberation by causing one to decide to pursue monasticism and moksha after this goal becomes more appealing when sins have been burned away and ones heart purified. This is not required at all though.
>So clearly a disctinction is made between all the different Vedas and the true understanding of Brahmand lies in knowledge alone, wholly independent of all other practices. Shankara also says earlier than this that in Brahman all actions cease because all distinction is lost in nonduality. So why would the inferior rituals of the Vedas be necessary?
They are not necessary for moksha, they are only necessary if you seek what they are supposed to lead to the acquirement of (sons, cows, heaven etc)
>And if they are unnecessary for the highest realization why are they in the Vedas at all?
Because as Shankara says “ We see how people disobey even the scriptures because of an excess of attachment etc. Therefore according to the varying tendencies of people, the scriptures variously teach the particular relations subsisting between the ends and means. In this matter people themselves adopt particular means according to their tastes, and the scriptures simply, remain neutral, like the sun, for instance, or a lamp. Similarly somebody may think the highest goal to be not worth striving after. One chooses one’s goal according to one's knowledge, and wants to adopt corresponding means.” - Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣadbhāṣya 2.1.20

[Anonymous No.19074865]

>>19074727
>I assure you I am a real person.
False, only Brahman is a real person. You are just a jiva which is Brahman wielding His power of Maya.

[Anonymous No.19075108]

>>19074699
>why these threads exist
Because one autistic manchild enjoys doing it.

>why that post always shows up
Because the autistic manchild has spent around three years filling /lit/ and /his/ with his garbage and as such acquired an anti-following of autistic manchildren who want to shit on him. At one point there was a dude running a bot to respond to this garbage with that, but there was also a separate guy doing it independent of the bot because the bot wasn't good enough. Others have joined in at various points.

[Anonymous No.19075651]

>>19074634
based buddhistbro making advaitafags seethe once more

[Anonymous No.19075663]

>>19075651
This thread is now blessed by Jamgön Ju Mipham Gyatso. Understanding that Consciousness and Emptiness are non-dual will rise from the ocean of nectar like a white lotus, but only if you post "/lit/ forced guenonfag to read a book" in this thread

[Anonymous No.19075672]

>>19074558
>the true understanding of Brahmand lies in knowledge alone, wholly independent of all other practices

shankara was a crypto mahayana buddhist, if you wanna understand his notion of brahma you really need to study the mahayana idea of bodichitta and sunyata, shankara whole agenda was to adapt those concepts to the more religious aspects of hinduism

[Anonymous No.19075692]

please qrd on this guy. is he monism personified?

[Anonymous No.19075738]

>>19075692
he's crypto nihilism personified

[Anonymous No.19075773]

>>19075738
so a monist, yes. there must be his arch rival to anime battle in the last episode just before the third impact like curtain falls, who would that be?

[Anonymous No.19075853]

>>19075692
>please qrd on this guy.
Adi Shankara is the main philosopher of the Advaita school of Hinduism

https://iep.utm.edu/adv-veda/

>>19075692
>is he monism personified?
Advaita non-dualism goes beyond monism. Monism allows for existing differences to be united or subsumed within a greater unity. Non-dualism is the absence of duality at the highest level, precluding even the unity of disparate elements.

[Anonymous No.19075874]

>>19075672
>you really need to study the mahayana idea of bodichitta and sunyata, shankara whole agenda was to adapt those concepts to the more religious aspects of hinduism
Lol no, this is stupid. Bodhichitta involves compassion and has to do with bodhisattva's, while Advaita does not care about compassion at all and has no bodhisattvas. And Sunyata has little to do with Advaita either since sunyata involves positing that everything is empty of inherent and independent existence, while Advaitins say that Brahman has both inherent and independent existence, i.e. the exact opposite of sunyata.

[Anonymous No.19075929]

>>19075874
Mayavada = sunyavada. Simple as

[Anonymous No.19075930]

>>19075874
>while Advaitins say that Brahman has both inherent and independent existence, i.e. the exact opposite of sunyata.
So what is the inherent and independent nature of Brahman if not emptiness?

[Anonymous No.19076014]

>>19075929
t. brainlet who doesn't understand basic eastern philosophical distinctions
>>19075930
The nature of Brahman is considered to be pure self-revealing non-dual awareness-bliss that always effortlessly basks in the plenitude of Its own independent and eternal transcendental existence.

"The ultimate reality for Vedanta is the non-dual, unconditioned, indeterminate and highest Brahma which is transcendent to senses, thought and language and is the non-dual eternal Self which is self-shining as Immediate Experience-Bliss and self-proved as the undeniable foundation of all knowledge, of all assertions, denials and doubts."
- Chandradhar Sharma, 'The Advaita Tradition in Indian Philosophy"

This is the ultimate reality, the changeless eternal, all-pervading like space (but beyond it), free from all causal modification, ever-contented pure bliss, indivisible, self-luminous by nature, untouched by actions in the form of virtue and vice along with their effects, and beyond time in its three tenses of past, present and future; this unembodied reality is called moksha or absolute freedom
- Shankara, 'Brahma Sutra Bhasya 1.1.4"

[Anonymous No.19076027]

>>19076014
Plenty of hindu theologians have argued against your guru's "everything is made of nothing except brahman/atman" shtick

[Anonymous No.19076110]

>>19076027
> w-well s-some people have a-argued agaisnt Advaita before....
So? That means nothing. Plenty of Advaitins and non-Advaitins have argued against those respective schools too. Plenty of Christians have argued against other Christians and Muslims etc etc. Plenty of Jains, Buddhists and Taoists have argued with each other. I'm familiar with the arguments against Advaita and they tend to be easily-refutable garbage. Even when they seem clever at first they always pan out into getting basic points wrong.

[Anonymous No.19076133]

>>19075692
No, he's a constitutional dualist and a nihilist.

[Anonymous No.19076154]

>>19076133
that's wrong on both counts

[Anonymous No.19076175]

>>19076110
>they're just wrong about Advaita they're not real refutations
Cope

[Anonymous No.19076200]

>>19076175
Post whatever argument you think is a valid refutation of Advaita and I can easily point out what it gets wrong

[Anonymous No.19076739]

>>19074840
>performing Vedic rituals with the right intention and attitude helps one to ‘burn off’ accumulated sins
examples of simple rituals that can be done?

[Anonymous No.19076757]

>>19076200
Yeah try theism. That's going to be a big problem, having a system where "god did it" is the final conclusion, which cannot be demonstrated anyway, rendering the rest of the philosophy as mere decoration.

[Anonymous No.19076789]

>>19076154
>believes all of reality is composed of two substances
So he is by definition a constitutional dualist.
>believes that 99.99...999% of reality doesn't exist
So he is by definition a dualist.

[Anonymous No.19077504]

>>19076014
I'm still pretty confused on how this differs much from Buddhism. For instance, how do you not read a presence of Advaitia Vendanta non-dualism in the heart sutra? What you're saying is that they both posit emptiness but in different ways, but how is this difference of any consequence?
I understand that a lack of strict moral guidelines in both these schools, as in Christianity for instance, arises from an understanding of desire leading to suffering, so that if I am free from desire I need not worry about harming anyone else. Clearly, both schools focus on nonduality, meditation, suffering and nonattachment which happen to be really the only things I understand about both of these schools at this point in my studies. So tell me very clearly; what is the difference?
If I'm way off base here at any point know that this is all mostly new to me

[Anonymous No.19078389]

Bumpy

[Anonymous No.19079055]

Does a buddha cry when you kick his ass?
He does, and if he does he's not truly a buddha.

[Anonymous No.19079229]

>>19076110.
Saivism establishes the thought that reality can only be undivided if it's understood as a creative force, manifesting itself
through the finitude and transitoriness of phenomena, which are perpetually changing according to the will and activity of the absolute.
A real monist rejects any theory that maintains that the universe would be less than real. A doctrine of two truths,
one absolute and the other relative, endangers the very foundation of monism.
The Saiva philosophy is integral; everything is given a place in the economy of the whole.

The Advaitin, who maintains that non-duality is the true nature of the absolute by rejecting duality as only relatively real, is ultimately
stuck in a dualism between the real and illusory by the foolishness of his own excessive sophistry.
Oneness is better understood as a coextensive unity of both duality and unity. They are equally expressions of the absolute

[Anonymous No.19079615]

>>19076757
Whining about theism is not a refutation of anything. Advaita says that the explanations for the universe aside from Brahman don't hold up to scrutiny, but at the same time they understand that independent human reasoning is fallible, they don't presume to indisputably prove that Brahman necessarily exists, it doesn't revolve around offering logical proofs. Just because they don't demonstrate the existence of God, does not mean that Advaita is not internally-consistent in its logic and doctrines, anyone attempting to refute Advaita would actually have to point to some logical inconsistency and not simply the fact that they don't provide positive proof of something, which they never claimed to do for all of their doctrines to begin with anyway.
>>19076789
>>believes all of reality is composed of two substances
>So he is by definition a constitutional dualist.
That's wrong, for Shankara 100% of reality is made of Brahman, and on the other hand 100% of falsity, which isn't reality, is not Brahman. So that's not saying reality is composed of two substances.
For Advaita:
reality =/= falsity =/= complete nothingness
Brahman =/= maya =/= complete nothingness
For Advaita, true 'reality' is only the first category and not the second, your question is making the mistake of grouping the first and second categories as both reality, which they aren't.
>believes that 99.99...999% of reality doesn't exist
>So he is by definition a dualist.
That's wrong, 'exist' and 'doesn't exist' would here be taken in their absolute sense, that is, as the first and the third categories of the 3-way divide charted out above. For Shankara, 100% of reality exists, and 0% of anything else exists, the only thing that exists is the Real, Brahman, which is 100% of the first category of absolute reality. Maya/falsity does not exist but belongs to the in-between category of falseness, which isn't the same as complete nothingness or non-existence.

[Anonymous No.19079631]

>>19077504
>I'm still pretty confused on how this differs much from Buddhism.
Mahayanists like Prasangika Madhyamaka argue that everything is empty of inherent existence, that everything is dependently arising, that there is no unconditioned and eternal essence/reality/being, that a thing cannot reveal itself just as swords can't cut themselves, and that there is no inner Atman or self of persisting witness-consciousness, these separate claims are all seen in Buddhist writings as generally relating to each other, and they are viewed as supporting each other. What Advaita is talking about is the opposite of that, on each of these points Advaita is disagreeing with Buddhism, to such an extent that an acceptance of the Advaitist position would amount to a fundamental rejections of the central tenets of both Madhyamaka and Yogachara Mahayana philosophy.

For Advaita, the Atman (consciousness) has real, unconditioned and supramundane existence, It is not dependently arise but is eternal and has never arisen from anything else, It's presence does not depend on objects but is self-revealing, It has an eternal essence or self-nature that is inalienable from It. It is the unchanging and partless foundational consciousness which remains constant despite the changing stream of mental modifications. If this conception of the Atman was true, then the important tenet of Madhyamaka that all things including consciousness lack an intrinsic existence (i.e. Sunyata) would be flat out wrong unless it was creatively reinterpreted as accepting eternalist Absolutism (which most of Buddhism has never accepted outside of a small handful of Buddhist thinkers).

The Advaitic conception of self-revealing consciousness (which they call svaprakasha) is also very different from the self-revealing consciousness proposed by Yogachara/Madhyamaka-Yogachara Buddhists (which they call svasamvedana). In the Advaita model, consciousness always has the immediate, uninterrupted and constant revealing of itself as undifferentiated pure awareness, and anything aside from pure awareness like the mind and thoughts, sense-perceptions etc are unconscious and they are not consciousness as such, nor a part of it. For Mahayana Buddhists who hold to svasamvedana however, every consciousness is momentary and is comprised of two elements, the 'subjective-element' and the 'objective-element'. Advaitists from the medieval era till today provide arguments in their writings which they view as refuting svasamvedana, i.e. refuting the identity of awareness and its object and they also provide refutations of the claim that consciousness is conditioned or dependent on other things.

[Anonymous No.19079640]

>>19079631
>>19077504
>What you're saying is that they both posit emptiness but in different ways, but how is this difference of any consequence?
Advaita rejects sunyata because it involves the claim that everything lacks an intrinsic nature (Brahman/consciousness doesn't), which is understood to mean that everything arises in dependence on other things (Brahman/consciousness doesn't).

>If I'm way off base here at any point know that this is all mostly new to me
Sharma's 'The Advaita Tradition in Indian Philosophy' writes about Yogachara, Madhyamaka and Advaita; you might find it interesting if you are trying to broaden your understanding. He has a fringe view of Nagarjuna not accepted by most Buddhist schools and scholars of the subject though. Even today, TRV Murti is viewed by the current crop of western academics as wrongly attributing absolutism to Nagarjuna, and Sharma interprets this to be so even more than Murti. Despite this, the book is still quite informative and its a good resource to learn more about Advaita if you are coming from a background of reading Buddhism.

[Anonymous No.19079787]

>>19079229
>Saivism establishes the thought that reality can only be undivided if it's understood as a creative force, manifesting itself through the finitude and transitoriness of phenomena, which are perpetually changing according to the will and activity of the absolute.
I can understand and empathize with the impulse that motivates someone to accept this, but to me this just does not make as much sense logically or align with our experience as much; it violates the law of non-contradiction when you say God possess a God-like nature as the supreme infinite, eternal lord but is also the same as the world with it's non-Godly qualities of finiteness, change, decay, putridness, pain etc. The idea of something like God being eternal but also changing is a contradiction, and if consciousness is the same as Shiva who equally exists as the elements/world then that amounts to a denial of the difference between consciousness and physical objects/matter despite everything about our experience indicating that's wrong.

>A real monist rejects any theory that maintains that the universe would be less than real. A doctrine of two truths, one absolute and the other relative, endangers the very foundation of monism.
Monism isn't non-dualism. Monism can accept some level of difference being true and permanent, which is then built upon some greater unity and coexists with the difference. Non-dualism (ontological, and not epistemic) on the other hand involves taking the view that there is a transcendental complete truth/reality which is completely devoid of duality/difference and that this transcendental reality is non-different from our own foundational consciousness. Accepting this non-dual transcendental reality is not mutually exclusive with acknowledging the false maya taking place at a lower level, not as reality. Monism is not real non-dualism because it attempts to laminate and make eternal differences into resolving them into a greater, complete and partless undividedness, and that's okay, monism doesn't have to be non-dualism, each are ways of viewing things that are fit for different people. You shouldn't assume that Advaita is striving to have a monist system because it's not.

[Anonymous No.19079796]

>>19079229
>>19079787
>The Saiva philosophy is integral; everything is given a place in the economy of the whole. The Advaitin, who maintains that non-duality is the true nature of the absolute by rejecting duality as only relatively real, is ultimately stuck in a dualism between the real and illusory by the foolishness of his own excessive sophistry.
Calling something 'muh dualism' is not a real argument, there is no enduring dualism in Advaita because for every being the eventual reaching of moksha leads to eternal freedom from maya, dualism is only accepted as provisional and temporary. I find arguments which try to wiggle around the involved violations of the LNC to say that God has to be the same as the world to be pretty sophistic. The prolific 16th century Shaivist Advaitin Appayya Dīkṣita wrote that the higher Shaiva Agamas concur with the Vedas and teach Advaita, and that the lower Shaiva Agamas disagree with the Vedas and are meant for the lower castes and women.

[Anonymous No.19080051]

>>19077504
>I'm still pretty confused on how this differs much from Buddhism
Buddhism posits that things exist, they just never have any kind of "grounding" except other things that also lack grounding. This posits an infinite historical past (an infinite historical past and an infinite regress are not the same thing). The result is a redefinition of what it means to "exist" away from a lay-Thomistic discreteness towards the Parmendian-Heraclitean streams of continuity. To visualize this, imagine a bell curve: it never hits zero in either direction, it asymptotically approaches zero after a point, but in the middle there's a hump. We put arbitrary markers at the beginning and end of this hump to say "here is where it starts, here is where it ends", but those markers are arbitrary. Julius Caesar is thus still around, albeit only slightly, and was around before he was born, again, albeit only slightly. Remember, it varies culturally when a person starts and ends (some cultures actually hold that a person exists many years before conception and for many days after death). This leads to a criticism of using language, which must declare things that obviously aren't discrete to be discrete in order to work. Buddhism thus posits that language can only offer you so much and instead you must, at some point, use direct experience (I am demonstrating this by posting a bell curve, which is a non-linguistic act).

Advaita Vedanta, meanwhile, answers Buddhism's question of "how can two things that are discrete ever interact" (a question also asked by the Greek thinker Zeno) by taking the trivial solution of suggesting that there actually aren't two things, ever, there's just one, Brahman, which is also Atman. Everything else doesn't exist; it is an illusion, maya, made of Nothing. As such, Advaita Vedanta posits a form of what a Westerner would call constitutional dualism and nihilism (pointed out up thread by another anon). Furthermore, unlike Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, by positing the existence of a real discrete thing that engages in real meaningfully discrete action (Atman which is Brahman and Atman which is Brahman's reflexive self-awareness), holds that language is not only far more useful but in fact totally descriptive of reality (Shankara upheld the traditional Hindu view that the universe is "coded" in Sanskrit, with much of what it implied, like the implication that you cannot see and smell at the same time). To that end, much of the Buddhist tradition of meditation is rejected as unnecessary precisely because of its non-linguistic nature, as the true nature of reality (and thus, enlightenment) can be achieve solely through discussion, leading to a literal "enlightenment by one's own intelligence".

The "Crypto-Buddhist" line comes from a later Hindu thinker who really, really didn't like Advaita Vedanta or Buddhism. It's an insult, not an actual comparison.

[Anonymous No.19080163]

>>19080051
>holds that language is not only far more useful but in fact totally descriptive of reality
This is incorrect, for Advaita the reality of Brahman is transcendent to thought and language.
>Shankara upheld the traditional Hindu view that the universe is "coded" in Sanskrit, with much of what it implied, like the implication that you cannot see and smell at the same time).
He didn't, this is wrong. You'd be unable to find any such statement in his writings.
>To that end, much of the Buddhist tradition of meditation is rejected as unnecessary precisely because of its non-linguistic nature, as the true nature of reality (and thus, enlightenment) can be achieve solely through discussion, leading to a literal "enlightenment by one's own intelligence".
Enlightenment is reached through liberating gnosis when the meaning of the scriptures eliminates one's false understanding or avidya and supreme reality reveals itself, this is not something that the intellect figures out and produces on its own through intellection but when made ready and under control the Real is allowed to 'descend' from the Above by revealing Itself to the ready intellect that is studying the scriptures with a teacher. The limited finite and changing intellect cannot produce eternal liberation on its own, meditation as a method to liberation is rejected for the same reasons, anything produced by an action which has a beginning and end like meditation can never produce an eternal thing. liberating knowledge in the form of ignorance being eliminated and the simultaneous revealing of the pre-exist Real does not involve any real production of anything that was previously non-existent.

[Anonymous No.19080166]

>>19080051
So wait a minute, if Shankara is actually a dualist and a nihilist, why is this retard always spamming about him being a nondualist?

[Anonymous No.19080188]

>>19080166
This is a problem of translation. tl;dr The Hindus have the Vedas, and there's the Vedas, and what do you study after you study the Vedas? Why, what comes after the Vedas! This is "Vedanta", which is the "post-Vedic study". "Advaita Vedanta" posits that there is no separation between Atman and Brahman, because the Atman which is Brahman is the only thing that exists. It is thus "non-dual" ("Advaita", literally "A + Dvaita", which means "non-dual"). Strictly speaking, the "non-duality" that is used in the Western context to describe Buddhism actually refers to the duality between subject and object, which Advaita Vedanta rigidly defends (in a sense; if there were multiple things that existed then subject object duality would have to be how the universe operated, but Advaita Vedanta rejects the idea of multiple things existing and instead posits that there's just one thing, and that one thing does something reflexively). This is a FURTHER problem because "dualism" in the West also refers to constitutional dualism, which as mentioned up thread describes Advaita Vedanta as it posits that things are either composed of one of two things (Atman which is Brahman or Nothing). It should be noted that most other Indian schools posit forms of pluralism (everything is made up of a combination of various atomic substances) or monism.

This is as compared to the "Qualified Non-dual post-Vedic school", which like Buddhism does actually advocate for a rejection of subject-object duality, or the "Dualistic post-Vedic school" which advocates for subject-object duality. There's also the "Dualistic-Non-Dual post-Vedic school" and the "Non-Dual-Dualistic post-Vedic school" and the "both-and-neither post-Vedic school", but those three aren't really as important as the nihilistic, dualistic, and monistic schools of Vedanta.

[Anonymous No.19080198]

>>19080188
I forgot to add: the Dualistic post-Vedic school posits that there is a firm separation between Atman and Brahman, whereas the Qualified Non-Dual post-Vedic school posits that there is a separation now but you can get rid of it, in comparison to the non-Dual post-Vedic school's argument that there is no separation now.

[Anonymous No.19080549]

>>19079787
>it violates the law of non-contradiction
either Aristotel or paradoxical wisdom.
>'does not make as much sense logically'.
>B R U H M A N.jpg

[Anonymous No.19080586]

>>19079615
>Just because they don't demonstrate the existence of God, does not mean that Advaita is not internally-consistent in its logic and doctrines, anyone attempting to refute Advaita would actually have to point to some logical inconsistency and not simply the fact that they don't provide positive proof of something, which they never claimed to do for all of their doctrines to begin with anyway.
So why take this seriously? We just have to assume Brahman and go from there? We could just as well not assume brahman if all that matters is the scholastic elaboration, in which case, it might as well be crypto-buddhism

[Anonymous No.19080619]

>>19080163
>but when made ready and under control the Real is allowed to 'descend' from the Above by revealing Itself to the ready intellect
how Brahman is different from the Real? from multiplicity of Reals? who is our guy in that lore?

[Anonymous No.19080658]

>>19077504
>I'm still pretty confused on how this differs much from Buddhism.
It doesn't

[Anonymous No.19080673]

>>19080051
>The "Crypto-Buddhist" line comes from a later Hindu thinker who really, really didn't like Advaita Vedanta or Buddhism. It's an insult, not an actual comparison.
This is a lie. Every other hindu theology school says it. Every modern says it. Every author you recommend says it. Even Sharma admits they are the same. Even advaitins admit they are the same.

[Anonymous No.19080685]

>>19080673
buddhism lives rent free in hindu philosophy

[Anonymous No.19080688]

>>19080619
>multiplicity
Refuted by Shankara in his commentaries on the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.

[Anonymous No.19080708]

>>19080685
Thats literally what the modern view is. The Upanishads were not advaita, Shankara absorbed hundreds of years of buddhist philosophy and gave it an Upanishad gloss like Christianity absorbing Plato and Aristotle.

But guenonfag will distort anything. Hes been pushed back to defending the one book that still even slightly agrees with him. Probably because it's the only one he read.

[Anonymous No.19080747]

>>19080673
>Sharma is quite informative and its a good resource to learn more about Advaita if you are coming from a background of reading Buddhism.
>The "Crypto-Buddhist" line comes from a later Hindu thinker who really, really didn't like Advaita Vedanta or Buddhism. It's an insult, not an actual comparison.

Pic is sharma.

[Anonymous No.19080798]

>>19079787
>it violates the law of non-contradiction when you say God possess a God-like nature as the supreme infinite, eternal lord but is also the same as the world with it's non-Godly qualities
In Saivism it's fundamental to rid ourselves of the false notion that the external world is impure. The method is to include all phenomena mistakenly thought to be outside of the absolute.
Impurity is a state of seeming separation from consciousness. The world is pure consciousness and our suffering is derived from our ignorance, the concealment of our Siva-nature.
When recognizing our true nature, we do not achieve or discover something "new". It's only our idea of limitless and bondage that are eradicated and we recognize our eternal freedom as Siva.
Failing to realize that the objects we fear or desire are in fact our own cosmic body leads to suffering. So the approach is one of affirmation while the Vedantin's is one of negation, arriving at the absolute from opposite directions.
Siva's power to know the universe is eternally one with his power to conceal himself and manifest it, his freedom from limitation implies the power to manifest the one in diverse forms.
Consciousness is like a mirror that reflects objects within itself, it has the power to manifest forms that are one with it, without it affecting his own nature.

>"All here is enjoined and all prohibited.
>This alone, O Lord of the gods, is here prescribed as obligatory, namely that the mind be firmly applied to the true reality.
>It matters little how this is achieved.
>He whose mind is firmly established in this reality, even if he eats poison, is as little affected by it as are lotus petals by water."

When Siva desires to recognize something within the void of himself the universe unfolds and is established within his own consciousness and with his power of knowledge, he perceives it.
All the various contents of consciousness are not different from the super-consciousness itself, it's both the substratum and what it supports.
Nothing is impure, everything is consciousness unfolding perfectly, including Maya.
To say that illusion is to be eradicated implies that it has a separate existence to consciousness. In any other case, it must be an integral part of it.

[Anonymous No.19080838]

>>19080798
it's not lit. sorry bros this Shankara giving me boomer vibes. my verdict: I'd prefer not.

[Anonymous No.19080844]

>>19080838
Is this a bot?

[Anonymous No.19081523]

>>19080798
>The world is pure consciousness and our suffering is derived from our ignorance
Pure consciousness cannot differentiate itself into name and form and thus constitute observed world-objects without giving up what it means to be pure conciousness. Pure in the case of conciousness means devoid of internal differences, impartite. If there is some object left with differentiating features, then you have not pure conciouness but rather conciousness and known objects coinciding with it and being revealed by it.
>It's only our idea of limitless and bondage that are eradicated.
Is that idea of bondage Siva or not Siva? If its the former than you are saying God can be eliminated, if its not God than what is it?
>the approach is one of affirmation while the Vedantin's is one of negation, arriving at the absolute from opposite directions.
I agree with this, although there is still some level of affirmation in Advaita in regard to one’s own indwelling Awareness. I see Shaivism etc as a valid path for non-monks that doesn’t go into the full truth; the Advaita view is more or less that it amounts to meditation on the Saguna Brahman and leads to the Brahmaloka, instead of moksha in this life. From the view of Advaita, even other non-dual-like systems can still get people to the Brahmaloka even when not all of their metaphysics/logic are correct.
>Consciousness is like a mirror that reflects objects within itself, it has the power to manifest forms that are one with it, without it affecting his own nature.
The mirror doesn’t actually manifest anything but it reflects back pre-existent light which bounces off of them. The notion that conciousness is both the object and notion is both illogical and unsupported by our experience, we dont ever find that objects know themselves, but we encounter them as known by a presence that preceded them, if those objects were awareness this shouldnt be the case. And if awareness was also the object there would be no room for any sense of objectness but just awareness grasping formless awareness without a sense of difference.
>All the various contents of consciousness are not different from the super-consciousness itself, it's both the substratum and what it supports.
That’s a contradiction in terms, a violation of the LNC by saying “it is supporter and the supported”, like saying it is both contigent and independent, both dead and alive. They are mutually exclusive.
>To say that illusion is to be eradicated implies that it has a separate existence to consciousness. In any other case, it must be an integral part of it.
If the Absolute is comprised of parts, does that Absolute exist both inside and outside the incomplete parts or only as the parts? If it’s the former you are making parts of God into a “partless part” which is an obvious contradiction, and if it’s the latter, you are saying God exists both as one complete whole and as incomplete parts which is another obvious contradiction.

[Anonymous No.19081548]

>>19080163
>the reality of Brahman is transcendent
si advaita is actually dalistic

[Anonymous No.19081551]

>>19080166
because the guenonfag is a deluded inidvidual trapped on his own dogmatism

[Anonymous No.19081583]

>>19076200
you always tried to do it, but always end up backing up to your axioms without actually engaging in the refutations, each time anyone prove you wrong you just call them a sophist or avoided actually refuting their arguments

[Anonymous No.19081785]

>>19081523
>Pure consciousness cannot differentiate itself into name and form
If the external world were just material, independent and external to consciousness, it could never be experienced.
The universe and consciousness are two aspects of the whole, just as substance and quality constitute two aspects of one entity.
Consciousness contains everything, it's the ground and basis for all phenomena, so the content which is perceived is not independent from the act of perception.
Objects are only knowable as objects if they are related to a subject who perceive them. So without a subject, no objects.
Perception manifests objects and immediately provides them apparent to those who witness them.
If colors were to exist as object apart from the cognition of "green" or "red", two things would then appear:
The color and it's cognition, which is not the case. No argument whatsoever could prove that red is anything other than the color red.
So if the reality of objects is not appearing within consciousness, where else would they appear?

[Anonymous No.19082125]

>>19081785
>If the external world were just material, independent and external to consciousness, it could never be experienced.
Most traditional Hindu philosophy solidly disagrees with this claim including all six darshanas (Vedanta, Mimansa, Nyaya, Samkhya, Yoga and Vaisheshika). In the Samkhya-Yoga system, consciousness is recognized as being fundamentally different from the elements and mind which it pervades as the innermost formless pure awareness. The mind and it's modifications like thoughts are seen as subtle material objects, and these mental objects and outside objects are all held to be unconscious, the only thing that is conscious is the immaterial purusa, all else is unconscious prakriti. Advaita agrees with the Samkhya-Yoga conception of mind and consciousness this far, but differs from Samkhya-Yoga on a few other points like whether or not there are a plurality of purusas or just one infinite consciousness. Your claim sounds reminiscent of Yogachara Buddhism, which all shades of Vedanta, Mimansa and Nyaya harshly criticized. How ironic that in Shaivism, Shiva's powers can do anything and resolve any apparent contradiction, but they don't extend as far as being able to create/project an unconscious appearance of a material universe that isn't identical with Shiva, that's a step too far! The Advaita conception of the mind as unconscious prakriti (which for Advaitins is projected by maya) illumined by immaterial purusa can be found in classical Samkhya and Yoga texts like the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

4.18 The activities of the mind are always known by the pure consciousness, because that pure consciousness is superior to, support of, and master over the mind.
4.19 That mind is not self-illuminating, as it is the object of knowledge and perception by the pure consciousness.
Yoga Sutras 4.18-4.19
https://www.swamij.com/yoga-sutras-41821.htm

[Anonymous No.19082127]

>>19081785
>>19082125
>The universe and consciousness are two aspects of the whole, just as substance and quality constitute two aspects of one entity.
We only experience objects when they are revealed by awareness like trees being revealed by sunlight, but we don't ever experience the contrary scenario of objects revealing awareness to us. We find that one always reveals itself and the other is always revealed by the first, so there is no reason to treat them as the same when they noticeably differ in their nature.
>Consciousness contains everything, it's the ground and basis for all phenomena, so the content which is perceived is not independent from the act of perception.
>Objects are only knowable as objects if they are related to a subject who perceive them. So without a subject, no objects.
Being non-independent in the sense of relying upon a ground and basis is not the same as being identical with something, space is the ground and basis for physical objects, but space isn't identical with them since space (or akasha) is formless expanse that provides extension while objects have visible form and other gross material properties. So, objects cannot reasonably be taken as automatically non-different from consciousness simply because they appear in association with it.

[Anonymous No.19082133]

>>19081785
>>19082127
>Perception manifests objects and immediately provides them apparent to those who witness them. If colors were to exist as object apart from the cognition of "green" or "red", two things would then appear: The color and it's cognition, which is not the case. No argument whatsoever could prove that red is anything other than the color red.
This argument confuses consciousness itself for the cognition of red, which is a changing mental sensation that takes place in the manas/buddhi, and not in purusa or consciousness;

1) You are attempting that prove that consciousness is not different from the world and objects
2) You example was "if color was different from the cognition of "green" then there would be the appearance of two things, the color and it's cognition, which is not the case" hence they are the same, hence red is the same as cognition of red
3) "color" in this example is supposed to represent "the world" and "cognition of red" is supposed to represent consciousness
4) the fundamental flaw with this argument, is that "cognition of red" is not consciousness, but is just more particular unconscious content presented to consciousness
5) consciousness is what remains consistent and present in every single known experience, consciousness cannot be defined by anything tied to the particular characteristics of one moment, like "cognition of red" because that definition of consciousness will be inaccurate or false at other moments lacking those particular characteristics.
6) this can be demonstrated by the fact that if "cognition of red" really were identical to consciousness then by extension it would require that every conscious experience be characterized by red, which is not what we experience, furthermore saying "I'm cognition of red of the sound of rain" would mean the same thing as "I'm conscious of the sound of rain", but this is obviously absurd on its face
7) Hence, in order to remain consistent it has to be admitted that there is an element of pure unchanging subjectivity, pure receptivity, pure light, which necessarily differs from the objects that have changing characteristics that distinguish them, and that this pure receptivity which reveals objects is present in all experiences as the foundational awareness which provides for objects to be witnessed while remaining non-identical to them.
>So if the reality of objects is not appearing within consciousness, where else would they appear?
In the cosmic appearance of objects that is non-different from the contingent energy of Brahman. Consciousness, while being non-intentional and devoid of particular distinguishing characteristics, allows the unconscious mental states in the manas/buddhi to falsely seem to be intentional self-aware states like the cognizing of changing qualia such as the perception of red, like when a translucent colored object catches light and appears luminous.

[Anonymous No.19082287]

>>19082125
>Most traditional Hindu philosophy solidly disagrees with this claim including all six darshanas
Two independents clearly equals duality, so Advaita Vedanta can't claim that the world of phenomena is independent and external to consciousness since that claim would contradict the very core of non-duality.
Vedanta makes the claim that Maya is an undefinable principle that for some explainable reason clouds the nature of Brahman.
Saivism on the other hand offers an explanation of how consciousness manifests the universe within itself.
Here, samkhya is used as a inspiration but is expanded upon resulting in 36 tattvas, see pic related.

>How ironic that in Shaivism, Shiva's powers can do anything and resolve any apparent contradiction
That's a childish way of thinking about it. "Why is reality not like this instead of this?". It's Siva's inherent nature to will this world of multiplicity within his consciousness.

[Anonymous No.19082459]

>>19082287
>Two independents clearly equals duality, so Advaita Vedanta can't claim that the world of phenomena is independent and external to consciousness since that claim would contradict the very core of non-duality.
Medieval Advaita philosophers refute both difference and identity, in other words they say that what is really apprehended in each moment is not difference, or identity-in-difference, but rather the constant self-revealing pure non-dual consciousness and that the mind imposes the false notions of multiplicity, sameness/difference etc on the base reality of non-dual consciousness (this mind and its false notions all equally being maya and not consciousness), which is why the non-dual nature of consciousness is not apparent to most people; and they refute the position that the multiplicity seemingly revealed by consciousness is absolutely real and also refute the position that consciousness is identical to those dualistic distinctions and perceptions. Awareness not being identical with observed objects is not the same as saying "observed objects truly exist". One can refute the ultimate reality of multiplicity without making the appearance of the samsaric world identical to consciousness which is really just pure awareness alone. Those appearances are neither nothingness nor real being, they are false/mithya
>Vedanta makes the claim that Maya is an undefinable principle that for some explainable reason clouds the nature of Brahman.
As do the Sruti and Smriti texts like the Gita.

"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.

In these passages, maya is does not mean creative lila but rather it has connotations of covering, being inscrutable, false perception etc
>That's a childish way of thinking about it. "Why is reality not like this instead of this?". It's Siva's inherent nature to will this world of multiplicity within his consciousness.
It was pointing out an inconsistency in your positions, you hold that God is free to do anything, but yet you act like objects cannot be non-identical with consciousness and say this is completely illogical for other systems to posit this, while at the same time ignoring the obvious question that can be made of 'well, what if the supreme Lord who is free to do anything, makes it so?'.

[Anonymous No.19082886]

>>19082133
>4) the fundamental flaw with this argument, is that "cognition of red" is not consciousness, but is just more particular unconscious content presented to consciousness
you can't just say that and pretend everyone else to just roll with it, you need to prove it

[Anonymous No.19082917]

>>19082133
>it would require that every conscious experience be characterized by red
it is, every conscious experience of red is characteruzed by red, that's why we can see the color red

[Anonymous No.19083064]

>>19074558
>Or is what is being said that these rituals are necessary but only as a stepping stone to full enlgithenment?
Yes, the Upanishads are the last part of the Vedas, both in the sense that they are literally placed last, and are the last necessary text to read or have recited for enlightenment. First, you worship the gods, then you realize the gods are on the same ontological level like everybody else, then you stop worshiping the gods and focus on gaining spiritual knowledge. But the fact that people skip to the end, especially here in the West, leaves them at a disadvantage because they haven't taken the necessary steps for spiritual cultivation. This is exacerbated by our lazy mentally that we don't want to through the process and just want the burger served on a bun., and if Vishnu was reincarnated again, he would be worth with anger and have all of these people slaughtered for tainting the Vedas and teaching a counterfeit spirituality.

[Anonymous No.19083083]

>>19083064
>First, you worship the gods, then you realize the gods are on the same ontological level like everybody else, then you stop worshiping the gods and focus on gaining spiritual knowledge
That's called Buddhism and makes Hindus seethe

[Anonymous No.19083127]

>>19083083
So, Vedic Hindiusm was Buddhism before Buddhism was cool.

[Anonymous No.19083137]

this board has done more to spread the cryptobuddhism accusation than anything in a hundred years

[Anonymous No.19084084]

>>19082133
your whole argument takes for granted that pure conciusness must be considered a substance, that is "something" on itself, thus all this strange dichotomy betwen the observer and the thing being observed arises
this is a faulty way to aproach conciusness, pure conciusness can't be considered a substance or thing, since it doesn't function as a substance (that is has a way to manifest existence) but as a category pure conciusness is indeed a category, and as any other catgeory of perception is ever present in every experience, another problem with your argument is our notion of the color red, whih in reaity is also a category, or sub category in the category og color which is also part of the categories of perception, thus red is in a way always present in every experience, since every experience has a perceptual part, and every perception has colors, and every color is a particula rmix of every color in the spectrum, so just as conciusness is ever present, red is always ever present, because both of them are categories, but they dont have substancial reality, you can't for example infer the existence of god from the category of conciusness since categories are how humans articulate reality and not aspects of reality itself
it's like saying that the earth is flat because to our eyes the earth looks flat, thinking that conciusness will last forever just because you didn't die yet and you choose to ignore all the moments in which conciousness changes to construct in your mind this idea of a "pure conciusness" is missguided and contrary to our actual experience and logical thinking

[Anonymous No.19084090]

>>19083127
>>19083127
vedic hinuism don't believe in gods?

[Anonymous No.19084583]

>>19082886
>you need to prove it
I am by pointing out how the implications of the alternative position contradict both logic and our lived experience. Cognition of red is an inaccurate definition of consciousness, since a blind person remains conscious but never has the cognition of red through sense-perception, and nor does red remain something that makes itself invariably known in each and every one of their non-sensory mental cognitions either, so upon analysis “cognition of red” is in no way identical to consciousness.

>>19082917
>it is, every conscious experience of red is characteruzed by red, that's why we can see the color red
What happens then when our bodies are painted green and we are standing in a green-colored room and all we can see is green? Where is the red here that characterizes all conscious experience? It cannot be found because there is no red which can be consciously perceived via the eye in such a circumstance. If in order to save your position you claim that the ‘cognition of red’ is present but just at too small of an amount for one to be consciously aware of it, then you are saying that ‘cognition of red’ which is supposed to consciousness is something we are not conscious of, i.e. that we are not conscious of being conscious, but this is an absurdity.

[Anonymous No.19084592]

>>19084583
*pointing out how the implications of the alternative position (in contrast to pure awareness) contradict both logic and experience

[Anonymous No.19084608]

>>19074558
I feel sure it's not even possible to realize Brahman without HEAVY psychedelic drugs. AKA DMT or preferably 5-MeO-DMT (death risk). Most people are just sitting around with their eyes closed for no fucking reason. It does nothing.

Meditation while sober seems better for contemplation for most people. Emptying the mind for most will do nothing at all. You're wasting your time. It seems to work better for bipolar people.

[Anonymous No.19084622]

>>19082886
All experience takes place in an apparent subject/object divide. If something is seen (like red) there must be see'er. Consciousness is a shit term because it carries implications and causes confusion. After initial understanding it's better to stop calling it consciousness even though we experience it as such.

Formless from Taoism is better. Form can never know form. All things are form. Only formless can know things which are form. Including red.

[Anonymous No.19084642]

>>19074558
Hello.

I know nothing about Indian philosophy, frankly I'm not overly interested, yet, would like to have a taste of it, principally because of its influence on Schopenhauer.

Can someone recommend me a translation/edition that would help me understand the Indian influences of Schopenhauer? Thank you.

[Anonymous No.19085938]

>>19084642
I don't know anything about Schopenhauer, but this is an easy read if you're interested in many of the ideas discussed in this thread:
https://arshabodha.org/wp-content/uploads/abc/teachings/adiShankara/AtmaBodha.pdf

[Anonymous No.19086005]

>>19084084
>your whole argument takes for granted that pure consciousness must be considered a substance,
That’s not true, consciousness obviously exists, it is what allows us to be sentient in the first place. I am taking as obvious that consciousness exists, and not that it is a substance. Substance means materiality, tangible matter, consciousness exists but is immaterial, i.e. not a material substance. Saying that something exists isn’t the same as saying something is a substance unless you are a foolish materialist.
>that is "something" on itself, thus all this strange dichotomy betwen the observer and the thing being observed arises
Obviously consciousness is “something”, as if consciousness was “nothing” then we wouldn’t be sentient, we wouldn’t be aware. That there is a dichotomy between observer and observed isn’t strange but rather it is natural, just as there is a natural dichotomy between a living organism and lifeless matter, between being sentient and insentient. The dichotomy that naturally contrasts awareness and unaware phenomena follows from certain things being endowed with sentience and life and other things (rocks etc) being lifeless and lacking sentience.
>this is a faulty way to aproach conciusness, pure conciusness can't be considered a substance or thing, since it doesn't function as a substance (that is has a way to manifest existence)
Consciousness reveals its own presence to itself, it is self-revealing, hence it can indeed be properly considered as a thing. The revealing of consciousness to itself is consciousness being made manifest or known.

[Anonymous No.19086011]

>>19084084
>>19086005
>red is in a way always present in every experience, since every experience has a perceptual part, and every perception has colors, and every color is a particula rmix of every color in the spectrum, so just as conciusness is ever present, red is always ever present,
The flaw which I have already identified with this reasoning though, is that consciousness cannot be defined in terms of things presenting themselves *to* consciousness or it leads to contradictions and inconsistencies that arise from trying to explain away consciousness in terms of unconscious phenomena. Nothing that is an object of awareness replicates the first-person experiential aspect of having the very awareness of those objects to begin with, so nothing that presents itself to consciousness can be taken as a suitable definition of consciousness like “knowledge of color”. When your eyes are closed no colors are perceived but awareness remains, hence consciousness cannot be cognition of color or by extension we would automatically become unconscious when our eyes close or in a sensory-deprivation tank.
>because both of them are categories, but they dont have substancial reality,
Consciousness is a fact of our experience, it is true and real, that doesn’t make it a substance (physical material)
>you can't for example infer the existence of god from the category of conciousness thats unrelated to the question of pure consciousness
>you choose to ignore all the moments in which conciousness changes
It is quite literally impossible to demonstrate any instance of consciousness changing
>to construct in your mind this idea of a "pure conciusness" is missguided and contrary to our actual experience and logical thinking
To the contrary it is both logical and in accordance with experience. Knowing anything as an object presupposes a presence which knows it. This knowing presence being pure receptivity has no trace of the object in it, awareness is completely partless. This partless awareness is present in every instance of knowledge, coinciding with the objects.

[Anonymous No.19086177]

>>19086005
Consider that consciousness is in fact nothingness. Else it is mere coincidence that only nothingness and consciousness could never possibly be perceived... I don't think it's coincidental I think it's identical.

We only know consciousness VIA the existence of something. If consciousness is looked at directly, try as you may, you will never find anything back there. There is absolutely nothing back there. There is just the process of perceiving which is always broken into a subject and object pair in order to exist... Nothing is perceived with no perceiver... Objects are somethings and subject is always nothing... The pairing which appears as duality is a product of the source which is of course nondual.

Nothingness is the only possible true all encompassing absolute infinity. Nothingness could never be divided, hence every consciousness must be the exact same one. Minds are objects and hence separate. But we share the same essence.

[Anonymous No.19086974]

>>19084642
Schopenhauer read Anquetil Duperron's translation of the Upanishads but it was actually a translation of a 1600s Mughal sufi translation by Dara Shukoh

https://download.uni-mainz.de/fb05-philosophie-schopenhauer/files/2020/03/2012_App.pdf

>Only a few months after completing his dissertation, Schopenhauer was exposed to classical Indian thought in late 1813 by the orientalist Friedrich Majer (1771–1818), who visited Johanna Schopenhauer’s salon in Weimar. Schopenhauer also probably met at the time, Julius Klaproth (1783–1835), who was the editor of Das Asiatische Magazin. As the records of his library book withdrawals indicate, Schopenhauer began reading the Bhagavadgita in December 1813 or very soon thereafter, and the Upanishads in March 1814, coincident with the time when Schopenhauer’s thought assumed an explicitly atheistic quality. Only a year before this, he was referring to himself explicitly in his notebooks as an “illuminated theist,” i.e., a mystic, in an 1812 discussion of Schelling’s philosophy (Manuscript Remains, Vol. 2, p. 373).

>Schopenhauer’s appreciation for Indian thought was augmented in Dresden during the writing of The World as Will and Representation by his 1815–1817 neighbor Karl Friedrich Christian Krause. Not only was Krause a metaphysical panentheist (see biographic segment above), he was also an enthusiast of South Asian thought. Familiar with the Sanskrit language, he introduced Schopenhauer to publications on India in the Asiatisches Magazin, and these enhanced Schopenhauer’s studies of the first European-language translation of the Upanishads: in 1801, a Persian version of the Upanishads (the Oupnekhat) was rendered into Latin by the French Orientalist, Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron (1731-1805) – a scholar who also introduced translations of Zoroastrian texts into Europe in 1771.

[Anonymous No.19087314]

>>19086177
>Consider that consciousness is in fact nothingness. Else it is mere coincidence that only nothingness and consciousness could never possibly be perceived...
Consciousness is not nothingness, They cannot be perceived as objects for two different reasons, nothingness cannot be perceived as an object because it doesn’t exist. Consciousness cannot be perceived as an object because objects are that which by nature present themselves to consciousness or to the subject as that which differs from it, as otherness or objectivity. This doesn’t make consciousness and nothingness identical, such a claim is highly illogical and can be show to be wrong in various ways, such as how swapping “consciousness” for “nothingness” and vice versa in sentences leads to nonsensical statements, if they were the same they could be changed without issue. Nothingness also cannot be known or revealed while consciousness is known and is revealed, consciousness reveals its own presence to itself without that presence becoming an object that is opposed to it. Nothingness doesn’t reveal itself to anything because there is no content or presence in nothingness to be revealed, and nor is there any means of knowledge which can access or reveal it.

>We only know consciousness VIA the existence of something.
That’s not true, consciousness reveals itself in every moment, this is why we don’t have to make inferences or use observation to determine if we are conscious, that we are conscious is always immediately apparent and intuitively known as true in every moment. When consciousness and objects are always both present in normal experience, there is no basis for saying that we only know consciousness via something else. One can just as much say that we only know objects via consciousness; and this is even more correct since without an existing consciousness there would be no awareness of objects. Also saying “we know consciousness through objects” is ridiculous on its face, because to know something like an object is already to presuppose that one ALREADY IS conscious by virtue of having knowledge to begin with.

[Anonymous No.19087328]

>>19086177
>>19087314
>If consciousness is looked at directly, try as you may, you will never find anything back there.
Because consciousness cannot grasp itself in a subject-object relation, despite that it still reveals itself as the self-aware presence which is immediately experienced in every moment. Dualistic distinctions inhere in the changing mind, which isn’t consciousness. If consciousness was nothingness it couldn't even search for itself to begin with so your example actually shows the inanity of your position since its citing you consciously looking for consciousness in order to demonstrate its non-existence which your conscious searching rules out from being true already. You must have been conscious to experience the sensation of looking for it in order to cite that now, hence you reasonably can’t deny that you were actually conscious then.

>There is absolutely nothing back there.
Because consciousness is non-dual and doesn’t itself into subject and object, there is nobody who can know what you just described if consciousness is nothingness because nothingness cannot know anything,

>There is just the process of perceiving which is always broken into a subject and object pair in order to exist
That doesn’t make sense, perceiving presupposes a conscious perceiver, as the insert object is insentient and doesn’t perceive itself. But that relation of perceiving doesn't amount to the sum of the perceiver and perceived either, since it doesn’t encompass everything about them, so they are not just “perceiving, split into subject and object”

>Objects are somethings and subject is always nothing...
The subject isn’t nothing because its the presence to which the presentation of objects are given, if the subject was actually nothing there would just be inert objects alone and no intuition of them, no knowledge, no consciousness, no awareness, no human language etc at all to speak of, but such isn’t the case hence that’s wrong.

>The pairing which appears as duality is a product of the source which is of course nondual. Nothingness is the only possible true all encompassing absolute infinity. Nothingness could never be divided, hence every consciousness must be the exact same one.
God or Brahman is the coherent answer to posit as the absolute infinite, nothingness is complete negation including the negation of infinity and so nothingness cannot be the absolute Infinite, but God/Brahman can.