Preetom

This is where you are misunderstanding Advaita Vedanta. Vedanta is trying to point out that this God and world business is not even happening. It's precisely our ignorance that impart reality on these things in the first place. And due to this ignorance, the distinction between form-formless, brahman-world seems to arise. Good god, it's only a little inside joke among good boys. Please rest assured miss mod

dang there are so many common words amidst these languages

great! now good boy is writing in hindi

@Aakash So basically you are shouting as demand for silence. And you've made so much assumptions about enlightened people, winternight, pre and post enlightenment, Leo, vedanta etc and posted so much in so little time that I can't even quote them now due to page restrictions lol Anyway no one is saying here Vedanta is THE TRUTH. If that was the case, there would be no search for truth. A person would simply write a book about it and that would be the end of it. Vedanta is a thorn used to remove another thorn; and its a very effective thorn at that if understood properly There is a saying that after self-realization the Vedas(knowledge) becomes the Avedas(ignorance). The upanishads and all this nonduality and god talks are all part of Vedas.

And there is little to no leeway to make personal stories and doctrines around it as things are precisely defined lol Btw thanks for posting the quotes from Ribhu Gita. Those are the real gems of this thread And I'm foreshadowing the nightmare of Leo coming back and making all of us bald so that no hair splitting is possible (wait is that why he is bald in the first place?)

That's a very crucial question. It arises from misunderstanding what Maharshi means by Self or Consciousness. The thing we call consciousness, the consciousness that operates in our waking and dream states and knows objects and experiences is NOT the Self or Real Consciousness. Because we are used to associate consciousness ONLY when we are knowing things, we feel we have lost Consciousness in deep sleep where no things are known. What Maharshi refers to as Self or Real Consciousness is that which doesn't know anything other than itself. It's nondual, whole, solitary Being Consciousness. You are infact experiencing Self in deep sleep, but this ''Self-experience'' is hidden by darkness of ignorance or the bliss sheath. When your dual or object knowing consciousness arises immediately upon waking up and look back at the deep sleep experience, it misinterprets that sleep experience as unconsciousness or void because it itself was absent that 'time'. So the instruction is to self-inquire and realize Self in midst of waking state and penetrating all the mental sheaths. You can't do that during deep sleep. And the meaning of ''Deep sleep is true nature of Awareness'' is that deep sleep is the only state that resembles Real Awareness at it's best. Because in deep sleep there is no subject-object experience duality, exactly like the realization of the Self. That's why Ramana said after self-realization waking, dreaming, sleeping all will vanish and only the ''conscious sleep'' will remain. 'Sleep' means there will not be any subject-object duality. And 'conscious' means you won't be taken over by the darkness of ignorance or the illusion of unconsciousness ever again This is the limit of the metaphor. The eye cant see itself, the tongue cant taste itself, the knife cant cut itself etc are all helpful metaphors for vedantic discrimination and appreciating the reality and supremacy of Brahman. But these metaphors collapse when the realization is done. Consciousness is not insentient like eye, tongue, knife; so the metaphor collapses. And isness, suchness, nothingness, void etc are all subtle teaching pointers. They are not experiences as we know them. Awareness aware of itself- it's not an experience. It can't be described in any way. It's the only thing thats going on and we can realize that for ourselves. After we realize, we'll know exactly what it means and won't need to listen to any description about it.

No Vedanta doesn't define brahman and world like that. Now I can see where you are misunderstanding. It's because you've conflated advaita vedanta teachings with shunya vada teachings of Buddhism and purusha-prakity philosophy of Samkhya. What you are preaching is Samkhya or panpsychism where both form and formless are Real. Even when you are saying form is formless and formless is form, you are making the distinction of 2 things first.

No you are still misinterpreting Vedanta. Brahman is not in the world. Brahman never becomes or unbecomes anything. Brahman alone is. The world is not. If it's all ONE why are you still making a distinction between the world and Brahman. Your message seems to imply that there must be a world and Brahman- two things first- then they will be viewed as one - yeah that's panchychism or a version of Samkhya philosophy, not advaita vedanta. Like I said, if one is really Brahman then for him there is no misconception about what Brahman or the world is. He neither needs to talk or convince anyone about it. But before that, this precise discrimination is essential. Or else you get a half baked nonduality or whatever it is- but it's definitely not what advaita vedanta is talking about.

I am not deflecting to you or anyone, neither to myself. Sorry if it seemed like that. I am merely trying to explain the teaching here. You are misunderstanding my point here. Unreality/non-existence/maya is not a thing or experience floating around somewhere which we can hunt and find one day and then write a double PhD thesis on it. In vedanta it is said that don't try to prove the existence of Maya, rather scrutinize Maya and see it's unreality or non-existence. The flaw is in the lens, the way of seeing. The dilemma is that we impose reality on the unreal(things, experiences) and thus miss the real. The trinity of person-god-world which is unreal seems real to us, while the only reality Brahman seems absent and non-existent and sounds woo woo.

Anna1 never said the world was created by Brahman. Anyone who understands vedanta would make no such claim. You are talking about panpsychism here where God and it's creation are one and the same thing. But Vedanta doesn't teach that doctrine. That's why it is being said over and over again not jump to conclusions without understanding these fine distinctions. Vedanta is all about splitting hairs and I hope you can appreciate the bright side of it, considering how easily things can be misunderstood and corrupted. There is probably not a single doubt or objection that hasn't been raised and resolved in Vedanta and it encourages such reasoning and questioning, in fact it's 2nd vital part of the 3 step process

Okay I don't understand the first sentence. By being aware of an object, I mean noticing any experience whatsoever. And really speaking, one cannot 'experience' the unreal because unreal is non-existent. If it was really real and substantial, then it would be experienced, scrutinized. Upon scrutiny the unreal becomes non existent and on the other hand upon scrutiny Consciousness starts being more prominent and solid. The point of vedantic discrimination is to appreciate a very important distinction. We tend to impress 'reality' upon objects or experiences. Discrimination shows that it's not the 'thing' that has reality, but its Brahman/existence which is the sole reality. To correct this core flaw, discrimination is absolutely essential. If you've realized Brahman, in other words if the mode of knowing/experiencing things has evaporated as non existent, then you neither need discrimination nor more brahman talks. Because at that point, the thing that was discriminating is out of the system as well. Exactly. You are supposed to intuitively see what is the source of the sense of reality, not analyzing and breaking down the grammar of the question. The wave/ocean is a poor analogy to appreciate the distinction between real and unreal. A more suitable analogy is to see the wave/ocean as unreal and the water as real. Whether its a wave or ocean or spray or steam, the reality is H2O

Just like you know your own existence, similarly you know what is real and what is unreal when this discrimination is applied. Select any object(gross or subtle/external or internal) in your experience. Now ask yourself this question and see what it reveals. Am I aware of this object or is this object aware of I? There ya go pal

Distinction between ramen noodles and brahman noodles ?

Yes indeed. It requires refined discrimination between self and non-self, between real and unreal, between eternal and transient along with understanding the logical derivations of advaita scriptures in order to appreciate whats being said here. This discrimination is the hallmark of vedanta. And it says that the very root of our spiritual ignorance about Brahman lies in our very inability to appreciate this distinction. The "untrained eye" only sees the clay pots, it only sees the material objective world and the reality which is Brahman/clay is non existent to it. But by making this discrimination between clay and clay pot, the sole existence of clay and the fiction of the potness is understood and appreciated. Same thing goes with Brahman.

No. I mean, that is a position you take. I mean taking the position where you 'return' and regard your life and the world does not matter, the position where you are everything but still need to live your individual life. And i dont find Leos teaching reliable and i dont follow him for nondual spirituality anymore. I doubt whether Leo has a teaching in the first place. He is just sharing his own insights and what he makes sense of that. But some of his old stuff was very rich teaching indeed.

That becoming, coming, going, returning are all your own imagination and superimpositions.

You can never part with your own true self(consciousness). How will you know that consciousness has disappeared? There will have to be a knowing element present to note that disappearance. And thus that knowing element in turn will be your real self. You are unnecessarily creating a big drama out of it and the main reason for that is your mistaken obsessive identity with your present limited form. Whatever scenario you are coming up with, this petty, limited form is corrupting that by superimposing it's own limitation on the unlimited truth

Relevant video explaining cosmology within 5 minutes

Ye I know. There is but one god in this forum and nothing goes unnoticed by him ?

Goodness just stop. How come this thread diverted from vedanta to personal attacks? Here is a joke to lighten things up ? *At a vedanta class* Swami: You, the Brahman is absolute, pristine, nondual, self shining, solitary reality. Devotee: Okay swamiji I understand that my brahman has no problem. But I have many problems

Better to realize that sooner than later ?

@Nahm @Anna1 And thus the form vs formless war begins *facepalm* ?

No. You are mixing up the real with the unreal ?

He is Tukmo or Jim or neither or both #nondualityvocabatitsbest

Sorry but my purpose was to contrast and map things out in Vedantic perspective. Like I said, this is not for you if you are enlightened. For god, there is no misconception about what god is or is not. But for a seeker who is confused, it is absolutely crucial. If this distinction is not properly understood, then all sorts absolute-relative conflation happens. Then the ego demands the absolute formless explained in it's own terms, on it own form ground. And yet this is the most important Nothing to talk about as there is no worthwhile things to talk about in contrast Take care