Shanmugam

Can't believe how everyone missed a real joke in our forum... Check the last two posts here:

@Noname I went through similar problem two years before (I was practicing mindfulness) and left with a blank mind with no thoughts and no emotions. But there was no sweating or redness. I was still worried what was happening to me because I had nothing to talk when I met people. I was even a little concerned that I would lose the closeness with the people I liked because of this. It lasted for about two weeks I think... And, I had lost motivation or intention to do anything in life. Then I had to consciously create a motivation to do something, and the intention I chose was to improve my performance at my work.. After that it went back to a normal, peaceful state of mind. I am not sure if the same is happening for you as well and I can't say that it will result in loosing motivations as it did for me. But I can say that there is nothing to worry. It is just a temporary stage. But feel free to post what happens from now on and your progress. I think you can use this same thread to report back tomorrow.

The practice that I did was to actually observe the thought process.. The key here is to stop being the doer.. Don't try to think a thought yourself, but let the thought arise by itself.. No controlling, no directing, no judging and don't get lost in thoughts.. Mindfulness essentially means being open to whatever arises in your consciousness and be a non judgmental witness to it. It applies to all thoughts and emotions that arise in your consciousness. It worked out very well for me and I went through an awakening in 2014 that shifted my reality altogether. I shifted from the egoic self to the witnessing self permanently. Watching the breath is just the beginning. But watching the whole content of consciousness moment to moment helps you to drop all identifications and the sense of separation from the world.

@Toby You are right, My mistake but I have edited it... I just read a few pages from David Godman's edited version of Ramana's talks.. In the introduction of the chapter about self-inquiry written by David Godman, it seemed he was suggesting to hold on to that first person 'I', the feeling of separation but in Ramana gives more details on this in his answer to the seeker. As per the chapter, it is first essential to distinguish between the 'i' thought and the pure 'I', the Self... And then trace its source back to the consciousness from which it arises.

@TeamBills actually, the image on that picture is Ben Stiller, not Sam Harris: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Stiller#/media/File:Ben-Stiller-(MS1411200222).jpg Whoever edited that picture has made a mistake by adding Ben Stiller's Image there But it is true that Ben Stiller and Sam Harris look alike

you can do self-inquiry at any time... When taking bath, eating, waiting for something, brushing your teeth etc... Just focus on the 'i' thought, the feeling of separation between you and the world... Find the sense of doer of all actions, including thinking... When each thought like 'i am this', 'i want to know this', 'i want to do this', 'i like this' etc arises, focus on that 'I' to whom the thought appears. When you see a thought as your thought, look at that 'you' who claims ownership of that thought.. Place your attention on that first person feeling, the feeling of separation.Then inquire into the source of your original existence from which this separation arises.. This is the method of self-inquiry taught by Ramana Maharshi.

A part from his book where he talks about his meditations: "Nevertheless, I spent several years deeply preoccupied with reaching the goal of cessation, and at least one year of that time was spent on silent retreat. Although I had many interesting experiences, none seemed to fit the specific requirements of this path. There were periods during which all thought subsided, and any sense of having a body disappeared. What remained was a blissful expanse of conscious peace that had no reference point in any of the usual sensory channels. Many scientists and philosophers believe that consciousness is always tied to one of the five senses—and that the idea of a “pure consciousness” apart from seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching is a category error and a spiritual fantasy. I am confident that they are mistaken"

@Leo Gura Sam himself supports the use of Psychedelics to get a glimpse of reality. The book starts with his experience of taking ecstasy.. The last chapter is dedicated to psychedelics where he talks about his good and bad trips.. He talks about LSD, mushroom, Ecstasy, MMDA and DMT.. He is not really skeptical about non-dual awareness or transcendence of a separate self.. He only denies the beliefs that have no solid evidence, like believing in a personal, creator God..

One issue that has been raised in that debate is the mistake of using concepts of quantum mechanics such as observer effect to prove non-local consciousness.. It looks like observer effect on quantum level can be caused by a lot of things and it is not really an evidence for non-local consciousness.. Even OBE's and NDE'S are not evidences for non-local consciousness since they can be very well explained by the brain functions.

@khalifa Actually, I watched the full video just today.. The full video is called 'Future of God' and it runs for two hours.. It was a very interesting debate:

@ChimpBrain Yeah I will. thanks.. I checked out his youtube channel and actually downloaded a few videos using keepvid.com. But I still have to download the podcasts

@Telepresent Here is what he says in that book: "At my level of practice, this freedom lasts only a few moments. But these moments can be repeated, and they can grow in duration"

@Socrates He doesn't deny the importance of meditation or the possibility of non-dual experience...He is only against blind beliefs which have no proof so far. @Telepresent Actually, he does say in his book that he thinks permanent abiding in non-dual consciousness is a possibility. He only states that he is not yet progressed to be like that all the time, but he definitely doesn't say it is impossible.

@Joseph Maynor What is the method of your meditation?

@Anna1 It is not going to be a mindless mishmash.. What I am talking about is creating a teaching methodology based on a careful empirical approach. It is completely opposite of neo-advaita. To understand what I am saying requires some deep knowledge of all major traditions and some psychological understanding of human mind. Unless it is there, there is no way someone can see what I am saying. I already made a clear point: Traditional vedanta ignores most of the concentration practices and traditional yoga ignores most of the insight practices but Buddhism embraces both. The heart of Buddhism is about Vipassana (insight) and Shamatha (concentration)... There is not much Shamatha in Vedanta and there is not much Vippassana in yoga. But these two were the central ideas of ancient teachings. This is not to show Buddhism in a better light or Vedanta or yoga in an inferior light. I have no interest in arguing which tradition is better. I am saying there is no need for separate traditions anymore, in this century. You can give credit to a person. It doesn't really make sense to give credit to something called Vedanta or yoga, as if Vedanta or yoga is going to sit in a corner and cry for not getting any credit. What is called as traditional Vedanta goes back to Shankara and his interpretation of Upanishads and Brahmasutras. Why create an imaginary concept called 'Vedanta' instead of seeing it as shankara's wisdom? Why create a school based on a single person's perspective and place him as one sole authority? This applies to any tradition or school. They have become another kind of vehicles for identification and clinging. If you look at science, you will see there is no Albert Einstein school or there is no Charles Darwin school. There is one universal system called science. I don't see any reason why the whole spirituality can be in a scientific domain. I don't see any reason why the coming decades will not see enlightened scientists who will work on spirituality by taking an empirical approach.My whole post is a vision for the future. Being enlightened or awakened is one thing; creating a teaching system according to what works for people is another thing. When we think about the past, none of the great masters in the past had access to the world as we have today. Now we can discuss things over the internet while being thousands of miles away from each other. We really have access to different kind of people with different background, enough access to experiment what works for people and what doesn't. We also have one established way of testing things called 'scientific method', an approach that tests if any hypothesis is true by following a very systematic way. Also, I don't see any reason why there should be a separate school called zen and another school called vedanta, when both are essentially teaching the same thing. It is just that one tradition has some methods and techniques which other tradition doesn't have. Combine the essential teaching and different methods of each tradition, apply both experiential knowledge of one's awakening and psychological knowledge that is already available in a systematic way, and we will have a universal way of teaching people. We can see Bhagwad Gita as Bhagwad Gita, not a text of Vedanta. We can see Shankara's teachings as Shankara's teachings, not as an authority of something called Traditional vedanta. We can see patanjali yoga sutras as a book, not as an authority of so called yoga... Break the boundaries of Yoga, Vedanta etc and see them for what they are... Then there will be no need for any defending, there will be no need for identifying oneself with a particular tradition and miss out all the extraordinary wisdom that other traditions have to offer. See what I am trying to say as a whole, instead of paying attention to the individual statements. Try top down processing instead of just using bottom up processing.

The aim of this post is to show that Vedanta as we know today and Yoga which is practiced today are incomplete when taught independently. They have lost a lot of essential teachings of ancient rishis by evolving into two separate schools. It also aims to show that these modern schools have deviated much from the teachings of Ancient India. Vedanta and Yoga were never separate during the time of Upanishads. There were no two different schools. Instead, the teachings of Ancient India mainly included the following two aspects: Insight This constitutes getting insight into the nature of reality and seeing that the separate self is illusory in the moment to moment experience. Practices like self-inquiry and Buddhist mindfulness are essentially the same and are mainly insight practices. The Advaita Vedanta that we know now focuses mainly on insight. Concentration This is often neglected in traditional Advaita but it was once advocated as a necessary skill to develop along with insight. Concentration and insight complement each other. There are some seekers who can do well by focusing on concentration and developing the insight later. But there are also seekers who are comfortable in doing insight practices first and achieve one pointed concentration later. Upasana in Vedanta (which is not taught in the modern days), Yogic samadhi and Buddhist Shamatha are practices that develop concentration. It is definitely possible to bypass concentration practices altogether and practice insight alone. Concentration will automatically develop as a by product. But this is not true for all people. Some people are more comfortable and capable of starting with Yogic practices.Also, practicing both of them together can be very helpful towards liberation. Because of this, yogic concentration practices and insight practices were both taught in Upanishads. In fact, there are certain upanishads which are dedicated to Yogic practices alone. They were never considered as separate schools of thought. Even Adi Shankara has elaborated on yogic and tantric practices on his text Soundarya Lahari. The theory part of both Advaita and Yoga were adopted from Samkhya karika written by an ancient rishi called Kapila. In Bhagwad Gita, Samkhya is mentioned as another term for Gnana yoga, which is nothing but self-inquiry practices and Nidhidhyasana of Vedanta that we know today. The terminology of Samkhya appears to be dualistic but in essence, it was not; It was actually a path for non-dual wisdom. Otherwise it would not have been mentioned in Bhagwad Gita, which is actually considered to be an authoritative text of Vedanta, along with Brahma Sutras and Upanishads. Samkhya mainly focused on discrimination between Purusha and Prakriti (satya and mithya in Vedanta) and offered insight into the reality which actually resulted in seeing Purusha and Prakrita as one non-dual reality, even though it was not explicitly stated in Samkya sutras. So in essence, Vedanta, Yoga and Samkhya were not really separate schools of thoughts. These were words used to represent the aspects of the same essential teaching. But after the period of Upanishads, people started giving more importance to Vedic rituals rather than focusing on the core teachings that help individuals towards their liberation. Wisdom by Buddha The first rebellion against this growing importance of pointless rituals was done by Buddha. He established the core ancient teachings of insight and concentration but just used different terminology. He categorized the teachings into two main paths, which are complimentary to each other. 1)Vipassana (Insight) This is essentially the same as Vedanta. Buddhist mindfulness is a practice to examine each thought and experience that arises each moment and look into the nature of their absence of a separate self, impermanence and suffering. This is exactly what self-inquiry does when you inquire the nature and origin of each thought. What was called as Nirguna Brahman (absolute reality that is empty of attributes) in ancient India was named as ‘Sunyata’ (emptiness) by Buddha. Since Buddha took a psychological approach, he intentionally used negative terminology so that people don’t form mental concepts about the absolute reality. 2)Shamatha (Concentration) Buddha didn’t ignore the yogic practices of concentration. He introduced Jhana meditations which are essentially the same as Dhyana, Dharana and Samadhi. But he also explained how practicing either insight or concentration can automatically improve the other. Buddha took an empirical approach in understanding the nature of mind. The deep psychological insights found in Apidhamma in Pali Canon, is very unique to Buddhism which is completely absent in the traditional schools of Advaita and Yoga which developed later as separate schools.The psychological wisdom found in Buddhism is compared to modern Psychology because of so many similarities between the two. Traditional Vedanta, Samkhya and Yoga talk about three gunas which are sattva (balance), rajas (restlessness , too much activity in the mind), Tamas (inertia or mental dullness) to show how rajas and tamas are hindrances to insight and concentration. Buddha went further and added three more to the two hindrances (panca nivaranani): Restlessness, Dullness and sloth, sensory desire, ill will and doubt. Finally, Buddha went one step above in handling the mere curious people who wanted to accumulate factual and theoretical information. He very well understood that such an accumulation of unnecessary knowledge may reinforce the idea of a separate self. So, contrary to the ancient teachings which taught different theories of creation (Ajativada, drishti-shristi vada, shristi-drishti vada), Buddha asked people to ignore such questions and theories and told them that these questions do not lead people to true knowledge. These questions have been termed as ‘Avyakata’ (unfathomable) by Buddha. Sometimes, he was silent when people asked such questions which is popularly known as ‘Noble silence’in Buddhism. Wisdom by Shankara Any form of teachings get clouded and polluted overtime by people when they add new interpretations, ideas and speculations. This is mainly done by curious scholars who were not enlightened and had no interest in liberation. When it comes to Buddhism, it faced two major problems: There was a strong political pressure in Indian kingdoms to eliminate Buddhism since Buddhists didn’t practise Vedic rituals. But people were clinging so much to Vedas that were not be able to accept or understand the revolutionary teachings of Buddhism. Because of this pressure Buddhism was widely eliminated from India but became very popular in China, Japan and South Asian countries. Due to lack of teachers and proper guidance, many Buddhists in India became deluded and began to misunderstand the core teachings of Buddha. Adi Shankra was not against Buddha’s core teachings or Yoga. But he reestablished the core teachings of ancient India by writing commentaries on texts on both insight and concentration practices, debating with ritual oriented Mimamsa scholars and deluded Buddhist scholars. Realizing that vedic rituals and worshiping personal deities could not be easily removed from Indian tradition, Shankara had no choice but to compromise on certain things. He accepted the worship of personal God but popularized the concept of Ishwara and taught people that they can revere their favorite personal deity as Ishwara. He divided the sects of such deity worships to six categories (shanmata), based on the six popular deities, but insisted that any personal God is the representation of Absolute reality. But since he was pretty much aware of what was happening to the core teachings of Buddha, he had to debate with the remaining deluded Buddhist scholars to make them accept his newly formulated teachings. But he never excluded Yogic practices that were meant to achieve one-pointed concentration and Samadhi. In fact, he praised Yoga Vashista, the text which contain both vedantic and yogic teachings and regarded Vashista, the author of Yoga Vashista as the first teacher of Vedanta. But apart from the terminology and certain culturally oriented concepts, his teachings were essentially the same as Buddha’s teachings. Distortion of the Original teachings Again, needless to say, Shankara’s original teachings were distorted. Scholars conveniently ignored the concentration oriented practices and maintained the school of Advaita based on the rest of Shankara’s teachings. Overtime, vedantins became mere intellectuals who kept repeating that all is maya. This led to 5 other subschools of vedanta which criticized vedantins as mayavadis. At the same time, Yoga started evolving as a separate school which ignored a lot of insight present in Vedanta. They became more focused on physical postures and chasing various experiences.

@Anna1 Yes, I am saying my thoughts.. No denying. But I thought you said i was in some kind of confusion. I didn't know what the word crusade exactly meant. I wouldn't say that it is really a mission, it is just a direction I want to go. Once you go through spiritual awakening and go beyond the level of seeing yourself as a separate entity, you would want to help others someway to get awakened. Some people become teachers but i don't want to become one. Instead I just blog and spread some word about how they can go forward with the path by pointing to different people, books and sharing my own thoughts about it which I clearly think through in the perspective of truth. I also try to see how science and spirituality can be bridged and make the whole teaching more effective. I suggest to learn principles of Advaita (only the core principles), and mindfulness because this whole suggestion is based on what I went through, based on my own experience. My effort is to not achieve a goal or accomplish a goal, but I enjoy doing it, it is an end in itself. This also involves not taking any one human being as the only authority. Not following anyone blindly and following your own light is very important. Taking one human being as authority is as stupid as taking one holy book as the sole authority. Because even awakened owns corrupt the teaching with their own views and opinions. The effect is not really much, but still this ends up in a lot of people blindly repeating what a master says. That is why I have written an article regarding how even awakened ones are biased and their actions can be influenced by ego. This is not to say one shouldn't find a teacher. If he can't do it on his own, he should get a help of a teacher. But even if your teacher declares you enlightened, don't believe it and don't be in any hurry to declare it. You will know the truth for yourself and then you won't need any external confirmation. Your teacher can be wrong. Any teacher can be wrong, because they are still human beings. Here is a sutta from Pali canon that everyone should keep in mind: "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in traditions simply because they have been handed down for many generations. ... Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. But when, after observation and analysis, you find anything that agrees with reason, and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it." – Buddha, Kalama Sutta

My whole point of posting all this is to show how a teaching system can be integrated and taught to people. I learnt a lot from Osho. Osho's way was presenting the information he wanted to convey through all traditions. By studying different things in all traditions, I saw how a teaching model combining the advantages of all traditions can be created. After my awakening, I am also able to see things in different point of view. I also studied some psychology to see how we can get help from science. Here is a rough model I have for a new, updated spiritual teaching: 1) Core principles of advaita, excluding many of the theories.Students should be taught how to clearly discriminate between real and not real. They should be very clear about this. 2) Buddhist mindfulness meditation - This is very effective. Anyone can do this. Once doesn't have to learn Buddhist tradition to learn mindfulness 3) Learning about various cognitive biases and defense mechanisms of ego. By knowing this, you can learn to see how ego arises and functions in your own consciousness. But without going into complex psychology, a simpler version using layman terms can be created using the principles of psychology. This is not absolutely necessary but it helps. 4) Concentration meditation: Meditating by instructions of either Buddhist jhana meditations or yogic meditations. This is also not absolutely necessary, but it can help many seekers who have good concentration skills. Some people can easily concentrate at first, rather than doing mindfulness meditation. So, this is taught based on the type of the seeker. This is very flexible and can be customized for each individual student. For example, I didn't have to do any Jhana or yogic meditations. I have tried them but didn't get into them too much, For some people, learning about psychology may not have any value, so they can safely ignore that. Only the first two are compulsory.

@Mastral Yes, here is the link: https://nellaishanmugam.wordpress.com/2017/06/13/is-there-a-scientific-evidence-for-spiritual-enlightenment/

@Harikrishnan may be... Scholars say that even Aporakshaanubhuti and few other works were written by somebody else but credited to Shankara.. A lot of his works were lost and we don't have a reliable biography of him. With Rishaba, the first Jain master, we don't have much information regarding his works. But if we look at the most notable people whose works are available, we say that Buddha and Shankara are very important. Anyway, no one can be 100% sure about history.

@Anna1 "What so one should learn both traditions? Yikes, that will take some time. Then piece meal them together? Ack, no thanks" My whole question is 'Why different traditions'?..See, I am not saying what an individual should do or should not do.. If a tradition has been working good for you, thats fine.. I am just talking about the ways in which the whole teaching system can be improved. This is probably a discussion that I have to have with various spiritual teachers themselves..

@Anna1 You are not the only person in the world... I am talking about a totally different perspective.. I don't think that you see that.. If vedanta is working for you, thats fine.. My mission is actually different. This discussion is not something about me. In this post, there is nothing that indicates what i am going through ... My search for completion from a separate person is over. All the teachings have done their job for me. What do you mean by 'you seem to be on some sort of crusade'?

@Joseph Maynor Oh yes... There is a lot of wisdom in the West also, right from the time of Socrates. There have been many schools in the west for spiritual liberation.

No schools, no sub schools are really needed anymore.. It is time to integrate all these teachings and also approach it in scientific way. My blog and most of my posts are intended to create awareness in bridging science and spirituality. All these schools are started by people who wanted to classify the teachings of a certain person like Shankara and Buddha and make it to Advaita and Buddhism. Why not see it as a wisdom of Shankara and Buddha alone? Classifying truths into schools, traditions creates a lot of debate and confusions overtime. Why keep repeating the history? In the last 15 years, I have been exposed to various traditions as a part of my search... I got interest in exploring all schools of India and all the western ways including sufism and christian mysticism. I was also intensely into my own spiritual search until 2014 after which life and the perception of reality has shifted. In the last two years I also spent time in psychology, the scientific study of mind and behavior. This is how I realized that science and spirituality can be integrated by combining psychology and core psychological basis of all major traditions in the world...Scientists can be enlightened and enlightened ones can be scientists. So, I think there should be no division between spirituality and science either. That's why I was impressed by Sam Harris book and opened a thread recently about it. His books and videos are already on the way to bridge spirituality and science.

@Anna1 why should we group ourselves as vedantins, yogis and buddhists in the first place? My whole point is go to back to the original teaching, which included all aspects of these schools. We can again take advantage of all traditions by seeing the central practices and ideas as one core teaching. Why to even identify one's teaching to an 'ism'? Because, any such sect or a path usually fails to take advantage of certain ways of teaching in another sect, path or tradition.