Hi all and happy new year! This is the first time I post on this forum
I'd like to highlight an old question that for me - being a hardcore scientist and a beginner meditator - is extremely interesting. Furthermore, I am struck at a point in which I can "smell" something powerful in the Self-Enquiry method, but for the moment I cannot really go into it because of the next-discussed problem in the interpretation of the true nature of external reality.
Probably I am not interpreting correctly the self-enquiry method, and hope to find some help here.
So, let's talk about the "external reality".
I assume that all humang beings have a same nature and can develope certain insights and traits through the same practices. Hence, I'll try to avoid elements that depend on specific cultural and religious beliefs (e.g. reincarnation, afterlife, existence of a Creator versus self-sustaining Universe, etc).
According to the belief/opinion and (probably in many cases) experience of teachers belonging to different traditions, the approach to the "absolute truth" (whatever it might be) leads to the deep understanding that "external reality" and the subjective awareness have the same nature. Therefore (and here is the point, as I see no reason to do this conceptual jump) "objective reality is an illusion", as it is the subjective experience of the "I-though" (the mind that produces toughts).
As a "corollary", if you want to achieve awakening (meaning here mainly the "complete understanding", and not necessarily the "liberation", which is too much cultural-related), *you should put in question the idea of existence of the outside world and eventually find out that you can release it completely*, in the same manner in which you will release the thoughts.
This point sound suspicious to me. But I started going on it more and more while watching some of the Leo's episodes on self-enquiry in which he states that during the practice you should use the thoughts only "to question everything you hold certain about the reality", and stay open-minded. Well, in principle this is exactly what a scientist does. But the difference is that a scientist believes that his senses and subjective experiences are not the only thing that exist and he relies also on logic, mathematical proofs and overall coherence of what he considers "probable" or "very likely".
As a scientist I do not think I am closed-minded, I see no conceptual problem in accepting the truthness of concepts that may appear incompatible with the scientific reasoning (e.g. the voidness, the no-self) and I know that the universe of human beings is a subjective one, i.e. we cannot have an ultimate proof that the external universe exists.
However, I have seen that Leo has gone from this position to the (classical) one of 'the veil of Maya', i.e. that reality is an illusion (see "brains do not exist"). I am wondering if this is part of the self-Enquiry method. If yes, now I see why I cannot do it.
In fact, the autenticity that is often teached in Vipassana leads me to the position that the external universe actually exists, and will exist whatever we think about it and whatever trick we try to play with our mind. I see no point why we should assume such a dogmatic position, despite tons of clues highlighted not only by the individual subjects agreeing upon their experiences, but also by instruments, measurements, mathematic proofs, coherence checking and so on.
Instead, I naturally see so clearly how a non-dual picture can be interpreted the other way around: i.e.
a) the Objective Universe exists; b) it is the manifestation of Laws that generate and control the phenomena; c) These phenomena are infinite, and there is an infinite hierarchy of processes & phenomena, on top of which (in terms of complexity, and as far as we know up to now) there is the consciousness, i.e. the process of "being an I".
In this sense, I am still affirming that "I" and Existence are one, because "I am" and "I" are emerging phenomena arising from the processes (biological and biochemical and molecular, in the specific case of a Homo Sapiens animal) which are among the infinite manifestations of the One (or of the Reality, or of the Source, or whatever you want to call it).
Thus, I am not "in essence" different from another animal, or from a rock, or from an atom, or even from the space and time itself (according to the quantum loop theory, space and time are also manifestations of processes and not an ultimate element of reality). I - as consciousness - will cease to exist because it is in the nature of the processes to reorganize: the specific information pattern from which the "I" arise will be shuffled, the electrons and protons (which are eternal) of my body will arrange in another pattern and the eternal existence will continue, as has continued for billions of years even in absence of any information pattern that could create self-awareness.
This position seems to be pretty compatible with a nondualism, and - most important for actual practice - I really do not understand why a meditator who got an insight of "being one with the Everything" should put into question the existence of reality, universe, brains and so on, instead of interpreting it by saying that the external universe IS the reality, that phenomena exists, including the "I" process/phenomenon which has the universe-existence-quality. So the Universe is not the illusion, while "I" am the illusion, if I think that "I" is different from any other phenomenon.
Anyone wishes to express his point? It would me help me a lot.
And, in pratcie, do you think there a fundamental incompatibility between a scientific mind and self-enquiry practice / non-dual advaita paths?
For those who arrived here: sorry for my english. This thing has become longer than I thought...
