Is nonduality the absolute or a contingent knowledge?

[Devin]

43 minutes ago, Strannik said:

 

now you got it

[Carl-Richard]

2 hours ago, Strannik said:

I know, I myself went through all these arguments before, they sound very logical, but only providing that classical logic applies to ontology, which may or may not be true. If formlessness precedes all relational qualities, then it also precedes logic. As I said, it's like trying to prove the existence of God with logical arguments that medieval theologists tried to do. But if you want to convince yourself that there is nothing ontologically prior to formless awareness, or just believe in it like people believe in God because it is comfortable for them, you are free to do so. You will just be limiting your freedom, trading freedom for comfort, that's all. 

Of course it precedes logic. It's not the logic that justifies it in the final equation. It only makes it more convincing. You must grasp it directly by going through the process of divesting yourself of all forms, of all limitations (and again, "you" in this case is formlessness, not the limited human form).

Again, what you're treating as "something else" is what formlessness is. It's the necessary criteria for all things. It's not contingent on anything, because it's the thing that makes contingency possible. To postulate "there might be something else than formlessness" doesn't make sense, because it too would be formlessness. Again, "something else" only makes sense when something is limited. Formlessness is not limited.

The only way you get to your position is if you use your limited human mind to produce a conceptual thought that says "what if?" At that point, you've departured from dealing with the issue directly (which is to grasp it directly). You're smuggling relational assumptions into the equation by assuming human qualities and pretending that it's a valid part of the inquiry. It's really not. The human part is the thing you must see through.

Edited December 12, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[Strannik]

28 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Of course it precedes logic. It's not the logic that justifies it in the final equation. It only makes it more convincing. Again, what you're treating as "something else" is what formlessness is. It's the necessary criteria for all things. It's not contingent on anything, because it's the thing that makes contingency possible. To postulate "there might be something else than formlessness" doesn't make sense, because it too would be formlessness. Again, "something else" only makes sense when something is limited. Formlessness is not limited. You're smuggling relational assumptions into the equation.

I get your argument. The point is, in Leo's paradigm, and in any Advaita-based one in general, the formless ontic prime is conscious/aware by nature, it is Sat-Chit, Being-Awareness, and as such, available to be experienced directly (because awareness is directly aware of itself). Even though pure awareness is formless, there is still a specific subtle quality to it - a quality of being aware. It is possible that some more fundamental and "more formless" level of reality exists which is free even from the quality of being aware, and by which the quality of being aware is caused. This is the premise of the ontology of neutral monism. There are many other variants of neutral, dual property and idealistic monisms developed in the modern philosophy, it would take too much space to discuss them all here. The point is: the Advaitic paradigm, which is essentially a variant of subjective idealism ontology, is by far not the only monistic ontology possible. For me the role model is David Chalmers, the greatest philosopher of our times who discovered the "hard problem of consciousness" and realizes the nature of awareness, but still stays open and agnostic with respect to adhering to a specific variant of ontology. He has multiple papers discussing pros and cons of all these variants of non-materialistic ontologies. Essentially, for me, this well aligns with Zen approach of remaining open and not sticking with any specific ontological or religious belief. 

Edited December 12, 2022 by Strannik

[Carl-Richard]

17 minutes ago, Strannik said:

I get your argument. The point is, in Leo's paradigm, and in any Advaita-based one in general, the formless ontic prime is conscious/aware by nature, it is Sat-Chit, Being-Awareness, and as such, available to be experienced directly (because awareness is directly aware of itself). Even though pure awareness is formless, there is still a specific subtle quality to it - a quality of being aware. It is possible that some more fundamental and "more formless" level of reality exists which is free even from the quality of being aware, and by which the quality of being aware is caused. This is the premise of the ontology of neutral monism. There are many other variants of neutral, dual property and idealistic monisms developed in the modern philosophy, it would take too much space to discuss them all here. The point is: the Advaitic paradigm, which is essentially a variant of subjective idealism ontology, is by far not the only monistic ontology possible. For me the role model is David Chalmers, the greatest philosopher of our times who discovered the "hard problem of consciousness" and realizes the nature of awareness, but still stays open and agnostic with respect to adhering to a specific variant of ontology. He has multiple papers discussing pros and cons of all these variants of non-materialistic ontologies. Essentially, for me, this well aligns with Zen approach of remaining open and not sticking with any specific ontological or religious belief. 

Skepticism aside, which ontology makes the most sense to you? In other words, if you had to bet on one using whatever criteria you'd like, which one would you pick?

Edited December 12, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[Strannik]

14 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Skepticism aside, which ontology makes the most sense to you? In other words, if you had to bet on one using whatever criteria you'd like, which one would you pick?

It actually is still the advaitic one  for multiple reasons (mostly practical), but I'm taking it non-religiously as a contingent truth, not as the absolute one. It's my working hypothesis and not a belief. Although I'm finding that even that hypothesis is becoming irrelevant.

Edited December 12, 2022 by Strannik

[Carl-Richard]

5 hours ago, Strannik said:

It actually is still the advaitic one  for multiple reasons (mostly practical), but I'm taking it non-religiously as a contingent truth, not as the absolute one. It's my working hypothesis and not a belief.

So I would say there is a difference between mapping out an ontology that makes sense (or being skeptical of such attempts) and directly grasping whatever the ontology is describing. The mapping part or the skepticism part is a human thing, and it's something we can't stop ourselves from doing, but it doesn't change the fact that we're somehow doing the mapping. That "doing", whichever way you choose to map it, eventually traces back to formlessness, and it's unavoidable. The amount of layers you have to trace back is of course contingent on our human inclinations, but the final layer isn't. How can you directly grasp the final layer? Again, by stripping all the human layers from yourself, removing the body, the mind, thoughts, perceptions, time and space. That process is necessary because the human and its activities (i.e. what this is) is distracting itself with the world of forms.

Edited December 12, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[Strannik]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

So I would say there is a difference between mapping out an ontology that makes sense (or being skeptical of all such attempts) and directly grasping whatever the ontology is describing. The mapping part or skepticism part is a human thing, and it's something we can't stop ourselves from doing, but it doesn't change the fact that we're somehow doing the mapping. That something, whichever way you choose to map it, eventually traces back to formlessness, and it's inescapable. The amount of layers you have to trace back is of course contigent on our human inclinations, but the final layer isn't.

I have two comments on that. One is: assuming that you are right, it still makes a practical difference what kind of formlessness is the "final" layer, specifically, whether it is available for conscious experience or not. For example, in the Advaitic paradigm the ontic prime is pure formless Awareness which is directly available for experience, so we can not only intellectually grasp it, but also spiritually experience the pure awareness in a mystical experience. That makes it very useful for spiritual practice because we can develop an advanced state of consciousness where we are continuously aware of the ceaseless presence of the formless awareness (nirvkalpa samadhi in the Vedic tradition). However, that is not possible if the final formless ontic level is prior to awareness, in which case we can only intellectually grasp it, but never experience directly, it would be a Kantian "thing in itself" for us (only that it is not a "thing").      

 

Another comment: in some schools of the Buddhist tradition, as well as in modern philosophy, there is an anti-ontological approach, which is that there is no such thing as an ontological prime whatsoever, there is nothing in the world more fundamental to anything else. Basically, the idea of ontology is based on a premise of causality: when we see facts or events or forms, we search for the cause of them. This is helpful in our survival to understand casual links between events, so it is basically a cognitive survival mechanism. But the point is that our principle of causality is an idea derived from observation of correlations between events (forms). Then, in philosophical or spiritual enquiry, we also apply this principle of causality to try to understand how the world is structured in general on the cosmic scale. In this case we try to find the "prime cause" to which all events and forms can be reduced and from which they can be derived. Obviously, this reduction to the cause cannot be run indefinitely and at some level must reach a "bottom" which we call the fundamental "ontic prime" which by itself is not caused by anything else more fundamental to it. This is basically a reductionistic idea commonly used in both physics and ontology. However, there are legitimate doubts that this reductionistic idea is applicable to the world as a whole. What makes us think that the principle of causality that we developed from observations of phenomena is applicable to the nature of things? What if there is no fundamental ontic prime whatsoever? This anti-ontological skepticism was entertained in some Buddhist schools. For example, if you read the Heart Sutra, it says "form is emptiness[formlessness], emptiness is form, form is no other than emptiness, emptiness is no other than form", in this equation formlessness is not more fundamental to forms, but they are ontologically equal and inseparable. This is also the Zen approach. Indeed, if we enquire into the raw bottom level of our direct conscious experience, there is an experience of a wholistic "blob" of the stream of forms/qualia each of them inseparable from the suchness-awareness of them (with the "experiencer" nowhere to be found). Or it can be a state with pure formless awareness with no forms, although arguably there is still memory as form present (otherwise we would not be able to recollect such experience). But why do we have to assume that the formless awareness is necessarily more causally fundamental to forms? The usual argument is that awareness is changeless and ever-present while forms are impermanent, they come and go. Awareness is uniform and boundless while forms are variable and have boundaries. So what? Is that a sufficient reason to assume that formless awareness is causally fundamental to forms? I'm not so sure about that.     

Edited December 12, 2022 by Strannik

[vladorion]

13 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@Strannik Dude, please stop with the gaslighting already. You ain't Awake.

How is that gaslighting?

[Girzo]

@Strannik Mr. Zen Fanboy, explain to me, please, how can Absolute Truth be proven as just a faulty concept, because of there possibly existing some "meta-reality beyond-consciousness" when Absolute Truth already includes any such known and unknown, possible and impossible to know meta-layers of reality. 

Because you know, as you have said all language is conepts, and we use them to point at THIS, but I feel like the concepts you propose do worse job at pointing at and describing the indescribable than what Leo uses.

Reading your words is Land of Confusion for me, how the heck Buddhism Zen is not a religion? It's as much religion as everything else.

 

[Strannik]

51 minutes ago, Girzo said:

@Strannik Mr. Zen Fanboy, explain to me, please, how can Absolute Truth be proven as just a faulty concept, because of there possibly existing some "meta-reality beyond-consciousness" when Absolute Truth already includes any such known and unknown, possible and impossible to know meta-layers of reality.

Quote

 

Leo's Practical Guide To Enlightenment - Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God - Actualized.org Forum:

What Are You Existentially?

Nothingness

You are pure empty awareness or consciousness

Pure awareness has no shape, size, weight, volume, limit, or location

Pure awareness is like nothingness because it is a no-thing. It is a non-object. It is the "thing" that allows things to be noticed

Consciousness exists independent of the physical body. Because the physical body exists only inside consciousness.

 

So, according to Leo, there is no meta-reality beyond consciousness, we existentially (=ontologically) ARE consciousness. And it is stated categorically with no alternative options. 

Now, you say that, even if meta-reality is beyond consciousness, it is still the Absolute Truth. A totally agree and I said it before here, but notice that this is not what Leo claims:  

Quote

So, I'm not denying that the absolute truth may exist. I'm only saying that there is no way for Consciousness to know what this "absolute Truth" is, because Consciousness is forever imprisoned within its own boundless limits and cannot ever know in principle if there is anything or nothing existing beyond itself. 

Basically, if the Absolute Truth is beyond consciousness, then there is no way for consciousness to know what this truth exactly is. And there is no way to know if consciousness itself the final Absolute Truth, or if there are more fundamental layers of Truth. What if all this God-Consciousness-Absolute-Truth which we are so proudly all part of is only a simulation run by AI created by some advanced civilization? oops...   

 

Quote

Because you know, as you have said all language is conepts, and we use them to point at THIS, but I feel like the concepts you propose do worse job at pointing at and describing the indescribable than what Leo uses.

I know, I'm writing for the elite and do not expect everyone to understand (because I'm not trying to make money from it  ). Leo is good in explaining elementary stuff, no question about that, even though I personally prefer Rupert Spira, he is more precise. There is a lot of modern spiritual teachers talking the same stuff, there is nothing new in Leo's teaching, it's a typical neo-advaita, may be except for the DMT stuff that makes it more fun for youngsters. It's a marketplace with tight competition where smart people are trying to make money on spiritual seekers. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it's a scam, people do get awakened, so the teachers earn their money, it's a fair job.

 

Edited December 12, 2022 by Strannik

[Girzo]

10 minutes ago, Strannik said:

Basically, if the Absolute Truth is beyond consciousness, then there is no way for consciousness to know what this truth exactly is.

You act like you are purposefully fooling me you don't know what does the part "ABSOLUTE" of the phrase "Absolute Truth" mean. It's absolute, it can't be fully out of consciousness. It has to be embeded in your consciousness.

Denying that is you doing some Daniel Denett's style judo yourself.

[Strannik]

12 minutes ago, Girzo said:

You act like you are purposefully fooling me you don't know what does the part "ABSOLUTE" of the phrase "Absolute Truth" mean. It's absolute, it can't be fully out of consciousness. It has to be embeded in your consciousness.

Denying that is you doing some Daniel Denett's style judo yourself.

Dennett claims that consciousness is an illusion, but I'm not. Unfortunately, you don't get what I'm saying and there is nothing I can do about it.

One thing I like about Dennett though is that he once said: "I know that I can be wrong". That is a hallmark of an honest philosopher as opposed to a religious zealot or a spiritual businessman.  

Edited December 12, 2022 by Strannik

[Devin]

@Strannik so other than for arguing with people on the internet, what difference does anything you're saying make?

[Strannik]

10 hours ago, Devin said:

@Strannik so other than for arguing with people on the internet, what difference does anything you're saying make?

You need to practice it to experience the difference. It's the highest degree of liberation from fooling yourself. 

When we stop being fooled by the ideas like "I am a human in a material world" and awaken from that dream, we just fall into another dream of being fooled by "I am Infinite Truth-God" ideas. In some people (and I've seen it) it develops even more narcissism. Instead, we better wake up from any dreams (or, rather, become dreaming completely lucidly) and stop being fooled by any beliefs whatsoever. But it is difficult to do it in one big leap, so it usually happens in step-by-step awakening process where "I am God-Consciousness" is just one of the steps. So, there is nothing wrong with that intermediate step, it is indeed helpful in most cases. Just don't think that it is the final destination if you are on the way to a complete liberation. But no rush, you can do it only when you are ready. 

Edited December 13, 2022 by Strannik

[Devin]

@Strannik LOL, this coming from the guy trying to teach that to other 'people'

[Strannik]

7 minutes ago, Devin said:

@Strannik LOL, this coming from the guy trying to teach that to other 'people'

"people" are simply a linguistic label for qualia flow processes. We are using dualistic language because we do not have any other. But it would be nice if you would stop trolling me, thank you.

Edited December 13, 2022 by Strannik

[Devin]

17 minutes ago, Strannik said:

"people" are simply a linguistic label for qualia flow processes. We are using dualistic language because we do not have any other. But it would be nice if you would stop trolling me, thank you.

my comment wasn't about your language "people", it's about your belief being blatantly apparent throughout the thread while stating your enlightenment or whatever you want to call it is about no beliefs, you have to be able to see it

Edited December 13, 2022 by Devin

[Strannik]

11 minutes ago, Devin said:

it's about your belief being blatantly apparent 

belief in what exactly?

[Devin]

3 minutes ago, Strannik said:

belief in what exactly?

same thing from my first post, that you can 'know' something

 

 

 

 

[Strannik]

1 minute ago, Devin said:

same thing from my first post, that you can 'know' something

 are you pretending to be an idiot?