tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781646534201708629.post8391900728875500420..comments2024-01-08T00:08:53.008+00:00Comments on ombhurbhuva: Grail Cupombhurbhuvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07789523088428270027noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781646534201708629.post-6000032925003817792011-03-11T23:54:39.153+00:002011-03-11T23:54:39.153+00:00Tat tvam asi indicates that there is nothing to a...Tat tvam asi indicates that there is nothing to achieve because we are already there. Practice is merely reminding ourselves of this. Most of the Eastern traditions concur in this. Sankara even dismisses the idea of samadhi as being attainment.ombhurbhuvahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07789523088428270027noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781646534201708629.post-6110256025228524922011-03-10T15:24:48.429+00:002011-03-10T15:24:48.429+00:00That's interesting. So, you mean that (suitabl...That's interesting. So, you mean that (suitable) repetition is a way of planting seeds of non-dual consciousness instead of the seeds of dual consciousness which keep on ripening within our conscience? But the latter are, I suppose, endless. How can any good practice ever counterbalance them?elisa freschihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17068583874519657894noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781646534201708629.post-77668777532513755232011-03-05T00:03:43.809+00:002011-03-05T00:03:43.809+00:00The distinction between saguna and nirguna brahman...The distinction between saguna and nirguna brahman is well noted in the Vedantic commentaries. There is also in Yoga the distinction between sarvikalpa and nirvikalpa samadhi. There is probably a tendency to portray the passage from one to the other as a reflection of spiritual growth as though the formless was more 'real' than the formfull. The advaitic theory of superimposition comes into play as well. In a way it seems that the impersonal pure consciousness is the captive of the personal. So how do we stop superimposing? Is it through an understanding of the arguments for non-duality? If that were the case then self-realisation would be common. My recent reading of Bergson has given me some ideas about how practice and meditation play their part in loosening the bonds of ajnana. His thesis is that memory is not in the brain as neuro-science takes for granted. The buttons that memory laden experience press in the brain ready the human being for action or in other words complete the perceptual event. These reactions are the result of stimuli and conditioning and because they are so closely connected with mental events take on the aura of consciousness by a sort of adhyasa. This rote learning is by practice, mantra, japa, kirtan etc turned in the other direction, back towards consciousness so to speak. Bergson speaks of the experience of duration which is mysterious and seems to me to be like to a meditative state. <br /><br />Two significant aspects of advaita are the term itself i.e. not-two and the other concept of non-difference of cause and effect. These are not just clever ways of being uncommitted to monism but a genuine feeling that ultimately differences between nirguna and sagunal, brahman and isvara are the result of the natural conceptual polarisation that grounds the mind just as every curve has a convex and a concave side but ultimately there is only the curve. <br /><br />So we live the personal/impersonal but tat tvam asi.ombhurbhuvahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07789523088428270027noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781646534201708629.post-83164598382189715722011-03-04T15:10:34.770+00:002011-03-04T15:10:34.770+00:00Dear Ombhurbhuva,
Do you mean to say that "G...Dear Ombhurbhuva,<br /><br />Do you mean to say that "God" can only be experienced as a person and within a subjective perspective, although a further gradation beyond the iṣṭadevatā is possible? <br />More important: should the gradation be necessarily understood as a progression? Is the iṣṭadevatā just the lower level of the experience of Consciousness? Or has the iṣṭadevatā the advantage of making one aware of Otherness?<br /><br />Apropos, I did not read that book. I tend not to have any problem with this kind of split, since I have been reading Śaiva text and authors such as Utpaladeva can also shift from devotional hymns to philosophical claims about the only reality of consciousness.<br /><br />Thanks and sorry again for translating back in dualistic terms.elisa freschihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17068583874519657894noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781646534201708629.post-23459630415123656752011-03-04T09:55:13.548+00:002011-03-04T09:55:13.548+00:00Hi Elisa,
Thanks for your kind words.
I was drawi...Hi Elisa,<br />Thanks for your kind words.<br /><br />I was drawing the distinction between experience as a necessarily subjective/personal event and realisation as impersonal where the boundaries of the personal are annihilated, 'anantam' as in satyam, jnanam, anantam. There is that expression of the gradation between experience and realisation as "First you see the light, then you are in the light, then you are the light". The Krishna devotees try to live in Krishna consciousness, they want to taste the sugar not be the sugar (Ramakrishna's words). By the way have you ever read <i>The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna</i> by M. ? It goes into all the different levels (bhavas?) of bhakti and jnana in a way that lets you see how someone like Shankara could both write hymns and abstruse metaphysics without the feeling that one must somehow preclude the other. Your guest blogger Matthew Dasti is a member of the bhakticollective.com while wielding a metaphysical scalpel skillfully. <br /><br />The characteristic expression in Advaita for the 'action' of consciousness is 'pervasion' but strictly speaking that can't be right if in reality Consciousness is everything. Moreover it can't even be the substratum of everything those annihilating ajativadins would say. Still here we are even if the reality that we know is merely analogical.<br /><br />Is the 'ishta devatta' essential? I think it probably is for most people. 'My father has many lokas'.ombhurbhuvahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07789523088428270027noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781646534201708629.post-25079729431746017242011-03-03T09:59:40.702+00:002011-03-03T09:59:40.702+00:00I am sorry to spoil the atmosphere of your enchant...I am sorry to spoil the atmosphere of your enchanting post with down-to-earth comments. Thanks for sharing your experience. I really like your approach to "Angels", since you avoid both extremes (reductivist denial and positivist idea of Angels as physical beings with wings etc.) and challenge us to think outside our usual range.<br /><br />As for "God can only be experienced personally", I somehow figured out you as an Advaitin and I thought you would have said that God can be experienced as the changing shift of our experience. What do you mean by "personally"? "Within one's subjectivity" or "as a person"? If the latter, do you mean to say that we can only experience God as, say, Kṛṣṇa, although the whole appearance of Kṛṣṇaloka is Divine?elisa freschihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17068583874519657894noreply@blogger.com