Showing posts with label Astavakra Samhita. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Astavakra Samhita. Show all posts

Thursday, 18 June 2020

Astavakra Does Not Allow Science


Science does not disprove free will but does free will disprove science? One asks, but who is that one who asks. We are according to the cliché, on a rock hurtling through space and time but there is this mystery – no contemporary events are causally connected (Whitehead). There is just a general, universe-al now, the present moment. Time and personal identity are syntheses which are useful, in fact essential. Some even say essentialising or creations which we can hold in our mind because mind created but have no ultimate ontological grounding. Buddhists would hold that this annihilates the self; the advaitin counters by pointing to the uncontradictable nature of the consciousness. It never is not. Its freedom is the primordial superimposition of continuity in time on to the changeless Self which is eternal.

There is no I to do anything or the I that is purported to do things is not any thing. Astavakra, the ascended Dude says:
cf: ascended dude

Happiness belongs to that master idler to whom even the closing and opening of the eyelids is an affliction, and to none else.

Swami Nityaswarupananda adds in a note:
Master idler - The expression refers to the man of Self-realisation, who is completely inactive. He feels even the little non-volitional action of closing and opening the eyelids to be a limitation and painful.
(from Astavakra Samhita XVI.5)

Thursday, 21 May 2020

Astavakra says Abide, with Me, with Yourself, whatever.


Astavakra in his own way is quite Cartesian. He tends to ignore the great insoluble problems and remain, abide as he puts it, with the immediate data of consciousness. What is going on now? Is this awareness that I now have whether quiet in the artificial cocoon of meditation or in the normal engagement with the sensible; is this awareness, immediate and transparent? Even though the content is constantly changing this power remains as the single fixed aspect. Abide with that and let it lead you to the present moment.

He remarks in the chapter on Peace XVIII para.15:

He who sees the universe may try to deny it. What has the desireless to do? He sees not even though he sees.

A beguiling Advaitin suggestion: the universe is real as an appearance.

A final word:

He, indeed, controls himself who sees distraction in himself. But the great one is not distracted. Having nothing to accomplish, what does he do?
(from Astavakra Samhita trans. Swami Nityaswarupananda pub. Advaita Ashrama)


Thursday, 15 June 2017

The Benefits of Meditation


What I took from my reading of Astavakra this morning was that there is nothing arising out of the practice of meditation. There are no benefits to enjoy if there is no enjoyer of those benefits. Feeling the force of this I fell into a mood of sobriety which resisted the insolence of ego. Almost.