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Thread: Practical Advaita

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    Practical Advaita

    Practical Advaita


    Preamble
    A child watches ever changing forms on a glowing Neon board and is fascinated. The child knows the ever changing glow as real. When grace attends, then only the child will know that the neon board as the sub stratum is the truth.

    His Instructions
    Suppose you are of the form of a beautiful flower vase. You know yourself as a beautiful thing. You have pride of your thin neck, wide middle, and tapering base. You also have pride that you are so useful; you are beautiful and help to uphold beautiful flowers. But you have fear and anxiety about your fragility and about your temporary existence. You can’t do anything to enhance your longevity; your longevity is outside your power. You are jealous of more beautiful but more fragile flower vases. You are also jealous of less beautiful but sturdier flower vases. Now suppose you know that you are the clay; the substratum that makes the pot. Now you are immortal. Your knowledge that you are a temporary form and name is your egoity. Remove the illusion of the egoity, identify yourself with the substratum and be immortal.

    Suppose you are a shining leaf in a big Banyan tree. You have forgotten that you exist for the tree. You have forgotten that you are the tree. You have forgotten that the tree flourishes aided by your unselfish efficient work but you as a single leaf is not indispensable. You and infinite others will come and go. You have forgotten that the tree will exist for a very long time and you fear that you will fall and die the coming winter. Realize that you are the tree; the substratum -- and you are immortal.

    Suppose you work for an efficient organization under a super efficient boss. You have pride that you are doing profoundly important tasks. You also have become vain. You feel that you are indispensable. You have pride that you have fame. But you also enjoy comforts and you are fearful of losing those comforts. You are anxious about changes. According to the master plan of your organization and your super efficient boss, you are asked to relocate to Nigeria. You fear mosquitoes will finish you off in Nigeria. You lament the loss of comfort, telephones, cars, and what not. But your boss knows better. He knows that with super abundant profits from the Nigeria operation, the company will flourish and you will also. Suppose you hinder the relocation plan. The Boss will simply get rid of you and send someone else. Now suppose the organization is our universe and your super efficient boss is the all knowing Lord, the supreme. This understanding will solve all your negative mind problems. Identify with the Boss. Become one with him. Work with your soul for him. Do not work for your small, fragile, and illusory egoity.

    How to identify and become one with the substratum, with the Boss -- so that you may be immortal? You will, through meditation, by enquiring into your real nature. Imagine you are a fruit. With the illusory sense of egoity that you have, you are pained that you will rot in no time. If you enquire, you will find that you have a more durable seed inside you. But that does not give you complete peace since you will worry whether the sprouts from the seed will survive? You enquire further and wonder what the power of the seed is; how it will replicate your form again? You go inside further and see that there is empty space inside the seed. The empty space is the substratum and the substratum that is empty space is Him. He is the empty space, present everywhere, present in every one, and He is one. He is indivisible, undifferentiated, unchanging and ever-present One. He has the master plan. He is in the seed and he is in you. You are Him.

    Realize that the examples are approximations. I can understand a report created by me but it can never understand me. Likewise I will never understand Him fully.

    Do not associate with matter – money and other material resources. Do not associate with physical forms – beauty and physique. Do not associate with the power of mind. Associate with the Boss.

    The prayer
    O, Lord, you have become the greatest sage and leader of the thief. You have become joy and you have become pain. You have become Rajasic and you have become Tamasic. You are the subtle and the gross. You are the smallest and the infinite. You are the Sun and the moon and you are air, water and fire. You are the plants. You are Sat-Chit-Anand and you are the reactive anger and the subsequent sorrow. You are the fragrance, the nourishment, and the knowledge – Vidya and Avidya both. You are the eternal substratum that is one without a second.

    But you are the eternal Sat-Chit-Anand that is ever auspicious, the substratum that is real, everything else is transitory. You only open the gates to the Vidya.

    Thus I prostrate to Sat-Chit-Anand that is auspicious and alone remains on dissolution of forms and name. I prostrate to you who is Guru Ramana. I prostrate to you who is Ganapati who guards the gates to the Vidya. I prostrate to you who is all pervading pure sattvik Vishnu. I prostrate to you who is ever compassionate Annapurna. I prostrate to you who is eternal auspicious Shiva. Let your grace never depart from me and my friends.

    Pray, let what you have expressed remain eternal fragrance

  2. #2
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    Namaste!
    Nice post...

    I have a question...What exactly is 'lord' to an advaitin? Isn't Brhaman just energy and not a person?

    I ask this not to belittle or insult advaitins but to have a better understanding of the philosophy. It is said that 'sri shamkara' is the most misunderstood acharya since most mortals like me do not grasp his ideas.

    Also, as you may know, I do not identify myself as an advaitin...in fact, I am not sure where I fit in the different sects or philosophies...but since I have respect for 'all' hindu sects and philosophies I consider myself a hindu.

    I am trying to study a little bit of Vendanta but most texts are beyond my mental capacity or shall we say it is due to my past karma!
    satay

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    Isha

    Quote Originally Posted by satay
    Namaste!
    Nice post...

    I have a question...What exactly is 'lord' to an advaitin? Isn't Brhaman just energy and not a person?



    I am trying to study a little bit of Vendanta but most texts are beyond my mental capacity or shall we say it is due to my past karma!
    Namaste Satay Ji,

    If Satay exists and if Atanu exists, then surely Isha exists.

    These are theoretical questions, since till the final dissolution, Isha Upanishad reigns supreme. And Advaita is beyond mind. It is Turiya. One may experience it but mind will always come back.

    Namo Naraayana
    Last edited by atanu; 26 April 2006 at 03:44 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by satay
    Namaste!
    Nice post...

    Isn't Brhaman just energy and not a person?

    If Brahman was so easily definable then Brahma Sutras would have defined Him that way. Brahma Sutras say: Brahman is that from which the acts of creation, maintenance, and dissolution proceed.
    Last edited by atanu; 26 April 2006 at 04:00 AM.

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    Namaste,

    As far as i know, Vedanta never explains Brahman as "just energy", although it doesn't call His a "person" either.

    Famous Shankara's maxima says "Brahma Satyam", Brahman is Truth (Reality). And this part of his statement is in total accordance with all Shruti, Vedas/Upanishads and Agamas.

    It is Tantric philosophy that sees Brahman as both passive and active, transcendent and immanent, Shiva and Shakti. Shankara's Vedanta doesn't accept any "energy" inherent in Brahman (correct me if i am wrong).

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    I thought that brahman was in a state like thought, but without the electro-chemical activity. Just there and in all places in equal proportion. Perhaps brahman can cause thoughts to enter into human minds and that could explain why holybooks and holy thoughts come into peoples minds.

    Of course , anything with that ability could manufacture a body when and if needed.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by satay
    Namaste!
    Nice post...

    I have a question...What exactly is 'lord' to an advaitin? Isn't Brhaman just energy and not a person?

    I ask this not to belittle or insult advaitins but to have a better understanding of the philosophy. It is said that 'sri shamkara' is the most misunderstood acharya since most mortals like me do not grasp his ideas.

    Also, as you may know, I do not identify myself as an advaitin...in fact, I am not sure where I fit in the different sects or philosophies...but since I have respect for 'all' hindu sects and philosophies I consider myself a hindu.

    I am trying to study a little bit of Vendanta but most texts are beyond my mental capacity or shall we say it is due to my past karma!
    I would say both - God is both a person and a non person, which are not different from each other.

    On one hand, we have a definition based on negation: as in neti, neti.
    On the other hand, we have a defintion based on positives, sarvam khalvidam brahma.

    The first definition is not to limit Brahman to anything, he is a non being in this regard. The second one is to make Brahman the substratum of everything, he is a person in this regard. Ideally, Brahman would be best described as the set of X and ~X, for any X. Hence to say that Brahman is satyam is not truly valid, because is not just "Satyam". Hence it is better defined as not "asatyam".

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    The Truth and no definition

    Quote Originally Posted by TruthSeeker
    I would say both - God is both a person and a non person, which are not different from each other.
    Ayamatman Brahman.

    When Atanu enjoys watching a beauty and when Atanu dreams of a beauty and when Atanu does not know anything in deep sleep, Atma remains unchanged as seer, permitter and enjoyer. This Atma is Brahman.

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    Mind, thoughts and Brahman

    Quote Originally Posted by willie
    I thought that brahman was in a state like thought, but without the electro-chemical activity. Just there and in all places in equal proportion. Perhaps brahman can cause thoughts to enter into human minds and that could explain why holybooks and holy thoughts come into peoples minds.

    Of course , anything with that ability could manufacture a body when and if needed.
    Dear Willie,

    Mind is conglomerate of thoughts, of future or of past (memories). There is no way for a thought to enter the mind, which has no existence apart from thoughts.

    And the process is just the reverse. When thoughts subside, the intuitive faculties come into play. Sages, poets, scientists, all get such glimpses when the mind is tranquil and not when there is riot of thoughts. (However, often a riot of thoughts is followed by tranquility.)

    A bird was trapped in a fire place and could not escape since it was attempting to fly up only. My Guru said: the bird would be free, if it retraced the path by which it came.

    He added: so with us. The nature of the mind is to go outwards and seek happiness in objects. To be happy, however, the mind must retrace its way back and find the person who says "I", since that "I" is the beginning of all thoughts such as "I have to do" etc. And that "I" sense has origin from that which we quest for but which is always the core of all beings.


    Of course, this is what my Guru teaches.


    Regards

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by willie
    I thought that brahman was in a state like thought, but without the electro-chemical activity. Just there and in all places in equal proportion. Perhaps brahman can cause thoughts to enter into human minds and that could explain why holybooks and holy thoughts come into peoples minds.

    Of course , anything with that ability could manufacture a body when and if needed.
    These are all mere speculations. No one knows what is on the other side. The process is technically called involution, which needs considerable effort in the initial stages in the form of Karma, bhakti etc to get the mind purified enough. From some point on, one is qualified to follow the involution right to the source.

    Brahman being in thought is also a guess only. How do you explain the nAsadiya sukta and the Taittiriya Up where the Brahman is said to have desired to become many?

    Adi Shankara has said that no independent being ( God) would ever voluntarily go into real or imaginary bondage( like thoughts). By no means of imagination, can this be an accident since the Lord is omnipotent. It cannot have been planned either.

    But creation is happening in beautiful periodic cycles in vyavaharika. Thus, it must imply something more than a random thought process , certainly beyond human understanding.

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