SR15: That's

1. Aum/Ohm

In Maya, Brahman is two-faced. In reality, Brahman is one without a second.

Saguna Brahman and Nirguna Brahman are the two sides of That in nonduality.

The truth of Turiyam is beyond Brahman and Atman as quantum physics is to classical mechanics. 

2. On High and Lo

The lower cause is transformational.

The higher cause is apparitional.

Thinking is the lower cause.

Pure consciousness is the highest.

Dreaming is the lowest state. 

Self-awareness is the highest.

3. Ten Revelations

Seeing through a glass wall

isn't bad for the eyes.

There is no snake.

The rope is a vehicle.

That's Maya, Jack.

DNA is the stuff of karma.

Time is like a family tree.

Space is forgiveness.

The god of atheism is theism.

Atma of Brahma is Brahman.

4. What's Apparitional?

The last step

of any particular stage 

is caused by the first step

of the very next stage. 

That's apparitional.

~sr15

Ten Revelations

Seeing through a glass wall
isn't bad for the eyes.
There is no snake.
The rope is a vehicle.
That's Maya, Jack.
DNA is the stuff of karma.
Time is like a family tree.
Space is forgiveness.
The god of atheism is theism.
Atma of Brahma is Brahman.

~rj31

On High and Lo

The lower cause is transformational.

The higher cause is apparitional.

Thinking is the lower cause.

Pure consciousness is the highest.

Dreaming is the lowest state. 

Self-awareness is the highest.

~rj30

Aum/Ohm

In Maya, Brahman is two-faced. In reality, Brahman is one without a second.

Saguna Brahman and Nirguna Brahman are the two sides of That in nonduality.

The truth of Turiyam is beyond Brahman and Atman as quantum physics is to classical mechanics. 

~rj29

Surrender Awareness

1. My Valentine's Day Ananda

Consciousness is the absolute truth.

Consciousness is such a hard problem thinks science.

Even the highest wave of consciousness studies can never know that sea.

I love I know I am

2. Good News Om

Duality thinks. Nonduality knows.

Our personal default is sadness.

Hallelujah the good news isn't personal. Om.

3. Truly Yours

See through your point of view.

Awareness is pointless.

In spacetime but of nonduality.

4. Satcitananda

ananda cit sat

asi tvam tat

i am that

~sr14

My Valentine's Day Ananda

Consciousness is the absolute truth.

Consciousness is such a hard problem thinks science.

Even the highest wave of consciousness studies can never know that sea.

I love I know I am.

~rj28~

Dayananda on Bhagavad Gita 9:22 - the best form of worship

Dayananda:

ananyāścintayanto māṁ ye janāḥ paryupāsate teṣāṁ nityābhiyuktānāṁ yogakṣemaṁ vahāmyaham (22)

ye janāḥ – those people who; ananyāḥ – (see themselves as) non-separate from me; māṁ cintayantaḥ – recognising me; (mām) paryupāsate – gain me; teṣāṁ nitya-abhiyuktānām – for these who are always one with me; yoga-kṣemam – what they want to acquire and protect; ahaṁ vahāmi – I take care of those people

Those people who (see themselves as) non-separate from me, recognising me, gain me. For those who are always one with me, I take care of what they want to acquire and protect.

This is a very famous and often quoted verse. It has an important location. It is about the middle of the ninth chapter, which is in the middle of the eighteen chapters.

These are individuals, and how can they be non-separate from Īśvara, the Lord? Śaṅkara says that it is possible due to the fact that the Lord is the ātmā of all of them. When this is so, naturally those who recognise the ātmā as Parameśvara are non-separate from him.

The ātmā of Īśvara is the ātmā of jīva, and it is caitanya, eka, one, advitīya, non-dual, and which is satyam jñānam anantam brahma. Those who recognise themselves as such are called ananyas.

It is because of the word ananya that Śaṅkara has said in his introduction that these are people of clear vision, samyag-darśīs. The others are also non-separate from Īśvara but they do not recognise it. The only difference between samyag-darśīs and others is recognition and non-recognition, knowledge and ignorance. And that is a vast difference.

The mind cannot go away from Parameśvara because the mind itself is Parameśvara. It is like someone who wants to get away from space. Where will the person go? There is no such place. This is the way in which these people recognise Īśvara.

Look at this. Cintayantaḥ mām, enquiring into me, māṁ paryupāsate, they also seek Īśvara. Then what do they get? Let us consider a mumukṣu who wants liberation. He also prays to the Lord, but what is the object of his prayer? It is Īśvara. He wants nothing else but to know Īśvara. He says, ‘My object is only to find you and so I pray to know where you are, what you are.’

After finding Īśvara what does he want? He says, ‘Nothing; only to know that I am one with you.’ Such mumukṣus do not look upon Īśvara as really separate from themselves. There is a sense of separation for the time being because of ignorance. To resolve it, they are constantly enquiring into the svarūpa of Īśvara.

They also have doubts, ‘If he is non-dual, he is one with me. How can it be? I am such an insignificant being. How can I be Parameśvara, the Lord?’ These doubts are there because there is no knowledge, only śraddhā. So they seek, paryupāsate. How? By śravaṇa, manana, and nididhyāsana, with devotion and commitment.

Mokṣa is only through knowledge of ātmā being Brahman, which is the cause of the world. To know this you must enquire and to enquire you must have an appropriate pramāṇa, means of knowledge. How are you going to enquire into Īśvara?

Through the pramāṇa which is in the form of words. Therefore, enquiring into Bhagavān is enquiring into the words of the śāstra. Thus they seek me, they worship me by enquiring into who I am. That is the best form of worship.

From the standpoint of māyā-upādhi, there is Īśvara. But the ātmā of Īśvara is nothing but the truth of the jīva, the caitanya ātmā. And the jīva’s ātmā is nothing but Īśvara. There is only one aham, the limitless ātmā, which is the truth of both the Lord and the individual.

~edited from BG6 9:22

Electric Gita

In America, homelessness is the guru. It’s your metaparadigm, stupid.

The direct path is formed by ten thousand indirect paths.

Pay attention to the signs. The direct path is pure consciousness.

Reflected consciousness is ten thousand indirect paths.

Cause and effect is the stuff of dreams. Everything always is.

Electricity is the infinite contained in the finite.

In America, homelessness is the guru. It’s your metaparadigm, stupid. The direct path is formed by ten thousand indirect paths.

Pay attention to the signs. The direct path is pure consciousness. Reflected consciousness is ten thousand indirect paths.

Cause and effect is the stuff of dreams. Everything always is. Electricity is the infinite contained in the finite.

Universe without a Second

In the world, in samsara, the absolute nondual satcitananda

Parabrahman appears to be two-faced.

Saguna and Nirguna Brahman are like two faces of a nondual coin.

Breathe in like Nirguna, breathe out like Saguna, resting on Turiyam. Om.

Nikhilananda on Maya

Nikhilananda:

The following are some of the characteristics of māyā: 

It is something positive, though intangible; it cannot be described as either being or non-being. It is positive because it is the source of the manifold universe.

It is not of the nature of existence or being, because it does not exist when Truth is realized. Again, it is not non-existent or non-being (like the son of a barren woman), for it produces the illusion of the relative world.

Māyā is intangible: it cannot be grasped by reason, for reasoning itself is in māyā. To try to prove māyā by reasoning is like trying to see darkness by means of darkness.

Again, māyā cannot be proved by Knowledge, for when Knowledge is awakened there remains no trace of māyā. Hence it will remain for ever inscrutable to the human mind.

Māyā consists of the three gunas: sattva, rajas, and tamas. They constitute māyā and are present in everything that exists in Nature. 

Māyā is beginningless, for the very conception of time is due to māyā. But it has an end. The Knowledge of Brahman ends it.

Under the influence of māyā the Self, which is the same as the immortal Brahman, regards Itself as an embodied being and experiences the suffering and misery of the world.

With the help of māyā, but retaining control of it, Brahman appears as an Avatār, or Incarnation, in order to subdue the power of iniquity and establish righteousness.

The goal of spiritual discipline is to get rid of māyā and realize one’s divine nature.

~from Nikhilananda's translation of The Bhagavad Gita, note on 7:14

Dreaming Brahman

Isvara is the lucid dreamer.

The jiva is the sleeping dreamee.

Wake unto Turiya, om.

260124st2

Realization is a zen slap away.

Identifying with the principle of existence and disidentifying with the concept of death takes twenty years to life.

Whirlpool Number Nine

The mind identifying with itself is like the source of a great river believing it's the emptiness of one particular whirlpool yet we die there everyday.

Samsara is this reflection of consciousness bouncing around these dualities of mind. Space-time is appearing in that consciousness-existence which is enumerated as Turiyam. Om.

This world is created by divine imagination. One picture tells ten thousand stories. No island describes its surrounding seas either. Neither Robinson Crusoe nor Defoe may you be.

Whirlpool Number Nine: a three-act opera 

1. in the key of three

the mind identifying with itself is like

the source of a great river believing it's the emptiness of

one particular whirlpool yet we die there everyday

2. atman brahman duet

Samsara is

this reflection of consciousness

bouncing around

these dualities of mind.

Space-time is appearing

in that consciousness-existence 

which is enumerated as Turiyam.

Om.

3. that divine quartet

This world is created by divine imagination.

One picture tells ten thousand stories.

No island can describe its surrounding seas either.

Neither Robinson Crusoe nor Defoe may you be.

On Tattvamasi III

That thou art.
That you are.
I am that.

I minus avidya equals
that minus maya.

Atman is Brahman.

I plus nescience is 
the individual consciousness,
the jiva, the person.

That plus illusion is 
the universal consciousness, 
Isvara, God.

This person is 
attached to that God 
whether one knows it or not.

I love That.

Say Isvara

An individual is a component of the universal. Without the universal, there is no individual.

If a human individual possesses personality is that personality a component too?

Of a universal personality? Say Isvara? Let us pray.

~rj26

Dominus Amazing

As scientific materialism is a paradigm, nonduality is the metaparadigm.

One doesn't lose consciousness. Only the mind turns on and off. As it is in deep sleep.

Maybe I am the ground within which everything appears in spring and disappears in the fall.

All Superimpositions Must Pass

One could say Brahman is smaller than a mustard seed and larger than the multiverse if Brahman didn't transcend space-time itself.

Brahman is, Gaudapada says, neither a seed of consciousness nor omniscient consciousness, neither unmanifested Maya nor that omnipotent Isvara.

Brahman is not reflected consciousness although reflected consciousness is Brahman. All brilliant names and shadowy forms appear in The Lake of Pure Consciousness. 

~rj25

Light Knows

God is like an overcoat one wears when acting like an individual. When acting like a God, one wears nothing but being. In reality, who's acting?

Nonduality rains. Variety appears. Consciousness holds your undivided attention.

The world is doing or not doing, decisions, decisions. Real power in Maya is nondoing, evolution, the will of God. The ground of consciousness always knows.

~SR13 (A Divine Play in Three Acts; Raining Nonduality; Yoda Yoga)

A Divine Play in Three Acts

God is like an overcoat

one wears when acting

like an individual. 

When acting like a God

one wears nothing but being.

In reality, who's acting?

Raining Nonduality

Nonduality rains.

Variety appears. 

Consciousness holds

your undivided attention.

Yoda Yoga

The world is doing or not doing, decisions, decisions.

Real power in Maya is nondoing, evolution, the will of God.

The ground of consciousness knows.

Yoda Yoga

The world is doing or not doing, decisions, decisions.

Real power in Maya is nondoing, evolution, the will of God.

The ground of consciousness knows.

Raining Nonduality

Nonduality rains.

Variety appears. 

Consciousness holds

your undivided attention.

A Divine Play in Three Acts

God is like an overcoat

one wears when acting

like an individual. 

When acting like a God

one wears nothing but being.

In reality, who's acting?

Alston on Shankara toc

Shankara on Avidya (nescience)

Shankara on the Absolute as Lord

Shankara on the Unmoving Mover

Shankara on the Deeper Levels

Shankara on Cause, Effect, and the Absolute

Shankara on Vedic revelation

Shankara on Name and Form

Shankara on Adhyaropa and Apavada

Shankara on Defining the Absolute

Shankara on Satyam Jñānam Anantam Brahma

Shankara on Bliss

Shankara on Creation Texts

Shankara on Gaudapada's Acosmic Doctrines

On Shankara. Snippets on Shankara's Identity and True Works (plus Alston Info)

On Shankara: Gaudapada and Madhyamika Teaching

On Shankara: Schools of Advaita

On Shankara and Satcitananda

Shankara on the Soul

Shankara on the Intellect

Shankara on Soul and Lord

A. J. Alston Bibliography:

Shankara on the Absolute: Shankara Source Book Volume One Kindle Edition

Shankara on the Creation: Shankara Source Book Volume Two Kindle Edition

Shankara on the Soul: Shankara Source Book Volume Three Kindle Edition

The Thousand Teachings of Shankara: Upadeshasahasri

Shankara on Soul and Lord

A. J. Alston:

There are texts in the Upanishads and in the Epics and Purāṇas, including the Gītā, which imply that the individual soul is different from the Lord and that he should approach Him in devotion and that he may perhaps attain to Him or to ‘his world’ through his grace.

For Śaṅkara, these texts had validity within the world of nescience. But if they were to be taken as the final truth, they would conflict with the other texts speaking of the utter transcendence of the one and only non-dual Self, bereft of all duality and all empirically knowable characters.

While the individual soul in its true nature is identical with (is nothing other than) the Lord, the Lord in his true nature is not identical with the individual soul in its individual nature. In particular, the Lord is not in his true nature the transmigrant. The individual soul is dependent on the Lord for his power to act.

The relation between the individual soul and the Lord appears different from different standpoints. From the standpoint of nescience they may seem different, and identity with the Lord then appears to be a ‘goal’ that has to be ‘attained’.

From the standpoint of knowledge, this identity is a fact. Bondage and liberation, in turn, depend on whether the student feels himself to be different from or identical with the Lord.

~Alston, 'Shankara and the Soul', pp. 70-1

Shankara on the Intellect

A. J. Alston:

Our experiences force us to conclude that an unchanging, self-luminous principle must exist within the individual as the Witness of his passing states of experience.

Further it is the presence of this light which unifies and organizes the psychic and physical functions and enables perception and other cognitive acts to take place.

The mind and senses are composed of the material elements, and there must exist some self-luminous light perceiving them if there is to be experience at all.

The intellect is the chief instrument of this self-luminous principle in the case of the waking experience of an ordinary unenlightened man.

The intellect is the special and most intimate instrument of the Self in empirical knowledge. The intellect is lit by the light of the Self, and objects are lit by the intellect through the medium of the senses, and require to be so lit in order to be perceived at all.

The light of the Self within is reflected in the intellect, and this reflected light is passed on, by contact (samparka), to the lower mind, senses and the body.

People identify themselves with this or that aspect of the psycho-physical organism, depending on how far their powers of discrimination have developed and rescued them from crude self-identification with the body.

As long as there is failure to discriminate the Self from the intellect, the Self appears ‘like’ the appearances that come before it. But in truth it is pure light and does not really act or move.

~Alston, 'Shankara on the Soul' pp. 56-7

Tapovan on Sannyasa

So sannyāsa cannot be inactivity or meaningless activity. It ought to induce man to engage himself in some ceaseless activity. 

Sannyāsa implies realisation of Truth and the dissemination of the way to ensure that realisation. For intelligent people, it means also the study and the teaching of philosophical works.

If these principles are strictly followed, nobody can gainsay that it is harmful. On the contrary, it will be for the good of himself and for others. 

If sannyāsins thus perform their duties – activities befitting them and are to be performed by them – activities impossible for others to perform – they will not be subjected to criticism and insult as idlers and do-nothing fellows.

from Ishvara Darsana p.197

Shankara on the Soul

A. J. Alston:

The soul is the immutable Consciousness viewed in association with superimposed limiting adjuncts (upādhi),1 and this Consciousness, appearances notwithstanding, is also present in dreamless sleep. The connection of the immutable Consciousness with superimposed adjuncts is due to nescience.

The adjuncts in which the Self is apparently enclosed to form the multiplicity of individual souls derive from name and form as their material cause, and how the Self is in its true nature unborn and immutable, while only the adjuncts, like the gross material body, come into being and pass away.

The immutable Consciousness is said to be reflected in its closest and most immediate adjunct, the mind with its ego-notion. Śaṅkara regarded the use of the reflection-analogy as indispensable for explaining the facts of experience, and for reconciling the fact that the experiences of each individual soul are private to himself with the presence of one Self as the reality in all.

Another useful analogy for explaining the apparent individuation of the Self as the multiplicity of individual souls is that of the apparent separation of individual parcels of the ether of space within various pots.

The reflection-analogy, which is much the more important for Śaṅkara, as later sections will show, has the incidental advantage of suggesting to the beginner on the practical path that, even if he cannot attain to the Absolute at a single leap, he can acquire a higher degree of awareness of the presence of the Absolute in the course of daily life through purification of the mind, the medium in which its light is reflected.

~Alston, Shankara on the Soul, pp8,9