01. Peaking Mount Chocorua
Obviously this Mount Chocorua
reflecting in Chocorua Lake
is not the true Chocorua
02. The Old Man
First there was an Old Man of the Mountains
and then there wasn't—
Cannon Mountain-May 2003 spacetime
03. Memorial Day 1976
By the time we got to
Kancamagus Pass—
all the trees were bare
04. Mount Lafayette-June 1993
After breaking through the wall
looms the timberline of my devotion—
the Pemigewasset Wilderness is waiting on the eastern side
They say realization is being real and not being the real.
Being the real implies an awakening to the knowledge of the real, as in an object being known in the world.
On the other hand, being real is like being the unknown.
One way is pure consciousness. The other way is still reflecting consciousness.
Obviously, this Mount Chocorua reflecting in Chocorua Lake is not the true Chocorua.
01. Crazy Cat, Crazy Cat, What
This consciousness is
to reflected consciousness
as a mirror will reflect
light on a wall
and drive all those cats crazy.
Like they know
the light
shining
on the wall
is nothing but light.
02. Ode to Snake and Rope
In the old advaita
snake and rope analogy
the snake is nothing
but an appearance
in the rope
like magical reality—
there’s never anything
but the one
reality of rope.
03. ATTN
They say
the subtle body
(organic chemicals and
functional compounds)
reflects awareness
and is experienced
as consciousness,
the reflection of pure
consciousness,
attention,
I am.
04. untitled part ii
before,
during,
and after the movie,
there is nothing there
but a movie screen—
and the same witness
witnessing the dream
is witnessing
deep sleep as well.
05. ode to brahman
nirguna brahman is
pure consciousness.
saguna brahman is
universal consciousness—
individual consciousness is
avidya.
every appearance in brahman is
brahman
and nothing but brahman.
06. attn est
attention
is
nothing but
pure consciousness
blended with thought—
this ‘i am’ is the reflection
of pure existence
similarly metaphysical
1.
They say the subtle body (organic chemicals and functional compounds) reflects awareness and is experienced as consciousness, the reflection of pure consciousness, attention, I am.
This consciousness is to reflected consciousness as a mirror will reflect light on a wall and drive all those cats crazy. Like they know the light shining on the wall is nothing but light.
And attention is nothing but pure consciousness mixed with thought. And this ‘I am’ is the reflection of pure existence in a similarly metaphysical fashion.
2.
Nirguna Brahman is pure consciousness. Saguna Brahman is universal consciousness. Individual consciousness is avidya. All appearances in Brahman is Brahman and nothing but Brahman.
In the old advaita snake and rope analogy, the snake is just an appearance in the rope, like magical reality. There’s never anything but the one reality of rope.
Before, during, and after the movie, there is nothing but a movie screen. And the same witness witnessing the dream is witnessing deep sleep as well.
Crazy Cat, Crazy Cat, What
This consciousness is
to reflected consciousness
as a mirror will reflect
light on a wall
and drive all those cats crazy.
Like they know
the light
shining
on the wall
is nothing but light.
Original sin is not some evil. It’s avidya, original ignorance, identification with the body-mind.
This original ignorance is not only passed on from parent to child, it’s in the DNA.
Only knowledge for consciousness, by consciousness, and of consciousness shall dispel this ignorance and see through the snake of avidya.
Thus there are these mahavakyas: Prajnanam Brahma, Tat Tvam Asi, Ayam Atma Brahma, Aham Brahma Asmi.
01. not an ai haiku
the universe is one cause and one effect
isvara is the cause and maya ten thousand effects
brahman (tattvamasi) is causeless
02. 240217b
dreaming is for the dream by the dream and of the dream
brahman is beyond dreaming
like seven continents can't imagine the one great sea
03. 240217c
When I was a child, I thought my God was out there.
When I was a man, I thought my God was a woman.
Now that I know I'm neither, what a long strange incarnation it's been.
04. 240217.2337
When I was a child, I thought my god was out there.
When I was a man, I thought my god to be a natural woman.
I now know I am neither.
1. triangulating consciousness
Either the world makes consciousness;
consciousness creates the world;
or consciousness is neither cause nor effect.
2. the consciousness trinity
The first ilk is called materialist—scientific, atheistic, postmodern.
The second is called spiritualist—orthodox, modern, new age.
And the third is nameless—changeless, birthless, nondual.
3. ode to maya
Although the world isn’t real, it’s not unreal either.
This illusion (snake-rope, mirage-desert) is the essence of Maya.
As Brahman is the name for the nameless, Maya is the name for all the names appearing in the nameless.
4. to nonduality and beyond
Yes, pure consciousness (aka awareness) is nameless and nondual
but the absolute is beyond nonduality as well.
After the first thorn has been removed by the second thorn, both roses are thrown away, grasshopper.
Karma is not the truth. Karma is an appearance in the truth. Karma appears to be the truth because people believe in because. This belief is one of the primal beliefs of avidya. Gaudapada uses the sanskrit word, abhinavesa, to describe it.
“Abhiniveśa is not merely a persistent belief, but an intense mental preoccupation with an ardent faith in a false knowledge sustained and nurtured by a totally laughable ignorance.” ~Chinmayananda
Causality is the fool of ten thousand koans and the liar behind every paradox. The universe is the cause and the universe is its result, crow caws the causelessness of crow. Not only is the absolute beyond causality, it's beyond beyond.
Between deep sleep and samadhi, the mind is walking.
Both dream states are like sleepwalking. True awakening is more like lucid dreaming.
As the mind is a perpetual motion machine, sleepwalking is more like sleep running, and lucid dreaming is just dreaming in slow motion.
It’s not true that one consciousness is vibrating into this duality of mind.
It just appears to be true; Maya’s middle name happens to be causality.
But in pure consciousness there is no cause and effect.
This is not to say such absolute knowledge precludes living in the material world.
Even Einstein ate his dinner at a table he knew to be 99% space.
Jivanmuktis exist beyond causality—in karma but not of karma.
1. Of Dragons, Rishis, and Al Green.
The year of the dragon—north of the river of love and south of the mountains of wisdom.
The rishis say that the nature of the absolute truth is pure existence, awareness, and ananda. There's no arguing with satcitananda.
The reflection of sat is 'I am', of cit is meditation, and of ananda is love and happiness. It makes you wanna dance and sing.
2. Ignorant Issues.
You can’t get there from here because you’re already here.
The mind dreams whether the body is turned on or off.
Ignorance of what I am is the issue—unborn and immortal, unknown and all-knowing, beyond all happiness and love, tattvamasi.
Maya sees with the eyes of ten thousand beings. Human beings are only one point of view.
In a sleeping dream, the one mind becomes subject and ten thousand objects. Why would the waking dream be any different, Thomas?
Isn't it astounding that the witness of both dream dualities is that which is witnessing the absence of duality in deep sleep?
First there is a mountain, then there’s neti neti, then there’s brahman.
First there is the waking state, then the dreamstate, then there’s atman.
First the material universe produces consciousness
or the spirit of consciousness generates creation
but consciousness is beyond all cause and effect as atman is brahman.
01.
Causality is the nature of maya.
Not only is atman immortal, I am unborn.
Because cause and effect is the nature of duality, and no one can kill the snake appearing in a rope because illusion, it’s not why, why, why. It just isn’t.
02.
Dreaming is the infinite regress of mind.
As a dream cannot know its dreamer and the dreamer cannot know the dream of a dreamer in its dream…
sudden enlightenment.
03.
Unborn, nondual, and effortless, I, atman, am brahman, that,
as in never temporary, not two, and causeless:
remarkably
the same pure consciousness
witnessing the dream states
is witnessing
the deep sleep dreamless state
tattvamasi
04.
welcome to the year
of the dragon south of hill
and north of river
my happy valley
is in this pleasant valley
but of the river
less than ten miles as
the crow flies is the great big
sea—that atlantic
05.
the sea is to space
as the sun is to the black
whole jack kerouac
jack is down river
from ed mcmahon upriver
from leo bernstein
beyond all howling
turning off the mind relax
float downstream like tao
06.
two red winged blackbirds arrive in the picture window thursday february eighth—earliest return appearance in my thirty years living in this valley.
all things change.
objects appear in the subject. the subject does not appear in the objective universe.
1.
The nature of nirguna brahman is sat (being, existence, presence), cit (consciousness, awareness, intelligence), and ananda (holistic, infinite, bliss). These are not qualities. Such is the province of saguna brahman. It's more like wetness is the nature of pure water.
Satcitananda is reflecting on the subtle body of the so-called individual: the reflection of sat is the ‘I am’; the reflection of cit is the complex of mind, attention, and intelligence; and the reflection of ananda is simply love and happiness.
2.
There are five basic states of the body-mind: deep sleep, dreaming, waking, enlightenment, and nirvikalpa samadhi. Both body and mind may be switched on or off. Avidya operates similarly.
For the table of these states below, note that the number zero indicates off and 1 indicates on. Also, m equals mind, b equals body, and a equals avidya:
Deep sleep: a1 m0 b0;
Dreaming: a1 m1 b0;
Waking: a1 m1 b1;
Enlightenment: a0 m1 b1;
Nirvikalpa: a0 m0 b0.
3.
Table note 1: the difference between deep sleep and nirvikalpa samadhi is: in deep sleep, avidya is latently on. In other words, deep sleep is the absence of duality, and nirvikalpa is the presence of nonduality.
Table note 2: both the dreaming and waking states are states of dreaming. A better terminology could be sleeping-dreaming and waking-dreaming. Of course the common element in both states of dreaming is mind turned on (avidya on).
Table note 3: this Enlightened One is called the Jivanmukti in Advaita Vedanta. Like Jesus being in the world but not of the world, that’s in the mind but not of the mind, in Maya but not of Maya.
4.
PS: sat is to insentience, as cit is to sentience, as ananda is to enlightenment.
In the name of Nirguna Brahman, Isvara, and the Holy Ghost of Maya, Aum
But since there presently exists no independent work earlier than these Kärikäs, the work is the most important source for clarifying the thought of the early Advaita school. In particular, we must carefully note how it at times presents an extremely systematic and organized exposition, and also on occasion is highly polemical. While absorbing the ideas and being influenced by the thoughts of various schools, it also sharply criticizes and attacks other philosophical standpoints. It profoundly influenced later Indian thought, and in subsequent periods was considered to be itself a sruti, thus having an authority equal to that of the Upanisads. It is not only an extremely important work in the history of the development of Indian thought, but apart from that, the work itself has the sparkle of genius. Very directly and loftily it proclaims with bold assurance that it is the Truth. Certainly it is one of the brilliant lights in the history of human philosophical thought.
~Hajime Nakamura (A History of Early Vedanta Philosophy, Part Two)
01. inventing satcitananda.
Nihilism is not a new belief. Neti neti crashes too. This is why satcitananda was invented.
Beyond the body is pure existence, beyond the mind is pure consciousness, and beyond enlightenment is ananda, satcitananda.
Materialism says that something comes from nothing. If that’s not magical thinking, then what is?
02. say ah.
In the sea of maya floats a world of the mind and in this world there lives avidya.
In avidya they call their second state of dreaming being awake. Ha!
Aha! Both enlightenment and dreaming use the mind but dreaming is of the mind too.
03. on being brahman.
Real knowing is not at the level of mind, thought. Real knowing is at the level of consciousness, being.
Real knowing is not at the level of mind, belief. Real knowing is at the level of consciousness, being.
Although it's true one can't conceive of brahman, one may be that brahman. This is called brahmavidya.
04. the declaration of moksha.
With mind on, there's either dreaming-dreaming, waking-dreaming, or enlightenment.
The only difference between deep sleep and nirvikalpa samadhi is avidya being on or off.
To turn off avidya, the mind must deconstruct the mind.
Before deconstructing the mind, one needs faith in pure existence.
All the material empires prefer you not.
There are three unalienable rights: sat, cit, and ananda.
Nobody can take them away from the self but yourself.
If there’s nothing to do, there’s nothing to say. So why are they saying there’s nothing to do?
Although no rituals are required, there’s still knowledge needed—to rid avidya and know there’s nothing to do.
Ignorance is the root of all samsara. So believing there’s nothing to do is easy like samsara. Knowing there’s nothing to do is not.
01. (that witness of deep sleep)
Attention isn't pure awareness—
attention is mind reflecting awareness.
This is ordinary awareness in avidya
but pure awareness is that witness of deep sleep as well as dreaming.
02 (believe it or not)
It takes some high kind of thought to deny existence—
in amanibhava, there is nothing but existence.
It takes the intelligence of maya to make a universe—
it takes avidya to believe it or not.
03 (not samsara)
Ananda is not to be defined as bliss
but as the locus in which bliss is.
Brahman is that locus.
Ananda is not samsara.
04. (dreaming)
The mind is turned off in both nirvikalpa samadhi and deep sleep—
samadhi has nothing to do with avidya.
From the default state of deep sleep—
as the mind turns on, it’s called dreaming, and as the body turns on, dreaming is called waking.
05. (there's atman)
All duality is false but every trinity points to truth—this is called the power of three. Two trinities is called the power of seven, and so on.
In Advaita Vedanta, that Christian god-the-father is existence-awareness, asexual and nondual.
God the son is this self-luminous sun of that absolute awareness unknown by the mind and so called black hole. Maya is obviously the holy ghost.
God the ground is nirguna brahman. Universal consciousness is saguna brahman, aka Isvara.
Maya is the manifestation of absolute intelligence as te is to tao.
The big bang of yin and yang equals avidya.
First there is avidya, then there is no mountain, then there’s atman.
Absolute existence is the ground of the universe. The universe itself is nothing but name and form.
Because of the functional compounds and organic chemicals present in the great turning of this reflexive universe,
absolute consciousness, as well as that absolute existence, is the ground of the subtle body present in all sentient beings.
As absolute existence is the ground of material insentience and absolute consciousness is the ground of sentience, absolute ananda is the ground of ineffable enlightenment.
