Katha Outline (sandeepany)

The Harder Stuff

The metaphysics of advaita isn’t theoretical although it makes more sense than other physics.

Advaita is an experiential thing if anything at all. But it’s one thing to know consciousness is foundational. It’s another to identify with that.

O Mama, I’m like stuck between the rock and hard place of consciousness.

2. waves

It's easy to see through the waves when you live at sea. 

When you live in a virtual desert, you first need to know what waves are.

3. atman

Many there are who do not even hear of Atman; though hearing of Him, many do not comprehend. Wonderful is the expounder and rare the hearer; rare indeed is the experiencer of Atman taught by an able preceptor.

~Katha 1.2.7 (tr-Nikhilananda)

4. maya

Between the individual and the universal is avidya. Between the universal and the absolute is maya.

They say avidya may be ending in this lifetime. But Maya only closes at the end of Brahma's day.

5. brahman

The universal knows it is the absolute like Brahma knows it’s Brahman. 

Thus an individual knowing it’s the universal spontaneously is the absolute.

x. advaita

Gaudapada, at the least, teaches us how to die.

It's not about dying before you die but never being born.

nonduality comics 250405st01

1.

It’s Pike’s Peak or Bust. Do not take the Donner Pass.

I imagine Shankaracharya as an eighth-century Sheldon Cooper.

Saguna Brahman is Brahman from Maya’s point of view.

2.

Twenty years of nonduality and all I got was this invisible t-shirt.

In a perfect world, mind gathers, intelligence reports, and intuition acts.

Awareness being self-aware happens on the field of Maya.

3.

First, attention minus thought equals parabrahman.

Murmur, murmur, murmur, murmur, murmur.

From an absolute point of view, this is not happening.

4.

From a relative point of view,

handle things with care.

Treat all bruises with love.

5.

To deny existence requires existence.

If thoughts appear in consciousness,

who am I? Love is never having to say.

6.

We are waves who think

we’re not the sea.

This is living dangerously.

7.

Objects appearing in the mind are closer than you think.

Children are conceived.

Consciousness is unborn.

8.

Mountaineering is primitive self-inquiry.

Psychotherapy is the midpoint of all mountaineering.

Peaking is peaking.

For Ishwara

Like a table is mostly space
an individual is mostly love
with a little bit of dangerous thought.

People are just waves who think
they’re not the sea.
This is living dangerously.

Inhabit the life lightly.
This is your real lucid dreaming.
One way at a time.

On Divine Grace

Feel the radioactivity of mad divine grace from that great big satguru in the sky!

Divine grace is part electric socket and part lightning and thunder.

Before the turn is strictly karmic. After the turn is all about divine grace.

Basho Oku No Hosomichi

Why has no vlogger done a thorough travelog on oku no hosomichi?

I followed his footsteps in hiraizumi, matsushima, and yamadera. I would love to see all that went on north of the shirakawa barrier.

Hiraizumi

(tr-stryk)

Summer grasses

All that remains

Of soldiers’ dreams

Yamadera

(tr-matsuobashohaikublog)

Ah, the Quiet, but piercing the Rocks — the Cry of the Cicada

Matsushima

Matsushima ya

Aa matsushima ya

Matsushima ya

All World Breaking Out (for Shankara, Arthur M, and Julian of Norwich)

The concept of avidya

(beginningless ignorance) is like original sin

without the god-fearing gods.

In this reflection of consciousness in paradise

the mind naturally sides with itself

and all world breaks out.

All shall be well—

it’s just the self-reflexive play between awareness and self-awareness

where consciousness meets the road.

paraversical version

The concept of avidya (beginningless ignorance) is like original sin without the god-fearing gods.

In this reflection of consciousness in paradise, the mind naturally sides with itself. And all world breaks out.

All shall be well—it’s just the self-reflexive play between awareness and self-awareness where consciousness meets the road.

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1. looney nonduality

Transcending space-time is Brahman. 

Transcending me is Atman.

Atman is Brahman.

That’s all folks

2. geological theology

the universe is the cause.

this universe is the result.

to any so-called individual

this looks like the grace of god.

3. witchery belief

Politics is the witchery of making

one side look universally.

Belief is like a leaf refusing to fall.

Holistic bliss infinity, oh my.

The Unified Field Anti-Theory

String theory is like a day in the park for Maya. How many dimensions would you like? Maya has ten thousand of them.

The Newtonian universe is what happens when the mind processes input from the senses, and the quantum universe when processing input from itself.

In the nondual universe, the mind is an appearance in consciousness-existence and therefore incapable of processing that which is greater than itself.

Intuitive nonknowing and effortless nondoing is how the mind receives the truth from consciousness-existence.

Comply or Inquire Gita

People identify with their minds.

There’s nothing wrong with this.

It’s a socially acceptable condition.

But the fact is the mind is

a beautiful dividing machine.

So taking sides is what people do.

The horrors of war begins at such an early age.

If having the stain of war upon your hands is fine,

stay the original course.

Otherwise, turn and inquire within.

If the mind appears in consciousness,

why don’t I identify with that?

With every such notion surrendered,

Atman brings you closer to the truth.

To Isvaraverse and Beyond

1. water

Like wells rising from the same water table

your consciousness and my consciousness are one consciousness.

Our atmans are brahman like waves are water too.

The universe itself is brahman 

like reflections of clouds in a crystal clear lake is nothing but water.

2. baby jesus

Pots are clay and rings are gold and all reflections are appearing in one consciousness.

The false is always going faster miles an hour. One needs to stop to smell the truth.

Differentiate the false from flower. Don’t cut the baby Jesus in two.

3. atman headlines

Only love grows in a desert. Who lives on Mount Kailash? Consciousness reveals all!

Om Shiva.

Attention minus thought equals atman.

Nonduality Comics Who

1. faith is fine

Realizing is not believing—the one who’s busy just believing is busy being dead.

Having faith is fine—like training wheels for contemplating if that faith is truthfully well-founded.

Either training wheels do their job or not. Either way, faith is just a temporary solution.

2. the good

In Sin City, things are bad or worse.

The good in Maya is not of Maya.

But Samsara can take you there.

3. veils and reveals

Maya veils and reveals.

The veiling is avidya.

Revelation is tattvamasi.

4. who

Going for a drive to clear your mind.

Sitting still and seeing through.

Who is carbon friendly?

5. I Am

Have faith in this Isvaraverse!

I Am is its collateral.

Satcitananda indeed.

6. is

Existence is the principle!

Consciousness is the ground!

Ananda is holistic bliss infinity!

7. natural

The natural is Maya.

The supernatural is effortless and intuitive.

Self-awareness is inevitable.

Maya from Beginning to End

In the beginning was Maya. In fact, the very concept of a beginning is Maya’s first act.

Maya is how the world appears in the human mind. Birds and bees have their own kind of Maya.

Transcending Maya is Brahman. Maya is a childish figment of imagination superimposed on unadulterated Brahman.

Maya itself is beginningless. Which came first? The chicken or the egg?

Maya may have no beginning but Maya has an end. In Maya, it’s called self-realization.

Satprakashananda on Maya, Brahman, and Isvara

1. Potentiality of Māyā

“The term māyā applies to world-appearance in all its stages of development. It includes all diversities. The entire relative existence is the domain of māyā.

“The origin of the universe can be traced at best to Brahman associated with māyā in its potential state. Beyond māyā is the absolute Nondual Brahman without time, space, and causation.

“Māyā in its potential state is the beginning of the manifest universe, just as the seed is the beginning of the tree. It is the causal state in which all diversities remain latent. We cannot go beyond that.”

2. Beginninglessness of Māyā

“Absolute beginning of anything is illogical. Like the rotation of seed and sprout the universe revolves from the latent to the manifest state and from the manifest to the latent state. So māyā is beginningless (anādi).

“But though without beginning, it is not without end (ananta). It ends with the realization of the absolute Brahman, just as the snake disappears when the rope mistaken for it is found. Māyā has no existence apart from Brahman.”

3. Brahman with Maya

"Brahman associated with māyā is the origin, the support, and the goal of the universe. This is called Saguņa Brahman, who is immanent in the universe as the Supreme Self and acts as Iśvara, the Supreme Ruler, the dynamic God. He controls the universe from within.

"Iśvara with māyā as His power causes the projection, the Preservation, and the dissolution of the universe. In the development of the universe all transformations are in mayā, the source of all appearance; there is no change in Brahman, in Reality Itself. 

"Any transition from the potential to the actual is a transformation (pariņāma) of māyā and an apparent modification (vivarta) of Brahman. But māyā in itself has no essence of being. So Brahman associated with maya, the principle of appearance, is the material as well as the efficient cause of the universe."

4. Isvara with Maya

Saguna Brahman, because of His association with the phenomenal world, is conditioned, so to speak. He is Self-aware. He knows Himself as the Master of māyā.

He is not Pure Consciousness, the same at every point of existence, like Nirguna (attributeless) Brahman. There is no distinction of substance and attribute in Nirguna Brahman, but Saguna Brahman is possessed of attributes (guņas).

As Iśvara He is the Personal God. The term Personal is used to indicate that He has attributes. It does not mean that He has a form like a human being. He possesses all excellences in the highest degree. He is the repository of all greatness and goodness. He is All-knowing, All-powerful, All-embracing.

~Satprakashananda

nonduality comics: eye between next

1. eye

Between belief in god and a scientific theory never to be proved is a hard place.

Pure existence is the soft spot. Enter here. 

Consciousness is that eye of the eye.

2. between

Between Nirguna Brahman and Saguna Brahman is Maya.

Between Saguna Brahman and Maya is avidya.

Between belief in god and a scientific theory never to be proved is a hard place.

3. next

First comes faith.

Next comes self-inquiry.

Disillusion follows.

4.

I am that pure consciousness

in which conditioned consciousness is

appearing.

nonduality comics: spring song self

1. spring sounds

I heard peepers in the wetlands yesterday.

Three weeks ago I thrilled at the trill of red-winged blackbirds.

But nothing will compare to the silent and infinite consciousness

in which spring sounds appear like pratibodha-viditam.

2. the song of nonduality

If there's any music being made these days like All You Need Is Love, godspeed.

Love is the song of nonduality in samsara's song machine.

3. things

Two saffron monks in a red civic:

they say ten thousand things appear in one consciousness every day;

do not objectify your self.

Our Isvara

First, from an absolute point of view, there’s no creation nor creator. There’s only the one without a second, Brahman.

But from the point of view of people, there’s a personal god with whatever attributes their belief allows.

The sun appears to rise and set, move up and down with the seasons. But it doesn’t. It's a circle game. All Maya.

Yet as long as one pretends to be a person, one pretends there is a God. Mine is both the maker and the material: Isvaraverse.

2.

Our Isvara

Who pervades Isvaraverse

Hallowed be thy name

Individual consciousness

Naturally assumes

Universal consciousness

I Am is

Thy voice inside of me

nonduality comix 250318

1. a case of samsara

Your fear of success in samsara may be 

an earnestness for realization in reality—

I could drink a case of my Self.

2. next level

Austerity is your next level of impersonality.

One man's Tapovan is

another woman's Death Valley.

3. 1

There are many paths.

Some amaze.

One is.

Nonduality Comics 250318tu

lion and tigers and bears

Serendipity

synchronicity

coincidence oh my.

take me to your guru

Respect the revelation.

The revelators are not aliens.

They speak from the space of the impersonal.

on the aitareya 313 

All is compelled by Consciousness. Consciousness is the giver of the present.

The beginning and the end appear in the eye of Consciousness.

Consciousness is the bedrock of the universe. Consciousness is Brahman.

Selflit

Sunlit moon, moonlit earth.

Consciousness lights up the mind

and the mind lights up the world. 

Consciousness is the real self

and the Self is self-luminous.