I Am Breaking Maya (symphony 1)

breaking maya

Do not agonize over maya but understand avidya. If the body-mind appears in consciousness, as is obvious (at first disturbing) to the witnessing of deep sleep,

I’m not the body-mind—I am consciousness, beyond any doubt the mind may have. In other words, I am that ‘I am’.

The metaphysics of nonduality isn’t rocket science. Existence, consciousness, and holistic bliss infinity is all there is. And I am that.

Yes, I am the sky of pure consciousness. Neither earth, water, wind, nor fire offer any real concern. Maya can’t touch me.

deconstructing ordinary awareness

Ordinary awareness witnesses the waking state but true awareness witnesses deep sleep.

In the ordinary world, ordinary awareness is attention, which is consciousness and thought combined.

If you think you know what true awareness is, deep sleep is there to deconstruct you.

devotional #1

The mind is a tool the mind does not know how to use.

Devotion to a god is not to be believed but practiced.

To help the mind not abuse itself by using itself, let consciousness be Krishna.

in the name of satcitananda

Satcitananda is the god of gods.

And life is but the reflection of Existence; attention, the reflection of Consciousness; and happiness, Ananda.

That is that existence which can't be named; that consciousness which can't be believed, and that ananda which can't be defined.

devotional #2 (methuen #1)

Beyond spacetime is the space of consciousness and the time of timelessness.

Marrying the matrices of life, attention, and ananda is oneself, nonduality.

Dedicated to that christ consciousness i so mysteriously loved

While skipping catholic sunday school behind the anglican stone walls of the east street cemetery.

~My First Methuen Devotional~

Beyond spacetime is the space of consciousness and the time of timelessness.

Marrying the matrices of life, attention, and ananda is oneself, nonduality.

Dedicated to that Christ consciousness I so mysteriously loved

While skipping catholic sunday school behind the anglican walls of the east street cemetery.

nonduality comics 240302

1. unconsciousness

a.

unconsciousness is a misnomer. it's more like unmind.

b.

the mind is either on or off. 

consciousness is neither on nor off 

but is is is.

c.

consciousness is that immutable nonduality

witnessing either the presence of duality or the absence of duality—

whether it's dream or deep sleep doesn't really matter to 'me'.

2. personalizing

a.

yes the mind personalizing consciousness is the original sin

and the source of all suffering

but give the me a break.

any one-year-old would have made the same mistake.

b. 

and don't go blaming god the parent for the work of god the child.

c.

forget it jake the snake, it's maya town.

3. epistle to my dakini

belief is like a rock in the middle of a stream. in other words, belief is the root of all duality. in nonduality club, no identification is required.

the only difference between dreaming and waking is the body being on or off. otherwise, dreaming is dreaming.

if mind-on is dreaming whether the body is on or off, and mind-off and body-off is deep sleep, what is mind-off and body-on, my inner dakini?

Symphony Number One: Me, Myself, and Atman (for Agi)

1. paraverse.

Consciousness is where the buck stops. The dream state is lit by the mind. The mind is lit by consciousness. Consciousness is self-luminous.

Strange, the mind borrows its sentience from consciousness but in some material hallucination has come to believe that consciousness owes the mind its life.

Look, in deep sleep, the mind is nowhere to be seen, yet consciousness is present witnessing this absence of duality. Further, consciousness is all there is. In fact, I am that.

And all those castles in the clouds are appearing in ‘me’. For the mind usurps the noumenal subject and mistakes its false sense of self for ‘me’, I, the true Self.

2. advaitaverse

Vidyaranya says you have to draw the line somewhere not in the ad infinitum metaphysical but that which is actually intuitive most importantly.

Ashtavakra says to Janaka, when the mind usurps consciousness, it makes its body its sole identity, and this stream of consciousness its natural by-product.

Gaudapada divides the ordinary states of mind in two: deep sleep and dreaming, whereas most suppose three. But in his karika, the waking state is

just a subset of dreaming—highlighting both deep sleeps’s absence of duality and the dreamlike quality of the waking state. Genius!

The poet Laksmidhara in Advaita Makaranda (Nectar of Nonduality) is taking one’s stand in Brahman. It’s up to you to prove that truth otherwise.

3. tantrikaverse

belief is like a rock in the middle of a stream. in other words, belief is the root of all duality. in nonduality club, no identification is required.

the only difference between dreaming and waking is the body being on or off. otherwise, dreaming is dreaming.

if this mind-on is dreaming whether the body is on or off, and mind-off and body-off is deep sleep, what is mind-off and body-on, my sweet dakini?

ndc240229. one giant leap day.

1.

koans don't crack mirrors.

a good koan sees through the mirror.

bad koans see through mirrors too

and the mirror cracks the koan.

2.

I once saw Ramana Maharshi raining from an infinite sky to the desert ground

Like turquoise columns seen through Mesa Arch on Island in the Sky.

3.

in the rainforest

—columbia river gorge—

i eat three pancakes

4.

two ferries crossing basho bay

—the dragon is catching the wake of a phoenix—

surfing matsushima

The Nonduality Trio

1. dedicated to the one i love

The energy of the sun is absolute existence itself.

The light of the sun is executive for all knowing.

And the warmth of the sun is good vibrations of pure joy.

I am like that.

2. ahamasmi

I am,

I self-luminously know,

and never not beloved—

a 15th century poet writes something like that.

3. light, camera, action!

Consciousness is the highest knowledge!

Being is the greatest life!

Holistic infinity bliss is purest joy!

I shall be joining that chorus!

radio releases

:

~Dedicated to The One I Love~

The energy of the sun is absolute existence itself.

The light of the sun is executive for all knowing.

And the warmth of the sun is good vibrations of pure joy. 

I shall be joining that chorus!

~fm~

The energy of the sun is absolute existence itself.

The light of the sun is executive for all knowing.

And the warmth of the sun is good vibrations of pure joy.

Consciousness is the highest knowledge!

Being is the greatest life!

Holistic infinity bliss is purest joy!

Advaita History

 

 

Scholars have yet to provide even a rudimentary, let alone comprehensive account of the history of Advaita Vedānta in the centuries leading up to the colonial period, though this history is precisely what set the stage for its modern reception. Scholarship on Advaita Vedānta has tended to focus overwhelmingly on Sańkara, the founding figure of the tradition, but our knowledge of the thousand-year period between the Brahmasütrabhäsya and the lectures of Svāmī Vivekānanda remains largely incomplete. 

Introduction to Special Issue: New Directions in the Study of Advaita Vedānta 

Michael S. Allen, Anand Venkatkrishnan. 

International Journal of Hindu Studies (2017) 21:271-274 

 

 

 

 

 

The conclusions reached by scholars such as P. Hacker, S. Mayeda (Mayeda 1965a; Mayeda 1965b), among others, identified the works of the historical Sa´ m. kara as limited to commentaries on the Brahma-Sutra ¯ , early Upanis. ads, and the Bhagavad-G¯ıta¯, as well as the independent work Upade´sasahasr ¯ ¯ı. As important as these findings are, they have functioned, at least in the Western academy, as a kind of precedent for what counts as “authentic” Advaita Vedanta. In that way, the mid-twentieth ¯ century Indological concern for philosophically reconstructing early Advaita Vedanta, as well as ¯ the historical biography and authentic works of Sa´ m. kara, brought about a perhaps unintended consequence: later Advaita Vedantic works, particularly texts attributed to ¯ Sa´ m. kara but of later authorship, are all too often judged against the “authenticity” of the Sa´ m. karite commentarial corpus. This judgement, in fact, carries with it the subtle sense that such texts—and their soteriological and hermeneutical modalities—are inauthentic beyond the issue of authorship. 

James Madaio 

Rethinking Neo-Vedanta: Swami Vivekananda and ¯ the Selective Historiography of Advaita Vedanta  

Religions 24 May 2017 

 

 

This list has been compiled based primarily on the most recent version (15 April 2010) of the online edition of Potter’s Bibliography and on Thangaswami’s Ko´sa. I have supplemented their findings by referring to Mahadevan, Preceptors of Advaita, some of the secondary sources that Potter lists, the texts themselves and the information available in Aufrecht’s Catalogus Catalogorum and Raghavan’s New Catalogus Catalogorum 

Christopher Minkowski* 

Advaita Vedanta in early modern history 

South Asian History and Culture 

Vol. 2, No. 2, April 2011, 205–231 

 

 

 

 

 

What topics attracted the attention of the Advaitins during this period and what literary 

genres did they prefer to use to discuss them? To take the latter question first, we should 

note, first of all, the appearance in this period of polemical works of a new sort. Polemical 

texts as such were nothing new for Advaitins. These were works, however, aggressively 

directed not against the proponents of philosophical positions, but rather at critics speaking from within theological movements, especially the movement begun by Madhva. 

 

Another new genre was the analytical survey, a work that assembled and evaluated the 

views deemed to lie within the ambit of non-dualist philosophy. Creating doxographies of 

all philosophical schools, arranged into a hierarchy with Advaita at the top, had been an 

interest of the Advaitins for some time.11 What was new here was the aim comprehensively 

to survey the variety within the school, either by itself or in addition to a survey of other 

schools of thought. Appayya’s Siddhantale´ ¯ sasam. graha was the most widely known example of the former sort; Madhusudana’s three works, the ¯ Advaitasiddhi, Siddhantabindu ¯ and 

Vedantakalpalatik ¯ a¯, all incorporated features of the latter. 

 

 

The period also saw the appearance of the brief prose pedagogical work, intended 

to explain the principles of the Advaitin position in a systematic way at an introductory 

level. The two principal texts were Sadananda’s ¯ Vedantas ¯ ara ¯ and Dharmaraj¯ adhvar ¯ ¯ındra’s 

Vedantaparibh ¯ as¯. a¯, both of which attracted commentaries throughout the period.1