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Thread: All This is Brahman 2

  1. #1
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    All This is Brahman 2

    Namaste All,

    I feel that Satay should now lock the original thread which now stands finished with the Master's stroke.
    ----------------------

    I opened this separately to point out something in earnest to mithya, who may be a hindu or not; who may be ignorantly labelling Swami Vivekananda as ignorant and sticking to his statement egged by ego; or he may be an expert non-advaitin/non-hindu.

    It does not matter. Everyone is free to express opinion but only an ignorant, egged on by ego goes too far. Opinion of mithya about Vivekanada, Ramakrishna, Sai, Shri Shri has left a bitter taste and has prompted this note.

    Mithya states that Swami has taught that World = Brahman and thus is ignorant since the World never existed.

    Swamiji, like any other adherant of Shankara's teachings says: The World (phenomenon) is nothing but Brahman (noumenon), which Ramana also taught most stringently. Ramana always held that to see/know the World or Brahman, a Seer/knower is required, who is the subject always and who should be known first. Seer is the World. Seer is the Cup. Seer is Brahman in action.

    To label Swami Vivekananda as ignorant is equivalent of saying that the Seer of "I am That" is ignorant, since He equated I=That. And similarly for You=That; and Atman=Brahman.

    Second, if the world does not exist and thus world=brahman is false then who is this mithya proclaiming thus? Is he in the world or he is beyond the world, or is he Brahman?


    Om Namah Shivaya
    That which is without letters (parts) is the Fourth, beyond apprehension through ordinary means, the cessation of the phenomenal world, the auspicious and the non-dual. Thus Om is certainly the Self. He who knows thus enters the Self by the Self.

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    Re: All This is Brahman 2

    namaskar atanu,

    Quote Originally Posted by atanu View Post
    Namaste All,

    I feel that Satay should now lock the original thread which now stands finished with the Master's stroke.
    Om Namah Shivaya
    I wasn't planning on closing the thread because I was convinced that it would die its own slow death now that yajvan, devotee and perhaps sai are also out of the discussion.
    satay

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    Re: All This is Brahman 2

    Quote Originally Posted by satay View Post
    namaskar atanu,

    I wasn't planning on closing the thread because I was convinced that it would die its own slow death now that yajvan, devotee and perhaps sai are also out of the discussion.
    Namaste Satay,

    That is fine. Not feeding the fire kills it.

    Om
    That which is without letters (parts) is the Fourth, beyond apprehension through ordinary means, the cessation of the phenomenal world, the auspicious and the non-dual. Thus Om is certainly the Self. He who knows thus enters the Self by the Self.

  4. #4

    Re: All This is Brahman 2

    Quote Originally Posted by atanu View Post
    I opened this separately to point out something in earnest to mithya, who may be a hindu or not; who may be ignorantly labelling Swami Vivekananda as ignorant and sticking to his statement egged by ego; or he may be an expert non-advaitin/non-hindu.
    I don't believe I abused anyone. But it's a fact that Swami V and most neo-Vedantins wanted to help the poor of India. So calling the world an illusion wouldn't have helped their cause in the west. That's perhaps why they diluted advaita, who knows? So they did what they did for noble reasons. I am not at all blaming them, it goes on to show how sensitive they were to the poor man's needs.

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    Re: All This is Brahman 2

    Quote Originally Posted by mithya View Post
    I don't believe I abused anyone. But it's a fact that Swami V and most neo-Vedantins wanted to help the poor of India. So calling the world an illusion wouldn't have helped their cause in the west. That's perhaps why they diluted advaita, who knows? So they did what they did for noble reasons. I am not at all blaming them, it goes on to show how sensitive they were to the poor man's needs.

    Dear mithya,

    You do not know teachings of Swami Vivekanada or of Ramana Maharshi. Below, I give two pieces of former's writings:

    This theory of Maya has been the most difficult thing to understand in all ages. Let me tell you in a few words that it is surely no theory, it is the combination of the three ideas Desha-Kâla-Nimitta — space, time, and causation — and this time and space and cause have been further reduced into Nâma-Rupa. Suppose there is a wave in the ocean. The wave is distinct from the ocean only in its form and name, and this form and this name cannot have any separate existence from the wave; they exist only with the wave. The wave may subside, but the same amount of water remains, even if the name and form that were on the wave vanish for ever. So this Maya is what makes the difference between me and you, between all animals and man, between gods and men. In fact, it is this Maya that causes the Atman to be caught, as it were, in so many millions of beings, and these are distinguishable only through name and form. If you leave it alone, let name and form go, all this variety vanishes for ever, and you are what you really are. This is Maya.
    It is again no theory, but a statement of facts.
    And

    Gentlemen, I have tried to place before you a few of the most brilliant points of the Advaita system, and now the time has come when it should be carried into practice, not only in this country but everywhere. Modern science and its sledge-hammer blows are pulverising the porcelain foundations of all dualistic religions everywhere. Not only here are the dualists torturing texts till they will extend no longer —

    Swami Vivekananda was the perfect follower of Shankara and a karma yogi, who understood, that a man who is drinking his wine from a cup cannot be told that the cup is made of his mind matter alone and is illusory.

    It is foolishness to teach a man running away from a tiger that the tiger is illusion.

    However, He never minced words about what is the ultimate knowledge, as shown above.


    You also do not comprehend Shri Ramana. He always asks us to find the one who is in MAyA. The search finally indicates that the mind of Man itself is the bondage called MAyA. And beneath the rumblings of the man's mind, the man (Purusha-Atman) is none but Brahman. (Ayamatma brahma).



    Both of these great teachers teach what Shri Krishna taught:
    "Even in this life they have conquered relative existence whose minds are firm-fixed on the sameness of everything, for God is pure and the same to all; therefore, such are said to be living in God.


    -------------------------
    There is no division between World and Brahman, except in your own mind. Please desist to judge great teachers, if you are a real advaitin.

    If you are fake, you are free to do anything.

    Om
    That which is without letters (parts) is the Fourth, beyond apprehension through ordinary means, the cessation of the phenomenal world, the auspicious and the non-dual. Thus Om is certainly the Self. He who knows thus enters the Self by the Self.

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    Re: All This is Brahman 2

    Namaste Atanu,

    I really admire your patience but I think your efforts to make Mithya understand is never going to bear fruit. Mithya doesn't know what "Mithya" means in Sankara's quote, "Jagat Mithya" & he doesn't want to know. "Mithya" .... means fake or unreal ... but doesn't mean "non-existent". "Fake" exists as something different from what it really is.

    Mithya has quoted Maharishi Ramana to buttress his points so far. Let's hear from Maharishi Ramana what he says :

    I. Sanakara was criticised for his views on maya without understanding him.He said that (1)Brahman is real, (2) The universe is unreal, and (3) Brahman is the universe. He did not stop at the second, because the third explains the other two. It signifies that the universe is real if perceived as the Self, and unreal if perceived apart from the Self. Hence maya and reality are one and the same. (Guru Ramana, p. 65)

    II.Since the cause itself [reality] appears as the effect [the world], and because consciousness – the cause of this vast world described by the sastras [the scriptures] as being merely names and forms– is a truth as obvious as the nelli fruit on one’s palm, it is proper to term this great world ‘real’.

    III. The worlds that are described as being either three or fourteen are real when seen from the point of view of the primal cause [Brahman] because they have unceasing existence as their [real] nature. However, when attention is paid only to the names and forms, the effect, even the undecaying cause, the plenitude, will appear to be non-existent.

    IV.Question: Are names and forms real?

    Maharishi Ramana : You won’t find them separate from adhistana [the substratum]. When you try to get at name and form, you will find reality only. Therefore attain the knowledge of that which is real in all three states [waking, dreaming and sleeping]. (The Power of the Presence, part one, pp. 251-2)

    V. The Mind turned inward is the SELF & the Mind turned outward is the World.

    ------------------------------------------------

    However, this cannot satisfy someone who has decided not to listen.

    Regards,

    OM
    "Om Namo Bhagvate Vaasudevaye"

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    Re: All This is Brahman 2

    Some More quotes from Maharishi Ramana :
    -----------------------------------------------------------
    Question: "Brahman is real. The world is illusion" is the stock phrase of Sri Sankaracharya. Yet others say, "The world is reality." Which is true?

    Sri Ramana Maharshi: Both statements are true. They refer to different stags of development and are spoken from different points of view. The aspirant starts with the definition, that which is real exists always. Then he eliminates the world as unreal because it is changing. The seeker ultimately reaches the Self and there finds unity as the prevailing note. Then, that which was originally rejected as being unreal is found to be a part of the unity. Being absorbed in the reality, the world also is real. There is only being in Self-realisation, and nothing but being.

    --------------------------------------------------------------------
    Question: Sri Bhagavan (Ramana Maharshi) often says that Maya (illusion) and reality are the same. How can that be?

    Sri Ramana Maharshi: Sankara was criticised for his views on Maya without being understood. He said that

    1. Brahman is real, 2. The universe is unreal, and 3. The universe is Brahman.

    He did not stop at the second, because the third explains the other two. It signifies that the universe is real if perceived as the Self, and unreal if perceived apart from the Self. Hence Maya and reality are one and the same.

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Question: So the world is not really illusory?

    Sri Ramana Maharshi: At the level of the spiritual seeker you have got to say that the world is an illusion. There is no other way. When a man forgets that he is a Brahman, who is real, permanent and omnipresent, and deludes himself into thinking that he is a body in the universe which is filled with bodies that are transitory, and labours under that delusion, you have got to remind him that the world is unreal and a delusion. Why? Because his vision which has forgotten its own Self is dwelling in the external, material universe. It will not turn inwards into introspection unless you impress on him that all this external material universe is unreal. When once he realises his own Self he will know that there is nothing other than his own Self and he will come to look upon the whole universe as Brahman.

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Question: So the world is real when it is experienced as the Self and unreal when it is seen as separate names and forms?

    Sri Ramana Maharshi: Just as fire is obscured by smoke, the shining light of consciousness is obscured by the assemblage of names and forms, the world. When by compassionate divine grace the mind becomes clear, the nature of the world will be known to be not the illusory forms but only the reality.

    Only those people whose minds are devoid of the evil power of Maya, having given up the knowledge of the world and being unattached to it, and having thereby attained the knowledge of the self-shining Supreme Reality, can correctly know the meaning of the statement "The world is real." If one's outlook has been transformed to the nature of real knowledge, the world of the five elements beginning with space (akasha) will be real, being the Supreme Reality, which is the nature of knowledge.

    ------------------------------------------------------------

    I think this should be enough.

    OM
    "Om Namo Bhagvate Vaasudevaye"

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    Re: All This is Brahman 2

    Quote Originally Posted by devotee View Post
    Namaste Atanu,

    I really admire your patience but I think your efforts to make Mithya understand is never going to bear fruit.

    However, this cannot satisfy someone who has decided not to listen.
    OM
    Namaste Devotee,

    That is very true. Yet what one gains or loses? If HDF is taken as ground of sat-sangh and for occassional dissemination of whatever good is known, in an expectation free way, it is good. I agree, often we fail to keep individuality at bay but it appears to me that in that respect also, HDF is a pracitise ground.

    But your last two posts prove beyond doubt that mithya is either misleading or is mislead.

    Two excellent posts, which are sufficient.

    Om
    That which is without letters (parts) is the Fourth, beyond apprehension through ordinary means, the cessation of the phenomenal world, the auspicious and the non-dual. Thus Om is certainly the Self. He who knows thus enters the Self by the Self.

  9. #9

    Re: All This is Brahman 2

    I am only going to explain this once, after which I won't be posting on this matter. We're going in circles. So I'll explain this in a way a child could understand.

    I see a snake and exclaim, "OMG, it's a snake."

    Then I realize it's a rope. I pick it up and mutter under my breath, "Ha, the snake is a rope."

    But is snake really a rope? We all know that snake and rope are distinct entities. So when I say the snake is a rope, what it really means is: what I thought was a snake is a rope and the snake never really existed. As you can see, there's no question of identity, even though language might appear to suggest otherwise. It's like saying: the cloth is red. If this statement is taken for identity, then anything red must be a cloth, and all clothes exist as redness! Therefore, even though the language suggests identity, we know better than to understand it in such a narrow way.

    Second, we say Brahman is mistaken for the world, like rope is mistaken for the snake. Now if Brahman and world were one, it's tantamount to saying Brahman is being mistaken for itself! This is evidently impossible, it's like saying I am mistaking atanu for atanu, I am mistaking the rope for a rope. You don't mistake X for X, you can only mistake X for something other than X. Which means, if Brahman and world were one, no mistaken perception would be possible to begin with, because you can't mistake a thing for itself. And because there's mistaken perception, we have no choice but to accept that Brahman is mistaken for something it's not, namely the world. Hence, we negate that which is false-world-to understand the truth which is Brahman.

  10. #10
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    Re: All This is Brahman 2

    Quote Originally Posted by mithya View Post
    we have no choice but to accept that Brahman is mistaken for something it's not, namely the world. Hence, we negate that which is false-world-to understand the truth which is Brahman.
    Exactly, even a child should be able to understand this. You do not understand what Jagat means, so all the confusion in you.

    So, we say Jagat (which appears moving all the time) is the immutable Brahman, the Sthanu shAntam Shiva, appearing as moving and changing Jagat due to superposition of movement of thoughts.

    A firebrand appearing as a ring of fire. Since, the ring of fire cannot be a Second entity, without the firebrand, it is said that the ring of fire, devoid of superimposed movement, is actually the firebrand.

    The bramamAn Jagat is actually the sthanu Brahman. The bramamAn Jagat (the moving flux called Universe) is not a second independent entity but is a product of nature of Brahman.

    Last edited by atanu; 01 May 2009 at 11:05 AM.
    That which is without letters (parts) is the Fourth, beyond apprehension through ordinary means, the cessation of the phenomenal world, the auspicious and the non-dual. Thus Om is certainly the Self. He who knows thus enters the Self by the Self.

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