Frank and Greg's post

[Guest guest]

Frank, I think you have misunderstood me. My problem with Advaitam is

not with Advaitam itself. On the contrary, I think Advaitam is in all

probability the "fullest" system of philosophy to be conceived by the

Indian mind. It's as perfect as it can be.

 

My objection lies in the attitude of the practitioners of Advaitam. It's

my opinion, that if one's in the level of vyavahAra, one's attention

should be directed only towards psychology - to know who he is. Only

when one's obtained vivekam, that one should engage in metaphysics - as

to how when one's actually the Self, one identifies with the non-self,

superimposition etc The reason is that without knowing the Self one

cannot truly understand the metaphysics in Advaitam. For, in Shankara's

works if one notices, the Atman is always taken for granted and the

world is only explained from the point of the Eternal Atman. So if you

do not know the Atman and try to understand Advaitic metaphysics, it's

like trying to build a skyscraper with no foundation.

 

And Frank, you seem to think that shunya means "nothing" and thus

teaches nihilism. No, it doesn't. Shunyata for NagArjunA doesn't mean

emptiness in the conventional sense. The last verse in

MulamAdhyamikakArikA sums up his doctrine : The true teaching of the

Buddha is the abandonment of all "views".

For NAgArjunA reality is beyond words and as his foremost disciple

ChandrakIrtI states : he is a relativist and not a nihilist. For him

shunyata teaches the transcendental doctrine and not nihilism.

 

And Greg poses an interesting question about the kind of sAdhanA

required.

 

One thing people should wonder about is : If you are actually the Self,

why is it that it's so hard for you to realize it?

 

IMO, the highest authority is the voice of the spirit in us. Let me also

add that, that spirit is nothing apart from us, but a part of what we

generally refer to as the "I". To distinguish the true I, ie the spirit,

from the non-I, the surest way is to follow one's intuition or instinct.

After all, we're trying to find the truth about ourselves.

 

As Shankara says : There are two levels of knowledge - the lower and the

higher; the Vedas and the philosophies constitue the lower; Knowledge of

the Self is the highest knowledge. JnAnam is not theoretical knowledge,

but knowledge of oneself. Scriptures and philosophies are but pointers

to the truth. The danger is to take them literally or to get too

involved with them, letting your imagination run and thus divorcing

oneself from reality. The pain that I feel in my heart, the suffering

that I experience in my life are not "illusions". They are real enough

and no amount of superimposition theories can put an end to them. And

for that matter if escape from suffering is what I'm seeking I could be

drunk all day or keep myself amused one way or another, oblivious of all

that's happening around me. But the problem is that the cessation of

suffering is not to be achieved by anything which takes us away from

ourselves and even this psychical evolution wouldn't truly matter, since

it's not your true nature. For however we may move away from suffering,

there always will remain the possibility of coming back to it. And even

if one doesn't come back to it, still there remains the question of

integrity to what you are in essence.

 

What I'm trying to say is : you are what you are. If you're full of

greed, envy and lust, you're what you are - a weak human - accept that.

Saying that "No! I'm not that! I'm the eternal Atman", is not going to

solve anything. To find the eternal Atman explore in yourselves as to

why you're full of bad qualities. Investigate as to who has these bad

qualities. Ramana's "Who am I?" is the most important question to be

asked again and again. It's only from the existent reality that we can

pierce the inner reality. From the imagined self we cannot build a

bridge to the real.

 

Salvation is only to know about the true nature of our selves - ofcourse

it may be that the truth is nothing but suffering and hence you're

damned. But truth is the truth. It has to be accepted. But fortunately

saints like Shankara and Ramana say that truth is indeed Bliss. There in

lies our consolation and motive to work towards it.