the moment just passed and elementary

[Guest guest]

Namaste Michael and all.

 

Reference Michael's posts # 15519, 15525 and 15521.

 

This may not answer all the points raised by Michael. I am only

trying to look at them from a personal angle in a very general manner

not devoting myself to any of his musings or references in particular.

 

The following two are the two extremes of the scenario under

discussion:

 

1. The world of plurality exists from the point of the experiencer.

 

2. The experiencer himself is the Truth being the One in all the

experienced. In effect, therefore, there is no experiencer as he

himself is everything. The experienced plurality is an error

(advaita).

 

Let us analyze:

 

The first point of view dictates a beginning and end to everything.

All the things in this universe originate and therefore must

conclude. Change, therefore, is the essence of plurality.

 

It will be easily seen that this is true only from the point of view

of the expereincer. Distance being the soul of separation (mental or

physical) between the experiencer and the experienced, a sense of

separation, and therefore of space and time, is restricted only to

the one who thinks that he is the experiencer. From the point of

view of the whole universe, no separation can exist. Here, the term

universe is to be understood as whatever is projected or experienced,

i.e. all universes, the idea of anti-universes etc. – in other words,

the ALL. That ALL, which encompasses space-time, the cause for

separation, and which we mistakenly reckon as plurality, is not

subject to affliction from a sense of separation because there

cannot be anything beyond it. By this same reckoning, it has no

inside or outside, it cannot go any where, it has not come from

anywhere (because there is no where or there for it) and it cannot be

anything else (because it is not subject to plurality either). This

is poornamidam.

 

This, therefore, is the simple truth that science must appreciate in

its endeavour to break into the mysteries of things that are

seemingly within the universe but afflicted by space-time from the

point of view of the experiencer. The scientist must realize that it

is a waste of time and labour to conjure up the shape of the universe

as a space-time model or any other multi-dimensional model, because

he will ceaselessly be confronted by the beyond of what he conjures

up and that feeling of a beyond existing itself is within the very

universe he is endeavouring to shape up. If he appreciates this

simple fact, he is face to face with the Truth from the macrocosmic

angle.

 

Scinetists like Einstein, Newton et al have appreciated this Truth in

flashes of realization and poets like Wordsworth and, why even the

most romantic of them in my language, Malayalam, have scaled lofty

heights of poesy singing its glory. But, those are just

scintillating brilliance here and there - flashes in the pot falling

far short of advaitic enlightenment. All that the scientist or poet

has to do even as he explores or sings is to make his flash of

realization constant by brooding on the fact that the feeling of

limitation and isolation originates from erroneous experiencership

and can be done away with by acquiring a sense of universality,

whereby he realizes that he is actually endless and beginningless by

identifying himself with the universe of seeming plurality. He then

becomes the whole Universe – the ALL – like vyomavat vyAptadeha (all

pervading space-like) Dakshinamoorthi. Then no thought of an annoying

beyond will bother him any more. It is here that the second point of

view comes to his rescue and aid if he chooses, at least, to try it

out with shraddha.

 

The second point of view looks at the issue from the microcosmic

angle, i.e. from the point of view of the experiencer and tells him

that he himself is the experience. This is where vijnAnavAda comes

in. But the fallacy with it is that it sees Consciousness as

projecting each different, seemingly separate objects or experiences

(momentary flashes). The thoughts are therefore seen as flickers in

the mental space and objects as illuminations in the space outside.

This point of view is again fraught with separation and plurality.

It is plain fact that at the very moment a thought or experience

flickers, there is no separation. The separation dawns on later

looking back and that feeling of separation again is a flicker when

it occurs. Thus, there is only flickering or illumination (not

momentary or conditioned by time) without an I or the illuminated

because there is no separation at the `moment' of the flicker. This

flickering or illumination is the only thing there. The sense of a

past or future is also illumination in the present. Illumination,

therefore, is the only thing that EXISTS, which is EXISTENCE (sat).

 

If this is appreciated, then the "experiencer I" vanishes leaving

only illumination without differentiation. This is everyone's

experience in full attentiveness and during meditation, when the body-

mind sense drops off, and does not demand any empirical proof. To

one who enjoys such equipoise, the oblivion of sleep metamorphoses

into illumination (yoganidra). This, in my view, is the essence of

advaita and is technically different from vijnAnavAda as no moment to

moment or object to object or experience to experience separation or

differentation from the experiencing entity is allowed for.

 

This illumination therefore is an everlasting present (sorry again

for the temporal sense in language) – full freedom from our

pedestrian understanding of the present as flanked by a past and

future. The feeling of a birth or death, beginning or end, as

warranted from the experiencer's point of view alone, is a big

error. Everything is just homogeneously PURE LIGHT, which is

CONSCIOUSNESS – a big NOW.

 

Such understanding can be one's own well-earned, coveted treasure

only through sAdhana (as Michael said : "overcoming of time (space

too!) through surrender of the fruits of action") and the purpose of

all scriptures everywhere is the attainment of this realization

whereby the "experiencer I" just exits the scene leaving only PURE

LIGHT behind. This is poornamatha.

 

If the words of Wordsworth, Eliot, Pirsig, Castaneda, Schrodinger,

Feynmann, Dennett, Lewis et al serve this purpose, the advain is

quite safe from losing track in his supreme quest.

 

A yogi as well as a scientist or poet can thus appreciate Truth

through their separate methods of enquiry. The macrocosm and the

microcosm stand eternally and mutually sublimated. Plurality demands

understanding not fretting about as doubting Thomases do by indulging

in reckless empiricism.

 

Pranams.

 

Madathil Nair

 

 

P.S.: Michael, I had expressed some thoughts about `sequential'

nature of Consciousness before. If interested, please read my post #

12225.

[Guest guest]

advaitin, "Madathil Rajendran Nair <madathilnair@y..=

..>" <madathilnair> wrote:

> Namaste Michael and all.

>

Madathil Nair wrote:

 

"The second point of view looks at the issue from the microcosmic

angle, i.e. from the point of view of the experiencer and tells him

that he himself is the experience.  This is where vijnAnavAda comes

in.  But the fallacy with it is that it sees Consciousness as

projecting each different, seemingly separate objects or experiences

(momentary flashes).  The thoughts are therefore seen as flickers in

the mental space and objects as illuminations in the space outside. 

This point of view is again fraught with separation and plurality. 

It is plain fact that at the very moment a thought or experience

flickers, there is no separation.  The separation dawns on later

looking back and that feeling of separation again is a flicker when

it occurs.  Thus, there is only flickering or illumination (not

momentary or conditioned by time) without an I or the illuminated

because there is no separation at the `moment' of the flicker. This

flickering or illumination is the only thing there.  The sense of a

past or future is also illumination in the present.  Illumination,

therefore, is the only thing that EXISTS, which is EXISTENCE (sat). "

Dear Madathil and Advaitins all,

Excellent review of the core of what you called in your earlier post #12225=

, the basic advaitic vision. We may discern it initially in a lightening fl=

ash of intuition and perhaps work out the intervening steps as rational plod=

ders. Our inner certainty of that initial truth is based on what? Nothing =

but itself and that is the life in whatever system we espouse or community o=

f faith we are born into.

 

Ciao and Blessings, Michael.