You are the Truth It Self...

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sri nairji,

 

<<Can you kindly tell me what you mean by 'apophatic'?Is it the

traditional neti, neti?>>

 

sri nairji, if there is anything traditional abt neti, neti approach,

im sorry apophatic is not that. neti is a technique that reverses the

tendency of the mind which has long (traditionally) been corrupted by

incorrect cognition of the self and the universe.

 

<<If yes, then from the way you have described it, it looks like

arriving at 'something' by excluding 'other things'.>>

 

what r 'other things'? what is 'something'? the notion that one will

arrive at 'something' by the insight itself is wrong. it is this

tendency of the mind that we must reverse. we r used to thinking that

'something' shud be obtained for happiness. moksha also appears like

an object being sought in a mktplace (refer Sankara's upanishad

bhashya here) that there exist 'other things', is also a wrong view.

it is the attachement with the 'something' that causes sorrow.

 

the neti technique is that of renunciation. everything that has been

previously assumed (even if not at intellectual level, it still

remains at a sub-conscious level. to remove it we need prajnA or

knowledge) as the self which includes form, feelings, perceptions,

past emotions and actions and (conditioned) consciousness is seen as

not-self (thru proper insight) and are abandoned. this is the key to

self-realization.

 

at the end of it whether there is an acquisition of a 'self' or not is

part of one's own theorization, but to the one who is enlightened,

there is no way he can say this. one who is not enlightened can anyway

not say what this realization is like, but even an enlightened one cant.

 

in such a state where all (conditioned) consciousness vanishes (it is

thru conditioned consciousness that one cognizes a self and another

different from the self) thru what can one know the self? when an

enlightened one cognizes something it is not thru normal consciousness

(which has the essential characteristic of clinging). then thru what

shall he explain to the unenlightened ones, what this enlightenment

is, for what he has know is very much beyond the realm of the six

senses, or consciousness.

 

<<If the full cleansing mentioned by Toniji takes place, then that

real nature should shine on its own.>>

 

yes. i did not deny it.

 

<<Has anything, manifest or unmanifest, been excluded here?>>

 

but where did i exclude any manifest or unmanifest. i used the term

unmanifest to refer to that enlightenment which is beyond any

perception or senses. which can occur only by renunciation of all

ideas (imaginations) of the self and understanding at a very subtle

level of the origination of all these ideations of self.

 

this is the neti approach. i don't know if u can appreciate it, but

incidentally it is the same as the anatta teaching of the buddha.

 

-balaji