Guest guest Posted May 17, 2006 Report Share Posted May 17, 2006 H.N.Sreenivasa murthy Pranams to you all. The subject will be opened with a story: A CUP OF TEA Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to enquire about Zen. Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflow until no longer could restrain himself. "It is overful. No more will go in!" "Like this cup," Nan-in said, "You are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?" -- From the book "Zen flesh, Zen bones" by Paul Reps Realization of one's true Swaroopa The waking, dream and deep sleep states are common to all living beings. In the dream state the "I" identifies itself not with the body existing in the waking state, but with an entirely different one. It is evident that the waking body and the dream body are quite different. The dream body does not exist in the waking state, nor does the waking body exist in the dream state. Neither of these bodies nor the mind functioning in the dream and waking states, continues in the deep sleep state. I know that I am present in all these states without a change. the "I" can NEVER be the bodies or the mind which appear in one state and disappear in another. Certainly it transcends all that. Since it knows the coming and going of these three states it is if the nature of COnsciousness THAT CONSCIOUSNESS NEVER DISAPPEARS. When there are objects I know the objects. When there are no objects, I stand objectless, in my own nature as Pure Consciousness. The happiness I experience in the dream is confined to the dream state, and does not affect me in the waking state. The happiness I experience in the waking state is likewise confined to that state, and does not affect me in the dream state. Therefore, it is clear that the experiences I am having in particular states DO NOT GO INTO MY BEING. For the above stated reason it stands proved that the "I" principle or Self, which is of the nature of Consciousness, is also un attached. From the above stated analysis of one's own life, the following facts emerge: I am aSarIri. I am aprANaH. I am amanaskaH. I am asangaH. I am Self-Luminous. I am Self-Evident. OM TAT SAT *** May The Divine bless us with this Vedanta Vij~JAna. With warm and respectful regards Sreenivasa Murthy Why was V. Sehwag warned by the BCCI? Share your knowledge on Answers India Send instant messages to your online friends - NOW Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 17, 2006 Report Share Posted May 17, 2006 Namaste Shri Murthy-ji. I know that you don't answer questions. You only advise questioners to read Acharya's bhASyAs for clarifications. However, as an 'overfull self-opinionated tea-cup', I can't help question the following statement of yours: QUOTE The happiness I experience in the dream is confined to the dream state, and does not affect me in the waking state. The happiness I experience in the waking state is likewise confined to that state, and does not affect me in the dream state. UNQUOTE The above quote gives an impression that dreaming and wakefulness are completely insulated states without any interconnection. Our experience is just the reverse. I can have a bad dream and continue to be moody for the rest of the day. Or, I can dream my sweetheart and be crooning the rest of the day. In these cases, my behaviour in wakefulness is a carry-forward of dream situations. Dreams are mostly made of material from wakefulness. Besides, the physiology of a sleeping body has great relevance to dream content. Thus, a hungry sleeper might dream feasts. Sleeping with the A.C. on at high cool can give a winter-dream. A full bladder can make us run to dream- toilets. I have nothing against avastAtraya prakriya and I know that you do have a sound understanding of it. However, statements such as the above might confuse those who go by their experience. We have many of them here. We can't call all of them 'overfull tea-cups'. The all-pervading "I" can be fully appreciated through the prakriya without being non-factual. PraNAms. Madathil Nair ___________________ advaitin, sreenivasa murthy <narayana145> wrote: >> Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868- 1912), received a university professor who came to enquire about Zen. > Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring. > The professor watched the overflow until no longer could restrain himself. "It is overful. No more will go in!" > "Like this cup," Nan-in said, "You are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?" > -- From the book "Zen flesh, Zen bones" by Paul Reps ...................... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 17, 2006 Report Share Posted May 17, 2006 Madathil Rajendran Nair <madathilnair > wrote: UNQUOTE The above quote gives an impression that dreaming and wakefulness are completely insulated states without any interconnection. Our experience is just the reverse. I can have a bad dream and continue to be moody for the rest of the day. Or, I can dream my sweetheart and be crooning the rest of the day. In these cases, my behaviour in wakefulness is a carry-forward of dream situations. Dreams are mostly made of material from wakefulness. Besides, the physiology of a sleeping body has great relevance to dream content. Thus, a hungry sleeper might dream feasts. Sleeping with the A.C. on at high cool can give a winter-dream. A full bladder can make us run to dream- toilets. Dear Sir, What you say of dream state as an echo of the waking state is purely from the empirical viewpoint. One must know that after having a heavy meal, one feels dream hunger. That dreams are made of only the materials of the waking state is only half truth. I hundred percent agree with the views of Sri Murthy that the waking and dream egos are entirely different, there being no interconnectedness between them. Dream state is a waking state in its own right. One cannot judge the dream state from the standpoint of the waking state, in view of the seeming permanence of the waking state, which experience is had even in the dream state. There is no spatial or temporal relationship between the two states. Both of them have their base only in the unbroken consciousness, which knows all the three states- as the unfailing light illumining all illusory phenomena and their absence, and not in the sense of knowing the relative contents which are continuously falsified. Even memory is a trick of the mind, and should not delude us into the belief of the reality of anything other than the one Self. Further, the branding of deep sleep as one of ignorance is also the conclusion of the waking ego, which cannot conceive existence in its absence. A clear reading of the talks of Maharishi Ramana brings into clear relief that the three states are not interconnected, which is to say that we cannot sit in judgment of one state from the viewpoint of the other. Even one waking state is not related to the other. One can talk of insentient memory. But it is only from the standpoint of the empirical reality. Relating the two states is only psycho-analysis and not vedanta. with warm regards Yours ever in Bhaghavan Ramana Sankarraman Love cheap thrills? Enjoy PC-to-Phone calls to 30+ countries for just 2¢/min with Messenger with Voice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 17, 2006 Report Share Posted May 17, 2006 sreenivasa murthy <narayana145 (AT) (DOT) co.in> wrote: H.N.Sreenivasa murthy Pranams to you all. The subject will be opened with a story: From the above stated analysis of one's own life, the following facts emerge: I am aSarIri. I am aprANaH. I am amanaskaH. I am asangaH. I am Self-Luminous. I am Self-Evident. OM TAT SAT *** May The Divine bless us with this Vedanta Vij~JAna. From Sankarraman The following account of Tao is worth meditating. I had copied it from some site, which I have forgotten. I may be permitted to quote them, as these noble thoughts are very relevant to our enquiry. I may be excused for not being able to quote the site which i shall shortly do. with warm regards Sankarraman [post EDITED BY MODERATORS -- Instead of pasting the entire quote, we will merely cite a URL that contains this text: http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/chuangtz.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 18, 2006 Report Share Posted May 18, 2006 Namaste Shri Sankarramanji. Please see within . __________________________ >What you say of dream state as an echo of the waking state is purely from the empirical viewpoint. [i didn't say it is an echo. I only showed, with examples, that dreams have relevance to waking.] _______________ >One must know that after having a heavy meal, one feels dream hunger. That dreams are made of only the materials of the waking state is only half truth. [A half-truth has some truth in it. That would make the opposite view that dreams have no relevance to waking a half-lie.] ______________________ >I hundred percent agree with the views of Sri Murthy that the waking and dream egos are entirely different, there being no interconnectedness between them. [i don't have to repeat that the soul of your agreement with Sri Murthy derives sustances from a half-lie just as my disagreement does from a half-truth. Shri Murthy's passage I commented on related to dream and waking experiences and not to dream and waking egos. Please don't mix issues.] _____________________________ > Dream state is a waking state in its own right. [i am aware of that argument and I can happily agree. Shri Atmanandaji had said the same thing in the excerpt below:] [quote 472. HOW ARE DREAM AND WAKING STATES RELATED? (169) The lower shastras attribute greater reality to the waking state, on the ground that unlike the dream state, it repeats itself. This statement is made in the waking state, from a stand clearly partial to that state. Examining these two states impartially, we find that what we now call the dream state was a pure waking state when experienced, according to the so-called dream subject who alone experienced that state. So there was no dream state in fact, but only another waking state, with nothing objective in common with the former waking state. UNQUOTE] [A very persistent friend of mine recently engaged me in a very lengthy e-mail debate right on this point. My last answer to him is excerpted below:] [quote "Waking is where there is knowledge of having dreamt and slept." There is only waking and it doesn't matter a wee-bit whether it is real waking or dream-waking as long as the above condition within inverted commas is fulfilled. Since there is dream-waking, there sure is dream-dream-waking, dream-dream-dream-waking etc. ad infinitum. That is infinite regress – a non-situation. In all such waking, the condition inserted between inverted commas above is not violated. It remains the hallmark of waking, whatever waking it is. In such a situation of apparent regress, there is no point asking the question which waking of the infinite number of wakings is No. 1 or real. We need only understand that there is waking, there is only waking, and in that waking we are awake to dreams and sleep. That wakefulness is dream awareness, dream contents awareness as well as the experience of not experiencing awareness. Whether it is recall or current doesn't matter. Everything exists only in the present. The notion of a past is a fallacy. If you can conclude that there are only three states called waking, dreaming and sleep inspite of the fact that there are waking-waking, dream-waking, dream-dreaming, dream-sleep, dream-dream-waking, dream-dream-dreaming, dream-dream sleep, etc. ad infinitum, you can definitely accept the contention that there is only one waking inspite of the possibility many types of waking. UNQUOTE] _______________ >One cannot judge the dream state from the standpoint of the waking state, in view of the seeming permanence of the waking state, which experience is had even in the dream state. [Tell me, Shri Sankarramanji, from where else can I judge the dream 'state'? I defined waking above as "where there is knowledge of having dreamt and slept". It is so not due to my making. I simply have no choice.] __________________________ >There is no spatial or temporal relationship between the two states. Both of them have their base only in the unbroken consciousness, which knows all the three states- as the unfailing light illumining all illusory phenomena and their absence, and not in the sense of knowing the relative contents which are continuously > falsified. Even memory is a trick of the mind, and should not delude us into the belief of the reality of anything other than the one Self. [No one here has any doubts about 'the unbroken consciousness which lights up everything - the reality of the Self'. Please don't jump the gun. We are only discussing the factuals of the avastAtrayA prakriya. I told you I have nothing against the prakriyA's conclusion. If I had, I wouldn't be writing all this here on this forum.] __________ Further, the branding of deep sleep as one of ignorance is also the conclusion of the waking ego, which cannot conceive existence in its absence. [Who branded sweet sleep so? Not me!] _________________ >A clear reading of the talks of Maharishi Ramana brings into clear relief that the three states are not interconnected, which is to say that we cannot sit in judgment of one state from the viewpoint of the other. [That is the conclusion of your 'clear' reading. Don't bring in Bhagwan here. Waking, whatever type of waking it is (i.e. dream- waking, dream-dream-waking etc.,) is the only point of view granted to us mortals to judge dream and deep sleep.] >Even one waking state is not related to the other. [i like and have always d to that conclusion. However, let us thank Heavens for this seeming continuity of ours where at least you can have the satisfaction of countering me and I can of answering you.] ______________________ >One can talk of insentient memory. But it is only from the standpoint of the empirical reality. [Outside of empirical reality (and tell me where that outside is!), where can we talk, Sri Sankarramanji?] ___________________ >Relating the two states is only psycho-analysis and not vedanta. [in the above statement of yours, you are confirming the existence of two states. At any point of the infinite regress I mentioned earlier, the recall of dreams always occurs in waking. It is not vice versa. Then how can one stop relating the two states, Sir?] [The principles of physics, biology and several other sciences have been brought in to explain vedanta. Relativity is a subject much discussed on this forum. Dr. Raju Chidambaram recently introduced here a mathematical model for vedanta and many a stalwart applauded him for his pioneering work. Why not psycho-analysis then? Whether you like it or not, Freud and Jung might prove more helpful to us in understanding the avastAtraya prakriya than some of our self-styled gurus who mouth Sanskrit texts ad infinitum without pondering over them.] _________________ [sHRI ANANDA WOOD-JI, IF YOU ARE LISTENING TO ALL THIS, THAT QUOTE ABOVE OF SHRI ATMANANDAJI AND MY COMMENTS ON IT WERE ACTUALLY MEANT TO BE ADDRESSED TO YOU IN RESPONSE TO YOUR LAST MAIL TO ME ON AVASTATRAYA PRAKRIYA. KINDLY THEREFORE BE FORTHCOMING IF YOU HAVE ANYTHING FURTHER TO SAY IN THE MATTER. THANKS.] PraNAms. Madathil Nair Discussion of Shankara's Advaita Vedanta Philosophy of nonseparablity of Atman and Brahman. Advaitin Homepage at: Terms of Service. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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