Trick Questions (Ramana Maharshi about young prodigies and genius people)

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advaitajnana , "Tony OClery" <aoclery wrote:>> advaitajnana , "duveyoung" edg@ wrote:> >> > I think all the below questions pertain to this thread. If one cannot easily answer these questions, then perhaps it means that one's clarity about incarnation is fuzzy at best, and therefore, perhaps this quote from Ramana is not actually all that easily understood. > > > > Not that one needs to have intellectual clarity to realize one's ultimate Identity, but if one is to post herein about such concepts as karma and incarnation, surely the person -- if such exists here -- who could answer the questions below in an intellectually satisfying and logically valid way would be a more natural choice for a teacher than one who cannot do so. > > > > Therefore, calling all wannabe teachers -- pray tell us the answers to the below -- or at least show the questions to be faulty in some regard such that they must be reworded or dismissed outrightly. > > > > The questions are designed to show the logical relationships between the various concepts of Advaita, and it would be intellectual cowardice to brush all these questions aside simply because we can eradicate the need to entertain any question at all by bashing "questions in general" with the concept "The Absolute." > > > > These questions are for those who would examine the mirage as it is seen by the "tricked mind." These questions are as if you and I are crawling in the desert towards a mirage, and I ask how many trees do you see in that oasis on the horizon? The oasis may not exist, and we may be fools to crawl in the desert towards such, but at least we can agree on how many trees, etc. we see such that we know we're both talking about the same mirage, right? Just so these questions below. If we cannot answer the questions below, then, who can pose as one who can say, "I understand Ramana's statement." ????> > > > 1. If you have a dream about a man whom you know in waking life, is that dream character connected in any way with the waking life 3D person?> > > > 2. Does the sleeping brain construct objects of dream consciousness solely from past waking experiences of them, or is the human brain so constructed, say, like a radio, that it gets the "construction instructions" from elsewhere and is more of a receiver than a creator? > > > > 3. When a baby is born how is it that the samskaras have been incorporated into the baby's dynamics such that a personality of a precise sort is the baby's destiny? When the baby's egg and sperm joined, is that when the samskaras were assigned to it, or are the samskaras something that get structured by the synergistic relationship of the egg's "karma" and the sperm's "karma" when they are conjoined?> > > > 4. Does God dream? Or, is God dreamed? By whom would God be dreamed?> > > > 5. If you dream of a person you've never met, does this mean that somewhere, somewhen, that person actually exists?> > > > 6. If you dream of the same person two nights in a row, is that dream person really the same? Is God dreaming you like this?> > > > 7. Is dreaming actually an entering into the astral world, and all the objects in the dream are true entities with destiny and karma? If a dream character murders another dream character, has a sin been committed? Should one wake up in the morning and be responsible for one's "actions during the dream?"> > > > 8. If one dreams of meeting Krishna, does Krishna actually get interacted with, or is that "Krishna" merely an approximation of the brain and more akin to a two year old's crayon drawing of God?> > > > 9. If one has a thought and then has that thought again, is that the same thought or just another thought that fools one that an absolute congruity exists between the two thoughts? If one mentally keeps the "soundOMgoing" in the mind, is that the same sound iterated again and again or is it seamless and not at all chunky/quantified? Is the "soundOM" one thought, or, two thoughts? Is the "O" part of "OM" one thought and the "M" part another thought?> > > > 10. If Shiva dissolves creation, and then Brahma in His next life manifests creation again, and there you are, is that you again or merely another creation that your human intellect cannot tell apart from the previous you but that God's intellect can easily distinguish the two yous? Does God assign the new you the old you's karma? > > > > 11. They say that when an enlightened person drops the body, the good karma "left over" goes to the person's loved ones, but the bad karma goes to the person's enemies. Why would this be true or untrue?> > > > Edg > > > > advaitajnana , Prasanth Jalasutram <jvrsprasanth@> wrote:> > >> > > Talk 384.> > > > > > A young prodigy was mentioned. Sri Bhagavan remarked that latent impressions> > > of previous births (purva janma samskara) were strong in him.> > > > > > D.: How does it manifest as the ability to cite well-known saints? Is it> > > vasana in the form of a seed only?> > > > > > M.: Yes. Predisposition (samskara) is acquired knowledge and kept in stock.> > > It manifests under favourable circumstances. One with strong samskara> > > understands the thing when presented to him much quicker than another with> > > no samskara or weak samskara.> > > > > > D.: Does it hold good with inventors also?> > > > > > M.: "There is nothing new under the sun." What we call inventions or> > > discoveries are merely rediscoveries by competent men with strong samskara> > > in the directions under consideration.> > > > > > D.: Is it so with Newton, Einstein, etc.?> > > > > > M.: Yes. Certainly. But the samskaras, however strong, will not manifest> > > unless in a calm and still mind. It is within the experience of everyone> > > that his attempts to rake up his memory fail, whereas something flashes in> > > the mind when he is calm and quiet. Mental quiet is necessary even for> > > remembrance of forgotten things.> > > > > > The so-called genius is one who worked hard in his past births and acquired> > > knowledge and kept it in store as samskaras. He now concentrates his mind> > > until it merges in the subject. In that stillness the submerged ideas flash> > > out. That requires favourable conditions also.> > > > > > Source: TALKS WITH SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI Book> > > > > > -- > > > Love And Love Alone> > > > > > Om Namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya> > > Prasanth Jalasutram> > >> > Namaste Edg,> > Talking within illusion or the dream...All is in the mind. The unrealised entity waiting for rebirth enters the fetus probably between the 16-20 weeks more or less, or even at birth...who knows? My guess is that as they have limited precognition they would wait until the fetus is viable before 'entering'. So the subtle body of the entity or kosa would contain the memories, attributes and tendencies or vasanas and samskaras...This is all describing a dream of course or Maya...........Cheers Tony.Edg: Tony, um, thanks for humoring me and pretending aloud that creation exists. So, if I get you rightly, you would say that Hinduism (not necessary that you would agree with Hinduism) would posit that "the astral body" is some form of embodiment that survives the death of the physical body and transmigrates to another body.

If you agree with this being a core axiom of the Hindu view of the mechanics of incarnation, I think we may have a pleasing debate to conduct, because I think Advaita has an explanation of incarnation that is exactly the opposite of the traditional view of Hinduism such that Advaita could possibly be considered a separate religion because it differs on this core axiom. And, I think you probably will agree, but lets kick this ball around and see if we are congruent.

To me, if someone says, "I'm the body," we see that the personality has chosen a limitation, literally, by saying, "I stop here. Beyond my skin is Other." But this definition is, by quantum physics' point of view, arbitrary, since virtually every boundary that modern physics deconstructs leads to a "yet tinier" set of particles whose boundaries would require even higher energy collisions in the accelerators to detect -- only the boundary such as, say, "a quark's skin" has validity -- presently and probably but temporarily. Thus, in the sea of quantum foam, discussing boundaries ends up with one having to do the same thing as trying to decide if the water inside a pot at the bottom of the ocean is to be identified as somehow non-ocean, because it has a "skin."

Is one's soul not inside such a pot by definition rather than substantively?

No physical process can look at a water molecule inside the pot and say that it is in any way different than the water outside the pot, but the mind's identificational clockworks does this all day long by insisting that it is living in a world of definitions that packet-ize "the light" into objects of consciousness.

Patanjali's sutras give instruction on how to become smaller than an atom, lighter than a cotton fiber, have the strength of an elephant, etc. It is far easier to understand those siddhis being "real" if one interprets these "powers" to be "an ability to control and precisely manipulate egoic identification." This is entirely acceptable, relatively speaking, if we but compare it to the other interpretation of the siddhis being "actually going counter to the laws of physics."

Today's physics can easily understand a modification of identification, but no physicist can explain how, if a siddhi is performed, that the laws of physics can be circumvented in 3D reality except by an egregious process of assuming, asserting, and rationalizing that must have William of Ockham spinning in his grave. In short, it is easier for one to imagine one's embodiment to be smaller than an atom than it is to reduce a physical body to that size and having to explain "where all the mass went."

This is why so many of my questions deal with the qualities of the dream state. When anyone dreams, it is an astoundingly creative act in which an entire creation is ponied up with actors, dialog, costuming, lighting, set design, etc. such that any Hollywood production would pale comparatively.

Everyone's brain is thus a proof that we are made in the image of God.

Yet, here we all are waking up from nightly dreams and feeling like only "special folks are creative." Ridiculous, right? In the dream-state, if a dream ball is dropped, it falls to the dream floor, because it "obeys" the law of dream gravity. Yet, obviously that is not necessary, and in dreams we can find characters levitating, suddenly being somewhere else, having super strength, etc. We awaken from such dreams and remember doing these siddhis and fluff it all off as "only a dream." Yet, how bombastically this processing called "dreaming" is instructive about the arbitrary liquidity of egoic identification. Anyone can dream of "being smaler than an atom." Easy peasy for anyone -- ANYONE. And, all that has to happen is that the sleeping brain, being a god of its inner creation, determines that it be so.

Anyone can wake up from a dream and say, "I was Arjuna and I shot down, mid-air, the 10,000 arrows shot at me by expert archers -- a cloud of arrows that darken the sky -- and every one of them I targeted with my arrows and countered." No one would even blink at your reporting such a dream -- why, of course one can do such things in a dream.

To me, this is direct instruction that if we but identify ourselves as empowered in 3D waking life as we are in dream life, we can find that the siddhis are as easily manifested. But to do this, Patanjali cognized, one must enlarge the definition of self until one identifies with and is thus embodied as God. I describe this as switching from defining oneself as a human body to defining oneself as embodied in a cosmic body. This can only be done "properly" -- that is, one must earn the tee shirt and truly be jiggy with all of creation in order to define a new identity for one's embodiment. To do waking life siddhis, one must see that one's spirit is wholistic like ocean water, and the water inside the pot should shut the fuck up about being "potty."

In a dream state, one can simply "make it so." Paradox is safely kicked like a running dog. In a dream, one can round a corner, and BLAM there's a mountain created by God that He cannot lift. The dream character one IS (IS as in "just as much as one IS a waking character") right there having thoughts like "Sum bitch, He did it. There's a mountain that even God cannot lift but God is still omnipotent -- I get it!" This notion is fleshed out by Hollywood in the film, What Dreams May Come -- anything is possible for anyone at any time in any place.

In Star Trek, Doc hated the transporter because he understood that his body was completely reduced to "information" and then a new body was constructed on the planet below by that "blueprint." He didn't like that incarnational process, ya see, cuz he was insisting on "his" molecules being owned by the ego's act of defining them to be his -- tautological bootsrapping only. His argument is that the Doc on the planet is not him but merely an identical duplicate, and that he actually is killed in the transporting process. Doc didn't believe in transmigration, ya see?

Doc was right. That's Advaita as espoused by Nisargadatta and Ramana, and it is a cold, hard, atheism of sorts in that the only God that can survive this knowledge is The Absolute -- identification itself is seen as illusory.

To me, the message of Advaita is "make hay while the sun shines." Period. After the body is dissolved, any hope for continuity of the personality is doomed.

Now, fret not, I do have a theory for how 'THAT'S PERFECTLY OKAY" even for the body-bound ego that actually dies with the body's death, but that's another debate about the nature of time.

Edg