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

[Guest guest]

advaitajnana , " duveyoung " <edg wrote:

>

 

> > > >

> >

> > 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

Namaste,

 

Advaita talks in absolutes a lot of the time...Nisargadatta did. However they

all aver to some kind of survival of samskaras and rebirth of the entity if it

is not realised. If the ego is gone then there is no rebirth at all..Ultimately

the truth is probably ajativada ----'it never happened at all' see my entry on

ajativada on wikipedia.......Cheers Tony.