Post by michaelsees on Nov 27, 2010 14:42:24 GMT -5
Below is a conversation between Edji a true advaita teacher and mostly Richard a neo-advaita teacher.
I welcome feed back on this please such as do you tend to lean more to one side or the other. Can they both be correct etc
Thanks for your contribution
Michael
DIALOGUES With NEO-ADVAITINS FROM FACEBOOK
This states my basic opposition to the instant enlightenment of Neo-Advaita
Richard Young:
The ego is only a concept, not an entity or object. It is an idea that arises within Awareness. When thought stops for a moment, where is the ego? When you are momentarily swept into mental silence by a piece of music, a breathtaking landscape, or sexual ecstasy, where is the ego? And what is it that is constantly aware of the coming and going of this ego thought? Whatever that is, it is necessarily your true nature.
Edji:
Yes, but what is it? Are you talking about awareness within waking consciousness as your true nature? What about sleep when there is no consciousness or awareness if you want to make that distinction? Where is your true nature then? Are you aware of consciousness in deep sleep, or aware of awareness? Therefore is there a "your true nature," something eternal and different from waking consciousness in deep sleep that you know directly rather than as a belief or inference in the waking state?
Richard:
No, Ed, not waking consciousness or consciousness at all. That comes and goes so cannot be our true nature. We are that which is aware of the coming and going of consciousness. Call it nondual, nonconceptual Awareness. When you are in deep sleep and consciousness is silent, then you awaken the next morning, you do not feel as if you ceased to exist while you were no longer conscious. That which notes the coming and going of consciousness is our true nature. Consciousness as we are using the word here is the first step into dualism.
Edji:
Yes, this is what Ramana said, you do not feel that you did not exist. But during the deep sleep itself, where is this deep sleep awareness? If you are not aware then, its existence during deep sleep is a statement and realization made only in the waking state by mind, but mind only exists in the waking state. This is not a direct perception of there being awareness in deep sleep, but an inference.
Richard:
Awareness is always present in every state of consciousness. But that presence is not perceived by the mind except in the waking state.
Edji:
That is only a theory unless you have direct awareness in the deep sleep state itself and can watch the transition to other states without being affected. That is, after you have a direct experience of the comings and goings of all states from a place transcending them, then you can say awareness is there outside all states. Otherwise it is entirely dependent on the mind's arising in the waking state and announcing that something it did not experience in deep sleep, actually was there.
You have only "apprehended" that you, as whatever awareness, continues to exist in deep sleep. All knowledge, apprehensions, all talking, all realizations are confined to the waking state and mind. Every word, concept and spiritual teaching is learned in the waking state by the mind.
Awareness is always present in every state, but that presence is only perceived by the mind in the waking state? That is a kind of very tenuous "proof" of the immortality of awareness no?
Richard:
Yes, consciousness is the necessary beginning of all other experiences, Ed. But there is another kind of direct knowing that is not mediated by the mind or consciousness. That is what is being pointed to here.
Edji:
But that direct knowing cannot be known of except in waking consciousness?
Richard:
It can't be "known of." That requires the operation of mind. But it most certainly can be "directly known", even in deep dreamless sleep.
Dina Singh:
Richard, I'm in dire suspense of this direct knowing. That's really new for me.
Richard:
What are you certain of when you look inwards? You know you exist, right? This cannot be denied. And you know that you are aware. So you are the aware presence that is the necessary background in which consciousness and all experiences arise. You cannot be other than that. Start there. Then feel your way into this knowing. Pause thought for a moment and discover what is there before the next thought arises.
Dina:
This is SUPERB! I see it immediately now as learned as i read this just now, at age six in my vision. This is beautiful, instantaneous. Youre right youre right youre right
Richard:
Yes! Now abide with that for a while and see that all the ego is just another thought arising in what you are and that suffering is only possible when that ego thought is accepted as real. Withdraw belief in the ego concept and all suffering is pulled up by the roots.
Edji:
What you asked Dina to do was to explore her waking consciousness, which she did. Yes, it is easy to see that the ego does not exist and is only thoughts. As a a matter of fact, consciousness itself is not real, it is something perceived. But that recognition too happens in consciousness. What experience do you, Richard, have in deep sleep?
You already admitted you don't have any, only a conviction that the background of awareness is there while your body/mind sleeps and experiences nothing. You have created a background a concept of an awareness that does not exist for you during deep sleep. IIt only exists for you as a concept in the waking state, which requires a mind in consciousness to note. All knowledge is swept away in sleep and in death. There is no personal remainder in deep sleep or death.
This certainly does not help prove in any way, direct seeing or not of no-ego in the present, that I existed before this birth or will after death of this body.
If you are saying, "Yes, you do not exist as an ongoing entity from life to life, and what exists is awareness, with nothing personal left over going from life to life, and that awareness is strictly impersonal, and neither Dina or Richard exist in any way after the death of their bodies, I'd be willing to accept that.
But looking inside and saying you are immortal, does not follow as a conclusion, because you as a personal entity do not exist, and that understanding is limited to the waking mind.
John Tissandier:
Thanks for posting your status message Richard. By coincidence I posted a similar thing about the same time. It is not a message that goes down well in every quarter. Even among "spiritual" people it can cause a fear reaction and all kinds of convoluted arguments will be put forward to say it isn't so. But the fact is when looked for the ego as something resembling a little self is not found. Without thinking about it, just looking, this is seen.
Edji:
So John, what is it that you supposedly "see" when you look inside?
Your seeing is not seeing when you look inside, it is imaginary seeing.
When you look within, if you are able to introspect, you find many things: a sense of presence (that most can "see"), emotions (which are not seen but felt), empty space that contains all internal objects is "seen" in the imagination, then here are internal tactile feelings, such as the lungs and diaphram expanding and contracting, some can see thoughts, including the I-thought. But I do not "see" an entity that I can call me or I.
But does that make it so, that because I cannot "see" an I or a me, means one does not exist?
I cannot "see" my heart either, or my spleen, or my brain, but does that mean they do not exist?
What about the unconsciousness mind, the source of many things such as dreams, wants, needs, aspirations, etc. Does it exist, or are all the millions of people, psychologists and psychoanalysts that have explored these levels using various techniques over the past 120 years, simply wrong and nothing exists as the unconscious or in the unconscious?
Are you saying that everything exists right on the surface when you look inside into the inner fantasy space, and if it is not immediately there, it does not exist? Is this what you believe?
Then again, about this awareness that is supposedly "seeing," how is that "background of awareness" not an object like the supposed ego you are trying to get rid of? Is not the concept "background of awareness"--Richard words, an entity? An object, a dualism?
So, to you, are there two I's, the false ego I and the real "background of awareness I?"
What are the properties of that background of awareness? Is this background something "you" perceive? Is this "you" the perceiver or looker the same or different from that background awareness perceived? If you are the same as it, how come you can perceive it as an object?
When you say you are certain you exist, therefore there must be a you that exists, is this the totality of your proof that something exists always, and how does this I differ from the I as ego you cannot find?
Five hundred years ago, the pre-science world view based on faith, was that the the world was flat and the sun rotated about that flat earth. People knew this with certainty. Thus is certainty a proof of anything?
You can reach any simplistic conclusions you want by having your mind turn inward and look into your imaginal internal world in waking consciousness, but you cannot prove there is something immortal in that waking consciousness that is not aware of anything in deep sleep let alone before you were born or after you die. Instead, you posit an awareness background that is immortal, and within which all experiences happen. But this is just theory unless you have a direct experience of this awareness at all times, including dream and deep sleep.
The entire neo-Advaita philosophy is extremely superficial.
Real Advaita requires you to go deeper than mind, down past the level of unknowing and non-existence, passing through it and knowing you exist through that passage of unknowing, and you do this through ever deepening meditation on that sense of presence, and the feeling 'I', which points to the subject.
Otherwise, that certainty that you exist is no more than habit and a concept in mind. For 10,000 days you have awakened from the non-knowing deep sleep, and you feel unchanged. It is the mind that is certain you have existed during those 10,000 nights of deep sleep. Memory ties the sequences of knowing and not knowing together, but without that memory and the waking mind, there is no conviction.
John:
Thank you for asking me all these questions Ed. But I'm not sure what you are expecting. Advaita Vedanta has been going for about 5000 years. If in all that time it hasn't managed to provide answers that satisfy you, why should a few minutes with me make any difference?
If you have found something better then I'm pleased for you.
In any case no philosophy ever helped me. For me it started with a miraculous experience that totally undermined my understanding of life. This gave me an enthusiasm to investigate things afresh. The method I used was Ramana's Self-enquiry. This is because it suited my scientific background and didn't require starting with beliefs. It was an experiment to see for myself what the word "I" refers to. This is the best advice I can give anyone: don't take anybody's word for anything. And don't think about it. Just look!
Prue:
Religions in general have been going for thousands of years. That's not much of an argument, John.
But the point you make is interesting. However, on another thread, a F/B friend has been referring to his miraculous experience as the basis for his Christian belief. So this makes me think...despite your advice not too.
Edji:
John, What you are teaching is not Advaita, it is neo Advaita. The great teachers of Advaita all recommend lots of ever deepening meditation, not, as Richard recommended, to stop making any spiritual effort. Besides, Advaita is only about 1,000 years old.
Nisargadatta, Robert, Ramana and Ramana's students. Nisargadatta's teacher was adamant about the need to go down to ever deepening levels of consciousness. There are several books about his teachings, like the Amrit Laya where he talks about the different levels of of beingness and which are fully described also in Autobiography of a Jnani at: itisnotreal.com/AOJ.htm. This means progressively deepening meditation.
It is not an instant discovery of merely looking into your imaginal world once and coming up with all kinds of conclusions. In fact, you are interpreting whatever experience you have in terms of current neo advaita philosophy, which is an interpretation of what these new teachers say they find when they look within themselves.
;D
point! This is so unfair I say, I have your heads! ;D