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Post by spookstreet on Mar 28, 2018 14:47:13 GMT -5
UG: It is nice of you to come here, but you have come to the wrong place -- because you want an answer, and you think that my answer will be your answer.
But that is not so. I may have found my answer, but that is not your answer. You have to find out for yourself and by yourself the way in which you are functioning in this world, and that will be your answer.
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Post by Reefs on Mar 30, 2018 11:23:30 GMT -5
Monism
UG: I sometimes tease our Professor here, who is an advocate of Advaita (Sankara's monism), "You cannot go beyond Ramanuja's position (qualified non-dualism), as far as philosophy is concerned. There it stops. Monism is something which you cannot talk about - for all practical purposes it doesn't exist. That is the limit." I'm not pro-Ramanujacharya or anti-Sankara. As I see it - as a student of philosophy. I studied philosophy - you cannot go beyond that chappie Ramanujacharya. You may not agree with me. As far as the philosophical position is concerned, Ramanujacharya's position is the limit, the ultimate. The rest of it? Maybe there is.... If there is a monistic situation, that is something which cannot be talked about, and which cannot be applied to change anything in this world.
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Post by laughter on Mar 30, 2018 15:38:46 GMT -5
Monism
UG: I sometimes tease our Professor here, who is an advocate of Advaita (Sankara's monism), "You cannot go beyond Ramanuja's position (qualified non-dualism), as far as philosophy is concerned. There it stops. Monism is something which you cannot talk about - for all practical purposes it doesn't exist. That is the limit." I'm not pro-Ramanujacharya or anti-Sankara. As I see it - as a student of philosophy. I studied philosophy - you cannot go beyond that chappie Ramanujacharya. You may not agree with me. As far as the philosophical position is concerned, Ramanujacharya's position is the limit, the ultimate. The rest of it? Maybe there is.... If there is a monistic situation, that is something which cannot be talked about, and which cannot be applied to change anything in this world. Niz dared go there with his poetry! Niz rushes in where U.G. fears to tread.  |
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Post by Reefs on Apr 6, 2018 12:19:25 GMT -5
Who am I?
Q: You say that the question "Who am I?" doesn't remain there when you really scrutinize it?
UG: Because you cannot separate the question from the questioner. The question and the questioner are the same. If you accept that fact, it's a very simple thing: when the question disappears, the questioner also disappears with that. But since the questioner does not want to disappear, the question remains. The questioner wants an answer for the question. Since there is no answer to that question, the questioner remains there for ever. The questioner's interest is to continue, not to get the answer.
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Post by Reefs on Apr 8, 2018 5:30:46 GMT -5
What will happen after death? (1)
UG: A person who is living has no time to ask such questions. Only a person who is not living asks "What will happen after my death?" Nothing will happen. There is no such thing as death at all. What do you think will die? What? This body disintegrates into its constituent elements, so nothing is lost. If you burn it, the ashes enrich the soil and aid germination. If you bury it, the worms live on it. If you throw it into the river, it becomes food for the fishes. One form of life lives on another form of life, and so gives continuity to life. So life is immortal.
But that is not going to help anybody who is caught up in the fear of death. After all, 'death' is fear, the fear of something coming to an end. The 'you' as you know yourself, the 'you' as you experience yourself -- that 'you' does not want to come to an end. But it also knows that this body is going to drop dead as others do -- you experience the deaths of others -- so that is a frightening situation because you are not sure whether that ('you') will continue if (this) body goes. So then it projects an afterlife. This becomes the most important thing -- to know whether there is an afterlife or not. Fear creates that, so when the fear is gone, the question of death is also gone.
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Post by Reefs on Apr 12, 2018 6:51:37 GMT -5
What will happen after death? (2)
UG: You can't experience your own death. That is why I tell some of those people who are so much interested in moksha, liberation, that every one of you, all of you without exception, will attain moksha just before you die. But you can be sure it is too late then: the body is in a prostrate condition and can't renew itself. That death can happen to you now -- it is a thing that happens now.
You have no way of knowing anything about your death, now or at the end of your so-called life. Unless knowledge, the continuity of knowledge, comes to an end, death cannot take place. You want to know something about death: you want to make that a part of your knowledge. But death is not something mysterious; the ending of that knowledge is death. What do you think will continue after death? What is there while you are living? Where is the entity there? There is nothing there -- no soul -- there is only this question about after death. The question has to die now to find the answer -- your answer; not my answer -- because the question is born out of the assumption, the belief, that there is something to continue after death.
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Post by Reefs on Jan 26, 2019 9:23:10 GMT -5
Unique flowers
UG: There are so many flowers there -- look at them! Each flower is unique in its own way. Nature's purpose seems to be to create flowers like that, human flowers like that.
We have only a handful of flowers, which you can count on your fingers: Ramana Maharshi in recent times, Sri Ramakrishna, some other people. Not the claimants we have in our midst today, not the gurus -- I am not talking about them. It is amazing -- that man who sat there at Tiruvannamalai -- his impact on the West is much more than all these gurus put together -- very strange, you understand? He has had a tremendous impact on the totality of human consciousness -- that man living in one corner.
I visited an industrialist in Paris. He is not at all interested in religious matters, much less in India. So, I saw his photo there -- "Why do you have this photo?" He said "I like the face. I don't know anything about him. I'm not even interested in reading his books. I like the photo, so it's there. I'm not interested in anything about him."
Maybe such an individual can help himself and help the world. Maybe.
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Post by explorer on Feb 1, 2019 22:03:29 GMT -5
I agree that individual identity is ultimately a delusion, that everything is so to speak a thought in the mind of God, a kind of fantastic pantomime with many players, and yet of course for us actors in the pantomime our parts seem real and important. Perhaps when we withdraw from the pantomime for a while, we will take up a part in another pantomime which will also seem real and important. What a glorious delusion this is! But it is nothing to worry about, rather it is to be enjoyed. We can enjoy both "realities" - that it is all a fantastic delusion and that it is all gloriously entertaining. We are both the Creator and the created. What fun! What theatre! Hurrah!
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Post by Reefs on Aug 11, 2019 8:46:43 GMT -5
Not knowing / Direct seeing
UG: I see, and I don't know what I'm looking at. My sensory perceptions are at their peak capacity, but still there is nothing inside of me which says "That is green. That is brown. You have white hair. You wear glasses...." The knowledge I have about things is in the background -- it is not operating. So, "Am I awake? Am I asleep?" -- I have no way of knowing it for myself. That is why I say that in this consciousness there is a total absence of any division into wakeful, dreaming and deep-sleep states. This may be called 'turiya' (to use your Sanskrit term) -- not transcending these things; a total absence of this division.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2019 12:02:11 GMT -5
Not knowing / Direct seeing
UG: I see, and I don't know what I'm looking at. My sensory perceptions are at their peak capacity, but still there is nothing inside of me which says "That is green. That is brown. You have white hair. You wear glasses...." The knowledge I have about things is in the background -- it is not operating. So, "Am I awake? Am I asleep?" -- I have no way of knowing it for myself. That is why I say that in this consciousness there is a total absence of any division into wakeful, dreaming and deep-sleep states. This may be called 'turiya' (to use your Sanskrit term) -- not transcending these things; a total absence of this division. This is one of the most inspiring line from his writing. But sometimes I wonder whether he observing the how child behaves and writing it as his own experience. Because if you look at the child, it exactly behaves as he describes. |
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Post by Reefs on Aug 11, 2019 20:51:44 GMT -5
Not knowing / Direct seeing
UG: I see, and I don't know what I'm looking at. My sensory perceptions are at their peak capacity, but still there is nothing inside of me which says "That is green. That is brown. You have white hair. You wear glasses...." The knowledge I have about things is in the background -- it is not operating. So, "Am I awake? Am I asleep?" -- I have no way of knowing it for myself. That is why I say that in this consciousness there is a total absence of any division into wakeful, dreaming and deep-sleep states. This may be called 'turiya' (to use your Sanskrit term) -- not transcending these things; a total absence of this division. This is one of the most inspiring line from his writing. But sometimes I wonder whether he observing the how child behaves and writing it as his own experience. Because if you look at the child, it exactly behaves as he describes. It's definitely his own experience. UG's entire 'non-teaching ontology' hinges upon that. What he is describing there is what seeing from prior/beyond mind means. That's how little children predominantly experience the world. Naturally, adults would do, too. But usually they live in a mental fog of labeling whatever they look at and thereby create an artificial layer/screen/filter and so they see but don't see. In adults, this kind of experience seems extremely rare. Even though, on waking up in the morning, you may get a glimpse of that state before you catch your bearings as a person again and put on your conceptual filters. It may also be debatable if this 'state' could be even called an experience, because it's happening outside the conceptual time-space framework and neither comes nor goes, it's just there all the time, you either realize it or you don't. Ramakrishna often said that the the sage is exactly like a three year old. That's how and why that is. There's a certain sense of innocence, purity, clarity, immediacy and aliveness about this 'state' of being or this kind of seeing, which is exactly the kind of 'qualities' we usually associate with little children, because they predominantly live in that 'state' and are exuding exactly that. Now you know what prior to mind means. Whoohoo! |
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Post by satchitananda on Aug 11, 2019 21:06:42 GMT -5
He is identified as the non doing Turiya. There is nothing operating even though there are happenings. Turiya does not move.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2019 11:32:08 GMT -5
This is one of the most inspiring line from his writing. But sometimes I wonder whether he observing the how child behaves and writing it as his own experience. Because if you look at the child, it exactly behaves as he describes. It's definitely his own experience. UG's entire 'non-teaching ontology' hinges upon that. What he is describing there is what seeing from prior/beyond mind means. That's how little children predominantly experience the world. Naturally, adults would do, too. But usually they live in a mental fog of labeling whatever they look at and thereby create an artificial layer/screen/filter and so they see but don't see. In adults, this kind of experience seems extremely rare. Even though, on waking up in the morning, you may get a glimpse of that state before you catch your bearings as a person again and put on your conceptual filters. It may also be debatable if this 'state' could be even called an experience, because it's happening outside the conceptual time-space framework and neither comes nor goes, it's just there all the time, you either realize it or you don't. Ramakrishna often said that the the sage is exactly like a three year old. That's how and why that is. There's a certain sense of innocence, purity, clarity, immediacy and aliveness about this 'state' of being or this kind of seeing, which is exactly the kind of 'qualities' we usually associate with little children, because they predominantly live in that 'state' and are exuding exactly that. Now you know what prior to mind means. Whoohoo! I just like him the way you like him. He is only person I trust him. Most importantly I like his talking about seeking. |
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Post by Reefs on Aug 16, 2019 9:54:55 GMT -5
The Transformation (1)
Q: Sir, you attained this in your forty-ninth year?
UG: This shock, this lightning, hitting me with the greatest force, shattered everything, blasted every cell and gland in my body -- the whole chemistry seems to have changed. It's something which you cannot bring about through any volition or effort of yours; it just happens. I say it is acausal. What its purpose is, I really don't know, but it is something, you see.
Q: A transformation has come about?
UG: The whole chemistry of the body changes, so it begins to function in its own natural way. That means everything that is poisoned (I deliberately use that word) and contaminated by the culture is thrown out of the system. It is thrown out of your system, and then that consciousness or life (or whatever you want to call it) expresses itself and functions in a very natural way. The movement that has been created by the heritage of man, which is trying to make you into something different from what you are, comes to an end, and so what you are begins to express itself, that's all, in its own way, unhindered, unhandicapped, unburdened by the past of man, mankind as a whole. So such a man is of no use to the society; on the other hand he becomes a threat. He doesn't think that he is chosen, chosen by some power to reform the world. He doesn't think that he is a savior or a free man or an enlightened man.
Q: Ramakrishna said…
UG: I don't care what Ramakrishna said, or what Sankara said, or what Buddha said.
Q: You've thrown it all out?
UG: Don't use that word. It has gone out of my system; not that I have thrown it out or any such thing. It has just gone out of my entire system. So whatever I say stands or falls by itself; it doesn't need the support of any authority of any kind. That is why such a man is a threat to the society. He's a threat to the tradition because he's undermining the whole foundation of the heritage.
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Post by Reefs on Aug 16, 2019 10:09:17 GMT -5
The Transformation (2)
Q: Everyone can attain this natural state, but it's not in his hands?
UG: It's not in his hands; it's not in anybody's hands. But you have one thousand per cent certainty because it is not that it is my special privilege or that I'm specially chosen by anything; it's there in you. That's what I mean by saying there's no power outside of man. It is the same power, the same life, that is functioning there in you. The culture you are talking about is pushing it down. Something is trying to express itself, and the culture is pushing it down. When once it throws the culture out, then it expresses itself in its own way.
Q: Do those who have undergone this transformation have any common characteristics?
UG: That question does not arise here. If I compared myself to a saint, it would be my tragedy. We don't belong to a common fraternity, a common brotherhood, or any such thing. What is it that is common to a rose, a daffodil, and a grass flower? Each one is uniquely beautiful in its own way. Each one has its own beauty. Whether you like it or not -- that's a different thing.
Q: Is uniqueness the index to this transformation?
UG: No, this individual does not feel he is unique.
Q: No. But for others?
UG: Probably. You see, the expression of that is bound to be unique. When this kind of thing happens to you, you will begin to express your own uniqueness in quite a different way. How it will express itself, you do not know and I do not know.
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