/lit/ - Literature

>>23178356
>>23181881
(Cont.)
Ramana Maharshi is great. Nisargadatta Maharaj is also great. If they were incarnated as Tibetan Buddhists, you can plausibly imagine them as Tibetan lamas essentially teaching the same high-level teachings and having reached the same blessed state, simply in the different vocabulary and language of Tibetan teachings, or of Dzogchen particularly (or corresponding teachings like Mahamudra or Maha Ati teachings, as they’re expressed in other Tibetan schools, being the equivalent of the formless practice of Dzogchen).

Tilopa’s Song of Mahamudra, reportedly transmitted to his disciple Naropa on the banks of the Ganges and recorded for posterity, also has these same very similar teachings/practices. It’s also interesting to note that the famous saying Neti, neti (not this, not that) to be found in the Upanishads and Avadhuta Gita overlaps rather well with Buddhis thought and practice. Pragmatically, both Buddhist and Hindu yogic philosophy analyze and separate the “self” (whether really or only apparently existing in that tradition) into various elements or components (the five skandhas in Buddhism, and the division of elements of the self and mind in the Samkhya school ranging from the gross to the subtle). The practice then becomes very similar of turning on a little “light of awareness” in oneself, to look upon these components of “oneself” (or what one takes to be oneself) and hence progressively disentangle one’s consciousness from being bound with or identifying with them — “the senses are not myself, the emotions are not myself, none of these bhutas (substances) or tanmatras (elements or objects of sense) are myself, the manas, buddhi, ahamkara, and chitta are not myself (being the four-part division of the human mind in Samkhya), the five skandhas of form, feeling, perception, formation of volitional dispositions, and consciousness are not myself [etc.]”.

https://www.abuddhistlibrary.com/Buddhism/A%20-%20Tibetan%20Buddhism/Poetry,%20Prayer/Tilopa%27s%20Song%20of%20Mahamudra/Allspirit%20-%20Tilopa%27s%20Song%20of%20Mahamudra.htm