/lit/ - Literature

>>14120209
To say atman is to say brahman

>>14120496
He considered himself a commentary on Buddhism, Buddhism obviously preaches no atman but Buddha did talk about brahman, even if it is removed from later texts for sunyata.
If atman = brahman and only sperated by maya isn't atman therefore an illusion and only brahman exists. Therefore he preaches annata as well.
Therefore how does he say anything different from Buddha.

>>14120209
No, because in Shankara's view Atman and Brahman are the same thing, and the Upanishads describe maya as a power of Brahman. Atman cannot be part of maya because maya is the power of Atman as well, and is thus below Atman in the hierarchy and is subservient to Atman as it were because of this.
>>14120508
>He considered himself a commentary on Buddhism,
I don't know if you are confused or what but Shankara only commented on Hindu texts and did not consider himself to be a Buddhist. Shankara disagreed with Buddhism and criticized various aspects of it in his writing along with Jainism and other Hindu schools that he considered to have incorrect views.

>>14120540
Criticism on buddhism, sorry.
Yeah that's what I know as well I just have trouble seperating his ideas despite what he says.

But then instead of saying atman = brahman isn't it better to say atman does not exist. Brahman has the power to trap parts of itself (if i'm understanding this right) inside maya, but those parts are still brahman. Isn't this basically what the buddha has to say?
The idea of the ego-self that people attach to the attman does not exist, but there still exists brahman that is therefore not the self.
How can Shankara believe in any semblence of a self if it atman is only brahman trapped in maya?
Thanks for the answers just a confused boy here

>>14120540
Does Brahman have full control, ultimately, of Maya? Is it merely a conscious recollection of our true nature that we're performing, gradually unlearning the egoic processes which had veiled our underlying nature, or was the initial Maya not our own doing to some extent, and is its dissolution therefore beyond our control to some extent?

>>14120574
>But then instead of saying atman = brahman isn't it better to say atman does not exist.
No, because according to Advaita Brahman abides forever as pure consciousness, this very same pure consciousness is the Atman which observes all of our thoughts etc and which the Upanishads describe as the 'eye of the eye' and the 'ear of the ear' etc but which we normally cannot perceive because we identify it with the intellect that it illuminates instead of realizing the Atman as it is in itself. To say that Atman doesn't exist negates the entirety of our conscious experience and makes Brahman an 'Other', the whole point of Advaita is that Atman-Brahman is the innermost consciousness by whose luminous awareness all of our thoughts and sensory data are witnessed.
>Brahman has the power to trap parts of itself (if i'm understanding this right) inside maya, but those parts are still brahman. Isn't this basically what the buddha has to say?
Brahman doesn't trap anything. Advaita subscribes to a theory of causation where the effect (maya, samsara etc) is an appearance of the cause (Brahman), which alone is absolutely real. The mind and intellect are held by Advaita to be unreal products of maya, they themselves have no awareness and are inert objects, it is only when they are illuminated by the awareness of the Atman that they seem to possess life and activity, and then because of the ignorance caused by maya they are taken to be the self when they are really not, as only Atman is the true Self. The Brahman/Atman remains entirely unaffected by the maya that it exercises as it's power. The entire experience of being an embodied being who experiences suffering inheres in the intellect, the Atman who witnesses the activity of this intellect is itself unaffected by the suffering and attachment of the intellect/mind. Among other things this differs from what Buddha said since he never explained what was the cause of maya or beginningless ignorance. I also don't believe he posited that there was anything connected to the individual that actually is always untainted and unaffected by ignorance like how Atman is in Advaita.

>>14120574
>>14120705
>The idea of the ego-self that people attach to the attman does not exist, but there still exists brahman that is therefore not the self.
Advaita separates the ego-self and egoism (ahamkara) as being totally different from the Supreme Self (Atman). The ego and the false sense of self consisting of "I am such and such a person inside such and such body" is unreal, but the unchanging consciousness in which this illusionary experience takes place is the Self/Brahman which is the only thing that actually exists.
>How can Shankara believe in any semblence of a self if it atman is only brahman trapped in maya?
You seem to be confusing Atman with the individual soul and it's sense of embodiment and individualization. Shankara still believes that Brahman is the true self because the Upanishads describe it as such and say that it is what's left when everything that's unreal including the false self (such as the notion of being an embodied individual person) is negated. When everything that is unreal is negated, there is still the unchanging pure consciousness left; the consciousness by which the unreal was witnessed, that pure consciousness is the Atman-Brahman.

>>14120574
Keep in mind the guy who is replying to you right now is a confirmed neovedantist, and as such has very skewed and Westernized views of Advaita Vedanta. He does this in every thread like this. He might still have good information but be very careful and check anything he says, because he's been caught lying and distorting before numerous times.

>>14120655
>Does Brahman have full control, ultimately, of Maya
Gaudapada in his Mandukya Karika and Shankara in his commentary on said text discuss how the implications of the Upanishads point to the conclusion that to effortlessly wield the power of maya is the very self-nature (svabhava) of Brahman, just as it is the self-nature of the sun to continually emit light; all the while remaining unaffected by the maya that He exercise.
> Is it merely a conscious recollection of our true nature that we're performing, gradually unlearning the egoic processes which had veiled our underlying nature,
The process of liberation that Advaita describes involves other concepts and is more subtle and complicated than how you describe, but that sentence of yours is much closer to the position of Advaita then the second one. Shankara explains in his work that only knowledge of a pre-existing eternal truth can lead to eternal liberation, as any effect produced by action would be non-eternal and subject to change and disintegration. But when you realize through knowledge or immediate spiritual experience something that has always been true there is nothing new being produced or created but instead the ever-existent reality/truth is just no longer obscured by ignorance.

>>14120719
like clockwork

>>14120772
>neovedantist doing his usual routine of "everyone I've ever talked to is the same person!"

I'm not a Buddhist, nor am I the "Kant shill," nor am I the "Theosophy shill," or whatever your latest obsession is.

Man you are fucking schizo. You literally think multiple people calling you out for the same behavior means there's one guy who has been following you around for years but who somehow keeps changing religions and philosophies.

Like I said to OP, take this guy's statements with a grain of salt. Of course, if he's right about something he's right. But you can see a glimmer of his insanity right here.

can I be a brahman and shit in the street?

>>14120830
>/pol/ tier racism

Great argument my buddhist friend, you're really making your case against Shankara here. You know India is a world leader in converting completely to renewable energy?

>>14120830
shits are unreal, there is only brahman

>>14120719
What are the ideological differences between Vedanta and Neovedanta?

>>14120861
this but unironically

>>14120850
>"/pol/ tier racism"
yep definitely guenonfag

>>14120761
>Gaudapada in his Mandukya Karika
you mean how he plagiarized established buddhist ideas?

>One school of scholars, such as Bhattacharya and Raju, state that Gaudapada took over the Buddhist doctrines that ultimate reality is pure consciousness (vijñapti-mātra)[1][note 5] and "that the nature of the world is the four-cornered negation, which is the structure of Māyā".[1][65][note 6] Gaudapada "wove [both doctrines] into the philosophy of Mandukaya Upanisad, which was further developed by Shankara".[67][note 7]

history of Advaita in a nutshell

>>14120209
if shankara were alive today he'd be catholic

>>14120719
this

remember when he posed as a 'former buddhist' who admires it so much?

I did (pic related)

>>14120508
Anatman=anatta, anatta(in anti-jhana yoga based modern Buddhism)≠anatman

>>14122586
I've come to this conclusion as well. I used to be a hardcore Hindu but you can't argue with Aquinas, Garrigou-Lagrange, Copleston and Feser. Now "my soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord" (Psalm 83:3).

>>14122623
>cuckstianity
cringe

>>14122633
>Posts gay marriage and female priests, two things which are explicitly and irreversibly forbidden by Catholic doctrine

>>14122643
>b-but the bible says that...
lmao little catholic anon just found out how Catholicism works

>>14122660
You're saying nothing and don't understand how Catholic doctrine works. Sad! I'll pray for you.

>>14120850
>triggered and using the r-word this easily
back to r/books

>>14122578
There very little that is new or original in Buddhism as taught by Buddha, the major teachings of Buddhism all appear first in the pre-Buddhist Upanishads (pic related), all Buddha did was present the teachings of the Upanishads from a slightly different perspective. It is the height of foolishness to accuse Advaita of stealing from Buddhism when Buddhism would have never existed were it not for the Upanishads.

>>14122586
he attacked the idea God-man dualism as wrong and in one of his commentaries referred to Brahmins who believed in it as the 'scum of the brahmanas'

>>14122569
>One school of scholars, such as Bhattacharya and Raju, state that Gaudapada took over the Buddhist doctrines that ultimate reality is pure consciousness (vijñapti-mātra)
Buddhism scholars are notorious for making extremely far-fetched claims with little supporting evidence for Buddhist influence on Hindu thought, part of a preemptive effort to distract everyone from the fact that so much of Buddhism comes from the Upanishads. Gaudapada has no reason to take this doctrine from Buddhism (which was never even taught by Buddha but only appeared in the first millenium AD in Yogachara Buddhism) as most of the primary Upanishads describe Brahman as the inner consciousness/awareness. For example the pre-Buddhist Aitareya Upanishad directly states "Consciousness is Brahman" in line 3.1.4.

>"that the nature of the world is the four-cornered negation, which is the structure of Māyā"
There is no serious evidence for this, the Upanishads already describe maya as the power of the Lord and negate the world through various means such as the famous "not this, not this" of the pre-Buddhist Brihadaranyaka Upanishad or the metaphors in the pre-Buddhist Chandogya Upanishad about knowing the underlying unity behind multiplicity using the examples of gold and bracelets, clay and pots etc. Gaudapada bases his model of the 4 states on the Mandukya Upanishad which lays them out, the same four states are mentioned in the pre-Buddhist Brihadaranyaka. Gaudapada had no reason to take that from Buddhism because it's already talked about in the Upanishads. Only one partisan Buddhist scholar Nakamura tried to make one very weak claim about Buddhist influence on the Mandukya without offering any evidence and he got btfo by the scholar Michael Comans for doing so. In his book "Yoga: Freedom and Immortality" Mercia Eliade makes the exact opposite claim and writes that the Buddhists took the 4-cornered negation from Hindus who were the ones to come up with it

Are the Buddhists on /lit/ unable to see a thread with Shankara as the picture without freaking out and making a bunch of angry accusations and repeated easily debunked claims by partisan Buddhist hacks? You would think that with spending so much time meditating and reading Buddhist texts that you would be more equanimous but I guess not. It speaks to their complete inability to offer any real critique or refutation of Shankara's ideas.

>>14120209
to advaitins and buddhists in this thread
the argument between buddhist non-dualism and advaitin non-dualism is pointless because both posit a mystical realization that is transcendent to thought, to concepts. So, to actually confirm or deny whether they are talking about the same thing would require one to have realizations through both traditions and compare, I suppose.
If they are the same realizations, it appears then that Buddhism just emphasizes the phenomenological perspective and description of it, while advaita emphasizes the metaphysical.

>>14123257
Would you or anyone else agree with my assumption that our experience, void of our conceptualization of it, should be wholly identical between us all? Such that any doctrine we could possibly create, can only be a conceptual understanding of a uniform experiential reality preceding it? Because I'm someone who takes that perspective. I agree with Advaita and Buddhism simultaneously, in different regards, yet I also don't feel it's necessary to read them at all, since they can't actually "alter" my constitution, only present their respective conceptual beliefs on it. If so, would it not be wiser to simply meditate, without ideological preconceptions beforehand, and observe the immutable nature of that reality? I feel that devoting yourself to study results in the absorption of a conceptual framework which the subject may continue to perceive as true, regardless of its veracity, simply because their consciousness is structured so as to lend the status of reality to anything inside of it (since it's nature is that of "objectivity" or "truth"). They may meditate, and mistakenly believe they are emptying their mind of contents, while still employing imagination, which end up fabricating a false experience of it's own, preconceived beliefs.

Hence why I personally seek to meditate more than I do absorb ideologies, and am only trying to base my ideological beliefs around what has been experienced pre-ideologically. Meditation before memorization, in a sentence.

>>14123392
>Would you or anyone else agree with my assumption that our experience, void of our conceptualization of it, should be wholly identical between us all?
I would absolutely agree, if it were otherwise then it wouldn’t be truth. The only question is whether one religion “goes farther” into realizing the truth than the other. However, I am of the opinion (which I think is undeniable) that regardless of tradition, if you meditatively investigate the nature of your experience of reality, you will come to the truth of it.
I also agree with the prioritization of firsthand realization and meditation over textual study, although I still feel that textual study is essential in pointing the way. For example, I wouldn’t think to investigate the selfless (as in small self, identifying with the psychophysical), impermanent and unsatisfactory nature of sense experience if Buddhism hadn’t suggested it in its texts.

>>14123257
>appears then that Buddhism just emphasizes the phenomenological perspective and description of it, while advaita emphasizes the metaphysical.
This is true, although it should also be noted that Shankara describes the phenomenology of liberation in detail and how it is experienced in his commentaries, which people are often unaware of if they havn't read much of him and instead assume that it's all abstract metaphysics

>>14120209
No, atman is ultimate reality. The single true existence is Atman/Brahman, they are absolutely identical, the words refer to the same thing.

>>14123463
Yes, sorry. I emphasized my lack of study a bit too much there, where I moreso meant to say that "it is not ultimately necessary to read into scriptures", if they were written by individuals of the same facilities as yourself, who discovered it without aid from other scriptures. If you take a "revelation-based" approach or otherwise, then it becomes different, requiring an external source to gift you with insight. But if non-dualism is the framework in question, then I firmly believe that everyone IS Truth, and need only learn to unravel themselves in order to realize it. The Buddha himself, though initially trained under teachers, eventually pursued his own manner of liberation and then claimed to have reached it, creating a culture for others to do the same. The unfortunate part occurs when our minds then identify with the culture given to us, of the Buddha and the legacy left behind, that our very clinging to the institution prevents us from realizing its teachings. That's my perception anyway, which I consider to be the difference between "conceptual reality" and "experiential reality". In conceptual reality, we see reality through the filter of our concepts of it. In this example, it would involve your ego-self/I believing itself to be helpless of reaching enlightenment without an external instructions help, placing the written words attributed to the Buddha, and thereby mentally assembled in your mind into the character of him, as being "more real" than your own direct, immediate experience. When this figure claims that "you" are a Buddha, your ego-mind/I which consists of your beliefs of a self, and the beliefs surrounding its worthyness, etc, ends up incorporating that statement into it's existing belief-system: creating, for example, a hierarchical relationship between you and the Buddha. And feeling all kinds of feelings in relation to this relationship (ex. I can't enlighten myself, I don't have the skill for it, it's too difficult, etc).

But in non-conceptual reality, or what I would describe as the reality of bodily experience (rather than the menral environment), it becomes plainly obvious that you ARE that, and you never needed anything external to either be what you already are, or to teach you how to understand its nature. But since we live in the land of conceptual understanding most of the time, being the manner by which our minds formally understand reality (i.e the creation of constructs), then it becomes difficult to see this simple truth in the first place, let alone consistently. We can only communicate through concepts, yet what is being communicated is itself non-conceptual - like trying to convert smell into sound. The concepts are merely the linguistic referents for something you experience directly, and when experiencing directly no longer required the conceptual designation to point to. But our minds unfortunately mistake the concept for its referent, and thereby prevent us from recognizing the latter.

>>14124092
Sorry for the ramble. Was just sharing my personal experiences. I feel like I learnt something tremendously important when I felt that I took my first step outside of conceptual reality and into non-conceptual reality in the recent past. This is my interpretation of what happened, anyway. I feel like I understood now what Lao Tzu meant by "The Tao which can be told is not the Eternal Tao", where I previously didn't understand the difference between a concept of something, and the something itself. And once I felt I caught a glimpse of the something itself, which I did simply by focusing on my bodily sensations rather than my previous act of "thinking about bodily sensations", it all felt much simpler now. That I myself AM that. And that any great spiritual teacher is simply one who correctly read the map of their own being, which every single one of us has the capacity to do.

It's all just dumb coping about the shitty conditions in Ancient India, stop trying to intellectualize it

>>14124124
Interesting that you had the “I am THAT” realization. For myself, I have not yet had anything I would describe as that, I feel my experiences can be most accurately represented by “THIS is IT.” THIS, here and now, this is the truth, the god, the tao, the brahman, the nirvana, the whatever you want to call it. It’s not in some far off realm somewhere, it is THIS, and there is in fact nothing other than THIS. You realize THIS when you stop arbitrarily perceiving a duality of “in here” vs “out there” and stop grasping at thoughts/mind/feelings of “internality”, when you realize the “internal” (thoughts, feelings, sense of being stuck behind 2 eyes instead the head) is of the exact same nature experientially as the “external” (that which we think is physical and mistake to be “out there” in some objective separate reality which we mistakenly think we are peering into as if through a window). But it is also the truth that this duality we mistake, is also the THIS, but due to whatever grasping/avidya/maya, we don’t realize this. This might be because I haven’t been conditioned to think of it in a Hindu/True Self perspective, so when it comes to articulating it with the symbols that are words, my description is different due to my different conditioning. Perhaps if I had approached it through a True Self framework, I would think of it/articulate the same realization in that sort of language and terminology, “I am THAT.”.

>>14124092
>>14124124
also with your appreciation for the non-conceptual understanding, you might also appreciate Zen and their practices. I know it’s ironic to say “hey you know how you like direct understanding without a framework? Well here’s a framework just for that!” but Zen does emphasize firsthand realization in a very elegant way. Zen has it’s roots in an old tale where the Buddha silently lifted up a flower and showed it to his disciples, and one of his foremost followers, Kasyapa, understood. He was simply emphasizing that which cannot be truly conveyed through words. I recommend the works of Bodhidharma, a good few translations in english being “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma.”
>Our nature is the mind. And the mind is our nature. This nature is the same as the mind of all buddhas. Buddhas of the past and future only transmit this mind. Beyond this mind there's no buddha anywhere. But deluded people don't realize that their own mind is the buddha. They keep searching outside. They never stop invoking buddhas or worshipping buddhas and wondering Where is the buddha? Don't indulge in such illusions. Just know your mind. Beyond your mind there's no other buddha. The sutras say, "Everything that has form is an illusion." They also say, "Wherever you are, there's a buddha." Your mind is the buddha. Don't use a buddha to worship a buddha.

>>14124178
cringe and blue-pilled

also, the ancient greeks who visited India and who spoke with people who did generally all described it as a sophisticated land of richness and abundance

>>14124333
Yes anon, I concur with you on every point. Your perception of the present experience as being the destination already, rather than merely a journey to it, is just a different phrasing of what I was describing through the lens of identity. It's not even a major "realization" per se, and I try to avoid these kinds of terminology now since I believe we have the potential to greatly delude ourselves into believing something we merely fabricated, but as if it were absolute fact. It's really subtle, and I'd argue that there is no realization at all - you are that, already, and neither can you change that fact. It's merely the process of letting our mental activity settle, whereby consciousness can then perceive itself without the former cloud inside of it. When this occurs, the recognition which is always there, and without need for mental registration, is seen clearly. And yes, I completely agree regarding both the empirical and the mental world equally being within consciousness, and people mistakenly imparting a separation not present.

Thank you for recommending Bodhidharma and Zen. Zen seems to be a school which recognizes the trap of conceptuality, and tries to break through it, but unfortunately falls into the same hole which every ideology ultimately does, and cannot escape from. We're trying to translate raw experience into linguistic symbols, which is akin to converting color into music - yes, there is some connection there, but ultimately we're speaking two different languages. It's such a paradox, really - having to use the mind to convey a message which lies outside of it. And feeling I've recognized this has personally been quite significant for me, since it's completely changed the approach I now follow. I try to avoid conceptuality as much as possible, and instead simply remain in my bodily sensations. Sorry for rambling. Thanks again for the quote and response. I wish you the best, anon.

guenonfag talking to himself itt as usual

best schizoposter on /lit/

>>14122590
guenonfag is insane. i'm glad i'm not the only one chronicling it.

>>14122578
this, it is a classic neo-vedanta (aka guenonfag) talking point that "buddhism was all already in the upanishads." in fact the modern scholarly consensus is that was mutual influence and may even be much the other way around. of course guenonfag wouldn't know this because he only reads neo-vedanta propaganda written by vedantaboo westerners. btw i am advaita vedanta myself, i just have more respect for axial age indian philosophy than guenonfag with his shallow wikipedia knowledge.

>>14125164
The difficult thing here is definitely that, the awakening we’re seeking is actually right here right now, it is THIS and THIS is all there actually is, there is no real journey to some far off realm or place since the destination is just this as it is, BUT this can make it sound like there is no work needed to awaken or that we’re already effectively awakened, which is untrue. It is odd in that way, that what we seek has been there all along but we need to practice to know it.

>>14125646
I know, anon. I'd personally state that we are actually awakened already, in the sense of already being the highest reality in our underlying essence - but we are not awakened in our waking, attentional sense. And the pursuit of enlightenment would be the connection of the two, whereby the fundamental nature becomes the surface nature. This would only be done through meditation, whereby the flux of internal phenomena we deal with, much of which being of an unwholesome nature, is dissolved - while our deeper, constant and intrinsically wholesome nature becomes our surface by nature, since the superficial surface has been rid of.

>>14125005
>"this shithole is better than my shithole"
>retards over 2000 years later think that means it was good
I thought you people saw ignorance as an obstacle to enlightenment.

Ya'll are confused.

Adishankara didn't steal Buddhism's claim. He merely borrowed parts of logic and applied it to the old Vedic religions. Buddhist yogacara didn't steal from Hindu idea of Atman, but rather came to the conclusion after some Buddhists decided to create a positive spin on "emptiness" and claim there's a grounded consciousness(which sounds suspiciously like the Advaita's take on Brahman/Atman/Soul as well as earlier buddhist schools' claim on eternalism). Ofcourse many other buddhists quickly saw this and tried to mend it. The original 16 buddhists schools were also encroaching on similar territories on claims of eternalism/nihilism, this was the reason for Nagarjuna to shut them down. This eternalism had resurged in both China and Tibet. In Tibet, the attempt was made to quash them down politically, pockets of this thought survived in dialectic forms mainly. In China, they simply sought to avoid the conundrum by saying "don't think", aka Chan/Zen.

>>14127267
>olden days = bad
cringe

>>14125005
>the ancient greeks who visited India and who spoke with people
which ones and where did they record it