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14209089 No.14209089 [Reply] [Original]

>In early Buddhist literature there is no reference to Brahman (neuter) as absolute, but only to Brahmā (masculine) the creator God. The principle of absolute consciousness is however mentioned in a debate between the Buddha and Brahmā. The Buddha does not defeat this view by polemics but by supernatural powers. 86

86 Majjhima Nikaya I.329 - Sutta, No. 49. Cited in H. Nakamura, " Upaniṣadis Tradition and the Early School of Vedānta as Noticed in Buddhist Scripture, "Hardvard Journal of Asian Studies, 18 June 1955, pp.78-79


WTF Buddhist-bros? I thought the Tathagata was supposed to be omniscient, why didn't he have any argument against the Upanishadic idea of Brahma as absolute consciousness? If he was omniscient then surely he would have been able to explain why it's wrong?

>> No.14209145

>>14209089
Probably because there were no other teachers going around during his life who taught Upanishadic non-dualism, which he could interact with in the first place.
in Buddhism, omniscience doesn’t mean “knowing everything” in the average everyday sense, as in knowing all concepts or being like someone really well-read who just knows a lot of information. It is supramundane knowledge ie prajna that the Buddha has, and it is also defined as his ability to see beings appear and disappear into birth and death according to their karma, in all the reams of samsara.

>> No.14209281

>>14209145
But if he could see into the truth of existence, samsara, nirvana etc, than shouldn't he also be able to come up with an argument with why the Upanishadic view as elaborated by Brahmā in that Sutta is wrong (which talks about a transcendent unchanging unborn eternal Brahman as the basis of everything)? His claim of supramundane knowledge doesn't mean he knows all mundane knowledge, but it certainly implies he should be able to identify and explain why any other view presented to him is not the truth, which he claimed to possess and fully know.

>> No.14209341

>>14209281
>elaborated by Brahmā in that Sutta
Can you quote that part of the Sutta directly?

>> No.14209880

>>14209341
Probably this one
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN49.html
A bit of advice, I don't think this is really a hill to die on here.

>> No.14210042
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14210042

Daily reminder that guenonfag is on another shitposting binge, and if you post in this thread with anything he dislikes, he will samefag you to death until you quit.

>> No.14211124

bump

>> No.14211130

>>14210042
mega autism image

>> No.14211469
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14211469

>>14210042
OH NO NO NO NO NO

>> No.14211647

>>14209145
>omniscience means something else bruh (something I just made up btw)
Yeah, the Buddha absolutely claims to be omniscient in the tipitaka, and you can’t lie and twist it to mean something else because he defines what he means. Sorry I have to call you out like that. I just don’t like lies and ignorance.

>"Again, the Tathagata understands as it actually is the results of actions undertaken, past, future and present, with possibilities and with causes. That too is a Tathagata's power...[7]

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.012.ntbb.html

>> No.14211975

>>14211647
>>"Again, the Tathagata understands as it actually is the results of actions undertaken, past, future and present, with possibilities and with causes. That too is a Tathagata's power...[7]
that just means he understands karma and its workings
no contradiction

>> No.14212011

>>14211975
Keep reading

>13. (4) "Again, the Tathagata understands as it actually is the world with its many and different elements. That too is a Tathagata's power...[9]

>14. (5) "Again, the Tathagata understands as it actually is how beings have different inclinations. That too is a Tathagata's power...[10]

>15. (6) "Again, the Tathagata understands as it actually is the disposition of the faculties of other beings, other persons. That too is a Tathagata's power...[11]

This conversation is over, as you showed to be a bad faith agent. I hope this exchange has served to show how dishonest and ignorant about their own religion “enlightened” Buddhists can be.

>> No.14212031

>>14212011
(You)

>> No.14212043

> The Blessed One said: "Monks, whatever in the cosmos — with its devas, Maras, & Brahmas, its generations with their contemplatives & brahmans royalty & common people — is seen, heard, sensed, cognized, attained, sought after, pondered by the intellect: That do I know. Whatever in the cosmos — with its devas, Maras, & Brahmas, its generations with their contemplatives & brahmans, their royalty & common people — is seen, heard, sensed, cognized, attained, sought after, pondered by the intellect: That I directly know. That has been realized by the Tathagata, but in the Tathagata[1] it has not been established.[2]

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an04/an04.024.than.html

>> No.14212353

>>14209089
>why didn't he have any argument against the Upanishadic idea of Brahma as absolute consciousness
The upanishadic idea of brahma wasn't influential in shramanic circles around that time (they were known but they weren't contested as such).
>The early Upanisads must also have existed at this time and even before, but we find in the earliest Buddhist sources no reference to the name Upanisad nor to branches of study immediately concerning the Upanisads. We conclude, therefore, that the Upanisads were known to these early Buddhists merely as part of the Veda, without special value being attached to them. The school which specially esteemed and concentrated upon the Upanisads, if it existed at all, was insignificant and was not re- cognized as an independent philosophical school by the Buddhists. -H. Nakamura (Upaniṣadis Tradition and the Early School of Vedānta as Noticed in Buddhist Scripture Part II) pp 75

This point is further clarified by Thanissaro Bhikkhu who comments in the sutta you cite
>The first point is clear enough, but the second requires explanation. It is a play on the word brahma, which is not only a noun denoting the highest levels of devas, but also an adjective meaning "of great or high power." (https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.049.than.html))

As to why he didn't use 'any arguments' against such an 'upanishadic brahma' (suppose the latter premise is true), he was 'facing' Mara along with Brahma in that sutta and was describing his knowledge along with psychic powers. Therefore that sutta wasn't meant to be a scholarly debate against the 'upanishadic brahma', Buddhist suttas come in all forms and infuse all sorts of stories and superstitions in order to get the basic message across (which also happens in the Upanishads too if you've read it).
>In this sutta, the Buddha faces two antagonists: Baka, a brahma who believes that his brahma-attainment is the highest attainment there is; and Mara, who wants (1) to keep Baka under his power by allowing Baka to maintain his deluded opinion, and (2) to prevent the Buddha from sharing his awakened knowledge with others. Of the two, Mara is the more insidious, a point illustrated by the fact that Mara always speaks through someone else and never directly shows his face. (Another interesting point is illustrated by the fact that Mara is the source of the demand that one obey a creator god.) In overcoming his antagonists, the Buddha asserts the superiority of his knowledge in two major fashions: through a description of his awakened knowledge and through a display of psychic powers.
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.049.than.html

>> No.14212424

>>14212011
les vérifiers

>> No.14212491
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14212491

>>14212353
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN49.html
>The Blessed One said: “On one occasion recently I was staying in Ukkaṭṭha in the Subhaga forest at the root of a royal Sal tree. Now on that occasion an evil viewpoint had arisen to Baka Brahmā: ‘This is constant. This is permanent. This is eternal. This is total. This is not subject to falling away—for this does not take birth, does not age, does not die, does not fall away, does not reappear. And there is no other, higher escape.’

Buddha himself called it an evil viewpoint but then couldn't back up his own words and dodged any attempt at refuting it.

>> No.14212506

>>14212491
again he wasn't there to 'refute it', that wasn't the point of the Sutta. Why doesn't everything have to be a game of 'debate and refute' with you?

>> No.14212534

>>14212506
So much of the Pali Canon involves Buddha debating and refuting ideas, and so much is made of his wisdom and knowledge in Buddhist literature that it's silly to act taken aback when someone asks why he dodged facing that particular question. The claim that Buddha was just meant to expose Mara as some story to illustrate a lesson or something seems more like a cope answer by Buddhist commentators to avoid facing the elephant in the room. Why even make the claim about it being evil in the first place if not to refute it? To say "X is evil and actually I refuted it with my superpowers btw" just discourages critical thinking.

>> No.14212580

>>14212534
>So much of the Pali Canon involves Buddha debating and refuting ideas, and so much is made of his wisdom and knowledge in Buddhist literature that it's silly to act taken aback when someone asks why he dodged facing that particular question
he literally dodges questions by his own disciples....

>The claim that Buddha was just meant to expose Mara as some story to illustrate a lesson or something seems more like a cope answer by Buddhist commentators to avoid facing the elephant in the room
Upanishads do the same thing with their bizarre stories and commentaries that explain them

>To say "X is evil and actually I refuted it with my superpowers btw" just discourages critical thinking.
you seem to be confused with the sutta and the nature of some of these buddhist discourses. It's not there to get you to 'critically think', according to the Buddha this just perpetuates samsara. The PC is not a science textbook.

>> No.14212739
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14212739

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surendranath_Dasgupta

According to S.N. Dasgupta,
>Shankara and his followers borrowed much of their dialectic form of criticism from the Buddhists. His Brahman was very much like the sunya of Nagarjuna [...] The debts of Shankara to the self-luminosity of the Vijnanavada Buddhism can hardly be overestimated. There seems to be much truth in the accusations against Shankara by Vijnana Bhiksu and others that he was a hidden Buddhist himself. I am led to think that Shankara's philosophy is largely a compound of Vijnanavada and Sunyavada Buddhism with the Upanisad notion of the permanence of self superadded.

>> No.14212761

>>14212491
Brahma =/ Brahman
in Buddhist cosmology, Brahmas are beings who were reborn as gods after a lifetime of mastering jhana. Lifetime in the Brahma realm lasts eons, but not forever, so that particular Brahma was mistaken in thinking that his birth as a god was the highest escape.

>> No.14212780

>>14212011
The height of vedanta: paste a few excerpts and then accuse your interlocutor (regardless of/prior to their response) of being incapable of properly responding.

>> No.14212801
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14212801

>>14212780
These same ‘buddhists’ fear their precious faith would sink into the grounds of ancient Vedanta like water into the dirt, if they were to come close to even partially admitting Buddhism is absolutely no more anti-Vedic than Jesus was a Jew hater. One might equally and heretically proclaim that Martin Luther was against the Bible, or Christianity in that he but only spoke coarsely against the Catholic Church’s position, which he demonstrated via the Bible, was a commentarial religion too often adversarial to the principles in the Bible itself, such as confessions, relic-worshiping, fetishisms, and, in Luther's time, literally buying Heaven-insurance by donating coin to the Church. It is a well established fact by experts in the religious history of India, that of Gotama's time, circa 500 B.C.E., the meaning of the already old-and-dusty principle Upanishads (much less the Vedas) was long lost and overcovered, as is the case in his admission: ." "I have seen" says Buddha, "the ancient path, the old road that was taken by the former all-awake Brahmins, that is the path i follow, lost long ago. Just like an overcovered path lost long ago is that which i have discovered" (SN 2.106). The only denial Gotama ever made in the suttas, was that one was never BRAHMABANDHU (born a Brahmin), but rather was one by wisdom, as Brahmin was not a birthright, but a spiritual marker of ones status for sake of wisdom.

Lets gather how “original” Buddhism is or wasn’t from a small section of the pervasively consistent Nikayas: [DN 1.249] “ I teach the way to the union with Brahman, I know the way to the supreme union with Brahman, and the path and means leading to Brahman, whereby the world of Brahman may be gained.” [DN 1.248] ”all the peoples say that Gotama is the supreme teacher of the way leading to the Union with Brahman!” [It 57] “Become-Brahman is the meaning of Tathagata.” [SN 3.83] “Without taints, it meant ‘Become-Brahman’.” [SN 5.5] “The noble path is the designation for Brahmayana (path to Brahman).” [MN 1.341] “The Soul is having become Brahman.” [SN 4.117] "Found the ancient path leading to Brahman." "I have seen" says Buddha, "the ancient path, the old road that was taken by the former all-awake Brahmins, that is the path i follow, lost long ago. Just like an overcovered path lost long ago is that which i have discovered" [SN 2.106] "I have not made a new path monks, i have only rediscovered what was lost long ago"

>> No.14212811 [DELETED] 

>>14212801
>"the ancient path, the old road that was taken by the former all-awake Brahmins, that is the path i follow, lost long ago. Just like an overcovered path lost long ago is that which i have discovered
How do you reconcile this with the claim that he took his knowledge from the pre-Buddhist Upanishads, or became awakened following other Upanishadic non-dualists of his time?

>> No.14212966
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14212966

>>14212780
Don't forget the part where guenonfag carries on entire conversations with himself, repeating the same neo-vedanta talking points to himself every day.

>> No.14212995

>>14212801
>seething neovedantist freaking out again
lmao

>> No.14213009
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14213009

>>14212995
he also replied to his own post agreeing with himself again, but deleted it. see pic related.

exactly his process of samefagging described in this pic btw: >>14210042

>> No.14213021
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14213021

>>14209089
>WTF Buddhist-bros?
My message is: try to understand Gautam Buddha. He is one of the most beautiful men who has walked on this earth.

H.G. Wells, in his world history, has written one sentence which should be written in gold. Writing about Gautam Buddha he writes, "Gautam Buddha is perhaps the only godless man, and yet, so godly."
In that illumination, in that moment of enlightenment, nirvana, he did not find any God. The whole existence is divine; there is no separate creator. The whole existence is full of light and full of consciousness; hence there is no God but there is godliness.

It is a revolution in the world of religions. Buddha created a religion without God. For the first time God is no longer at the center of a religion. Man becomes the center of religion, and man's innermost being becomes godliness, for which you have not to go anywhere - you have simply stopped going outside. Remain for a few moments within, slowly, slowly settling at your center. The day you are settled at the center, the explosion happens.

So my message is: understand Gautam Buddha, but don't be a Buddhist. Do not follow. Let the understanding be absorbed by your intelligence, but let it become yours. The moment it becomes yours, it starts transforming you. Until then it has remained Gautam Buddha's, and there is twenty-five centuries distance. You can go on repeating Buddha's words - they are beautiful, but they will not help you to attain what you are after.

>> No.14213027

>>14212995
>Madhva argued that Shankara championed monism because he was so stupid that he could only count to one
how the fuck did Shankara recover from this?

>> No.14213037

>>14213027
Meant to reply to this
>>14212966

>> No.14213260

So a question for Buddhistfriends and Hindufriends. If I don't like the Nagarjuna/Shankara monistic approach that reduces all reality to an idealist monism, but I do like the soteriological, compassionate, and ascetic aspects of Buddhism (and somewhat Advaita), what should I look into? Are there strains that allow for nature and history to be emanated from the original One, but still real and unique in their own right, not ultimately reducible to the One or somehow meaningless in relation to it?

>> No.14213281

>>14213260
nagarjuna is not monist at all and he doesn’t reject the conventional, trading it for the ultimate, but rather he balances the two truths as both being necessary.
Nagarjuna also isn’t an idealist in the western sense of the word at all. What he deals with is phenomenology, not metaphysics. For Nagarjuna, the fundamental problem which perpetuates duality and suffering, is the engrained disposition towards ontology, towards reifying the ontological status of phenomena in anyway, not only conceptually but perceptually.
Read the fundamental wisdom of the middle way

>> No.14213374

indian man believes meditative practice gives him ability to see past lives through a mysterious omniscience, fly unaided, touch the sun and moon, have death itself appear before him and a perceive a mystical 'substance' called kamma that governs people's future rebirths throughout 31 realms of hells, heavens, demigods, humans, animal and ghosts.

but he offers a solution to our suffering (which strangely is very, almost identically similar to the way an atheist materialst views death), so he's definitely worth taking seriously

it's as if our dukkha is so immense we will cling on to literally any authority offering a way out, no matter how absurd or bizzare the proposed "solution".

the truly absurd thing is just how simple the actual solution to "the problem of dukkha" actually is. people just don't want to believe it's as simple as braining yourself. no no the universe is deep and mystical and there's gods and realms it just can't be that easy!! I must practice I make give alms I must make merit I must escape samsara (even though there's literally no proof or evidence for any of it).

just another joke religion thaat gets a pass from westerners because it's sold to them without the mystical baggage and there's no central creator (as opposed to the monotheism they're used to).

>> No.14213557

>>14210042
that pic lmao

>> No.14214024

>>14213374
Nice cope, westcuck

>> No.14214064

>>14213260
The answer to your question is Kashmir Shaivism imo

>> No.14214088

>>14209089
pro-tip- he wasn't omniscient

>> No.14215111

illusory bump

>> No.14215116 [DELETED] 

>>14214064
that's the exact monism the post was asking how to avoid.. why do you even do this?

>> No.14215207

>>14212739
Its not bad, the problem with Shankara was he made Hinduism worse. He doubled down on the essence of Brahman and then went deep into nihilism by discarding the world all together. Buddha already cautioned against eternalist and nihilist views of the world due to flaws regarding either two.

>> No.14215258

>>14213260
Nagarjuna isnt monist. Shankara is not JUST monist, but also a nihilist.

>> No.14215261

>>14213374
>indian
Shakya
>man
Allegorical figure never actually existed
>believes meditative practice gives him ability to see past lives through a mysterious omniscience, fly unaided, touch the sun and moon, have death itself appear before him and a perceive a mystical 'substance' called kamma that governs people's future rebirths throughout 31 realms of hells, heavens, demigods, humans, animal and ghosts.
Allegorical powers of a sun god.

>> No.14215713

>>14215111
underrated

>> No.14215931

>>14209089
>why didn't he have any argument
My guess is language is an imperfect tool, not up for that king of debate.

>> No.14216784

>>14212353
/thread

Hwnd* btfo

>> No.14217345

>all these people think the Upanishads was even a thing before the Buddha
You people need to realize that the Buddha is in a way the beginning of India. And since then all the other schools have been larping about existed back when the Buddha also existed in order to discredit the Buddhist teachings. Buddhism also have been relating back other schools in order for the Buddha to have defeated them in arguments.

Jainism and the Upanishads was NOT contemporary with the Buddha. Sanskrit is younger than Prakrit. The Buddha was a Scythian.

>> No.14218072

>>14215258
Shankara is not nihilist

>> No.14218102

>>14218072
Yes he is. He absolutely hates the real world and considers it an illusion that doesn't exist. The example some h*ndu used above is real world is a "snake" shadow over a rope. What the adva*ta h*ndu believe in is nihilism of real world and monist idealism

>> No.14218128

>>14215258
Buddhism is utterly nihilistic as well buddy

>> No.14218177

>>14218128
Dumb post.

>> No.14218282

>>14218102
>He absolutely hates the real world
Isn't that true of Buddhists too though? At least the world is somewhat divine since it is the divine play of Brahman and it has meaning in the same way.
>considers it an illusion that doesn't exist
A lot of Buddhists take that position too.

>> No.14218300

>>14218282
the Buddha never calls the world an illusion, but calls it "like an illusion" in the sense that beings don't know that it is only conventional.
The fact of being conventional doesn't render it totally unreal or as a total illusion, however.

>> No.14218317

>>14218282
Buddhist only says the assumption of the hidden essence/structure/ideal to be illusion, not the world itself. Hindus do the reverse by saying that essence/structure is real but not the world.

>> No.14218331
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14218331

>>14218102
>Yes he is. He absolutely hates the real world and considers it an illusion that doesn't exist.
That's not exactly true, he says it exists conditionally and has empirical validity for worldly activities, and he heavily criticizes as illogical the ideas of Yogachara Buddhists who say that the world doesn't even exist conditionally but is completely unreal. When Shankara says that the world is not totally real he is talking about absolutely real which to him means "immutably real, at all times and places for eternity", which only Brahman can be. When he regards the world as not absolutely real in the sense that Brahman is, he is just fully accepting the implications of Upanishad passages such as the following from the the story of Svetaketu in the Chandogya Upanishad.

"Just as, my dear, by one clod of clay all that is made of clay is known, the modification
being only a name, arising from speech, while the truth is that all is clay;
"Just as, my dear, by one nugget of gold all that is made of gold is known, the modification
being only a name, arising from speech, while the truth is that all is gold;
"And just as, my dear, by one pair of nail−scissors all that is made of iron is known, the
modification being only a name, arising from speech, while the truth is that all is iron−even
so, my dear, is that instruction".

In any case he is not recommending that everyone do this but that is really only proper in his view for people who have renounced ties to the world and become sannyasin. For people who were not renuncients he considered it more proper for them to pursue things like Bhakti-Yoga, Karma-yoga etc as outlined in the Gita.

>nihilism of real world
It's only nihilist to say that nothing whatsoever exists, not to say that the world is unreal but that our very nature is eternal Bliss and complete freedom and that all we have to do is essentially wake up to the reality of It.

>> No.14218343

>>14218300
>The fact of being conventional doesn't render it totally unreal or as a total illusion, however.
Advaitins are epistemic realists too though. They say it is not unreal or real. It is not unreal because it is empirically experienced and can therefore not be denied but it is also not real because it is not eternal and ultimately sublated in Brahman.

>> No.14218368

>>14218343
But once you reach moksha it becomes totally unreal?
For the Buddhist this is impossible because the knowledge of the "ultimate" is only known in relation to the knowledge of the "conventional" (knowing it AS conventional) so it is impossible to assert the truth of one to the exclusion of the other.
The conventional is empty, and that emptiness is not necessarily Absolutely real, since that emptiness is dependent on the emptiness of convention, so it too is empty. Emptiness is empty. The Buddhist does not assert emptiness and ultimate truth as absolutely real while calling the conventional absolutely unreal, because he is not a nihilist, nor an eternalist.

>> No.14218417

>>14218331
Nihilism of the real world means nothing as we know is real. That's Shankara. He's advocating for some fairytale hidden under the real world.

>> No.14218443
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14218443

>>14218317
>>14218368
Beginning to see the distinction now. Thanks friends.
>But once you reach moksha it becomes totally unreal?
I suppose so. Although while you're still alive it is still there but instead of being in illusion you say/think "this is illusion". From being deluded to viewing delusion.

At least this is what I've gathered from my readings. Been a while since I studied Advaita though.

>> No.14218454

>>14218417
>Nihilism of the real world means nothing as we know is real
We know our own awareness though, which Shankara maintains is real, so it makes no sense to say that he is denying as real everything within the realm of our waking experience, because he maintains that the most fundamental aspect of our conscious existence is the absolute reality in which everything else appears.

>> No.14218470

>>14218454
Shankara says that is just part of underlying substance called Brahman that interact s with fake world. He's built up a stupid circular logic.

>> No.14218510

>>14218470
>Shankara says that is just part of underlying substance called Brahman that interact s with fake world.
That's incorrect, Brahman is not a substance but pure Consciousness or Bliss. Substances are materials existing within a space that provides a room for their extension. There are neither space and no materials in the Supreme Brahman but It remains entirely formless and unmanifested, the Brihadaranyaka describes the unmanifested ether as pervading all the universe, and the unmanifested formless Brahman as all-pervasive to that ether. It's also to incorrect to say that Brahman interacts with the world except through the appearances of maya (but not in reality). For someone who criticizes Advaita so much you don't seem to have a very good grasp of it.

>> No.14218514

Because history happens, people come to power, and it all impacts on what people are forced to believe.

>> No.14218535

>>14218510
Dumb post. Brahman is underlying ultimate substance regardless of your stupid word games.

>> No.14218552

>>14218510
How could everything (Brahman) be pure bliss? The Sanskrit word for bliss I am assuming you mean is Ananda. However according to the late Swami Dayananda Saraswati it pure accurately translates to Limitlessness.

>> No.14218730

>>14213374
That's because you thought buddhism was offering you a way out of structures/ideology but only make you change it for other

>> No.14218867
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14218867

>>14218368
>But once you reach moksha it becomes totally unreal?
Moksha remains real, because Moksha is synonymous with liberation, which is the real nature of the Atma. Shankara explains in his works that anything which belongs to sphere of action can only produce a non-eternal result. Something isn't truly eternal unless its existence is beginningless as well as endless, the only way to achieve a beginningless liberation is if it was the true nature of things all along and it only appeared otherwise via ignorance. Hence the emphasis in Advaita on knowledge, as it is only knowledge which can remove this ignorance. Someone who has attained moksha would still be aware of and able to interact with the world but would be entirely indifferent to it and regard it more or less as unreal transient vibrations of the Self.
>For the Buddhist this is impossible because the knowledge of the "ultimate" is only known in relation to the knowledge of the "conventional" (knowing it AS conventional) so it is impossible to assert the truth of one to the exclusion of the other.
Advaita is not talking about knowing the ultimate as an object of thought, it is talking about the knower being identified as the Ultimate itself irrespective of objects. The Ultimate is self-luminous Awareness, it is normally identified with the intellect but when it shines forth as the self-luminous Real, it's revealed that the knower was really that Real all along. It is a transcendental knowledge which dawns in spiritual realization and which does not depend on subject-object distinctions. So Advaita would disagree with the Buddhist position that the ultimate cannot be known except in relation to the conventional but in any case that point you made doesn't really apply because Advaita isn't talking about knowing It as an object or knowing it in relation to anything else.
>>14218535
I explained why it's not and the Upanishads and Advaita repeat that it's not as well
>>14218552
Advaita doesn't say that "everything" is Bliss, but that what we perceive as "everything" appears in that infinite Bliss (via maya), the Taittiriya Upanishad says that the universe emerges from, is sustained by and dissolves back into that Bliss. Because Bliss can only experienced by a conscious entity, infinite and eternal Bliss necessitates and includes within itself eternal, unborn and undying Awareness. Awareness includes by definition the capacity to be aware of and witness illusions. Because of Brahman wielding His power of maya the artful illusion of samsara is allowed to appear within this infinite Awareness. This is why Advaita is not monism or pantheism because objects themselves are not Brahman or made out of Brahman but are only appearances in Brahman.

>> No.14218915

>>14218552
>The Sanskrit word for bliss I am assuming you mean is Ananda. However according to the late Swami Dayananda Saraswati it pure accurately translates to Limitlessness.
I have never heard about that before, while that may be the case, there are plenty of uses of the words Bliss and similar words applied to Brahman in the Upanishads in enough circumstances talking about emotions, the heart, happiness, fearlessness etc that's it seems pretty clear that the Upanishads intended for Bliss to be considered as the nature of Brahman, many of those passages wouldn't make much sense if the bliss in all of them were switched to limitlessness.

>> No.14218932

>>14218867
>Advaita isn't talking about knowing It as an object
I don’t know how you got the idea the Buddhism is talking about knowing the Ultimate as an object of experience.

>> No.14218979

>>14218932
Okay then I thought your post were implying that. In any case Advaita is ontological non-dualism which is different from epistemic non-dualism in Buddhism, Advaita doesn't accept as valid the logic on which the notion is based in Buddhism that the Ultimate can only be known in relation to knowledge of the conventional. Your post was just highlighting where they disagree.