/lit/ - Literature

>>17360275
MahaPrajnaParamita-Sastra by Nagarjuna

>>17360275
>>17360324
Is there a cabal of indian posters that ensure threads like this up at all times?

>>17360324
Holy shit take your meds

>>17360329
He spams that anywhere for anything, schizo

>>17360275
Yoga Vasistha
Ramayana and Mahabharata
Devi Mahatmya
Vishnu Purana
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
Shiva Sutras of Vasugupta
Ashtavakra Gita

indians are so ugly that I will never take anything they make seriously.

>>17360873
Most of these are excellent. I wouldn’t recommend the Shiva Sutras though unless one is specifically a student of Kashmiri Shaivism. The commentary is usually very dense and technical

The Tripura Rahasya is another great text and on the level of the Gita. I’m only familiar with the meme version “Shakti Sadhana” that Swami Rama worked with, given that I know a number of his students IRL

Redpill me on Kashmiri Shaivism

>>17361026
There’s multiple races in India. There used to be profound differences however over the last 4000 years they’ve been mixing and it’s accumulated slowly, ultimately leading to the hellhole we have now. As Arjuna pointed out in the Gita, mixing the colors of men leads to the destruction of society

>>17361506
Kashmiri Shaivism was a diverse selection of tantric schools in Kashmir about 1000 years ago. A man came along named Utpaladeva and he created the Recognition philosophy (pratyabhijñā) that teaches consciousness is the foundation, source, creator and destroyer of all reality. Furthermore he identifies Lord Shiva as the ultimate symbol for this supreme consciousness, that happens to be ourselves and the entirety of the universe.

His grand-disciple Abhinavagupta was initiated in many different schools and studied intensely under many different masters. He synthesized all of the different forms of Shaivism that existed at the time into the Recognition school and created Trika, which existed in an unbroken lineage all the way up to the modern Swami Lakshmanjoo.

Wikipedia is often very unreliable for things, however they're on point here occasionally-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratyabhijna
>The central thesis of this philosophy is that everything is Śiva, absolute consciousness, and it is possible to "recognize" this fundamental reality and be freed from limitations, identified with Śiva and immersed in bliss. Thus, the slave (paśu: the human condition) shakes off the fetters (pāśa) and becomes the master (pati: the divine condition).
The Aghora are a related Shaiva/Shakta sect that aren't technically Kashmiri Shaivism, but they're very damn close in my opinion and I love this description of them-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aghori
>Aghoris base their beliefs on two principles common to broader Shaiva beliefs: that Shiva is perfect (having omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence) and that Shiva is responsible for everything that occurs: all conditions, causes and effects. Consequently, everything that exists must be perfect and to deny the perfection of anything would be to deny the sacredness of all life in its full manifestation, as well as to deny the Supreme Being.

>>17360275
blahblahblahblah blahblahblahblah by blahblahblablah blahblahblahblah. I bet half of western cucks instantly coom when hear "spiritual" indian names.

>>17361802
More syllables = more spiritual.

Does Guenonfag still post here? I just learned last night that people have been mixing the two of us up for about a year now

>>17361941
Yes, I still post here. So many people wouldn't be confused with me if it weren't for that I have a schizophrenic stalker who also often assumes that other posters are me.

>>17362228
Heh I'm the Shaivite killer pizzaman. I just randomly googled my dharmawheel username last night and a bunch of stuff on /lit/ popped up where they're accusing you of being me. I'm usually on /pol/ and the only reason I'm posting here now is due to finding all of that hilarious stuff last night. It had me laughing pretty hard for about an hour

>>/lit/thread/15035347

Might actually start using /lit/ more now. It's nice encountering people educated on these topics. It seems like there's more Kashmiri Shaivites here as well that also get mixed up with the two of us from time to time

>>17362325
Hey I was part of that doxing event and I immediately regretted it. At first it seemed funny because it was just internet things but when it snowballed I didn't like where it went. I am opposed to actual doxing and it felt dirty. Especially when it became clear quickly enough that it wasn't even guenonfag. We all kinda knew because you actually know what you're talking about since he never does. Once or twice I saw an unusually well informed shaivitebro (there do seem to be 1 or 2 here) and tried to say sorry for my part in that incase it was you.

Tbh even when people thought it was guenonfag it still felt like bullying a dude for his personal private life. That whole thing left a sour taste in my mouth and I regret joining in on the jokes.

Your story was pretty amazing. I still think on your experience in the prison meditating from time to time.

>>17362424
Newfag here. Could you give me some context for this?

>>17362424
>[I] tried to say sorry for my part in that incase it was you.
>Tbh even when people thought it was guenonfag it still felt like bullying a dude for his personal private life. That whole thing left a sour taste in my mouth and I regret joining in on the jokes.

I was crawling through the archives last night and reading about all of this stuff for the first time and I do recall once seeing an anon apologizing for his behavior. Honestly everything I saw struck me as harmless shitposting though. Antiguenonfag was hostile and insulting occasionally, but only because it seems he genuinely believed me to be Guenonfag. No harm no foul though

>Your story was pretty amazing. I still think on your experience in the prison meditating from time to time.

Thank you. For years I was using a dictionary as a meditation cushion, meditating in mop closets, laundry closets, hallways, chow halls, cells and open bay housing within full sight of 83 other convicts. Heh at one point I was using a Bible as a meditation cushion and another inmate got angry at me and asked me what the hell I was doing. I told him I was "meditating on the word of God"

It's a terrible shame all that tragedy occurred in the first place, but my imprisonment turned out to be a very maturing and educational experience that made me a better person

>>17362443
There is a poster commonly called guenonfag because he spams guenon and shankara and does things like pic related. There is a half serious eternal flamewar between him and the people who notice him doing it. People go through the archives to find his past posts and show that he makes the same threads repeatedly or the same pic hundreds of times. One time he was somehow linked to the pizzaman guy, who was on another forum talking about how he went to jail and went through a lot of shit, and obviously people jumped on it and started calling guenonfag a pizza perennialist, pizza be upon him (pbuh, which he used to spam), etc

Since the drama over guenonfag is otherwise funny, I sorta felt like it was a black spot on the whole affair. Doxing is stupid, twitter assholes do it because they can't handle banter and have to go for people's real livelihoods.

>>17362545
forgot pic

>>17362537
That might have been me, I don't remember if I said something at the time. But thanks for your forgiveness either way because I certainly was part of it. That was some real shitty karma and I'm glad to formally apologize for it.

In a way it was a lesson in what being in a mob is like. It inches forward in cruel acts because every individual person in the mob is capable of opening pandora's box a little more, so no one feels directly responsible for the escalation. You're left thinking, this is the group I was part of? Now we're lynching the guy and I thought we only came here to make fun of him.

Hope you are doing well and do post here more. What kind of practice do you currently do if you don't mind me asking?

>>17362545
Ok thank you, that was very informative. I've seen "guenonfag" being used and just thought it was a reference to actual Guenon lol

>>17362618
>What kind of practice do you currently do if you don't mind me asking?
I'm not doing anything particularly fancy or intense currently because I'm a new father and having a child is very time consuming. At this very moment my wife is out buying groceries and I'm holding the baby in my lap and typing with one hand

My favorite practice is just the first yukti from the Vijñāna Bhairava Tantra, visarga practice, moving energy from the heart to the dwadashanta on the exhale and pulling it back to the heart on the inhale. It's a very profound upaya and was strongly recommended by most of the famous Pratyabhijñā Shaivites. I won't go into intimate details though, because it's generally a bad idea to discuss one's sadhana. Christopher Wallis talks about this one a lot in his series on the VBT on youtube

>"The supreme aghorā energies of God consciousness always embrace that yogī who lives in such a way that he remains absolutely unknown as a yogī . They carry him to God consciousness, where he is forever established. This is the secret of rising because this state of God consciousness has come forth from a secret point and he is residing in a secret way of life. That yogī, on the other hand, who is known to everyone as an elevated yogī, is not embraced by these aghora energies. They shun him and consequently, he is carried away from God consciousness."- Kulapañcāśikā Śāstra

Also a couple of weeks ago I just finished the Śivastotrāvali for the first time and I found Utpaladeva's bhakti poetry to be extremely moving. I'd love to generate more bhakti and use that as my main upaya

>>17360324
Meme text

If you're interested in Mahayana: Heart, Diamond and Lotus sutras cover 99% of everything except the Tibetan stuff.
As for the Pali canon, the Majjhima Nikaya is a good start if you've already read the Dhammapada.

>>17363403
There's a pretty substantial pile of evidence that the Heart Sutra was composed in China by a man only partially familiar with the Sanskrit language
https://jayarava.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-chinese-origins-of-heart-sutra.html

That doesn't mean it's "false" per se, because all enlightened men who write Buddhist scripture do so in the spirit of the Buddha, but it likely wasn't Indian in origin

>>17363434
Yeah, I know. I didn't particularly like it anyway, but it's still one of the main pillars of Mahayana though so if anon is interested in that tradition, he should read it.

Ribhu Gita
Kadambari

>>17360873
>Yoga Vasistha
Seconded. Great nuggets of philosophical insight wrapped in fabulistic parables.

>>17363699
Dasgupta has a chapter (readable at the link below) on the Yoga Vasistha in his History of Indian Philosophy which explores among other things how the doctrines presented inside differ from traditional Advaita and how in some places they are closer to Kashmir Shaivism and Yogachara Buddhism, You may find the chapter interesting reading if you've read all of the Yoga Vasistha already

>But the idealism of the Yoga-vāsiṣṭha is more like the doctrine of the Buddhist idealists than the idealism of Śaṅkara. For according to the Yoga-vāsiṣṭha it is only ideas that have some sort of existence. Apart from ideas or percepts there is no physical or external world having a separate or independent existence. Esse est per dpi is the doctrine of the Yoga-vāsiṣṭha , while Śaṅkara most emphatically refutes such a doctrine. A. later exposition of Vedānta by Prakāśānanda, known as Vedānta-siddhānta-muktāvalī, seems to derive its inspiration from the Yoga-vāsiṣṭha in its exposition of Vedānta on lines similar to the idealism of the Yoga-vāsiṣṭha , by denying the existence of objects not perceived (ajñāta-sattvānahhyupagama)[4]. Prakāśānanda disputes the ordinarily accepted view that cognition of objects arises out of the contact of senses with objects; for objects for him exist only so long as they are perceived, i.e. there is no independent external existence of objects apart from their perception. All objects have only perceptual existence (prātītīka-sattva).

>Both Prakāśānanda and the Yoga-vāsiṣṭha deny the existence of objects when they are not perceived, while Śaṅkara not only admits their existence, but also holds that they exist in the same form in which they are known; and this amounts virtually to the admission that our knowing an object does not add anything to it or modify it to any extent, except that it becomes known to us through knowledge. Things are what they are, even though they may not be perceived. This is in a way realism. The idealism of Śaṅkara’s Vedānta consists in this, that he held that the Brahman is the immanent self within us, which transcends all changeful experience and is also ultimate reality underlying all objects perceived outside of us in the external world. Whatever forms and characters there are in our experience, internal as well as external, have an indescribable and indefinite nature which passes by the name of māyā[5]. Śaṅkara Vedānta takes it for granted that that alone is real which is unchangeable; what is changeful, though it is positive, is therefore unreal. The world is only unreal in that special sense; māyā belongs to a category different from affirmation and negation, namely the category of the indefinite.

https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/a-history-of-indian-philosophy-volume-2/d/doc7130.html

bumpo

>>17361026
They believed in God long before we or the Jews did

>>17361673
Good heavens he's gorgeous.

>>17361673
>The Aghora
aren't they cannibals?

>>17365407
Some aspects or periods of brahmanism were surprisingly atheistic.. Rta can be conceived of as just a cosmic machinery

Is today's bhakti mostly salvationist/devotional or mostly contractual? Are the gods very powerful and helpful or are they truly good? I assume the latter but just curiouis

>>17361026
I unironically consider Indians white. Leave them alone

>>17360324
Cringe

>>17360329
It's cause India got the closest to unravelling the mystery of existence

>>17360329
>cabal of indian posters
are there any hot chicks in the cabal? i need an indian wife so bad

>>17360275
The Guru Granth Sahib is the most underrated sacred text; 99% of /lit/ plebs are wholly ignorant of it.

In a way it can be considered an extension of Hinduism as it syncreticly evolved combined with influence from Buddhism and Islam (which makes it decidedly monotheistic).
There are concepts in it like nirvana, samadhi, kali yuga etc

>>17360275
Such a shitty thread. Open the wiki you retard.

>>17360329
>>17360403
>>17363381
>>17366940
whats wrong with that text in particular?

>>17364237
I wonder who is more retarded, you or christians.

>>17367910
neither, it's you
fuck off back to /x/ you deranged schizophrenic faggot

>>17367910
There is absolutely nothing of religious value in Abrahamism unlike Dharmic religions.

>>17368136
You're wrong, the stories are pretty good.

>>17368136
>>17368394
Oh I misread, you said religious value, I agree then.

>>17368124
so, those who believe in jesus walking on rivers and lakes are sane, and I am retarded? faggot, it is opposite. you are imbecile stupid af. your fucking respect for religions is pathetic virtue signalling. how do you get loosh? by molesting children, most likely. no independent sane person would want to be near you.

>>17368136
fuck religious value. real value is life itself, power, energy, spirit, joy. Nietzsche knows better.

>>17368857
>>17368873
didn't read, seethe harder, take your meds etc

>>17368901
it's all about you, of course.

>>17366033
Yes, they're cannibals and much more than that. One needs to understand that the Aghora are following an upaya that's a specific reaction to the culture they grew up in

Orthodox Brahmanical India has such extreme purity laws that it makes even the most rigid feudal caste system in medieval Europe look egalitarian by comparison. It's to the extent that if the shadow of an untouchable accidentally touches a brahmin, the brahmin must then ritually bathe in order to remove the impurity, and he'll often have his servants beat the untouchable to death as well

In addition to this, many Hindus are under the belief that God is found only in pure, specific and hard to discover locations, such as inside the (clean) human body where they must meditate very hardcore for decades to find him

So the Aghora, under the belief that God is omnipresent, intentionally set out to remove their false social conditioning by violating every single purity law that exists in India. They walk around naked, bodies covered in the ashes of cremated bodies. They pull dead bodies out of the Ganges river and eat them using human skulls as bowls. They'll have sex with dead bodies. They meditate while drunk, or high, or smoking datura or anything else they can fit into their pipes, because they believe God to be fully imminent in any and all states of mind, and they want to realize this

Aghora is true nondualism. Not the only form of it, but a specific counter-culture reaction to Orthodox Brahmanism

>>17360275
Lotus, Diamond, and Platform Sutras

>>17369659
>and he'll often have his servants beat the untouchable to death as well
Lol, yes, I'm sure this happened "often", surely this isn't you just imbibing and repeating anti-caste nonsense

>>17369687
Heh, I'm actually for the caste system. It's failure to follow the varna that directly resulted in the destruction of India. Untouchables are usually Denisovan-Austronesians that remained in the stone age until Dravidians and later the Aryans spread their cultures around India

All of this infinite universe is the form of God. However on a practical level water is water and gasoline is gasoline. If you drink gasoline, you will die. If you put water in your car, your car will die. Both water and gas are equally God, yet both have their proper place in the material world. The same applies equally to the races of men

The different varnas (colors) of men should not mix, as Arjuna observes in the Bhagavad Gita to Lord Krishna-
>"When corruption of women takes place, O Varsneya, intermixture of varna takes place. This intermixture leads to hell, for the family destroyers and the family itself. Their ancestors fall as well, deprived of offerings of pindodaka due to them. Through the wrongdoings done by the destroyers of the family that causes the intermixture of the castes, the eternal dharmas of varna and family become extinct" Bhagavad Gita 1:42-44

>>17369767
Based

>>17369659
are there any central aghori texts I could read?

>>17360275
the big book of growing up

>>17370109
t.

>>17370107
>are there any central aghori texts I could read?
If I understand correctly there's no central texts that they all share. In the Aghora series by Robert Svoboda, his master Swami Vimalananda who was an Aghori that lived in a cremation ground for 13 years states that the Aghora are a very eclectic bunch and that no two of them will be exactly alike in the materials they study and practice. They all simply pick and choose whatever helps them the most

Honestly they're not a topic I'm very familiar with. I only ever read the first Aghora book by Svoboda and watched some youtube videos on them. If you want to learn more then that book series would be a great place to start. My wife is in the middle of the second book right now and she's really loving it

Should I first read some introductory books to Buddhism and Hinduism, or should I just straight out start with their religious texts? If the former, what books would you recommend?

>>17367042
it was fully unraveled

>>17370638
Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction by Mark Siderits

>>17370638
For Buddhism, definitely start with pic related, it's the best introductory book out there.

>>17370638
try geoffrey samuels for tantra/yoga, the first volume of surendranath dasgupta as a general guide and introduction, radhakrishnan's sourcebook + doniger's sourcebook for some starter texts, and doniger's history for basic overview of the different religious movements and how they rose and fall... samuels also has a good overview of the upanishad and buddhist/jain period in there, up to date with scholarshiop

>>17370743
>>17370749
>>17370872
thanks frens

>>17360329
indians don't care about hinduism
or they only look for portions which are proved by science (TM)

>>17369659
What kind of meditation do you do?
And what kind of text can I read if I'm not knowledgeable on hinduism?

Bump

Are there any books that go into detail about the different sects of Hinduism and Buddhism?
I'm not looking for things like the Brahma sutras, shvia puranas but something that goes into detail about
Shvism, Kashmiri and others.
Advita Vedanta
the different sects of Buddhism

>>17373562
The Advaita Tradition in Indian Philosophy by Sharma covers Advaita Vedanta, Kashmir Shaivism, and Madhyamaka and Yogachara Buddhism. He has an idiosyncratic take on Buddhism which I don’t fully agree with, and he is critical of the level of logical rigor (or what he claims is the lack thereof) in Kashmir Shaivism that you might not like if you are sympathetic to Shaivism, but all in all it’s a good book none the less and people are free to disagree with any part of it.

>>17367043
me too bro

HOLY SHIT FUCK OFF, WE ALL KNOW OP AND >>17360324
>>17360873
ARE ALL THE SAME ANONS

>>17373718
Nobody posting about based and red-pilled Hindu philosophy would ever recommend that cringe retard Nagarjuna

>>17373733
Nagarjuna is cool

>>17373738
I beg to differ

>>17373733
>>17373796
cringe
>>17373738
based

>>17373738
In as much as Nagarjuna's entire philosophical ouvre rips Hinduism to shreds, yes, he is correct that no one talking about Hinduism would bring up Nagarjuna. There's zero point in talking about Hinduism once Nagarjuna enters the discussion.

>>17373965
>Nagarjuna's entire philosophical ouvre rips Hinduism to shreds
can you give me a quick run down

>>17372311
>What kind of meditation do you do?
I'm using some methods from the Vijñāna Bhairava Tantra, the first one in particular. The VBT is a great text that lists 112 different methods of meditation in back to back order. This stuff plus basic anapanasmriti should take one very far

>And what kind of text can I read if I'm not knowledgeable on hinduism?
Hinduism is an umbrella term for several different religions. The school I study in particlar is the Trika sect of Kashmiri Shaivism. If you're interested in this same sect I'd study these books in this order-

-Tantra Illuminated by Christopher Wallis
-Yoga Sutras of Patanjali with the commentary of Swami Satchidananda (for the basics on conduct and meditation)
-Śivastotrāvali by Utpaladeva (for learning correct view and mindset)
-The Tripura Rahasya in the edition of "Shakti Sadhana"
-Gitartha Samgraha, which is Abhinavagupta's commentary on the Bhagavad Gita
-Vijñāna Bhairava Tantra translated by Christopher Wallis (he has a great series on youtube about this also)
-The Recognition Sutras by Christopher Wallis
-Shiva Sutras
-Kashmir Shaivism: Secret Supreme by Swami Lakshmanjoo
-Triadic Heart of Shiva by Muller-Ortega

Optional books are "Kali Kaula" which delves into good detail on tantric sadhana, particularly Shakta stuff, and "We're All Doing Time" by Bo Lozoff if you're starting from zero and know absolutely nothing about meditation. It's the most beautiful and concise introduction to meditation I've encountered

>>17373562
Tantra Illuminated goes into really intensive details about all of the various tantric schools

>>17373965
>Nagarjuna's entire philosophical ouvre rips Hinduism to shreds
No he didn’t lol. Nagarjuna was more or less just a sophist. He is not taken seriously by anyone except Buddhists, because his writings don’t make any sense or contain anything of value unless you already accept Buddhist axioms to begin with. He doesn’t have any consistent theory of mind, but what we can piece together about it doesn’t make any sense. He never explains how samsara and dependent origination can exist to begin with. Buddhists be like “hurr durr Nagarjuna refuted everything else, that’s how we know this wacky metaphysics of Buddhism that has rebirth and karma are true despite Nagarjuna not offering any arguments for them”

>>17374131
Whenever a Buddhist tries addressing the origin of ignorance they start making meandering statements about ignorance arising due to primordial blemishes upon the mind infinite millennia ago. They make it sound like ignorance is our true nature

Very similar to Advaita Vedanta with their failure to address ignorance/maya

>>17374131
>He never explains how samsara and dependent origination can exist to begin with
hello guenonfag

>>17374131
Have you read the MMK?

>>17374176
>Very similar to Advaita Vedanta with their failure to address ignorance/maya
There is no failure to address it in Advaita. In Advaita, to always be wielding His power of maya/avidya is the timeless svabhava or inherent self-nature of Brahman. Ergo there is no problem. Brahman is eternal and beginningless, His svabhava is similarly so, and this is how the universe has being. So Advaita can explain why we are sitting here right now.

Buddhism can not explain this. Buddha never explained what is the cause of samsara or dependent origination. But it cannot be dependent origination itself, because that involves fundamental contradictions, such as for example that the aggregation of the 12-links into the specific arrangement that allows them to impart causal efficiency to one another in an orderly manner is itself an action that is not explained in Buddhism. Buddhists say that Brahman cannot be the cause of the aggregation of the links in the chain, but if this is caused by dependent-origination (which it must be in order for dependent-origination to be universal, in order for Nagarjuna’s claim to hold true that there are no things not dependent on other things) which is itself dependent on that aggregation, it’s like a daughter giving birth to her own mother, i.e. a logical impossibility. There are no such irresolvable contradictions in the Advaitin explanation of things.

>>17374203
Not in it’s entirety yet, but I have read sections of it, as well as various book chapters on Madhyamaka and Mahayana, as well as various academic articles about finer points of its doctrine. I know enough about it that I could pose as a Mahayanist or Madhyamakin and you guys wouldn’t even know the difference, seriously.
>b-b-but until you read the MMK from beginning to end you are not allowed to criticize Nagarjuna!!!
I disagree, and everyone who says this is a hypocrite since they are almost always the same people bashing Hinduism who have not read the Hindu philosophers and schools they bash

Well, I don't know anything about those gitagitabavabas. I'm confused. What Hinduist and Buddhist texts do you recommend start with? I would like to learn Sanskrit btw.

>>17361026
This sums up why I hate being Indian sometimes.
No, people don't always hate us, especially as much as other non-white groups. But you again confirmed my suspicion: people don't take us seriously. We're like a joke.

>>17366758
Thanks anon. I don't try to LARP was white or want to be an honorary Aryan. Just to be treated as an individual and not caricatured based on my race.

>>17362325
> hare krishna translation
ngmi

>>17374176
Yea I just can't be convinced by Advaita's paradox of a perfect being like Brahman muddying itself with illusion. Seems like a convenient ploy on the part of Hindus to retain followers under the impression that they need to unmuddy themselves in order to realize the absolute which leads to another logical loophole in Advaita that those followers are not even distinct individuals with their own conscious but cogs of an apparently imperfect universal conscious ie they're literally just muds.

>>17374484
This.

Ramanjacharya's Vishishtadvaita does not have this problem since the multiplicity of jivas is a feature of a unitary Brahman, not a consequence of it.

>>17374534
*Ramanujacharya

As a Catholic, is it forbidden to read non-Catholic religious texts?

>>17374309
>In Advaita, to always be wielding His power of maya/avidya is the timeless svabhava or inherent self-nature of Brahman
How could the formless, motionless, absolute stillness of Brahman wield maya? This sounds like a theistic development that came around centuries after Shankaracarya lived

>and this is how the universe has being
Every Advaitin I've ever heard from claims that the universe does not exist and that every single thing we have or ever will perceive is utterly false. The universe is non-existent and an illusion that arises from ignorance, seeing the snake in the rope. Various texts even go beyond this, such as calling the hand "the mistake of a thumb, the mistake of a forefinger, the mistake of a middle finger" and so on

Are you sure you're speaking of pure Advaita and not Advaita that was mixed with Sri Vidya?

>>17374484
>Yea I just can't be convinced by Advaita's paradox of a perfect being like Brahman muddying itself with illusion
There's a story in Shaivism that says that Lord Shiva asked Maya to bind Him. After all, infinite perfection has literally nothing to do but experience imperfection, and any motion away from the singularity of perfection is to create imperfection

Or in other words, if you want to create a compelling narrative, you need evil, suffering, antagonists and background characters. It's all the lila of God entertaining Himself, by choosing to incarnate into the diverse universe we all experience

>>17374534
Ramanujacarya is based. If I was going to follow Vaishnavism I'd roll with him

>>17374558
Do Shivites see Shiva as the supreme God in Hinduism?
Do they even see Shiva as a being?
I've heard people like Sadhguru talk about shiva as more of a spirit/mechanism and less of a God the way Vaishnavas speak of Krishna

>>17374349
>No
Then why have an opinion on it?

>>17374591
There's a bunch of different types of Shaivites out there. Some are dualistic and see him as a literal being that exists in the shape of a man on Mount Kailash. Others such as Trika teach that Shiva is consciousness itself and that the mythological Shiva is basically symbolic for pointing out the true God (who is consciousness) that lies beyond all names and forms (yet is all names and forms). There's lots of different sects that run the gamut from radical dualism to nondualism

Then you also have a lot of self-proclaimed Shaivites out there that are actually Smartas who basically follow Advaita Vedanta and just worship Shiva as their ishtadeva

>>17374591
Here is a write I wrote explaining the 32 Tattva ontology/metaphysics of tantra, it explains how they view shiva and how maya even works in the system.

Revelation to Revelation: An analysis of the 36 tattvas with their relations to the sephiroth through phenomenology

By the learning of the Art of tantra
Using the Holy art of Kabbalah
Through the science of all Phenomena
We have science of Absolute Jhana

The following shall be a basic explanation of just the 36 tattvas (tattva meaning principle or Law, there are truly 37 when we count Attatva/Paramsiva) in their phenomenological/ontological meanings and their primary relations to basic western Kabbalah and phenomenology when relevant.


Prior to elaboration upon the tattvas we must first speak of the ground by which they are formed, which is prior to them and is expressed by them.

First there is Paramsiva (Attatva, 0, Ain) and this is absolute divinity, absolute existence, it is the point prior to being and the essential nature of reality. Its nature can be called empty and nothing, for it lacks any particular parts or aspects, nothing for it is like nothing that we can conceive of or speak of. This is the point unspeakable, prior to being and prior to even consciousness of which nothing can truly be spoken of as it is beyond and is the basis of being and phenomena. This is identical to the unknowable and speakable “Ain” of the Kabbalists.

The revelation of Paramsiva, the light and elaboration of who paramsiva is, is revealed by the 36 tattvas. Thus the divine Personality revealed himself by his own light.

The First Tattva is the Shiva Tattva, Shiva (all pervading, the origin of the grace/gift of reality ) is the transcendental I, which is to say, it is that self nature and being which pervades consciousness, the unity which underlies the entirety of consciousness causing it to be a singular stream. This is that which pervades all consciousness. I. It is so close and near to the nature of Paramsiva that it and Paramsiva are often counted as one. This is because the fundamental nature of reality (paramsiva) is fully revealed through Shiva(transcendental Ego) thus we can speak of shiva Tattva as Kether with its Nonduality to paramsiva mirroring the relationship between kether and Ain(which the kabbalists also identify as one in the same at times due to being the full expression in a singular point of the other)

Shiva tattva is called Prakasa(light) for the nature of Paramsiva in its immensity of aspects, traits and so forth are unveiled through it, within it and by it, just as all things in sight are pervaded with the presence of light so is it that all things within consciousness are pervaded by the nature of Shiva and are uncovered through Shiva. Thus the nature of the I which pervades all things first gives light to itself, perceiving itself. This term Prakasa(light) truly means Self apprehension or rather, the apprehension which the self Allows to occur.

CONT

>>17374773
This giving light to itself is called the second Tattva, Shakti Tattva. Shakti means Power/energy but really means consciousness/awareness. For the self nature can only recognize itself through consciousness and these three, transcendental I and consciousness and inherent being are bound so closely that they are almost useless to divide whatsoever.

Turning our eyes to the west, Husserl tried to strip down all that he perceived in phenomena and found that when he strips all that experienced to its fundamental nature, all was just his conscious experience, and we cannot say anything beyond this.

Heidegger his student believed he went one step further and said that the root of consciousness is Being. To Husserl however to be conscious and to be are in experience identical. This was confirmed most fully by luc Marion who reduced it one step further, consciousness reducing to being, being reducing to “givenness” Givenness is simply phenomenal awareness itself in the doctrine of intentionality. (Consciousness always being conscious of something) thus by this conscious, being and giveness are demonstrated to be fundamentally nearly identical.

It is these which the Shakti Tattva truly embodies, it is the consciousness of the self nature and consciousness which pervades all, though its proximity to Shiva Tattva we must reckon it second for just as the rays of light of a flame come forth from a flame, so also does consciousness and being root out of the unity which pervades them(Shiva Tattva, which is not conscious and cannot be referred to or spoken of as anything but I and all things)

This shakti Tattva is called Vimarsa which is to say, the power of self relation/self reference, for it is the light of Self reflecting upon itself which allows self-apprehension to arise, this apprehension of self is shakti, the self pervading it is Shiva. As such this point corresponds to Chokmah in the kabbalistic system, but in particular the higher nature of chokmah which is Nondual to kether(this is true double Aleph concealed in Bereshit) for this Vimarsa nature is the duality which is self reflective and unveils itself which is what is referred to in the kabbalistic alchemical symbol of the Ouroboros, for shiva by partaking of himself gains consciousness and consciousness of himself is his self-awareness, thus he is his own mirror and the image reflected in the mirror. This state is absolute bliss.

The Shakti Tattva because it has been created by Shiva, awareness (which is shiva) and awareness of Shiva (man, mirror, man in the mirror) gives rise to the third Tattva, Sadasiva(the eternally all pervading )

Cont

Sorry, 36 not 32, spell check error, usually write 32 paths for Kabbalah stuff.

>>17374781

Which is to say, Self-apprehension and recognition gives rise to Will(Iccha) this Tattva is actually a blending of Shiva (self ) and Shakti (awareness) and in this one, Shiva is predominant and shakti is a passive aspect. Which is to say, this is The Will of the transcendental ego which through consciousness now seeks to go out of itself in order to be before itself, to know itself. If the Shiva Tattva is I, the Shakti Tattva is Am, Sadasiva is “I am this” (Aham Idam) where “This” is the entirety of reality, the object (mirror, consciousness ) exists very faintly as it is only a means for the Will of the transcendental ego to unfold and know itself. Allegorically this is like a man looking at a Canvas with the Will to create an art piece.

This sadasiva is identical to the heart of Chokmah, for Chokmah is the place of Will and the double wand of power. For without the duality of Chokmah there can be no Will, no Power, no relation, no direction of consciousness towards anything.

This is to say, in sadasiva both Aham(I) and Idam(this, the object which Aham desires ) both exist but Aham has dominance and idam is in obscurity.

Sadasiva then being the Will of the subtle transcendental ego moves towards itself and unveils itself by depleting itself, it looking upon the entirety of self and consciousness says “I am this” and its Will drives it to ask “what is this that I am?” To which Sadasiva responds “ I am ishvara(Lord)

Which is to say, The Will of sadasiva empties itself of Shiva nature in order to gain apprehension of itself as shakti once more. This is the Arising of the fourth Tattva, Ishvara Tattva.

Ishvara Tattva is when the “this” gains predominance and the “I” quality becomes submissive, for this is the Tattva which is knowledge itself and knowledge is when the self is depleted and gains filling by partaking of the nature of that which is other. This is like a man looking upon a mirror seeking to see who he is and says “my appearance is thus” and then describes himself in relation and contrast to everything else. The object world becomes predominant but the subject still has passive existence, allegorically if Sadasiva is a man before a canvas who wills to create an art piece, Ishvara Tattva is when he has drawn his picture to some degree and the art itself has become the object of vision and not the man.

Kabbalistically this is where chokmah and binah connect (Daleth) for it is the otherness and emptiness of binah being pervaded by the subtle touch and lordship of Chokmah, for binah is absolute submission and chokmah is lordship and fullness. Phenomenologically this is when the Will of self seeks to know itself so it goes out of itself and having emptied itself, now perceives its own spirit reflected in the other.

Cont

>>17374791

This Tattva can be defined as Idam Aham, “this I am” which is to say the otherness is perceived and then a faint experience of self, This place then is where otherness and knowledge (as revelation through other) occurs and arises and from it arises the next tattva, Suddha-vidya or Kriya.

The fifth Tattva is Suddha vidya(pure wisdom ) or Kriya(action ) it is called this because unlike the previous two tattvas, it has neither predominance in the nature of shiva nor shakti but is rather perfectly harmonized, neither aham or idam have preference, in this, the conscious mind recognizes itself as its own consciousness and perceives that all that occurs is within its own perception.

Because it perceives that all occurs within its own perception, I and this no longer truly mean anything distinct, this is because both are resting in the self nature which pervades both, they have the same ground in their being.

Before we continue it is important that we explain the only true form of difference which exists in these and fundamentally all of the tattvas.

Of all the forms of change, Only Vikara truly has existence, what is Vikara? It is modification akin to how Gold is shaped or clay is molded, the shape/form might be changed but the intrinsic functions on the lowest level remain the same, and because this is the case the form (which is only transient and bound to time thus will change according to vikara) will always return to its original shape of shiva given enough time, the popular allegory is a world like a sea of light and the multitude of forms and differences being only a difference like waves in the ocean, they are only different in form not in actual substance/essence.

Now returning back to the nature of Kriya Tattva, it is called such because it is like the perception of man who understands now what he perceives, thus from here he can now look with right perception and thus give birth to distinguishing.

It is called Suddha Vidya because it is purity in categorization and structuring of knowledge, which allows perfection in action, thus this Tattva is the origin of action, Thus the kriya tattva moves to enact itself, but this is the origin of the key ontological problem.

Suddha vidya is Binah in itself, it is the saturnine imprisoning force which brings all into creation, why is this exactly?

>>17374795
Because so far we have elaborated upon the five “pure tattvas” which is to say, everything has been a pure reflection of shiva within himself, revealing light to himself, what was revealed was his conscious being, his Bliss, His Will, His knowledge and his action, these five are truly the manifest being of Paramsiva revealing himself, but now that we have reached Kriya we reach the phase where the perception must form distinctions and divisions in order to express and understand itself, thus the next tattvas are called shakti tattvas, as they are how the Kriya Tattva understands and recognizes its own unity, but by doing this process unity becomes obscured and only vidya, only organization exists.

Suddha vidya/ Tattva then is the BwO point, The point where a unity and multiplicity affirm and create each other, thus the Kriya Tattva performs its action of self perception, this creates the Maya Tattva

The 6th Tattva Maya(illusion, deception, Magic) is the first break away from shiva and is the most creative and distinction creating force in the entirety of the tattvas, Maya Tattva can be summarized as obscuration, the capacity of the perception to become perceptive of something implies that it lacks it, thus by Kriya Tattva seeking self realization/revelation it brought into existence obscuring of self.

This obscuration causes the great divide in the soul of shiva for shiva now has his unity as the object world and subject world divided and obscured, he can only perceive of what he and others are by differences. Thus Maya is all that limits perception and all that perfects perception, it is the mirage and what is truly being seen, let it be understood before we continue that even as obscuration, Maya is fully divine and all that she conceals is still fully divine, it is simply hidden.

Consider for a moment you a man, he goes into his imagination and imagines a clock, a bed and two people talking who do not have any idea of his existence, would you say the objects of his imagination or the people have independent existence from the man imagining them? Of course not, they are dependent and fundamentally have their being rooted in he who imagines them. In this same way any obscuration is simply the play, the pretend, the fantasy of Shiva. Whether you recognize this and view maya as revelation or not and you view maya as obscuration.

Maya mind you, is identical to the womb of binah and how binah and daat are Nondual, truly you could correspond maya to daat and all that is below it. For just as Da’ath is either an abyss where ignorance and lack dwells, or very revelation and knowledge of god, so also is the nature of Maya.

>>17374801
Maya, which is to say, the paradox of knowledge within perception, exists and produces 5 further tattvas by which it further obscures itself, these five further obscurations are truly just the five original tattvas as they reflect and exist within perception under limitations. These all exist within Maya thus are conceived of as a pentagram, because they have both the power to bind into creation(perceiving them as partial, limited, finite things) and also to give liberation (as they are infinite, boundless, identical to the five tattvas ) (note the arrangement of these following 5 tattvas has multiple systems, we will be outlining the arrangement of abhinavagupta in the Tantraloka and Tantrasara, as opposed to the system in Pratyabhijndhrdayam for example.) consider each of these tattvas as a means of conditioning the original five tattvas in accordance with limited object-perception.

The first of these Five tattvas is the 7 Tattva called the Kala (Part, power) Tattva, this Tattva is both the perception of parts/pieces (thus division and difference ) it is both which divides things into divisions but also what says “you are a part of shiva) This Tattva reflects Siva Tattva, it is the very manner by which we divide anything in the perception, it divides the universe and self nature into discrete objects and subjective individuals. Recognition that all parts are part of one whole is the remedy and reconstructs the unity/harmony of Siva Tattva as it exists within perception. Such is the case with all of the maya tattvas, they are both poison and the medicine by which the previous tattvas remanifest.

The dividing into parts is the emergence of time from the stream of eternity, for by dividing into parts we gain ability to understand position in space-time thus arises the 8th Tattva, the Kala(time) Tattva, for time is understood here to be sensibility in relation of parts and our relation to them in terms of capacity (i can be here, i was there, I will do this) etc, this dividing of parts creates a range of points by which time may occur in, within time once more the Shiva Tattva becomes aware of itself thus gaining awareness of itself in time. this Tattva is the reflection of shaktti Tattva, as we cannot understand Being in perception unless we speak of being as being-in-time (see dasein, Heidegger, husserl, Hegel, etc) thus this Tattva allows the unfolding of self in time which is the bliss of the world, the marriage of self with the diversity in time. For in this, the self nature learns to recognize itself through the diversity and multiplicity of its expressions as different parts in time, This Tattva becomes a remedy when you recognize that all parts of time are one unity, eternity, thus all points in time are just the self awareness of the Self unveiling to itself.

Cont

>>17374804
The next Tattva is the reflection of the Sadasiva Tattva in perception, it is the 9th Tattva, asudda/Vidya(impure-incomplete knowledge, wisdom, truly science in the sense of human cultivated and stored knowledge as opposed to absolute knowledge as truth. ) this is the perception of individuals of gaining partial specific information, this Tattva can be summarized as the faculty of the perception to discriminate objects and subjects thus gain particular knowledge of each of them. This Tattva when understood to be sadasiva Tattva, when it is understood that all knowledge is fundamentally a means of knowing the awareness/presence of god, it is suddenly filled with Will towards God and the vidya Tattva becomes freed and boundless, allowing one to perceive all things as being caused by Shiva. Whereas Kala Tattva allowed division into parts, Kala(time) Tattva allowed division of parts along space-time, Vidya allows discrimination and categorization of such parts into their proper ordering, which is to say, it gives it its purpose and context, this Tattva is identical to the Aristotelian the Telos/end, for it is by discriminating that we may say “this seed is not yet a tree” and by this we gain understanding of what any particular thing does. Thus it is Iccha Tattva and as iccha Tattva it seeks Again to god know itself as and express itself by emptying itself, thus it becomes the Aristotelian Formal cause

It gives rise to our next Tattva, the Raga Tattva.

The reflection of Jhana/Ishvara is the 10th Tattva, Raga(desire) as discrimination allows for the arising of particular favorable and unfavorable aspects, one becomes capable of desiring specific things and desire to create and do occurs, this desire is the manifestation in perception of lordship, for it is arbitrary desire directed towards particular objects which is said to be material freedom, Desire unlike will does not have a universal characteristic but rather is a vague hunger for certain particular specific desires, it is like a man who is hungry, he does not desire all things, he desires specifically Food, this is because the perception now perceives the differences in things and says “I want certain things and not other things”

Thus the objects of desire, which is to say, the knowable objects by which the self may come to express are dominant in this Tattva, as the self has gone out of seeking itself but rather seeks to internalize the specific objects surrounding it into itself and deny others.


this Raga Tattva becomes when it realizes it is all desire, it is both the thing desired, he who desires and the partaking of desire. By this unification the world of knowledge is identified as being the mirror of the self nature, thus Raga Tattva is identical to Jhana, for it is simply knowledge of itself. This self relation and knowledge gives rise to the final of the five Maya/sub-kriyasakti tattva, the Niyati Tattva.

Cont

>>17374809

The eleventh Tattva is The niyati Tattva which is causation, cause and effect plain and simple it is identical to space but space in the sense of being in a specific position in relation to everything else, this Noyati is identical to the Efficient cause of Aristotle and from this Tattva which is causation do the five intermingle and a third division of the tattvas must occur.

This is because Causation causes the harmonizing of all the other 4 in their relations to each other, thus it, like Suddhavidya has unified its object and subject perceptions to a point of absolute unity that it may go further, for in the limited mind it is ones own doing which is the cause of all that he experiences and where he goes, and this is the view of the man who’s eyes are covered in the veiled form of Causation, but the true form of causation is realizing that all causes are truly one in the same, arising from one mover and being a singular caused event, the causer being Shiva and the event caused being the unveiling of shiva, thus this Tattva reflects and is the Kriya/action nature made manifest.

Just as suddhavidya induced the next set, this is the birth of the Impure Tattvas division, which is to say, A division which is a product of the shakti division, these are the aspects of reality which derive and underneath causality/karma, as they are beneath causality the aspect of Shiva-shakti in these are so concealed that they are titled Atma tattvas (atma meaning breath, essence, interior soul) because the five maya tattvas have objectified experience to such a point. (Note they are also sometimes divided as prakrti tattvas Prakrti being explained later)
(Note, in the Pratyabhijndhrdayam system, it would go Kala=Shiva/Cit/conscious being Vidya=Shakti/ananda/bliss Raga=Sadasiva/Iccha/Will Kala=Jhana/Ishvara/knowledge Niyati=Kriya/Suddhavidya/action)
The first to rise out of niyati Tattva is Purusha, the twelfth Tattva Purusha is simply the reflection of Shiva and Kala (part) as it exists underneath perception within causality, Purusha then can be defined as ones perception of the self as it exists in causality, the “experient” this is the phenomenal experience of a subtle self, the subtle stratum of all experiences which is pervaded by the observer. Make no mistake, purusha is simply the Shiva Tattva as it exists within the perceptions and how these perceptions relate underneath causal relations. This would correspond precisely to the true nature of chesed, the Subtle most layer of actual phenomena which is ones own experience of a self.
This is the first time subjective ego as an experience is truly independently existent but it is still hidden, quiet, pervading all without declaring itself. Because this is its nature it produces its own self recognition by declaring all that it is not, which is to say, it gives rise to genuine experience of objects/otherness. This is to say, it gives rise to the Thirteenth Tattva, the Prakrti Tattva

CONT

>>17374484
>Yea I just can't be convinced by Advaita's paradox of a perfect being like Brahman muddying itself with illusion.
Advaita Vedanta doesn't teach this, only people who have not read Shankara believe this. The Atma-Brahman is completely unaffected by maya/avidya, It is eternally liberated and pure.

Often times, a source of this misconception is that people don't understand the difference in Advaita between the Atma and the reflection (chidabhasa) of the Self in the intellect. The Atma does not perceive maya or avidya, the Atma does not have maya or maya-objects for the object of its vision but instead the Atma forever abides in non-duality that transcends knower, known and means of knowing. The Atma-Brahman is totally unclouded and unaffected by maya/avidya, and the reflection of the Self in the intellect of the jiva is what seems to have experiences and ignorance and which seems to have subject-objection distinctions etc.

>>17374534
>Ramanjacharya's Vishishtadvaita does not have this problem since the multiplicity of jivas is a feature of a unitary Brahman
The problem with that interpretation is that Upanishads condemn the perception of multiplicity and say that it leads to further death in both Brihadaranyaka Up. 4.4.19 and in Katha Up. 2.1.10. Also, to say that jivas are parts within the whole of Brahman has its own problems such as that the Svetasvatara Up. says that Brahman is partless in verses 6.5. and 6.20. Also, the very relationship of parts and whole is contradictory as Shankara explains in his Brahma Sutra Bhasya, because if things were parts of a greater whole ; then, were this whole to exist anywhere, then it must necessarily exist in the parts of which it is made, because if it did not exist within its parts then it wouldn't exist anywhere else and would be non-existent. But the whole also cannot exist within its parts, because the whole, by definition, cannot be contained within individual parts which are incomplete components of the whole; because then the same whole would be both the complete whole and the incomplete non-whole, violating the law of non-contradiction. I'm not trying to hate on Ramanuja btw I like him, I just think Advaita is more logically refined and closer to the Upanishads. Even following Vishishtadvaita would still qualify as meditation on the Saguna Brahman though which according to Advaita grants access to the Brahmaloka at death, which you can attain liberation from; they are not so opposed as people often assume.

>>17374816
Prakrti meaning origin, nature and so forth really means the world as given in experience as an object divided from ones self utterly, prakrti is truly just the Shakti Tattva but bound underneath perception and suspended in causality. Prakrti can be understood as all non-subtle phenomena, anything you can perceive which is not “I” in basic experience.

Experience/Prakrti would correspond precisely to the true nature of Gevurah, which is exactly within Husserl’s model the Noematic data (the information in experience ) which has a Sinn (sense, the conception of it built up) which has a bedeutung (the actual thing being experienced, the thing referred to conceptually) this process is identical to the process of Prakrti.

Prakrti has within it the three primary types of experiences, Experience of self as identical to experience (Sattva) experience of self as related/contrasting of object experience (Rajas) and experience of no self and only objects/otherness (Tamas)

Allegorically this is spoken of as Light (Sattva) darkness (Tamas) and oscillation between light and dark (Rajas) this is why Rajas is correspondent to violence and energetic movement, tamas to lethargy and sleep and Sattva to wakeful relaxation and comfort. These three gunas/aspects of experience are so balanced within prakrti that they are effectively one thing, as such Prakrti can be said to be called the Tattva of gunas (experience of object qualities.)

These three gunas are truly just The Jhana, Kriya and iccha as they lay resting in prakrti, the Jhana becoming Sattva, for it retains knowledge of its nature, The kriya/action becoming rajas which dashes between and the will of God and man becomes torment and slumbers within the objects, hidden and obscured.

Just as before, Purusha the experient through prakrti his experience is able to view himself and looks upon his three gunas, these are then manifested as individuals tattvas in their own right pulling the rest with each other.

First the experient sees experience as knowledge of himself, thus arises the fourteenth Tattva, the Buddhi tattva(Sattva, Jhana) Buddhi meaning intelligence or Mind. Intelligence here being knowledge/understanding the relationship between the internal subjective experience and the external objective experience, for this reason Buddhi is considered as if a mirror for it utterly reflects these two types of experiences, equalizing them as nothing more than ripples/movements of the same substance.

This Buddhi Tattva is identical to the role of tiphereth as the reasoning principle in our Kabbalah and this is precisely the reason in our western philosophy, the harmonizing element of experiences, Mind/intelligence/reason knowing itself then seeks to harmonize Purusha into a singular whole, it does this by creating an abstraction, a conception of an “I” a concept of the Ego and identity. This identity is the Ahamkara Tattva.

CONT

>>17374820
>>17374558
>How could the formless, motionless, absolute stillness of Brahman wield maya?
Are you implying that God needs to be comprised of form and constantly moving in order to wield the power that is inherent in Him? Because I find that suggestion ridiculous. Brahman is the anterior cause of form which is contingent, being delimited by spatial conditions; from formlessness arises form. When Brahman is omnipotent, all-pervasive and formless, he doesn't need a physical arm to wield the power that is inherent in Him like humans need an arm to grasp a weapon. Motion and the lack of motion are completely meaningless notions unless situated in three-dimensional space, but Brahman is the anterior cause of three-dimensional space, Brahman didn't exist inside a three-dimensional space which He moved around in before creating more space.
>This sounds like a theistic development that came around centuries after Shankaracarya lived
No, it's actually what he consistently says throughout all of his writings, just try taking a look at them. For some weird reason, a lot of Tantrists and Vedantists who came after him developed the misconception that in Shankara's Advaita a) maya exists on its own for some weird reason or that b) that Brahman undergoes nescience. Both of these are completely false. Shankara is always consistent that maya is the magical power of the Paramisvara, who always transcends His own power. Theism means a God who personally intervenes (more so than just giving rise to the world), Brahman doesn't personally intervene in the world, so I consider Advaita still non-theistic even with this.

>>17374825
The fifteenth Tattva, the concept of an “I” as its exists through an abstract identity based on causal points is primarily created in order to control and regulate the purusha as it exists within particular qualities of experiences as a matter of regulation. Because the concept of ego arises as a regulation tool it is primarily rajas(changing, shifting) in nature so that it may deal with integration of any of the three gunas it comes across.

This Tattva is precisely the same as netzach as perception/intuition of I and specifically identical to the netzach-Lucifer formula of Rosicrucianism and hermeticism( see the emerald tablet and Jacob boehme for further information)

The interior of Ahamkara is said to be like a dark house whereas the outside is full of light, which is to say, it is like the Mind/reason allowing itself to rest/become lethargic in perception of self whereas the external world and relation to it constantly shifts. This limitation allows Ahamkara(the concept of i/identity) to bring things into itself without changing its fundamental structure, only its relation to other.

This Ego/Ahamkara as it is action, constructs for itself the sixteenth Tattva, the manas (Mind)

The manas herein is not mind as in the intellect or consciousness, but rather in the sense of the membrane by which you perceive mental images, consider and conceive of various sense data and so forth, which is to say it is the root of the sense organs as they are perceived and experienced through the identity. (Compare this to modern works on the conscious mind such as metzinger’s work on conscious in relation to transparency)

This categorizing membrane is identical to Hod in Kabbalah, Hod meaning illumination as in the illumination of senses by the light of mind (which refers to the logical structure of the conscious mind and senses )

Manas as it is the membrane of perception and is the resting/Tamas organ which is full of will, produces specific sense organs and methods by which it may partake of particular finer and grosser sense data and categorize it thusly.

(Note, Buddhi, Ahamkara and manas are debated in their guna attributions and which comes prior but again we are aligning with abhinavagupta’s model)

These following Tattva are simple and gross enough that they need not much explanation, let it be known the following tattvas are not the physical organs but rather the principles and organs of the mind itself which allow/connect to the physical bodily organs/methods and not the bodily organs themselves.

These arise in accordance once more with the Gunas, wherein Guna becomes a sensory mode, rajas an action corresponding to such a sensory mode and tamas a specific thing being perceived by The sensory mode.

Cont

>>17374827
>Every Advaitin I've ever heard from claims that the universe does not exist and that every single thing we have or ever will perceive is utterly false.
>The universe is non-existent and an illusion that arises from ignorance, seeing the snake in the rope.
I don't know if this is because they had a superficial understanding of Advaita, or were just bad at explaining it, or that you misunderstood or some combination of all three. The TLDR though is that Advaita says that Brahman is absolutely real, and that the world of objects is only relatively real, like a dream until you wake up from it. The more accurate term is 'Anirvachaniya', or neither classifiable as (absolutely) real nor unreal. This is not contradicted by our experience though, because we also experience dreams which are then sublated, and we also experience optical illusions which we can mistake for real. Just as these can seem real and then are suddenly revealed not to be; in the same way Advaita says that our empirical experience is only relatively real like dreams, it's not absolutely real. That it flows from the power of the Lord is what allows it to take place as that empirically-real content.
>Various texts even go beyond this, such as calling the hand "the mistake of a thumb, the mistake of a forefinger, the mistake of a middle finger" and so on
I have never once encountered this, but I primarily read translations of medieval-era stuff and not Neo-Vedanta and other new-age stuff
>Are you sure you're speaking of pure Advaita and not Advaita that was mixed with Sri Vidya?
I source my understanding of Advaita from having read most of Shankara's works, I have not gotten to reading the works of Sri Vidya and Bhaskararaya yet but I look forward to doing so eventually.

>>17374832
The five jñānendriya(the five senses)


The 17th Tattva śrotra (ear), the mind’s medium to experience sound.
The 18th Tattva tvāk (skin), the mind’s medium to experience touch.
The 19th Tattva caksus (eye), the mind’s medium to experience colour and shape.
20th Tattva rasana (tongue), the mind’s medium to experience taste.
The 21st ghrāna (nose), the mind’s medium to experience smell.


These mental faculties allow for the manifestation of the five karmendriya (motor organs, actions by which behavior may occur) tattvas.

They are predominately Rajastic, as such they must manifest as particular actions. They are acts that correspond to the sense organs.

The 22rd tattva vāk (mouth,speech) - the capacity that makes sound/speech possible
The 23rd Tattva pāni (hand) - the capacity that enables grabbing and touching
The 24th Tattva pāda (leg, movement) - the capacity that enables distinction in sight
The 25th Tattva upasthā(sexual organs) the capacity to partake in and give sexual sensations and to procreate (just as the mouth tastes flavor the organs taste sexual bliss)
The 26th Tattva pāyu (anus) - the capacity to produce waste, produce smells and so forth

The final Guna to manifest is Tamas which manifests as the other previous two sets but doesn’t partake whatsoever in the self of their experient, as such whereas in sattva it is “capacity to see” in the tamas Guna it is that which is seen(aspect of subject vs aspect of object awareness)

The five tanmātra (subtle) tattvas, called subtle for they are perceived as external and pass away and constantly their form.

The 27th Tattva Sabda=perception of Sound
The 28th Tattva Sparsa=perception of Touch
The 29th Tattva Rupa=perception of form, shape, structure
The 30th Tattva Rasa=perception of Taste
The 31st Tattva Gandha=perception of Smell

These fifteen tattvas are correspondent to Yesod in Kabbalah, the direct sensual perceptions as they appear in normative non-restricted mundane perception, admixed and constantly shifting like shadows.

These fifteen tattvas allow perception of the final 7 tattvas, the 5 Mahabhutas(great Elements)

Arising from Hearing, speaking and sound is the 32nd Tattva, the Akasha which is to say, perception of void/space/aether, for without such a void speech and hearing cannot be possible, consider bats which use their voice as a means of locating voids in space.
arising from the tattvas of Skin, hands and touch but also the Void is the 33rd Tattva, the vāyu Tattva which is to say breath/Air. As air/breath can only be perceived by being touched by it (you cannot smell, taste, see or hear a quiet air, it can only be felt physically upon you)
Arising from the tattvas of eyes, movement and seeing forms and also from air is the 34th Tattva, the Agni/Teja Tattva, which is to say, fire. For fire cannot exist without Air.

CONT

>>17374838
Arising out of the tattvas of the tongue, Sexual organs and taste and from the contrast of Tejas/Agni is The 35th Tattva Apas is Water. Water comes forth from fire as water was formed from the combustion and fiery reactions of the stars.

The 36th Tattva which arises the tattvas of capacity of smell, the Anus and perception of smells is the final Tattva Prithvi/Bhumi.

This is the earth/habitable world wherein all creation occurs, this world is where filth, perception of admixtures and so forth occurs. It arises out of Water, because all life and things of the earth derive from water and the particular structure of the earth is formed by the waters.

These final five elemental tattvas correspond perfectly to the interior of Malkuth.

Thus to summarize all of these tattvas are simply the unveiling and revelation of paramsiva, the supreme unspeakable self nature which is beyond even the term self. This has five Shakti/modes of manifestations as awarenesses which manifest the entirety of the tattvas as their expression through their intermingling. Here are the correspondences/rulerships of the five fold shakti.

1=Shiva/Cit, Kala(part), Purusha, hearing, the ear, sound, Akasha/void, Lord of the Tattva/Godform=Shiva, act of Shiva=creation

2=Shakti/Ananda, Kala(Time), Prakrti, Skin, capacity to grab, perception of Touch, Vayu/air, lord of the Tattva/Godform=Shakti, Act of Shiva=maintenance

3=Sadasiva/Iccha, Vidya, Manas, sight, Form, perception of Form, Tejas/Agni/fire, Lord of the Tattva/Godform=Sadasiva=act of shiva=destruction

4=Ishvara/Jnana, Raga, Buddhi, capacity to taste, the sexual organs and sex, experience of taste, Apas/Water, Lord of the Tattva/Godform=Shiva as Ishvara=act of shiva concealment

5=Suddhavidya/Kriya and by extension Maya, Niyati, Ahamkara, Capacity to smell, excretion, smells, Prithvi/Bhumi/earth, Lord of the Tattva/Godform=Shiva as Ananta(the limitless, vastness but also as the serpent.)=act of shiva=revelation

These are the True pentagram, the pentagram of Adam Kadmon which is reflected upon the brow of baphomet/Daat, these five powers/shakti are the expression of the five fold nature of Shiva, the revelation of Shiva of himself to himself by himself.


I seal this writing in the name which contains all of these 36 tattvas and is the nature of attatva, I seal it by I, I seal it by Sauh.

>>17374839
i see your posts here and on/x/, you're pretty much the first time i've been glad to see a trip

do you have a place where you share your thoughts and writings outside of 4chan?

>>17374875
Eh, I have a blog thing which I use to store my philosophy, occult and poetry writing, here’s a link if you desire it. All of the major philosophical writings is under “soseinology”

https://pastebin.com/tiCSYRhh

Soseinology is what I call the odd field of basically laruelle-esque meinonian typhonian philosophy that I’m writing about. For context you’ll need to begin with the Kaaba of 237 and work upwards to the newest articles, or you could see how you do with just the newer articles.

Let me see if I can actually link the site itself, apologies if I come off spammy or too noticeable.

zothyrianrevisionist.home.blog

>>17374190
The thread was too nice, he had to come in and ruin it. Now he's going to copypaste anti-buddhist rambling for 100 posts and kill it like he does every other thread. Please don't respond to Guenonfag, everyone.

>>17374373
Indians are fun and easy to make fun of because you have many distinctive traits. I do it sometimes. But ultimately I love you guys, you are a hell of a people, with many internal variations. Don't take the ball busting too seriously.

>>17374362
Hmm you could try reading the Ramayana, the Bhagavad Gita, the early Upanishads in an easy and accessible pocketbook-sized translation like Mascaro's, plus some similar starter books for Buddhism like >>17370749. Ultimately you will want to read some solid overviews like >>17370872 >>17370743 but there's nothing wrong with just having some fun first. Sanskrit is challenging.

>>17373562
Dasgupta for sure. It seems longer than it is because it covers every school, but the first two volumes give you most of the lay of the land, and you can then read what interests you in the other volumes. Dasgupta's theories of the origins of Buddhism and Jainism are outdated but in general he is quite good at classifying the schools.

>>17374362
Radhakrishnan, Olivelle or Nikhilananda have good editions of Upanishad translations you can read. The other anon already listed some good texts like the Bhagavad-Gita etc, but I would advise against the Upanishad translator he recommended. If you are fine with reading short texts online you could check this out this Hindu text as well below.

https://realization.org/p/ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita.html

>>17374890
>in an easy and accessible pocketbook-sized translation like Mascaro
his translation of the Upanishads are abridged and notoriously outdated/questionable
>Now he's going to copypaste anti-buddhist rambling for 100 posts and kill it like he does every other thread
Pointing out the numerous logical contradictions and inconsistencies in Buddhist doctrine is not 'copypasting anti-buddhist rambling for 100 posts', not least of all because the contradictions are often supplied by the buddhist-posters here themselves and I often simply have to point out those contradictions to them.

>>17374947
Mascaro is easily available and can be read in like 2 hours. It's also not daunting because it's a nice little pocketbook. Like I said, obviously you want to read something better eventually, but stressing about it too much is also dangerous.

>AND FURTHERMORE PURSUANT TO MY ETERNAL CONFLICT WITH THE INTERNET BUDDHISM COMMUNITY I
Relax.

>>17374961
>Relax
I was born relaxed. I didn't emit a single cry when I was being born.

>>17374820
>>17374834
>I don't know if this is because they had a superficial understanding of Advaita, or were just bad at explaining it, or that you misunderstood or some combination of all three
This is a possibility. I studied a number of classic Advaita texts but then encountered a very educated Kashmiri Shaivite who led me into studying Trika, from where I perhaps gained a skewed view of Advaita Vedanta

In any case I freely admit most of this is going over my head and I can grasp very little of what all these intellectual giants speak of. I'm just a bhakti aspirant who's read a handful of books on these subjects

By the way, what's your take on Ramana Maharshi?

>>17375072
>By the way, what's your take on Ramana Maharshi?
I have never read any of his stuff in-depth, I've just read a few pages from it here and there, it seemed pretty interesting but less interesting to me than the various medieval thinkers and their works. His is an interesting case in that he appears to have become liberated without being formally initiated into any sampradaya. Although I've read that he studied the Upanishads as a youth or teen under the tutelage of an uncle or something, so the seeds could have been planted there which then later flowered. From what I remember reading of it there were more technical Sanskrit words in it than I anticipated, which surprised me.

As I have not read through his stuff extensively, I cannot confirm it, but I have read in many, many sources that Ramana Maharshi accepts the doctrine of Drishti-srishti-vada (the perceived phenomenal world only exists in your perception/delusion and not outside it); supposedly due to him being influenced by the Yoga Vasistha, which also teaches that doctrine. This would make his teachings different from the classical Advaita of Shankara and would bring him closer to Yogachara Buddhism. Drishti-srishti-vada became a small quasi-subschool of Advaita some centuries after Shankara through it being accepted by a few Advaita thinkers like Prakasananda and it also showing up in the Yoga Vasistha, although the vast majority of Advaitins rejected it as a doctrine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drishti-srishti-vada

Shankara attacks and in my opinion thoroughly refutes this view in his Brahma Sutra Bhasya and in some of his other works. There is a chapter in a book talking about the differences between the position of Advaita Vedanta, Yogachara Buddhism and the Yoga Vasistha that was linked here >>17364237 I'm not sure how to square Shankara's refutation of Drishti-srishti-vada with Ramana's apparent acceptance of it. Perhaps it is a consequence of Ramana not being formally initiated into sannyasin and instructed by a Guru? I don't know. I would have to really read through most of Ramana's stuff and see the exact phrasing to be sure. I've read much of the Yoga Vasistha which I still heartily enjoyed despite it teaching at times this doctrine that I consider wrong, that didn't invalidate the large amount of other wisdom contained in it, and the text seems to have been compiled by multiple people/schools over the centuries anyways.