/lit/ - Literature

>>21442947
Its over Guénonbros
>Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of Water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. (John iii, 5)

What's more retarded: Evola/Guenon eclecticism or Christianity?

>>21442998
What do you mean by retarded?

>>21443077
You know what he means

>>21442947
what is this shit supposed to mean bro? be nice to people and let yourself cry?

>>21442998
You don't even understand Traditionalist esotericism/initiation you utter retard.

>>21442947
Ooor you can put your dick back in your pants

>>21443200
I understand that you’re retarded

>>21443200
u better be quiet or i'm gonna cast a spell on you

>>21442947
>realize nonduality and monism was refuted by Christ, Plotinus, etc.
It was Jesus Christ who commanded us to also love our enemies. It is this love for everyone that tears down barriers. How is this not monist/non-dualist?

>the blind lecturing the deaf again

Another day on /lit/ ... :D

>>21443107
Retarded in comparison to what?

bump for interesting thread

explain what you guys mean by monism/dualism/nondualism

>>21442947
Anyone who thinks this esoteric shit works is 80 IQ at best.

>>21442947
>realize nonduality and monism was refuted by Christ, Plotinus, etc.

>There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called Ephesians 4:4
You were saying?

>>21444548
You can divide man up into about as many parts as you want, frankly. The Egyptian view is more intricate, but not necessarily more correct than the traditional Christian one. But it is a bit odd that Christians never put more focus on man being a triune image of a triune God, as Tomberg does.

>>21444508
It refers to the ultimate ontological basis or constituents of all reality (the cosmos, creation, etc.). If you believe everything ultimately resolves into a single substance (not necessarily material substance but literally sub-stans, that which is "under-standing" or under-lying other things) then you are a monist ("one-ist"). If you believe ultimately there are two kinds of things, like two primal forces of Good and Evil, you are a dualist.

These are extremely general terms with many possible shades of meaning though. For example, monism is often used for pre-Socratic materialist monism, which is a form of materialist/physicalist reductionism (all things are ultimately just modifications or conglomerations of the one really underlying substance, which is some form of material stuff). Dualism is often used for creationist theologies like Judeo-Christian ones in which strictly speaking God is the one, true, originating "substance," but once He has created creation, there are two irreducibly real things: creation (the "conditioned" world, since its being is conditioned by God) and the uncreated (the unconditioned condition of the conditioned: God).

Nondualism is a form of monism but it is generally and especially used for idealist philosophies in which all apparent, manifest being is reliant upon an ultimate divine being, like Plato's and Plotinus' Good, Meister Eckhart's God, or the Hindu Brahman. These are often called "emanationist" philosophies because they describe the manifest and apparently multiplicitous/varied world as being an emanation from its non-manifest base, which is the divine being. Usually these philosophies constantly emphasize that the divine being from which everything else emanates and on which everything depends, as the unconditioned condition of all apparent being, is not itself "a" being, it is something beyond all being. A good source for this is The Cloud of Unknowing: God is beyond all knowing. Since we can only perceive and intuit conventional beings with our normal senses and thinking, we thus need higher forms of mystical intuition to "grasp" the divine "non-being." But because we too are beings, dependent on this divine non-being, what we are actually doing when we grasp it is realizing that we ARE it, realizing "its" presence at the inmost "center" of ourselves.

The terms are just useful ways of talking about some of the paradoxes that arise from trying to discuss these topics. Are certain literalist forms of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity "dualist" because they do not allow any re-union (realization of non-duality) with the Godhead, because that would be blasphemy? Are Sufis heretics because they utter "shath," seemingly heretical paradoxical statements, like "I am God," in moments of mystical ecstasy? Etc. I'll post an example of nondual mystical thinking as a reply to this post, from Plotinus:

>>21444584
>And this inner vision, what is its operation? Newly awakened it is all too feeble to bear the ultimate splendour. Therefore the Soul must be trained—to the habit of remarking, first, all noble pursuits, then the works of beauty produced not by the labour of the arts but by the virtue of men known for their goodness: lastly, you must search the souls of those that have shaped these beautiful forms.

>But how are you to see into a virtuous soul and know its loveliness? Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown upon his work. So do you also: cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labour to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiselling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendour of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine.

>When you know that you have become this perfect work, when you are self-gathered in the purity of your being, nothing now remaining that can shatter that inner unity, nothing from without clinging to the authentic man, when you find yourself wholly true to your essential nature, wholly that only veritable Light which is not measured by space, not narrowed to any circumscribed form nor again diffused as a thing void of term, but ever unmeasurable as something greater than all measure and more than all quantity—when you perceive that you have grown to this, you are now become vision itself: now call up all your confidence, strike forward yet a step—you need a guide no longer—strain, and SEE.

>>21444591
Also here is Emerson relating a similar experience:
>Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.

>>21444584
Can't monism be understood as a hierarchy of substances? And dualism as a system where there's two substances that seem to be on equal footing with each other? For example, it's hard to deny the existence of matter, even if ideas reign supreme.

>>21442947
>God is love; and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. (I John iv, 16)
You see no qualified monism/reference to a non-dual experience here, or in St. Paul’s mysticism of living-in-Christ?

>It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me
Galatians 2:20

Paul preaching to the Greeks and quoting from some of their own ancient poetry:

>’For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said.
Acts 17:28

Christ:

>I and my Father are one.
John 10:30

It stands to reason that if one partakes in Christ or “lives in Him,” as well as Christ living in you, and Christ is also one with God the Father, then a strange mystery occurs of man and God somehow being one, or of their pre-existent unity (already there even when unknown or unnoticed) being revealed. This is why the theology of the Eastern Orthodox Church and other Eastern Christian Churches talk about theosis (unification with God, becoming one with God) as the purpose of human life and talk about the stages to this goal in their mystical and theological writings.

>>21444657
Yes, nondualism is a form of monism ultimately, but you can see it gets very open to interpretation when we're talking about the "inevitability" of Brahman/God emanating or sustaining or mirroring itself in a partially or mediately distinct substance (manifestation/maya/creation/Plato's dyad). Especially since many of these systems don't allow for a single act of creation but posit an eternal system, so if the divine always logically must emanate something distinct from itself to mirror itself in, then logically this mirror must be co-eternal, which may sound a lot like dualism.

>it's hard to deny the existence of matter, even if ideas reign supreme.
The way a lot of these systems deal with this is to posit matter, mere extension, corporeality, etc., as the lowest grade of being in the scheme of emanation, apart from nothingness itself (which has no being). Abstract matter is just the theoretical maximum of logical and ontological "distance" from the "full" being of the divine. There are ways of discussing matter that treat it as a negation or a rarefied state of ideality. Other systems do posit something like an ontological status for the mirror/container of ideality, like Plato's dyad in particular. But in general there is a strong preference for demoting matter to a kind of shadow of the ideal. For example in Leibniz, all material and thus all contingent/accidental aspects of a being are actually just a result of our blurred mental perception of it. Seen from God's perspective, all concepts are perfectly complete with no temporal or spatial/material contingency, and space and time properly speaking do not exist/subsist on their own. This leads to some slightly absurd results, like Leibniz's infamous determinism. But you can see how he's ultimately just trying to avoid giving ontological status to either void or mere matter.

>>21444681
Thank you for great explanation. I have one last question that has always nagged me when reading 17th-18th century philosophy.
>extension
Why were philosophers so intent on describing matter as extension? What does it even mean for something to be "extended"? As in, taking up space? Why not focus on some other property, like mass? I wonder what 16th-17th century philosophers would have thought about black holes if it were conceivable as a thought experiment back then.

>>21442947
>>realize nonduality and monism was refuted by Christ, Plotinus, etc.
How so OP? can you assemble the morass of urges and emotions undergirding your crass sentimentalism into something resembling a real argument?

>>21444712
Glad if it helps at all. There are two answers to that question, historical/contingent and logical/abstract. The historical/contingent answer is that Descartes, inspired by Galileo's and Kepler's platonically inspired mathematization of nature, took geometrical mathematics (both its ability to idealize and model physical phenomena AND its axiomatic-deductive method) as the ideal replacement for the scholastic Aristotelian paradigm that had by then been critiqued and de-centered for basically 150 years by Renaissance humanists and platonists.

Husserl has the best description of this in his "Origin of Geometry" essay, which is short but difficult. Basically, in this moment when "normal science" (to use Kuhn's terminology again) had broken down and was lacking a paradigm, Galileo and Descartes were instinctively groping about for other absolute standards capable of explaining the physical and manifest world. Remember this is 200 years into various philosophical trends: nominalism justifying an increase in philosophical concern with the this-worldly since the 14th century, early experimentalism in northern Italy (especially University of Padua), Copernicus' anti-Ptolemaism, etc. There was a general feeling that the sciences were both capable of being put on a new footing, and needed to be, and that a new systematic rigor was the way to begin, AND that the faded Aristotelian physics still taught in the schools was probably not going to be it. That is the true context of both Galileo's "Dialogue on the Two World Systems" and Descartes' Meditations.

So in that "moment," Husserl argues, they landed on the mathematical/geometrical "Euclidean" method, shot through with extremely Platonic and Pythagorean ideas (including their mystical sides thanks to Renaissance hermeticism - cf. Kepler's Neoplatonism). And of course at this time mathematics is absolutely booming, the late 16th - early 17th centuries were a period of great innovation, prestige, and perceived potential in mathematics. Also keep in mind that around this time, mythical and poetic notions of the heavens were being called into question, for example by the invention of the telescope which famously demonstrated that they are not heavenly spheres but contingent bodies - thus indicating that what we should concern ourselves with is the mathematical/geometrical harmonies underlying them and not the bodies themselves.

>>21444876
Descartes suspends his belief in all philosophical systems with his method of doubt, proclaims the mathematical/geometrical method based on deduction from "clearly and distinctly" perceived axioms as the surest one, and recommends it to all of philosophy (including natural philosophy or what we would call science) as its model. The major implications of this are twofold: (1) Descartes wants to be extremely careful about bestowing ontological status on anything, because with his deductive-axiomatic method, he has to start from ONLY those ideas that can be clearly and distinctly perceived. He can't just posit "matter" willy-nilly unless he has, in his mind, an absolutely clear logical idea of it, about which nobody in their right mind could argue.

(2) Descartes has necessarily inherited the crypto-Platonic, crypto-Pythagorean, Renaissance platonist tacit ASSUMPTION that underlying all particular physical things is their ideal form, which the post-Ptolemaic and frankly proto-Newtonian celestial geometrical mechanics of Kepler reveal - he is looking for ideal geometrical structures in everything. All apparent movements of the planets are just "appearances" to be brought into tighter and tighter correspondence with the ideal and harmonious geometrical structures underlying them, a very Platonic/Pythagorean idea. It's often said that Galileo "brought Kepler down to Earth" by applying this geometrizing ideal to terrestrial matter - a huge move, because prior to this, for thousands of years basically, astronomy and geometry were considered tandem subjects precisely because the "superlunary" celestial realm was considered so ideal in its nature/structure/movements, radically distinct from the grittier sublunar terrestrial reality down here. Galileo demonstrated forcefully and intuitively the applicability of geometrical abstraction to ALL PHENOMENA. In doing this he effectively inaugurated what we call classical mechanics.

>>21444882
This is what inspired Descartes (and incidentally Hobbes' extreme mechanistic materialism also). So now he has a deductive method that absolutely must designate the bare minimum of logically possible substances (underlying really existing things) in order to function, and a very strong preference for geometrizing idealizations of ALL external phenomena. When you combine these, you get the classic Cartesian dualism: as he says explicitly, when he tries to think of all existing phenomena, he finds that he can sort them all into two categories, as all other categories reveal themselves to be really just modifications or expressions of these two categories, which cannot be reduced to one another. The categories are, basically, mind and matter. But again, it's important that Descartes is trying to avoid any ambiguity, because these are intended as the absolutely primordial, inarguable, axiomatic starting points for all subsequent philosophical deduction. "Mind" and "matter" are too vague, they are subordinate expressions of the two categories. When pushed to logical extremes, as Descartes famously did in his thought experiment about the wax, the two categories have to be formulated in terms of their absolutely minimal phenomenal properties: the "extended something" and "thinking something." (Ultimately God is the highest substance/category, as the other beings depend upon him. But most "Cartesians" ignored this entirely and read Descartes as a powerful justification of mechanism - spawning for example a mechanical, and thus non-Aristotelian + non-Paracelsian school of medicine, "iatromechanics.")

All thoughts, ideas, mentation, etc., are aspects or moments of the "something that is thinking" (res cogitans - it's important that cogitans is an active participle here), and everything non-thinking, everything real and external, is a modification or congregation of "something extended." Note that extension, being a GEOMETRICAL and thus a QUANTITATIVE concept, is more primordial than any QUALITATIVE concept. Descartes has effectively divided the world into two spheres: the geometrical-quantitative and the conceptual-qualitative. From this division it's barely a hop and a jump to Locke's nominalistic "primary and secondary qualities" (what is real in the thing is its physicality; what is unreal is whatever qualia it causes in you, subjectively), which many readers of Locke happily interpreted as the modern distinction between "objective" and "merely subjective," with special emphasis on the derogatory "merely."

>>21444885
This whole Keplerian-Galilean-Cartesian-Hobbesian-Lockean complex was also absorbed by Newton, who was the Einstein of the 18th century, even more famous than Einstein. He was basically considered to have "finished" science and conquered nature, because his method (premised on a fairly crude variant of Lockean epistemology) was so unbelievably powerful for geometrizing nature, as proved by its virtual completion of astronomy via the positing of the bare minimum of empirically observable forces (gravity acting upon abstract bodies in a geometrical plane), in a reduction similar to Descartes'. But his system presupposed the geometrization of nature to the utmost degree. Even mass is just another variable, another function of a more primordial force better expressed in quantitative terms, terms that guarantee no connection to qualitative mental categories (like weightiness). In brief, the reason the Newtonian perfection of classical mechanics via calculus worked, and is still taught today prior to general and special relativity, is that it devised a method for finally reducing all apparent contingency (read: disparity between real objects and their geometrical models) to geometrizing, idealizing abstractions. Now the entire world could be "reduced to physics." There were controversies about this, because there are severe epistemological problems inherent in calculus' dealing with infinities and infinitesimals, but Newton was treated the way we treat Einstein. People wanted to be "the Newton of X" for two centuries.

And in the Newtonian system, just like in the Cartesian and Galilean systems, the idealizing geometrical abstraction of nature is presumed to be more primordial than any Lockean qualitative "secondary qualities," including even those that we associate with matter, like "weight," "mass," etc. Competing materialist/atomist philosophies, like Gassendi's, never really stood a chance and were always relegated to being curiosities, because they were simply too qualitative, they smelled of the old qualitative physics.

>>21444887
The one lingering problem in the Galilean-Cartesian terrestrializing of geometrical physics had been how to account for force. This was also a problem in late Aristotelian physics, where impetus theory was in development. The Aristotelian account of movement in his Physics is highly qualitative, involving non-geometrical categories and explanations in terms of essences etc. (this is what Galileo's "Two World Systems" is about). The desire was to maintain the non-qualitative, quantitative purity of geometrical space while also accounting for force and movement. Descartes' answer to this was his famous corpuscularism, which famously denied void (because logically void would have to be given ontological status as a substance), and which never really worked - although it was extremely logically consequent, as it had to be according to the principles of Cartesianism. Newton's "solution" was simply to lean even harder into geometrization by accepting the existence of void - essentially the blank space between geometrized objects - without philosophical justification. And again because it simply worked so beautifully, corpuscularism basically died.

From then on, Newtonian physicalism has basically been our reflexive way of seeing external reality: as an ideal geometrical space or plane, that only appears lumpy and contingent at the manifest level of "ordinary experience," which is implicitly inferior to "scientific" experience, which sees the "real" truth, the Newtonian and later the Einsteinian truth, which is mathematical abstraction. The original standpoint, that geometry/mechanics only abstracted natural phenomena for pragmatic reasons, and that the contingent lumpiness and qualitativeness of the manifest world was the primary, concrete reality of things, was overturned, and the basically platonic/pythagorean viewpoint of Galileo and Kepler was made reflexive and instinctive. The original relation of idealized model (IM) modelling apparent reality (AR) was changed into a relation of (IM) --> (AR) <-- (IR), where (IR) = ideal reality, so that both (IM) and (IR) are mathematical "models," and greater truth is achieved by greater adequacy of (IM) to (IR).

>>21444892
From this viewpoint, even ancient atomism and materialism seem quaint and unscientific, because they are insufficiently mathematically abstract. That's both the presupposition and the completion of the Cartesian "res extensa," with its attempt to be maximally "geometrical" and avoid any qualitative determinations. Some good books on this subject: Burtt, Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science; Hanson, Patterns of Discovery; Husserl, Crisis of the European Sciences and "Origins of Geometry." This is also what is generally meant by 20th century critiques of Cartesian substance dualism like Heidegger's "Gestell" concept, and Adorno & Horkheimer in their Dialectic of Enlightenment, where they argue that the world has been reduced to abstract manipulable matter, "extension." You can also see it in Weber's complaints about the disenchantment of the world and the encasement of man in a "steel-hard shell," the ultimate completion of the Cartesian/Lockean distinction between qualia (subjective qualitative experience, therefore meaningless) and quanta (objective reality, the only real "truth" but also utterly dead and indifferent aside from the bare fact of its manipulability).

>>21444887
>Even mass is just another variable, another function of a more primordial force better expressed in quantitative terms, terms that guarantee no connection to qualitative mental categories (like weightiness).
But couldn't this criticism be applied to "extension" as well, given that geometry attempts to measure qualitative phenomena (e.g., that of size, space, etc.)? I still have a hard time understanding why 17th century natural philosophers bought so readily into the "extension as matter" paradigm when there are so many other angles of material substance to consider, unless it was simply the consequence of geometry worship that caught on, then at least it makes sense.
>>21444897
Have you read Klein's
Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra? What do you think of it?

Goethecels... I guess coffee really is bad for you after all...

>>21443200
>>21443229

>>21445019
The issue was probably either his adding of excessive sugar, or not diluting the coffee and reducing it's acidity either with diary or some other food consumed at the same time. Coffee by itself in moderation, with or without dairy, is more beneficial than harmful, but 5 cups of very acidic black coffee a day can cause issues and so can always adding sugars etc

>>21444892
>Newton's "solution" was simply to lean even harder into geometrization by accepting the existence of void - essentially the blank space between geometrized objects - without philosophical justification.
But I thought Newton accepted the existence of space as something that existed in it's own right, like the Indian or Greek ether, in contrast to Leibniz who denies independent space and says that all space is only relational.

>>21444897
Is temperature an edge case of quantitative data as it's an important subjective experience of being in the world. Compare it too length. Nobody would say that you can feel length maybe manlets would dispute this because they would argue that they experience a lack of quality life because of their height or perhaps women would complain of length when they don't feel filled by one of their numerous fucks even though they are mostly meaning girth or to be more in general strechedness of their vaginal cavern which isn't about length per se put about pressure. So, to get to the point. Did this new, more scientific philosophers actually consider quantitative edge cases? I wouldn't take void as one. Since it's just a different interpretation of zero which they of course don't used the same way we do today

>>21444664
>God abides in him
There is no depersonalization in this, you are automatically assuming God abiding in man, implies a dissolution of the man into God consciousness
>For in him we live and move and have our being.’
MOVE and have OUR being, what movement can we speak of in terms of generation, and what Having of being, just because it is in God that we Move and Exist, nowhere does this verse imply a dissolution of the personality into God-consciousness, one without two.
>I and my Father are one.
I (1) AND my Father (2) are one. Again if this were really a doctrine of crypto-depersonalization, monism, etc. Then what use is the introduction of an AND, Christ, etc. It would be simple enough to say "God is One." And thats it.
>It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me
And what is Christ? A Nondualistic monistic consciousness, or the perfect divinized human hypostasis? Christianity is about a strengthening of the human consciousness and about harmonization between it and god consciousness, and does not imply an extinguishing of the human personality, but rather a complete intensification of it, a setting of it ablaze.

>No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. (John i, 18)
>“No one has ever seen God”, i.e. no one has ever contemplated God face to face while maintaining his personality. For “to see” signifies “to perceive while being in the face of that which one perceives”. Before Jesus Christ there were, without doubt, numerous examples of the experience of God—being “seized by God” (experience of the prophets), being “immersed in God” (experience of yogis and mystics in antiquity), or seeing the revelation of His work, the world (experience of sages and philosophers in antiquity), but no one ever saw God. For neither the inspiration of the prophets, nor the immersion in God of the mystics, nor the contemplation of God in the mirror of the creation by the sages is equivalent to the new experience of the “vision” of God—the “beatific vision” of Christian theology. For this “vision” takes place in the domain of essence transcending all substance; it is not a fusion, but an encounter in the domain of essence, in which the human personality (the consciousness of self) remains not only intact and without impediment, but also becomes “that which it is”, i.e. becomes truly itself—such as the Thought of God has conceived it for all eternity.
>>21444837
>morass of urges and emotions
This is your brain on guenonism, the elimination of urges and emotions, ot rather matters of mental purification does not require your allegience with depersonalization, it does not require the elimination of the human personality.
Rather, the perfection of it and total harmonization of it with God-consciousness in such a way that the personality and consciousness is not made extinct, total perfection and heaven.

>>21446206
Now you can argue that yeah what I am saying is crass sentimentalism, and that buddhism and advaita defacto reject any notion of heaven, but yeah at least admit that this is depersonalization and that it is a distinct way, one of depersonalization opposed to a total personalization, and that the ends are totally different, and that there is a real distinction between these types of mysticism, of course both are right,
But my point in making this thread is to highlight that Guénon is clearly making an error to reduce the original type of mysticism to the ways of depersonalization, and all traditions which are to be taken seriously, to crypto-depersonalization, he does so almost rhetorically, and tries to establish a sort of supremacy with respects to depersonalization, when really it seems that even sufis and kabbalists are not as extreme with nondualism, and do not teach a proper extinction of consciousness, like buddhism and vedanta, and pretend that there is no such thing, I am obviously not talking about a proper non-existence/cessation of consciousness, because according to the metaphysics, there is no existence apart from one God consciousness. So the human personality doesnt not exist, but neither does it exist... where such a conception leads should be obvious.

>The characteristic of this mystical way is that one loses the capacity to cry. An advanced pupil of yoga or Vedanta will for ever have dry eyes, whilst the masters of the Cabbala, according to the Zohar, cry much and often. Christian mysticism speaks also of the “gift of tears”—as a precious gift of divine grace. The Master cried in front of the tomb of Lazarus. Thus the outer characteristic of those who choose the other mystical way, that of the God of love, is that they have the “gift of tears”. This is in keeping with the very essence of their mystical experience. Their union with the Divine is not the absorption of their being by Divine Being, but rather the experience of the breath of Divine Love, the illumination by Divine Love, and the warmth of Divine Love. The soul which receives this undergoes such a miraculous experience that it cries. In this mystical experience fire meets with FIRE. Then nothing is extinguished in the human personality but, on the contrary, everything is set ablaze. This is the experience of “legitimate twofoldness” or the union of two separate substances in one sole essence. The substances remain separate as long as they are bereft of that which is the most precious in all existence: free alliance in love.

>>21446237
>>21446206
For you to reduce anything which is not depersonalization, disassociation, which usually always leads to destroying individual dignity through extreme taboo breaking (see nondualistic tantra) which actually takes advaita seriously practically, to mere sentimentalism is simply just pride, spontaneously realizing yourself to be an illusion, superimposition, projection of ignorance, and for you to neither exist nor not-exist, without any subtle awareness, no power, no mind-image, no substantial perfection, is according to the personalistic mystics a type of sterility a defect.
You can argue that you just by depersonalizing possess these attributes, like perfection and all this, but then you are just lying to yourself with regards to the extent of your spiritual realization, as you dont really exist except absolutely as impartite infinite god-consciousness, so youre defending the spiritual path of noone at all, on here for no reason at all.

>>21442947
>Just commit spiritual suicide and larp as a sage, whilst spending your entire life writing books on rhetoric, all to just say well "metaphysics is what you cant define"
>I am so devoid of sentiment that I paritcipate in muslim rites for "spiritual realization," and intentionally misinterpret sufi mysticism to be nondual vedanta, and buddhism, its not depersonalization or a negation of the individual bro, its supraindividual suprahuman states of consciousness samadhi (trance) I reach through chanting at dhikr ceremonies.
>absolute depersonalization is the way of the elite bro..
>I am still a westerner but we are not the same, I am a deracinated superior brahmin, who doesnt even exist, or have any trace of individuality, as according to tradition we all know all that can do is dissolve...
Imagine taking this hack seriously

>>21446259
>For you to reduce anything which is not depersonalization, disassociation, ...to mere sentimentalism is simply just pride
I'm not saying "anything that isn't depersonalization is sentimentalism* anon..... I'm saying YOU are a crass sentimentalist. All of your posts and threads are written in the same style and you have been posting and whining about non-dualism in an obvious state of angst for at least a year now, and during that time, your engagement with others has repeatedly shown that your posting is driven by a kind of crass sentimentalism, that attempts to attract people to your side with emotional plays and appeals to aesthetics, and that relies on dishonest misrepresentations and ad hominem attacks against those who you perceive to be your opponents. It seems like you're either mentally ill or that you have 0 self-awareness or insight into your own thought-processes. When you rely on "feel-good" arguments which say that the transcendence of the human condition is bad because of some affection you have for the human body or creaturely comforts.... then yes, that's "sentimentalism", it has nothing to do with genuine metaphysics. Even this thread is just embarrassing to look at and exemplifies the tendency that I am talking about, you made some half-heated attempt to present a random quotation of Plotinus as somehow disagreeing with non-dualism, while in truth he doesn't explicitly talk about non-dualism or the Vedantic theory of mind/consciousness at all in the Enneads; you didn't even try to expend the minimum amount of intellectual effort needed to at least provide some BS pretense of an explanation of how the Plotinus passage was related; instead you just wanted to create another thread to bitch and moan about your boogeyman of non-dualism.

>>21446206
>This is your brain on guenonism, the elimination of urges and emotions, ot rather matters of mental purification does not require your allegience with depersonalization, it does not require the elimination of the human personality.
Advaita Vedanta doesn't say that anyone should "eliminate the human personality" either you doofus, all they say is that you shouldn't erroneously identify as what you aren't. A human's personality is determined by a certain pattern of talents, traits, behaviors and so on. After an Advaitin has become spiritually awakened and eliminated their ignorance, everything that constitutes the human personality is still present, there is still a certain pattern of traits and ways of doing and thinking about things that make that person's pattern of mental traits different from others, even from other awakened Advaitins. What has changed is that the Advaitin is simply no longer erroneously considering themselves to be one of these non-aware phenomena (this includes what constitutes the "personality") that appears in or to awareness.

>>21446259
>which usually always leads to destroying individual dignity through extreme taboo breaking (see nondualistic tantra)
There are no taboo-breaking antinomian practices in traditional Advaita. The point that (some but not all, especially in the modern era its uncommon) tantrists engage in this is not in any fashion an argument against the idea of non-dualism in general, which is not necessarily related to these antinomian practices at all.

>spontaneously realizing yourself to be an illusion, superimposition, projection of ignorance
This isn't what Advaita teaches, they rather say that what you are (the Real Self) and what you realize yourself to be (the Atman), is the only actual existent and furthermore that it's irreducible and unaffected by ignorance

>and for you to neither exist nor not-exist, without any subtle awareness, no power, no mind-image, no substantial perfection, is according to the personalistic mystics a type of sterility a defect.
This is not taught by Advaita either, they say that what you are (the Atman) is transcendental pure unconditioned existence, when they say "beyond existence and non-existence" it just means "beyond both nothingness AND the false concept of existence that people imagine and apply to conditioned illusory phenomena but which isn't actually pure unconditioned existence which is the actual existence per se". Furthermore, awareness is inseparable from the Atman always.

>You can argue that you just by depersonalizing possess these attributes, like perfection and all this,
Awareness IS already perfect and unconditioned. The Awareness of everyone, from plants and ants to saints and deranged murderers alike, is already perfect and unconditioned and it always has been for all eternity. This is true regardless if people are erroneously identifying themselves with unaware phenomena or not.

>but then you are just lying to yourself with regards to the extent of your spiritual realization, as you dont really exist except absolutely as impartite infinite god-consciousness
I agree with the concept that I really exist only as impartite infinite god-consciousness, so how is anything I'm saying a lie?

>so youre defending the spiritual path of noone at all, on here for no reason at all.
Neither of these assertions are true, Advaita teaches both the path of knowledge (jnana-yoga) and says a valid path for non-monks is the path of works (karma-yoga). Even the "direct path" of jnana-yoga involves a process or path of being initiated into monasticism and studying the texts with your teacher and contemplating their meaning. I'm not posting here for no reason at all but I am doing so because I often enjoy it and because I like learning new things about literature and philosophy.

>>21446588
>All of your posts and threads are written in the same style and you have been posting and whining about non-dualism in an obvious state of angst for at least a year now, and during that time, your engagement with others has repeatedly shown that your posting is driven by a kind of crass sentimentalism, that attempts to attract people to your side with emotional plays and appeals to aesthetics, and that relies on dishonest misrepresentations and ad hominem attacks against those who you perceive to be your opponents. It seems like you're either mentally ill or that you have 0 self-awareness or insight into your own thought-processes.
No I haven't. It seems you've mistaken me for someone else.
>Advaita Vedanta doesn't say that anyone should "eliminate the human personality" either you doofus, all they say is that you shouldn't erroneously identify as what you aren't. A human's personality is determined by a certain pattern of talents, traits, behaviors and so on. After an Advaitin has become spiritually awakened and eliminated their ignorance, everything that constitutes the human personality is still present, there is still a certain pattern of traits and ways of doing and thinking about things that make that person's pattern of mental traits different from others, even from other awakened Advaitins.
Not true everything which constitutes the human personality was not present as it was, after awakening.
>there is still a certain pattern of traits and ways of doing and thinking about things that make that person's pattern of mental traits different from others, even from other awakened Advaitins.
False awakening then. Thoughts dont continue as they did, the traits dont continue either, they are only present because they can be, there is no volition in any of it, no mind, egoity, intellect, sensory consciousness - you no longer feel any difference between hot and cold, there are no longer any emotions, no longer is there any beautiy opposed to ugliness, or any apparently distinct objects.
Seems you dont even understand advaita. Its as if you are in dreamless sleep in the waking state.

>>21446678
>There are no taboo-breaking antinomian practices in traditional Advaita
Which is why I mentioned nondualistic tantra which tries to act out advaita in time and space.
>This isn't what Advaita teaches, they rather say that what you are (the Real Self) and what you realize yourself to be (the Atman), is the only actual existent and furthermore that it's irreducible and unaffected by ignorance
And that awareness unaffected by ignorance has nothng in common with personality, it is unthinking, above good and evil, absolute freedom, impersonal, really it is unconscious, you cannot think about it or pretend to otherwise, it is neti neti.
>Awareness IS already perfect and unconditioned. The Awareness of everyone, from plants and ants to saints and deranged murderers alike, is already perfect and unconditioned and it always has been for all eternity. This is true regardless if people are erroneously identifying themselves with unaware phenomena or not.
No it IS not "perfect" it is NOTHING, "PERFECTION" IS A conditon, This is true regardless if people are erroneously identifying themselves with unaware phenomena or not, so there is no difference unconscious or conscious, personal or impersonal, yet you cling to distinctions like sentiment and intellectuality?
>I agree with the concept that I really exist only as impartite infinite god-consciousness, so how is anything I'm saying a lie?
Then it naturally follows that sentimentalism and intellectuality are nondifferent, and that there is no difference between the sacres and profane, there is no different between the collapsing of the relative and the absolute, and the maintining of the distinction of the relative encompasses by the absolute.
>Even the "direct path" of jnana-yoga involves a process or path of being initiated into monasticism and studying the texts with your teacher and contemplating their meaning.
Dont pretend to me that advaita teaches anything other than direct upadesa, which sravana and contemplation, leading to the instantaneous "recognition" of awareness.

>dude you have to cry a lot lmao
Gay.

>>21446778
Crying is abrahamic tradition, tantras also dont reject this sort of thing per say.

>>21446698
>It seems you've mistaken me for someone else.
It's possible
>Not true everything which constitutes the human personality was not present as it was, after awakening.
How so? A personality is not defined by any one specific belief. If you think that this is so, then, as a consequence of this, the changing of people's perspectives and assumptions naturally as they age would mean that every adult had already lost their personality and gained a new one countless times already, which would make complaining about something similar happening in the Advaita awakening a totally pointless complaint.

If personalities *aren't* defined by any one specific belief, then there is no serious grounds to say that the personality of an awakened Advaitin isn't still present as a certain pattern characterizing the way that their mind works, even if they don't identify with and consider themselves to be that pattern of mental activity as unenlightened people often do.

So, which is it?

>False awakening then. Thoughts dont continue as they did
"As they did" is vague and meaningless in this context, the awakened Advaitin still has thoughts and thinks about things, but these thoughts are not infected with and proceeding from a wrong understanding of reality. Compared to the unenlightened person, the awakened sage has less reason to think about things other than the intuitive truths revealed by the Upanishads (since he is not concerned with distractions like family and wealth anymore), but these reasons to think about other things still present themselves to him in the course of day to day life and the Advaitin will still think about things in response to these prompts and reasons, which is why many Advaitins historically were keen debaters and dialecticians who wrote long treatises on logic, metaphysics, epistemology etc

>>21446698
>the traits dont continue either, they are only present because they can be, there is no volition in any of it, no mind, egoity, intellect, sensory consciousness - you no longer feel any difference between hot and cold, there are no longer any emotions, no longer is there any beautiy opposed to ugliness, or any apparently distinct objects.
Shankara doesn't say this anywhere in his writings and he actually says the opposite, at least if you are talking about what happens while the body is still alive, if you are talking about this (as opposed to the post-death state) then what you wrote here is just complete nonsense. The awakened Advaitin is still fully aware of his mental and physical faculties. Volition, mind, intellect and sensory perceptions are all part of the phenomena that appear within awareness as part of the human experience, and all of these continue to appear within awareness as a part of our experience even after the Advaitin has awakened and overcome their ignorance, the Advaitin simply no longer erroneously considers their self to be one of those things that appear. Shankara talks about the awakened man being indifferent to and not caring about poles like hot vs cold or painful vs pleasurable sensation, he never says we cease to have all knowledge of them while our body is still alive.

>Its as if you are in dreamless sleep in the waking state.
When Shankara says this he only means that there is no longer any erroneous belief in the reality of duality/multiplicity characterizing our minds, he does NOT mean that the mind cannot even perceive the world anymore to the extent of not even being able to instruct students in Advaita because we can't see or hear them

>>21446808
>"As they did" is vague and meaningless in this context, the awakened Advaitin still has thoughts and thinks about things, but these thoughts are not infected with and proceeding from a wrong understanding of reality. Compared to the unenlightened person, the awakened sage has less reason to think about things other than the intuitive truths revealed by the Upanishads (since he is not concerned with distractions like family and wealth anymore), but these reasons to think about other things still present themselves to him in the course of day to day life and the Advaitin will still think about things in response to these prompts and reasons, which is why many Advaitins historically were keen debaters and dialecticians who wrote long treatises on logic, metaphysics, epistemology etc
This is where the plotinus quote comes in
>
>…when the mirror is there, the mirror-image is produced, but when it is not there or is not in the right state, the object of which the image would have been is (all the same) actually there. In the same way as regards the soul, when that kind of thing in us which mirrors the images of thought and intellect is undisturbed, we see them and know them in a way parallel to sense-perception, along with the prior knowledge that it is intellect and thought that are active. But when this is broken because the harmony of the body is upset, thought and intellect operate without an image, and then intellectual activity takes place without a mind-picture. (Plotinus, Ennead I. iv. 10; trsl. A. H. Armstrong, London, 1966, pp. 199 and 201)
What advaitins do is shatter that mirror completely, you can pretend that they are thinking and that intellectual activity still persists, but is that really so? As far as I am concerned there is no longer any trace of mental image, according to what what I have understood, it is non-conceptual awareness, unlimited completely,
Also you talk about karma yoga and jnana yoga, but you should be more proper, the "jnana yoga" in the advaitins case is not at all any ordinary "yoga," and what you call "karma yoga," in the advaitins case is as valid as christian or sufic mysticism. See how plotinus attributes to what buddhists and advaitins do namely, severing the very root of the mind, as a "defect of the body,"
The object of tantra and hermeticism, and with that theurgy, is something completrly differet to the sterility of dzogchen and advaita.
>Advaitins historically were keen debaters and dialecticians who wrote long treatises on logic, metaphysics, epistemology etc
The occupation of a realized advaitin is inconsequential, and god consciousness does not depend upon it in any way, why bring up irrelevant things?

>>21446848
>Compared to the unenlightened person, the awakened sage has less reason to think about things other than the intuitive truths revealed by the Upanishads (since he is not concerned with distractions like family and wealth anymore),
You dont seem to understand the enlightened sage does not think, let alone about "things."

>>21446814
>The awakened Advaitin is still fully aware of his mental and physical faculties.
What faculties? You mean maya, which doesnt exist? And is false and is just seen as neither existing nor not-existing?

not being a biblical literalist is gay. if you don't think moses literally parted the sea with super powers granted by god then what's even the fucking point in caring about religion lmao, at that point you are just larping for the aesthetics. "initiation" etc. is just a path to crypto atheism, i'd rather jack off or something.

>>21446814
>When Shankara says this he only means that there is no longer any erroneous belief in the reality of duality/multiplicity characterizing our minds, he does NOT mean that the mind cannot even perceive the world anymore to the extent of not even being able to instruct students in Advaita because we can't see or hear them
No he means there is not even any trace of memory, no sense of experience, a complete dissolution, without the exertion of any individual faculties, universal existence, you walk around and feel no difference between the experience and the object of experience, no distinction between subject and object, what is from the waking state seen as just void and darkness.

>>21446877
>he does NOT mean that the mind cannot even perceive the world anymore to the extent of not even being able to instruct students in Advaita because we can't see or hear them
Of course intellectual activity exists, and individuality persists, but it is unreal, along with the senses which grasp at manifeststions and phenomena, call it what you want and cope however you can, calling it "light" instead of darkness, "luminous void" "light of awareness," but it is dark and absolute negation, there is norhing blacker and darker than this idea of god, it is a supreme "chaos."

>>21446890
>but it is dark and absolute negation,
If it were absolute negation, it would not be "non-dual." You should go back and read Shankara (if you ever have) instead of repeating incorrect views about him, and non-duality. The only reason you see non-duality as darkness and chaos is because you have not yet realized the light which illuminates all; this is because you have not reached moksha. Deep sleep is only dark to those who have not "conquered" it yet.

I've been reading this on and off for about a year and am still only on letter 6. Every page is so dense, bases its points from so many disparate sources in disparate traditions and requires such a sense of abstract intuition that it's a very challenging read. Just not challenging in the way we typically think of things as being "hard to read" or not.

>>21446921
When you say "it would not be non-dual" you have lost the meaning of "non-dual"go back and read Shankara (if you ever have) instead od repeating incorrect viewes about him, and non-duality, the only reason you see non-duality as light and partless heterogeneity is because you have not yet realized the void which darkens the light, which overshadows all; this is because you have not reached moksha. What comes after one has "conquered," deep sleep is only light to those who have not truly gone beyond the activity of "conquering."

>>21444584
Plotinus wasn't a monist. Any philosophy that posits a hard, unbridgeable ontological gap between the One source of being and the multiplicity of beings it generates is Theistic, not Monistic.

Monism posits that the differentiation between things is illusory and that at the core of reality all things ARE the one, hence there is no hierarchy or degree of being since everything melts back into the source. On the other hand Theism says there is, and always will be a real distinction between beings and the source of being and that one can never be identified as the other.

Meister Eckhart was not a monist, neither was Plotinus. It's a mistake to think that anyone who talks about unity with the divine is necessarily a monist because in Christian terms what a monist would see as unity with the divine would make that person another hypostases of God itself, turning it from a Trinity to an Infinitude of Hypostases

>>21446956
>Theistic, not Monistic.
So... a dualist?

>>21446956
>It's a mistake to think that anyone who talks about unity with the divine is necessarily a monist because in Christian terms what a monist would see as unity with the divine would make that person another hypostases of God itself, turning it from a Trinity to an Infinitude of Hypostases
Good point, what makes advaita different is that it refuses the possibility of "uniting" as one with god, all it does is refute there being any person to unite, and that this "negation of personhoodness" is the true affirmation of God alone who exists.
This is what it comes down to ultimately, yet the advaitafags will pretend otherwise, and just say "well this realization of lack of personness" is not a deficit but a true gain, and not a negative but a positive, rather it is not a fading of existence, "unconsciousness" rather it is "super-consciousness," because every determination is a limitation, and absolute being is unlimited infinitude, the elimination of the individuality, becomes "supraindividuality," darkness becomes light, the cessation of the mind becomes enlightenment, the cessation of emotions becomes enlightened conduct, if ever an emotion surface instead of a anger it is called enlightened rage, non-different from the gnosis of enlightenment, advaitafag said above that it is not a negation, rather it is quite explicitly a "double negation" which corresponds to total affirmation, "presence" "true being," a minus becomes a plus, this is the subversive logic of guenonist escspism.

>>21446946
Which works have you actually read by him, or other authentic texts surrounding Advaita and similar traditions? The reason I ask is that you don't seem to have a very accurate view of Advaita, it seems very similar to the early Hegelian and orientalist misconceptions of Hinduism (more specifically the relatively elite schools within Hinduism) as pantheism. This is the easiest way to detect that someone is poorly read on this subject, because they conflate well reasoned and nuance metaphysical doctrines with pantheism, which is in every case due to poor reading comprehension, or lack of reading to begin with.
>the only reason you see non-duality as light and partless heterogeneity is because you have not yet realized the void which darkens the light
If we're speaking unequivocally, then it is neither void nor full, because it is non-dual, meaning absolute negation and positivity are both excluded. However, as it is the principle of all (and not synonymous with all), we equivocally refer to it as the light, because it is that which is necessary for the existence of light, whether we are referring to light unequivocally or again in the equivocal sense of the "light of the Intellect", or Buddhi.
>>21446956
>On the other hand Theism says there is, and always will be a real distinction between beings and the source of being and that one can never be identified as the other.
Advaita Vedanta is theism according to this rule. This is an awful way to distinguish between monism and theism (not that Advaita is "monism", either). Plotinus's One is indeed distinguished from the beings, but it also is not an intellect, it has no will, and lacks all features that could be attributed to a theistic God, meaning it is not theism in the sense the term is generally used (which implies a personal creator figure).

>>21446984
Not only is this the real method and logic of depersonalization mysticism, it is also the REAL gateway to "demonic possesion," to "sleepwalking," aswell as to absolute misery, which corresponds to in this system of logic, absolute Joy and beatitude,
All of a sudden we see how in this system the non-human corresponds to divinity, and by non-human what is meant is a divine demon without name and form, there is also no point on dwelling on the non-human, because unreality is given precedence to reality, and what is neither these two which corresponds best to a state of total and true death, is called God, and liberation from samsara, yet we will see intellectually defective guenonfags, still grasp to conceptual images like "light" opposed to darkness.

>>21446743
>>There are no taboo-breaking antinomian practices in traditional Advaita
>Which is why I mentioned nondualistic tantra which tries to act out advaita in time and space.
A lot, but not all, of Tantric philosophy, will identify with the general idea of "non-dualism" but when you pay close attention to what they say, they are actually talking about yet another variation of Bhedabheda (difference and non-difference) where difference/duality is treated as real and true alongside sameness/non-duality.

>And that awareness unaffected by ignorance has nothing in common with personality
What it has in common with the personality is that you are aware of both of them (awareness and personality) right now. At this very moment, you have knowledge of your own awareness and that you are present as awareness, and yet you also have knowledge of a certain familiar pattern of mental activity. When an Advaitin is awakened there is not a total end of all prior patterns that characterized how their mind behaves, only the ones that proceeded from ignorant beliefs and assumptions are ended, there isn't any reason that the other ones would be ended. When I say "pattern" I don't mean a specific activity like "habitually thinking about future goals or a distraction" (which the uprooting of ignorance would eliminate any impetus for) but rather a pattern as in "this mind would naturally associate this concept with this other concept (one pattern of thinking), while someone educated in another country somewhere else associates this idea with it instead (another pattern)". There are these natural differences between one mind another which remain even after enlightenment in Advaita, even if certain things that people consider "personality traits" like being quick-to-anger would naturally end since they result from ignorant beliefs in the case of getting angry easily, while the patterns that make one mind different from another are not necessarily stemming from ignorance beliefs and so they would not vanish.

>>21446743

>it is unthinking, above good and evil, absolute freedom, impersonal, really it is unconscious, you cannot think about it or pretend to otherwise, it is neti neti.
Incorrect, it's not "unconscious", Atman is reflexive awareness that always by nature has immediate knowledge of itself and this self-knowledge or self-disclosure is the very nature of awareness and not a separate function or act. As Shankara explains in his works, non-reflexive models of awareness/consciousness result in an infinite regress and are philosophically untenable, because awareness is self-disclosed by nature it is not unconscious and it always invariably has non-dual knowledge of itself. It's only """unconscious""" if you wrongly think that being "conscious" means a subject in a relation with an object, but Shankara considers this notion to be a misunderstanding of what awareness/consciousness (Atman) actually is. We can in fact think about it, but it has to be understood that conceptual knowledge of Atman is not the same thing as the Atman, and that the mind's conceptual knowledge of Atman is not the same thing as the Atman's reflexive and not-conceptually-mediated knowledge of itself through the immediate self-disclosure that is it's nature. Any attempt to think about Atman just produces a mental image that is an imperfect imitation of it, but we can still think about it anyway if we want to.

>No it IS not "perfect" it is NOTHING, "PERFECTION" IS A conditon
I meant "perfect" as in "free from all faults or defects" which is one of the definitions of perfect in the dictionary. It's not disputable that Shankara considers the Supreme Brahman to be "free from all faults and defects". Being free from all faults or defects is not actually a condition, because it's not contradictory to affirm that the Unconditioned is thereby free from all faults and defects (which would be conditions) by virtue of it being unconditioned.

>>This is true regardless if people are erroneously identifying themselves with unaware phenomena or not,
>so there is no difference unconscious or conscious, personal or impersonal, yet you cling to distinctions like sentiment and intellectuality?
There is no difference in peoples awareness or Atman, however there are differences in minds including some minds that are convinced by appeals to sentiment and other minds which are not swayed. Pointing out this obvious fact has nothing to do with "clinging" to anything but was I was just talking about the reasons that I thought were motivating someone's mind to behave in a certain way, because it was relevant to the discussion I was having. Please spare me the goofy half-assed psychoanalysis that's not even really relevant to what I'm saying.

>>21446743

>>I agree with the concept that I really exist only as impartite infinite god-consciousness, so how is anything I'm saying a lie?
>Then it naturally follows that sentimentalism and intellectuality are nondifferent
No, they are not and I have no reason why you would assert otherwise. Intellectuality is generally based on critical thought and logical analysis, while sentimentality is derived from a person's affection for and attachment to various contingencies, without any logic or critical thought being necessarily involved, it can happen in the absence of logical/critical thought and it generally flourishes in their absence.

>and that there is no difference between the sacres and profane, there is no different between the collapsing of the relative and the absolute, and the maintining of the distinction of the relative encompasses by the absolute.
Not difference in what sense? No difference in absolute reality? There are no differences or duality in absolute reality anyways to it's meaningless to speak of the non-difference of two manifested forms or phenomena in the unmanifest non-dual reality, since they aren't present there as different manifested forms to begin with. Or do you mean there is no difference on the sphere of the relative universe? That doesn't make sense either because on the sphere of the relative these terms clearly have different meanings

>>Even the "direct path" of jnana-yoga involves a process or path of being initiated into monasticism and studying the texts with your teacher and contemplating their meaning.
>Dont pretend to me that advaita teaches anything other than direct upadesa, which sravana and contemplation, leading to the instantaneous "recognition" of awareness
I don't have to pretend since I know from my own studies that what Advaita teaches (including in Shankara's bhasya) is the process of sravana, manana and nidihyasana which you have to be initiated as a monk in order to undergo, there are also the necessary four-fold qualifications or pre-requisites for success in this that Shankara lays out as well. Shankara accepts that the dawning of realization can happen spontaneously during this process, which it is intended to give rise to, but there is still a process which he lays out all the same that prepares the stage for this, and without which Advaita generally agrees it won't happen.

>>21446993
>If we're speaking unequivocally, then it is neither void nor full, because it is non-dual, meaning absolute negation and positivity are both excluded.
>exclusion
>neither
Not not negation circularity = to be taken seriously
>"light of the Intellect",
Why even use the term "light" except for the purpose of deception, when it its is absolutely suprasensible and imperceptible "light." so for you to pretend that this light is the fruit of some activity like conquering, is just erroneous fantasy.
>existence of light,
In what way does the condition of being a "necessary existent" have anything to do with light moreso than darkness? It seems like just some allegorical sentiment.

>>21442947
Been reading this thread and am curious to see what OP's suggestions are to regain the state as described by Plotinus.

>>21447028
>Not not negation circularity = to be taken seriously
I don't understand. There is no contradiction in saying that something is neither white nor black, for instance. It's only a contradiction if we speak of privatives.
>Why even use the term "light" except for the purpose of deception, when it its is absolutely suprasensible and imperceptible "light."
It is symbolic equivocation which is used in many traditions, including Christianity and Platonism, it is actually very meaningful for the sense-bound individual in helping him to comprehend suprasensible reality, according to the doctrine that everything lower is a mirror image of everything higher along a given plane of reflection. The visible light of our world is a symbol of the intellectual light, and the higher light.
>In what way does the condition of being a "necessary existent" have anything to do with light moreso than darkness?
Higher principles are more unified, and are therefore less susceptible to multiplicity and confusion. What is less susceptible to confusion, is clearer, and to be clearer is symbolically equivalent to lightness, as light provides us with the means of seeing clearly. Brahman (= the Without-a-Second) is this highest principle, and is therefore in the utmost sense, the light of supreme clarity.

>>21447045
Meditation/Concentration on an image/microcosmic idol would be a good start.

>>21447094
Engaging in dangerous activity, trying to restart emotions through extremes too.

>>21447045
As has been said, the "shattering of the mirror" corresponds to a change in being, and could be permanent, so nothing may work, and youll have to resolve yourself either to going into even more depraved depersonalization mysticism, to fully demonize yourself, or otherwise just wait till you die and "burn in hell." Thats pretty much it

>>21446848
>What advaitins do is shatter that mirror completely, you can pretend that they are thinking and that intellectual activity still persists, but is that really so? As far as I am concerned there is no longer any trace of mental image, according to what what I have understood, it is non-conceptual awareness, unlimited completely,
Yes, thinking and intellectual activity still occur, this is how Shankara wrote his texts and how every other Advaitin wrote texts and instructed people in Advaita, through the magical and wonderous power of thought! Atman IS non-conceptual awareness, but the whole point of Advaita is NOT to dissolve all thought permanently into a catatonic or lobotomy-like state until your body dies (this is a retarded misunderstanding), but rather the point is to realize the non-conceptual awareness that is present *at the same time as thought* and to realize that it's present always and free etc, even in the exact moment when conceptual thought is occurring, when you realize this experientially the occurrence of conceptual thought can happen at the exact same time as you having intuitive and immediate knowledge of your own non-conceptual awareness..... without the former erasing the latter... they can occur at the exact same time for the exact same person, ie the sage doesn't forget about or fail to notice the presence of his own foundational non-conceptual awareness simply because conceptual thought happens to be occurring.

>Also you talk about karma yoga and jnana yoga, but you should be more proper, the "jnana yoga" in the advaitins case is not at all any ordinary "yoga," and what you call "karma yoga," in the advaitins case is as valid as christian or sufic mysticism. See how plotinus attributes to what buddhists and advaitins do namely, severing the very root of the mind, as a "defect of the body,"
"Slower" is not treated as synonymous with "invalid" in Advaita so it's totally incorrect for you to imply that Advaitins consider karma yoga to be invalid. Karma Yoga is what is MOST valid for non-monks, and it has the potential of raising one's changes of being liberated in the post-death state (ie as in Brahmaloka), any path that leads to the same end goal is valid by virtue of doing so, even if some are a lot slower. Plotinus had never heard of Advaita and basically nothing that he references as the ideas of others can explicitly be identified as tenets of Advaita.

>The occupation of a realized advaitin is inconsequential, and god consciousness does not depend upon it in any way, why bring up irrelevant things?
To demonstrate how many awakened Advaitins didn't shy away from engaging in thought and philosophical argumentation that requires careful thinking and analysis

>>21447045
Do transcendental meditation for 90 days to learn how to be capable of stillness, while studying whatever form of yoga (Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Sufi, etc.) most closely corresponds to your metaphysical intuitions. The goal is to join your meditative and yogic practice with a metaphysical-symbolic system of knowledge about the relationship between the essential and the accidental, so that the two dialectically inform one another. When you can visualize yourself becoming "perfect" (complete, fully actualized, non-accidental) in metaphysical and symbolic terms while also practicing this via meditation, you will "see" the effects yourself, and from that point on you can read anything and use it as a jumping off point and source of inspiration.

>>21446993
>meaning it is not theism in the sense the term is generally used (which implies a personal creator figure).
That is Theistic Personalism which is different than Theism proper. You're thinking of Theism from primarily a post-enlightenment Protestant style angle whereas God in the perennial tradition is rarely thought of as a "person" but often as a principle. It's also worth noting that although you make a distinction between the One and the Nous, Plotinus saw the One, The Nous and the World Soul as a single divinity in much the same way that Christians view the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, obviously with the caveat that Plotinus acknowledges that the three hypostases exist on different ontological levels and Christians insist on the co-equality of the persons of the Trinity.

>>21447151
What does shankara say about the internal monologue?

>>21446853
>You dont seem to understand the enlightened sage does not think, let alone about "things."
Complete and utter nonsense. I can tell that you are larping as knowledgeable about this topic and you will never fool me for even one moment. If this was true (its not) then Shankara would not have been able to write his bhasyas with their innumerable and very subtle arguments, since these arguments require thinking to formulate. Moreover, one enlightened Advaitin instructing someone requires thinking to take place, since you cannot understand someone's questions and provide answers to them without the involvement of thought. It's silly that I even have to point this out.

>>21446859
>The awakened Advaitin is still fully aware of his mental and physical faculties.
>What faculties? You mean maya, which doesnt exist?
yes YES those VERY SAME ONES which don't exist! "Existence" and "manifestation" (ie appearance) mean something totally different in Advaita so there is no contradiction whatsoever in saying we continue to be fully aware of our mental and physical faculties, which themselves don't exist. How do we continue to have knowledge of them? Because they are manifested (they appear). When they are sublated as ultimately unreal that means that it is understood by the sage that they do not have actual/absolute existence like Brahman does but are hollow appearances, however even after this realization the sage remains in the shared manifested world which he can perceive and which is inhabited by other people with their own minds, at least until the body of that sage dies

>And is false and is just seen as neither existing nor not-existing?
yes YES they are seen as false by not being the reality (Brahman) that is true, they are not existing, since Brahman alone exists, nor are they absolute nothingness since they manifest (appear) in experience, thus it's totally consistent

No point talking about Shankara since he got BTFO by Madhva. Monism is philosophically untenable and is of the same type of thought of people like Daniel Dennett who claim consciousness is an illusion but don't seem to understand that there MUST be a duality and subject and object if the subject is having some kind of illusion placed on them. It's impossible to escape duality and saying reality is illusory only begs the question of what exactly is experiencing the illusion?

>>21447185
>Complete and utter nonsense. I can tell that you are larping as knowledgeable about this topic and you will never fool me for even one moment. If this was true (its not) then Shankara would not have been able to write his bhasyas with their innumerable and very subtle arguments, since these arguments require thinking to formulate. Moreover, one enlightened Advaitin instructing someone requires thinking to take place, since you cannot understand someone's questions and provide answers to them without the involvement of thought. It's silly that I even have to point this out.
You seem to be misunderstanding, I mean thinking as not-thinking, an action as nonaction sort of thing, thoughts may still be produced, discursion may still appear except it does not. And there is no contradiction in that, as what dominates the mind is awareness, and in that awareness the manifestations of thoughts appear empty and void, nonsubstantial intrinsicslly, even though they still continue and are self-arising inseperably from awareness, but sure a total volunatary suppression of thoughts is possible but as an exertion, is not effortless enought to bare fruit. It is indeed silly that you have misunderstood and have to point that out.
>however even after this realization the sage remains in the shared manifested world which he can perceive and which is inhabited by other people with their own minds, at least until the body of that sage dies
Yeah pretty much, but is that all there is to it?
> that is true, they are not existing, since Brahman alone exists, nor are they absolute nothingness since they manifest (appear) in experience, thus it's totally consistent
Aa soon as you question their existence, or lack thereof you start grasping at the manifestations, so yeah advaita and so on, decides you have to reject both their reality and unreality to experience, existence as it is, but what of it?

>>21447157
>transcendental meditation
lol no thanks. I don't want to go insane and mindfuck myself into sucking a huckster cult leader's dick.

>>21447273
TM is just mantra meditation, you don't have to join any cult to do it. You can do a Christian version. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Main

>>21447157
I recommend this based on personal experience
>>21447273
Just meditate the way you want anon

Also I recommend to any anons interested in Plotinus to read the chapter in Introduction to Magic called "Massime di Saggezza Pagana"

>>21447905
>Also I recommend to any anons interested in Plotinus to read the chapter in Introduction to Magic called "Massime di Saggezza Pagana"
Based. Do you read Italian?

How do you guys meditate? Also, any thoughts on the subtle/energetic body?

Anons, can you help me with a problem of mine?
I seem to be stuck halfway between being rooted in the world, in my body, in my self and personality, in the knowledge of "I" or "myself" as a separate discrete being, and depersonalized dissolution of individuality, nameless formless awareness of awareness of awareness, like a drop of water suspended by surface tension between the surface of the ocean and a finger. I am continuously watching myself watching myself think and act and be aware of myself while at the same time attempting to remain the person named Anon with his own drives and desires and life to live without just losing it and collapsing in a heap under the weight of continuous awareness of every single facet of my existence reflected back and forth between individuality and whatever the fuck the other thing which seems to be dreaming "me" into being is, like two mirrors facing each other with a person-shaped outline in between. I can neither function normally in the world nor unroot myself from my place in the world and go wherever I will go from there, because I seem to continuously be observing both the truth of my non-being (or rather the truth of the fact that my "being" comes from something unimaginably beyond me) and the truth of my being as an individual, separate existence with its own place in the world who is absolutely qualitatively different from that unimaginable something, at the same time.
If this doesn't make sense I apologize, I have a hard time putting it into words. I've lived like this for about 7 years. At this point I've considered and attempted suicide and then concluded that it probably wouldn't even help. I just want to either stop being aware of whatever it all is and live a normal life or cut the connection/dissolve the two into one/whatever you want to call it and go to that place where "I" have my source and let it all be over and absolutely nothing I've tried to tip the balance has worked.

>>21448048
I have no idea what you're on about frankly but faith in God is the universal heal-all for life's maladies.

>>21448048
>I am continuously watching myself watching myself think and act and be aware of myself while at the same time attempting to remain the person named Anon with his own drives and desires and life to live without just losing it and collapsing in a heap under the weight of continuous awareness of every single facet of my existence reflected back and forth between individuality and whatever the fuck the other thing which seems to be dreaming "me" into being is, like two mirrors facing each other with a person-shaped outline in between.
Did you get psyopped into crypto-buddhist awareness practices too?
>I can neither function normally in the world nor unroot myself from my place in the world and go wherever I will go from there, because I seem to continuously be observing both the truth of my non-being (or rather the truth of the fact that my "being" comes from something unimaginably beyond me) and the truth of my being as an individual, separate existence with its own place in the world who is absolutely qualitatively different from that unimaginable something, at the same time.
The solution to your problem is simple, get a prostitute and have sex with her, in this state of awareness, arouse the flame of desire, and if you are truly in the state you are talking about, you will not ejaculate but instead experience transcendent bliss, or drink alocohol and maintain your consciousness, and you will experience the effects of soma, well since you say it has been 7 years, I am guessing you have already exhausted all of these avenues,
>attempted and considered suicide
Thats not good, well yeah my recommendations are drug-use, and pleasure seeking.
>to either stop being aware of whatever it all is and live a normal life or cut the connection/dissolve the two into one/whatever you want to call it and go to that place where "I" have my source and let it all be over and absolutely nothing I've tried to tip the balance has worked.
It honestly sounds like you have somehow irreversibly damaged yourself, and what you are describing has been brought on by some event, similar states of consciousness are observed in people who have had NDEs, gone to war, and so on.
Suicide and all this comes from a place of emotion, try to dissolve the emotions and their energies which infect your consciousness as they come to you, they are attacking you from outside, so maybe your environment is causing them? I truly dont know how to reverse what youve done to yourself, as I dont truly know what your experience is like , it sounds like you have fallen into some indeterminate state, due to misinformed discrimination, a confusion between the psyche and spirit, so you will probably end up dissolving into "cosmic consciousness," but this dissolution is not absolutely all that can occur to you,
Try to internally recognize that the merely formless meditative state, you have mistaken for nonduality, is the result of poor discrimination.
Try to reestablish an inner voice

>>21448209
Engage in extensive visualization meditations, use the power of eros, desire actively to try to reaffirm your being, otherwise, fully dissolve yourself, and familiarize yourself with the differences between body soul and spirit, so that, you can better seperate them, and wont get confused.

>>21446984
>This is what it comes down to ultimately, yet the advaitafags will pretend otherwise, and just say "well this realization of lack of personness" is not a deficit but a true gain, and not a negative but a positive, rather it is not a fading of existence, "unconsciousness" rather it is "super-consciousness," because every determination is a limitation, and absolute being is unlimited infinitude, the elimination of the individuality, becomes "supraindividuality," darkness becomes light, the cessation of the mind becomes enlightenment, the cessation of emotions becomes enlightened conduct, if ever an emotion surface instead of a anger it is called enlightened rage, non-different from the gnosis of enlightenment, advaitafag said above that it is not a negation, rather it is quite explicitly a "double negation" which corresponds to total affirmation, "presence" "true being," a minus becomes a plus, this is the subversive logic of guenonist escspism.
None of this is taught by Advaita but this is just your confusion playing off another poster's confusion. Nothing "becomes" it's contrary in Advaita whatsoever. We already are supra-individual awareness in an apparent conjunction with the individual body and mind, and when you realize this nothing is "transformed" into its opposite as you seem to be implying. The individual body and mind remain as they are, and the Advaitin still retains control of their faculties.

>>21447164
>What does shankara say about the internal monologue?
In all of his writings I don't remember him saying anything anywhere about people speaking to themselves in their mind. One part of Upadesasahasri is a dialogue between the mind and the Self but this is for illustrative or didactic purposes and its not intended to be read as a transcription of an internal dialogue that actually occurred, not least of all because the Self doesn't speak

>>21448239
>Advaitin still retains control of their faculties.
There are no faculties only God and thats it, there is no retaining, for the same reason you said there are no transformations, or that there is no becoming, so there is also no control, there is no relative individual, there is no mind, no ego, no memory, no intellect, there is nothing at all. There is no body, there is nothing, if you a person were really God you would not exist, by not existing (relatively) self exists (absolutely), a minus becomes a plus, is this not what advaita teaches?

>>21447211
>You seem to be misunderstanding, I mean thinking as not-thinking, an action as nonaction sort of thing, thoughts may still be produced, discursion may still appear except it does not. And there is no contradiction in that
There IS a contradiction in that. It is a contradiction to say both that "thoughts occur and also don't occur" or "thoughts appear but also don't". The Advaitin understands that his Self of awareness never thinks, but the fact that he doesn't identify with the mind that thinks doesn't mean the mind has ceased thinking. It continues on and thinks about various things but the Advaitin clearly understands that it is not his Self and thus he (if he is defined as exclusively consisting of his true Self) doesnt think, but the mind (non-Self) which he continues to know does still think. However, that can statement of yours can be interpreted in a figurative sense to mean "He is aware of the mind thinking but understands that he himself is not what is thinking", in which case it wouldn't be a contradiction, which is what seems to be sort of implied by you saying that thoughts are viewed as void and empty. Advaita only agrees that thoughts are inseparable from Awareness in an ontological-dependence sense where all manifestation in general including of thoughts relies on the Brahman-Atman for its appearance, Advaita does not say that awareness is inseparable from thoughts in a phenomenological or experiential sense which would involve identifying them with each other as two poles of the same medium or as two sides of the same coin, some Buddhist schools like Yogachara do teach this explicitly but it's something that is actually criticized by Advaita.

>It is indeed silly that you have misunderstood and have to point that out.
Your posts were vague enough that it was reasonable for someone to infer that this is what you were saying (you said the sage 'doesn't think let alone about things' without any clarification), I'm not the one responsible for this vagueness.

>however even after this realization the sage remains in the shared manifested world which he can perceive and which is inhabited by other people with their own minds, at least until the body of that sage dies
>Yeah pretty much, but is that all there is to it?
What do you mean by, all there is to it? There is certainly no spiritual goals or progress left to be done, but Advaitins who have become liberated sometimes end up filling their time with one monastic-related activity over another, like training new monks or composing texts or engaging in debates etc

>Aa soon as you question their existence, or lack thereof you start grasping at the manifestations, so yeah advaita and so on, decides you have to reject both their reality and unreality to experience, existence as it is, but what of it?
What do mean, "but what of it"? What are you even asking?

ITT: goofy Orientalniggas argue about which one of their mystical woo-woo self-help routines is better

>>21442947
Great post, OP. Welcome.

>>21448304
>There are no faculties only God and thats it
Even after awakening, the mental and physical faculties of the sage continue to be manifested in the realm of experience and he has knowledge of them (without being concerned with or engrossed by them), just as they are also manifested for for all humans before spiritual awakening. Saying "there's only God" means that only God (Brahman) alone exists, it doesn't mean that other things cannot appear in experience
>there is no retaining, for the same reason you said there are no transformations, or that there is no becoming
I meant "retaining" as in "remains in its place" ie no transformation. The mind remains the mind, the body remains the body and the self remains the self.
>so there is also no control, there is no relative individual, there is no mind, no ego, no memory, no intellect, there is nothing at all.
Egoism is a false misunderstanding that ends with the uprooting of ignorant beliefs and it does not even appear anymore, however unlike the ego, the mind, memory and intellect remain present and continue as a part of manifested experience for the awakened sage who physical body is still alive
>There is no body, there is nothing
They don't have absolute (real/true) existence like Brahman does, but the body IS manifested right now on the plane of conditional experience
>if you a person were really God you would not exist
Advaita says that my Self or Atman is God, and not the mind or body. The two premises of 1) the Self of everyone is God and 2) body and mind are manifested on the plane of experience, are not at all incompatible, they are both correct at the same time
>by not existing (relatively) self exists (absolutely), a minus becomes a plus, is this not what advaita teaches?
This is not what Advaita teaches, this is the kind of indefensible pseudo-logic that Advaita rejects and makes fun of. Nowhere in Advaita anywhere is it taught that a minus becomes a plus. The real Self (Atman) is something different from the relative self and has different characteristics or nature, the real Self shines forth as the revealed reality when you see past the false self, it's not simply the inversion of the relative self but is something higher that is already at this very moment standing 'behind' it so to speak.

>>21447194
>No point talking about Shankara since he got BTFO by Madhva.
No he didn't. None of Madhva's arguments against Advaita actually refute anything and Madhva's own philosophy was shown to be inconsistent by Advaitins. Even S.N. Dasgupta, author of the 5 or 6-volume Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophy and who is not a committed Advaitin, writes about the Dvaitins defense of their own philosophy in his Encyclopedia as follows: "This defence of difference (bheda) appears however, to be weak when compared with the refutations of difference by (the Advaitins) Chitsukha in his Tattva-pradipika, Nrsimhashrama Muni in his Bheda-dhikkara, and others. . . . Vyasatirtha (the Dvaitin) does not make any attempt squarely to meet these arguments.’

Moreover Madhva made a bunch of evidently false and ridiculous claims to bolster his own credibility including:
1) claiming to be an avatar of the wind-God Vayu
2) claiming to have authored the Sruti and Mahabharata himself
3) claiming to have knowledge of dozens of Sruti texts that he would cite which NOBODY NOT EVEN HIS OWN STUDENTS had ever once encountered or laid eyes upon, which, in an amazing coincidence, also supported his ontology and confirmed he was an avatar, how fortuitous! They totally weren't made up by Madhva.... right?

It's like an even more silly and absurd version of Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism

>Monism is philosophically untenable and is of the same type of thought of people like Daniel Dennett who claim consciousness is an illusion but don't seem to understand that there MUST be a duality and subject and object if the subject is having some kind of illusion placed on them.
This objection is not even relevant to Advaita, since Advaita says that the subject-object distinction is downstream of (i.e. a consequence of) the illusion and not something that has any reality prior to the illusion or is independent of the illlusion
>It's impossible to escape duality and saying reality is illusory only begs the question of what exactly is experiencing the illusion?
Advaita doesn't say "reality is illusory" but rather they say that Brahman is what reality is and that you are identifying something as reality which is not actually reality. The illusion is ontologically dependent on reality and is cast by it similar to how a magician casts a spell. The light of awareness of the Atman-Brahman is non-dual and without a subject-object difference, but when it provides illumination for the mind then that allows the mind/intellect (manas/buddhi) to experience the illusion of being within the maya-universe and when this takes place, the subject-object divide takes place in the manas/buddhi.

>>21444947
bump

>>21448359
It's funny when people who claim to have studied spiritual topics try to one up each other

>>21448359
Ya, a bunch of losers who have just memorized metaphysical theories.

bump, interesting posts

>>21450112
What's the point of life if not memorizing metaphysical theories? What am I supposed to do, take my sweetie out to the cineplex to see Spiderman: No Homo and eat a chocolate peanut? Today I learned that there are as many buthas as there are tanmatras.

>>21448359
all materialists should be shot

>>21450988
You should be discovering the truth, not memorizing theory to clash with other theory memorizers (who, for all everyone knows, are talking past each other, neglecting to share each other’s puzzle piece and solve the mystery of Being).

>>21442998
Evola/Guenon eclecticism

>NNOOOOOOOO YOU CANT DEBATE EASTERN METAPHYSICANS ON /LIT/ WE HAVE TO ALL HOLD HANDS AND SING KUMBAYA!!!!!

>A SPIRITUALLY ENLIGHTENTED PERSON OR EVEN SOMEONE WITH A SERIOUS INTEREST IN THE TOPIC WOULD NEVER DISAGREE WITH ANYONE!!!! NO FAMOUS EASTERN PHILOSOPHER EVER ENGAGED IN DEBATE OR CRITIQUED RIVAL SCHOOLS!!!

>I CAME INTO THIS THREAD TO POST NOTHING OF VALUE EXCEPT TO INSINTUATE THAT IM SOMEHOW BETTER THAN EVERYONE FOR NOT CONTRIBUTING TO THE DISCUSSION WHATSOEVER

>>21451242
Stop being this dumb.

>>21448505
>This objection is not even relevant to Advaita, since Advaita says that the subject-object distinction is downstream of (i.e. a consequence of) the illusion and not something that has any reality prior to the illusion or is independent of the illlusion
Literally does not matter. If there is a subject and an object then there is duality. Simple as that.

>Advaita doesn't say "reality is illusory" but rather they say that Brahman is what reality is and that you are identifying something as reality which is not actually reality
What kind of horseshit mental gymnastics is this? "Advaita doesn't say "reality is illusory"...you are identifying something as reality which is not actually reality" that's the same thing.

Again, Monism is not philosophically tenable and encounters all the same issues as materialism. The fact you can't even defend it without diving into sophistry like "It doesn't say reality is illusion it just says reality isn't the reality you experience!" proves the fundamental incoherence of the doctrine. Realism is the only rational and reasonable position and any doctrine that states what you experience is not reality can be summarily dismissed as a form of solipsism.

I'm sorry but Madvhas theism is far, far stronger and more rationally defensible than Shankaras dogshit monism

>>21451508
As a third-party, I cannot be bothered to seriously read through all these debates on Advaita on /lit/ and give any of my own opinions in serious detail, but I agree in the sometimes limited and imperfect argumentation of Advaita Vedanta (or at least representations of its arguments), and think /lit/‘s arguments about religion and metaphysics would be more interesting if even more schools of Eastern philosophies and religions were studied. For instance, the Indian philosophical school of Samkhya does not deny reality to the universe or posit it as “illusory,” as adherents of Advaita Vedanta often do, but affirm the existence of everything as manifesting in a hierarchical chain of Being, from the subtlest spiritual principle (the summit of Purusha) to the grossest, densest, most unconscious matter (the nadir of Prakriti).

According to a Samkhya-inspired view, the simultaneous means and goal of yoga is the progressive disentangling and liberation of the purusha (witness-consciousness) from entanglement in prakriti (materiality, which includes the subtler emotional and mental functions, as simply more refined materiality). One sees that one’s real self or consciousness is subtler than material sensation and sensate reality, subtler than the psychic and emotional functions, and still yet subtler than mental functions (the light of purusha or the witness-consciousness being what allows us to even have thoughts and observe thoughts in the first place).

This does not deny reality to the world or call it “illusory” like followers of Advaita Vedanta do, but ends up having a similar outlook, similar practices and a similar posited ultimate end-goal of human life (in moksha, enlightenment, or kaivalya, liberation).

>>21451508
> Literally does not matter. If there is a subject and an object then there is duality. Simple as that.
That’s not an actual argument. Advaita agrees that subject and object distinction are a part of normal everyday experience, but normal everyday experience is not real while Brahman alone is. There is no logical step that allows one to prove that differences are ultimately real simply because they are a part of everyday experience, since nobody can prove that everyday experiences and multiplicity are actually real. The Advaitin can say “yes well duality is a part of the illusory samsara but its not real” and the Dvaitins have no argument that actually proves its real.

>What kind of horseshit mental gymnastics is this? "Advaita doesn't say "reality is illusory"...you are identifying something as reality which is not actually reality" that's the same thing.
No, it’s not. You were referring to the universe or the cosmos as itself constituting ‘reality’ and saying “Advaitins say that reality (the universe) is unreal”, and my point was that what you are calling reality is not what Advaitins call reality. Advaitins say that only Brahman is reality. The manifested universe, which is not identical with Brahman, is hence not reality. So, when Advaitins say that all multiplicity including the universe is unreal or false or illusory, they are not saying reality is an illusion, because, what they are calling an illusion (the universe) they dont consider to be reality.

>Again, Monism is not philosophically tenable and encounters all the same issues as materialism.
Advaita is non-dualism and not monism and it faces none of the problems that materialism faces.

>The fact you can't even defend it without diving into sophistry like "It doesn't say reality is illusion it just says reality isn't the reality you experience!"
That wasn’t sophistry, I was pointing out that what you were saying wasn’t correct because you were misrepresenting Advaita’s position through mislabeling. You made a false statement (albeit an understandable mistake or point of confusion) that I corrected for you.

>Realism is the only rational and reasonable position
Advaita is more rational and reasonable than any and all forms of realism

> and any doctrine that states what you experience is not reality can be summarily dismissed as a form of solipsism.
Advaita isn’t solipsism because it accepts that everyone’s consciousness (Brahman) is real

>I'm sorry but Madvhas theism is far, far stronger and more rationally defensible than Shankaras dogshit monism
It’s not, as SN Dasgupta already pointed out, it was refuted by Chitsukha and Nrsimhashrama Muni among others, the most famed Dvaita dialectician Vyasavirtha was too afraid to even attempt to directly engage with their arguments that refuted difference. Moreover Madhva invalidates himself with the dozens and dozens of fake scriptural quotes that he made up to support his philosophical claims.

>>21451630
>No, it’s not. You were referring to the universe or the cosmos as itself constituting ‘reality’ and saying “Advaitins say that reality (the universe) is unreal”, and my point was that what you are calling reality is not what Advaitins call reality. Advaitins say that only Brahman is reality
Complete nonsense. You said:

>Advaita agrees that subject and object distinction are a part of normal everyday experience, but normal everyday experience is not real
So if normal everyday experience is not real then what is it? If it's illusiory then who or what is experiencing the illusion and how does the idea that there is an illusion and something to experience the illusion not immediately destroy the idea of "non-dualism" by introducing an unavoidable duality?

>Advaita is non-dualism and not monism
The two are synonymous and it faces most of the problems of materialism.

>That wasn’t sophistry
Of course it was, your "correction" was merely restating what I had already said with the nonsensical insistence that saying reality is an illusion is not the same as saying that the reality you experience is not real. I don't think that you can escape the criticisms so easily by trying to claim that what I call "reality" is not what Shankara calls "reality" so therefore the criticism doesn't hold because we're both talking about direct phenomenal experience and the word reality has nothing to do with the point that something experiencing direct phenomenal experience is either experiencing something real, or something illusiory.

>Advaita isn’t solipsism because it accepts that everyone’s consciousness (Brahman) is real
That's solipsism, simply on a cosmic scale

>>21451580
Part of the reason that less people are passionate about Samkhya online is because it was subjected to serious philosophical and logical critiques by other Indian schools including by Shankara and the other Vedantins, and many people consider these criticisms of it to be largely valid. In the light of this, someone who agrees with these critiques may see Samkhya as an intellectual curiosity but they’re not going to be passionately defending and posting online about something which they dont think is fully correct.

>>21451630
The Vedas were always read in a Theistic fashion and Shankaras monism represented an idiosyncratic split with the tradition that was patched back up by Madhvas critique. Read pic related.

>>21451649
>Complete nonsense.
No it's not, it's clearly identifying two distinct positions:

1) the universe of multiplicity is what is reality
2) Brahman is what is reality

We can also add a third option of reality is both

You mistakenly said that Advaitins agree with position #1 and say that reality is illusory. I corrected this mistake by pointing out that Advaitins actually accept position #2 and reject position #1. This is just a question of terminology but it's helpful to clarify this before proceeding further in order to avoid additional mistakes .

>Advaita agrees that subject and object distinction are a part of normal everyday experience, but normal everyday experience is not real
>So if normal everyday experience is not real then what is it?
It is part of the illusion of maya
>If it's illusiory then who or what is experiencing the illusion
The subtle body (which contains the mind/intellect) is one of the objects in the illusion and it experiences and witnesses the other components of the illusion. This is possible because the Atman's awareness has the effect of imparting a seeming sentience to the subtle body, just as sunlight passing through a stained glass window will illuminate that window and make it glow, and thereby making it falsely seem as though the stained glass window itself is the source of light instead of the sun which is the actual source of the light. In a similar way, the Awareness (Brahman) that is the sole existent, projects the display of maya and by virtue of the same power, induces the illusion that the subtle bodies are conscious or sentient instead of Brahman alone being conscious. There isn't any way to logically refute this.

>and how does the idea that there is an illusion and something to experience the illusion not immediately destroy the idea of "non-dualism" by introducing an unavoidable duality?
It fails to destroy anything because all duality is unreal in Advaita, what you pointed to is just another one of the differences between different parts of the illusion but no amount of pointing to different parts of the illusion overturns or challenges the Advaitin thesis that duality is unreal and that the reality UNDERLYING the illusion is itself completely non-dual and partless.

>>21451649

>Advaita is non-dualism and not monism
>The two are synonymous and it faces most of the problems of materialism.
They aren't because monism can preserve differences intact within a greater unity while non-dualism doesn't unless you modify it into "qualified non-dualism" which is basically just monism and not non-dualism.

>That wasn’t sophistry
>Of course it was, your "correction" was merely restating what I had already said with the nonsensical insistence that saying reality is an illusion is not the same as saying that the reality you experience is not real.
You still don't understand the point I made, I address this in the first part of my post again (see above).

Advaita doesn't say "reality is an illusion", they say "illusion is illusion and reality is reality, and only Brahman and not the universe is reality"

>I don't think that you can escape the criticisms so easily by trying to claim that what I call "reality" is not what Shankara calls "reality"
You have not raised any actual substantive argument or criticism so far so it's not like I care either way
>so therefore the criticism doesn't hold because we're both talking about direct phenomenal experience and the word reality has nothing to do with the point that something experiencing direct phenomenal experience is either experiencing something real, or something illusiory.
As I have said, the reality that is non-dual (Brahman) projects illusory maya and through this also projects illusory maya-minds that experience maya. Brahman's power also invests those maya-minds with an imitation or simulacrum of Brahman's own awareness in a manner similar to the sun illuminating and making a stained glass glow with light, thereby providing a basis for the illusion to occur and be experienced

>Advaita isn’t solipsism because it accepts that everyone’s consciousness (Brahman) is real
>That's solipsism, simply on a cosmic scale
That's not solipsism which denies that there are other minds. Calling something solipism is not a refutation of it anyway, and when you have to stretch the definition of it like that in order to make them seem related it's not even clear why it should be considered a possibly bad thing in the first place

>>21451810
>This is possible because the Atman's awareness has the effect of imparting a seeming sentience to the subtle body, just as sunlight passing through a stained glass window will illuminate that window and make it glow, and thereby making it falsely seem as though the stained glass window itself is the source of light instead of the sun which is the actual source of the light
here is a more detailed elaboration of the same concept:

Now, to return to the interplay of consciousness and matter, resulting in apparently conscious mental events. It is the subtle ‘thought forms’ of the buddhi which allow mental events to appear conscious, because the refined buddhi substance is held to be ‘transparent’ to the light of consciousness. Thus conscious thoughts and perceptual experiences take place when buddhi receives representational forms, both perceptual and conceptual, from manas, the ‘organ of cognition’. So buddhi receives cognitive structures from manas, and conscious ‘light’ from puruṣa, and in this manner specific mental
structures are illuminated by an external source and thereby appear conscious.

To fully exploit the optical analogy, the conscious representational structures involved in, say, visual perception, can be compared to transparent photographic slides. The photographic image stored in the film is composed of matter, but it is both representational and translucent. Therefore, when the film is held up to an external light source, such as the sun, the illuminated representation is analogous to the structures of perceptual experience which glow with the sentience of puruṣa. Only the subtle thoughtforms of buddhi are transluscent with the light of puruṣa, while other configurations of
matter are opaque to this radiance. And this is why minds appear to be the loci of sentience in the physical world, while stones and tables cannot assume conscious guise.

>>21451810
>This is possible because the Atman's awareness has the effect of imparting a seeming sentience to the subtle body, just as sunlight passing through a stained glass window will illuminate that window and make it glow, and thereby making it falsely seem as though the stained glass window itself is the source of light instead of the sun which is the actual source of the light
here is a more detailed elaboration of the same concept:

Now, to return to the interplay of consciousness and matter, resulting in apparently conscious mental events. It is the subtle ‘thought forms’ of the buddhi which allow mental events to appear conscious, because the refined buddhi substance is held to be ‘transparent’ to the light of consciousness. Thus conscious thoughts and perceptual experiences take place when buddhi receives representational forms, both perceptual and conceptual, from manas, the ‘organ of cognition’. So buddhi receives cognitive structures from manas, and conscious ‘light’ from puruṣa, and in this manner specific mental structures are illuminated by an external source and thereby appear conscious.

To fully exploit the optical analogy, the conscious representational structures involved in, say, visual perception, can be compared to transparent photographic slides. The photographic image stored in the film is composed of matter, but it is both representational and translucent. Therefore, when the film is held up to an external light source, such as the sun, the illuminated representation is analogous to the structures of perceptual experience which glow with the sentience of puruṣa. Only the subtle thoughtforms of buddhi are transluscent with the light of puruṣa, while other configurations of matter are opaque to this radiance. And this is why minds appear to be the loci of sentience in the physical world, while stones and tables cannot assume conscious guise.

>>21451861

Though non-dualistic, Śaṅkara's Advaita philosophy shares many of the same ideas as the Sāṅkhya-Yoga model just described. Śaṅkara accepts a similar interaction between manas and buddhi, and likewise views the mind as a material configuration ultimately devoid of consciousness. It merely appears conscious because of the external source of illumination. The main difference is that the physical world is not held to be metaphysically independent by Śaṅkara, but rather to be ultimately an ‘illusion’ sustained by māyā. Yet, regardless of their disagreement about the fundamental status of matter, Sāṅkhya-Yoga dualism and Advaita monism both share a similar conception of absolute consciousness as an autonomous substance, essentially separable from the vicissitudes and limitations of the particular minds to which it appears to belong. For both Śaṅkara and Sāṅkhya-Yoga, pure consciousness is immutable and inactive, formless and without limiting characteristics.

Pure consciousness illuminates the material thought-forms of the buddhi, thereby yielding the appearance of sentient states that are directed towards particular objects and cognitive contents. But from the perspective of pure consciousness this directedness is merely an appearance. Consciousness as such is not directed towards these objects, it has no intention to illuminate the limited material structures in question, and it is completely independent of the mental phenomena upon which its light happens to fall. As exposited by Karl Potter,

… whereas ordinary awareness not only has an object but also requires it as the occasion for that specific piece of awareness or judgment, pure consciousness has no more relation to its objects than does the sun that shines on everything without being in the least affected by or dependent on things. (1981, p. 93)

>>21451668
>The Vedas were always read in a Theistic fashion and Shankaras monism represented an idiosyncratic split with the tradition that was patched back up by Madhvas critique. Read pic related.
I disagree, setting aside the countless passages in the Upanishads which say Brahman = Atman, and which say that change and plurality are unreal and which relate them to ignorance and suffering, there are also passages in the earlier parts of the Vedas that are opposed to dualism, like when the Rig-Veda mentions there being one "Solar Self of all that is in motion or at rest" - (RV 1.1151).

If the Vedas were always read in a dualistic fashion then Madhva would not have had to make up so many fake scriptural quotes of texts that didn't exist and which nobody had ever read before

>>21451817
>That's not solipsism which denies that there are other minds
Wrong, Solipsism is the position that you can only prove your mind is real. The proposition that the only reality is the cosmic mind is cosmic level solipsism. Getting the distinct impression you don't know what you're talking about and read some garbage pro-Advaita polemic and swallowed it wholesale

Sankara was a crypto buddhist and was not of the Vedic tradition

>>21451972
>Wrong, Solipsism is the position that you can only prove your mind is real.
Then Advaita isn't solipsism since they don't even think that the mind is real but they say mind (manas) and intellect (buddhi) are both a part of the illusion of maya.
>The proposition that the only reality is the cosmic mind is cosmic level solipsism.
Brahman isn't cosmic mind but He is infinite consciousness that is beyond both mind and cosmos, anyways, calling something solipsism does not refute it or establish that it's bad, it's not an actual argument
>Getting the distinct impression you don't know what you're talking about and read some garbage pro-Advaita polemic and swallowed it wholesale
I have read all of Shankara's authentic writings and I have also read many of the ones of questionable authenticity. Unlike Madhva's terse and opaque style, Shankara's writings are actually a joy to read.

>>21451980
>Sankara was a crypto budd

"It is contended by some that the doctrine of māyā or avidyā is not found in the Upaniṣads and it is borrowed by Shankara from Buddhism. This contention can be made only by those who are un-informed or ill-informed about the Upaniṣadic philosophy. The term māyā can be traced to the Rigveda (VI, 47, 18) where the one Supreme is said to appear in many forms through his power of māyā. The Shvetashvatara (IV, 9-10) describes God as ‘māyī, Lord of māyā, and his wonder-working power of creationas māyā. The term avidyā is often used in the Upaniṣads in the sense of ignorance and appearance. The Mundaka (II, 1, 10) compares ignorance to a knot which is to be untied by the realisation of the Self. The Katha (I, 2, 4-5) says that worldly people live in ignorance and thinking themselves wise move about like blind men led by the blind. The same Upanisad (11,1,2) warns us not to find reality and immortality in things of this unreal and changing world. The Chandogya (VI, 1, 4) makes it clear that Atma is the only reality and that everything else is a mere word, a mode and a name. The same Upanisad (VIII, 3,3) says that worldly people are covered with the veil of falsity. It also says (VII, 1, 3) that he who realises the Self goes beyond sorrow. The Isha (7) assures us that delusion and suffering are gone for him who realises the unity of the Self. It also says (15) that the face of the Truth is covered by a golden veil and that the aspirant prays to God for its removal. It also compares ignorance with blind darkness (9).

The Prashna (I, 16) tells us that Brahma can be realised by those who have neither crookedness nor falsehood nor illusion. The Katha (II, 1,10) makes it clear that he who sees as if there is plurality here goes on revolving in the cycle of birth and death. The Brhadaranyaka (II, 4, 14 and IV, 5, 15) says ‘as if there were duality’ implying that duality is a semblance, an appearance, an as it were. The same Upanisad (I, 3, 28) has the famous prayer which runs: Lead me from unreality to Reality, from darkness to Light, from death to Immortality. This implies the distinction between appearance and reality, between ignorance and knowledge and between change and eternity. Quotations from the Upaniṣads can be multiplied where the phenomenal world of plurality and change is declared to be mere appearance due to māyā or avidyā and Brahma is said to be the only Reality, the eternal, undeniable and non-dual Self. Prof. R.D. Ranade rightly points out the origin of the doctrine of māyā or avidyā in the Upanisads and concludes that “we do find in the Upaniṣads all the material that may have easily led Shankara to elaborate a theory of Māyā out of it.. . . let no man stand up and say that we do not find the traces of the doctrine of Māyā in the Upaniṣad!”

>>21452045
Source?

>>21442947
Stop worshiping semitic desert demons!

>>21443435
Good transforms evil into good, rather than good and evil being identical. A process involving a subject and an object is not reducible to a single principle except in the resolution of the process. Dualism is a function of time, and Christ applied his reasoning to human values, which operate within time.

>>21452840
He's not Anon.
he's worshipping God.

>>21447162
Whats this classical/personal divide?
At least from when I read TImeaus, Plato's ur-god, seemed to follow this personalism model with the lesser gods and through them the cosmos being an eminence and creation of him rather than this diagram's more pantheistic conception of the cosmos being a small part of god.

Unless classical is refering to brahman and eastern stuff. Or maybe some pathagoean stuff im not aware off. since before the platonic/monadic model it seemed more polytheistic/animist with things having personality and spirits rather than a wholistic concept of a godhead.

>>21452595
The source is Chandradhar Sharma’s book “The Advaita Tradition in Indian Philosophy”

https://archive.org/details/TheAdvaitaTraditionInIndianPhilosophyChandradharSharma

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>>21444947
anons PLEASE save us from metaphysical autism

gommunism :DDDD

>>21452863
Is that so? I was under the impression that he's in fact worshiping a certain desert kakodaimon, far from true God.

>>21454150
bump