/lit/ - Literature

>>22177928
>made me realize Non-dualism is wrong
Show the you?
>realize
Oh son, wait until you realise.
>wrong
WEW LAD

>>22177928
is this book engaging or based on the thought of Jakob Böhme in any way?

>>22177976
No not really. It's a take down of Advaita from a Christian perspective

>>22177983
>Christian
Sauline.

>>22177983
so what are his Christian sources for this?

its okay lad, Tradition is flexible and adaptable for everyone
maybe in your next life you'll be prepared for the Truth, no hurry, no worries

>do the Upanishads teach Theism

>>22177928
Robert Bolton is an idiot who wrote this book because he was seething about Guenon, but he has little understanding of Hindu metaphysics and it’s just an exercise in ignorance and foolishness. The Upanishads clearly teach non-dualism, they propound the literal identity of the Atman and highest Brahman over and over in unmistakable terms.

The major dualist interpreter of the Upanishads, Madhva, made up hundreds of fake scriptural quotations in his writings, and he was compelled to do this precisely because the Upanishads refute dualism instead of supporting it.

OP is eternally butthurt over Guenon and Advaita and he copes by spamming this book without ever posting real arguments from it.

>What do the Upanishads say about the true Self (Atman) and Brahman?

That Atman (Self) is indeed Brahman"
- Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.4.5.

"explain to me the Brahman that is immediate and direct—the self that is within all.’ ‘This is your self that is within all.’ ‘Which is within all, Yājñavalkya?’ ‘That which transcends hunger and thirst, grief, delusion, decay and death"
- Brihadaranyaka 3.5.1.

"An ocean, a single seer without duality (advaita) becomes he whose world is Brahman, O King, Yajnavalkya instructed. This is his supreme way. This is his supreme achievement."
- Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.3.32.

"He is my Self and is in my heart. He is no other than Brahman.”
- Chandogya Upanishad 3.14.4.

"This is the Self. It is immortal and also fearless. It is Brahman."
- Chandogya Upanishad 8.3.4.

"This being that is in the human personality, and the being that is there in the sun are one"
- Taittiriya Upanishad 3.10.3-4

"He who knows that highest Brahman becomes even Brahman"
- Mundaka Upanishad 3.2.9

"the Self is realized as existing within the self, when a man looks for It by means of truthfulness and austerity−when he looks for the Self, which pervades all things as butter pervades milk and whose roots are Self−Knowledge and austerity. That is the Brahman taught by the Upanishad; yea, that is the Brahman taught by the Upanishads."
- Svetasvatara Upanishad 1.15-16

"Rudra is truly one; for the knowers of Brahman do not admit the existence of a second, He alone rules all the worlds by His powers. He dwells as the inner Self of every living being."
- Svetasvatara Upanishad 3.2

>>22178413
>Do the Upanishads say anything about the unreality of plurality/change and about the one Brahman being the only truly existent thing?

Brahman is only perceived as a manifold due to maya:

The Lord on account of Maya is perceived as manifold
- Brihadaranyaka 2.5.19

All that changes is unreal while the unchanging Brahman alone is real:

O Somya, it is like this: By knowing a single lump of earth you know all objects made of earth. All changes are mere words, in name only. But earth is the reality.
- Chandogya 6.1.4.

Perceiving plurality as real causes one to revolve further in the cycle of transmigration:

Through the mind alone is Brahman to be realized. There is in It no diversity. He goes from death to death who sees in It, as it were, diversity.’
- Brihadaranyaka 4.4.19.

ibid:

What is here, the same is there and what is there, the same is here. He goes from death to death who sees any difference here.
- Katha 2.1.10.

All phenomena besides Brahman are a transient illusion:

Through constant meditation on Him, by union with Him, by the knowledge of identity with Him, one attains, in the end, cessation of the illusion of phenomena.
- Svetasvatara 1.10.

Only the Supreme Self (Paramatman) actually exists:

“In this universe the Swan, the Supreme Self alone exists" - Śvetāśvatara 6.15

>>22177928
now read the works of Father Seraphim Rose

>>22178413
>>22178418
Wait, is this just Indian Eleatic philosophy? Why exactly is it incompatible with theism?

>>22178610
>Wait, is this just Indian Eleatic philosophy?
There are parallels, bit it’s not the exact same. Parmenides exact metaphysical commitments are kind of obscure since we only have an incomplete poem by him. The Upanishads include more discussion of the nature of the soul/self, various cosmological principles, the nature of spiritual bondage and release and various other matters, and the classical Hindu commentaries on them go into way more in-depth discussion than is found in either Parmenides or later Eleatic writers.

> exactly is it incompatible with theism?
It depends on what your definition of theism is. The Upanishads present Brahman as an infinite and eternal reality consisting more or less of blissful and ineffable consciousness; they present this sentient reality as being utterly uncaring, unloving, without even a mind that makes It think about living beings; this departs from what people normally associate with theism, although theism includes a range of views from William Lane Craig defending something like Zeus and on the other side of the spectrum in the ‘Classical Theist’ tradition you have some highly abstract Neoplatonic-like conceptions of God as immutable where He doesn’t ‘think’ or ‘decide’ things in a way remotely resembling humans at all. If your definition is theism is a God that ‘cares’ and seeks to be worshipper then it’s not theistic. Other people define or associate theism with the concept of everything being contingent upon or originating from a singular, sentient and self-sufficient reality or principle; in this latter sense the Upanishads could certainly be considered theistic.

>>22177983
Sounds based. Non-dualism is shite.

>>22179170
>on the other side of the spectrum in the ‘Classical Theist’ tradition you have some highly abstract Neoplatonic-like conceptions of God as immutable where He doesn’t ‘think’ or ‘decide’ things in a way remotely resembling humans at all.
Are Neoplatonic metaphysics incompatible with the Upanishads too? If the Neoplatonists are taking cues from Plato, and if Plato is taking cues from Parmenides, then we ought to see some parallels here, no?

>>22179956
>Are Neoplatonic metaphysics incompatible with the Upanishads too?
There is no agreement about that among scholars, each Neoplatonist presents their own unique exposition of Platonism just like every Vedanta school presents their own exposition of the Upanishad’s metaphysics, and so even something like a particular scholar’s subjective opinion on which Neoplatonist school or Vedanta school presents the most correct or accurate exegesis of Plato/ Upanishads can lead to very different conclusions. In the book ‘The Shape of Ancient Thought’ the author flipflops between finding some elements in Plotinus more like Advaita Vedanta and other elements more like Vishishtadvaita Vedanta.

>If the Neoplatonists are taking cues from Plato, and if Plato is taking cues from Parmenides, then we ought to see some parallels here, no?
Well, this is another can of worms itself, I have seen anons on /lit/ before debate whether Plato’s Parmenides ends up agreeing with or refuting and superseding Parmenides the Eleatic, even on that there is disagreement.

>>22177983
>It's a take down of Advaita from a Christian perspective
sounds interesting. does anyone know of any books that deal with Christians engaging with Hindu thought through their perspective, or even just something which takes Hindu concepts, like advaita vedanta, and applies it to Christianity?

>>22180304
Yes, the Benedictine monk Bede Griffiths wrote numerous books on the relation of Christianity, Hinduism and Advaita, he seems to have written from the perspective of reconciling Christianity and Advaita. His corpus of works is so large that there have been multiple books written about him and his thought and legacy.

The Jesuit priest and Harvard professor Francis Clooney has also written a number of books on Hinduism and Christianity, his book ‘Theology after Vedanta’ doesn’t try to reconcile them but respectfully compares them.

>>22178405
Got any book recs?

>>22178405
>The Upanishads clearly teach non-dualism
Then why is Advaita a minority position? You're like a Protestant screeching about what the Bible "clearly teaches" when 95% of all Christians disagree with them

In fact Shankara being the Calvin of Vedanta fits pretty well.

>>22180849
>majority = true
>minority = false

>>22180898
>"Upanishads clearly teach Non-dualism!"
>Most Hindu scholars and mystics disagree
>Doesn't matter because you love the taste of Papa Shankaras dick too much
Madvha destroyed Shankara, to the point Adavaitaites need to make up nonsense about him fabricating quotes which are obvious lies.

>>22180849
>Then why is Advaita a minority position?
All true positions are inherently esoteric and therefore minority. The majority are almost always wrong.

>>22180911
Seems like cope when you're simultaneously trying to argue that scriptures "clearly teach" something. If they did then more people would agree with you. This isn't a matter of direct mystical experience, it's whether you're reading a text right and applying the correct hermeneutic to it.

>>22180930
They clearly teach something - if you have the capability to understand it properly and relate all of its parts together.
>his isn't a matter of direct mystical experience,
The understanding of the text is a matter of proper understanding, which most lack. Understanding the Vedas and Upanishads is like trying to grasp an individual grain of sand. Developing the precision necessary is not possessed by all.
>This isn't a matter of direct mystical experience
Ultimately, it is. This is what the Katha Upanishad states, which I assume you have not read:
नायमात्मा प्रवचनेन लभ्यो
न मेधया न बहुना श्रुतेन ।
यमेवैष वृणुते तेन लभ्यः
तस्यैष आत्मा विवृणुते तनूꣳ स्वाम् ॥ २३॥
Translation:
This Self is not won by exegesis, nor by brainpower, nor by much learning of Scripture. Only by him whom It chooses can It be won; to him this Self unveils its own body.

So both the textual and direct understanding are precluded to the few.

>>22180938
>It's obvious what it means you just need to be special like me!
Ok well you're just a fucking retard then

>>22180849
>Then why is Advaita a minority position?
Argumentum ad populum is an informal logical fallacy, popularity has nothing to do with being correct here. Advaita is by nature elitist and is mainly intended for Brahmins, it acknowledges the validity of other castes following karma-yoga etc but of course some people will feel compelled by other schools which have a greater role to play for non-Brahmin householders or laypeople, even if their metaphysics isn't as accurate a rendition of the Upanishadic teaching. That's just human nature to resent being left out and to seek greater inclusion or something which they find more emotionally fulfilling and which encourages forming a sentimental attachment to one or another form of God.

>In fact Shankara being the Calvin of Vedanta fits pretty well.
Not at all, he is the first serious Vedanta theologian, Shankara came before both the theistic Vedantins and he doesn't mix his teaching with Pancharactra while Ramanuja, Madhva etc are mixing up the ideas of the Upanishads with Pancharatra.

>>22180592
I would personally recommend Shankara's works over everything else. Besides the books in this chart an excellent Indology book which just dropped is "Mirror of Nature, Mirror of Self: Models of Consciousness in Sāṃkhya, Yoga, and Advaita Vedānta"by Dimitry Shevchenko which discusses the broad continuity of thought in mirror models of consciousness in the aforementioned schools and other thinkers, it highlights some of the often underappreciated common ground between Advaita and Samkhya/Yoga.

>>22181103
>Argumentum ad populum is an informal logical fallacy, popularity has nothing to do with being correct here.
Informal logic fallacies aren't like formal logical fallacies. They're a sign of misdirection, but their rhetorical appeal isn't built off of nothing. Why shouldn't everybody believe in advaita vedanta if it's so great? Why did it only become a minority position? Gatekeeping?
>>22181103
Is there a good, up-to-date introduction to Vedantic philosophy as a whole that you would recommend? Especially one that does a lot of heavy lifting in trying to translate it into the Western philosophical tradition?

Claiming advaita is the primordial tradition is the most absurd mental gymnastic imaginable. "All religions are actually based off an ahistorical indian medievalist who blatantly misreads his own traditional texts (moreso Vedas than Upanishads but still) and copies Buddhism and then claims Buddhism actually copied his own scriptures which all evidence says came after" -- wow much insight such wow

>>22180907
>Madvha destroyed Shankara,
No, Madhva doesn't have a single argument that refutes Shankara, most of what Madhva writes is based on not even understanding Shankara's position.

> to the point Adavaitaites need to make up nonsense about him fabricating quotes which are obvious lies.
It's also not true that it's made up that Madhva fabricated false scripture citations, this is well known among Indologists and Madhva was called out for this bullshit by people in medieval India like Vidyaranya, pic related is the book that Roque Mesquita wrote about it documenting it. Even in books written about Dvaita by Madhva partisans they admit this and just cope by saying the hundreds of false texts are """still unrecovered""".

1) Madhva's texts include references to hundreds of unknown sources
2) They pretty much all support his unique ontology (how convenient!)
3) They also support his claim of being an avatar (super convenient!)
4) Nobody, not even his own students has even seen them
5) Madhva was known to restrict circulation of his own texts during his life, probably because he was afraid of his fraud being exposed
Taken in combination, Madhva obviously made up all these fake quotes

>This is a study into the nature of the “quotations” from older authoritative texts in Madhva’s writings that cannot be traced, either because
the works that supposedly are quoted cannot be found, or because the known versions of works with such titles do not contain the quoted passages. This highly intriguing aspect of Madhva’s writing was already noticed by thinkers of rival schools of Indian thought centuries ago, and it was casually explained by Madhva’s latter-day followers as the result of theft and loss of those texts. M.’s 1997 study shows that the matter cannot be all that simple as this traditionalist account says, and he has offered a more convincing explanation.

>The third part of the trilogy, Madhvas Zitate, brings together all the quotations from purāṇas and the epics which Madhva adduces in support of his special doctrines and which cannot be identified by· means of the sources that are available today. Madhva follows a regular pattern when using these quotations: first he formulates his own idea, then he “quotes” a text to assure his reader that his idea already is part of an existing tradition. The problem is that the majority of these quotations have not found acceptance among the learned outside the tradition which Madhva himself founded; even the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava tradition, which traces its own origin to Madhva, is aware of the dubiousness of Madhva’s quotations (Madhvas Zitate, p. 21, n. 3).
https://philarchive.org/archive/ZYDROT

>>22181103
>common ground between Samkhya and Yoga (explicitely dualist) and advaita
Lol. Lmao even

>cannot be all that simple as this traditionalist account
Hmmm. And yet the Advaita traditional accounts are 100% accurate? Seems unlikely

Post your favorite parts of advaita philosophy: Mine is when it says good and evil doesn't exist! It inspired me to eat da poopoo like my fellow advaitist Aleister Crowley. I also like when it says I am already enlightened. Gives me a great excuse to sit on my ass like a loser and type up sankara apologism quotes all day on 4chan.

>>22180849
>>22180907
>>22180938
>minority position

Jagadguru Swarupananda Saraswati who recently left his body stirred up the country
the late jagadguru of Kanci was considered literally God on earth by whole India
the Shankaracharya paramparA is very orthodox and well respected
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4GQTovFkvk
Obviously its a minority that understand the teachings, because you need certain qualifications. But advaita is anything but unpopular.

There's no debate regarding the interpretation (it's not even an "interpretation", because it states straightaway brahman=atman) of the upanisads, its advaita. Period.
Madhva, ramanuja,etc appeared only later and possibly as persons like you, who couldn't understand the doctrine and started seething about it
Shankaracharya didn't refute them because they were not even alive at the time and most importantly, there was no dvaita or vishishtadvaita traditions at his time, those were created later as a result of innovations and farfetched interpretations.

Now, you have to bear in mind that there are two paths: karma khanda and jñana khanda. Most upanisads start with the former, so that's why they seem to enjoin meditations, rituals and so on. But those are only used for mental purification, not moksha (that's exclusive of the jñana path). The Mandukya upanisad is the only one among the major upanisads that start right away with the vichara, disregarding rituals.

>his isn't a matter of direct mystical experience,
>Ultimately, it is
Realization has nothing to do with any "mystical experience" but it's not just a matter of understaning a text like any other (as the teaching itself is merely provisional )
It's the immediate intuition that dawns on you when you negate everything else and realize the Absolute as your own Self after determining the meaning of the terms of the mahavakyas.

>>22181109
>vedanta and western phil books
Radhakrishnan is dated and part of advaitist milieu alongside Crowley and Guenon and Blavatsky and other such orientalist bullcrap but tis prolly what you seek regardless

>>22181121

>A second use of this book is that it helps to identify those portions of Madhva’s doctrine that are most likely to contain original ideas. Thirdly, this listing of the quotations according to the titles of works from which they supposedly were taken supports M.’s conclusion that the sources were fabricated, because one finds contradictory statements within what is supposed to be one text (see p. 22-23); if, on the other hand, these verses were newly composed as the occasion [332] demanded, without an existing text from which they were drawn, then such inconsistencies could easily occur
https://philarchive.org/archive/ZYDROT

>It is therefore not surprising that Sharma fails to mention that Madhva also quotes from a large number of sources which were unknown not only to his predecessors but also to his contemporaries, and even to his own pupils—an observation made by other scholars too, such as Siauve. And all these sources, whether they bear well-known titles of old texts or completely unknown titles, have something in common, namely that they are always adduced as additional evidence for the original doctrine put forward by Madhva.

>Taking all of these points into consideration, we can say that the lacunae in the quotations of Madhva are not confined to a few excerpts (these kind of lacunae are also to be found in the works of other Vedänta-commentators), and rather comprise a whole class of literary works with countless different titles.

>As such, the Puräna literature supposes a manifold historical development, in which a single text takes shape slowly over centuries through the redactionary activities of several authors, so that one could theoretically assume that Madhva might have had knowledge of textual portions unknown to us. However, the untraceable Puräna quotations of Madhva have an intimate relation with his typical teachings, and their phrasing bears Madhva's mark. These facts do not allow for any other conclusion than that he himself composed the passages in question. Extensive elaboration regarding this conclusion based on a large number of Madhva's quotations has been presented by me in the section of my book "Redactional Criteria for the Authorship of Madhva" Sharma completely ignored it in his review, while other reviewers took special notice of this discussion on the characteristic feature of Madhva's sources, for instance Dr. Houben: "The case for the existence of a large number of genuinely old texts and passages which have all disappeared precisely when they are supportive of Madhva's peculiar doctrine has indeed become very weak with the present stage of research and esp. with Mesquita's work."
https://www.e-periodica.ch/cntmng?pid=ast-002:2003:57::992

>>22181136
>It's correct because it's the minority for the elite
>it's also correct because it's popular with majority
Make up yr mind, sankaracuck

>>22181136
>>22181141
>puranas are le bad cause ahistorical and made up
>but the ahistorical made up upanishads actually supersede the prior vedas and are le good -- in fact, they are 100% correct on everything and one just needs to understand them properly (coincidentally happens to be my way)
Get laid, nigga

>>22180239
>truth is one though the prophets know it by many names -- vedas
>truth is one but only has one name and therefore I am right and everyone else is wrong -- advaitists
Hmmm

Also: Can one not say Advaita itself is as open to interpretation as Neoplatonism? Some claim Sankara himself and his teacher (who actually founded school) disagreed.

Ps: shape or ancient thought is great! Never see it mentioned round here tho shilled it a bit myself

>>22181141
>>22181141

Appayya further says that this difference “concerns the contents which arenot agreed on by others, which are concocted by him alone.” What Appayya means is that while other Vedāntins build their teachings on existing Śruti and Smṛti texts, Madhva’s teaching is often based on texts that no one has ever heard of. As Mesquita points out, Appayya then gives a list of the obscure texts Madhva cites from. The list names twenty-nine texts, including the Agniveśya and the Bāllaveya, which according to Madhva are Śruti texts.It also names another ten texts such as the Brahmatarka, which from Madhva’s perspective are not the Śrutis but authoritative.

After listing the obscure texts cited by Madhva, Appayya analyzes Madhva’s strategy for counterbalancing their obscurity. As Mesquita points out, this is where Appayya addresses Madhva’s claim of being the third avatāra of Vāyu: "In order to remove suspicion concerning his own untrustworthiness, which arises as a result of citing these [works], [Madhva] proclaims that he himself is the third Avatāra of the god Vāyu after Hanuman and Bhīmasena."

Then, Appayya provides two passages that Madhva uses to justify his claim.The first one reads as follows: "The first [incarnation of Vāyu] is named Hanuman, the second Bhīmasena. As for the third, it is Pūrṇaprajña who accomplishes the work of the Lord." The second verse is from the Ṛg Veda, which says: “In this way that which is visible is carried for the body […]."

Although Appayya apparently holds the first passage to be a Smṛti text, it is actually Madhva’s own composition that can be found in his Mahābhāra-tatātparyanirṇaya 2.118 (Madhva 1971: 24). The second passage is identifiable as Ṛg Veda 1.141.1a. However, as pointed out by Pālghāṭ Nārāyaṇa Śāstrī
in his Ṭippanī, this Vedic passage praises Agni and has nothing to do with Vāyu: "By this praise of Agni, the excellence of the offering to Agni is made clear. By this it is pointed out that [Madhva’s] explanation of this Ṛg-Veda passage as being intent on the triad of Vāyu Avatāras indicates heavily that he transgresses the limit of those who follow the Vedas."

This is an example of Madhva twisting the meaning of an existing passage for his own purpose. In short, Madhva’s claim for being the third avatāra of Vāyu is supported only by his own composition and a deliberate misrepresentation of an existing text. Appayya says Madhva’s claim is nothing more than his imagination, and concludes his analysis by stating, “We repeatedly observe that [Madhva] transgresses the limit of those who accept scriptural authority."

https://www.academia.edu/31018257/Quotation_Quarrel_and_Controversy_in_Early_Modern_South_Asia_Appayya_D%C4%ABk%E1%B9%A3ita_and_J%C4%ABva_Gosv%C4%81m%C4%AB_on_Madhvas_Untraceable_Citations

>>22181109
>Why shouldn't everybody believe in advaita vedanta if it's so great?
There are multiple answers to that question already provided in the post you responded to, did you fail to notice them?

>Especially one that does a lot of heavy lifting in trying to translate it into the Western philosophical tradition?
I'm not aware of any book that does extensive comparisons like this for the whole of Vedanta as opposed to just one school

>>22181146
I didn't say that it's correct because it's meant for a minority, that's the rambling of another anon

*
What I said was: the teaching is understood only by a minority because you require certain qualifications to be able to get it. But nevertheless the advaita Tradition is popular among devotees from various backgrounds, so it's not a sect or something uncanny.

>>22181119
>who blatantly misreads his own traditional texts (moreso Vedas than Upanishads but still)
There are no real examples of this
>and copies Buddhism and then claims Buddhism actually copied his own scriptures
There are no real examples of this

>>22181169
>scholarly consensus
>>not real!!! >:(
>advaita / traditionalist / orientalist propaganda
>>so true :)))

>>22177928
Why do I get the impression that eastern religion threads are dominated by a few autistic spergs?

Advaita is literally satanism. No wonder it is popular with crypto-atheist nihilist spiritualist pseuds like Guenon and Crowley. It is the philosophy of heresy and blasphemy. To quote the serpent in the Bible: "you will be as a God yourself bro!!!" (Lie!)

>>22181123
>Lol. Lmao even
Their explanation of the relation between consciousness and mind is about 75% the same, both Samkhyins and the grammarian Bhartrari were propounding mirror models of consciousness before Shankara was, and Samkhya and Shankara both accept a similar model of tanmatras making up the mind/intellect interfacing with the formless purusha/atman, the mirror model is about how they relate and how their attributes appear in each other. Thus, even though their ontology is different they share many features and interpret certain Upanishadic concepts in a similar way.

>>22181209
>To quote the serpent in the Bible: "you will be as a God yourself bro!!!" (Lie!)
pro-tip: Yahweh and Satan are the same entity:

>Christians have always failed to see the biblical god’s utter contempt for their own nations, although it is repeated again and again: “All the nations are as nothing before him, for him they count as nothingness and emptiness” (Isaiah 40:17). “Devour all the nations whom Yahweh your god puts at your mercy, show them no pity” (Deuteronomy 7:16). The vulnerability of Christian nations to Israel’s collective sociopathy is directly related to the their self-inflicted blindness. For their own misfortune, Christians worship a deity who hates them (as one commenter to an earlier article put it).

>Christian exegetes never seem to have noticed either that Yahweh’s covenant—domination over the nations in exchange for exclusive worship—is basically identical to the pact that the devil tried to lure Jesus into:

>“the devil showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. And he said to him, ‘I will give you all these, if you fall at my feet and do me homage.’ Then Jesus replied, ‘Away with you, Satan!’” (Matthew 4:8-10)

>As a matter of fact, Satan is hardly distinguished from Yahweh in the Tanakh. He is called an “angel of Yahweh” in Numbers 22 and 32. In 2Samuel 24, Yahweh incites David to do evil, while the role is given to Satan in the same episode told in 1Chronicles 21, where Yahweh, “the angel of Yahweh”, and Satan are used interchangeably. There is also no trace in the Tanakh of a cosmic struggle between Good and Evil, as in Persian monotheism. Happiness and misfortune, peace and war, health and sickness, abundance and famine, fertility and infertility, all have their unique and direct source in the capricious will of Yahweh. In his own words, “I form the light and I create the darkness, I make well-being, and I create disaster, I, Yahweh, do all these things” (Isaiah 45:7).

>Christ’s teaching to “store up treasures in heaven” (Matthew 6:20) is alien to Yahweh. He is the Greedy One, who wants “the treasures of all the nations” amassed into his Jerusalem residence: “Mine is the silver, mine the gold!” (Haggai 2:8). “The wealth of all the surrounding nations will be heaped together: gold, silver, clothing, in vast quantity” (Zechariah 14:14). Interestingly, according to 1Kings 10:14, the amount of gold hoarded each year into Salomon’s temple was “666 talents of gold”—the “number of the Beast” in Revelation 13:18! Make of it what you want. Or ask Jared Kushner to explain it.

https://www.unz.com/article/the-devils-trick-unmasking-the-god-of-israel/

>brahman exists as pure consciousness in absolute unknowing bliss
>also it emanates maya for no reason whatsoever lol
Explain this.

>>22181219
Gnostic propaganda. Yr brain is rotted. Get off the internet. I place more stock in Kabbalistic interpretation of Jesus as Satan than YHVH as Satan.

>>22181125
>Hmmm. And yet the Advaita traditional accounts are 100% accurate? Seems unlikely
The Advaitin traditional accounts are not based on fabricating hundreds of falsified textual quotations that nobody has ever heard of like Madhva's are. They simply are not even comparable. Madhva was a fraud and a liar.

>>22181134
t. seething

>>22181225
>it's le different I swear!
>>umm sweaty r u sure yr not seething
Literally no argument. Hah.
>>22181192
It's because the advaitafags ruin every eastern thread and make them unusable alas. It would be like if someone came into every western philosophy thread and said actually Descartes solved everything and is in fact the doctrine of Edenic Man.

>>22181152
>>puranas are le bad cause ahistorical and made up
>>but the ahistorical made up upanishads actually supersede the prior vedas and are le good -- in fact, they are 100% correct on everything and one just needs to understand them properly (coincidentally happens to be my way)
No Hindu says this dumbass, you are now inserting unorthodox anti-Hindu talking points (that Upanishads dont agree with earlier Vedas) as part of your defense of the fraudster Madhva, which Madhva himself did not agree with.

>>22181159
>Can one not say Advaita itself is as open to interpretation as Neoplatonism?
In Neoplatonism there is more disagreement about ontology with some positing things like and Ineffable beyond even the One, in Advaita about 90-95% of the major Advaitins agree on the underlying ontology while expounding different things about praxis and secondary cosmological principles

>Some claim Sankara himself and his teacher (who actually founded school) disagreed.
Gaudapada does not present himself as founding Advaita but he seems to be writing under the assumption that he is already part of a long tradition of esotericism and monasticism that teaches non-dualism

>>22181167
>I didn't say that it's correct because it's meant for a minority, that's the rambling of another anon
I didn't say that either, I only stated that is one reason why it's not more popular. Don't lie about me.

>>22181177
>>scholarly consensus
>>>not real!!! >:(
Neither of those claims are scholarly consensus, there are both traditionally-educated and modern-style-educated scholars who see the Upanishads and Vedas as being in agreement and who see Shankara's exposition of them as correct.

Similarly, there is no scholarly consensus about Shankara and Buddhism but for every scholar who claims there is influence there are others who say that Shankara is just taking ideas straight from the Upanishads or earlier Hindu schools/teachings.

>>22181221
>Explain this.
Reasons presuppose plurality, if the prior/above origin of plurality presupposed plurality then it wouldn't actually be the origin of plurality. It's utterly nonsensical to say "give me something presupposing plurality in order to explain the origin of plurality"

>>22181223
>yahweh telling Jesus to worship him in exchange for world domination = bad
>yahweh telling Jews to worship him in exchange for world domination = good

>yahweh loves us that's why he commanded to Israelities to murder and plunder their neighbors

>666 is a sign of Satanism *except* when Yahweh is specifying how much gold he wants stolen from neighboring regions and deposited into his temple every year

>>22181251
Got it, so maya is a thing for no reason whatsoever and is cast on brahman just because?
You can't weasel out of the question by simply saying maya doesn't really exist and brahman alone exists because it's fucking self-evident that we all aren't currently perceiving ourselves to be one self-existent consciousness eternally existing in bliss or whatever.

>>22181231
>Literally no argument. Hah.
I didn't provide "no argument" you idiot, I specified that they are different in part because Shankara substantiates everything he is saying with citations of real texts while the fraudster Madhva tried to substantiate his position by generating hundreds of fake scriptural quotations that nobody has ever heard of before or since!

>>22181233
I'm not Hindu. Upanishads clearly disagree with Vedas according to even a cursory reading. I am not defending Mahdva. Just pointing out that you are a retarded faggot. Also: most of neoplatonism similarly claims to be founded on a prior tradition of primordial wisdom. Doesn't make it true.

>>22181273
>my fraudster is less fraudster than other fraudster
No one cares. Your whole tradition is a fraud, idjiot.

>>22181261
It's good that you included a pic of your thought process so it's easier to ignore you :^)

>>22181271
>Got it, so maya is a thing for no reason whatsoever and is cast on brahman just because?
The reason samsara appears is because Brahman is present as an ever-present reality that is the basis of everything, that Brahman has the nature of being the basis of everything. There is no additional reason on top of this because all talk of additional explanations like "goals" or "purposes" all presuppose plurality but then you wouldn't actually be talking about the true basis of plurality but would be trying to sneak in already-present plurality via the backdoor and the question would not even make sense anymore since the answer would not fit the question.

>>22181274
>I'm not Hindu. Upanishads clearly disagree with Vedas according to even a cursory reading.
No they don't, why don't you try providing one example of this? You don't understand what you are talking about.

The Vedas never say that rituals and heaven are the highest aim of man, in fact there are pre-Upanishadic Vedic passages saying the renunciation excels over ritual and the immortality/liberation is reached through knowledge alone. The Upanishads clarify the Vedas without contradicting them.

>the guy spamming threads about dualistic Vedanta for years is an angry Christian who disrespects Hinduism and doesn't care about Hinduism at all and who is just trying to use Dvaita as foil against Advaita
lol, you are mentally ill anon

>>22181302
Does such a person exist? Why are you so invested in streetshitter religion? Are you brown? It would explain yr low IQ posts and inability to comprehend arguments. Sorry for angering you. Perhaps you would enjoy going back to >>>/reddit/ and creating a subreddit where you can create an echo chamber instead of engaging on 4chan???

>>22181295
Scholary consensus is the vedanta is a later adaptation of a Brahminic ritual religion which moreso resembles ancient paganism than the monastix ascetic movements it now resembles. But I know that upanishads are considered vedas or finak vedas or clarification of vedas. I just don't think any singular philosophy is perfect. There is a lot of logical work which agrees with this thesis. Truth is or must be non-discursive. To me, it sounds like you are caught up in the words instead of the ideas. Looking at the finger instead of the moon. But I am trolling anyways. I gotta go to work. Enjoy yr thread. Gl prosletyzing. Bless, sir

>>22181221
>>22181271

>emanates
Men of discrimination do not see the production or the birth of anything, as creation or evolution cannot be established as a fact. Hence all this is known in the Vedāntic books as unborn (i.e., non-dual Brahman). (bhashya on mandukya karika 4.38)

any creeation/emanation/casting/manifestation is taught only provisionally, it's not the ultimate teaching (non-causality)
42. Wise men support causality only for the sake of those who, being afraid of absolute non-manifestation (of things), stick to the (apparent) reality of (external) objects on account of their perception (of such objects) and their faith in religious observances.


what do you mean by "we"? see, that's the problem, it's evident that if by "we" you mean body-mind-ego complex than you'll not see yourself as pure Being.
"the mortal cannot become immortal and viceversa"(gaudapada)

>>22181309
>Does such a person exist?
Yes, the same angry autist who pretends who argue for Dvaita has never even read Madhva or Shankara, he has already shown that he doesn't understand the metaphysics of either, and when he loses his temper he starts trash-talking all of Hinduism. And he always posts the same dumb Bolton book while not having any arguments more complex than "why don't more people follow a teaching that is elitist and not aimed at the masses by default?"

>Perhaps you would enjoy going back to >>>/reddit/ and creating a subreddit where you can create an echo chamber instead of engaging on 4chan???
ending your posts with ":^)" as you have been doing is pure reddit

>>22181327
>Scholary consensus is the vedanta is a later adaptation of a Brahminic ritual religion which moreso resembles ancient paganism than the monastix ascetic movements it now resembles.
No it's not, that's only the view of a subset of scholars, who typically ignore or otherwise downplay the Upanishad-like elements already present in the pre-Upanishad portions of the Vedas. In the Taittiriya Aranyaka (before the Upanishads) it says that renunciation excels over rituals but that both are valid paths, which is the exact same position of Vedanta.

>>22181336
Well, I'm not Bolton guy. But I do enjoy trash talking. Read Upadesahara or whatever. Never read Mahdva. Nor Ramjuna. I like the neo-vedantists who incorporate it into advaita type stuff tho. Am used to Krishnites who claim personalism over impersonalism. Tend to agree.
>ending your posts with ":^)" as you have been doing is pure reddit
It's actually a meme from here!

>>22181328
>Men of discrimination do not see the production or the birth of anything, as creation or evolution cannot be established as a fact.
Casting non-existent illusion as a display =/= real production
Casting non-existent illusion as a display =/= real evolution
Casting non-existent illusion as a display =/= real emanation

Shankara refutes the contention that samsara happens on its own and he explicitly says that without Brahman making it happen (as false illusion that lacks real existence) that there would be no samsara experienced and that even in the absurd and impossible scenario of it being experienced that the notion of liberation from it would not be logically tenable because there would be nothing preventing one from being bound again if samsara can just randomly happen and fool people on its own.

"But we understand this antecedent (not yet manifest) condition of the transitory world to be dependent on the Highest Lord and not independent in any way. It must necessarily be so understood, because it is only in this way that it can have any meaning, as without such supposition, the creative activity of the Highest Lord is not established. And in the absence of any such power inherent in the Highest Lord, neither his proceeding to create, nor the non-liability of those who have already attained Final Release to be born again, would be reasonably sustainable." - Shankara, Brahma Sutra Bhashya 1-4-3

>>22181355
there never was any samsara and no one bound anon (mk 2.32), thats the point. There's no "samsara happening on its own" , "or something making it happen" as samsara is not some real external thing that need to be cast, illlusorily or not.
As the illusion is non-substantial, there's no causal relationship whatsoever (MK 4.51-52), thats the final teaching.
this also does not mean that what appears is an impossibility llike the hare's horn, thats another subject
>As the fire-brand (which is merely a point) is associated with forms straight, crooked, etc., though, in reality, such crooked or straight forms are ever non-existent, so also, pure Consciousness is associated with the ideas of birth, etc., though such ideas as birth, etc., are ever non-existent.
this so called samsara is nothing but an idea superimposed on consciousness, and there's no causal relationship between them (there's no causal relationship between the superimposed idea and its substratum, (adhyasa bhashya))

final teaching of vedanta is non-causality. This can be supported like gaudapada's ajati or the vivartavada (effect being not different from its cause, which means exactly non-causality as there's no cause without an effect and viceversa)

>>22177928
discord
.gg
/kJPc8nNq

>>22181399
>there never was any samsara and no one bound anon (mk 2.32), thats the point.
Samsara obviously doesn't exist in Advaita but it's completely absurd and nonsensical to say that samsara is not being experienced, otherwise we wouldn't be having the experience of having this conversation, and Shankara would never have written any of his works because he wouldn't have had any eyes to physically see any paper and writing-quill, and he would have had no hands with which he could pick up his writing-quill and write his works. You are confusing the absolute (paramartha) and non-absolute (vyahavara) if you think that samsara not having absolute existence means that it's not being experienced.

>There's no "samsara happening on its own" , "or something making it happen" as samsara is not some real external thing that need to be cast, illlusorily or not.
That's confusing the paramartha and vyavahara, "happening" here just means being experienced as illusion, Shankara agrees that samsara is experienced and it's simply untrue to say that it is not being experienced. Thus, "samsara happening on its own" just means "the illusion being experienced without that being dependent on anything else for that to take place as an experience"; that is exactly what Shankara is explicitly refuting in Brahma Sutra 1-4-3, he is saying that samsara cannot just generate or lead to false experiences on its own without Brahman making it do so, and that even if one accepts that absurd position that in such a case the idea of non-returnable liberation from that samsara is not logically tenable. There is no way to disregard that explicit statement of Shankara without abandoning his stated position and disagreeing with him.

>>22181463
>>22181399
>As the illusion is non-substantial, there's no causal relationship whatsoever (MK 4.51-52), thats the final teaching.
You don't even understand Gaudapada, since Gaudapada says that maya is the MEANS through which the illusion of samsara appears

https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/mandukya-upanishad-karika-bhashya/d/doc143643.html

Gaudapada's MK 12: Ātman, the self-luminous, through the power of his own Māyā, imagines in himself by himself. He alone is the cognizer of the objects. This is the decision of the Vedānta.

Shankara's Bhashya: The self-luminous1 Ātman himself, by his own Māyā, imagines in himself the different objects, to be described hereafter

The Sanskrit word used by Gaudapada here is svamāyayā, a conjuction of 'sva' (own) and māyayā which is the instrumental case of māyā. Unless you think Gaudapada didn't understand Sanskrit it's clear from his use of the instrumental case that he is describing Brahman projecting samsara with maya as his power/instrument by which Brahman does so.

>See also the use of svamāyayā in GK 2.12, where the self is said to imagine the different forms like snake on rope. Note that the imagination is due to māyā since māyayā is the instrumental form of māyā. Thus māyā is not the “product” of the imagination, which may be equated with avidya. It is also clear from the fact that Sankaracarya comments ´that the self itself, after imagination through māyā, perceives the objects.' So māyā is not the product, but rather the cause (of samsara).

Shankara's quote in Brahma Sutra 1-4-3 already explicitly refutes what you are saying, and Gaudapada's MK 2-12 is just further confirmation of your claim being totally wrong. What you are saying is so stupid that it doesn't even deserve serious discussion, and it's based on a hopeless confusion of paramartha and vyavahara (and also not understanding Sanskrit).

>>22181468
>3. The Instrumental case:
>The instrumental case gives the means, the cause etc., for the action specified by the verb. The presence of this case is governed by prepositions such as "by", "with" as also prepositional phrases such as "by means of", "along with" etc.. Let us see an example.
http://www.acharya.gen.in:8080/sanskrit/new-sans.php?lnum=9#:~:text=The%20Instrumental%20case%3A,%22along%20with%22%20etc..

>>22181164
>There are multiple answers to that question already provided in the post you responded to, did you fail to notice them
The answers were pretty bad, which is why I critiqued one (it relied on the fallacy fallacy) and then repeated the question. It’s weird that you would claim that I didn’t read the thread when my answer demonstrated that I had engaged with it. It’s these kinds of bad faith tactics which make advaita seem unappealing. If you think you answered it sufficiently enough, then more power to you, but most of us remain unpersuaded. You make of that what you will.

The ball is in your court. Will you go the extra mile? Or will you keep your wisdom to yourself?

In most ways the Sun and the Earth can be considered the same phenomena. We can also conceptualize them separately.
Only angloids argue about which perspective should be the definitive one presented in encyclopedias as the final word.

>>22181479
>it relied on the fallacy fallacy)
That’s not true, it didn’t rely upon the identification of the Argumentum ad populum fallacy but it rather began the post with that and then subsequently identified the following reasons
1) That Advaita is elitist by nature and that traditionally only Brahmins (who become initiated sannyasin) can fully participate in it’s teachings
2) That humans by nature generally resent exclusion and seek to overcome it
3) That a certain portion of humans will naturally be attracted to something that fulfills their emotional urges better by involving sentimental attachment to particular forms instead of teaching the transcending those emotional urges

>>22181546
>That’s not true, it didn’t rely upon the identification
Actually I see now that maybe you didn’t mean the whole post relied upon that, in any case I don’t see why the three reasons listed are “bad answers”, you didnt even try to address them

>>22181399
>This can be supported like gaudapada's ajati or the vivartavada (effect being not different from its cause)
Also, in addition to your other brainlet mistakes, the effect being not different from its cause is known as Satkaryavada. Vivartavada means that the effect is an appearance of the cause.

Shankara accepts Satkaryavada as an explanation of the causal relations between empirical objects on the vyavahara level, up to and including transformations of the Saguna Brahman, which is why he cites examples like the clay pot’s particles already being present in the earthen clay before its shaped, but he and Gaudapada accept Vivartavada as the model for the relation between Brahman and samsara, since samsara as an effect is an illusory and false appearance brought about by Brahman’s power and is thus an appearance of the ultimate cause Brahman, hence Gaudapada’s usage of the instrumental form of maya.

>>22181355
>without Brahman making it happen (as false illusion that lacks real existence) that there would be no samsara experienced
Why does Brahman make it happen?

>>22181614
>Why does Brahman make it happen?
see >>22181288

>>22177928
If only you knew

>>22181694
>there is no additional reason on top of this
So is maya experienced because it is rooted in the nature of brahman as you imply or are we meant to simply take Shankara's word for it that all of this stuff occurs?

>>22181818
>So is maya experienced because it is rooted in the nature of brahman as you imply
Yes, Shankara says that maya is Brahman’s power and that it fulfills its function simply as a result of Brahman being present in His own reality, requiring no other additional input or action by Brahman other than the fact of Brahman being an eternal reality who happens to possess that power. At one point in his Brahma Sutra Bhashya, he compares this effect/power of projecting samsara being accomplished without Brahman changing or moving to how a magnet can move around or have an effect on iron filings while the magnet is just sitting there doing nothing and not touching the filings. At another point in the same commentary, he says that the idea of God having a power/tendency which is never actually actualized or utilized doesn’t make sense, implying that it is utilized as a natural consequence of it being Brahman’s power and not for any external reason. Guenon in his essay on maya in Studies in Hinduism says that maya as Brahman’s power or inherent ability is non-different from Brahman and when maya is identified with prakriti or the stuff forming the actual contents of the cosmos and experience as Shankara sometimes does, this is because prakriti is the reflection of maya on the cosmological level and not because the name and form making up objects are actually completely identical with Brahman which would be considered wrong. I consider this to be a fairly reasonable interpretation of Shankara since there is one part in his Bhagavad-Gita commentary where he talks about God’s power of illusion being non-different from God, while he tends to refer to the actual objects and phenomena making up samsara as being different from Brahman (and thus they are this reflection of Brahman’s inherent power/nature on a different plane that is projected as an illusion by it).

>or are we meant to simply take Shankara's word for it that all of this stuff occurs?
His writings are addressed to fellow Hindus who already take as a starting axiom that the Sruti is a supernaturally revealed scripture that provides infallible knowledge of the true nature of reality which isn’t known or accessible by other means. As part of unpacking and expounding the infallible teaching presented by this scripture he deploys logical arguments, grammatical analysis, examples from common experience etc in order to help alleviate doubt and to defend the teaching as reasonable and consistent, that one would accept what the scripture is saying about this is already presupposed by one being a Hindu though.

>>22181991
Hmmm

>>22181991
Thanks for giving an actual explanation of the relation between maya and brahman, every other time I've asked this question I either get called the hindu equivalent of a hylic or someone copy-pastes a million lines of some overly flowery Upanishad translation at me.
I ultimately can't accept the premise underlying Advaita but I think it's an extremely well-thought-out system.

>>22181991
>iron and magnets
>non-self objects on different planes
Extremely dualistic examples.

Brahman is identical to Maya
-Nargajunankara

>>22177928
Nondualism exists in Christianity.

>>22183064
Eckhart <3

>>22181121
>Roque Mesquita
A hack who was over the hill long before he started reading Madvha

> """still unrecovered""".
There are thousands of western texts lost to history it's enormous cope to claim the entire Hindu corpus reached the 20th Century. Remember that the original Aryans got replaced by poos, their competence in passing down ancient texts written by whites should not be overstated

>>22182788
Something you'll often find is that Monists like Advaitaites can't help but lapse into ontological dualism. Becuase monism is absurd and clumping all of reality up into the Godhead is the stupidest shit that only the intellectually laziest and brownest of the poo in loos could believe.

>>22181463
>Thus, "samsara happening on its own" just means "the illusion being experienced without that being dependent on anything else for that to take place as an experience"
Daniel Dennett vibes here. "Conscious experience is just an illusion" what is experiencing then illusion then nigga?

>>22177928
>i need my eastern philosophy filtered through a westerner
this will never not be cringe
read primary sources and do your own reasoning

>>22181103
>Not at all, he is the first serious Vedanta theologian
"Not at all, Calvin is the first serious Christian theologian"

>Shankara came before both the theistic Vedantins
Vedanta was entirely theistic before Shankara had his autistic sperg out. Monism is a laughably bad and simplistic theology.

>>22182788
>Extremely dualistic examples.
Not at all, Advaita propounds a non-dualism of Atman and Brahman being non-different, and also propounds that there is a single reality (Brahman) that in Itself is free of all duality, nothing said here is inconsistent with any of that. Identifying everything and all varied phenomena as belonging to the same thing isn't non-dualism, that's actually a qualified monism that preserves differences (duality) intact while including them in a greater monistic unity, Advaita rejects this entirely and says the one absolute reality is undifferentiated and without parts/duality which is one reason why it's non-dual and not monism.

>>22183150
>A hack
Nonsense, his book was well-received and only Madhva partisans had issues with it, and Roque already refuted their coping objections in his reply to them
>There are thousands of western texts lost to history it's enormous cope to claim the entire Hindu corpus reached the 20th Century.
That doesn't work as an answer to save the fraudster Madhva, if they were real texts then he wouldn't be the only one who has ever claimed to actually read them, literally nobody else besides Madhva has ever claimed to encounter those texts firsthand, and it's not just a few passages here and there but it's literally HUNDREDS of fake scriptural quotations that Madhva made up. If they were real then other people would have cited the same passages but nobody else does. Madhva also references multiple texts that he calls Sruti that nobody has ever heard of too. Whether the entire Hindu corpus reached the current era is irrelevant to this, since any real text and especially Sruti (which are hugely important) would have been referenced by others even if lost but nobody references the forgeries that Madhva came up with.

>>22183164
> and clumping all of reality up into the Godhead
If by 'reality' you mean plurality and the cosmos then Advaita doesn't do this whatsoever, see the first part of this post

>>22183173
>Daniel Dennett vibes here. "Conscious experience is just an illusion" what is experiencing then illusion then nigga?
The buddhi (intellect) experiences, the real and non-illusory infinite consciousness of Brahman pervades the buddhi with its light and thereby allows the buddhi to take on the semblance of consciousness, like how a stained glass window in a church can glow with light when sunbeams enter it, making the stained glass window appear to be a source of light itself from the perspective of being in the church, when the window is actually inherently non-luminous itself and is just receiving and glowing with the sun's light. Underlying all changing experiences is this completely-real, pristine, partless, unaffected consciousness that just peacefully remains in itself, this is ultimately what God is and It's the source of the entire universe.

>>22183179
>Vedanta was entirely theistic before Shankara had his autistic sperg out
This is just cope and there is no evidence to suggest that it's correct and there is plenty of evidence to suggest it's not true. Why did no Vedanta theologian write a set of pre-Shankara devotionalist commentaries on the Hindu scriptures that survive till today? Why do the Brahma Sutras (representative of earlier Vedantic teaching) not contain the words for 'grace' and 'devotion' anywhere in the text? If the earlier main Vedantic tradition was genuinely devotionalistic/theistic then the single most important text they produced (ie the Brahma Sutras) would be chock-full of the mention of devotion and grace but instead it's totally absent.

>>22183179
>Advaita is monism
>>22182788
>Advaita is dualism
>>22183164
>Advaita is dualism but also monism

make up your mind faggots, this is just getting silly

>>22183640
>The buddhi (intellect) experiences, the real and non-illusory infinite consciousness of Brahman pervades the buddhi with its light and thereby allows the buddhi to take on the semblance of consciousness, like how a stained glass window in a church can glow with light when sunbeams enter it, making the stained glass window appear to be a source of light itself from the perspective of being in the church
You failed. The window is something different than the light. Dualism. Advaita disproven.

>>22183655
You missed the point. Proponents of Advaita claim it's non-dualism but they can never explain its philosophy without introducing dozens of different dualities. Which makes sense because a thing can only be defined in contradistinction to what it is not. This is where Christian theology rises above simplistic monism like Advaita because in the concept of the Trinity the antinomy between the absolute unity and simplicity of God with the multiplicity that defines reality as we know it is reconciled within the Godhead. All things are relational, even God is relational in His innermost being by being three persons defined by their relation to the others while being a unity.

Melting down everything into a single divine substance sounds really cool and mystical until you really put the thought in and realize the absurdity of thinking that you can avoid the problems of the One and the Many by simply denying the Many exists even though it clearly does and it's literally impossible to talk about the unity without reference to the multitude.

>>22183621
>Advaita rejects this entirely and says the one absolute reality is undifferentiated
But there are differences in reality
>It's just maya dude
If physical reality is illusiory and God is the ultimate reality of all things then it's just God deluding himself. Which is retarded. And STILL has duality because you're claiming God is split into a subjective observer of this illusion he created while being the object of the intellect. You're saying God is schizophrenic.

Doesn't work. All it does is drag God down into the mud and make a farce out of the divine.

>>22183728
>You failed. The window is something different than the light. Dualism. Advaita disproven.
Is this just being sarcastic or are you actually this clueless? The window in the example corresponds to the buddhi, the sun corresponds to the Atman-Brahman, only the sun (the Atman-Brahman) actually exists and is the only reality, so it's not dualism since dualism involves either (1) propounding multiple realities or (2) propounding that plurality is real, but Advaita is doing neither of these. The buddhi does not actually have real existence but is a non-substantial illusion.

>>22183745
>You missed the point. Proponents of Advaita claim it's non-dualism but they can never explain its philosophy without introducing dozens of different dualities.
Incorrect, not a single real duality is introduced because nothing other than the undivided partless Atman-Brahman is held to be real, if there is only one reality that is itself free of plurality and parts there is no real dualism. Citing examples from empirical experience in order to help illustrate a concept by analogy is not introducing any real dualism or considering anything besides Atman-Brahman as real.

>Many by simply denying the Many exists even though it clearly does
A is experienced =/= A exists
>and it's literally impossible to talk about the unity without reference to the multitude.
schizos reference their non-exist delusions, just because you experience something or reference it doesn't make it truly real

>>22183650

>>22183762
>The window in the example corresponds to the buddhi
Thing 1

>the sun corresponds to the Atman-Brahman
Thing 2

>only the sun (the Atman-Brahman) actually exists and is the only reality
Ok so Thing 1 is actually Thing 2 in reality so your example logically reduces to the Sun hitting the Sun. There is no "window" to color the light, it's just sun all the way down. If there are absolutely no external realities outside of God then you're talking nonsense.

>propounding multiple realities
Which you just did by using an example that posits TWO things a window and the light that goes through it!

>propounding that plurality is real
It clearly is and you can't avoid that by trying to collapse the observer into God. There is a thing doing the observing that is not God, the window is not the Sun.

>>22183760
>>Advaita rejects this entirely and says the one absolute reality is undifferentiated
>But there are differences in reality
The point is that what ignorant people consider to be reality ISNT actually reality, thus citing one's experience of plurality in the world does not constitute sufficient proof that there are differences in reality.

>If physical reality is illusiory and God is the ultimate reality of all things then it's just God deluding himself.
No, God is utterly unaffected by anything including the illusion. God's power conjures up the illusory minds and God's own consciousness forms the substratum consciousness that endows the illusory mind with an imitation of consciousness, thereby allowing them to experience the illusion without God himself being affected or even being aware of the illusion at all. The self-aware light that imbues the intellect with a simulacrum of its own awareness has no awareness itself of what the intellect is aware of.

>And STILL has duality because you're claiming God is split into a subjective observer of this illusion he created while being the object of the intellect.
Incorrect, I didn't say this and as I explained above that has nothing to do with what I am saying, God's consciousness is beyond subject and object and it rather just abides in itself without having any experience or awareness of objects or plurality. Thus your whole post is totally irrelevant.

>>22183776
>general theistic orintation undertaken by the Svetasvatara
The Svetasvatara explicitly says that only the Supreme Self actually exists and that phenomena are an illusion, both are cardinal tenets of Advaita, the exact passages where already cited here>>22178413 & >>22178418; so the argument that page makes is really bogus. What kind of Theism can there by when there is just one divine Entity that exists by itself with nothing else existing?

>>22183773
>A is experienced =/= A exists
What is doing the experiencing?

>just because you experience something or reference it doesn't make it truly real
This could easily be applied to Brahman as a whole. Brahman is a schizo who is generating a false reality that is his own being and experiencing the universes greatest case of multiple personality disorder, not a very interesting theology. And you still run into problems because if that reality being experienced is part of Gods very being then it IS real, by definition, it can't be anything else because it's not apart from God, not dependent on God, is literally IS God experiencing God.

>>22183785
>Ok so Thing 1 is actually Thing 2 in reality so your example logically reduces to the Sun hitting the Sun.
Incorrect, since thing 1 is a false illusion lacking existence that is projected as such by the sole existent thing. Therefore thing 1 isn't actually thing 2 as you wrongly misunderstood it to be.

>Which you just did by using an example that posits TWO things a window and the light that goes through it!
To simply illustrate the how one thing can appear to take on the attributes of another, in this case awareness/sentience, that doesn't change the fact that only one (sun) exists and the other is an illusion lacking existence.

>It clearly is
No, that isn't clear

>There is a thing doing the observing that is not God,
I've already said God's awareness is itself free of observership and that observership takes place when the illusory buddhi conjured up by God is imbued with a false imitation of God's awareness, try to pay better attention so I dont have to repeat myself.

>>22183804
Can you tell me what your POSITIVE belief is in opposition to this? I haven’t posted once in this thread to this before an am not trying to explicitly take any side whatsoever. I’m simply asking, out of curiosity, what some random anon like you is POSITIVELY supporting, claiming, or positing if-you-will (a neat etymologically-based pun), as opposed to arguing AGAINST.

The majority of people’s online posts often seems to be arguing AGAINST things. They can hardly argue FOR things so much — to argue FOR something seems a position of weakness, like an embarrassing naivete. But to tear things down is easy, and fun. In my observation.

>>22183799
>The Svetasvatara explicitly says that only the Supreme Self actually exists
No it doesn't. Read it again.

>"Rudra is truly one; for the knowers of Brahman do not admit the existence of a second, He alone rules all the worlds by His powers. He dwells as the inner Self of every living being."
Basically just saying that God indwells created beings as their sustainer. Which is closer to Thomistic ontology than it is to Monism.

>I answer that, God is in all things; not, indeed, as part of their essence, nor as an accident, but as an agent is present to that upon which it works. For an agent must be joined to that wherein it acts immediately and touch it by its power; hence it is proved in Phys. vii that the thing moved and the mover must be joined together. Now since God is very being by His own essence, created being must be His proper effect; as to ignite is the proper effect of fire. Now God causes this effect in things not only when they first begin to be, but as long as they are preserved in being; as light is caused in the air by the sun as long as the air remains illuminated. Therefore as long as a thing has being, God must be present to it, according to its mode of being. But being is innermost in each thing and most fundamentally inherent in all things since it is formal in respect of everything found in a thing, as was shown above (I:7:1). Hence it must be that God is in all things, and innermostly.

>>22183804
>What is doing the experiencing?
already answered here >>22183810 in the last part of the post

>This could easily be applied to Brahman as a whole. Brahman is a schizo
Brahman isn't schizo because Brahman is utterly unaware of and unaffected by illusion/unreality
>who is generating a false reality that is his own being
the false ""reality"" is not Brahman
>and experiencing the universes greatest case of multiple personality disorder
Brahman doesn't have experiences but He just abides in eternally free and blissful unembodied partless undecaying and unconditoned non-dual awareness without being aware of illusion/delusion/maya etc

>and you still run into problems because if that reality being experienced is part of Gods very being
I already said that it's not, God is partless, his power conjures up the non-existent illusion as such without God's being forming a "part" of it

>it can't be anything else because it's not apart from God
It's not identical with God
>not dependent on God
It is dependent since it only appears as illusion due to God casting it with his inherent power
>is literally IS God experiencing God.
It's not God and God doesn't experience it

>>22183814
My position is Theism. Classical Theism that says that God is absolutely transcendent and utterly different in His being than all created things. While all create things have a "derived being", only Gods being is "to be", Gods existence is given by His own nature. Thus it is impossible for any created thing to ever be identified with God because it is in the very nature of a created thing to be dependent on God, not part of God. To be a created thing is to participate in being.

Created things are real, but their reality is dependent on God. They exist in the mode of participation while God exists in the mode of having existence as part of His very being.

>>22183815
>No it doesn't. Read it again.
Yes it does you idiot, you looked at the wrong post, the exact quote was cited here >>22178418 and it says:

“In this universe the Swan, the Supreme Self alone exists" - Śvetāśvatara Upanishad 6.15

>Basically just saying that God indwells created beings as their sustainer. Which is closer to Thomistic ontology than it is to Monism.
The same exact Upanishad combines that with the assertion that only the Paramatman (God) exists, which is already cited above, along with the assertion that phenomena are an illusion in:

Through constant meditation on Him, by union with Him, by the knowledge of identity with Him, one attains, in the end, cessation of the illusion of phenomena.
- Śvetāśvatara 1.10.

Since only God (Paramatman) exists and since all phenomena are an illusion the Upanishad is talking about God being the inner self of the phantasms conjured up by that same God as an illusion, i.e. exactly what Advaita teaches

>>22183834
https://www.hinduwebsite.com/sveta1.asp

>And this Divine Soul is the one who presides over all other causes starting with time to the soul.

>The perishable is the primordial matter. The immortal and the imperishable is Hara. This one God rules over both the perishable matter and the imperishable immortal soul. By meditating upon Him, uniting with Him, through the constant practice of reflecting upon His nature, one can over come the ubiquitous maya of this world.

>>22183788
>God's power conjures up the illusory minds and God's own consciousness forms the substratum consciousness that endows the illusory mind with an imitation of consciousness, thereby allowing them to experience the illusion without God himself being affected or even being aware of the illusion at all
Why does this happen? Shouldn't Brahman just exist in absolute bliss above being without anything else even appearing to occur?

>>22183854
>one can over come the ubiquitous maya of this world.
Maya means 'illusion' or 'magical act of conjuration', the Upanishads assertion that only the Paramatman exists is not negated or canceled out by anything else in the text . 'Hara' is Shiva so that verse also says that God is the imperishable soul, i.e. basic Advaita. The part of God ruling over the soul (described as imperishable and thus God since it says God is the imperishable) is suggestive of the jiva, which is the Atman-Brahman in essence but appearing in conjunction with the illusion of body/mind.

>>22184067
>Why does this happen?
see >>22181288 & >>22181991

> Shouldn't Brahman just exist in absolute bliss above being without anything else even appearing to occur?
From Brahman's perspective, this is what Brahman always has been doing, is doing and will be doing, since Brahman has no experience or awareness of illusion. There is no external reason why Brahman is endowed with the power of illusion, Brahman just happens to be that type of God or supreme Entity and we are sitting here as a consequence.

>The Almighty God, viewed in proper light, is without any activity and yet, he moves and is the author of everything in the vast universe. If it be said that he does anything, he is never touched even by the actions, since the hands and feet of this Neutral Being never get sullied by actions. The restful repose of his Divine Yoga is never disturbed; nor does his position as a neutral inactive author ever totter. Yet, it is He who raises this array of the five gross elements. He is the very life of the universe, and yet does not get controlled by anyone. He has indeed not even so much as awareness that the universe is ever created or it ends. All merits and demerits keep close to His Eternal Being, and yet he never even looks at them. And thus truly he does not even become the neutral onlooker of them—not to talk of other activity. Wearing personal forms, he lives sportively the personal life of manifested being: Yet, the state of his being formless and quality-less never suffers any change
- Jnaneshwari chapter 5

>>22184238
You're reading the Upanishads wrong. Read Madhva, he has a pretty comprehensive refutation of Shankara and Advaita. The unity between individual and God described in the Upanishads is akin to the unity between the Christian and the Holy Spirit. It would be absurd to say because the Holy Spirit dwells within the believer that the believer is God and so it is with Brahman and Atman.

>>22184318
>You're reading the Upanishads wrong.
No, I’m not, this is just you continuing to desperately cope after you’ve been continually refuted. The Upanishads stress the complete identity of the Atman and Brahman and they describe plurality and change as illusory and false.

>Read Madhva, he has a pretty comprehensive refutation of Shankara and Advaita.
No he doesn’t, Madhva was a fraud and a liar who falsified hundreds of fake quotations and misrepresented existing ones like when he cited a Vedic texts supposedly in support of his own avatarship (lmao) which has nothing to do with that. I’ve looked at some of his arguments against Advaita before and they are all trash and don’t refute anything, most of them are based on not even understanding the Advaitist position. You can list literally any amount of his arguments in this thread and I can refute them for you. I don’t think you’ve even read Madhva since you seem unaware that he champions ideas that go against Theism like both the insentient world and sentient souls being eternal and uncreated, having their own uncreated existence like God does (they dont exist by participation).

>The unity between individual and God described in the Upanishads is akin to the unity between the Christian and the Holy Spirit.
No, that’s wrong, the Upanishads refute that stating that the Paramatman alone exists and that plurality is an illusion. You aren’t a Hindu and you don’t believe the Upanishads are revealed scripture but you are just baselessly projecting your own Christian beliefs onto them, even Madhva doesn’t agree with that.

>It would be absurd to say because the Holy Spirit dwells within the believer that the believer is God and so it is with Brahman and Atman.
The Upanishads say the there is no other hearer, thinker, seer, etc besides this innermost consciousness of the Atman-Brahman that provides its light to the intellect, which means that the identity of the Atman-Brahman is literal and not figurative, since a second sentient entity is explicitly ruled out:

“There is no other witness but Him, no other hearer but Him, no other thinker but Him. He is the Internal Ruler, your own immortal Self. Everything else but Him is mortal.”
- Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 3-7-23

>>22184434
>plurality is an illusion
>Everything else but Him is mortal.
>Everything else
>but Him
You can't even keep your lies straight. What you're saying is nonsense. You're basically arguing that the moon is made of cheese because that's your reading of the Upanishads and I'm telling you outright that's not what they say because if they did say that it would be so patently false you'd need to disregard them entirely. You only really have two options, either your reading is wrong or the Upanishads teach a doctrine we know for an absolute fact to be false. Which is it?

>>22178418
>Through constant meditation on Him, by union with Him, by the knowledge of identity with Him, one attains, in the end, cessation of the illusion of phenomena.
>- Svetasvatara 1.10.

this is clearly a dualist point ofg view, there's two substances that are separated and must be united

>>22179170
>There are parallels, bit it’s not the exact same
what's the metaphyscal difference tho?

Sankara was a disaster for the hindu race

>>22184502
>Everything else
>but Him
The "everything else" is obviously referring to the illusions, saying that only Brahman exists is not mutually exclusive with saying that there are illusions including illusory things that have limited lifespans, the Upanishads acknowledge that plurality is perceived in empirical experience while clarifying that all this plurality is ultimately illusory and that only Brahman truly exists.

>What you're saying is nonsense.
No, I'm just accurately summarizing what the Upanishads say

>>22184503
>this is clearly a dualist point ofg view, there's two substances that are separated and must be united
No it's not, that text says absolutely nothing about them being separate and then later united, it refers to an already eternally-actual union/non-duality and the only change that it describes being brought about is the cessation of the illusion of phenomena. It is the knowledge of the already-true union that helps end the illusion of thinking changing phenomena are real. Furthermore the Upanishads say the Atman-Brahman is unchanging/immutable and partless which precludes it from separating from and uniting with things

>>22184518
>Sankara was a disas-

>Jagad Guru Adi Shankaracharya, undoubtedly, is one of the greatest intellectuals and Vedic philosophers India has ever known. His contributions to Hinduism, in general, and his teachings on Advaita (non-dualism), upheld Hindu philosophy to be one of the greatest among the world religious thoughts. Shankara’s writings and interpretations of the Upanishad are unparalleled. https://www.americanbazaaronline.com/2019/10/05/adi-shankara-hinduisms-greatest-thinker-review-439002/

>Jagadguru Adi Shankara Bhagavadpadacharya doesn’t need any introduction. At a time when Sanatana Dharma was being threatened by all kinds of negative forces, he resurrected, rejuvenated and brought about a renaissance to the spiritual soul of India.
https://swarajyamag.com/culture/long-read-sri-shankara-granthavali-the-rebirth-of-adi-shankara

>In his short life of 33 years, lived about 13 centuries ago, Adi Sankara mastered Sanskrit, researched the Vedas and Upanishads, wrote commentaries on them, developed a deep understanding of sanatana dharma, developed its essence, and communicated it in the form of his own distilled literature. He preached to a growing band of disciples, established mutts across India, and connected with tens of thousands of people through his wide travels.
https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/music/adi-sankara-as-brilliant-poet/article34608710.ece

>As a poet, philosopher and preceptor par excellence, Adi Sankara’s name is synonymous with the Advaita Siddhanta he has firmly established in the spiritual tradition. Apart from his discerning bashyas to the Prastanatraya texts, he has composed many Prakarana granthas to instil faith and belief in this tradition at a time when people were confused by doubts about the validity of the Vedas and of the Supreme Brahman.
https://www.thehindu.com/society/faith/ineffable-grace-of-the-guru/article34755674.ece

>Shankara’s philosophy is avowedly Vedic. Unlike Buddhists and Jains, he traced his knowledge to the Vedas and submitted to its impersonal authority, which made him a believer (astika). In his commentaries (bhasya) and monographs (prakarana), he repeatedly sought a formless divine (nirguna brahman) being the only reality, outside all binaries.
https://scroll.in/article/816610/how-adi-shankaracharya-united-a-fragmented-land-with-philosophy-poetry-and-pilgrimage

>>22184546

The literary style of the Acharya, while it excels in its power the rolling sound of the thunder clouds which rise above the ravings of the sullen wind-tossed sea at the out-break of the monsoon, resembles in its charming agreeableness the sweet fragrance coming from a garden of jasmine flowers. His prose and poetical works, flawless and pleasing to read, are a veritable encyclopaedia of learning. While delectable like nectar, they are entrenched in such sound reasoning that they are impregnable to the attacks of opponents with their malicious questionings and criticisms.

Full of positive and ennobling ideas, they are capable of removing the miseries of life and guiding man to the goal of salvation. His teachings are capable of destroying the false identification of the Self with the body—that basic ignorance which forms the first sprout of miseries on the tree of life, which is the spring that floods life with the water of mental worries, which is the dancing platform for obstacles and difficulties, which is the prefatory introduction to life's book of evils, which is the fertile field of malicious thoughts, and which is the spring for the continuous flow of false perceptions.

The pearl-like words of the Acharya representing the ancient wisdom of the Vedas will remove the dreaded fears. of Samsara from aspirants who have been misled into the path of the Tathagata (Buddha), wherein is laid the dangerous trap of nihilism by the sect of the Kshapanakas. The Acharya's profound teachings, powerful like the currents of Ganga augmented by strong winds, flow majestically, carrying away the accumulated dirt of false doctrines and giving relief to the mind of man stricken with the drought of perverse notions on Dharma. The aroma of his words, charged with the stimulants of wisdom and love, delights, inebriates and renders ecstatic the bee of wise men's mind, like the spreading fragrance of fresh jasmine and the honeyed sweetness of Mandara flowers.

Except fools and idiots, who will delight to wallow in the muddy waters of Dvaita, having once experienced the blissful shower of the Acharya's words having Advaita as their import? Will one accustomed to put on fine silken dress, ever care to bear the disgusting burden of torn and foul-smelling rags? One who has attained to an extreme refinement of understanding by exposure to the moonlight of the Acharya's teachings will no more feel any interest in the good things of life. Milk and honey will be for him like salt, sugar like chillies, and sugar-cane, grapes and plantains like worthless stuff!

>>22184542
>saying that only Brahman exists is not mutually exclusive with saying that there are illusions
Actually it is. If the illusions don't exist there is no "everything else". It's also absurd to talk about "lifespans" for things you claim have no existence. You're tying yourself in knots to justify the very obvious logical fallacies in your system. This is the problem with monism. You don't get to talk about dualities, subject and object, God and experience and then turn around and claim "ackchually it's all not real". That's contradictory and a clear breach in logic. You can't describe reality without contradicting yourself because your system does not describe reality, it's mental masturbation with no correlation to the world.

You're wrong, plain and simple. Madhva vindicated, his system is clear and interprets the Upanishads in light of how reality actually is, not the fantasy of a man who really didn't know what he was talking about.

>>22184542
>the cessation of the illusion of phenomena.
Who is experiencing the illusion? It's not Brahman. But it's also not you because you're an illusion and so is your mind. But...you're here and posting. So something exists and it experiences reality. And it's not just Brahman because Brahman doesn't experience anything. Ergo there exists a thing that experiences something that is not Brahman, otherwise you'd be denying your own existence, therefore Advaita is false.

>>22184564
>Actually it is. If the illusions don't exist there is no "everything else".
Incorrect, since the illusions appear as false appearances without having existence.
>It's also absurd to talk about "lifespans" for things you claim have no existence.
It's not absurd in the slightest unless you are confused, the "lifespan" of the illusion is just a reference to its temporal duration
>You're tying yourself in knots to justify the very obvious logical fallacies in your system.
There aren't any
>This is the problem with monism. You don't get to talk about dualities, subject and object, God and experience and then turn around and claim "ackchually it's all not real".
Yes I can
>That's contradictory and a clear breach in logic.
You have have failed to identify any real contradiction or any genuine breach in logic, instead you just asserted that an illusion cannot appear as such without having existence which is unprovable and it is rejected by the Upanishads and Advaita, you pushing your own unproven metaphysical assertions like that is not an actual demonstration of any genuine contradiction or or any breach in logic in Advaita
>You're wrong, plain and simple. Madhva vindicated
Madhva was a fraud and a liar who falsified hundreds of fake scriptural quotations in an effort to push his own non-Vedic fantasies, and he was refuted by many later Hindu thinkers including Advaitins

>>22184588
>Incorrect, since the illusions appear as false appearances without having existence.
Something cannot appear without having existence and furthermore a subject cannot perceive an illusion if they do not have existence. Strike 1.

>It's not absurd in the slightest
It is because something doesn't exist doesn't have a life to have a span. Only things that exist have lifespans. Illusions do not exist, they do not have lifespans. This is fairly straightforward. Why do you insist on ascribing properties to things you say have no existence? How can things that don't exist have properties? The properties themselves also have no existence. You spout meaningless drivel, talking about the illusions and ascribing them all the properties of real existents then claim they don't exist. This is a contradiciton, you can't have it both ways.

>There aren't any
lmao

>You have have failed to identify any real contradiction or any genuine breach in logic...an illusion cannot appear as such without having existence
Yes an illusion cannot appear in your system for 3 reasons.
1. The illusion doesn't exist
2. The being perceiving the illusion doesn't exist
3. Non existent things cannot perceive things nor can non existent things "appear". Even illusions in the common sense have some reality in the mind of the one who perceives it.

>you pushing your own unproven metaphysical assertions
It's not even metaphysics it's basic propositional logic. There is absolutely no chain of logic you can use to go from a premise about X, being the external world to X doesn't exist because your prior statement is predicated on X existing. Every single statement you make about the "illusion" is predicated on the illusion really existing, really being perceived. If it doesn't then you can't make a statement about it. This is really basic.

>>22184574
>Who is experiencing the illusion?
This has already been answered in these posts >>22183788 & >>22183640 & >>22183810 but I guess you weren't paying attention or you are too dumb to understand

>It's not Brahman.
Correct, Brahman is the basis of the false experiencing and is also the innermost immediate self-awareness of the experiencer, but this immediate self-awareness does not 'observe' anything and it's only aware of itself and nothing to do with illusion/maya.

>But it's also not you because you're an illusion and so is your mind.
What you consider yourself to be now (i.e. a conscious human) is in fact an apparent conjunction of the one conscious Brahman-Atman and the unconscious illusory intellect. The real you is the immediate and ineffable partless self-awareness that is always present within the intellect or that lights up the intellect with its presence, this self-awareness is already known and self-evident to you at this very moment, and this is the Atman-Brahman. The intellect is what observes change and objects. It is through ignorance and confusion that people consider themselves to be the intellect and body instead of understanding that their real self is this partless and immediate self-disclosing awareness that doesn't observe anything but simply remains in itself without being affected by anything. Thoughts and sense-perceptions in relation to it are like objects floating in space, it's already present right now when they are present too.

>But...you're here and posting. So something exists and it experiences reality.
It's only present as an illusion, but the illusion is appearing as such while lacking existence.

>And it's not just Brahman because Brahman doesn't experience anything.
the illusory intellect experiences

>Ergo there exists a thing that experiences something that is not Brahman
False, because the intellect and its experiences are both illusory and lack existence

>otherwise you'd be denying your own existence, therefore Advaita is false.
False, because the real me is the immediate self-awareness that is present within my lived experience at this very moment, that underlies the illusory intellect and transcends it but is always known and self-evident to me

>>22184606
>Something cannot appear without having existence
Illusions by nature appear without existing according to the Upanishads and Advaita, there is no way to prove that this is false and it doesn't violate any basic laws of logic, so your assertion is completely meaningless as an argument. Asserting your own unproven metaphysical stance in order to disprove Advaita refutes nothing and is just the petitio principi logical fallacy.

>and furthermore a subject cannot perceive an illusion if they do not have existence. Strike 1.
the subject and it's perceptions are both illusions cast by God's power, all that is required for them to appear as such is that there be something that can account for them being present as illusions lacking existence and this something is God who is responsible for them appearing as illusions

>It is because something doesn't exist doesn't have a life to have a span.
Incorrect, since an illusion can last over multiple moments, we already have confirmation of this from illusions in empirical experience and as a theoretical concept an illusion lasting across time is not logically contradictory at all
>Only things that exist have lifespans.
I already said that it was only "alive" in a figurative sense, only Brahman is truly alive and all else is a temporary illusion
>Illusions do not exist
So you agree with Advaita then, kek
>Why do you insist on ascribing properties to things you say have no existence?
Because illusions appear as having various properties while lacking existence
>How can things that don't exist have properties?
Because illusions are not a complete and total negation/nothingness
>The properties themselves also have no existence.
yet they appear as part of an illusion which is projected as such by the Real and in this way their experience is accounted for
>You spout meaningless drivel, talking about the illusions and ascribing them all the properties of real existents then claim they don't exist. This is a contradiction, you can't have it both ways.
No it's not a contradiction since they only appear as false illusions and display various qualities as a part of that illusion while lacking existence, their appearance as such is caused by the power of the divine Reality which accounts for them being experienced, you contradict your own Theist position if you try to place limits on what God's power can or cannot do! It's really you who are hopelessly inconsistent and confused since you claim to be a Theist but you try to place completely arbitrary restraints on what God can do.

>>22184606
>Yes an illusion cannot appear in your system for 3 reasons.
>1. The illusion doesn't exist
Incorrect since that does not preclude it from appearing as illusion since "appearance" and "existence" are two different things (if they weren't then to talk of something existing but not appearing to anyone would be meaningless but it's clearly not meaningless). If you try to insist that appearance and existence are synonymous then that's your own unproven assertion and it doesn't refute Advaita but that's just you engaging in the petito principi fallacy.
>2. The being perceiving the illusion doesn't exist
Incorrect since the subject of perception and the object are both illusions conjured up by God's power which has no restraints on what type of illusions it can make appear as non-existing illusions
>3. Non existent things cannot perceive things nor can non existent things "appear".
Incorrect since they are both part of the same illusion which is conjured up by the real, the boundary between perceiving subject and object is only relative since both are part of the same illusion being cast by reality/God; in order that they appear as such the only thing required is a God with an unlimited ability to project them as such which is what the Upanishads teach, furthermore as a part of this illusion the intellect is imbued with an imitation of God's awareness that allows the intellect to imitate the only truly existent awareness of God and thereby allowing it to witness objects

>>you pushing your own unproven metaphysical assertions
It's not even metaphysics it's basic propositional logic.
No it's not, lmao
>Every single statement you make about the "illusion" is predicated on the illusion really existing
That is the petitio principi logical fallacy, your argument relies on an unproven metaphysical assertion rejected by the Upanishads and Advaita, you are just engaging in circular logic where you are citing your own unproven presuppostions as confirming your argument but this is circular and thus completely fallacious, you don't understand basic logic if you can't grasp this.

>>22177976
No. It’s literally addressing the problem of non-dualism that exists across world religions. What’s ironic is that Traditionalists and perennialists seem to think the book matters when it refutes those philosophies entirely.

>>22180304
Most of the first millenia adresses to heresy and council debates apply also to Indian philosophies. They show clearly that Advaita is nonsensical and heretical, as is the rest of Indian philosophy.

>>22184666
This is so retarded it could only have come from the mind of an Indian

Question for advaitists, if you are God then why are you acting like a retarded faggot wasting time on 4chan? Doesn't seem very enlightened to me. Join a monastary or smthn if you wanna walk the walk instead of just talk the talk. You (all?) are the worst posters on this board...

>>22182249
Heartily kek'd at this. Thanks, anon.

Buddhists and Hindus always defend their nonsense with more nonsense. In the end it’s still nonsense.

At least the Muslims don’t try so damn hard…

>>22184613
>>Who is experiencing the illusion?
Also, in addition to everything else that has already been said, it’s worth noting that the feeling of being a sentient being in the here and now is not totally illusory, since at root, the immediate awareness of oneself in the present moment is nothing other than the self-disclosing awareness of the Atman-Brahman itself, and this awareness is completely real. That this awareness seems to be a subject observing objects though is just an illusion that this awareness projects with its own power, and thus indiscriminating people confuse their awareness with the intellect and vice versa and wrongly think that their foundational awareness is a subject having experiences and that is directed outwards when really its non-dual and peacefully abiding in its awareness of itself and is beyond the distinction of subject and object that are falsely imposed on it.

>>22184880
>Sankara is purely logical!!!1!!11one
>Brahman doesn't experience
>Brahman is awareness
Might as well embrace dialetheism at this point cause you sure ain't using Aristotelian or mainstream Analytic logic...

>>22184666
>That is the petitio principi logical fallacy,
not really, he's not relying in no metaphysical assertion but a basic notion of language, illusion must exist in some way in order to posit the illusionin question, making the advaita notion of "existence" illogical or dualistic(since there's two ways of existing) no petitio principii fallacy here since is he's adressing a problem with advaita articulation of an ontological concept and not creating or posing his own ontological principle

>>22184542
>that text says absolutely nothing about them being separate
yes it doe, "one attain" "by union to hi" those are clearly two different persons
>the only change
one is already to many for someting that supouse to be unchangeable

>>22184880
Damn that's some retarded ass shit, no wonder nobody takes Advaita seriously

>>22184769
>They show clearly that Advaita is nonsensical and heretical,
Nothing they talk about is remotely relevant to Advaita, it certainly doesn't refute anything.

>>22184773
notanargument.jpg

>Question for advaitists, if you are God then why are you acting like a retarded faggot wasting time on 4chan?
I enjoy talking about it with others online, countless people have actually thanked me for my posts over the years. I don't do it because of what others say though but I really do it just because it amuses me and sometimes interesting conversations happen.

> Join a monastary or smthn if you wanna walk the walk instead of just talk the talk
It wasn't my destiny to be a sannyasin in this life, trying to do so would be going against dharma, just as Arjuna would have gone against dharma if he had failed to fight in the Kurukshetra War.

>>22186956
>Seething
>Malding
>Endless damage control
Typical advaita faggotry

>>22184885
>Might as well embrace dialetheism at this point cause you sure ain't using Aristotelian or mainstream Analytic logic...
Nothing Shankara says goes against Aristotelian or even mainstream analytic logic as far as I can see. There isn't any contradiction in saying "Brahman doesn't experience" and also "Brahman is awareness" for the simple reason that Advaita is talking about a different kind of awareness than what ignorant people normally think of as awareness (they are typically thinking of their buddhi and its vrittis), when you understand this then that objection becomes irrelevant. All these cheap low-effort attempts at "gotchas" are super cringe to watch.

>>22185426
>not really, he's not relying in no metaphysical assertion but a basic notion of language, illusion must exist in some way in order to posit the illusionin question
That's an unproven metaphysical/ontological assertion, so it lacks any force as an argument, you just committed the same fallacy that he did.
>making the advaita notion of "existence" illogical or dualistic(since there's two ways of existing)
Incorrect, there aren't "two ways of existing", something is either real and existing or it's an false illusion that lacks the existence that real things have.
>no petitio principii fallacy
The petitio principii fallacy he used was relying on the unproven metaphysical assertion that an illusion has to exist (an ontological status) in order to appear as a false illusion or to falsely appear as existing when it really doesn't, he asserted this without proving it and then cited that as confirmation of is argument which is completely circular and hence completely fallacious.

>>22185442
>yes it doe, "one attain" "by union to hi" those are clearly two different persons
There are many passages in the Upanishads that describe Brahman being identical with the Atman already even in ignorant persons and in fact all living beings, even ones that lack the capacity to understand esoteric spiritual instruction like animals and plants, e.g.

'He is the inner Self of all beings' (Mundaka Upanishad 2-1-4)
'He dwells as the inner Self of every living being' (Svetasvatara Upanishad 3.2)
'Just as the sun, which is the eye of the whole world, is not tainted by the ocular and external defects, similarly, the Self, that is but one in all beings, is not tainted by the sorrows of the world, it being transcendental.' - (Katha Upanishad 2.2.11)
'The one Lord is hidden in all beings, all-pervading and the Self of all' (Svetasvatara Upanishad 6-2).
'He who inhabits all beings but is within· them, whom no being knows, whose body is all beings, and who controls all beings from within, is the Internal Ruler, your own immortal self' - (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 3-7-15)

This makes it obvious that any talk of realizing "union" is just becoming aware of this already actual unity, or a Plotinus says "awakening into myself” (IV.8.6); any talking of 'reaching' unity is just awakening into the fact of this eternal truth, this is the only reasonable way to make sense of all these passages without unnaturally imposing some nonsense interpretation that goes against the clear intent of the text.

>>22186987
>There isn't any contradiction in saying "Brahman doesn't experience" and also "Brahman is awareness" for the simple reason that Advaita is talking about a different kind of awareness than what ignorant people normally think of as awareness
"There's no logical contradiction because I'm talking about a different awareness that has absolutely no relation to the actual definition of awareness"
The cope is out of this world. This is pure sophistry. Something must exist to have experience, if you experience things then you exist, right now as an individual consciousness.. That's simple fact, you can't argue your way out of the conclusion. I don't care how badly you want to negate your own existence and talk about contradictions like "everything is Brahman" and "Brahman doesn't experience" and "Illusions don't exist" and "the illusion is the thing that experiences" it's nothing but contradictions and logical fallacies.

Read the fucking Greeks Pajeet

>>22186979
I refuted all the routine copes and fallacious arguments in this thread, as per usual. I could do this in my sleep at this point.

>>22187025
Literally every single one of your posts is fallacious appeals to authority and coping, seething, malding, and performing nonstop mental gymnastics to justify an untenable shitskin doctrine. Every intelligent poster considers you a cancerous tumour on this board. You may receive ocassional compliments but in all honesty you are probably destined for a bad rebirth from negative karma for all the shitposting you do. I sincerely hope rebirth exists just so you will suffer more in your next life. Fortunately, it probably does not. Irregardless, please kill yourself, faggot.

>>22187020
Plotinus was a Theist, not a Monist. His talk of union with the One is poetic metaphor for mystic union, he makes it extremely clear that nothing under the One can ever identify with it. The Nous is not the One and you can never collapse the Nous and the One into a single unity because the very act of thought is always a duality. Don't compound your error by misreading Plotinus in the same way you misread the Upanishads.

>>22187024
>"There's no logical contradiction because I'm talking about a different awareness that has absolutely no relation to the actual definition of awareness"
There is no "actual definition of awareness" you retard, dictionaries give multiple different definitions and different schools of philosophy in the east and west give dozens of different explanations and definitions of what it is.

Moreover the Advaita concept of the Brahman-Atman awareness is not even completely removed from everyday conceptions of awareness but it is comparable in many ways to self-awareness, but clarifications have to be made because people tend to have a lot of confusions about self-awareness or have never thought carefully about what it means despite the concept being intuitively obvious and known to everyone.

>The cope is out of this world.
You are the one coping by posting arguments that have already been refuted
>This is pure sophistry.
You are using circular reasoning which is *actual* sophistry
>Something must exist to have experience
This is circular reasoning where you are relying on unproven metaphysical assertions and is hence fallacious, moreover Advaita is saying that a root existent awareness is at the base of all false illusory experiences, thus providing God's real awareness as the unaffected basis. Also it's totally logically inconsistent for you to claim to be a theist and then two seconds later try to place arbitrary restraints on what sort of illusions God's power can project.
>if you experience things then you exist, right now as an individual consciousness.
This is more sophistic circular reasoning, it doesn't refute the premise that "Experiencing" is a non-existent illusion that God's non-dual awareness projects as illusion, while being the awareness that is the sentient basis for this illusion while being unaffected by it.
>That's simple fact, you can't argue your way out of the conclusion.
It's quite easy to do so since basically everything you are saying revolves on the sophistic use of circular reasoning and unproven assertions
?I don't care how badly you want to negate your own existence and talk about contradictions like "everything is Brahman"
Advaita doesn't say "everything is Brahman", it's theists like Ramanuja who say that
>and "Brahman doesn't experience"
not a contradiction
>and "Illusions don't exist"
not a contradiction
> "the illusion is the thing that experiences"
Not a contradiction since God's power conjures up the illusion and maintains it as a false appearance that lack existence
>Read the fucking Greeks Pajeet
The heights of them barely come close to Shankara (pbuh) IMO

>>22187037
>Literally every single one of your posts is fallacious appeals to authority and coping
No, making an appeal to authority would involve saying we have to accept the ideas as true *because* of so-and-so's authority, I have never once said that you idiot. Instead I have simply pointed out the the arguments against Advaita including yours fail because of involving unproven metaphysical assertions and fallacies including circular reasoning.
>>22187042
>he makes it extremely clear that nothing under the One can ever identify with it.
If the Self (autos) of the living being is the One, which Plotinus explicitly says in VI.8.14 & V.1.1, then nothing under the One is being identified with the One but the One is just being acknowledged as being Itself while also being the Self of living beings, since everything about the living being that isn't the Self is not the One, nothing that isn't the One is being identified with it. You seem to be making the mistake of thinking that agreeing that the Self of the living being is the One involves automatically assigning the non-Self portions of the living being to the One, but there is no logical reason why this has to be done or even why it follows automatically.

“When one beholds the First Principle,” Plotinus says, “one does not behold it as different from one’s self, but as one with one’s self” (VI.9.10).

>>22187058
>This is circular reasoning where you are relying on unproven metaphysical assertions and is hence fallacious
Explain how something non-existent can have awareness

>>22187058
>>if you experience things then you exist, right now as an individual consciousness.
Also, Advaita agrees that experience suggests that there is a root existing consciousness at the base of all experience, but since the immediate self-disclosing of one's own self-awareness underlies and is more fundamental than object-directed observation (which presupposes this self-disclosing self-awareness), it makes more sense to identify this immediate and obvious self-awareness as what truly is real and existent instead of observation which comes and goes and which has objective qualities and which is rather more like an object or something opposed to awareness instead of truly being awareness itself.

>>22187069
>“When one beholds the First Principle,” Plotinus says, “one does not behold it as different from one’s self, but as one with one’s self”
Indeed, you keep quoting this but you're misreading it. Plotinus says it APPEARS as one with oneself, not that it IS the self. Like two dots superimposed on a piece of paper, they appear as a unity but in another sense they remain separate things. In Plotinus' philosophy the soul is filled with God, it takes on the quality of God and gains a likeness to God. From there the individual beholds themself in unity with God, but two things that are in a unity are not a unity. Take the concept of the Trinity as an example, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all God, but the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is not the Father. They all have the essence of God and are God but they are not each other. In the same way what Plotinus is saying is that the Soul becomes the perfect reflection of God and as such perceives itself as being one with God because of this perfect assimilation of the self to being like God in as so far as possible and yet they remain separate. Just as many voices in a Choir form a single unity of voices, but no individual voice can be identified as being the choir.

This subtle interplay of the One and the Many is what you miss in your plebian gropings to try and smush all reality together into an indifferentiated grey goo of Brahman.

>>22187082
>Explain how something non-existent can have awareness
This has already been explained many times but you don't seem to have a high enough IQ to understand what Im saying (assuming you're the same person); nevertheless, I'm willing to give you another chance. Maybe you are decently intelligent but are just arguing about something you have no understanding of or background in whatsoever. Studying Samkhya can help you understand maybe since you don't have the same autistic and emotionally-driven reaction to Samkhya but they posit a very similar relation of buddhi vs consciousness.

First off Advaita isn't talking about the illusion being a total void or nothingness but it is rather falsity (mithya), and thus it can present certain contents with certain kinds of apparent phenomenal qualities, as part of the illusion. Total nothingness lacks distinctions and cannot do this but a false illusion projected by God's power (which a Theist cannot limit without being an inconsistent fool) is endowed by God with the capacity to falsely appear as existent while neither existing nor being total nothingness.

Secondly, the intellect isn't actually aware, it only imitates awareness. When the intellect has a sensation of perceiving an object or thought, both the subjecthood of this and the objecthood of this encounter are both different from awareness itself, that's why subjecthood changes in relation to the objects and the objects change while awareness itself is constant, awareness is like the screen itself that the corresponding images of subjecthood and objects are projected upon. The sensation of having perceiving a particular mental phenomena including the subject-aspect of this is something that presents itself as an objective content with qualities that can be described and which differs from awareness, since it's a changing phenomena being associated with and disassociated from a simple, self-knowing constant presence.

To say "the intellect and its experiences are illusory" is saying that the corresponding subjecthood and objecthood both being projected on the screen of non-dual real awareness are themselves insentient illusions comparable to inert objects like rocks. What is actually real and actually sentient and aware is the screen which is just aware of itself. Hence there is nothing illusory that is actually """having awareness""" of anything, since nothing has awareness in truth but awareness itself. The observing subjecthood of the intellect is an inert and insentient illusory phenomena that contrasts to awareness itself. The illusion of the intellect, its vrittis and the objects they correspond to can appear as 'images' seeming to interface with the screen of awareness because they are cast by God's power. The awareness that is self-evidently present in the midst of this all is just the Atman-Brahman's awareness that is only aware of itself and nothing else.

https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/projects/self/docs/JAKUBCZAK_EGO_MAKER.pdf

>>22187129
>This subtle interplay of the One and the Many is what you miss in your plebian gropings to try and smush all reality together into an indifferentiated grey goo of Brahman.
That's what Ramanuja and Kashmir Shaivism do, the Advaita Vedanta of Shankara says that the Atman-Brahman isn't identified with anything other than Itself and anything else like all phenomena are mithya (false) and are not real like Brahman. Nothing else is "smushed" into Brahman in Advaita.

>>22177928
Perennialist theism is also retarded. The christian concepts of salvation and resurrection are unique and nowhere to be found in other religions. Sorry mr. Guénon but no, salvation as understood by the church is not some temporary place in the Brahmaloka.

join our metaphysics/religion discord
https://discord.gg/jzMwsp7n

>>22187165
That's why Ramajuna and Abhinavagupta are superior to Sankara.

>>22178418
>>22178413
Yes it's the same dogma repeated over and over

>>22181136
>Now, you have to bear in mind that there are two paths: karma khanda and jñana khanda. Most upanisads start with the former, so that's why they seem to enjoin meditations, rituals and so on. But those are only used for mental purification, not moksha (that's exclusive of the jñana path). The Mandukya upanisad is the only one among the major upanisads that start right away with the vichara, disregarding rituals.
Weird how you fail to see this as the biggest scam ever.
Now you have to explain how the heart of hinduism emerged only in the common era; you know, after thousands of years saying the rituals are super duper important.

>>22181251
>>Reasons presuppose plurality,
Did Brahman tell you that?

>>22188070
Yeah he's my roommate

>>22188061
>Now you have to explain how the heart of hinduism emerged only in the common era; you know, after thousands of years saying the rituals are super duper important.
That's not true, the pre-Buddhist Upanishads and even the pre-Upanishadic portions of the Vedas say the same thing. The early Vedas only present rituals as leading to specific rewards and objects but never say that they lead to moksha, like the Upanishads the Vedas say that true immortality is reached through knowledge (jnana)

The early Upanishads like Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya predate Buddha by a century or two. The earlier portions of the Vedas predate even these early Upanishads by an unknown amount of centuries. In the Tattirirya Aranyaka portion of the Vedas there is the passage talking about karma-khanda and jnana khanda and it says monasticism is better then rituals literally centuries before Buddha:

"There are but two outstanding paths-first the path of rites, and next monasticism; of these the latter excels" - Taittiriya Aranyaka 10-62-12

The same Taittiriya Aranyaka in a different chapter says immortality is reached alone through knowledge of Brahman:

"By knowing Brahman one attains immortality here. There is no other way to its attainment" - Taittiriya Aranyaka 6-1-6

The Rig-Veda has a verse describing the realized sage Kaksivan remembering his past lives, centuries before Buddha later claimed to do the same:

I was aforetime Manu, I was Sūrya (the sun): I am the sage Kakṣīvān, holy singer. - Rig-Veda 4-26-1

The Arthava-Veda talks about the person who has realized the Atman as having attained immortality and as being peaceful and desireless and without fear of death:

"Without any want, contemplative, immortal, self-originated, sufficed with a quintessence, lacking in naught whatever: lie who knoweth that constant, ageless, and ever-youthful Spirit, knoweth indeed himself, and feareth not to die" - Arthava Veda 10-8-44

>>22188019
>Yes it's the same dogma repeated over and over
Dogma is not a bad thing, every religion has dogmas, it literally just means “established or authoritative teaching”, Buddha also taught dogmas like karma and rebirth and hellish/heavenly realms and hungry ghosts and all sorts of unverifiable supernatural crap, the founder of Jainism Mahavira also taught dogmas.

Reminder that if there is self, then reincarnation is impossible.

Also what is the thousand of year old pre-upanishtic literature talking about rebirth saying that Brahman=atman and giving the precise method to understand this, not the shallow line like >>22183834
>Through constant meditation on Him, by union with Him, by the knowledge of identity with Him, one attains, in the end, cessation of the illusion of phenomena.
>- Śvetāśvatara 1.10.

>>22184552
>>22184546
Kek it's amazing poojeets have this ready to be pasted.

>>22188170
>Reminder that if there is self, then reincarnation is impossible.
No it's not, that's stupid, what transmigrates from physical body to physical body is the subtle body (sukshma sarira) anyway, which isn't the Self, the Self is rather like an unconditioned infinite light that illuminates all subtle bodies simultaneously without itself transmigrating; the Self is already eternally liberated/free and not affected by samsara.

>>22188170
>Also what is the thousand of year old pre-upanishtic literature talking about rebirth saying that Brahman=atman and giving the precise method to understand this
The pre-Upanshadic Veda portions and the Upanishads are just different chapters in the same Vedic text, the Upanishads are not tacked on at the end of the entire text but they often occur in the middle of of non-Upanishad parts of the Vedas. The Upanishads are the portion of the Veda that clarify the essential metaphysical teaching and is where they go into the most detailed explanations, but even so there are non-Upanishad Veda passages that say the same thing which were cited here >>22188112; the Taittiriya Aranyaka says that via realizing Brahman alone one attains immortality and the Arthava-Veda says that the person who has attained immortality has realized the ever-youthful Spirit as his own self, clearly implying that the self is Brahman. The Rig-Veda also says there is one singular self of everything; it says there is one "Solar Self of all that is in motion or at rest" - (RV 1-115-2); this also implies one immortal Atman underlying everything. And as already pointed out in the Rig-Veda it says the sage Kaksivan realized his path lives/births.

>>22188004
I disagree, they end up positing contradictory qualities to the Absolute, which most serious metaphysicians are not on board with, neither's model of awareness makes much sense either IMO