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Originally Posted by Ewwerrin
What is ment by it? No self, no consciousness.
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My understanding is that No self OR Void or Zeroness are the terms coined during the emergence of buddhism. Buddhisam has come out of Hinduism . Hinduism at that time was dominated by ritualistic (demanding live sacrifices) and extreme materialistic . So people always view the life only in material terms only ditto like what today's majority people do . They only understand material things alone are everything . It takes years of recitation that I am not this & that....., that one can come to something that there is something beyond/behind/underlying the visible world . So Buddhists spent great deal of time in this .While some definitely can reach an enlightenment even with this negation , for the majority without any live demonstration this too may be incomplete and need the spiritual definition .
Precise this phenomenon is described by Shankaracharya in his The Atmashatakam (आत्मषट्कम्, ātmaṣatkam), also known as Nirvanashatkam (निर्वाणषट्कम्, Nirvāṇaṣatkam). It is a non-dualistic (advaita) composition consisting of 6 verses in which first 5 verses describes what I am not (no self ) and then in the final 6 verse gives elaborate spiritual description of the self in clear words like following.
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I am all pervasive.
I am without any attributes, and without any form.
I have neither attachment to the world,nor to liberation (mukti).
I have no wishes for anything because I am everything,everywhere,
every time,always in equilibrium.
I am indeed, That eternal knowing and bliss, the auspicious (Śivam), pure consciousness.
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So alone limited finite known material understanding is 'No Self' and unlimited infinite unknown spiritual understanding coupled with limited finite known material understanding is 'Self' rather 'Full / Whole / Complete self' .
Due to all his (Shankaracharya's) negation (like in first 5 verses ) and his monk-hood life people (not in consonance with Hinduism) describe him as under-cover-hidden buddhist whereas he was an ardent votary of original Hinduism without the ill-effects as were prevalent during the Buddhist time. So it was He who identified Buddha as an incarnation of God despite miinor differences in the verbiage use in philosophical descriptions. Thus Buddha too is God of Hindus.