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Originally Posted by swampgrl
So this idea came to me tonight and will run it by the people that swim in these waters to get some thoughts on it. For instance, is the idea even worth refining or is it too much of a mess to trifle with?
Thanks for any input,
Sierra
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Namaste, Sierra.
I'll try and explain this without using any big 'Sanskrit words' but some will have to be incorporated, unfortunately.
I shall ride on the back of Jonesboy's recent posts and also Kashmir Shaivism, incorporating the differences between Abhinavagupta's and Adi Shankaracharya's respective philosophies to try and explain it, to reach a point.
People like to think that nonduality is 'something' as opposed to duality which is also 'something' but any opposition, or any replication is still a duality that only 'poses itself' as non-duality for the benefit of the rational mind which seeks to 'know everything'. The mind cannot know itself as the mind.
This replication or reflection of non-duality or the ultimate reality taken as illusion because illusion is
also the 'ultimate reality' dressed up as the illusion is called
Vimarsha and Vimarsha is still a part of the duality:
http://www.nevernotpresent.com/satsa...-and-vimarsha/
I have likened it to a torch. People look for the torch and see the light of the torch, thinking they have found the torch.
They don't realise that if they follow the light to the source, the torch will be located, but for them, finding the light is the same as finding the torch, yet they cannot use the light to shine a beam elsewhere unless they have a mirror...or find the torch.
So, people will say "I am that" or "I am Oneness" or "I am Brahman" and I
still go "what is the "I" that says it is 'Oneness' or 'That' or 'Brahman?". Yeah, they still haven't let go of self-identification yet, so any notion of nonduality, or an un-individuised consciousness, of an absolute truth/reality/Brahman is still firmly within the stages of being a mental concept only or a placation made to the ego by the higher-mind without any direct experience becoming involved in it because there is 'no need' as the mind is
totally satisfied with its symbiotic relationship with ego at that point.
To go beyond the replication, the reflection, the Brahman + Saguna Maya (truth + illusory attributes of truth) means that there's no differentiation between the experience and the one who experiences it, the 'Oneness' and the 'Perception of Oneness', the 'embodied Consciousness' and the 'Eternal Consciousness' and between all notions of self (be it with a small or capital "S") and something
else existing as being what it is, or is not...non-duality is totally beyond words or language, so any attempt to even describe it in any language will only be a replication.
I have often said, there's just not enough letters on every keyboard in every language of the world to do so.
I'll post more on this a bit later on, but thank you for being patient with me.