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Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy
Thank you!
I can't wrap my mind around it intellectually. Can anyone? But if I close my eyes and quietly say "I" to myself only one thing comes to mind - Awareness. When interacting with others I can sense in a sort of empathetic way the same awareness within them and it's really quite stirring. I'll use a term I think I saw in one of your posts in another thread. It's "heart knowledge" and visceral at that. As far as devotion to a personal God, wouldn't that be Bhakti Yoga, or am I misunderstanding? Also couldn't it take the form as devotion to God through devotion to all of creation as sacred?
In some way and through some shape or form am "I" not always observing the subjective? Also since Advaita Vedanta emphasizes a strong path of knowledge and intellectual inquiry I feel your questioning is a necessary aspect of seeking. In retrospect I think that is what I was doing over the past decade while obsessively digging into consciousness, and especially once I found the SAND talks on YouTube. Finding Advaita Vedanta was the icing on the cake, so to speak.
I think that's what I like about it? Truth be told the small "I" that is me is too much of a free spirit to acquiesce in the strictest sense. See the Bruce Lee quote in my sig.  At times it's been a liability but also a great strength. Another duality. LOL!
Absolutely! Long before I found Advaita Vedanta and even before I become obsessed with consciousness I had the same basic idea, though very loosely formulated in my mind. They way I pictured it was The Source had little tendrils of itself infusing all of reality as we know it so everything was in fact Divine. It just 'felt' right. Again, 'heart knowledge'.
The thing for me about Vivekananda and on a personal level is he pretty much single-handedly spread the philosophy to the U.S., and with such passion and devotion it literally killed him.
You know what I really like about this forum? The diverse and insightful replies and not only to my posts, and especially those that might not agree with my perspective. Therein lies unexplored possibilities and opportunities. |
Yes, the form we identity as being Swami Vivekananda was indeed a very bright star which burned out all too briefly. Swami Yogananda's life was also cut relatively short doing a similar thing and the message seems to be: "okay, I have done what I was born to do...I can go back home now".
You are indeed correct that the path I follow is called "Bhakti Yoga" (with a good helping of Raja Yoga thrown in for good measure). To have a personal relationship with the Divine and to surrender that "small I" to a concept which is perceived to be bigger than it is called
Apara Bhakti or the "lesser significance" of transcendence through Divine Love. To see the Divine in all and to identify with the indivisible nature of the Absolute through Divine Love is called
Para Bhakti , or the "greater significance" of transcendence through Divine Love... there's that damn Duality once again.
The challenge is to reconcile Advaita Vedanta, which is essentially Jnana Yoga (the path of the questioning intellect) with Bhakti Yoga (the path of the accepting heart) because what happens when we attain an experience which the rational mind or intellect cannot understand? It may seem totally crazy or absurd to knowledge or reason...so how can that be Jnana/Gyan or Gnosis anymore? and if one is stuck in the head, forever asking questions which have no answers, wherefore is any opportunity for the heart to get involved in it?
In a way, I still don't understand the difference between the "small I" and the "big I" (there is just "I" and "not I") and my thinking mind (which would probably equate with the "small I") is unable to make that distinction as it is trying to understand things beyond its capacity to do so...and it is also this "small I" which interacts with the Universe..so how would IT know any different to what it already does?
Whenever I ask the question "who am I?" the ONLY response I ever get to that is "who wants to know?" ...and I am left wondering if all the saints and Sages of yore ever had that specific issue when it came to Self-Inquiry? LOL