Agreement

[blossomingtree]

Originally Posted by Gem

Bolded bit makes sense in the Buddhist philosophical context, but not that there is someone intending per-se, but in the sense that intent is the 'urge to move the mind' - the 'cause' if you will. The Buddhist interpretation is, intent and kamma are the same thing, so myself being schooled a little in Buddhist philosophy, the bolded 'rings a bell'.

Here's what the Buddha taught -

One of the first stumbling blocks that Westerners often encounter when they learn about Buddhism is the teaching on anatta, often translated as no-self. This teaching is a stumbling block for two reasons. First, the idea of there being no self doesn't fit well with other Buddhist teachings, such as the doctrine of kamma and rebirth: If there's no self, what experiences the results of kamma and takes rebirth? Second, it doesn't fit well with our own Judeo-Christian background, which assumes the existence of an eternal soul or self as a basic presupposition: If there's no self, what's the purpose of a spiritual life?

Many books try to answer these questions, but if you look at the Pali canon — the earliest extant record of the Buddha's teachings — you won't find them addressed at all. In fact, the one place where the Buddha was asked point-blank whether or not there was a self, he refused to answer. When later asked why, he said that to hold either that there is a self or that there is no self is to fall into extreme forms of wrong view that make the path of Buddhist practice impossible.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/.../notself2.html

[blossomingtree]

Originally Posted by God-Like

and yet cake is still for sale and cake is brought and eaten, books on Neo stuff is read and digested along with the cake .

Satsangs are held and feelings are felt, feelings are hurt, ego's are bolstered and bruised .. all that can be said is that it is happening, without due cause ...

No answers as to why one does anything, there's nothing do be done and yet here we are .. carrying on as if there is someone here ..

I wonder how many Neo's actually behave / live life as if there is no-one here ..

Where does the truth of what they say come from? Who are they preaching their truth's too?

No-one?

Why bother to speak one's truth's to no-one ..

To say it's just happening is denying their intent to do so .

Where there is intent, there is someone intending .

x daz x

Yes perfect people to fleece - you don't exist and neither does your $. Now give it all to this imaginary donor's box where I will spend it on nothing.

More seriously, my suspicion is that there are three main ways people arrive at this place of "you don't exist":

1. Through mental cognition - translating the Truths spoken by the Adepts & Masters through the intellect - it is natural then that there is a divide here as the intellect (by itself) cannot cross that spiritual bridge and thus the individual unwittingly resorts to trying to rationalize (what would have been true) teachings. They then arrive at a belief system of trying to institute/implement the logic of Absolute Truth relatively, leading to an incomplete/misconstrued fruition of the essence.

Thanksgiving dinners are especially interesting when they eat the non-existent pumpkin pie

2. Suffering - unable to deal with and face one's own unhappiness, it is adopted as a welcome (although IMO misguided) tenure. "I" don't really exist, neither do my problems, and "you" don't exist either so I can try to play cool. "All is perfect and manifests in perfect balance within duality but falls into the Ultimate and Only Truth of Non-duality"

aka it sounds sorta smart in a convoluted way even if it is a bit of a mirage - but there are many worse ways one can deceive oneself IMO so if that is the course, so be it; hopefully no harm is done to anyone as a result

3. The idea appeals (may be due to a combo of 1 and 2) and/or seeker is simply sincere and tries this as an approach as they hear it and it appears to make sense so they give it a go...!?

BT

[Gem]

Originally Posted by blossomingtree

Here's what the Buddha taught -

One of the first stumbling blocks that Westerners often encounter when they learn about Buddhism is the teaching on anatta, often translated as no-self. This teaching is a stumbling block for two reasons. First, the idea of there being no self doesn't fit well with other Buddhist teachings, such as the doctrine of kamma and rebirth: If there's no self, what experiences the results of kamma and takes rebirth? Second, it doesn't fit well with our own Judeo-Christian background, which assumes the existence of an eternal soul or self as a basic presupposition: If there's no self, what's the purpose of a spiritual life?

Many books try to answer these questions, but if you look at the Pali canon — the earliest extant record of the Buddha's teachings — you won't find them addressed at all. In fact, the one place where the Buddha was asked point-blank whether or not there was a self, he refused to answer. When later asked why, he said that to hold either that there is a self or that there is no self is to fall into extreme forms of wrong view that make the path of Buddhist practice impossible.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/.../notself2.html

Anatta is the general rule, but yes, Gotama typically avoided existential questions.

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by blossomingtree

In many traditions, I would say those that I'm familiar with - Buddhism, Advaita-Vedanta and others - it is recognized that there is the Absolute/Ultimate view and the Relative.

I personally believe that it would be a mistake, not to mention a mind joke, to think that there is nothing and no-one and etc. - only.

Moreso when if we strip it all away, of course we are all needing words and concepts and operate subjectively - even the most enlightened recognize and utilize classifications, IMO, without necessarily giving in to those classifications.

Mistaking the Absolute for the Relative is a major mistake, not to mention it's just silly if we strip that all away. It would be like arriving at the truth of the Absolute through an intellectual cognition exercise - otherwise the Absolute and the Relative co-exist quite harmoniously and truly I would say (and this is the point of the practices IMO - to deeply realize this)

Gem (who keeps believing his own judgements despite saying he doesn't take heed), is an example of this pattern - claiming he doesn't exist, praising his mindfulness practice, and defending - what - probably his non-existent self!

There is Oneness and then there is inevitably distinction. It is my opinion that the Realized live in Oneness through the Soul and operate (realistically) and with discernment through Consciousness.

All Masters taught and taught virtue and loving kindness. They never said that they don't exist, as the principles of the Absolute and Relative co-exist very harmoniously in the Adepts. Of course I would suspect that they have the Absolute/Truth/Higher Self as their foremost guiding principle and soul - purpose - hence why they live in and as Soul.







My 2c.

BT

Of course. I was just giving an example of reductio ad absurdum.

It goes to illustrate what would happen to a Neo Advaitin who is only 'half way into it' if they would go up against a fully fledged Advaita Vedantin who was taught in the art of debate by Adi Shankaracharya himself.

I've also gone up against the best of the Advaita Philosophers...you know, for everything you say, they go "who are you?" "who is asking?" "where are you?", "why do you only think you are doing?" and "who is doing the thinking?" "who is observing the thought?" and on and on and on this would go...almost impossible to have a normal conversation with them...and I tell you right now, these Neo Advaitins have got nothing on those old Advaita Vedanta adepts with regards to ego negation....I'm just showing this.

The whole point is to ask questions which have no answers, to arrive to a point in the seeker where no more questions can be asked, no more thoughts can arise in their mind and they automatically go into meditative silence to realise the truth for themselves, seeking it internally instead of externally, in the world of name and form...Advaita Vedanta is an internal, silent path and not a loud, external one.

When an adept in Advaita is saying "who are you?" they are being like a Zen master who gives a koan - "show me your original face". It is meant as a meditation prompt.

This is what I was trying to illustrate, but people took it literally...as usual.

[blossomingtree]

Ahhh I see - gotcha and my bad. Thank you for that illustration, Shivani Devi.

BT

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Shivani Devi

Of course. I was just giving an example of reductio ad absurdum.

It goes to illustrate what would happen to a Neo Advaitin who is only 'half way into it' if they would go up against a fully fledged Advaita Vedantin who was taught in the art of debate by Adi Shankaracharya himself.

I've also gone up against the best of the Advaita Philosophers...you know, for everything you say, they go "who are you?" "who is asking?" "where are you?", "why do you only think you are doing?" and "who is doing the thinking?" "who is observing the thought?" and on and on and on this would go...almost impossible to have a normal conversation with them...and I tell you right now, these Neo Advaitins have got nothing on those old Advaita Vedanta adepts with regards to ego negation....I'm just showing this.

The whole point is to ask questions which have no answers, to arrive to a point in the seeker where no more questions can be asked, no more thoughts can arise in their mind and they automatically go into meditative silence to realise the truth for themselves, seeking it internally instead of externally, in the world of name and form...Advaita Vedanta is an internal, silent path and not a loud, external one.

When an adept in Advaita is saying "who are you?" they are being like a Zen master who gives a koan - "show me your original face". It is meant as a meditation prompt.

That makes some sense!

This is what I was trying to illustrate, but people took it literally...as usual.

[God-Like]

Originally Posted by blossomingtree

Yes perfect people to fleece - you don't exist and neither does your $. Now give it all to this imaginary donor's box where I will spend it on nothing.

More seriously, my suspicion is that there are three main ways people arrive at this place of "you don't exist":

1. Through mental cognition - translating the Truths spoken by the Adepts & Masters through the intellect - it is natural then that there is a divide here as the intellect (by itself) cannot cross that spiritual bridge and thus the individual unwittingly resorts to trying to rationalize (what would have been true) teachings. They then arrive at a belief system of trying to institute/implement the logic of Absolute Truth relatively, leading to an incomplete/misconstrued fruition of the essence.

Thanksgiving dinners are especially interesting when they eat the non-existent pumpkin pie

2. Suffering - unable to deal with and face one's own unhappiness, it is adopted as a welcome (although IMO misguided) tenure. "I" don't really exist, neither do my problems, and "you" don't exist either so I can try to play cool. "All is perfect and manifests in perfect balance within duality but falls into the Ultimate and Only Truth of Non-duality"

aka it sounds sorta smart in a convoluted way even if it is a bit of a mirage - but there are many worse ways one can deceive oneself IMO so if that is the course, so be it; hopefully no harm is done to anyone as a result

3. The idea appeals (may be due to a combo of 1 and 2) and/or seeker is simply sincere and tries this as an approach as they hear it and it appears to make sense so they give it a go...!?

BT

This is the main sticky point for me and what lies at the heart of the matter .

It is to do with their intent to teach / preach, write books, make money .

It's fine to do anything in this respect but to wash over their prime objective even if it's a deep longing to do God's work is something that can only be done through a willing channel / conduit / person / individual .

Any understanding had why one does anything is saturated with self identity and self references / associations .
If they believe all those things are illusions and nothing is real then why carry on an illusory experience .

Why continue to make money off the back of an illusion, why bother to teach? Why would an illusory person teach another illusory person about their illusory appearance / existence .

It makes no sense whatsoever, why would an illusory peep need help or why would a non existent person need to hear the truth of another illusory / conceptual story based upon their non existence .

What happens for some is that they continue the charade and continue to address the illusory masses, feed their ego to maintain status and wealth and brush it off as part of the illusion / story ..


x daz x

[God-Like]

Originally Posted by Gem

Bolded bit makes sense in the Buddhist philosophical context, but not that there is someone intending per-se, but in the sense that intent is the 'urge to move the mind' - the 'cause' if you will. The Buddhist interpretation is, intent and kamma are the same thing, so myself being schooled a little in Buddhist philosophy, the bolded 'rings a bell'.

This intent / urge to move the mind must be acknowledged by an individual .

Some say there is no-one doing, there is only doing happening ..

It's quite convenient to leave out the middle man ..

Butt the middle man has to pick up the phone, it doesn't answer itself ..

Even an answering machine message is left by a peep


x daz x

[Gem]

Originally Posted by God-Like

This intent / urge to move the mind must be acknowledged by an individual .

Yes, so the individual is post rather than prior.

Some say there is no-one doing, there is only doing happening ..

It's quite convenient to leave out the middle man ..

Butt the middle man has to pick up the phone, it doesn't answer itself ..

Even an answering machine message is left by a peep


x daz x

[blossomingtree]

Originally Posted by God-Like

This is the main sticky point for me and what lies at the heart of the matter .

It is to do with their intent to teach / preach, write books, make money .

It's fine to do anything in this respect but to wash over their prime objective even if it's a deep longing to do God's work is something that can only be done through a willing channel / conduit / person / individual .

Any understanding had why one does anything is saturated with self identity and self references / associations .
If they believe all those things are illusions and nothing is real then why carry on an illusory experience .

Why continue to make money off the back of an illusion, why bother to teach? Why would an illusory person teach another illusory person about their illusory appearance / existence .

It makes no sense whatsoever, why would an illusory peep need help or why would a non existent person need to hear the truth of another illusory / conceptual story based upon their non existence .

What happens for some is that they continue the charade and continue to address the illusory masses, feed their ego to maintain status and wealth and brush it off as part of the illusion / story ..


x daz x

Yes, agreed. The money and fame are probably enticing, especially when these people (e.g. Tony Parsons, whom I researched after discussions with Iamx on this forum) - have very limited spiritual depth, only imitation goods and somewhat convoluted logic, sold as wares. The material, as far as what I have seen, is also intellectually quite low-brow IMO and from what I see Iamx say, it's also manipulative in many ways (from my perspective).

I do believe however that for some people, they genuinely "buy into" this belief system. i.e. It's something that they have intellectually computed as "believable" for them so the intellect does a bit of mental gymnastics to support their belief system/preferences. As I said in another thread also, the reason why it seems to have some credibility is because NA piggybacks off/copies many of the terms and some of the spiritual insights of the genuine Adepts (link)

I also sense that some of the followers are actually suffering (deep down) and this is their way to deal with it - and this is also why they fight it so much, so in that way, I guess that part deserves our compassion.

People can, as you probably know, believe anything. Some people for example believe what the Church of Scientology tells them - and it's definitely far away from my belief system, but when faced with people whom believe - sometimes it's a hard nut to crack. I would say often. This is why cults are so effective.

Actually, what I believe is, you cannot actually debate with people like this {and this goes for not only the Neo-Advaita folk, it goes for any rigid belief system or cult like context}. Their mental cognition will continue to fight it. For example, in the case of some people here on this forum, they will continue to tell you that they don't exist, all the whole defending themselves and their beliefs - and this is understandable and sanguine, par for the course so to speak.

The only reason these threads are responded to are for the benefit of sincere seekers, those who do not just have an ax to grind and are interested in the pursuit of Truth (genuine wisdom and release from samsara) as opposed to cheap parlor tricks offered by the dishonest or simply unaware.

BT