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Go Back   Spiritual Forums > Religions & Faiths > Interfaith

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  #11  
Old 20-03-2016, 01:55 PM
sky sky is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by django
Sky, do you agree with this from http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Atman

"Unlike Hindus, Buddhists do not believe that within human beings and other life forms there is a permanent, indestructible and absolute entity called a soul or atman. Therefore, Buddhists reject the Hindu doctrine of atman, claiming that such ideas are fabricated by humans in order to deny their impermanence. Buddha taught that the idea of an eternal self is a misleading belief that is ultimately harmful, producing negative notions of "me" and "mine" and thereby providing the psychological basis for desire, attachment, and hatred. In short, Buddha described the self as the root of all evil, and characterized the attachments it creates as detractors from one's attainment of nirvana. This denial of the self at so thorough a philosophical and ontological extent marks Buddhism as unique among the other world religions."


Yes I agree to some extent but would just like to point out the Buddha taught ' Not self ' rather than ' No self '
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  #12  
Old 21-03-2016, 03:25 PM
ajay00 ajay00 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by django
Buddha must have been brought up with Hindu beliefs, but he turned Hindu wisdom on it's head and stated there was no self, only a false self. I Believe there is an Atman Self/Higher Self/Soul, and I've been thinking about this versus the Buddha's no self, and wondering how does a belief in a Higher Self or No self affect other people's approaches to spirituality. There must be quite a difference, considering the two beliefs are polar opposites, I'd love to hear how this particular aspect of belief has affected you.

The difference is at a very subtle level really. Even the idea of the eternal soul is a construct of thought to reinforce the ego or false self, which is the source of all problems.

The conditioned Hindu Brahmins couldn't quite grasp Buddha's teachings at his time and hence opposed Buddha for that matter.

A study of the works of Jiddu Krishnamurti helped me to understand clearly the teaching of Buddha in this matter.

The idea of the soul or atman itself can become a barrier to experiential understanding which is what really counts in spirituality.
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  #13  
Old 15-05-2016, 04:44 PM
Amilius777 Amilius777 is offline
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None of the above from OP-

We are actually Spiritual Beings. You could say spirits but some people think that means mists of air or something.

We are spirits, but spirits are actual Spiritual Beings. We don't have some "inner self" or some "soul" that works like a battery or faculty. We are THAT. When you evolve, you as a spiritual being evolve. One affects the others and vice versa.

That is why religion has never quite confirmed anything. That is why they are all still bickering back and forth about this.

We are not humans with a soul. We are not humans who must learn that we have "No Self". We are not humans who need to learn that we have an "inner Self."
We are Spiritual Beings having a human experience to evolve and grow.

When you go up higher and higher through dimensions we are not flesh, the true essence of our being can be see. The vibration and energy is faster and made of light. But when our consciousness and mind decides to descend here, we take on a human clothing as part of ourselves; but our whole Self is much bigger that is why we have a subconscious mind accessed in sleep, a superconscious mind that sometimes manifests in our day to day activities (that feeling of nonattachment to our body and self) .

There IS such a thing as "we have a soul" but this opens up another can of worms. In order for Spiritual Beings to incarnate and have the capacity to be self-aware, we are first ensouled. It is basically the makeup of the Subconscious mind. It is a part of our psyche that records our activities and keeps a record of everything we were and how we journeyed throughout the universe.
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  #14  
Old 15-05-2016, 10:49 PM
Serrao Serrao is offline
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What works best for me is to see my body and inner world as my self.
This is my personal truth.

Other beliefs really confuse me.
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  #15  
Old 17-05-2016, 07:12 AM
jonesboy jonesboy is offline
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I was just asked this somewhere else in a similar manner so I am just going to copy this over.

Quote:
I get why body, thoughts, emotions and sensations are not me - they arise and pass. I don't understand why anatta applies to:

- awareness itself,

- conscious action / decision.

Who is making the decision, if not me? Who is aware if not me?

Confusion arises because people make statements that thoughts, emotions and sensations are not us. They come and go but are not us. I know I have said that many times myself and in a way it is true but not really :)

The first stage most people are taught is the Witness/Mindfulness. That there is separation between us and our thoughts, that they are fleeting unless we cling to them just like you said.

In Dzogchen they use the term Rigpa and say that we are all those thoughts, sensations and emotions and call this movement.

It is all energy/light.

So first we get to the point of separation from our thoughts. It is like we can see them float on by, they no longer attach to us and we find freedom. With increased depth the thoughts become less and less and the silence grows from within. We feel the movement of the thoughts within the silence.

We know this because it is like the waves hitting the beach. We experience it like the waves coming in and then we are back to being lost in thoughts as the waves reside. Over time just like the tide the water gets deeper and deeper until we are that movement, until we are that silence.

Now outside of our thinking we also have this body. Within the body, when people start to work with energy practices/pranayama techniques they first will notice a little energy within them. Over time this energy increases in depth and people start to feel energy hitting upon obstructions and that is when it becomes ecstatic. With still more depth one will notice that there body is energy. That the body is no different than our thoughts which is energy/light.

So our thoughts, emotions, sensations and our body are all energy/light. Just like a cloud each has form but in truth it is empty. It's true nature just like light or as science has shown atoms to be is emptiness.

The belief in an Atman, a soul according to Buddhism is not possible because a soul is a "thing" that "exists". In Buddhism the true nature of all things is emptiness. Because of that there is no soul that is made up of things residing in some place.

So who or what are we then?

Often when people first experience the light they are blinded by it. It is bright and it is all they can see. With increased depth you start to notice that the light is made up of individual streams of light. In Buddhism these are called Mind Streams.

A post was made in this section asking if all Buddhas are the same. I think this will help explain some things.

Do Buddha now all have different individual personalities? I was always taught that there is no difference between Buddha's and the only reason they have individual names is because we gave them different names to distinguish one Buddha manifestation from another, but to view them as different "Buddha's" is to create a duality in Enlightenment.


There are no differences between one Buddha and another in terms of realization; there are differences in terms of aspirations, and so on., which give rise to differences in sentient beings karmic connections with this buddhafield and that, and so on. In short, everyone who becomes a Buddha starts out as a sentient being, and there is a unique rosary of clarity that continues from the time of being a sentient being through the attainment of Vajradhara which forms the relative basis for Buddhahood.



Loppon Malcom

So we are each these mind streams that are made up of light that's true nature is emptiness. Each mind stream has unique karmic connections that the light hits upon that gives us our individuality. There is no "thing" in some place which is what anatta is referring to.

I hope this helps,

Tom
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  #16  
Old 18-05-2016, 12:40 PM
Starman Starman is offline
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In my humble opinion these are words, labels, that limit the limitless. The drop is in the ocean and the ocean is also in the drop. Religions try to codify that which transcends thoughts and words.
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  #17  
Old 31-05-2016, 06:59 AM
Shivani Devi Shivani Devi is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by django
Buddha must have been brought up with Hindu beliefs, but he turned Hindu wisdom on it's head and stated there was no self, only a false self. I Believe there is an Atman Self/Higher Self/Soul, and I've been thinking about this versus the Buddha's no self, and wondering how does a belief in a Higher Self or No self affect other people's approaches to spirituality. There must be quite a difference, considering the two beliefs are polar opposites, I'd love to hear how this particular aspect of belief has affected you.
Namaste.

This is going to be very difficult for me to express or write about.

These beliefs have both affected me and shaken me deeply. For years I was like a dog chasing it's tail trying to understand the difference between 'self' and 'no-self' or even a 'false self' if that's what 'self' really was.

It was like a 'chicken and egg' thing. How does one say "I am that?" when there's still an "I" and still a "that?"

How can people comprehend what is 'not self' through the 'self'? assuming of course the 'self' exists?

Of course I understood the nature of Brahman, The Void, Maya and all that, but where did that leave anything else in relation to it, assuming there was any relationship to start with.

The whole problem being of course that I believed in God or a Deity who was somehow anything and everything, so how could I say 'neti neti' (not that) to God?

It felt like I was always taking one step forward and two steps backward.

It wasn't until I fully surrendered my heart to God, I realised I was 'self' and 'no self' simultaneously whenever I was in that state of divine communion.

Of course I can still say that God alone exists, but I still need who "I am" as a person to relate to other humans in the way I am relating to you now.

All these beliefs totally screwed with my mind and undermined any beliefs I had in myself, my own self-esteem, my unlimited potential and my love for God - no matter how 'egotistical' those may be.

As soon as I turned away from my impersonal philosophy and embraced Siva with all my heart and soul, I understood all of it...He made me understand all of it...all of it...

...and all I know is that I should have done this much sooner than I did.

Thank you.

Aum Namah Shivaya
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  #18  
Old 31-05-2016, 07:14 AM
sky sky is offline
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The anatta teaching is not a doctrine of no-self, but a not-self strategy for shedding suffering by letting go of its cause, leading to the highest, undying happiness. At that point, questions of self, no-self, and not-self fall aside. Once there's the experience of such total freedom, where would there be any concern about what's experiencing it, or whether or not it's a self?


This might help
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  #19  
Old 31-05-2016, 07:29 AM
Shivani Devi Shivani Devi is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sky123
The anatta teaching is not a doctrine of no-self, but a not-self strategy for shedding suffering by letting go of its cause, leading to the highest, undying happiness. At that point, questions of self, no-self, and not-self fall aside. Once there's the experience of such total freedom, where would there be any concern about what's experiencing it, or whether or not it's a self?


This might help
Yeah, I know all of that now, but I had to drop even the doctrine of annata before I fully and experientially realised it.

I came to realise I was 'all in my head' and until I let go of all that and went down into my heart, was I able to finally break free of all that suffering and untie that last knot that was holding me back from all this. Thank you for your kind thoughts.
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  #20  
Old 31-05-2016, 07:35 AM
sky sky is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Necromancer
Yeah, I know all of that now, but I had to drop even the doctrine of annata before I fully and experientially realised it.

I came to realise I was 'all in my head' and until I let go of all that and went down into my heart, was I able to finally break free of all that suffering and untie that last knot that was holding me back from all this. Thank you for your kind thoughts.


Yes reading about something and feeling it inside is very different.
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