The Real and the Apparent

It's all well and good to discuss non-duality, but what is the end-game? The purpose of it all?

Realization. Enlightenment. Here's a point in the video that describes two models.

https://youtu.be/Femq2264px4?t=3742

Epistemic Shift Model

I was thinking of myself as this little creature, body and mind, birth and death, pleasure and pain and suffering through life. This is one idea of myself. My understanding. Now it shifts. I am that One unchanging light. This Awareness, this Existence Consciousness which is clear to me now. Suppose the shift happens. This is enlightenment.

So this is one kind of enlightenment. This is one way of looking at enlightenment. An epistemic shift. Epistemic means knowledge or a change in our paradigm about ourselves. What we thought about ourselves has undergone a revolutionary shift. Certain shift and permanent. It comes in a flash but it remains stable, just like our idea of ourselves right now is stable. I am a body-mind stable, but once the shift happens that also is stable that I am this Witness consciousness. This Awareness. This Existence, Consciousness, Bliss.

Ethical Manifestation Model

This idea of the Buddha nature which is within all of us, manifesting that. Love and unselfishness and overcoming desire and serenity and peace and joy. Compassion for all beings. What we would regard a great saint as having. The manifestation of those qualities. Divine qualities in this life.

This is the video in its entirety. https://youtu.be/Femq2264px4

This is Vivekananda's lecture on which the video is based. https://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.i...parent_man.htm

[HITESH SHAH]

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

It's all well and good to discuss non-duality, but what is the end-game? The purpose of it all?

Realization. Enlightenment. Here's a point in the video that describes two models.

https://youtu.be/Femq2264px4?t=3742

Epistemic Shift Model

I was thinking of myself as this little creature, body and mind, birth and death, pleasure and pain and suffering through life. This is one idea of myself. My understanding. Now it shifts. I am that One unchanging light. This Awareness, this Existence Consciousness which is clear to me now. Suppose the shift happens. This is enlightenment.

So this is one kind of enlightenment. This is one way of looking at enlightenment. An epistemic shift. Epistemic means knowledge or a change in our paradigm about ourselves. What we thought about ourselves has undergone a revolutionary shift. Certain shift and permanent. It comes in a flash but it remains stable, just like our idea of ourselves right now is stable. I am a body-mind stable, but once the shift happens that also is stable that I am this Witness consciousness. This Awareness. This Existence, Consciousness, Bliss.

Ethical Manifestation Model

This idea of the Buddha nature which is within all of us, manifesting that. Love and unselfishness and overcoming desire and serenity and peace and joy. Compassion for all beings. What we would regard a great saint as having the manifestation of those qualities. Divine qualities in this life.

This is the video in its entirety. https://youtu.be/Femq2264px4

This is Vivekananda's lecture on which the video is based. https://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.i...parent_man.htm

Both the model if applied with sincerity & genuineness consistently and persistently , have the potential to yield good experience in terms of enlightenment/realization .

The purpose of all this is to facilitate / enrich the overall life flow better . Religions approach it from both models .

Originally Posted by HITESH SHAH

Both the model if applied with sincerity & genuineness consistently and persistently , have the potential to yield good experience in terms of enlightenment/realization .

The purpose of all this is to facilitate / enrich the overall life flow better . Religions approach it from both models .

Yup! I would say it depends on one's temperament as to which model best suits an individual or maybe a better way to express it is which model is most likely to manifest in an individual.

https://youtu.be/Femq2264px4?t=4115

Once you have understood what spiritual life is, what else will you do except pursue enlightenment? Maybe you’ll not get enlightenment but what else will you do except pursue this? What else is worthwhile? Everything else in life will go on, but this will become your central pursuit. What else is worth doing? Then he said, “Those are good answers Swami, but they are sort of ultimate, abstract, philosophical answers”. Let me give you a practical answer. Why one should pursue enlightenment. Once you start whether you get enlightenment or not, day to day the benefits that flow – the peace and the joy and the sense of security and strength, sense of protection – it slowly becomes the most valuable thing in your life. Whether enlightenment is there or not we don’t know, but you can never let go of it anymore.