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Originally Posted by J_A_S_G
You're placing mind as central. A mind that spans only decades in a 14 billion year movie. Is the movie playing before mind comes into existence? After it ceases to exist? What knows all minds?
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How did you come to the conclusion, that I place mind as central or foundational, when I posted, using the tv screen anology that all of life's foundation is brahman, source, the tao, god etc etc?
In Vedanta there are two perspectives of reality:
1. Practical - empirical reality - the world and yourself as you see and experience them. i.e. you live for 100 years, experience happiness and sorrow, failures and disappointments. Your sphere of influence is your family and friends and the people you encounter and you live most of your life in a small area of the universe. This is known technically as vyavahārika satya.
2. Absolute or Objective reality - the world and yourself seen from the universal perspective. Science says the Universe is 13.7 billion years old, and that the diameter of the observable universe is 93 billion light years, our earth is a speck of sand on all the combined beaches of the world. This is known as paramārthika satya.
So from a practical point of view compared to a universal point of view our lives and circumstances are an “illusion” - 100 years compared to 13.7 billion. Not even a snap of the fingers or a drop of water on a hot pan.
Then again 13.7billion compared to eternity and limitless space is also an “illusion” and so on and so forth.
An illusion or maya is something appearing to be other than it is:
How big is your thumb?
Hold it up to your eye.
Notice that your thumb appears to be larger than an object in the distance (this can be something huge, like a mountian). A thing cannot be both larger and smaller than another thing. What appears to be so, is plainly the illusion of the measurement of time and space.
If nothing is real there can be no illusion, because illusion means something which is not true. Something can only be not true if something else is true, and a comparison can be made with it to determine if something unknown is true or illusion. Do you see how idiotic it is? If it’s true that everything is illusion, then not everything is illusion because at least that’s true.
Physical things are real, but their form is temporary, so while the substance is real, the form is not. A house is made of real ingredients, but the existence of ‘the house’ is temporary. We see it as lasting a long time, but it is constantly changing due to time. At every second it is getting older, and in due course of time it will cease to exist…as a house, but the ingredients will continue to exist.
Imagine a potter with a lump of clay on his wheel. As you watch he makes a vase by pulling up the clay, then immediately he turns it into a bowl, then a plate, then a cup, then something else. The clay is real, but all the forms and shapes that he makes are not real, they are constantly changing from one shape to another as the wheel turns and he works the clay with his hands. We give names to the different shapes because it’s easier to say a plate, than saying a lump of clay that temporarily spreads ten inches across with a slight depression in the middle and a rim, all of which is changing into something else as I speak.
Now the whole material world is like the lump of clay because it is always being transformed by time. The materials or energy of the universe are constant, they are real, but the forms are always in a state of change because they are always getting older. We don’t notice it because we see time pass by slowly, but sometimes a video clip is shown speeded up. If we could do that for a whole city, we would see the city rise, expand, change and then disappear. All the materials used in the city would still exist in some form, but the city would have appeared and then disappeared, so it is like a dream.
To understand this, it helps to distinguish between real and reality.
Sunrises and sunsets are real, but sunrises and sunsets are not reality, because the reality of sunrises and sunsets is the earth rotating around the sun, this is how the illusion of time and space is created.
A movie is real because we can experience it and be moved by it, but it is not reality because it’s a movie.
For two hours or so we enter the cinema hall and surrender to the movie. We experience different things as we watch the movie, and forget the outside world. We laugh, shiver, rejoice, cringe, etc during the movie, and then it is over, and all we have are the memories, there is nothing else that we take out of the cinema hall. Now the film is real, because we saw it, the actors are real, the drama and tension was real because we felt it, but in the end we walk away from it with only memories. It was all an illusion, but it was real!
The illusion is that we thought it was real while we watched it. We thought the person was in danger, or the girl was raped or whatever. If we don’t surrender to the story there is no point in going to see it. We have to be willing to believe it’s real even though we know it’s not. If we are not willing to believe the story it’s no fun. That is the illusion which we willingly accept.
So the material world is like a cinema hall, and we are surrendered to the story because if we aren’t then it’s no fun. Actually Maya is such a good director that we have no choice, we think it’s all real without ever questioning it.
Being freed from Maya means stepping out of the cinema hall and experiencing what is reality, instead of the misrepresentation of reality in the cinema hall.
So not everything is illusion. Under the influence of maya our perception of everything is illusory. We don’t see things as they are. We are real, the substance of the world is real, but all the transformations of the substance, and our experiences of those transformations are illusory.
Reality is different, and much better.
Yet there is another unmanifest nature, which is eternal and is transcendental to this manifested and unmanifested matter. It is supreme and is never annihilated. When all in this world is annihilated, that part remains as it is. (Bg. 8.17-20)
Those who are free from false prestige, illusion and false association, who understand the eternal, who are done with material lust, who are freed from the dualities of happiness and distress, and who, unbewildered, know how to surrender unto the Supreme Person attain to that eternal kingdom. (Bg 15.5)
This is what is outside the cinema hall of the material world.
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Originally Posted by J_A_S_G
YAnalogies aren't meant to be taken literally. They are simply pointers to something not yet experienced.
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Exactly, so why keep repeating analogies and metphors, if you have experienced what the analogies and metphors point to?
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Originally Posted by J_A_S_G
So it's not an exact comparison, just a resemblance, and it's not a resemblance of all aspects, just particular aspects pertinent to that being analogized.
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Does it not take the mind to create and to understand analogies and metaphors, or does wishing away the mind, during the process, make the mind disapear?
All our perceptions, beliefs, etc about the world, spirituality, god etc, take place in our minds alone. You are able to post on this forum, what you do, because of your mind, my mind and every other mind, that uses this forum.
The Movie Screen Analogy
How wonderful and freeing when immersed in this realization!!
Linear Mode
