Is it possible to remain in the Non-dual state and function in the world?

[voidisyinyang]

http://works.bepress.com/lance_nelson/6/

 

 

 

The Dualism of Nondualism: Advaita Vedanta and the Irrelevance of Nature

Lance E. Nelson, University of San Diego

Abstract

Against much that has been written in the literature on religion and ecology, I have come to the conclusion that Advaita Vedanta's potential contribution to ecological awareness has been vastly overestimated. No doubt, classical Advaita represents a profound spirituality. In positive relation to the interests of ecology, it fosters values such as simplicity of life, frugality, and-for the ascetic at least-nonviolence. But Advaita also encourages attitudes of devaluation and neglect of the natural universe. While not, of course, directly responsible for environmental degradation, such attitudes, as they filter out into the general culture, carry the potential to seriously undermine environmental concern.

[Jetsun]

That is similar to something I have heard Amma (Mata Amritandamayi) say who is a native of Kerala. She says that in the past the Indian non-dual philosophies have led to a lot of neglect and indifference to regular normal life in India, which is one reason (probably including many others) why in some areas India is in a mess, so she does a lot of work building schools and hospitals and cleaning up the streets as well as doing silent meditation and spiritual practice to try to bring a bit more balance 

[dwai]

[3bob]

 ISQ, or Drew, sounds like you're off the deep end and flailing about....

Edited July 5, 2015 by 3bob

[rene]

That is similar to something I have heard Amma (Mata Amritandamayi) say who is a native of Kerala. She says that in the past the Indian non-dual philosophies have led to a lot of neglect and indifference to regular normal life in India, which is one reason (probably including many others) why in some areas India is in a mess, so she does a lot of work building schools and hospitals and cleaning up the streets as well as doing silent meditation and spiritual practice to try to bring a bit more balance 

 

Right. Both.

 

My experience finds that those who focus only on the non-dual are more likely to fall in the 'either/or' trap than those who dont bother with it (non-dual) at all.

[dwai]

Right. Both.

 

My experience finds that those who focus only on the non-dual are more likely to fall in the 'either/or' trap than those who dont bother with it (non-dual) at all.

I think "only the non-dual" trap is a neo-advaita one. Traditional systems focused on both, including the Kevala advaita of adi shankaracharya...and are very pragmatic.

[voidisyinyang]

Oh boy! You had to go there?!?

 

Yes India's situation is a result of "nondual" philosophy. There is absolutely no culpability of systematic destruction of her economy and infrastructure and cultural fabric by the British rule of 200 years.

 

Only Two types of people will say that / the dalistan maniacs or over-privileged under-exposed first world kids...

 

I won't even discuss this stupidity any further with you. I'll request the mods to make sure that drew hempel's posts are not in violation of site policies - such as hatemongering against specific groups of people - Brahmins (I am one and take exception to his crazy theories) and denigrating a culture. The European racists of the 18th and 19th centuries did that a lot before Indians kicked their asses out of India (though the mindsets could not evidently be changed in its entirety)...

 

and

 

 

it's a legacy of white colonialism

 

yep thanks for twisting my words around.

 

haha.

 

Hilarious!!!

 

The question is are people willing to see the direct connection between British colonialism and the Brahmin caste system?

 

Obviously British colonialism was genocidal - and indeed the current imperial policies toward India are genocidal - like the export of grains to Europe to feed cows in Europe at the expense of the starving poor in India.

 

Or the British colonists putting in canals that causes epidemic plagues from the fetid water.

 

Or the British colonists pushing rice exports over the traditional harvests in Bengal - again creating famine.

 

The famines from the British in India were among the worst in the world.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/books/01/02/18/reviews/010218.18senlt.html

 

yeah but the issue of this thread is nondualism philosophy.

 

Nondualism philosophy is the foundation of Western civilization which of course includes British colonialism.

 

the key here is to cut out the rotten root - to get at the origin of the problem.

 

It's not even in India - the origin is the "symbolic revolution" in Western Asia - but it was exported to India.

 

I have already demonstrated that with the new DNA science.

 

But it's much easier to just twist my words around - and then duck and run from the evidence. haha.

 

 

 

Your statement about the ICS officer receiving life-long 'pension' reminds me of an RBI officer at a very senior level receiving similar payments during the 1980's. The interesting part is this officer was a very pious, orthodox, brahmin (Madhva, I suppose) of the type which our "brahministic" members would have adored!!

 

http://www.tamilbrahmins.com/archive/index.php/t-11285.html

 

Wasn't even aware of these terms "creamy layer" ?

 

http://cyberbrahma.com/do-brahmins-still-belong-to-an-upper-caste/

 

Oh I get it - so there is a brahmin movement against this so-called anti-creamy layer reverse discrimination.

[voidisyinyang]

Combining this new genetic information with ancient texts, the results suggest that class distinctions emerged 3,000 to 3,500 years ago, and caste divisions became strict roughly two millennia ago.

 

said white hate monger scientist....

 

 

said study co-author Priya Moorjani, a geneticist at Harvard University.

 

[voidisyinyang]

http://www.livescience.com/38751-genetic-study-reveals-caste-system-origins.html

 

 

Moorjani's past research revealed that all people in India trace their heritage to two genetic groups: An ancestral North Indian group originally from the Near East and the Caucasus region, and another South Indian group that was more closely related to people on the Andaman Islands.

Today, everyone in India has DNA from both groups. "It's just the proportion of ancestry that you have that varies across India," Moorjani told LiveScience.

[voidisyinyang]

I think "only the non-dual" trap is a neo-advaita one. Traditional systems focused on both, including the Kevala advaita of adi shankaracharya...and are very pragmatic.

 

Theism for the Masses, Non-Dualism for the Monastic Elite: A Fresh Look at Sankara's Trans-Theistic Spirituality

 

http://www.academia.edu/3646363/Theism_for_the_Masses_Non-Dualism_for_the_Monastic_Elite_A_Fresh_Look_at_Sankaras_Trans-Theistic_Spirituality

 

Only a Brahmin renunciate can properly practice advaita nondualism.

 

And it's based on the strict caste system - Nelson exposes the details.

 

DNA evidence corroborates this.

[Karl]

I don't understand 'dual self' and 'non dual self'. There is only self. Pure and simple. How could anyone be anything else ?

[Marblehead]

I don't understand 'dual self' and 'non dual self'. There is only self. Pure and simple. How could anyone be anything else ?

Apparently you understand more than you admit to.

[dwai]

To understand what sankara's non-duality entails -- http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/i_es/i_es_denic_self_frameset.htm

[Marblehead]

The goal of all inquiry is experience, (anubhava)…Brahma Sutra Bhashya. I. 1.2.

 

I actually like that quote.

[Karl]

Apparently you understand more than you admit to.

 

 

 

Once I believed I had a dual nature, but I was wrong about that. Maybe the question is better phrased ' why do we imagine we have a dual nature ?'

[dwai]

Once I believed I had a dual nature, but I was wrong about that. Maybe the question is better phrased ' why do we imagine we have a dual nature ?'

It's not a question of dual or non-dual

Nature, it is more about if we can drop subject-object framework (and duality) and function in this world? Stemming from a discussion with my friend about whether we can remain in nondual absorption state and still function in the world...towards that somewhere on this thread there is a small discussion on what are the samadhi states...experiences...

[Karl]

It's not a question of dual or non-dual

Nature, it is more about if we can drop subject-object framework (and duality) and function in this world? Stemming from a discussion with my friend about whether we can remain in nondual absorption state and still function in the world...towards that somewhere on this thread there is a small discussion on what are the samadhi states...experiences...

 

I expect SRM would say to find the one who experiences this duality, subject/object framework :-)

 

 

[forestofemptiness]

There's more to non-duality that Shankara. For instance, there is Shavism, Tantra, and Buddhism. There are strong historical roots of lay meditators in these traditions, who were neither Brahmins nor monks. 

 

Theism for the Masses, Non-Dualism for the Monastic Elite: A Fresh Look at Sankara's Trans-Theistic Spirituality

[voidisyinyang]

There's more to non-duality that Shankara. For instance, there is Shavism, Tantra, and Buddhism. There are strong historical roots of lay meditators in these traditions, who were neither Brahmins nor monks. 

 

I agree with the OP but then he did refer to Shankara nondualism. All my rants were focused on other types of nondualism - what I call sound-current nondualism - but I don't think these are really "other" types - I mean I do think that the Shankara methodology works - or as taught by Ramana Maharshi - the vichara of self-enquiry.

 

I'm just saying in that traditional advaita vedanta teaching Shankara did insist on the practitioner being a Brahmin monk renunciate and I did find a book of Brahmin priest rules saying that there had to be a 3 day purification if even eye contact was made with a female.

 

I highly doubt that strict standard is followed nowadays by Brahmin priests as monks practicing advaita - but for example Ramana Maharshi practiced nonstop for 9 years in samadhi - and even refused to see his mom.

 

So yeah there are other means - I would say any successful spiritual practice is gonna hit the Emptiness as Oneness or nonduality reality - through nirvikalpa samadhi in the yoga tradition - or as I read in the Theraveda tradition it's called "Achievement of Cessation" from a week long fast in samdahi, much the same as achieved in Taoist training.

 

But for the original human culture - this training focused on the males in puberty fasting for a month doing trance dancing - in solitude from the females.

 

So yeah - that was the nondual training from 70,000 BCe up to today - and indeed the civilized spiritual traditions did begin developing 10,000 years ago - and I realize that is what most people focus on while ignoring most of what happened before say 2000 years go - and so we have what - 68,000 years neglected. Do the math - the original human culture represents the longest and most successful nonduality training - it was required for all the males, not just a certain elite group.

 

So yeah there are other traditions to be sure. I'm not even saying don't practice advaita vedanta but just be aware of its context - for a person to really be successful it was required to be vegetarian, to have very strict solitude from females, and other caste-based cleansing practices, and again the DNA evidence documents these castes were rigid starting 2000 years ago - and also these castes are more white skin based with a West Asian origin for the upper castes - the Brahmin castes.

 

So yeah there's other nondualism philosophies - but nondualism as a term is really a product of phonetic language philosophy with an inherent symmetric structure that is dualistic - and so the philosophy is very paradoxical because the means to practice it are within a context that goes against real nondualism.

 

People don't want to have to deal with that - but it is inescapable - the material world is difficult to escape. Indeed to be very spiritual requires pretty much full-time commitment - and purification practices. Most people need to work and be surrounded by other people who could care less about spiritual training. haha. On the contrary most people are fixated on the opposite of spiritual training and so to train in that environment is very much the opposite of what advaita vedanta required.

 

It is a mind yoga meditation practice - the other types of nondualism are different methodologies - and arguably again any successful meditation practice is really nondualism but that kind of waters down the original use of the term and the context in which is it presented. I'm just saying that context has been redefined in light of the new DNA analysis - and I guess my own analysis on the limitations of symmetric math tied to phonetic language, which is the context that nondualism is taught.

 

It's a great teaching to be sure - it just needs to be understood within its limited context. I would say spiritual training as a whole should be understood within the context of the practical terms in which it can be pursued.

 

For example I was reading a Hugh B. Urban analysis - saying how for the Vivekananda society most people could not afford to join - it was too expensive but there was probably some other issues involved. Anyway so the more poor people who wanted to join were forced instead to practice tantra which was not as pure and therefore not as successful. I realize tantra is a loaded term with many different meanings - but I'm also taking from experience in regards to tantra. At some point in the training it has to transition into the more traditional focus of nondualism.

 

Yeah as I typed this I actually found a pdf of Hugh B. Urban's Tantra book - 2003 edition. He's got a few tantra books.

 

Anyway as I referred to him earlier in the thread he says how nondualism is the ultimate commodity fetish now - I think this is true for late-capitalism. It's a great irony - we should not be afraid of the paradoxes involved in that tradition. My position is music - very basic music - is what unifies humanity and there is a nondualism aspect to sound - and I think studying this via Ramana Maharshi has been a personal fascination for me.

 

So he dismisses Nada Yoga as a nondual practice because he says it just creates a dull trance and the person loses the will power to continue going into the nondual state - to push the Nirvikalpa samadhi even farther.

 

The thing is that what Ramana Maharshi says may be true regarding the ordinary approach to sound but then Ramana Maharshi says that Mouna Samadhi is the highest level of samadhi - literally silence samadhi based on an internal listening process.

[voidisyinyang]

Bhattacharyya finds in Tantra evidence for the existence of an

archaic class-free society, based on matriarchy and the power of the laboring

classes—a system that would eventually be displaced by Brahminical

Hinduism and its patriarchal, class-based social order.

 

p. 196, Hugh B. Urban

 

and

 

 

Finally, the materialist, practical view of Tantra would be polluted by

the elitist, otherworldly speculations of schools like Advaita Vedànta: “Although

Tantra in its earlier stage opposed the Vedàntic philosophy of illusion

and admitted the reality of the world and its evolution out of a

material principle . . . the superimposed elements brought it into line with

Vedànta.”105

 

Though most critical readers today would probably find it problematic,

Bhattacharyya’s version of Indian history is a remarkably bold

attempt to invert the conventional narrative constructed by the Orientalists

and Hindu reformers.

Edited July 7, 2015 by Innersoundqigong

[voidisyinyang]

Nikhilànanda frequently excised RàmakKrishna’s

vulgar expressions with explicitly sexual connotations.”52 In the process,

Ramakrishna—this intense, ecstatic, devotee of Kàlí—was progressively

transformed into a prophet of philosophical monism, religious universalism,

and Hindu nationalism.

 

and

 

 

“Some are saying that Ramakrishna was a Tantrika

and a Kaula . . . but do not listen to such one-sided estimates.”95 Instead,

the swami constructed an image of his master as a living icon of Advaita

Vedànta, an embodiment of lofty speculations and the universal ideal of

Sankara’s absolute nondualism.

Edited July 7, 2015 by Innersoundqigong

[Karl]

I agree with the OP but then he did refer to Shankara nondualism. All my rants were focused on other types of nondualism - what I call sound-current nondualism - but I don't think these are really "other" types - I mean I do think that the Shankara methodology works - or as taught by Ramana Maharshi - the vichara of self-enquiry.

 

I'm just saying in that traditional advaita vedanta teaching Shankara did insist on the practitioner being a Brahmin monk renunciate and I did find a book of Brahmin priest rules saying that there had to be a 3 day purification if even eye contact was made with a female.

 

I highly doubt that strict standard is followed nowadays by Brahmin priests as monks practicing advaita - but for example Ramana Maharshi practiced nonstop for 9 years in samadhi - and even refused to see his mom.

 

So yeah there are other means - I would say any successful spiritual practice is gonna hit the Emptiness as Oneness or nonduality reality - through nirvikalpa samadhi in the yoga tradition - or as I read in the Theraveda tradition it's called "Achievement of Cessation" from a week long fast in samdahi, much the same as achieved in Taoist training.

 

But for the original human culture - this training focused on the males in puberty fasting for a month doing trance dancing - in solitude from the females.

 

So yeah - that was the nondual training from 70,000 BCe up to today - and indeed the civilized spiritual traditions did begin developing 10,000 years ago - and I realize that is what most people focus on while ignoring most of what happened before say 2000 years go - and so we have what - 68,000 years neglected. Do the math - the original human culture represents the longest and most successful nonduality training - it was required for all the males, not just a certain elite group.

 

So yeah there are other traditions to be sure. I'm not even saying don't practice advaita vedanta but just be aware of its context - for a person to really be successful it was required to be vegetarian, to have very strict solitude from females, and other caste-based cleansing practices, and again the DNA evidence documents these castes were rigid starting 2000 years ago - and also these castes are more white skin based with a West Asian origin for the upper castes - the Brahmin castes.

 

So yeah there's other nondualism philosophies - but nondualism as a term is really a product of phonetic language philosophy with an inherent symmetric structure that is dualistic - and so the philosophy is very paradoxical because the means to practice it are within a context that goes against real nondualism.

 

People don't want to have to deal with that - but it is inescapable - the material world is difficult to escape. Indeed to be very spiritual requires pretty much full-time commitment - and purification practices. Most people need to work and be surrounded by other people who could care less about spiritual training. haha. On the contrary most people are fixated on the opposite of spiritual training and so to train in that environment is very much the opposite of what advaita vedanta required.

 

It is a mind yoga meditation practice - the other types of nondualism are different methodologies - and arguably again any successful meditation practice is really nondualism but that kind of waters down the original use of the term and the context in which is it presented. I'm just saying that context has been redefined in light of the new DNA analysis - and I guess my own analysis on the limitations of symmetric math tied to phonetic language, which is the context that nondualism is taught.

 

It's a great teaching to be sure - it just needs to be understood within its limited context. I would say spiritual training as a whole should be understood within the context of the practical terms in which it can be pursued.

 

For example I was reading a Hugh B. Urban analysis - saying how for the Vivekananda society most people could not afford to join - it was too expensive but there was probably some other issues involved. Anyway so the more poor people who wanted to join were forced instead to practice tantra which was not as pure and therefore not as successful. I realize tantra is a loaded term with many different meanings - but I'm also taking from experience in regards to tantra. At some point in the training it has to transition into the more traditional focus of nondualism.

 

Yeah as I typed this I actually found a pdf of Hugh B. Urban's Tantra book - 2003 edition. He's got a few tantra books.

 

Anyway as I referred to him earlier in the thread he says how nondualism is the ultimate commodity fetish now - I think this is true for late-capitalism. It's a great irony - we should not be afraid of the paradoxes involved in that tradition. My position is music - very basic music - is what unifies humanity and there is a nondualism aspect to sound - and I think studying this via Ramana Maharshi has been a personal fascination for me.

 

So he dismisses Nada Yoga as a nondual practice because he says it just creates a dull trance and the person loses the will power to continue going into the nondual state - to push the Nirvikalpa samadhi even farther.

 

The thing is that what Ramana Maharshi says may be true regarding the ordinary approach to sound but then Ramana Maharshi says that Mouna Samadhi is the highest level of samadhi - literally silence samadhi based on an internal listening process.

 

And if I understand the gist of your post you are postulating the very idea of dualism/non dualism is a paradox. That's correct. We have to start thinking in paradoxes first. In other words we are attempting to break the stability we have built through mental habit by destabilising everything. This is partly what Nada Yoga was attempting to do, but it has a dulling effect-only to be expected if one deliberately negates everything. Self inquiry instead asks the logical question-who experiences it-which is a positive proactive action which works the mind as opposed yoga nada which is passive negative.

 

Meditation prepares for the more advanced practice of self inquiry. There is all this stuff about single pointed etc, but it's really about training the mind to ask the question and stay on the question without excessive concentration or multiple thoughts arising. It's teaching the mind to play games to end the game it's playing.

 

It's really breaking acquired conditioning, anti hypnosis, breaking the trance. The words used are just part of the game and are not real but have to be adopted as a presupposition in order to get traction. The mind likes stories, it will accept them as readily as a starving man takes food. One story can be used to break the other stories, but only if we are convinced that the underlying message in the story is true. Even here I'm making up a story on top of another story-none of it is real, but you have to believe it is in order to see that it is not :-)

[voidisyinyang]

And if I understand the gist of your post you are postulating the very idea of dualism/non dualism is a paradox. That's correct. We have to start thinking in paradoxes first. In other words we are attempting to break the stability we have built through mental habit by destabilising everything. This is partly what Nada Yoga was attempting to do, but it has a dulling effect-only to be expected if one deliberately negates everything. Self inquiry instead asks the logical question-who experiences it-which is a positive proactive action which works the mind as opposed yoga nada which is passive negative. Meditation prepares for the more advanced practice of self inquiry. There is all this stuff about single pointed etc, but it's really about training the mind to ask the question and stay on the question without excessive concentration or multiple thoughts arising. It's teaching the mind to play games to end the game it's playing. It's really breaking acquired conditioning, anti hypnosis, breaking the trance. The words used are just part of the game and are not real but have to be adopted as a presupposition in order to get traction. The mind likes stories, it will accept them as readily as a starving man takes food. One story can be used to break the other stories, but only if we are convinced that the underlying message in the story is true. Even here I'm making up a story on top of another story-none of it is real, but you have to believe it is in order to see that it is not :-)

 

 

Actually Karl I'm glad you have detailed what you think is nondualism because I think this is exactly the white male Western enlightenment problem in the meditation scene.

 

Ramana Maharshi says that the first stage of practice is mental concentration, to repeat I-I-I over and over not as a mantra but as mental concentration.

 

So but he says that it just the first stage of practice and in actuality you focus on the source of the light - and he said if you focus physically it is on the right side of the heart - even though nondualism is beyond physicality - so he calls the right side of the heart the pinpoint into formless awareness or the Self.

 

The thing is that this exactly corroborates Taoist Yoga: alchemy and immortality which states that the right side of the heart is the source of the Yuan Qi.

 

So the connection to the heart is actually best achieved by the focus on the feeling of compassion, kindness, happiness.

 

But to see the light internally means that the yin qi has been built up enough to increase the yuan qi which then increases the yuan shen, that originates on the left side of the heart.

 

So mental rumination is a left-brain dominant conceptual exercise - it is not even real meditation which first starts with mental concentration and then goes into light visualization as samadhi. But the focus is on the source of that light through the Yuan Qi which can not be seen but is felt as awareness that guides the energy.

 

The problem is the western male enlightenment scene turns advaita vedanta into what is called neo-advaita - which is just a kind of self-affirmation practice - it is not even real meditation - but it's very easy for Westerners to turn meditation into a psychological therapy kind of thing. Master Ni, Hui-ching talks about this problem in the West also - but even in Japan this happened with Zen as Master Nan, Huai-chin points out.

 

I have this problem also - because the mind rebounds into opposite extremes - so just a bit of enlightenment experience then rebounds the brain into vast left-brain conceptualizations. It's very easy for people to dream up vast conceptual schemas - as Yogananda says the white man gets  a taste of enlightenment and then has to write a book about it. But in reality that is only just the beginning of meditation. As Vivekananda states Nirvikalpa samadhi is just the beginning of meditation but in fact most people never even reach it. Or as in Taoism - to get to the  Emptiness you need to first fill the lower tan tien with yin qi energy and so you do see light but only when light is seen externally are you then tapping into the nondualist reality.

 

So that is a good physical measuring - seeing light externally means you have enough third eye heart activation to create enough yuan qi - yuan shen energy so that the light travels outside the skull. But in actuality even this experience can just be the yin qi energy that is connected to the yuan shen - what's called the "heart's fire" - in Taoism. So that energy has to be stored up continuously - and that is the downfall of tantra is that it reverses this storing up process. The yuan qi is used up and turned back into yin qi which then travels out of the skull via the pineal gland - and so it creates a Ghost Immortal which as I said is also a type of nondualism - it's just a low level, considered the wrong path or a big mistake in the training. So yeah I made that mistake - which as I said is a mistake in tantra practice which is dangerous but also very fast in results.

[Jetsun]

Whether one can function in non-dualism comes down to whether it is possible for a person to function outside the realm of the intellect mind or thought. The mind itself will say that isn't possible because to admit otherwise is to create cracks in its dictatorship over your reality, which is pretty much the default position of the vast majority of humanity, because they live primarily in their minds it is assumed that it isn't possible to live in any other way.

 

But if you go beyond the mind then you have what Nisargadatta Maharaj calls "direct experiencing" where there is no separation between the experience and the experiencer, I believe people like Nisargadatta spent the majority of their awake lives in that place and would talk to people and interact from that place, there may be times when old conditioning took over and times where the dualistic mind is needed to take over but overall I believe those people who are considered "awake" are like the reverse of most people in that their default position is non-duality and occasionally lapse into being controlled by dualistic thinking. While for most of us it is the other way around in that we are "dreaming" or in other word living in our dualistic minds and occasionally get a glimpse of the real reality which is non-dual.

 

To "awaken" is to make a permanent shift out dualistic thinking to some extent, if it were only a temporary thing then it couldn't be accurately compared to waking up out of a dream. In my opinion to have samadhi experiences isn't the same as waking up, it is just a means to put a crack in the vase. 

[Karl]

Actually Karl I'm glad you have detailed what you think is nondualism because I think this is exactly the white male Western enlightenment problem in the meditation scene.

 

Ramana Maharshi says that the first stage of practice is mental concentration, to repeat I-I-I over and over not as a mantra but as mental concentration.

 

So but he says that it just the first stage of practice and in actuality you focus on the source of the light - and he said if you focus physically it is on the right side of the heart - even though nondualism is beyond physicality - so he calls the right side of the heart the pinpoint into formless awareness or the Self.

 

The thing is that this exactly corroborates Taoist Yoga: alchemy and immortality which states that the right side of the heart is the source of the Yuan Qi.

 

So the connection to the heart is actually best achieved by the focus on the feeling of compassion, kindness, happiness.

 

But to see the light internally means that the yin qi has been built up enough to increase the yuan qi which then increases the yuan shen, that originates on the left side of the heart.

 

So mental rumination is a left-brain dominant conceptual exercise - it is not even real meditation which first starts with mental concentration and then goes into light visualization as samadhi. But the focus is on the source of that light through the Yuan Qi which can not be seen but is felt as awareness that guides the energy.

 

The problem is the western male enlightenment scene turns advaita vedanta into what is called neo-advaita - which is just a kind of self-affirmation practice - it is not even real meditation - but it's very easy for Westerners to turn meditation into a psychological therapy kind of thing. Master Ni, Hui-ching talks about this problem in the West also - but even in Japan this happened with Zen as Master Nan, Huai-chin points out.

 

I have this problem also - because the mind rebounds into opposite extremes - so just a bit of enlightenment experience then rebounds the brain into vast left-brain conceptualizations. It's very easy for people to dream up vast conceptual schemas - as Yogananda says the white man gets  a taste of enlightenment and then has to write a book about it. But in reality that is only just the beginning of meditation. As Vivekananda states Nirvikalpa samadhi is just the beginning of meditation but in fact most people never even reach it. Or as in Taoism - to get to the  Emptiness you need to first fill the lower tan tien with yin qi energy and so you do see light but only when light is seen externally are you then tapping into the nondualist reality.

 

So that is a good physical measuring - seeing light externally means you have enough third eye heart activation to create enough yuan qi - yuan shen energy so that the light travels outside the skull. But in actuality even this experience can just be the yin qi energy that is connected to the yuan shen - what's called the "heart's fire" - in Taoism. So that energy has to be stored up continuously - and that is the downfall of tantra is that it reverses this storing up process. The yuan qi is used up and turned back into yin qi which then travels out of the skull via the pineal gland - and so it creates a Ghost Immortal which as I said is also a type of nondualism - it's just a low level, considered the wrong path or a big mistake in the training. So yeah I made that mistake - which as I said is a mistake in tantra practice which is dangerous but also very fast in results.

 

With the greatest respect this just sounds like gobbledygook to me, just a complex illusion. SRM was playing a game, he was a mischievous old goat. He told people what they needed to hear. The more complex the illusion makers mind, the more complex must the solution appear to be. In effect we make an imaginary key for an imaginary lock. We are just self, there isn't any getting to, dissolving or any of that stuff, but if you must believe there is, then that's the solution that seems must be required. It isn't one technique or one particular way to see there is only self-there is no reason why it can't be instantaneous because it never was anything else.

 

Any results or progress are just imaginary. Find out who is the one experiencing the results. SRM said to some that the must try and remain in the 'I', but then you see he was saying what was needed to that person. How can you stay in the 'I' when you are nothing else but the 'I' . I dont believe he made such an blatant logical error. All he ever really said was 'be as you are' which is funny because how can you possibly be anything else. How can one even ask the question 'who am I? For who is the one asking the question :-)

 

You are right that this has turned into a big therapy industry, but it always was the case in India, because it made money, or provided some living for a popular guru. Many want salvation, nirvana, heaven to exist here, now, or after. It also created collectives and a control mechanism around which men could be yoked and obedient, now it's a leisure industry thing.