Karl

There isn't anything controversial about either the first or second paragraphs. Although I would wonder why you wished to study consciousness in that respect. The body does not 'generate' consciousness. That isn't what I said. I said it did not exist apart from the body as a separate form. Neither does consciousness generate anything else, it is in effect passive.

It is no business of mine if they are searching for that which does not exist. I wish them well in their quest :-) If, on the other hand they say they are searching for that which they already are, then surely it's impolite not to point out they are most certainly exactly what they are looking for. Unless that isn't what they are really looking for, in which case perhaps I should just point out the unicorn. :-)

Eventually it is seen for what it is :-) There is no need to relate to any realms. If you hold in your hands a ball, then you hold a ball. If you then proceed to look for a ball, then I can only point out the obvious. You already have a ball. Am I then a fool because you insist there is no ball ? If you tell me there is a magic, multi coloured unicorn hiding under the bushes at the bottom of my garden, then what do I care? I was never looking for a unicorn. I am happy for you that you enjoy it.

I only wish to discuss, to engage to seek reality and dispel fantasy and fear. I have no need cultivation methods. I have read far too much already, many thousands of books. I filled my mind up with words to remember, all concepts.

I know and accept my intellectual poverty, fallibility and lack of developed rationality. I learned to become a lover of reality, to begin developing the tool of reason which I had left to rot in some corner of my mind whilst I fantasised other worlds. I have learned to tend it, to accept the pain and effort it extracts, to cherish and maintain it at all costs. I do not live in truth. I search for reality. Like a squirrel testing for a rotten nut. Neither am I enlightened, non dual, dual or any such thing. I have not been on a path, because there isn't one. Reality is the only goal and then I began to see for the very first time what I had hidden from myself for years. To see what a flower looks, smells and feels like without the mental hash and fantasy. That is what I will sit down and discuss with you. A shared love of reality. To see the world as it is and not through the clouded lens of false ego. To engage directly and fearlessly with reality.

The human body can function without conscious awareness, we do so in deep, dreamless sleep when we are said to be unconscious. There is nothing contradictory there. That is not the argument. Awareness and consciousness does not exist apart from the physical body. You are saying it is prior to the body and therefore prior to physical reality and so existent apart from reality. That is clearly illogical. If there is nothing to be conscious of, then there is no need for consciousness. We can rabbit on all day about the 'I' thought. It is only an expression of conscious self awareness. In deep dreamless less sleep there is no 'I' thought yet the concrete reality of things continues to exist regardless. Awareness is present, but not consciousness. There is nothing special here either. That's exactly how we experience it. When we are conscious we get direct perception and conceptual thought. It's quite difficult to try and explain that which is most obvious. It's as if you are saying that it couldn't be that obvious and so you have to imply some complex concepts which better suit what you want to believe. Its as if you wish to paint the Lilly or Gild gold. To create your own version of reality instead of observing what is real. The problem is that if you deny reality then the false conceptual reality will eventually conflict. If you believe that the red traffic light signal is green then you get into a road accident. It does not matter how much you convince yourself it was green because reality has given the signal it isn't to be messed with. This causes suffering. You can go an entire lifetime believing your own story which is in conflict with the facts. If you convince yourself a man, unaided and in full contradiction to physical laws; levitated, walked on water, or was in two places at the same time, then you are denying reality. If you say you are dual, non dual or any other such thing, then you deny reality. You must accept reality first, but you can only do so when you have the capacity to determine it, if you deny that capacity then you remain with Alice in the rabbit hole. Know the rope from the snake. There isn't any trick to it. It's the natural state.

No human functions outside the mind, or without intellect, if by that you are referring to conscious awareness. Reality is reality, there is nothing more to know or learn about it, except to test for it. Conscious awareness is self. If I'm 'aware of myself' then this-I suppose- might represent an idea of dualism, because there are obviously not two selves, but that's just conceptual thought. 'I am aware of this body, chair, cat, thought' is direct perceptive conscious awareness. It is impossible to relapse into dualism because we aren't dual. We made it up, just as we made up non dual. They are not concepts that we can apply to self even if we can create them, they still do not stain the self.

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.

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 :-)

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

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 ?'

Already I feel I have made a good decision by joining this forum. :-) Definitions have become a recent fascination for me. It's good to see someone attempting to resolve the definition of 'real'. It is true that language, time and translation have combined to make much of these ancient philosophies beyond our understanding. We can only hazard a guess at what much of it actually meant. These days people tend to use the translated ancient terms haphazardly. Words are used undefined. The result is mysticism and superstition. There is mimickery without clear understanding and little attempt is made to discover the definition behind the words. A word such as Brahman could just as easily be aether, without clear definition it serves as nothing more than a kind of totem for the ignorant to hawk around and on which they rely to shore up a faulty belief system. I recently came across two examples 'moving silence' and 'beyond the mind'. I pointed out the silence usually described the absence of sound and therefore, to then give that absence the quality of movement was highly dubious.

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