Nothingness

Nope. Yoga entails duality. It is, ultimately, not true. A better statement, in my view, would be: Everything's nothing. -- or -- Nothing's everything.

I'm very interested in K.S. I'll be reading one of the books mentioned above, but I was wondering if anyone could tell me, briefly, the main differences (if there are any) between Kashmir Shaivism and Advaita Vedanta. I am very well acquainted with A.V., all types of Yogas, and Sanatana Dharma in general, but lack knowledge about Kashmir Shaivism. Thank you.

Very good original post, my direct experience is fully in line with it. As a reply to the other posts, Self does not radiate anything. It is unchanging, motionless and immutable. Yet from our ignorant perspective, the relative one rather than the absolute one, it seems like Self is radiating something yes - not sound but pure bliss. We are all looking for that bliss, for that happiness, because it's our true nature. The bliss sheath is also called the darkness of ignorance sheath, as that is the mind's experience of it in deep sleep or unconsciousness. When we 'enter' deep sleep fully conscious (formless samadhi) then ecstatic bliss is 'experienced'. We could say Self is pure Existence-Consciousness and its first movement is bliss. Anyway, that is not entirely true, but only from our view as the mind. There might be a time when we might discover that what once was considered to be a sheath (bliss sheath) is actually our true blissful nature.

I enjoyed reading this. Not only did that "being" go from "normal-human-ego-consciousness" to "super-guru-ego-consciousness", but he/she even managed to take his/her ego to the "beyond-god-formless-realms-consciousness" and come back with it to tell us the story. Don't take this personally please, but this is just a funny story unrelated to nirvana, enlightenment, etc., of how some mind went up to higher levels of refined illusion and then came back to post on a forum about it. Maybe we should consider being no one. Being nobody. Dissolving completely instead of going temporarily to some "form" or "formless" realm. Why do we want so much to be something or someone and tell others about it?

I use Absolute (brahman-advaita) more to differentiate it from the relative (maya-dvaita-names-forms). The Absolute/Ultimate Truth mustn't consider the relative, as the relative is only temporary, it can't be an absolute truth, but more of a relative one. If you include "doing pratical things in the dualistic world of names and forms" you obviously have to include every dream you have at night and so on - which we usually call an illusion. We usually call a dream an illusion because it's not self-existent, self-luminous and everlasting. The truth in an absolute sense must not depend on something external for it to exist, which would make it self-luminous, as there is nothing external to it that is aware of it, meaning it is self-existing, as it doesn't need the existence of something else for it to exist (like maya-duality-names-forms need), and is everlasting because it is beyond time (and space). Anyway, I guess both the ultimate truth and the relative truth are only from the point of view of the relative, as in the Absolute sense, there is no relative or absolute truth.. it just is.

Hi everyone. "After" Self-realization, does one still perceive the world, or is it more like deep sleep with awareness? (non perception) Or do you consider both, but being different levels of realization?

Real Advaita Vedanta is Zero. Unfortunately from what I gather around most books, practitioners and supposed "self realized people", they all talk about One. I agree with many posts here, in the ultimate sense, there is no difference between Dzogchen and Advaita. Zero is the ultimate realization, or call it zero not zero... But most people can only "reach" an understanding of the One. One is not nirvana. Zero is nirvana

I like where this thread is going. I remember Ramana Maharshi saying: search for your ego and you will find yourself, for no ego really exists

To whom does the world appear? To the mind? or the bodiless Awareness itself?

That's not love. That's sort of a necessity. What about this kind of love: Fifth, you don't want or need anything. Love is constantly inside you and emanating towards others.

Your mind is tricking you. (this is what she does to keep us bound in this illusion and we don't even notice it). Read their posts (first two) and then read my post with Attention!

Re-read my post with some attention and see if it sounds the same as the previous two.

Oh guys you too? I am amazed, because I have also experienced a powerful rass transmission from augass.org It was memorable my ego got dissolved, my mind got dissolved, my ignorance got dissolved I am in completely bliss and love and ecstasy and silence beyond anything I thought was possible! It was so powerful my whole family got Enlightened as soon as they saw me and their friends got Enlightened as soon as they saw them! I feel like if this is going to continue, assgar is going to be out of business. Perhaps he should make his rass transmission less powerful and just to the knee Chakra instead of crown Chakra. So only my legs get Enlightened instead of my whole family and their friends. I am going to do some Augass transmission to my cat now since she's been asking for three or four lives already. She really wants to be cat-realized and my turtle because he thought teenage mutant ninja turtles were Enlightened. Oh wait where am I going with this conversation? I guess it's just my Enlightened ass from Augass.biz that can't seem to stop giving this written satsang.

I agree with the first original post. But on this one, tho whom does their ego appear? Sri Ramana Maharshi said the Jnani is egoless and bodiless, but to an external observer, he will appear to have a body and a mind (and therefore an ego-individuality). There is a difference between having a purer ego and no ego. You experience ego dissolution every time you go into deep sleep. Before you refuse the idea of the actions of someone only being perceived by an external observer, consider the sleepwalkers. They might go grab a glass of milk, talk with you and go back to sleep, yet they are completely unaware of what is going on. It is just happening in your view.

Exactly. Read my last post there

You can die while you are still alive. That is Nirvana. Waiting for the body to die is nonsense. That's just a belief, maybe Hindu, maybe not. I'm sure Gautama Buddha had to wait for his body to die to 'achieve' Nirvana...

It is obvious that there was still the "I am the experiencer" attachment (eg. I am experiencing this pain, and can't stand it), and he knew it too, that's why he talked about reincarnation. There was also the "I am the doer", as in "if A B C happens to this body, I will leave it". This means he still considered himself to be "in-the body". This clearly shows the lack of recognition of being infinite-bodiless Awareness. I am remembered of Sri Ramana Maharshi words when he was diagnosed with a tumour, the doctors said: "You must be in immense pain". To which he answered: "I am aware of the pain, but it is not happening to me". Having said that, perhaps he also knew that the best way to 'achieve' this, would be to leave the body and just reincarnate. Anyway, it was his choice and everyone should respect it. I don't consider it suicide, but more like semi-consciously "leaving the body".

Heard that one before. Before "self-awareness", chop wood, carry water. After "self-awareness", chop wood, carry water. That is still dreaming, like a dreamer with awareness that it is a dream. When it's just Awareness, and no one to be self-aware, there is no wood to be chopped, no water to be carried. That is Nirvana.

To whom does the body exist? If the complete identification with the body is cut, body-awareness is lost. To remain dreaming, there has to be ignorance. While there is ignorance, that is not true self-realization. From my experience, you are talking about a level of realization prior to "absolute beyond perception".

Sentience and insentience are not really as people would think. One definitely needs life force to be an I, an experiencer, but that doesn't mean a stone is dead. It is not. It's not alive either, it doesn't have metabolic processes, nor life force, but it is actually empty and aware in some way. Not of being a stone, no, but of being energy in love with energy.. Words fail me here. But yes, indeed, both sentience and insentience come from emptiness or nothingness! That is my experience as well.

He was a human being more advanced than 99.9% of humans. He had love in his heart, he was genuine. It is not a mourning time, but a happy time, for his wish to be free from such a prison-body has fulfilled.

Tell me how do you know you remain if you are unaware? To know you remain you have to be aware that you remain, else you wouldn't know you remained. Also, how do you know that 'other things' are also able to remain when you are unaware of them? You say that because the mind, at a later time, rises up again (as in waking) and you say 'things existed when I was unaware of them'. If you faint now, became unconscious into a 'deep sleep state' and you (that mind-personality) never wake up again, you will never be able to say 'things remained'. Only if you (that personality-mind) wakes up again, can you say 'I think things remained while I was unconscious'.

I can know without awareness if I am creating the thing? To create something, there has to be a you. To be a you, you have to be aware, even if it's a low-level-awareness. I'm not sure I am completely understanding what you are trying to say. Could you please clarify it a bit? The alarm is created by me as soon as I wake up. When I'm sleeping, no alarm exists. If I put a camera recording the body sleeping, the camera and body still are non-existing for me, and when I wake up, I (mind) become aware and they appear. Awareness always precedes creation. I only know that the alarm awoken me up when I wake up, which means, when I wake up, I created the universe and the alarm clock. Have you ever done lucid dreaming? This can happen exactly like that in a dream. Example: I'm sleeping, the alarm wakes me up and I get up and go to the bathroom (This all happening in a dream, exactly like here) Then suddenly you wake up from that dream and you wonder, oh boy.. that alarm clock waking me up when I was sleeping in that dream.. it's was all fake. Do you get what I mean? For me, the world doesn't exist without my awareness of it. How do I know? I can't know the world exists if I'm unaware of it.

I agree with the post above. But I have to say I have also seen one very sensitive person A (in terms of capacity for 'extra-sensory feelingness') that had absolutely no relation whatsoever to person B, and talking with person B, person A felt all the negative energy and 'depression' of person B. Then, when person B left, all of that was gone, never to appear again, and person A realized she had sort of absorved or somehow unified her consciousness with the person B's consciousness, for a while. Strange stuff, but I've seen it happen more than once to just give the answer of "sharing issues".

Sri Nisargadatta uses the name Brahman for Ishvara and Parabrahman for the Absolute while traditional Advaita Vedanta uses Brahman for the Absolute. This is the confusion, I guess.