blackfence

The second sentence is the answer to the question in the first sentence. Reflectivity not a clunky concept; it's an important one with a long pedigree in vedanta and yoga. Experience does have a reflective aspect to it, and that reflective quality is key to the illusion. When our minds contact an object, the flavor the object takes on as a result of the light of awareness falling upon it, that particular taste, that particular ineffable aesthetic quality... is most certainly describable as reflective. And to reflect also means to contemplate/introspect, and essentially the search is about introspection...

Reflectivity is not outside direct experience. It is that aspect of direct experience which is not its content, but is the shining awareness of the experience.

Interesting re: Prakasha and Vimarsha. Chidābhāsha refers to how the ego is neither pure awareness nor simple dead, insentient matter... but is the reflection of one off the other. It is the "location" of ignorance, so to say... because dead matter cannot be ignorant, and pure awareness cannot be ignorant either. So it is a kind of shimmering illusion which appears to be ignorant, and which, in the process of realization, is 'destroyed.' This reflection is also why realization is known as the destruction of the chit-jada (awareness-matter) granthi (knot). That knot between the two is the reflection, is the "superimposition thought" which mistakes one for the other. That's what has to be cut with the light of Knowledge, so to say.

Yes, and this is in fact very much along the lines of a conventional advaita vedanta understanding of experience -- inasmuch as experience exists. The light of the Self bounces off the ego and is reflected; that manifests as the I. That reflected light undergoes further superimpositions in the mind, body, etc. The reflectivity manifests as the illumination of the I in every experience; followed back, it traces back to that originating ego thought, and then back to the light of the Self. Of course this is a thought, but all teaching is a thought. The point is that this is another way of showing that element of experience which is closest to the Self, which, when followed, leads back to it. It is the weak point of the illusion.

Yes.

Not exactly. What I'm saying is that the world of forms has two aspects: content and reflectivity. The content changes, but the reflective quality is constant. Seekers should attempt to attend constantly to this reflectivity, to try to notice what it is. If they try this, they will find that the reflectivity is extremely elusive... every time they think they have it, they will have just grasped more changing content... but the effort will eventually silence the mind, and then in that silence, if the inquiry continues to be pursued, the reflectivity that is being chased will give way to the true reflectivity, which will be known because it is not something that is grasped. It is what one is.

That’s a nice koan . It depends on from which side of the gateless gate the question comes...

What is the meaning of ego? The word has many different and complicated meanings in the spiritual literature. Is it the sense that I am? Is it the emotions and fantasies connected to the self-image? Is it identification with these? Is it simply any kind of desire at all? In this video, I go through some of the possibilities and their implications…

Sure, but this is part of the sravana-manana process: listening and contemplating. I agree with all that, though of course there are many angles from which one could speak. The question of who realizes is why Sankara in his Upadesha Sahasri advocates for the concept of chidabhasa— a reflection of the light of consciousness on the mind. Neither mind nor consciousness realizes but the reflection — “That,” if anything, is what “is ignorant” and thus “realizes.”

I believe it is useful to discern these two functions, because these are often confused in the spiritual literature. For the seeker, it's useful to understand the ambiguities that come out in this word, and their interrelationship. The preservation of self-image is what, by distracting the mind, prevents the recognition of the real nature of the witness. And this is a psychological phenomenon that can be observed. At the same time, the real nature of the freedom from this attempted preservation is in recognizing its questionable existence -- because whether it exists is in turn dependent on who it is that is noticing this preservation. So that there is a kind of chicken and egg situation, where the existence of the problem is rooted in the assumption of its existence. Seeing this can help free seekers from the notion that they must be perfect mentally in order to progress, or that the way in which enlightenment purifies the mind is that there is an absence of negative thoughts in the way in which that absence is understood pre-realization.

Through self-inquiry and surrender, we orient towards the thought that is the base of all other thoughts... the thought that isn't a thought, that is our Self. Its vast impenetrable space is that against which all other thoughts dash themselves and evaporate harmlessly. Orienting towards that, we realize that there is nothing but that orientation, effortlessly and always. In this video I talk about the nature of this unthought thought, its position on the border of the timed and the timeless, and its feel.

Thanks for the kind words, and thanks for the tip regarding the light! I'll have to do that for my future videos.

Other than Lao Tzu and Zhuangzi, who are the greatest of all time? Any who lived in the 20th century? Any living now?

Ramana Maharshi's version of self-inquiry, without a doubt. Focusing on the fact that "I know that I am" and trying to locate where it comes from, while noticing that any object that you are aware of cannot be the source of that "I feeling" -- for example, the I cannot come from the head because you are aware of the head, and you cannot be what you are aware of.

Swami Chinmayananda is always entertaining, but I really dislike the idea that we get what we deserve. It's quite unfair. I much prefer the idea that it is all god's will, but that we need not be touched by it for one second (indeed, we ARE never touched by it for one second) if we simply look deep into the "I" and find out who we are.

It's an interesting question if, when someone follows the logic and 'experience' of non-duality/Brahman/Nirvana/the Tao all the way through... when the mind is therefore rendered silent -- when egoic desire is 'defeated' because the ego itself cannot stand in the face of the Truth -- how 'decision-making' and motivation works. This has long been a vexing question. I'd like to pose a hypothesis: that there are two kinds of decision-making. Let's call them the common-sense version and the spiritual version, which is highly counterintuitive and really anti-common-sense. The common-sense version examines normal human aims: health, well-being, happiness, peace in both the individual and society, etc. And it tries to figure out what the best means to those ends are, and attempts to execute on those means. It is fundamentally instrumental -- meaning that it's about accomplishing certain goals. The spiritual version is not really decision-making at all. In the mind's silence, we can say that something else manifests. In the space of absolute effortless and 100% relaxation, in that creative space, in that primordial soup, lightning flashes and something appears, though at unpredictable times and in unpredictable ways, but -- intelligently. So if we admit in this way that action still goes on even among and by the 'enlightened,' then the question is: upon what basis? The answer is: that the basis cannot be named. There can be no story, however complex or nuanced, however peaceful or 'good,' that accurately captures the enlightened one's conduct. As soon as one touches that question the mind again goes silent. One cannot have both the mind and not the mind. One cannot be the Tao and also the person. Both the Tao and the person -- that distinction -- disappear in the silence that is the real Tao. The Tao that can be named, isn't. So there is a wholly different way of going about things, one which avoids labels, names, goals, programs, categories, distinctions, and yet which acts intelligently, and yet in a way that cannot accurately be described or planned for. What description or planning happens itself is the result of these trans-rational indescribable forces. And the real kicker is, of course, that this is always true even for the so-called unenlightened minds... they are all of them in that mode alone. In the end, there is only a single version of decision-making. All the rest is imaginary.

And what's your solution?

All the eastern philosophies focus on the realization of one's true nature as, essentially, beyond the individual mind, and thus, beyond all questions of why. In my opinion, however, they don't answer the why question -- they "transcend" it. Is anyone else here actually curious about the why, though? Literally, looking around right now -- where does all this come from? Who invented "sound," for example... not a particular sound, but sound itself? Clearly however sound was invented, it must have been in a workshop outside of the mind. It must be outside of time and space. That workshop created the mind itself. What is the nature of that workshop? It creates all the specifics, all the particulars, from the largest to the smallest... but how does it do that and why??

This just seems like yet another crass materialist philosopher. It seems to me that the pure physics notion of time is far less interesting than the mystery of time subjectively experienced.

They're actually quite different. The Rig Veda admits ignorance and looks at it struck with wonder... you were suggesting the question is incoherent and/or pointless.

The Rig Veda had this to say on the topic thousands of years ago:

I'm not familiar with her... I see that she's the Egyptian goddess of order... does she have something to do with paradox, too?

Why ask that?

Exactly... that's some of what excites me. There must be some realm that's not a normal realm. An Alice in Wonderland "place" where all the laws are "made," if you can use that word. In certain psychedelic experiences, I've asked this question about what the meaning of it all is and gotten the answers that: a) basically to know the answer to that you have to step out of "this game" -- you can't simultaneously be in the game and know how and why the game is created b) there is something about this question that IS the meaning of this game we are playing, that enables it at all. c) that there is something about the concept of repetition... it all being a repetition. And it all being "by design" -- an artistic object d) that it is all about images... "THIS IS WHY"--all the images in consciousness

You're assuming that the tools and machines of the workshop are anything like we can currently comprehend. Perhaps the gods work by logic and laws that are as different from our current notions of logic and law as humans' ideas are from ants, or perhaps bacteria. Perhaps in the gods' realm, it is possible for paradox to exist. Perhaps there are "not machine machines" and "up down black white" entities. And anyhow this line of reasoning, which I've seen many times before, really works hard to explain the question away. Everyone knows in their heart that this question exists, however much we'd like to reason it away.