Ajay0

The Self, our Being, is awareness. ~ Sri Muruganar Nearly all mankind is more or less unhappy because nearly all do not know the true Self. Real happiness abides in Self-knowledge alone. All else is fleeting. To know one’s Self is to be blissful always. ~ Ramana Maharshi Man’s search for happiness is an unconscious search for his true Self. The true Self is imperishable; therefore when a man finds it, he finds a happiness which does not come to an end. ~ Ramana Maharshi This world is trapped in the well of suffering. What is this suffering due to? This suffering stems from ignorance of the Self. All suffering in this world is because of ignorance. This ignorance leads to raag (attachment) and dwesh (abhorrence) relentlessly and suffering is experienced as a consequence. Only Gnan can cure this suffering. There is no other remedy. Gnan insulates you from suffering. ~ Ambalal Muljibhai Patel Purpose of suffering is to connect you to your Self (Awareness). It indicates that you got carried away by all the transient things around you. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Eudaimonia in the eastern context, is similar to what is known as Dharma or living based on values. The performance of duties and Dharma is bound to result in happiness as per eastern philosophy, due to the austerity in duty. Dharma is one of the four purusharthas or objectives of human life. By adherence to Dharma through value based living and self-discipline, worldly happiness can be maximised without crossing any moral boundaries . However the happiness of Dharma is also considered inferior to the bliss of Moksha or enlightenment. It is the adherents of Dharma however who have the highest chance of attaining enlightenment. You are jumping to conclusions due to poor understanding as usual. Those familiar with the ancient philosophies of yoga and advaita can understand what I am talking here. You are also claiming that I am unfamiliar with the state. But if you claim that I am unfamiliar, that implies that you are familiar with the state of nondual perception, and can identify the errors. So why don't you describe your own experience of nondual perception here, other than drug related hallucinations. I am contrasting worldly 'happiness' with the bliss of the Self here. What are you referring to ! There are higher degrees of happiness like ecstasy and higher degrees of unhappiness too, like grief. But those who were grieving have also moved on to higher states of happiness as well and vice versa, clearly showing their nature of being opposites. Extreme happiness or extreme unhappiness are also opposites, if you want to put it that way, for better comprehension. But the lower self is already established and considered to be illusory ! What is the truth or benchmark to contrast it with, as in the Self or Buddha nature or any description of your own ! But I had asked what you understood by the Self, which is non-conceptual in nature. How can you talk about the conceptual illusory self then as an answer or reply! Yes, I can see that. How can you talk of equating the Self with this or that when you don't even have a clue on what the true Self is, as per nondual or advaitan philosophy ! And how can you realistically expect me to answer your question related to the Self and Buddha nature, when you don't even know what they are in the first place, and have mere uncertain speculations to offer on what they are ! Without understanding the basics, you will only jump to greater confusions and never-ending mazes of superficial speculation. Good luck with that.

Under the obsessive thoughts and plans, under the emotions, positive and negative, there is an ocean of peace. ~Gangaji To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment. ~ Eckhart Tolle We are completely unaware of our true nature because we identify ourselves with our body, our emotions and our thoughts, thus losing sight of our unchanging centre, which is pure consciousness. ~ Dr. Jean Klein

The experience is that of nondual perception that comes with emptiness or awareness with the simultaneous cessation or slowing of mental traffic. In nondual perception, there is the ability to use functional speech with dualistic terms, without being under the grip of images or words or past. Krishna taught about non-duality to Arjuna in the midst of the battlefield if you may recall, while persuading him to perform his duties as a warrior. Ramana Maharshi, usually silent, was vocal about allowing animals or birds to enter the ashram in spite of opposition to them from his fastidious disciples, and he referred to the animals as 'he' or 'she' instead of 'it', humanizing them. The examples of these masters shows that nondual perception is not in opposition to functional speech depicting dualistic terms. The perception ceases to be nondual when the psychological past or personal self takes over with its emotional likes and dislikes, cravings and aversions. Then the 'you' or 'they' will be related to the lower self or 'I' unconsciously with corresponding past memories of an emotional content in the background dictating the relationship, rather than impersonal awareness. Since the personal self or ego is bound to be insecure and fragile due to its transitory emotional content , it is bound to drift in the direction of strife and violence in the long run. Apparently conflicts have the hue of duality to it due to their emotionally charged nature. The 'I' or 'us' is emphasized in opposition to 'he/she/you' or 'them', as well as other labels related to political ideology, language, gender, religion, race, sexuality, country and so on. And consequently such dualistic terms gain an unnecessary bad reputation in spite of their functional utility as in work relations, gender-based washrooms, passports or normal conversation. In nondual perception or impersonal awareness, such dualistic terms remain functional without the emotional charge associated with unconscious dualistic perception and conflict.

Dude, you have not figured out the difference between bliss emanating from the Self, and the transitory states of happiness/unhappiness emerging from sensory experiences. There is a major difference between the two. Unhappiness must follow happiness in the realm of material realm and sensory objects because of the factors of impermanence and saturation. But there is no opposite to bliss from the Self, because the non-conceptual Self or Being/Brahman is beyond the pair of opposites related to the material world and is not subject to impermanence and saturation. How can the illusory self be equated with the true Self or Buddha nature ! Your understanding is poor. First get hold of the basics correctly and then your questions will dissolve on their own .

If we continuously maintain self awareness, we will be able to experience peace and happiness. ~ Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi Devi). When we are mindful, deeply in touch with the present moment, our understanding of what is going on deepens, and we begin to be filled with acceptance, joy, peace and love. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out the present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love - even the most simple action. ~ Eckhart Tolle And thoughtless awareness is nothing but such a pouring sense of joy - joy which is neither happiness or unhappiness, but singular. ~ Nirmala Devi The most beautiful moments in your life – moments of bliss, moments of joy, moments of ecstasy, moments of utter peace – were moments when you were not thinking about anything. You were just living. ~ Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev Whenever your mind becomes still there is happiness and enjoyment, and each time the mind is shaken then sorrow, tensions and worries surround you. ~ Anandmurti Gurumaa

But that still comes under unhappiness ! What do you understand by the Self ?

What is your experience ? If I may ask, did you find it hard to use functional speech that denoted such dualistic terms as suggested, during the experience of nondual perception !

You can become fully aware only when you are living in the moment. ~ Barry Long A mind in the present moment is meditation. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. Do not lose yourself in the past. Do not lose yourself in the future. Do not get caught in your anger, worries, or fears. Come back to the present moment, and touch life deeply. This is mindfulness. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh One way to get free of attachment is to cultivate the witness consciousness, to become a neutral observer of your own life. The witness place inside you is simple awareness, the part of you that is aware of everything — just noticing, watching, not judging, just being present, being here now. ~ Ram Dass

You are habitually and compulsively oriented to the intellect, and think or believe there is nothing beyond that, due to social conditioning. Conceptualizing nondual perception or enlightenment, imho, is like wrapping a banana skin around an another unskinned banana, and then arguing vehemently it tastes bitter and not sweet as some claim it to be. All this nondual literature has been written to inform the aspirant to move beyond thought and the intellect to grasp the Absolute. It is similar to using a thorn to remove an another thorn stuck in the foot, and then getting rid of both thorns. The finite intellect cannot grasp the Absolute, just as a small clay jar cannot hold the ocean in it. Zen even has a saying on burning the scriptures, as it enables the aspirant to break and go beyond the compulsive habit of intellectualizing and conceptualizing everything. There are enlightened sages who have stated the same. The scriptures such as the tao te ching, and upanishads and dhammapada are testimony of the same. Nondual experience is beyond words, but the enlightened sage can use speech as a tool to communicate the same and for other purposes, and switch it off when needed, unlike a compulsive chatterbox. A person claims that viruses don't exist after examination with a magnifying lens , and adamantly argues on the same refuting all suggestions to employ an electron microscope instead. What do you suggest to convince the person to use an electron microscope instead ! Thank you. I am talking about intellectual understanding that comes with your own experiential understanding, not others experiential or intellectual understanding. Since it is your own experiential understanding, the question of dogma and bigotry does not arise. Personally, I feel sorry that something as beautiful as nondual perception, and which is the intrinsic birthright of any human being as his leg or hand or eye, is unknown to most people and they go to the grave in ignorance. Maya, which is but the untamed mind, indeed is a master manipulator and trickster in making dummies of seemingly intelligent human beings, and preventing them from seeing the obvious. The skill levels in deception is quite admirable and breathtaking. As the Upanishads say, only the strong and heroic can cut the net of illusion and see the truth for what it is. The weaklings and cowards live in perpetual falsehood and consequent penalty of psychological suffering. The prize of perpetual bliss and enlightenment must be earned by intelligence and effort, like anything else in life.

All of spirituality is contained in that one word: Awareness. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi Proceed on life’s journey with awareness. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi If I were to summarize it ( Guruma's teachings) into one thing, it would be awareness. How to develop that awareness-insight. I am not referring to awareness at the level of the mind as seen in mountaineers or astronauts. A slip in awareness and the mountaineer can be buried alive under snow or the astronaut blasted away from his ship. But that awareness does not transform them or cause them to disassociate from the mind and its functions. To be an observer is to be totally neutral and to be a witness. And somewhere, I would add, the awareness of who I am, or what the truth is. ~ Anandamurti Gurumaa How to do meditation, many people ask me. Don't do anything, to just go into thoughtless awareness. Try to go to the thoughtless awareness. If you can get into that condition of thoughtless awareness you've done your job, because that's the point where you are with the truth, with the reality, with the joy, with everything that is so fundamental. ~ Nirmala Devi When you are in thoughtless awareness, you must know that you are in the kingdom of God and His people, His arrangements, His consciousness, is going to look after you. ~ Nirmala Devi

You have only forwarded an intellectual argument to the mental idea or concept of enlightenment. Using the intellect to figure out enlightenment or Buddhahood is similar to a layman using a magnifying lens to study a virus instead of an electron microscope. One will not find the virus and will use the reason as an excuse to suggest that viruses does not exist, and speculate endlessly on the argument. Similarly you are suggesting here that 'perpetual-bliss' does not exist due to the limitations of your deployed instruments. But the Self or pure consciousness or Brahman is subtler than thought or intellect, and hence intellectual thought is not the right instrument to perceive it. Nondual perception or the unitary perception is about experiential understanding rather than intellectual understanding. You cannot conceive it from books and argue about it from the intellectual domain alone. All this sort of intellectual speculation is only bound to result in more intellectual confusions and greater entanglement. Its like a beggar ignorantly sitting above a treasure,and speculating fatalistically and pessimistically that poverty and hardship is his lot in life, and advancing the views to those walking by who care to listen. Through experiential understanding, you will be able to grasp proper intellectual understanding as well. Some sayings in this regard...

Yes, you can go through her biographical summary here where her experience of enlightenment is highlighted... https://janfrazierteachings.com/about/

Insightful article by female enlightened master Jan Frazier on being conscious and unconscious.... https://janfrazierteachings.com/2014/05/26/being-conscious/

Happiness has an opposite in unhappiness, but bliss has no opposite. It is beyond the pair of opposites. I think you have confused inner bliss and joy with happiness derived from external sources. For happiness or pleasure, one has to depend on pleasant sensory experiences . But this has to be necessarily followed by unhappiness due to the duality that governs all material existence or conditioned phenomena. All objective pleasures will result in pain and misery in the long run due to the factors of saturation or impermanence. So obviously depending on such fickle and superficial sources of happiness would not be a worthwhile investment of our time, energy and resources. The bliss within ourselves arising from the Self or Buddha nature is considered superior and everlasting , and is independent of external situations and circumstances unlike sensory experiences . The one who is anchored in the bliss and peace of the Self or Buddha nature within will also be in a position to enjoy worldly pleasures without being inordinately attached to them, and will not suffer psychologically upon their inevitable loss in time.

Remember, and analyze your own life. Have you ever taken account of happy moments, of contents, of satisfactions, or blissful glimpses ? You have not taken any account, but you have taken every account of your pain, suffering, misery, and you go on accumulating. You are an accumulated hell, and this is your own choice. No one else is forcing you into this hell; this is your own choice. The mind takes the negative, accumulates it and becomes negative itself. And this is a self-perpetuating misery. The more negatives you have within the mind, the more negative you become, the more negatives are accumulated. The similar attracts the similar, and this has been for lives and lives. You miss everything because of your negative approach. ~ Osho You have never felt the positive ; you have always felt the negative. Life is not such a misery as we have made it; misery is just our interpretation. Life is neither misery, nor is life bliss. Bliss and misery are our interpretations, our attitudes, our approaches, how we look at it. It is your mind - how it takes it. ~ Osho Everything is just a window. If you become identified with a pain, you are looking from a window, and the window of pain, of suffering, opens only towards hell. If you are one with a satisfactory moment, a blissful moment, an ecstatic moment, you are opening another window. The existence is the same, but your windows are different. ~ Osho We make very little progress when we strive to conquer baser instincts in a good mood. However, vast strides are possible when we are miserable and work with ourselves to replace our misery with joy and understanding. ~ Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

Jiddu Krishnamurti has also spoken on the futility of drugs with respect to attaining mental clarity and authentic meditation, as well as its adverse effects on the mind's vitality .. https://www.jkrishnamurti.org/content/5th-public-talk-29th-november-1970 https://www.jkrishnamurti.org/content/2nd-public-talk-11th-july-1967

An article by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev on being stoned and alert at the same time, without using any chemicals or drugs or other intoxicants. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/toi-edit-page/you-can-be-stoned-and-alert-at-the-same-time/

In general, all sensory cravings related to pleasures I had enjoyed in the past. The intensity of the craving is proportional to the pleasure I enjoyed back then. Specifically speaking, I would say I did not have cravings related to drugs, alcohol and cigarettes. This is because I had never taken drugs and had largely abstained from alcohol and cigarettes. I had taken the latter on some occasions in youth due to peer pressure or creative investigation, but abstained from them largely due to their addictive potential as well as potential health issues. So I did not have substantial psychological memories related to them and consequent cravings. At times, seeing cigarettes or alcohol for sale in bars, weak desires have erupted in me, but the character or habit forged due to years of self-denial enables me to overlook them.

It is interesting. I found some old cravings for sensory pleasures arising in me yesterday night and today morning. Images of pleasure streamed through the mind and with resultant cravings. I was absent-mindedly wondering why I was having them after such a long time and even prepared to indulge a bit, when the thought of the full moon came to my mind. This helped me to apply brakes, discipline my mind, and focus it back on my routine tasks.

There will be two full moons in August 2023. The first is on Tuesday, August 1, 2023, and the second full moon will be on Wednesday, August 30, 2023. The most common name for the August Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon. As with other full moon names, it’s inspired by nature and refers to the high numbers of sturgeon caught in high numbers in North America’s Great Lakes. The Hindu festival of Raksha Bandhan, celebrating the bond between brothers and sisters are celebrated during this time period of the full moon, and is on August 30, the occasion of the second full moon.

Views and perspectives in life also seems to be correlated with corresponding belief structures... https://trustinginbuddha.co.uk/buddha-quotes-in-context-dhammapada-1-19-20/

Buddha seems to prioritize right view in the Sammādiṭṭhi Sutta... https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca4/samma-ditthi/index.html#:~:text="One tries to abandon wrong,%26 circle around right view." He also elaborates on the consequences of wrong view...

You might find this discourse by Vipassana teacher S.N.Goenka ( to jail inmates during a meditation study session ) useful. Goenka mentions notorious serial killers in Burma and India who had reformed with study and practice in a conducive environment. https://www.vridhamma.org/discourses/Discourse-to-Prisoners-in-Nasik-Jail-India

Yes, she seems to have forgotten the fact that only military-industrial complex plutocrats, corporates, liquor barons and good-looking young celebrities have the right to make loads of money and get rich without being criticized for it. Peasants and common people like her should obviously be content with their lot and station in life and should not raise their heads too high, lest they be considered as impudent and insolent in respectable society.