dwai

It is fascinating to see how deeply ingrained and binary the blinkers are. The “nondual card” is hardly a “trump card”. More often than not, people look with a glazed, confused look in their eyes. “What is this nondual thing? It’s much too laborious to explain to a layperson. It is even harder to explain to not-so-laypersons who’ve made up their minds to be obtuse about the subject 😜 Like it’s been said before — those who get it, are on their way to freedom. Those who don’t get it, are also on their way to freedom — just might have to take a few extra lifetimes. In any case, anyone who’s participated in this discussion (or any similar topics) are already chosen (to receive knowledge), whether they agree or not.

Self - “Yikes! Some of I have it in for I” also Self - “What do I mean?” Self - “Some Of I want to prove that I am not Completely I, or worse, I don’t exist” Also Self - “So who does and knows these things? Anything?” Self - “Some of I want to be blobs of light…some of I thinks that I arise together with objects. Some of I want to say I am not One I, but many I” Also Self - “I I I….oh I oh I, a very difficult situation indeed. When I explore as to who I am, I find no thing. I think some of I is so used to finding things, that ‘no thing’ is taken as absence. But if some of I spent more I-time, it would be clear that I is not an experience. I is that which makes experience possible. Everything I experience is a modification of I-ness.” Self - “How can Some of I not recognize this?” Also Self - “some of I is still pretending to be Not I. I started out as a game of hide and seek…but to make it convincing, really pretended to be not I, and appear as many I. It too is part of the game. It might be tiring to I who has stopped pretending, but I must let I pretend too. That is the show. And the show must go on!”

Well, then the body will go. Not much can be done about it...unless... someone gave me a tub of ice cream! I read that as "caramel" desire

When I was 18 years old, I developed a very severe case of asthma. Whatever I ate, I’d throw up most of due a persistent cough and heavy phlegm. I dropped about 15 kilos of weight in a matter of two months. Concerned neighbors would ask my parents what has happened for me to to look and feel so sick. I would often end up in the hospital as back in those days in India, rescue inhalers didn’t really work very well, and I’d be given oxygen and nebulized medication. It would also often involve getting intra-muscular injections. When I first started having the asthma episodes, every thing irritated me. I’d be angry and lash out any thing remotely annoying during that time. My parents and sister were absolute saints to put up with that. One day my grandfather pulled me aside and said, “next time when you get an attack, think about how much energy you’re wasting on getting angry, lashing out, etc. instead, just focus breathing, don’t let your mind get riled up. It was a big help - I knew my situation wasn’t easily curable (many doctors had said I’d have to live with the condition). Maybe it’s easier when we’re young and we don’t know any better. After I started training karate, it changed me - my lung capacity increased, my strength and stamina increased, and I’d still have continue to get asthma attacks, but it became part of my life. Strange thing is, it didn’t slow me down one bit. I’d go from the hospital in the night to college in the morning, playing music in my band, performing shows on stage, hanging out with friends, and so on.

There is always room for more in the not-two

Felt in the mind, lit up by consciousness. Yes, no one denies the role of the mind. No-mind is a misnomer for a non-grasping mind. That might be so. Goes to show the role of the mind in the experience of pain. See, pain is not suffering. Suffering is resistance to pain. If someone accepts that there’s pain, it can be transformed. My teacher had to undergo knee replacement surgery, and was given strong painkillers (narcotic) to alleviate the pain. One day he forgot to take the painkiller. So he described it as “continuous waves of excruciating pain flooding through his body”. Next what he told me was, “I accepted the pain, and directed it into my spiritual heart. The pain was transformed into bliss.” I asked him how he did it. He said that he transformed it by transmuting yang to yin. He had this surgery at the age of 74. Was up and about in a week, and was back doing tai chi and meditation in 6 weeks. The doctors were dumbstruck at the rate of his recovery. I described above one way of doing it. First thing is to not let the mind attach to the pain, and make up stories of victimhood. That’s what a mind with Self realization can do. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa developed throat cancer towards the end of his life. He couldn’t eat or even swallow properly. He was not one bit bothered by it and continued in his “blissful” way through out. Of course, one could criticize this as hagiography, but we have enough anecdotes of old masters who were able to do this. I know people who’ve fasted for 40-45 days straight. While that’s not desirable, it can be done. If someone gives me one, I will joyfully eat it PS: if I’ve not said it enough time, nondual realization doesn’t have to make one super human, it just opens up ways to not live out their mind’s compulsive tendencies. That is a huge thing in and by itself. One can be “more comfortable in their own skin”, if they are not limited mentally by compulsions.

One Super Blob?

So you think that “fully nondual” people don’t eat, drink water, poop or pee? Qualified Nondualism is a completely different thing - it proposes that we are parts of Brahman rather than Brahman itself. No, what I’m saying is not qualified nondualism, it is complete nondualism. You seem to want to paint a binary equation of “dualism” vs “nondualism”, set up in exclusivity to each other. But duality is an appearance within the nondual. Like a movie on the TV screen. The screen is fine with or without the pictures. But if the picture is running, it follows it own story, the characters have their own arcs, and so on. There is no movie apart from the TV screen. Duality is the movie, the non-dual reality is the TV screen. It’s out of compassion - to spare the “dualists” embarrassment of watching jiggly lumps of flesh walking around unfiltered But on a serious note, it is a convention thing — even Ramana Maharishi wore a loin cloth, because in thiruvanamalai, the temperature seldom drops below 70 degrees Fahrenheit. I’m sure he would have worn a woolen parka if he lived in a cold part of the world.

At one level, yes. Will the body feel pain and trauma? Of course. The biggest source of suffering is the mind. I think it was the Buddha who said (heard it from swami Sarvapriyananda) — suffering in the world is like being struck by two arrows, consecutively. Imagine you were struck by an arrow in your chest, and right after you were struck by another. The first arrow is likened to what the circumstances/world hits you with. The second arrow is your reaction to the first one, which is far worse, and amplifies the pain caused the first arrow manifold. As long as the body exists, the effects of wear and tear, illness etc will affect it. But why must that turn into suffering? Buddha also taught the concept of tathagata - that which has passed. We must let it go (ie give up resistance to change). why does there need to be a conflation of desire/wants with need? It’s important to see the difference between the two. One needs food, water, shelter, clothing (as a human being ie). One doesn’t desire it — that’s a minimum viable thing for survival. So, completeness doesn’t mean the body won’t need sustenance, etc. To deny it that, is a deviation from the way of nature. Completeness does away with desire/wants. did you mean “dessert”? 🤔

if you’re stranded in the middle of the desert without food or water, what can you possibly do? Find an oasis, or wait for it to rain. What is meant to happen, will happen. Reminds me of a question a skeptic asked a nondualist teacher , “all this nonduality you keep spouting off about, what will you do if a mad elephant comes running down the street you’re standing in?” The teacher replied, “why? Move out of the way.” The skeptic gleefully crowed, “see…all your nonduality is of no use. You are scared of death the same as everyone else.” The teacher replied, “ I’m a nondualist, not an idiot.” On a serious note, the two-levels of reality are meant for that. The transactional level is meant for transactional things. The absolute is for spiritual things. That doesn’t mean that one cannot have the absolute truth inform their actions on the transactional level. You know, there’s an old Sanskrit saying - “langhanam param aushadham” (fasting is the most powerful medicine).

So how would one act accordingly then? Isn't it about letting action arise spontaneously as @Michael Sternbach suggests?

Act and Wu Wei? Wu Wei is non-action, is it not? (And before y’all pounce on the word - I said non-action, not inaction).

Nondual “contentment” isn’t a choice. It is not an optional thing where you go, “now that I’ve got nondual contentment, let me go get discontented again, so I can identify with emotions or thoughts or the body”. Nondual completeness is more apropos a term. And when something is complete, there is no room for desire. People desire something because there is a lack (perceived) of something (which they try to fulfill with things). Yes that’s what happens. Whatever comes, comes, and whatever goes, goes. There is no “attachment” or “aversion”. That is a valid position imho. Those who can’t go beyond that, will come back again (and again) until they do.

Moreover, it takes nondual realization as a precondition. I think it’s not emphasized by many teachers because there is a danger of students aiming to become “superhuman” without doing the necessary groundwork. Imagine a bunch of self-important yahoos with abilities and a “God complex” walking around performing miracles, messing with people’s energies, forcing their will on others…

This happened when I was actively practicing self-inquiry (who am I?) a few years back. As I lay in bed with the inquiry, the mind-stream started collapsing back into the heart, until all was left was empty awareness. It was a movement, like everything was swirling and spiraling into the heart, like water in a bathtub. When I then slept, this clear awareness continued to be present in dreams, and in deep sleep (which is hard to describe), but if I were to attempt a description, it was like a light shining in a completely empty space. Nothing to illuminate, so “darkness”. This continued for months subsequently. All happenings were being witnessed, but there could not be any “agency” ascribed. Only happenings. Even the activity of the mind and its process of appropriating identity/ownership was being witnessed.

First of all, there is no freakin' Proto-Indo-European language -- it is an artificially created thing. It is an attempt to fit a flawed linguistic model of a Eurocentric worldview, hence the entire chain of etymological gymnastics is questionable. The version I like is that root of Atman is from tma, the root of tamas (darkness/ignorance/inertia). Adding of "A" is the negation of Tamas, so Atman is that which eliminates tamas/darkness/ignorance and so on. Which fits pretty nicely into the Svaprakasha Svarupa (Self-Effulgent, Self-Form) of Atman.

We are being subjected to objectionable objections of subjective objectives.

No. Perception is the domain of the mind.

Btw the thrill of some more bums bitin’ the nondualist dust is palpable right now. Whoever has followed this conversation to this point but hasn’t yet realized their true nature — “all you have to do is turn around and look at your face before you were born!”

In this conversation when you read my words, I become the object. When I read your words, you become the object. Object doesn’t necessarily mean things like “rocks”, “balls” etc. Even a thought in your mind is an object. So, that is the context in which I use the term “object”. We have to dig a bit deeper than the mere surface of subject-object duality….

Atman HAS no will, no agency in the dualistic sense. Atman however is consciousness, being and completeness itself. You see, mostly people hit up against the one very subtle wall wrt Atman realization. It is that they try to turn Atman into an object. Since Atman is not an object at all, and can never be that, any attempts to ascribe “agency” to it is bound to fail. One can only ascribe anything (as a property) or something if they can observe it. Look at the logical and syntactical gymnastics one has to go through to try and fit Atman into their pet theory - “Atman consciousness is in the central channel”, “will of the Atman”, “travel outside the body under the direction of Atman to do x,y, or z…”

Yeah but that’s not what he was told. Worked out well for him, from what I’ve heard

This aspect of being able to materialize/de-materialize is also referred to in Hindu texts and stories. For example, in the Tripura Rahasya, one sage creates his own universe, and is able to move between that and the “ordinary” universe entirely. But when he invites a king to visit his world, the king doesn’t know the first thing to be done, so the sage pulls the king’s subtle body to his universe, leaving the physical body in a cave for protection, with the commentary that as the yugas change, human being’s abilities are progressively lower. These sages who can create their own universes are called Brahmarishis. Very fascinating stuff…

What they wanted to achieve by building this “rainbow body”, and “are you satisfied with the results”? Think of it as a customer satisfaction survey