dwai

This by one of my favorite contemporary artists -- Bijay Biswaal --

What kind of meditation do you practice?

These are questions that come up irrespective of which path one follows. Swami Sarvapriyananda shares the Advaita Vedantic perspective on this -- [Part 1] How do we know if we are progressing in spiritual life? [Part 2] How can an enlightened person be recognized? I'd strongly recommend watching the entire Q&A, and perhaps following Swamiji's videos on YouTube as well -- watching these Q&A sessions often help with clarifying concepts and provide insights. They also show that we are not uniquely stymied or perplexed by certain types of questions and doubts. Questioning and doubts are part of the path of Self-inquiry.

Here's wishing all a Very Happy Diwali -- The Hindu Festival of Lights. May love and light fill your lives and those of your loved ones. Today commemorates the return of Lord Rama to his kingdom of Ayodhya after freeing his wife Sita, by defeating Rāvana, the emperor of Lanka. Today Hindus also venerate the divine feminine by offering prayers to Sri Lakshmi, the Goddess of well being and contentment, and also Goddess Kāli -- as this also signifiies her victory over evil. Overall, it is an auspicious day and may the Divine Mother protect you and yours, and may she grant enlightenment to all those who seek to attain it. Om Aim Hreem Kleem Chamundaye Vicche

Absolutely — Diwali dinner is better

This might help map the Buddhist conceptualization with The Advaita Vedanta one — https://www.medhajournal.com/consciousness-according-to-zen-buddhism-and-how-it-relates-to-advaita-vedanta/

Corpse Pose (Shavāsana) - I love the rest, relaxation, and meditative absorption it provides.

That happens to us every day in deep sleep, only there’s no memory so we don’t realize it. We think we are unconscious, but really, deep sleep is not absence of awareness. Rather, it is the awareness of absence (of objects). Samādhi is a way to pause the mind, but a much simpler way is to simply sit with full attention for the next thought to arise (a type of meditative focus).

Shankaracharya couldn't have said there is one substance that changes its forms because there isn't really 'many forms', but rather only the appearance of forms (like forms that appear in a dream). I think "cause and substance changing its form" is a misunderstanding of Advaita. Shunyata is not the same as Brahman as Brahman is beyond duality (no empty, no full), though emptiness and fullness seem to appear in it. Many a high-level practitioner of Vajrachara and Advaita Vedanta (for some fortuitous reason I seem to know several of them) do state that Buddha nature (Buddha-dhatu or tathagata garbha) is nothing but Brahman. The way I understand it, Shunya refers to the lack of independent existence of phenomena that appear and disappear in awareness -- so shunya is really 'svabhāva shunya'. Indeed to try and prove that awareness is also dependently originated is a ludicrous exercise as without awareness the exercise itself is pointless. I think if someone claims (usually half-baked Buddhists do that) that awareness is dependently originated, it can be empirically proven as an incorrect statement, since it is perfectly possible to stay aware in absence of any object.

I like LDH -- he is humble and open, without trying to sensationalize his art of himself. I've trained in the Temple style Taiji system for nearly 2 decades now, as taught by Master Waysun Liao where the curriculum is very similar to how LDH outlines it. Master Liao's system emphasizes what he calls "Dan Tsou" mode of training, i.e., single form training. Each taiji form is trained one at a time, repeated over and over again with the right kind of conditions maintained within the body. It also involves static standing (zhan zhuang) but this standing is not necessarily the "standing stake" kind of practice, but rather freezing these single forms in specific postures and circulating the energy in a specific manner. From the accounts I've heard from my teachers (direct disciples of Master Liao), Master Liao had close contact with many old taiji masters in Taiwan and China, such as Cheng Man Ching, Shi Ming, and Shi Ming's teacher master Zhu (Zhu Huaiyuan) among a plethora of other teachers, with many of them, often sharing their closed-door teachings to him as a means to transmit the knowledge for posterity. Here's a link to some videos by Master Liao on single form practice -- https://www.taichitao.tv/categories/mastering-taichi Here's the full course curriculum.

My entire life has been and continues to be a midlife crisis

A few months back, I got this awesome little practice guitar amp with AI features. It will pull in your iTunes or Spotify library and detect chords of songs you want to play, and becomes a jam along amp with any song in your library. What’s even cooler is that the amp is built on software sims so literally can model thousands of effects and many different kinds of amps.

How imperial

After a mantra Japa session recently, I had some thoughts in terms of the correlation between the chakras, the 3-body model and Om. Given that usually most people entering the practical gate of Hindu spiritual traditions seem to be coming via Yoga and are very focused on the Chakras and Kundalini, I thought it might make for a good topic of discussion (who knows, may even be informative for some). The Vedantic way of meditating on Om (Pranava) is in an elongated manner -- where the Om is sounded (or chanted silently if possible) in four parts. The "aa" part which represents the Waking state and all of our experiences in the waking state, the "oo" part which represents the dreaming state and all our experiences in the dreaming state, and the "mm" part, which represents the deep sleep state and the blankness (absence of all objects and phenomena). The fourth part of this meditation is the silence that follows...which is where one can become aware of their Self-nature as Pure Awareness, in which the 3 states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep arise and dissipate. When viewed from the body-mind perspective (in the waking state), this Pure Awareness is called the "Fourth" or "Turiya". But from the perspective of Awareness itself, the three states of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep simply rise and fall. Corresponding to the 3 states are the three bodies -- The waker's body in the waking state, called the Gross body or Physical body, the dreamer's body in the dreaming state, called the Subtle body or Energy body, and the Deep sleeper's body in the deep sleep state, called the Causal body. All these three bodies appear and disappear in Awareness, which is our Self-nature. So how do these correlate with the Chakras? There are three types of Kundalini, of which only two are accessible in the human form. The Kundalini form that most people know about and seem to obsess over, is called Prana Kundalini. It the kundalini that rises with body-oriented practices such as hatha yoga. The other kind is called Chit Kundalini, which rises with mind-oriented, especially wisdom mind oriented practices such as jnana yoga. The Prana Kundalini is the one that rises up from the base of the body (muladhara) through the chakras to the crown (sahasrara). Correspondingly, the AUM (Om or Pranava) parts are as follows, imho -- Chakras 1,2 and 3 -- The "aa" part of Om Chakras 4,5 -- The "oo" part of Om. Chakra 6 -- The "mm" part of Om. Chakra 7 (and Higher) -- The silence after Om.

So a woman is only yin and a man is only yang? Yin-Yang go together — taiji. Yin cannot exist without yang and yang cannot exist without yin.

Yin and yang are not separate

Thanks. I don't know much about Bibles. But I know some of my Christian nondualist friends refer to The Sermon on the Mount as a good example of Nonduality therein -- https://estudantedavedanta.net/uploads/1/0/9/5/109527077/sermon_vedanta.pdf In fact even at a very superficial level, when I hear/read references to statements attributed to Jesus, such as "My father and I are One" or "The kingdom of Heaven is within you", it seems very clear to me what is being referred to here -- The Nondual Self --- that is foundational knowledge for Hindu Nondual traditions (not in such language per se, but what is being pointed towards).

This organization has been doing some very interesting work in the field — https://noetic.org/science/experiments/

Meditate on it instead of resisting it. What is the NIV Bible? Never heard of it Ask yourself, “what is it about nonduality that irritates me so?”

Wrt the spiritual, how can you get objective evidence for a subjective experience? Best we can do is empirical evidence, but each individual has to be the lab, experiment and observer in one.

Formalized knowledge is needed as pointer to spiritual insight. Why is this even a question? ( Unless I’m missing the issue here completely)

https://www.medhajournal.com/most-people-misunderstand-what-atman-means/

This popped up Today and is mighty relevant to this topic imho

we do have the option of being role models, supporting causes which do positive contributions. Doesn’t necessarily mean we have to all become activists..only whatever we can do (“nothing” is a cop out). Take this guy for instance — https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/12/26/572421590/hed-take-his-own-life-before-killing-a-tree-meet-india-s-forest-man i know for a fact that there are many more like him all over the world. We don’t have to do so much, but even to support such people would be a great start. Or we have karmically created this situation. I don’t think that is quite as simplistic as that. Yes we do project reality, but these body-mind units which seem to experience this reality are not the “we” that does the projecting. So long as we are identified with these body-mind units, that logic doesn’t work. If we are not identified, then we don’t need any answers because there won’t be any questions.

I turn to the Bhagavad Gita for guidance in difficult times (especially). It is important to understand what Dharma is, and then live a life in accordance with the Dharma. Dharma is not religion -- it is the correct way of living. Dharma encompasses the correct view (ethics, spirituality) as a collective, but also the correct way to live as an individual. This individual dharma is called "svadharma" (or Self-dharma) and it varies from person to person. Part of our self-dharma is to live the truth in our own way, in our professional and personal life. Does that mean a passive acceptance of all that's happening around us? Maybe not. Even if it means going to war to uphold the dharma, then so be it. And by war, I don't mean between two nations, or on any specific group, but to organize and do things on a war-footing. There is a climate crisis -- what are we doing to make sure that the right people are being elected into our governments to ensure that they actually do something meaningful to address it? What are we doing about it ourselves? There is an ever-increasing chasm between the haves and have-nots, with the latter growing dramatically across the globe. What are we doing about that? There is an ever-increasing level of self-delusion and self-hypnosis via media and technology, so much so that the problems of the world are not even acknowledged by many (take the trumpanzees for instance). What are we doing about that? To be in the world but not of it, doesn't mean that we should bury our heads in the proverbial sands, but rather to actually recognize what is going wrong and then selflessly work towards fixing things the best we can. Who can be in the world but not be of it? Only those who have developed Self-knowledge.