There is no self

[JustARandomPanda]

I wonder if there is a way to reconcile Gurdjieff teachings on the Self with Buddhist assertions of No-Self. I confess I myself am confused on the matter as to whom to believe.

[Birch]

I haven't read Gurdjieff's teachings on Self. What does he say?

[Birch]

Advance apologies for likely getting the nested quote feature wrong;-)

 

To a few minutes.

- I wonder if people would go for it if they knew this;-)

 

Conceptually, I think at least 6 is pretty clear. Experientially, a few. Do they/we need to understand it? If your goal is freedom from all sufferings, ignorance, clinging, and liberation from birth and death.. then yes.

 

- I think the stated goal is mis-leading (at for me right now). You don't get free from some things, you get a choice (except for the birth and death part which I presently can't tell you about)

 

Not quite sure if I get you.

 

- First we tell you you have a problem (suffering) then we tell you we can help you solve it if you will only do XYZ (that we have decided). Omit the other perspective that no joy could be possible without ego. NB Currently mine, will let you know if it changes.

 

What a child goes through is necessary. As I explained to bob3, learning the right conventions "I" "you" "him" are necessary. Imagine if we do not teach a child that right conventions, and he doesn't even know how to call his parents.

 

- Oh, I have a few names I like to call them...Joking apart. Just because children go through things, doesn't make it necessary that they do. With a little imagination, couldn't there be a different way?

 

It is just that we (inevitably, btw) start to grasp the conventions as refering to an inherent entity, and we also begin to grasp the world dualistically. - Isn't the TTB jury still out on whether it's the conventions that do this or whether our conventions arose because it's inherent in the human entity to do so?

 

In Buddhism we need to learn the conventions, but we investigate our experience through Vipassana and realise that reality is not how we think it is - as divided dualistically, and as solid entities.

- If you know what reality is all about, why bother teaching otherwise to start with?

 

(without which we will not be able to function in society),

- I wonder about this one. It is an assumption.

 

and not the ultimate nature of reality. Education teaches people to understand things by separating them and not as a Whole (ungraspable by concepts), and as I see it, it is inevitable and necessary.

- I wonder if that is really the case. Could we imagine a society in which no-one suffered? Are they obliged to suffer first?

 

The part to see the nature of reality, the Whole, in direct experience I think still belongs to the domain of spirituality.

- Are you saying it's distinct from other things? What?

 

Spirituality is subtle and I don't think everyone will have the interest to look into it deeply. I think at the most, we can teach simple mindfulness techniques or breath meditation to help students relieve stress.

 

- I'm not sure. What I'd rather see is something more guided (and also more stories of it being possible, not just 3 or 4 guys in a desert somewhere) so that more people have the opportunity to realize it in their lifetime. Unless we don't want people to go realizing stuff for some reason

[Vajrahridaya]

In Buddhism (awake-ism) (( this designation might make me seem even more elitist than I am trying to be, because I understand the necessity for people to undergo there own progression through lifetimes or realizations in various philosophical and practice methods )) cosmology, the self is relative and there is no absolute and inherent nature to things except the fact that everything is inherently non-abiding, including meditative, non-conceptual and beyond sense experience.

 

I hope this makes sense to someone?

[Cueball]

Was reading thru Thich Nhat Hanh's "Cultivating The Mind Of Love" when i came across these words - relevant to this thread somewhat...

 

"According to the Lord Buddha, there are four notions we need to examine carefully: self, person, living being, and life span. 'When this innumerable, immeasurable, infinite number of beings has become liberated, we do not, in truth, think that a single being has been liberated. Why is this so? If, Subhuti, a bodhisattva holds on to the idea that a self, a person, a living being, or a life span exists, that person is not an authentic bodhisattva'. The bodhisattva is one who is liberated from the notions of self, person, living being, and life span.

 

We know that a flower is made only of non-flower elements, like sunshine, earth, water, time, and space. Everything in the cosmos come together to bring about the presence of one flower, and these boundless conditions are what we call 'Non-flower elements.' Compost helps make the flower, and the flower creates more compost. If we meditate, we can see the compost right here and now in the flower. If you are an organic gardener, you know that already.

 

These are not just words. It is our experience, the fruit of our practice of looking deeply. Looking at anything, we can see the nature of interbeing. A self is not possible without non-self elements. Looking deeply at any one thing, we see the whole cosmos. The one is made of the many. To take care of ourselves, we take care of those around us. Their happiness and stability is our happiness and stability. If we are free of the notions of self and non-self, we will not be afraid of the words 'self' and 'non-self'. But if we see the 'self' as our enemy and think that 'non-self' is our savior, we are caught. We are trying to push away one thing and embrace another. When we realize that to take care of the self is to take care of the non-self, we are free, and we dont have to push away either.

 

The Buddha said, "Take refuge in the island of self." He was not afraid to use the word 'self' because He was free of notions. But we students of the Buddha do not dare use the word. Several years ago, when I proposed a gatha for listening to the bell, "Listen, listen...this wonderful sound brings me back to my true self", a number of Buddhists refused to recite it because it included the word 'self'. So they changed it to, "Listen, listen...this wonderful sound brings me back to my true nature." They tried to escape 'self' in order to be serious students of the Buddha, but instead they just became prisoners of their notions.

 

If a bodhisattva holds on to the idea that a self, a person, a living being, or a life span exists, that person is not an authentic bodhisattva. If we are aware that the self is always made of non-self elements, we will never be enslaved by or afraid of the notions of self and non-self. If we say the notion of self is harmful or dangerous, the notion of non-self may be even more harmful and dangerous. Clinging to the notion of self is not good, but clinging to the notion of non-self is worse.

 

Understanding that self is made of only of non-self elements is safe. The Buddha did not say, "You dont exist." He only said, "You are without self". Your nature is non-self. We suffer because we think He said we dont exist. From one extreme we fall into another extreme, but both extremes are just our notions. We never experience reality. We only have these notions, and we suffer because of them." -- Thich Nhat Hanh

 

That's lovely, I always felt something good from Thich Nhat Hanh without knowing much about his teachings.

 

Thanks for posting.

[xabir2005]

To a few minutes.

The bliss of insight stages/nanas are temporary. However the bliss of Nirvana after having attained high stage of enlightenment is continuous and is called by Buddha as the 'highest bliss'.

 

If you attained full enlightenment, you will experience the seven factors of enlightenment continuously, in which 'joy or rapture' is one of them

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Factors_of_Enlightenment

- I think the stated goal is mis-leading (at for me right now). You don't get free from some things, you get a choice (except for the birth and death part which I presently can't tell you about)

Bodhisattvas and Buddhas choose to return even after enlightenment but they are not bound up by uncontrolled rebirth. Normal arhants do not have vows to save other sentient beings, so they just enter nirvana without remainder.

- First we tell you you have a problem (suffering) then we tell you we can help you solve it if you will only do XYZ (that we have decided).

Yes. The 'XYZ' which happens to be the eightfold path is found worked by countless people who have done it. It is not just 'decided'.

Omit the other perspective that no joy could be possible without ego. NB Currently mine, will let you know if it changes.

The absence of ego (a sense of separate self) is bliss. If you have experienced the dissolution of ego, you will know. It is blissful. But it is probably not the joy you had in mind.

 

Regardless of samatha (concentration) or vipassana (insight) practices, true blissful absorptive experiences are the result of dissolution of self and subject-object split. For insight practitioners, this blissful absorptive experience takes a form of clarity-absorption which is mentioned in one of the Thusness posts in my friend Longchen’s forum ( http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/05/different-degrees-of-non-duality.html )

Oh, I have a few names I like to call them...Joking apart. Just because children go through things, doesn't make it necessary that they do. With a little imagination, couldn't there be a different way?

I cannot think of any other ways. Language is one of the important and fundamental ways we relate to each others.

Isn't the TTB jury still out on whether it's the conventions that do this or whether our conventions arose because it's inherent in the human entity to do so?

I use the term 'convention' to specifically refer to 'naming conventions', to mean the labels, the conceptual representation we imposed on something perceived so that we can recognise it.

 

For example a baby sees his mother, brother, but he cannot recognise it until he learns how to label what he or she sees, i.e. that is "mom".

 

In everyday life we cannot escape using conceptual representations or symbols. It is only when we take our conceptual representation to represent something 'inherently existing' that causes problems, just like we take the conceptual presentation called 'weather' and misperceive it to refer to some locatable 'thing' or 'entity', not realising that 'weather' is really only a label, there is only just a stream of weather patterns changing moment to moment according to conditions without something graspable, locatable, or permanent and self-existing.

If you know what reality is all about, why bother teaching otherwise to start with?

It is a necessary process to teach a person how to orientate in the world conceptually. But through this process he hardens the view of 'selves' and 'entities' as existing separately and inherently. It is inevitable but a necessary process.

 

In fact even if you did not teach this way, for example a dog or a monkey who has no language or symbols in the way we humans use them, does not mean they are enlightened. Even though they may experience less sense of separation (not none), doesn't mean they have no ignorance, or are enlightened to the nature of reality.

 

Having the realisation of the nature of reality is something altogether different. It totally untangles the knot of perception that makes us perceive a 'self' at the centerpoint that is observing and controlling 'objects out there', and it makes us see that the conventions and labels do not refer to something inherently existing.

Edited May 11, 2010 by xabir2005

[xabir2005]

I wonder about this one. It is an assumption.

How do you live without talking and communicating and using conceptual representations/labels/symbols?

 

In fact: it is not necessary to not use them!

 

Enlightened beings continue to use seemingly separative symbols, representations, labels. They still talk about "I", "you", "him", etc. They still use labels. But they are just not deluded into thinking they reference something inherent.

 

Hence the problem does not lie in symbols, but in our knot of perception that takes what we perceive to exist in a separative and inherent way. This can only be removed by insight meditation that allows us to give rise to the insights into the nature of reality.

I wonder if that is really the case. Could we imagine a society in which no-one suffered? Are they obliged to suffer first?

As long as they continue to cling to a sense of self (unavoidable until enlightenment), there is suffering!

 

If everyone is enlightened then yes, no one will suffer. But this is not realistically possible.

Are you saying it's distinct from other things? What?

Yes. It is not the domain of arts, mathematics, science, language, etc to teach people how to liberate and realise the nature of reality.

I'm not sure. What I'd rather see is something more guided (and also more stories of it being possible, not just 3 or 4 guys in a desert somewhere) so that more people have the opportunity to realize it in their lifetime. Unless we don't want people to go realizing stuff for some reason

I do hope that will be possible too

[xabir2005]

In Buddhism (awake-ism) (( this designation might make me seem even more elitist than I am trying to be, because I understand the necessity for people to undergo there own progression through lifetimes or realizations in various philosophical and practice methods )) cosmology, the self is relative and there is no absolute and inherent nature to things except the fact that everything is inherently non-abiding, including meditative, non-conceptual and beyond sense experience.

 

I hope this makes sense to someone?

Yes Glad to see you're back!

[Vajrahridaya]

That's lovely, I always felt something good from Thich Nhat Hanh without knowing much about his teachings.

 

Thanks for posting.

 

Yeah, Tichy's the bomb! Love that guy!! I've read lots of his stuff.

[Vajrahridaya]

Yes Glad to see you're back!

 

I'm glad to see that you're still here! =^)

[Birch]

[xabir2005]

 

- still sounds like a monotheistic carrot to me.

Monotheistic involves God. In Buddhism, no God.

If there is no me and no-one to experience any of these things. Can you help a thick head out?

No seer does not mean you cannot see. No doer does not mean you cannot act.

 

http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html

 

The 2 stanzas below are pivotal in leading me to the direct experience of no-self. Although they appear to convey the same stuff about anatta, meditating on these 2 stanzas can yield 2 very different experiential insights -- one on the emptiness aspect and the other, the non-dual luminosity aspect. The insights that arise from these experiences are very illuminating as they contradict so much our ordinary understanding of what awareness is.

 

#

 

 

There is thinking, no thinker

There is hearing, no hearer

There is seeing, no seer

 

#

 

 

In thinking, just thoughts

In hearing, just sounds

In seeing, just forms, shapes and colors.

what would be the basis of their respective choices?

Great compassion. Vows to attain Buddhahood and save sentient beings. If you do not have these vows, you will not return, as there is no more conditions for birth, you simply pari-nirvana.

Isn't it just ONE of many possible paths? And one path that is proned by a particular section of a religion? I always get worried when I hear people saying "you have to do it my way" What about other paths?

The Buddha said that any teaching that teaches the eightfold path will result in enlightened beings. Which means if the teaching does teach eightfold path in full, then it is a true teaching that leads to liberation.

 

Furthermore, The Buddha says that the four foundations of mindfulness form "the only way that leads to the attainment of purity, to the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, to the end of pain and grief, to the entering upon the right path and the realization of Nibbana." [53] They are called "the only way" (ekayano maggo), not for the purpose of setting forth a narrow dogmatism, but to indicate that the attainment of liberation can only issue from the penetrating contemplation of the field of experience undertaken in the practice of right mindfulness.

- I experienced it falling out the bottom of me and it almost made me throw up. Lots of times

What falling out? How does it make you throw up?

- No, IME the blissful part comes from the ego recognising that it is the thing that is doing the subjective/objective-ing. It gets blissed out because it recognizes the coolness and power of what its doing. Well, IME anyway.

No, this is not the bliss I am talking about. True bliss is only experienced during the absence of subject and object separation.

- ok, there is a self but it's not a "thing" - I mentioned this in my forum as the "stick figure hypothesis"

If it is not a thing, then what is it?

- This self is also "observing and controlling" the objects but quite badly (or well, depending on the labels he gets, remember those sticker books?) from the inside by sticking the labels we told him to stick to things - whatever is "out there" - and I have no idea of what that ultimately is.

No not really. If you investigate experience by affirming the experience as it is, in the way the Buddha teaches: in the seen there is just the seen, in the heard there is just the heard, in the cognized there is just the cognized, you will discover there is no you in terms of that, and there is no you there, you will not be able to locate yourself in the world of this nor that, and that ends suffering. ( http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2008/01/ajahn-amaro-on-non-duality-and.html ) You will see that the whole sense-field/all sensations are happening on its own, and is aware where they are, and the division of 'observer inside' and 'object being observed', 'controller' and 'being controlled' is totally conceptual.

 

As Daniel M. Ingram puts it:

 

Very simply and from a basic, down-to-earth, and simple point of view, these sensations now are aware where they are, and the sensations towards the apparent center that seem to be perceiving those sensations are also just aware where they are. Further, these are all transient, causal, happening on their own, natural, and ordinary.

 

Perceiving these simple truths directly again and again reveals the completeness of those assertions at the level of natural perception, and thus what was always true becomes obvious.

 

In this way, this is it. The language of ultimate reality can easily create a seeming divide between the obvious here and now and some ideal of something profound. However, it is actually something very straightforward about what is happening in ordinary, sensate reality that reveals what has been called ultimate reality and other names, and it is true that seeing this ordinary, straightforward thing about our current sensate reality is profound in its way, but one should be careful not to get to far out there with ideals about Reality and ultimate reality, and instead ground down in the simplicity of ordinary investigation of whatever happens, even esoteric things like altered states and visions, etc., all of which are just sensations manifesting now, simple, transient, aware where they are, causal, natural, etc.

 

In short, as others have said: practice, but practice perceiving this ordinary sensate world with great clarity, precision and inclusiveness so that these simple truths become even more directly obvious than they already are and lock in as your baseline level of perception.

Edited May 13, 2010 by xabir2005

[C T]

 

The Buddha said that any teaching that teaches the eightfold path will result in enlightened beings. Which means if the teaching does teach eightfold path in full, then it is a true teaching that leads to liberation.

 

Furthermore, The Buddha says that the four foundations of mindfulness form "the only way that leads to the attainment of purity, to the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, to the end of pain and grief, to the entering upon the right path and the realization of Nibbana." [53] They are called "the only way" (ekayano maggo), not for the purpose of setting forth a narrow dogmatism, but to indicate that the attainment of liberation can only issue from the penetrating contemplation of the field of experience undertaken in the practice of right mindfulness.

 

In this way, this is it. The language of ultimate reality can easily create a seeming divide between the obvious here and now and some ideal of something profound. However, it is actually something very straightforward about what is happening in ordinary, sensate reality that reveals what has been called ultimate reality and other names, and it is true that seeing this ordinary, straightforward thing about our current sensate reality is profound in its way, but one should be careful not to get to far out there with ideals about Reality and ultimate reality, and instead ground down in the simplicity of ordinary investigation of whatever happens, even esoteric things like altered states and visions, etc., all of which are just sensations manifesting now, simple, transient, aware where they are, causal, natural, etc.

 

In short, as others have said: practice, but practice perceiving this ordinary sensate world with great clarity, precision and inclusiveness so that these simple truths become even more directly obvious than they already are and lock in as your baseline level of perception. [/i]

Right mindfulness is key. Without it, creating the right causes for liberation is almost impossible, unless one is born already on the brink of high realization.

 

Thanks Xabir.

[Vajrahridaya]

The Buddha says that the four foundations of mindfulness form "the only way that leads to the attainment of purity, to the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, to the end of pain and grief, to the entering upon the right path and the realization of Nibbana." [53] They are called "the only way" (ekayano maggo), not for the purpose of setting forth a narrow dogmatism, but to indicate that the attainment of liberation can only issue from the penetrating contemplation of the field of experience undertaken in the practice of right mindfulness.

 

[Vajrahridaya]

 

 

- still sounds like a monotheistic carrot to me.

 

It is simply the result of seeing clearly, all the time. Having internally correct cognition. Realizing that all things and mind are empty as in mutable, luminous and pure all the time. The entire universe becomes a place of rapture for the realized being. If liberation was not blissful, filled with great love from within, a wellspring of total and complete joy, all the time new... then what would be the point? Of course it's a carrot, but in this sense, you get to taste the carrot through practice until you fully cut the string that binds it. The 8 fold path are the tools for cutting this string of bondage.

 

 

- ok, this I don't get. If there is no me and no-one to experience any of these things. Can you help a thick head out?

 

There is no ultimate you, no static you... there is still the relative you that is relative to everything else. You are just free from you and this is joy! You are opened and never contracted, never blocking the incoming and constantly evolving experience of living. At the same time, since your inner joy is complete, you are not craving anything and what comes, is a mirror to this joy and what goes is not chased because you are too busy enjoying the next wave of experience that is a mirror for this bliss. You are fully engaged and there is no where to go but here and no time to be but now. But, this is not a narrow now, it includes the 3 times, because you see directly into all inter-connectivity, so there are powers of perception that open up to you.

 

 

Bodhisattvas and Buddhas choose to return even after enlightenment but they are not bound up by uncontrolled rebirth. Normal arhants do not have vows to save other sentient beings, so they just enter nirvana without remainder.

 

- what would be the basis of their respective choices?

 

During the path, in order to experience more selflessness, we offer our merits to all other beings and this creates a reservoir of intention that remains after total enlightenment. Thus this is the condition from which enlightenment acts from... the result of the practice of selflessness is the fruit of realizing selflessness.

 

 

 

- Isn't it just ONE of many possible paths? And one path that is proned by a particular section of a religion? I always get worried when I hear people saying "you have to do it my way" What about other paths?

 

If the path teaches you how the universe works, how the cosmos works, then it's good. Because the cosmos works a particular way. If the path teaches the insight that eradicates all levels of clinging and craving and doesn't make excuses for clinging and craving, then it's good. For instance; The excuse that clinging to this high level experience of formless bliss which is the God of all and surrendering to this clinging will get you liberation, would be a false liberation... Also if the path teaches that all things come from one ground of being that you have to release too, then it's not the penetrative insight that truly teaches how the universe works and you will not realize what the Buddha meant by Nirvana.

 

 

- I experienced it falling out the bottom of me and it almost made me throw up. Lots of times

 

It is blissful. But it is probably not the joy you had in mind.

- The almost throwing up part was very far from "bliss"

 

Yes, this has something to do with the movement of your energy and so you need balancing. Which is why in Vajrayana we have techniques of movements that clear your energy channels and make your body more suitable for higher realizations and state of deeply empowering joy! These movements change you on a cellular level. Trul Khor or Yantra Yoga... there are many different types. But they are good because sometimes energy movement can be spontaneous and very strong in meditation and this can at times cause vomiting, shaking, all sorts of things as the energy pushes through your blockages deep within your being.

 

 

 

 

- No, IME the blissful part comes from the ego recognising that it is the thing that is doing the subjective/objective-ing. It gets blissed out because it recognizes the coolness and power of what its doing. Well, IME anyway.

 

That's a certain kind of joy. It's not the same as dissolution of the ego that happens in deeper meditation. After coming out, yogi's do at times get puffed up and there is a joy about this, "Wow, I'm such a good meditator, I'm so cool!" this is a certain kind of joy and it may even have traces of the bliss of meditation intertwined with it, making this ego joy even bigger. Some yogi's have the biggest ego's when their not meditating. I've been known to myself... This is why the practice of mindfullness is very important in order to squelch the kind of yogic ego one can develop through strictly meditative paths. It's the kind of ego that leads people to think that they are the one true messengers of God and that they with all this power and love can save humanity and that all beings would benefit from worshiping them. Many religions are started by beings like this. It has to do with not being mindful, not understanding dependent origination, and getting sucked into one of the high levels of Samadhi, Jhana or Dhyan... however you want to call it. This is why it's very important to understand that the Buddhas teaching is subtler and different from these Monisms and Monotheisms and substantiated paths that teach the mis-interpretation of a meditative experience and turn it into the substratum of the entire universe, thinking they have proof, but it's really just a deeper kind of delusion. You can experience past lives, see through things, all sorts of worldly powers of perception through these paths, but still not have that penetrative insight which the Buddha teaches.

 

 

 

 

- yes, but its only one. What about feeling, smiling, body language, sex...

 

Yes, it's totally possible to communicate without even using language. Like two people can be open to each other and exchange ideas without even saying or having a single social level thought occur. The idea can cover a large amount of information, transferred to each other very quickly and instantaneously. As thought is not limited to social level thinking, you don't even need to use sounds. But, we are mostly not this open to each other. We are generally pretty dense and identified with the peanut butter body and not that aware of the energy running through it, and even that has layers of density to subtlety.

[Maddie]

How does one realize Anatta?

[Maddie]

And what is that aspect of self that wants notoriety, recognition, fame, and popularity? What is it about the self that gets angry or upset if it does not get this?

[Marblehead]

And what is that aspect of self that wants notoriety, recognition, fame, and popularity? What is it about the self that gets angry or upset if it does not get this?

That's called "ego".

 

And yes, I have one.

[Maddie]

That's called "ego".

 

And yes, I have one.

and what is that?

[nine tailed fox]

when i was a child

 

i used to ask my mom, mom this life doesnt make sense

 

i mean even if a person die and go to heaven, still something is missing, what will he do in heaven for infinite time ?

 

nothing actually makes sense, i feel stuck somewhere thinking along this line

 

guys just imagine that you die and you go somewhere like heaven and spend eternity there but thats it ? try to think whats after this and you will feel stuck

 

and my mom used to say, this is how it is

 

it cant be the end

 

honestly when we think about these matters it feels like we are trapped

 

its like you give a gift to someone only to take it away

 

we think we have a self only to realize it never existed in the first place

 

something doesnt make sense

 

may be enlightenment is the answer

[Maddie]

when i was a child

 

i used to ask my mom, mom this life doesnt make sense

 

i mean even if a person die and go to heaven, still something is missing, what will he do in heaven for infinite time ?

 

nothing actually makes sense, i feel stuck somewhere thinking along this line

 

guys just imagine that you die and you go somewhere like heaven and spend eternity there but thats it ? try to think whats after this and you will feel stuck

 

and my mom used to say, this is how it is

 

it cant be the end

 

honestly when we think about these matters it feels like we are trapped

 

its like you give a gift to someone only to take it away

 

we think we have a self only to realize it never existed in the first place

 

something doesnt make sense

 

may be enlightenment is the answer

 

lol of course enlightenment is the answer, and the hindrance to that answer is this false sense of self that gets in the way, but it is rather confusing. This talk was pretty mind blowing.

 

[Marblehead]

and what is that?

A delusion of what we really are.

[Marblehead]

may be enlightenment is the answer

Maybe. But you are still going to die. And so will I.

[nine tailed fox]

i am a hindu

 

and we strongly believe in the Self called Atman

 

atman is a self in a sense

 

but i dont understand why hinduism created this separation

 

i mean why create a separation between atman and param atman (param atman means the tao in hinduism)

 

personally i find it hard to believe in atman because if its all param atman than why create a separation and create atman

 

yoga has a goal of uniting atman with param atman

 

but this again is also illusion because there was never an atman in the first place, it was all param atman and it still is

 

i prefer buddhism in this case

 

which simple states that you are the param atman, and you have to realize it

[nine tailed fox]

Maybe. But you are still going to die. And so will I.

 

but may be with our choice