Non-Duality in Dzogchen vs Advaita Vedanta

[dwai]

Just now, Jeff said:

 

Are there not many other traditions that would disagree about AV being the true essence of the Upanishads? Or is that now something that is universally agreed? 

There are other traditions that disagree. There are two other interpretations of the Upanishads, and the three of them have many merry discussions and debates.

 

Since you brought up Vedanta in context of non-dualism, I inferred that you were referring to AV.  Dvaita Vedanta is 100% dualistic. Vishistha Advaita is qualified Non-dualism. Neither of them will ever agree to either AV or Buddhist thoughts.

So that only leaves AV to consider, if we are to do an "apples to apples" type comparison.

 

Even in AV, there are 3 different approaches that can be taken, depending on the temperament of the seeker. @neti neti posted a nice description of that in 

 

[doc benway]

3 hours ago, Jeff said:

 

I was really just kidding, as in this case you posted something, rather than deleting and not posting at all.

I could tell you were joking but I also wanted to share the truth behind that comment.

It has really been a change for me. And a positive one I might add.

 

 

3 hours ago, Jeff said:

 

 

Thank you for sharing this point. I think it is excellent and a very useful point to make. If I may be so bold, it sounds to me like you are saying something different that Roger was above.

 

It's certainly possible. I say something different than myself sometimes!

I think it's easy to find contradiction and paradox when language meets the non-conceptual.

 

I'd like to share the link below to an excerpt from The Royal Tantra on the Brilliant Diffusion of Majestic Space.

It's a brief excerpt but it points to the foundation for undercutting the proposal of an inherently existing oneness.

 

 

For me, studying the 21 Nails (a Dzogchen teaching from the Oral Transmission of the Zhang Zhung Nyengyud) really drove this nail home (pun intended). In most cases, when we posit the existence of something, the characteristics of that something support the concept of existence or non-existence. It has size, shape, position, color, function, etc... The elegance and sophistication of the Bön and Buddhist views is that the something we are referring to is self-aware space. The particular characteristics of space (which are discussed thoroughly in the 21 Nails), make it impossible to establish as existing or non-existing. Some of those characteristics include that space is indestructible, uncreated, pervasive, unbounded, without center, neutral, and so forth. I don't mean to say that this view is correct and others are not, just to emphasize the effect it had on my personal view. The Madhyamaka and Yogacara debates have gone on for centuries. If those thousands of great scholars and masters haven't found a way to resolve the issue, I doubt we will. I think what is important, for me at least, is to have found a paradigm that is supportive and to work within it, gradually refining my own views as the practices mature and bear fruit.

[dwai]

I think the thing that gets people to draw incorrect conclusions about Vedanta darshana, is that they assume it is "One". The One is the gateway to the manifest - the "I am". That which is behind the One is parABrahman.

 

Three: Prior to Consciousness 

1. Prior to this identification with the body, you must recede into that. 
2. Witnessing of the beingness happens to the eternal principle, the Absolute. 
3. I, the Absolute never had any experience that I was alive. 
4. I, the Absolute have no needs, I ever prevail. 
5. The non-attention Parabrahman state has no attention ‘I am’. 
6. Before the beingness was there, look at that, be in that state. 
7. Timeless, spaceless existence doesn’t know it is. That is reality. That is truth. 
8. As the eternal principle you prevail in spite of all happenings. 
9. To the Absolute witnessing of the ‘I amness’ occurs, this is the siddha standpoint. 
10. I, the Absolute am not this ‘I amness’. 
11. Not-knowing is perfection, knowing is imperfection, fraudulent. 
12. When the ‘I am’ goes into oblivion, that is the eternal state, no form, no beingness. 
13. There is no question of going into that state; you are in the Supreme state. 
14. Without reason or cause the consciousness spontaneously appears on the Absolute. 
15. As you get closer to the truth, you will loose interest in worldly affairs. 
16. My true nature is that which was before the body and consciousness came into being. 
17. It is quite simple: all that which is time-bound is untrue. 
18. I am the perfect state, when the ‘I amness’ was not. 
19 What was your state before the ‘I am’ arose? Go back to the source. 
20. That which you don’t know is the right state. 
21. Throw away everything as useless after this consciousness has come. 
22. In the Absolute there is no need of any kind, even the need to know oneself. 
23. Sat Guru (Parabrahman) is your true nature. 
24. In the Absolute the ‘I am’ comes, they are not two. 
25. Donating the self you get brahma, donating brahma you get Parabrahman. 
26. The teaching which destroys the individual is exactly what he seeks. 
27. You just stumble on the knowledge that the individual was never there. 
28. You are prior to the idea ‘I am’, camp yourself there, prior to the words ‘I am’. 
29. You must recede into the no-knowingness when you are awake. 
30. I was, I am and I shall be in that original state before the ‘I amness’ came. 
31. I am fully established in that unborn state. 
32. I am the God, I am the devotee and I am the worshipping. 
33. You must know yourself bereft of the body sense. 
34. The one who expresses ‘I was not’ is secure, stable and eternal. 
35. The one who recognizes the imperfect is perfect and complete. 
36. With reference to your true Parabrahman state Maya does not exist. 
37. You know what you are not – what you are you cannot know. 
38. Prior to knowingness is the prior-most principle which knows the consciousness. 
39. Death is inevitable so why not accept it right now that it cannot affect you? 
40. What you have heard from me is to be understood, used and given up. 
41. Without the body sense I am perfect, total and complete. 
42. You are changeless and permanent. 
43. You have no beginning and no end, you are eternal. 
44. Parabrahman is your eternal state; you cannot remember it because you have never forgotten it. 
45. Go back to your original state before this consciousness came upon you.
46. The One which is listening and you do not know, is you. 
47. As the Absolute I have no experience of myself. 
48. On hearing these words all your knowledge will evaporate suddenly and you’ll be wonderstruck. 
49. I as the Absolute do not need this consciousness. 
50. Where is the question when the instrument of questioning is kept aside? 
51. On your no-knowing state suddenly the knowingness has appeared and created all the mischief. 
52. I am before anything can happen. 
53. Knowledge is ignorance, it has a beginning and an end, had it been real it would be eternal. 
54. Sat Guru means the eternal state, which will never change, what you are. 
55. The one directed by a Sat Guru has no more birth, his Sadhana is over. 
56. Why die as a body? Have the highest ambition so that at least while dying you are the Absolute. 
57. One is the Absolute (No ‘I am’), two is consciousness (‘I am’), three is space (world). 
58. To know you are nothing is real liberation. 
59. When all your knowledge including yourself is liquidated – then you are liberated. 
60. The unknown is the truth. 
61. I have no need of any experience. 
62. You are prior to consciousness. In that state there is no pleasure or pain.
63. What am I when this temporary state is gone and before it comes? - That itself is the search. 
64. The ultimate knowledge does not have any knowledge. 
65. If you have really understood, no questions can arise; questions arise only to an entity. 
66. As long as you believe you are entity, spiritual salvation and all this talk is useless. 
67. As an entity you want to know the Absolute, it’s not possible, because you are the Absolute. 
68. When you really, intuitively understand what I am saying, it’s the end of your spiritual search. 
69. Prior to consciousness, who is there and with what instrument one can be conscious? 
70. The state prior to consciousness is always there. Right now it is there. 
71. Your true identity is a state of not-knowing, total, complete and perfect. 
72. This sense of presence is unreal, like a dream. 
73. You true state was there before the body and consciousness arose, is there now and will be after the body and consciousness go. 
74. Give thought to the state before experiencing began. 
75. Even when the consciousness goes you prevail – you always are – as the Absolute. 
76. It is the consciousness that gets liberated – there is no entity. 
77. It must happen that the consciousness is no longer conscious of itself. 
78. Knowingness in its ultimate state is no-knowingness. 
79. If you have clearly understood what I am saying you would have no specific intention or interest left. 
80. Do everything with the understanding that when the body and consciousness go, you need do nothing. 
81. Consciousness disappearing there will be no sense of presence – but I shall very much be, without the sense of presence. 
82. Before the ‘I am’ arrived I knew no time; birth, living and death constitute nothing but time, duration. 
83. Come to firm conclusion that I am nothing. 
84. You must have the firm conviction that you are unaffected by birth and death. 
85. No-knowing is highest in the hierarchy of spirituality; the Absolute transcends both knowing and no-knowing.

 

 

http://thenisargadattasadhana.blogspot.com/2011/08/nisargadatta-ultimatum.html

 

[Jeff]

24 minutes ago, dwai said:

I think the thing that gets people to draw incorrect conclusions about Vedanta darshana, is that they assume it is "One". The One is the gateway to the manifest - the "I am". That which is behind the One is parABrahman.

 

http://thenisargadattasadhana.blogspot.com/2011/08/nisargadatta-ultimatum.html

 

 

Thanks. So you completely agree with the above? As an example that...

 

41. Without the body sense I am perfect, total and complete. 
42. You are changeless and permanent. 

[dwai]

7 minutes ago, Jeff said:

 

Thanks. So you completely agree with the above? As an example that...

 

41. Without the body sense I am perfect, total and complete. 
42. You are changeless and permanent. 

It's not an intellectual thing to agree or disagree with. Why don't you read the whole thing and contemplate?

[Jeff]

1 minute ago, dwai said:

It's not an intellectual thing to agree or disagree with. Why don't you read the whole thing and contemplate?

 

My question was not meant as an intellectual thing, just trying to find out if the above was accurate from your view. My experience/knowing is different on points like that. 

[dwai]

1 minute ago, Jeff said:

 

My question was not meant as an intellectual thing, just trying to find out if the above was accurate from your view. My experience/knowing is different on points like that. 

I cannot put in words my experience, but I'll try...

 

My experience of the "structure" of existence is essentially hard to put into words either. It was like a multi-dimensional hologram, where I was both the seer, the space as well as all the things that arose in it.  But it was infinitely clear that nothing has a permanence or solidity.

 

My experience of "that" is that of empty awareness. It is the same in me, you and everything there is. 

 

All I know for sure is that being that empty awareness, I cannot really attach to positions of this or that ( oh! the irony of it...:)) 

As long as I stay centered in that empty awareness, things appear and disappear but it stays timeless and spaceless.

Because it stays timeless and spaceless, it is eternal and immortal. Because it is empty, is not something that the mind or intellectual processes can really analyze.  All these labels we ascribe to it, are merely weak approximations.

 

[neti neti]

4 hours ago, dwai said:

I cannot put in words my experience, but I'll try...

 

My experience of the "structure" of existence is essentially hard to put into words either. It was like a multi-dimensional hologram, where I was both the seer, the space as well as all the things that arose in it.  But it was infinitely clear that nothing has a permanence or solidity.

 

My experience of "that" is that of empty awareness. It is the same in me, you and everything there is. 

 

All I know for sure is that being that empty awareness, I cannot really attach to positions of this or that ( oh! the irony of it...:)) 

As long as I stay centered in that empty awareness, things appear and disappear but it stays timeless and spaceless.

Because it stays timeless and spaceless, it is eternal and immortal. Because it is empty, is not something that the mind or intellectual processes can really analyze.  All these labels we ascribe to it, are merely weak approximations.

 

 

Thanks for the mention, dwai. Trust that I say without sarcasm, it's good to see things come together as we futiley attempt to pinpoint the unpinnable!

 

I once wrote, "while 'oneness' may be the quintessence of Advaita, Reality lies beyond oneness and any other perceptual state."

 

All the pointers hang upon the existence of some false "knower-of" identity, but Self is the unidentifiable ground of knowledge.

The closest one ever gets to depicting this negation of all, is ascribing attributes which are essentially superimpositions. Oh how the mind despises this perceived boring not-a-thing-ness. People will say to you, "tell me more about the emptiness." 

 

With incessant craving for order, the mind is continuously drawn out in an effort to catalog its perceptions, but concepts of order and chaos must be dropped. The dream of experience, surrendered. The mischievous mind says, "I experienced", thereby creating an illusory space in which one I supposedly experiences another I. There is no experience of the Self. In looking towards it, you look away from it. In looking for it, you miss your Self.

 

There exists no intellectual reference for that which lies beyond the intellect. Where all perceptions and concepts are discarded, there and there alone, Self alone, is.

Edited August 17, 2017 by neti neti

[roger]

I find much of what's being said impossible to follow or grasp.

 

It's probably because of my own limited intellectual capacity. (I also frequently found it very difficult to understand my teachers in high school)

 

Then again I haven't studied this stuff like you guys have.

 

Basically, my view is monism (all is one) and pantheism (all is god).

 

Is that Advaita Vedanta?

Edited August 18, 2017 by roger

[roger]

I thought of something that might be similar to what some of you are saying.

 

When I say 'all is god', I guess you guys are saying, okay, but what is god?

 

In other words, I'm being simplistic and not looking into the exact meaning of what I'm saying.

 

I guess you guys are looking more deeply into it.

[Apech]

7 hours ago, roger said:

I find much of what's being said impossible to follow or grasp.

 

It's probably because of my own limited intellectual capacity. (I also frequently found it very difficult to understand my teachers in high school)

 

Then again I haven't studied this stuff like you guys have.

 

Basically, my view is monism (all is one) and pantheism (all is god).

 

Is that Advaita Vedanta?

 

 

Hi Roger,

 

I don't think that is exactly Advaita vedanta (others may disagree) - but I wouldn't worry about labelling how you see things anyway.  It is good to study these ways of thought like Vedanta and Buddhism (and there's plenty of books some of which express the ideas in a direct way rather than long philosophical terms) to get a comparison.  But the key I think is to keep formulating to yourself how you see things - and see this as a working model a bit like a scientific hypothesis - a set of ideas or concepts can never exactly reflect reality which is beyond words - but we need to keep formulating to ourselves for clarity.  So it is important to be willing to challenge your own working model regularly and if it doesn't stand up to scrutiny throw it away or revise it.  This keeps you open minded and also developing.

 

 

[Jeff]

2 hours ago, Apech said:

 

 

Hi Roger,

 

I don't think that is exactly Advaita vedanta (others may disagree) - but I wouldn't worry about labelling how you see things anyway.  It is good to study these ways of thought like Vedanta and Buddhism (and there's plenty of books some of which express the ideas in a direct way rather than long philosophical terms) to get a comparison.  But the key I think is to keep formulating to yourself how you see things - and see this as a working model a bit like a scientific hypothesis - a set of ideas or concepts can never exactly reflect reality which is beyond words - but we need to keep formulating to ourselves for clarity.  So it is important to be willing to challenge your own working model regularly and if it doesn't stand up to scrutiny throw it away or revise it.  This keeps you open minded and also developing.

 

 

 

I think this is a good approach. But, I think it is important (as I think CT said earlier) to not get attached to your view, otherwise you will never notice if you find something that doesn't really fit your scientific hypothesis. To me, childlike curisiousity is more valuable than trying to prove out something you have read or heard.

[Apech]

2 minutes ago, Jeff said:

 

I think this is a good approach. But, I think it is important (as I think CT said earlier) to not get attached to your view, otherwise you will never notice if you find something that doesn't really fit your scientific hypothesis. To me, childlike curisiousity is more valuable than trying to prove out something you have read or heard.

 

 

Yes I agree and it is something of an art form to work to apply your view and yet at the same time question regularly without attachment to the answer -  but that is the challenge.

[Jeff]

3 minutes ago, Apech said:

 

 

Yes I agree and it is something of an art form to work to apply your view and yet at the same time question regularly without attachment to the answer -  but that is the challenge.

 

It also can be a lot of fun too... The stuff you find can be so cool. Making even an old man like me smile like a little kid...

[Jonesboy]

Interesting comments on AV from the Tantraloka.

 

"The entire system of Advaita Vedanta may excapsulated in half a verse:

Brahman is the only Reality, the world is ultimately false, and the individual soul is non-different than Brahman."

.

 

Any thoughts?

Edited August 18, 2017 by Jonesboy

[Brian]

Seems consistent with many other teachings, just using the word "Brahman" in place of other words others use to attempt to speak about the ineffable "whatever" which is "the ultimate reality."

[roger]

12 hours ago, Jonesboy said:

Interesting comments on AV from the Tantraloka.

 

"The entire system of Advaita Vedanta may excapsulated in half a verse:

Brahman is the only Reality, the world is ultimately false, and the individual soul is non-different than Brahman."

.

 

Any thoughts?

 

By 'the world is ultimately false', does that mean one's view, or version, of the world, is an illusion, or that the bed I'm laying on right now doesn't exist?

 

I think matter is real - it's a form of energy, consciousness, Self. But the thing is that we have a 'story', a perception, an interpretation, of everything, that doesn't reflect the real truth. We have an illusory 'world' in our minds.

[dwai]

On 8/19/2017 at 1:50 AM, roger said:

 

By 'the world is ultimately false', does that mean one's view, or version, of the world, is an illusion, or that the bed I'm laying on right now doesn't exist?

 

I think matter is real - it's a form of energy, consciousness, Self. But the thing is that we have a 'story', a perception, an interpretation, of everything, that doesn't reflect the real truth. We have an illusory 'world' in our minds.

Hari Om Tat Sat is a mantra that comprises of Hari Om and Om Tat Sat.

 

Hari is the Manifest reality

Om is the unmanifest.

Hari Om is reminding us that the Manifest and the unmanifest are one and the same.

Om Tat Sat is saying The Unmanifest (Om) is Existent/Real. 

 

So Hari Om Tat Sat is saying the Manifest is the Unmanifest, which is Real/Existent.

 

Found it quite meaningful off late

 

 

[Nothingness]

Real Advaita Vedanta is Zero. 

Unfortunately from what I gather around most books, practitioners and supposed "self realized people", they all talk about One.

 

I agree with many posts here, in the ultimate sense, there is no difference between Dzogchen and Advaita.

Zero is the ultimate realization, or call it zero not zero... 

But most people can only "reach" an understanding of the One. 

 

One is not nirvana.

Zero is nirvana 

Edited September 15, 2017 by Nothingness