Sunmaster

Isn't learning to trust your inner self and consciously creating reality with your beliefs a way of life for you? It sure seems so. You didn't mention the intellect in this specific post, but did so previously. I claim artistic freedom for jumping from one topic to another. Deal with it. 😁

Sorry, I thought that was self-evident... The person who touches the belly and says it feels like a wall is correct. It does feel like a wall. His statement is correct given the limited data and context. So are all the others. Their partial truths are correct. Only a wider perspective reveals that they are only partially correct. We don't know what we don't know.

An issue of definition first. You use the Sethian definitions of outer self and inner self, where the inner self is a connecting point between the world (outer ego) and the vastness of the inner world. So from the outside to the inside, it goes like this (correct me if I'm wrong here): outer ego, inner ego, entity, Oversoul, AllThatIs. The Self I'm talking about is not the same as the "inner self". I use this progression: ego, self (individualized consciousness) and SELF (Absolute Consciousness). In that sense, the SELF needs nothing as it contains everything. The self however, needs to peel off ignorance to remember that it is in fact the SELF. To do that, it needs an accurate assessment of the reality it lives in.

And yet, all of them are simply maps of reality. A reality that has to be condensed and diluted enough to make sense for us. Can you grasp and truly know/feel what it means to be one with AllThatIs by using your intellect? Can you feel the bliss, the ecstasy of feeling the divine love flowing through your whole being by thinking about it? According to you, you should be able to. If the intellect can generate knowledge on the same level of direct experience, then this should be quite easy.

Replacement? Sorry, I don't follow....

Again, not what I said. I said they are not equal when it comes to the subjective inner world. The intellect is a tool to explore and manipulate the world for our benefit. But it's not the appropriate tool to explore the inner world, at least when used on its own without the vital input of direct experience. Nobody said anything about dispensing with the intellect or relying on direct experience exclusively. The intellect can be used in our favour though. For example by shaping new habits and routines that in turn promote direct experience. In practical terms, setting up a place and time for meditation. But once you sit down in meditation, the intellect has done its job. Insisting on using it from this point onwards is the exact opposite of what meditation is all about. The intellect is fed by thoughts and thoughts are what prevents us from "hearing the silence".

The intellect has it's place, just like the ego, in helping us survive as physical beings and make sense of the world that surrounds us. You used your intellect to understand and manipulate the material world around you. You succeeded in creating what you've envisioned, and this produced satisfaction and fulfilment. All these are activities of the external world. But ask yourself...who is that who used the intellect? Who is the one who created that tooling? Who experienced fulfillment? It was the Self at the root of it all. The Self that experienced all of it...the thinking, the creating, the fulfillment.

It's still your experience that comes a priori of the intellectual knowledge. You are not the mind. The mind is an object which makes sense of subjective data. "I have an idea." I=subject....the idea=object. You can't be the idea, because subject and object can't be the same. Same for the body. "I have a body". Same for feelings. "I feel sad." Same for memories..."I remember that one time...". Same for beliefs... "I believe in X,Y,Z.". In all these cases, there is one subject that observes the objects rising up from consciousness. Intellectual knowledge is therefore simply another (immaterial) object which is observed by the Self. How can we know the Self? Not by reading a book or thinking about it really really hard. Do you agree? Otherwise we would have scores of philosophers and clever people who have found their true identity and become not just clever, but wise sages. But then, where are all these enlightened people who reached enlightenment by thinking and analyzing? I would guess that there are none. All the sages, masters and profoundly wise people I know of, from every tradition and time period, came to that point by direct experience. Not by the way of the intellect. In fact, the intellect is the very thing that prevents direct experience. The Self can only be experienced and AFTER that, that experience can be put into concepts and words, with the all the distortions and limitations that such an act includes. This I say from my own experience and has nothing to do with Vedanta or other philosophies.

Or....they are all right, given the limited amount of data they have. Of course, from a wider perspective we can see that each of them only holds a partial truth.

Lol That doesn't answer my question though...

I have come to the conclusion that whatever comes out after the intellect has put it into words, is but a pale, lifeless approximation of the real thing. How do you answer it?

Yes, I agree. I think this is an universal truth and I don't see a conflict between our points of view.

I don't think I said that. What I said was that the intellect is no good at attaining real knowledge on its own. It has to be paired with direct experience. Direct experience reveals knowledge in the "form" of instantaneously recognized truth. The intellect then, to the best of its abilities, sifts through that truth and translates it into concepts and words in order to integrate the experience and make sense of it on an intellectual level. Note that, the experience or insight already made perfect sense without the intellect shaping it into words. So, the intellect is important of course, but not equal to direct experience. You can have a body of water without waves, but you can not have waves without a body of water. Direct experience is more fundamental than intellectual knowledge.

You say intellectual knowledge is not inferior to direct experience when it comes to subjective reality, and to support your idea, you call upon your own experience. Can you see the logical fallacy here?

Never heard of the parable of the blind men, each one touching a different part of the same elephant and each claiming to know what the elephant looks like? A tree trunk? A rope? A fan? A wall? A spear? You say 2 conflicting ideas can not be both true. I disagree. Seemingly contradictory ideas may find a peaceful resolution on a new level they both transcend. Or are you saying you can see the whole of the elephant? How? By intellectual understanding?? How is it possible to squeeze the unfathomable, ineffable Absolute Truth into limited relative truth made of concepts and language?

Not at all. Goodbye. Come back any time.

Take your time and when you're ready, I'll be curious to hear what you consider massive and detrimental distortions. You're right though, on the surface AV is quite simple and boils down to 2 main concepts: A) Brahman is the Absolute Reality and B) Brahman can be experienced through self-inquiry and meditation. It is also true that those wise Indian guys had 1000s of years to refine their explorations in consciousness to the smallest of details. You know how Innuits have something like 100 different names for snow? It's the same with the Indian definitions of all the nooks and crannies of consciousness. It is also worth remembering that what you hear from Swami Sarvapriyananda on YT is targeted at laypeople, not those who have studied Vedanta in great detail, and so the language and the concepts are presented in a way to be understood by those laypeople. I'm quite sure that whatever doubt or protest we can come up with, has already come up and been dealt with many times during the past few 1000s years.

Sunday. A perfect day to relax, sit back and enjoy a Sunmaster approved video. If I'd seen this a couple of years ago, I would have saved myself a lot of typing.

Pfff...says the one with the rapid-fire, encyclopedic posts.

To see what intellectual knowledge without direct experience is, just look at Christianity. It started as direct experience (Jesus and Co., allegedly), but has quickly become an empty shell. Great to look at from the outside, but soulless inside. Why? Because the whole religion is built on the idea that we are worthless and full of sin, that we can't reach God on our own and need an intermediator. There is no focus on introspection apart from praying. Those that are supposed to teach us the way to God, have themselves no idea how to get there, so they teach the stories in the bible instead. Those that actually do have direct experiences within this structure are too few and have no real power to change anything. Christianity (but not only) is like a lifeless corpse, a zombie. The same can be said about all those lofty, highly elaborate ideas and philosophies that do nothing but perpetuate a self-congratulatory circle of intellectual self-pleasuring. Unless those ideas promote and are substantiated by direct experience, they too are lifeless and worthless. Harsh but true.

The problem here is, your harking on about Vedanta this and Vedanta that, compare it to Seth said this and Seth said that... I only came to Vedanta because it reflects what I already see by myself and it clears up some points that were not as clear before. Seth did the same at one point. I say it again, I'm not an expert on Vedanta. How could I? I just got into it less than a year. So, if you're eager to compare notes about the subtleties of Vedantic philosophy, I would suggest you find someone that is more versed in it. If you want to compare notes on spiritual practice however, then I'd be happy to offer you my point of view. Without going into too much detail, I'd like to clear up some of the distortions I found in your post. Yes, awareness is the better word here. Consciousness is what IS, awareness of this one consciousness is what changes. There are endless degrees (levels?) in which awareness can focus on and illuminate consciousness. No, I haven't had time to read the book you shared. I'm currently reading Seth's Early Sessions Book 3, but since I started with the art projects I didn't have much time to read. All in good time. Adavaita Vedanta is based on a non-dual spiritual/philosphical idea. That means that Brahman is the non-dual All-That-Is beyond time and space...the Ground from which all else emerges. From that point of view it is logical that everything that happens in Maya (the world), including all incarnations and reincarnations, happen right here, right now. What happens to the other of your selves that are incarnated? Who cares? What benefit is it to you to know about them? Why bother about something you won't find out in this lifetime, when there is still your own self that needs discovering? I would say, find the root of this self first, then you're more likely to find the answers about those other selves. Your own self should be the starting point before everything else. If you already are a part of God, or Brahman, then what's the point of having to endure suffering via however many reincarnations in order to rediscover your connection? A common misconception. Why bother with anything if your true identity is already Brahman? Are you aware that you are Brahman? My guess is no. So, knowing it on an intellectual level and knowing it because you are that, are 2 very different things. We are here because we forgot who/what we are. Why? I explain it to myself with the analogy of the lonely child creating the finger puppets. Brahman creates Maya as a way to experience itself. You say Vedanta doesn't mention creativity. I'm not sure that's true, because what is there more creative than Maya itself? The cosmic dance of creation and destruction on the background of eternal IS-ness.....is the greatest conceivable act of creativity. Is that any different than Christian theology's version in which God puts people on earth to prove themselves loyal to and adoring of God? God, Brahman, Spirit....none of them need or require to be worshipped. The act of worship benefits you alone. It's an attitude towards the Unknown that allows you to tune in with it. Non-dualists don't usually worship a personal God, but they don't dismiss it either. If it helps you to reconnect, then why not. "You create your reality" Which "you" is that? The limited awareness called Tippa? Or the "you" that is the eternal Self? What is suffering if not a limited awareness of All-That-Is? Not being one with All-That-Is means being separated. Of course, we are never really separated from it, nor are we never not one with it. The difference lies with the degree of awareness. Absolute reality (Brahman) and relative reality (our condition). Relative reality (RR) emerges from absolute reality (AR), it can not exist without AR. If you take away RR, AR will still exist. In that sense, which is "more real", more fundamental? AR is. A) How did you make the jump to this conclusion? You went to school knowing full well that you will have to take courses, difficult tests and tiring evaluations. You still chose to go to school, right? The reward was worth all the hardships, correct? B) Liberation....to free yourself from ignorance regarding your true identity. To peel all the onion layers until you come to the center. Once you reach the center, what will you find there? How is that terrible in any way? You don't liberate yourself from bliss, do you? Are you in a state of bliss right now? Not just happiness, I mean BLISS. No? What keeps you from it? Ignorance. What is the absence of ignorance? Bliss. I didn't stop reading the Seth material, but like you said: why reading more and more manuals when you already have the best one? 🙂 I didn't "settle" on any particular teaching, unlike you. Any teaching I follow or study, I do so because it highlights a particular question I have or focuses on a particular aspect of my own experience. Experience comes first, the framework (manual) is built around that. Not the other way around. Seriously though, what I'm looking for now can not be found in any book, neither the Baghawad Gita, nor Seth not anywhere else. And perhaps Seth makes little sense if you're trying to squeeze his information into the framework of Advaita Vedanta. lol The same can be said about you, trying to squeeze Vedanta in the Seth material. But you credit Advaita Vedanta with, as Christians like to term it, "seeing the light," and granted that was a valid and even life changing experience, and so Advaita Vedanta must be the way forward. Not quite correct. What I said is that the concept of non-duality as highlighted by Advaita Vedanta, made sense to me in understanding and integrating my own experience. The same way the Seth material did for another aspect of my experience. Again, experience comes first. No book or teaching can be a replacement for direct experience. God can not be understood, God must be experienced. Did I already mention EXPERIENCE? 😁

How do you "refocus" consciousness? View what other realities? If we can't even see the whole of this reality...?

It's the Bully Gang!!

I know what you mean. In the absence of a deeper connection, we seek human connection in relationships or even just a meaningful friendship, and if that's not available, a casual shag in Pattaya will have to do. There comes a point in one's life though, where these types of connections don't satisfy us anymore. They are just mirror images of a deeper longing that, no matter how deep the connection to that other person is, still seeks fulfilment. Then, if that longing becomes unbearably strong, you embark on a new journey. This journey requires you to become a hermit, not just physically but spiritually. It requires you to let go of those other worldly endeavors and face the unknown. It is indeed lonely up there in the stratosphere. So why do it? Because you realize that "absence of likeminded people or meaningful relationships" is not the same as loneliness. Because you reconnect to the source that puts all other forms of fulfilment in the shadow. And once your feet are firmly rooted in that source, you come back to the world and you notice a big change in you. Those meaningful connections you were seeking in that one special person, you can now find in every person, any stranger you meet for 5 minutes. You recognize that the Source in you is the same Source in them, even if they don't know it/see it. You will not feel lonely ever again.

Sorry, but this doesn't make any sense to me. WHY?!?