Sunmaster

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?!?

Is Tipperary a sort of paradise in Tippers' world? It's a long way too...

Oh my goodness, I can't imagine the pain of the parents. So sad.

Thanks but no thanks. Too busy climbing those stairs.

Thanks for enlightening me.

Sorry, not sure what you're talking about. I never read the bible and I doubt I ever will.

I don't know about Purdey, but I'm in.

A-ight....you go talk to him. Show me how it's done. Let's see if you can get a "popular post" this time.

(Sunmaster puts on the white coat and apron and approaches the customer) I compliment you for the way you worded that. Others would have simply said "It's all BS and you are all delusional." The argument of "the Christian God" perceived as something negative is something we can work with. If we take the concept of the Christian God being a constant, what changes is how people perceive this concept. Some perceive it as uplifting, benevolent and loving. Others, like you, perceive it as negative, oppressive and cruel. The question now is, how did you come to this conclusion?

What? And deprive the other posters and posterity of all these pearls of wisdom? That would be selfish and cruel!

We are strict with you because we care...like loving parents who want to see little Tippers grow up well and find happiness. 💖

That is only the foreword and the table of contents...

55555 Always listen to momma. Momma knows best.

You can write that book and explain to them what consciousness is. Knowing you, it'll probably end up being a rather long book... 😁 Make sure you add a few pictures too.

How about this for a title? "Timmy Tippars and the Way to the Stars".