tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52116730023679603322024-03-16T11:52:36.227-07:00Beyond AdvaitaRamesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.comBlogger129125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-75611517738816646142018-12-05T10:48:00.003-08:002018-12-05T11:10:55.224-08:00On the Role of 'bhakti' in Advaita:<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>On the Role of 'bhakti' in Advaita:</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
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[<i>bhakti</i> has
a role even in the Knowledge Path (<i>jnAna mArga</i>) of Advaita. It is useful at three levels in the
Knowledge path. I am giving a brief note below where <i>bhakti</i> is useful for a seeker.]</div>
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<br />
"Devotion" to a deity, object, mantra, ritual etc. serves the seeker: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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(i) In the initial phase in disciplining the mind
and sharpening its focusing ability so that it can be
made mature and fit to carry out an incisive and unbiased
Self-inquiry; <o:p></o:p></div>
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(ii) At a post-enlightenment stage to stabilize oneself
to abide "as brahman" without break. bhakti helps in
restricting the habituated mind to returning to its ways of reacting
like a separate entity. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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If the mind feels too agitated or disturbed
also, bhakti can be used to calm it down and bring it back to
the brahman-thought.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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There will be situations where the mind has no
work. Then the seeker can think of a favorite god and keep
praying to him and thus keep the mind occupied.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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(iii) After liberation bhakti may also be useful for a
jIvanmukta.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The situation described here is, strictly speaking, not
about the seeker. It is about the body that previously housed the
"now liberated seeker." The body of the seeker
who successfully went through the preparatory drill (called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sAdhana catuShTaya sampatti</i> - the
Fourfold Aids of Seeking), is already re-orientated in its behavior,
responses and interactions (no greed, avarice, no <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>immoral thoughts/actions etc. etc.). It
is now well-disciplined with no desires and acquired a pious code of
conduct. It is filled with dispassion and detachment. But there is no more
any finite individuated person who claims it as "me or
mine" to perform motivated actions. Still that body has to live
until it perishes in its own time. It has no goal or target
to achieve in this world. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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What will it do? It will continue to carry on the same
way of living that it got used to before the enlightened "owner"
left it. (speaking figuratively). 'bhakti' towards a Godhead is quite
handy for such a body which formerly housed the seeker who was seeking.
The body spends its time in symbolical surrender to that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">nirguNa brahman</i>, praising and
singing hymns in Its glory in diverse <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">saguNa
</i>forms. This is what we see in the lives of people like Shankara,
Nisargadatta, Ranjit Maharaj and many other realized people, IMO. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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***<o:p></o:p></div>
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For "understanding" the actual reality, devotion
(any sort of master-slave relationship) can be a detriment. Because
there is a danger of the disciple becoming too dependent on and attached
to his object of devotion (deity, guru, scripture, mantra etc). Moreover,
'liberation' will not come as a result of any action "done." Shankara
defines devotion as <span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">" </span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The seeking after one’s own real nature is designated as devotion. Or The inquiry into the truth of one’s own self is devotion" </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">in</span> Vivekachudamani (verse 31-32).<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
In spite of the above limitations, one can use "bhakti" to train
one's mind in feeling "Oneness" with all.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Some people are more emotional in nature. They like devotion
and they have a tender nature, more kindness etc. They do not like to be
too analytical. <o:p></o:p></div>
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These type of people can like and love others easily. They
also like to have a Godhead to believe in as a protector, guide and so on. A
loving devotional approach is good for them.<br />
<br />
Some other people are too analytical, questioning everything and they like to
argue and debate on each point. They cannot like and love everyone unless
they are like-minded. So this type of people feel more at home with
a logical approach.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Actually it DOES NOT matter which approach one takes. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In both cases the MAIN POINT OF ADVAITA TO BE UNDERSTOOD is
that :<br />
<br />
"I am not just this body and mind;<o:p></o:p></div>
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I am not a distinct and separate individual who lives in a
world with others also living in it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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That means to say that I am everything and everyone I
perceive.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There is no world or any "other" which is not me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In other words What-IS is all ONE." <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Some
Questions & Answers:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: red;">1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Is bhakti just as valid as the path of knowledge?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Bhakti will take you a long way, no doubt. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In the very last stages of bhakti, one comes back to
the Knowledge. But at that stage, it makes little difference whether you call
it bhakti or knowledge.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: red;">2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>How do chanting, singing and other bhakti practices, including
karma yoga to the deity connect to taking one's stand as Awareness?</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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All such activities train the mind to be calm, kind,
compassionate and less and less oriented to taking the interests of one's own
little 'self.' <o:p></o:p></div>
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A person becomes more considerate, and helpful to others.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Such attitudes helps in reducing the difference of
"me" from "other."<o:p></o:p></div>
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It thus helps to more quickly fell the absence of
differences and feel Oneness with all.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Otherwise, it is more difficult to break the walls of
separation between me, my property, my image, my family and "others."<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: red;">3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Could you please shed light on the same? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Bhagavad-Gita and Upanishads also say that you can worship
and pray to a god form.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Our mind is comfortable to deal with clear shapes and well
defined objects.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It cannot imagine, for example, a thing without any
dimensions. Your mind can think of very very minute size - like a
subatomic particle. Or it can think of a huge galaxy of stars.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But try and think of dimensionlessness, or a thing which has
no qualities.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Or another example.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Think of "Gold." Just gold but not in the form of
an ornament, or nugget or lump or even with the colors of yellow etc. Can you
think?<br />
<br />
NO.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Therefore, it is much more difficult, no, it is
impossible for the mind to think of brahman.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Hence, it is good practice to think of a great God, all his
good qualities, think of him as your protector and helper. Do all things in his
name, as an offering to him.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Upanishads say that that God form will help you. How?<br />
After all, every god form is a force. Like a boson. Your mind will know by
worshiping that god form (force) ways to use that force even without your
conscious knowing. So the mind will get to take help of that force and act
with its help. That power will then take you to its place (abode). There you
will get further instructions in an easy way about reaching <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">brahman</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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All this is said in the Upanishads.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">4.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">purana-</i>s say chanting is the best form
of practice in kali Yuga. Could you please comment on that?</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Chanting is the easiest way to keep continuous touch with
the force of your choice (God form).<o:p></o:p></div>
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It can be done at all times, places and just in your mind. No
elaborate procedures, instruments, coconuts, mantras etc. etc, are necessary. You
will always be in touch with the chosen force.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The force itself will take over the control about how
you behave and act. It will help you in breaking the walls of separation
between you and the world and feel Oneness.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You may like to see the 2-part Blog Post here:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The Two Courses to Advaitic Truth – <a href="https://beyond-advaita.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-two-courses-to-advaitic-truth-1.html" target="_blank"><b>Part 1</b></a> and <a href="https://beyond-advaita.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-two-courses-to-advaitic-truth-2.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Part 2</a><b>.</b><br /><br />And Also <span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">"<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.advaita-vision.org/on-narada-bhakti-sutras-nbs-2/" target="_blank">On Narada Bhakti Sutras – 2</a>"
(Discusses how a Devotee approaches the deity in devotion)</span></span></div>
<b></b></div>
Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-828815656368845342018-02-04T14:53:00.000-08:002018-02-04T14:53:10.418-08:00Four Questions by A Buddhist on Advaita<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>Four Questions by A Buddhist on Advaita</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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Advaita very
clearly states that anything "known" or "perceived" or
objectively "experienced" is NOT It. Rupert also makes this point in
the Video “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f95XorCcgrM">Awareness's
knowing of Itself</a>.”<br />
<br />
In fact, the <i>mANDUkya</i> mantra 7, which is the bedrock foundation for trying to
convey what <i>brahman</i> is, rules out any
type of 'conceptualization' by the mind about brahman. ‘<i>brahman</i>’ is simply unthinkable. No words can express It.<br />
<br />
We have from <i>taittirIya</i> – II-iv-1;
"Failing to reach <i>brahman</i>,
words, along with the mind, turn back."<br />
<br />
<i>kena</i> Upanishad admits the
helplessness of teaching It: I-3: "The eye does not reach there, nor
speech, nor mind, nor do we know (Its nature). Therefore, we don’t know how to
impart instruction (about It)."<br />
<br /> So it is impossible to even to take recourse to a metaphor to say what
Awareness is.<br />
<br />
With all that impossibility, still It is not totally unknown to us, though not
knowable through the mediums of mind and sensory organs. It is a non-objective
immediated intuitive knowing only.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: blue;">B:
My background is Buddhist thought... mainly Tibetan, with a little bit
of Zen. I’m inquiring despite the somewhat combative tone…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;">To me, Rupert seemed to imply in the short video
posted that Awareness does know itself directly.<br />
<br />
But, he also mentions there are schools who say knowingness itself is
unknowable directly, so it is known only by implication: “I am that.”<br />
<br />
But this is a debate within Buddhism also. Is awareness self-reflexive or not?
Does light “light itself up” or not?<br />
<br />
If not, how do we know we’re aware... only by implication? If we do know
self-reflexively, in what way do we know? </span><br />
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R: When Rupert says
that “Awareness knowing itself,” the main point is that from the perspective of
Awareness (caricaturing for the moment as though It has a perspective, just to
drive home a point), there is no "other" for It to know. It is a
rhetorical statement.<br />
<br />
Suppose we ask "What does the 'saltiness' taste to itself?" what
would be the possible answer of Saltiness? It never has to taste itself. It
knows the taste by being itself. Likewise, Awareness knows Itself by being
Itself. IOW, Awareness and Beingness
become synonyms.<br />
<br />
That is why Rupert invariably adds that Awareness knows Itself “by being
Itself.” It does not have specifically anything
“to do" to know Itself.<br />
<br />
You mention that Rupert also says that "there are schools who say
knowingness itself is unknowable directly." <o:p></o:p></div>
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Yes, Awareness is unknowable directly to a limited or finite
mind (a ‘me’ or ‘you’).<br />
<br />
Awareness is Infinite. Mind is limited. The
greater cannot be contained in the lesser. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
When you say that Awareness is known only by implication: “I am that,” are you referring to the famous <i>'aham brahmasmi</i>'? The statement that “I am <i>brahman</i>” is NOT made is not a conclusion by implication. That
statement is made by a seeker after total doubtless realization that what s/he
calls as “I” is really <i>brahman</i>. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Awareness can never be known by "implication."<br />
The "knowing quality" is with Awareness alone. There is NO other
entity which has that quality. In fact, that knowing quality Itself is
Awareness. There are no two things - Awareness and a 'knowing quality'
possessed by Awareness. Therefore, It is A-dvaita (no-two).<br />
<br />
I would like add as follows:<br />
<br />
The whole thrust of Advaita is to make us understand that It is Awareness only
which knows. There is no we (or a 'me') which knows. That knowing element
Itself is 'we' or 'I.'<o:p></o:p></div>
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If by "we" (or I ) you mean to refer to the
body-mind in your question, Advaita emphatically declares that the 'knowing
element" is NOT the body-mind. Therefore, Awareness (which is not
'located' or restricted to the body-mind) is aware of Itself.<br />
<br />
It can best be understood by a little thought experiment.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Imagine a
self-luminous open infinite space. Suppose there is a pot in that space. There
is space within the pot as well as outside the pot. It is all the same
self-luminous brilliantly shining one space all over. Can and does the pot
really able to separate or break the open infinite space? The luminous space
within the pot does not have to illuminate itself by self-reflectivity. It has
inhered that quality of luminescence.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: blue;">B:
"Does the current moment of awareness know the same moment of mind
or the previous moment of mind? Does one aspect of mind know another aspect of
mind?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span></div>
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R: I like to first
clarify on the terminology.<br />
<br />
Per Advaita, mind is not separate or distinct or different from Awareness.<br />
There are several models that Advaita gives to understand 'mind.'<br />
<br />
One general model is that those two are related like a mass of air and breeze. Breeze
is nothing but air in movement. Likewise, Consciousness in movement is mind.
Mind stable is Consciousness (or Awareness).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Another model is mind is like a ripple (a throb) in
Awareness.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Still another helpful model is that Infinite Awareness when
of Its own volition and freedom ignores Its own Infinity and 'imagines' a
finiteness to Itself, we call It mind.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As mind is movement, first ‘time’ and then ‘space’ arise
with the movement. Unless and until there is a movement, there is no time-space
in Awareness. And hence, no world.<br />
<br />
When Awareness looks at Itself through that little ripple(called mind), It sees
Itself as the ‘world.’ So Advaita holds
that 'Perception itself is Creation' (<i>dRiShTi
reva sRiShTiH</i>). If there is no perception there is no creation, no world.<br />
<br />
Once a challenge was posed by a theoretical Physicist to express Quantum
Physics in 120 characters on the twitter. A clever guy said: "If you look,
it's a particle; if you don't, it's a wave."<o:p></o:p></div>
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I paraphrased it for Advaita: "If you look, it's a
world; if you don't, it's brahman."<o:p></o:p></div>
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The three periods of Time as past present and future arise
only in the world. Awareness is prior to spacetime.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I often give the thermometer metaphor. A thermometer can and
always will function in the present. It cannot give you the temp of a minute
ago or tomorrow's temp. The thermometer has no past or history and memory. It
is the mind that has a memory. Like the thermometer, the Real Perceiver, which
is Awareness, is already and always in the Now. Like a room having several
windows in it, several minds can be within One Awareness.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: blue;">B:
For me, the "Screen analogy" is not
a good analogy. The light does affect the screen. It warms the screen as some
of the light is absorbed and some of it is reflected. What is seen is not on
the screen. It is the light reflected off the screen. What I mean to say is
that awareness is creative and aware. It can't be creative-aware without that
which is inseparable from awareness, being created, and being known</span>.<br />
<br />
R: I also agree that it "is not a
good analogy."<br />
We have no attachment to it. After all, it's a metaphor.<br />
We can always go for a better one.<br />
<br />
A metaphor is only a "messenger" to convey an immediately
incomprehensible 'idea' or a 'concept' or a 'theory' (<i>siddhAnta</i>) which is the real message. We will not and cannot kill
the message by killing the messenger.<br />
<br />
What would be a better analogy for the Advaitic understanding we are discussing
here?<br />
<br />
Shankara wrote a short work of 68 verses titled "<i><a href="http://estudantedavedanta.net/Sri_Shankaracharya-AtmaBodha%20%28and%20Other%20Stotras%29%20-%20Swami%20Nikhilananda%20%281947%29%20[Sanskrit-English].pdf" target="_blank">Atma bodha</a></i>."<br />
Every verse contains a beautiful simile as the second line for what is taught
in the first line of the verse. A lovely text. It is definitely worth the time
to study it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: blue;">B:
Awareness never appears without giving rise to and knowing, so to talk
about it as though it existed independently ..... strikes me as somehow subtly
incorrect.<br />
Awareness never appears without giving rise to and knowing, so to talk about it
as though it existed independently - especially in a context where the dividing
line between awareness and everything else has fully dissolved - strikes me as
somehow .</span><br />
<br />
R: Let's take the simple case of the
'sensing ability' of a TV antenna.<br />
<br />
We know that the antenna has the 'capability or power' to detect a program
(irrespective of the type, quality, content, mood etc. of the program). We know
so only from the fact that it "gives rise to and knows" a
program.<br />
<br />
Suppose we are not watching any program. Will it be then "subtly
incorrect" to say that 'that quality of detecting sensitivity' of the
antenna "exists independently" (independent of the program being
played or not)?</div>
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[Acknowledgements: This post is carved out of a FaceBook Conversation.<br />The Picture of Buddha with a Swan is adopted from <a href="https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fs-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F8b%2F2d%2Fc7%2F8b2dc7f2fbd32df853d40f797ecb36fa.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.co.uk%2Fpin%2F335870084694815307%2F&docid=8nj1GdynjI5WSM&tbnid=igaXfwh0fGJobM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwjFlt-XqI3ZAhUJ1GMKHUHHDCgQMwhCKAMwAw..i&w=469&h=659&itg=1&bih=599&biw=1120&q=image%20buddha%20swans&ved=0ahUKEwjFlt-XqI3ZAhUJ1GMKHUHHDCgQMwhCKAMwAw&iact=mrc&uact=8" target="_blank">here</a>. ]<br />
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Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-81834166742899617412017-12-27T21:50:00.004-08:002018-01-09T09:32:39.172-08:00The Science of Enlightenment and Brain<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Science of Enlightenment and Brain</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As we come to a close of this year, I post here two very fascinating Videos about the scientific work that is going on in some places in the USA relating to brain and the changes in it on the general topic of our interest - Enligtenment.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">1. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoqNe-U53wA" target="_blank">UVA DOPS Faculty: Do We Survive Death? A Look at the Evidence</a>: </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">About 2 hr 30 min containing the Talks of five experts (+ Q & A) on:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> (i). Mr. Jeff Olsen: Shares his real life </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">inspiring and moving</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">story of Out of Body and Near Death Experience</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> (ii). Dr. Bruce Greyson: Near Death Experiences</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> (iii). Dr. J. B. Tucker: Young Children Who Remember Past Lives</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> (iv). Dr. J. K. Penberthy: Mindfulness and Altered States of Consciousness<br /><br /> (v). Dr. E. F. Kelly: Consciousness is more than a Brain Activity</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">2. <span style="background-color: white; color: var(--ytd-video-primary-info-renderer-title-color, var(--yt-primary-text-color));"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SJCDLHyeqk" target="_blank">Finding our enlightened state by Andrew Newberg</a>: 15 min 01 sec<br /><br /> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Trust you will find them informative and enjoyable.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">[Added on Jan 09, 2018: Our Readers may be interested to watch this Video of Dr. Klee Irwin. He explains the Physicist's approach to the problem of Consciousness.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Click <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9SfV4BDdHg" target="_blank"><b>here</b></a>.]</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #0492e8;"><span style="color: red;"><b style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Wishing All Our Readers</span></b></span><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: white;"><br /></b></span></span><br style="background-color: #0492e8;" /><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: white; color: blue;">Seasons Greetings and</b><br style="background-color: #0492e8;" /><span style="background-color: #0492e8;"><span style="color: blue;"><b style="background-color: white;">Best Wishes For a Happy And Prosperous</b></span><br /><span style="color: blue;"><b style="background-color: white;">New Year</b></span></span></span></span></div>
Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-85038904469557528432017-09-29T06:00:00.000-07:002017-09-29T06:00:02.789-07:00Videos explaining Infinity, Complexity, Sentience and Consciousness<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Videos explaining Infinity, Complexity, Sentience and Consciousness</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I present this month links to four Videos which I felt are outstanding in their ability to communicate latest developments in Science that have a relevance to Advaita. Three of them are by Prof. <span style="background-color: white; color: #2c2c2e; letter-spacing: 1px;">Neil Theise, MD, a diagnostic liver pathologist and adult stem cell researcher at the Beth Israel Medical Center of Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the fourth by Vsauce. (The original sources for the Videos are available at the links).</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="background-color: white; color: var(--ytd-video-primary-info-renderer-title-color, var(--yt-primary-text-color));">1. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: var(--ytd-video-primary-info-renderer-title-color, var(--yt-primary-text-color));"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC0CePsV2rs" target="_blank">Non-Dual Conscious Realism </a>(2015), 36:24 min:</span></b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: var(--ytd-video-primary-info-renderer-title-color, var(--yt-primary-text-color));"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: var(--ytd-video-primary-info-renderer-title-color, var(--yt-primary-text-color));">"Prof. Theise </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; white-space: pre-wrap;">proposes a generalized theory of “Non-Dual Conscious Realism” addressing the fundamental issue of consciousness. This theoretical framework posits the universing arising from an undifferentiated, non-dual field of pure conscious awareness. From within this universal consciousness emanate the complementary phenomena of Planck scale quantum vacuum and quantum foam, generating space and time, matter and energy."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">2. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOJQIl3N7hw" target="_blank">Complexity T</a></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOJQIl3N7hw" target="_blank">heory</a></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOJQIl3N7hw" target="_blank"> and Panpsychism </a>(2016), 21:34 min:</span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Prof. N. D. Theise and Prof. M. C. Kafatos</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> say that "Philosophical understandings of consciousness divide into emergentist positions (when the
universe is sufficiently organized and complex it gives rise to consciousness) vs. panpsychism
(consciousness pervades the universe). A complexity approach shifts autopoietic theory from an
emergentist to a panpsychist position and shows that sentience must be inherent in all structures
of existence across all levels of scale." </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: var(--ytd-video-primary-info-renderer-title-color, var(--yt-primary-text-color));"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #2c2c2e; letter-spacing: 1px;">3. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2c2c2e; letter-spacing: 1px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: var(--ytd-video-primary-info-renderer-title-color, var(--yt-primary-text-color));"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaGuSZz-Fzw" target="_blank">Everything Only Looks Like a Thing </a>(2017), 33: 46 min: </span></b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: var(--ytd-video-primary-info-renderer-title-color, var(--yt-primary-text-color));"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Prof. Theise presents Complexity Theory's applications to biology and explains how the self-organizing principle depends on randomness. He advances the dialogue between science and spirituality, reminding us that non-duality implies duality, and that nothing is independent or permanent."</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>4. </b></span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s86-Z-CbaHA" target="_blank">The Banach–Tarski Paradox </a>(2015), 24:13 min:</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"The Banach–Tarski paradox is a theorem which states the following: Given a solid ball in 3‑dimensional space, there exists a decomposition of the ball into a finite number of disjoint subsets, which can then be put back together in a different way to yield two identical copies of the original ball. In other words, adding or subtracting anything from Infinity does not change it. It reminded me of the <i>pUrNa madaH ... shAnti mantra from brihadAraNyaka upanishad."</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">[It may please be noted that some of the ideas of Prof. Theise are considered too speculative. For example, see <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0ow_1ck8Uo" target="_blank">here</a> (2016), 18:55 min.]</span></div>
Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-46846176517906969132017-08-18T06:00:00.000-07:002017-09-02T14:24:34.625-07:00A Beautiful Lady Inside and Outside!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>A Beautiful Lady Inside and Outside!</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EF-AyxH6g_c/WYoVZJFY_bI/AAAAAAAAAhw/NdaROaGVv-sDf2tNXMiYn_QF2tLzwUwVwCLcBGAs/s1600/Gommateshwara.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EF-AyxH6g_c/WYoVZJFY_bI/AAAAAAAAAhw/NdaROaGVv-sDf2tNXMiYn_QF2tLzwUwVwCLcBGAs/s320/Gommateshwara.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gommateshwara</td></tr>
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<i>Abhinaya (Abby) Vedula is my lovely daughter who has a flair for writing. When she was a little kid we went on a trip to visit some of the famous places in Karnataka, India. She was quite excited to see the larger than life (59 feet) 10th century image of Gommateshwar carved out of a single rock at Shravanabelegola. She wrote a fascinating account about the statue. However, at the end, she said that one thing she couldn't appreciate - Why Gommateshwar was left embarrassingly naked!<br /><br /> Now Abby is a mature adult taking care of not only her own family but also me and her mother with love and affection. She recorded her feelings at her own Blog on the expiry of my wife. Making an exception, I present a link to her Post here on our Blog.</i><br />
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<i>Please <b>Click here</b>. <a href="http://awesomelyblossomingchildren.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">A beautiful lady inside and outside!</a> </i><br />
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<i><a href="http://beyond-advaita.blogspot.com/2014/01/contemplative-meditation-nididhyasana.html" target="_blank">Vijay Pargaonkar</a> has been kind to send a pleasant and soothing flute recital by him - please click to listen </i><i>-- ramesam</i><br />
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(Credits for the Pic of Gommateshwara: By Rvsssuman - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21275331)</div>
Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-69996583161445387592017-07-21T06:00:00.000-07:002017-07-21T06:00:06.731-07:00Jhana Meditation and Vedanta by Stan Kublicki<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"><b>Jhana Meditation and Vedanta </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"><b>by Stan Kublicki</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">[<i>Stan has been a seeker ever since he could remember. He
grew up mainly in Christian tradition. He had many epiphanies as a teenager. He
was drawn to the psychedelics during his adolescence and strongly believed that
he could find God. He began to practise
what he would now call as “samadhis.” Later he studied Zen and became a Zen
monk. Subsequently, he got involved with the tides of worldly life, marriage,
business, and so on. When the business and the money were good, he shut shop
and left for the Polish mountains. He and his wife nursed his
mother-in-law 24/7 during her terminal illness. That was then his
spiritual yearning again blossomed when he reviewed his life and spiritual
experiences. It was as though the God responded. He had an extended
period of intense inquiry that resolved his doubts and fears. It was an
epiphany that felt that the `weight of the world` lifted instantly. He
describes the state of joy he was in at that time in unassuming simple
words: “Nothing spectacular; just like a car struggling up a steep hill
and getting to level ground at the top. I realized I was not the doer!”
After the death of his mother-in-law, they moved to England. He came
across Ramji’s (James Swartz) writings and the tongue in cheek enlightenment
test that James included. The test showed that Stan was already a
sage! LOL . He got hooked to James’s teachings and
writings. Deeply impressed by the Vedanta, he felt that his knowledge was
still a little too subjective to understand the panorama of Non-duality in
full. He eventually reached a level of contentment and peace presently to
declare that he is “rich in all respects now. A loving wife, a beautiful home
in a beautiful area. Not much money but plenty of time to appreciate this
wonderful life.” He lives now in the UK.</i></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"><i>I am obliged to
Stan for his ready consent to share the story of his experiences in his investigation of Reality. These are excerpted from his conversations on FaceBook at his favorite site</i><span style="color: red; font-style: italic;"> </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/FriendsofJamesSwartzVedanta/" style="color: blue; font-style: italic;" target="_blank">here</a><i> - ramesam</i>]</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; line-height: 17.12px;"><b>Jhana Meditation and Vedanta </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; line-height: 17.12px;"><b>by Stan Kublicki</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Question: </b>There are apparently 8 stages of
jhana and I am wondering if you can elucidate the experience with them?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b>Stan Kublicki: </b>I went through all the stages long ago and also a
'step beyond' so to speak. I practiced those stages just prior to my study of
Vedanta thought by then I realized I was not the doer. However, my knowledge of
Vedanta was partial and all the doubts I had were not removed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b>Stan’s Home in Poland</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> I started to re-experience the old jhana samadhis in the
early stages of reading James`</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">book</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;"> on "How To Attain Enlightenment." I was getting spontaneous
samadhis during my contemplation in those days.</span></div>
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Oddly enough, despite being a samadhi junkie for a long time, they made me
laugh during the Vedantic Self-inquiry and I couldn`t practice them
anymore. They just got in the way!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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I even hit the `highest` level and although it was very pleasant but that
highest high was not `high` any more. No special distinction. I just packed it in after that and never
sat again. No point to it anymore.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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I`d like to mention that most of my meditation over the years has been the
`Just sitting with no deliberate thought` of Soto Zen and I view Jhana
meditation as different as there is a very definite object of meditation,
especially to start off with.<br />
<br />
I at one time, long ago now, noticed that if I looked at the reflection of my
face and concentrated on being very still...looking at my eyes but keeping the
rest of the image visible and still, I eventually started to `lose myself` in
the image and experienced a somewhat elated feeling. It felt as if I could go a
lot deeper and that there was another dimension drawing me in deeper.<br />
<br />
I had naively believed during my teens that that I could find God
directly. I went to two boarding schools run by monks and was greatly shocked
that they actually couldn`t contact God directly and their knowledge was all
talk. I figured that the main reason must have been that they didn`t believe
they could experience God directly and consequently never tried to do so. I
reckoned, come what may, I will give it my all. The idea of failure was not a
possibility for me. I decided that by strong one pointed concentration, I could
`break on through` and experience God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">My meditation developed into sitting with my eyes open and
looking at any object that was in front of me keeping absolutely still. I
practiced this indoors and outdoors with great determination and found that as
I progressed, whatever was in front of me started to `disappear` but I couldn`t
get past that point for a long time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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As you asked me to summarize the stages, I will give one memorable example for
me, of how I experienced them (I don`t really regard them as stages), and where
they eventually led me. I can see why people use the word `stages` as the flow
of concentration feels like overcoming repeated obstacles and this becomes
familiar...i.e., getting beyond the senses being one of them. I never thought
to count these `stages` as I didn`t see the point and the whole process felt
linear at heart.<br />
<br />
On one occasion, I was outdoors sitting high up in a rocky gorge and looking
out towards the other side. I picked out a colorful tree, a particular branch
and then a leaf that I could see clearly.<br />
<br />
I sat perfectly still as usual and concentrated hard on never letting my sight
leave it.<br />
<br />
Eventually, as always, the surroundings started to disappear and only the leaf
and the rhythm of my breathing remained.<br />
<br />
After a further while, the surroundings started to sway and bend ...a bit like
being on LSD but I knew that if I hung on and kept my body and eye focus even
more still whilst concentrating on the leaf, the swaying and moving would stop,
and it did. I now had a perfectly still image of the leaf 'glowing' in the
middle of its surroundings and it was now 2-dimensional and not the 3-d image
we normally have. This caused an uplifting and 'rising' feeling.<br />
<br />
I let the uplifting feeling lead me on. It felt perfectly natural. As I did so,
the leaf lost its prominence and the whole image seemed to be made of crystal.
It was sharp clear and bright and a feeling of euphoria ensued.<br />
<br />
I felt drawn to go further but couldn`t. At this point I felt as if my whole
body was as heavy as the universe, as if I was feeling it`s weight for the first
time. After a while, this passed and I `moved on` again.<br />
<br />
The next `stage` was that I felt as if I had moved right into the image as if
through a very fine subtle curtain. Almost imperceptible and all sense of an
outside world disappeared. This was accompanied with a feeling of rapture and
wanting to go deeper.<br />
<br />
After some time, everything was replaced by a feeling of being in infinite
space. If you can imagine sitting in a skyscraper on a chair, and all of a
sudden the chair and the whole building just disappears from under you. This
stage always for me seems quite thrilling... I can see why some people like
bungee diving!<br />
<br />
The next `stage` was of everything dissolving into clear light with even more
uplifting rapture.<br />
<br />
When this had settled for a time, a far stronger light started to take over. It
seemed as strong as looking right into a welding torch. So powerful that I
wondered if it would be painful. It turned out to be pain free and a feeling of
ecstasy followed.<br />
<br />
After this comes an experience of neither light nor no light. Just vast empty
stillness and experiential bliss. Even the bliss eventually is not evident
anymore and it seems like there is nowhere further to go....usually.<br />
<br />
On this example I’m referring to, the feeling of being drawn deeper didn`t stop
but there was an impasse. It always feels possible to ‘return’ but, this isn`t
the end of the road.<br />
<br />
It seemed like I was drawn to the edge of a precipice of unknown depth where I
would have to risk all by diving into it.<br />
<br />
I hesitated out of fear but decided to see if I could have a little `look over
the side`. What I saw made me gasp in amazement and wonder. I saw what seemed
like the universe as the top of a colossal fountain, constantly renewing and
surpassing itself in ecstatic beauty. There was nothing objectifiable there but
everything was in a state of infinite possibility. I dived in!<br />
<br />
As I 'fell,' it felt as though I was falling past dim floors or levels where I
could get off at any time but a silent voice kept saying...`not this, not this`
until I arrived at the bottom with the gentleness of a feather landing on a
cloud. I do apologize for the language but that`s how it felt. LoL .....<br />
<br />
As I looked around, it seemed as if I had landed on the bottom of a brightly
lit ocean. I could see the light coming from above me with wisps of wave-like
subtle light trails appearing and disappearing. Everything was perfect (almost)
stillness and peace. It then felt as if I gathered myself to back up to a
position as if against a wall, to gaze further into where it was that I found
myself.<br />
<br />
I recall thinking ...so, this is it. Having travelled the universe I had gone
full circle just to get home again! Finally!<br />
<br />
But then, the thought occurred... wait a minute, Home? What is home? And as I
looked again, it felt as if the whole universe crashed down and collapsed and
only I was left. That was the mother of all `double takes` on reality I ever
had and it took me 30 years , having found Vedanta to fully understand what
that `double-take` or knowledge is. It being that I am whole and complete,
unborn, non-experiencing, self-luminous awareness. I can finally put words to
it as I know what it means.<br />
<br />
I didn`t have the words at the time, for what had happened and needed the words
from Vedanta to remove my remaining ignorance as I didn`t understand the full
implications of the knowledge that had occurred to me. If I could have only met
a Vedanta teacher then!<br />
<br />
I scampered down the `stages`, couldn`t quite get out of the Light stage right
away and wondered whether I was alive or not ...I couldn`t tell anymore. I was
curious though and I emerged into a bright new beautiful world. It was still
here! I knew that all joy is in me...objects are only a trigger for it and that
there is no `outside` world and life was wonderful.<br />
<br />
I needed to repeat the experience 30 years later in slow motion with nothing
left out. When I found James, he told me that there was only one or two things
I needed to know and life was already blissful. Little doubts can remove a lot
of bliss though!<br />
<br />
When I bought James’s book, I had to give up my blissful life and it was
probably the hardest thing I have ever done but, the reward, if you could call
it that, is far beyond any worldly value. It is the gift of eternal life and my
gratitude can never be repaid to James and Vedanta.<br />
<br />
I know that if I had stuck with the higher stages of Jhana meditation, I could
have been stuck there for life or just given up and lived a half a life from
then on. It is pretty hard work after all!<br />
<br />
If I hadn`t stumbled forward to what I now know was a <i>savikalpa samadhi</i>,
the mind of inquiry would probably not have taken hold in me and I would have
chased experiential enlightenment for who knows how long?<br />
<br />
Funnily enough, I can still `enter` those jhana stages if I try. I think I
mentioned that I had a stint of meditation a while back and hardly noticed the
higher stages as standing out from the rest of the experiences. I am the
meditation. There is nothing to meditate on any more. Unless you call inquiry
into Self-knowledge to be meditation.<br />
<br />
Sorry to drag this out but I thought some context might have been helpful in
seeing the limitations of Jhana meditation. Anyway, it takes a lot of effort to
keep up and I’m too lazy for that indulgence nowadays.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-29377371368350833422017-06-28T15:44:00.000-07:002019-03-30T18:21:13.251-07:00"Satsang hijinks" terminology from Greg Goode<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">As Non-duality (Advaita) is becoming more and more popular in the West, many Gurus are having a field day. In order to either catch more clientele or to make things simpler for the disciples, several new definitions and compromises in the teaching of the Non-dual message got introduced. New fads also have become common to prove oneself to be more Non-dual than the next fellow-disciple. Greg Goode who is not unknown to our readers, happened to compile some of those novel and hilarious hijinks. Here are a few of those terms (adopted from <a href="http://www3.telus.net/public/sarlo/Shtick.htm" target="_blank"><b>Sarlo's Guru Rating Service</b></a>):</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">LUCKNOW DISEASE - Linguistic malady befalling seekers at Papaji's. Characterized by never using the word "I" - to encourage one's self and also show others that there is no one at home here. Instead, they would say stuff like "This form is going to the rest room."<br /><br />ADVAITA SHUFFLE - Conversational gambit. What Andrew Cohen accused Gangaji of doing when she didn't want to talk about ethics and enlightenment. Jumping to the absolute level at odd times. Like when the receptionist asks why you were late for your doctor's appointment. "There's no one here to go anywhere or be late for anything."<br /><br />LANDING - Losing one's enlightenment. What Gangaji accused Andrew Cohen of having done. Term used by those who think of enlightenment as a kind of thing that can be lost. Something like claiming enlightenment and then getting peevish and petty over who pays the tip at the diner.<br /><br />NONDUAL POLICE - Those who badger others to use nondual terminology. Whenever they hear someone saying something like "I'm going out for coffee," they barge in: "WHO is going out for coffee??" Nondual police want everyone to always be in constant Ramana-self-inquiry-mode.<br /><br />THE EYE THING - Keeping eye contact with the other person as long as possible. Whoever drops their gaze first is not as established in the Beloved. Some blinking is OK, but not too much. The deeper into the Self you are, the longer you can hold it. Used by many satsang teachers. One of my friends can out-stare anyone. He kinds of drops into a Candida-mind-fog, and hours can go by.<br /><br />***</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Here's one of the more obvious "beyond-shtick" shticks I've heard of -- a guru telling their followers to read THE GURU PAPERS. This story was told to me by a person who has known this particular guru for about 20 years. My contact knew this person a long time before the latter launched into guru-dom. Right now the guru has sort of a beyond-it-all, angelic, evanescent appearance, with lightly draping silk and cotton "consciousness clothing" in cloudy pastel colors. Before gurudom, there were other forays into the spiritual world, including psychology and psychotherapy, attempts to find investors to set up a new-age educational system (which never got off the ground), then therapy leadership and Buddhist meditation. When first launching out into the world of giving satsang, this teacher would talk about shtick and the bad things that could become of it. As if initiating the students into the secrets of "beyond," and as if showing there was no such nonsense going on *here*, they would recommend the students to read THE GURU PAPERS...<br /><br />***</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Another thing to look for is the self-serving relationship between the criteria-giver and the criteria. The person in the chair at the front of the room -- check to see if their recommendations serve to direct you right back to them! One teacher I won't name does this in satsang:</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Question from seeker: "What should I look for in a teacher?"</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Answer: "The most important thing to look for is ... "</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">... ... ... (a minute or 2 go by)...</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> "a silent mind ... "</span></span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Yeah, right!!!!!<br /><br />***<br /><br />A recent "find" we like to add to the above listing is a new terminology introduced into Advaita in order to make things easy for Western disciples (as claimed by one such disciple). It is "The Non-dual Infinite Realization of my finite little 'self.' Oh, yes, it actually has been christened with a Sanskrit combined with English name. It is called Self-Realization with <i>pratibandhaka-</i>s -- as though one can attain a conditioned salvation! (It is something like saying "You are granted US citizenship with no permission to enter the country." 😏)</span></span></h3>
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Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-77075052693788677712017-05-19T06:00:00.000-07:002017-05-19T06:00:02.729-07:00The Role of A Teacher in Teaching Advaita Vedanta <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="color: #353535;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Role of A Teacher in
Teaching Advaita Vedanta <o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #353535;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By Dhanya<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #353535;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">[<i>Dhanya, a fellow-Blogger at Advaita Vision,
has been interested in </i>sanAtana<i>
dharma and Eastern philosophy since about the early 1970s. In 1973, she
traveled to India in search of a guru to guide her on the spiritual path. While
there she encountered disciples of Neem Karoli Baba. His teachings of bhakti
and karma yoga very much influenced her life from then on. She studied Vipasana
meditation, met HWL Poonja, and other advaita teachers like Jean Klein and Sri
Ranjit Maharaj. Finally she found a resonance in her current teacher, Dr. Carol
Whitfield, a disciple of Swami Dayananda Saraswati. Dhanya has undertaken a
deep study of Advaita Vedanta as the means to Self-knowledge with Carol. Dhanya
lives in Northern California, and often writes on Non-duality.<o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><span style="color: #353535;">I am very grateful to
Dhanya for contributing this crisp and highly insightful Post for publication
at our Blog – ramesam</span></i><span style="color: #353535;">.]<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #353535;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Role of A Teacher in
Teaching Advaita Vedanta <o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #353535;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By Dhanya<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #353535;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In
the teaching of Vedanta, we say Vedanta is a '<i>pramANa</i>' (a means of knowledge) that uses words for teaching.
So we don't go by 'presence of the teacher' or 'transmission' or other things
that some in the non-dual scene seem to feel are effective. We just go for
pointing out, through words, what the student's own direct immediate experience
already is, in order that he or she recognizes it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #353535;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So
if a teacher uses words as pointers, and we are using those words to point to
something that is already 'here,' but isn't here as an object, then those words
have to be handled very carefully, and also understood very carefully.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #353535;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Language
is inherently dualistic. All words point to something that exists in
duality. Even the words '<i>Atma</i>' or '<i>brahman</i>' will initially conjure up a
concept in the mind of the student. (They certainly did for me!).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #353535;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So
then, how can words, which initially point and refer to objects, be used to
point to your “Self” which isn't an object and yet is here to be recognized?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #353535;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The
teacher needs to 'knock off,' or negate, the initial, primary, i.e. usual,
meaning of the word prior to using it as a pointer to the Self. And this
requires skill on the part of the teacher, and an openness to understanding on
the part of the student. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #353535;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Doing
this is the first part of the dual process of negation and positive assertion.
Vedanta employs for this purpose various methods which in the end lead to the
recognition of '<i>aham brahmasmi</i>,' 'I
am that <i>brahman</i> (Non-dual Existence/Consciousness) alone.'<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #353535;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So
for instance with the word 'Consciousness,' the teacher negates from that word
all the ideas and definitions one has around it, as well as negating all the
other concepts one has about who one is. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #353535;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Once
the 'initial' meanings of the word have been knocked off through negation, then
the teacher introduces what is called 'the secondary meaning of the word,' or
‘the positive assertion’, and uses that meaning to point to the Self which one
already is (conscious/being). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #353535;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It
might be better to first talk about is-ness or existence, rather than beginning
with an explanation of the word consciousness, as everything obviously has
is-ness and the ‘consciousness’ part may not be always evident. Even something
that doesn't exist has is-ness conceptually, whereas in one's initial
understanding of the meaning of the word 'Consciousness,' not everything has
consciousness.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #353535;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Many
people know about the negation aspect of the teachings--the <i>neti, neti</i>, 'I am not this, not
this.' But many do not know about the 'positive assertion'-- how words
are used to point out “THAT” which one truly is.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #353535;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The
teacher needs to be skilled to know how to do both the negation and positive
assertion. I think that some in the modern non-dual scene think that once
everything you are not has been negated, what you are, naturally kind of pops
up, or automatically gets revealed. I have heard such statements from modern
Western Non-dual teachers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #353535;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But
Vedanta would say this is not so--that the positive assertion--the pointing to
That which you are--is as important to the recognition of '<i>aham brahmasmi</i>' as is the negation of what you are not.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #353535;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">IMO,
the interesting thing is the 'consciousness' which we initially assume to be a
product of the body/mind, and different from everyone else's consciousness,
actually is Non-dual Consciousness. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #353535;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So
a teacher needs to know how to use words to negate from the student's mind the
notions about all that he or she is not; and then, using words again, point out
that the Existence/Consciousness one takes oneself to be, minus the 'overlay'
of the individual body mind, *is* the Non-dual. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wTZO27BU7JU/WQpm6Go843I/AAAAAAAAAgU/AcfsakFNG7oXRhw2WJnTynGfNuj1_13YQCLcB/s1600/courtesy%2BKathy%2BMoffit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="386" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wTZO27BU7JU/WQpm6Go843I/AAAAAAAAAgU/AcfsakFNG7oXRhw2WJnTynGfNuj1_13YQCLcB/s400/courtesy%2BKathy%2BMoffit.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(Courtesy: Kathy Moffitt)</td></tr>
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Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-17995215214823348012017-04-30T11:34:00.001-07:002017-04-30T14:09:21.767-07:00The Science of the Upanishads<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Science of the Upanishads<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">By Karthikeyan Sreedharan<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">[<i>Shri Karthikeyan Sreedharan has been posting at the IndiaDivine.org Web site crystal clear and crisp explication of the principal Upanishads bringing uniquely the convergence in the ancient Indian message of Advaita taught by different Sages. So far four major Upanishads have been covered and seven more to go.</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">When I requested Shri Karthikeyan for a few lines about himself to serve as an Intro at this Blog, he said that "Kindly introduce me as a student of Vedanta. My expertise,
background, interests, etc. are to be discerned from my writings, not from my
claims. For, my writings reflect them all." Though he has been so humble and reticent in talking about himself, his understanding of the Aupanishadic philosophy undoubtedly surpasses many of those who claim themselves as Pundits. </span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>I am grateful to Shri Karthikeyan for his ready consent to let me post at our Blog an abridged version of his Introduction to the Science of Upanishads. Shri Karthikeyan can be reached by <a href="mailto:karthiksreedhar@gmail.com" target="_blank">e-mail</a> -- ramesam</i>.]</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Science of the Upanishads<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">By Karthikeyan Sreedharan<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Upaniṣads are treasures of Indian spiritual thoughts of ancient times. The ten most ancient Upaniṣads belong to the period of 1500 BC to 600 BC, according to commonly agreed estimations. They are called the Principal Upaniṣads and are considered to be the most authentic ones.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There is another Upaniṣad by name Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad belonging to a later period, but viewed at par with the Principal Upaniṣads, considering the dexterity and erudition with which the subject matter is dealt with therein.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Upaniṣads represent philosophical postulations either extracted from these three or compiled independently. Of the eleven Principal Upaniṣads, one (Īśa Upaniṣad) is part of a Samhita (Śukla Yajurveda), four (Bṛhadāraṇyaka, Chāndogya, Kaṭha, Kena) are parts of Brāhmaṇas and two (Aitareya, Taittirīya) are parts of Āraṇyakas. The remaining four (Praśna, Muṇḍaka, Māṇḍukya of Atharva veda and Śvetāśvatara of Kṛṣṇa Yajurveda) are independent compilations. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Upaniṣads are not like ordinary spiritual texts which dwell on glorification and appeasement of an almighty god through prayers, rituals and offerings with an intention to secure protection, prosperity, happiness and long life. The primary concern of Upaniṣads is not the physical life as such, but the ultimate principle that sustains the physical life. Upanishads recognize the existence of an entity beyond the phenomenal world. They advance the concept of reality from a relative plain to the absolute state, to the reality that is free from all limitations of time and space. This advancement is the greatest achievement that Indian meditative mind accomplished and it is the greatest ever height that human mind scaled in speculative thinking.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">[Upanishds] being extracts from other three parts of the Vedas, most of the Principal Upaniṣads contain some portions that do not fit well with the main theme under discussion in that particular Upaniṣad. Therefore, while interpreting the Upaniṣads to derive lessons therefrom, these portions have to be omitted from detailed consideration. In the present endeavour we concentrate on those teachings that a rational mind should take note of and assimilate into its own cognitive constitution; in this process we simply ignore those contents which are rather ritualistic or purely mythological in nature.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Links to the respective essays are given below:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">1. <a href="http://www.indiadivine.org/science-ishavasya-upanishad/" target="_blank">IshAvAsya</a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">2. <a href="http://www.indiadivine.org/science-brihadaranyaka-upanishad" target="_blank">BrihadAraNyaka</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">3. <a href="http://www.indiadivine.org/science-chandogya-upanishad/" target="_blank">ChAndogya</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">4. <a href="http://www.indiadivine.org/science-katha-upanishad/" target="_blank">KaTha</a></span></div>
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Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-85832117101925615452017-03-01T06:00:00.000-08:002017-10-30T04:57:26.550-07:00Does Advaita Make Us Insensitive and Heartless?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Does Advaita Make Us Insensitive and Heartless?</span></b><br />
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<b style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Questioner: </b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I find a tendency toward spiritual reductionism in modern
non-duality--- everything is just X, and X doesn't really change. Whether that
is God, or being, or consciousness, or sat-chit-ananda doesn't really matter.
The point is there is a real and an unreal, and the unreal is not really
valued. For example, saying that love arises from ourselves only, and is
projected onto spouses, babies, and puppies seems to me to place the focus on
the inner core to the exclusion of the outer manifestations. If our core is changeless and
transcendent, and if all our core is the same core, and nothing really changes,
well, then---- nothing really matters. </span><br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Kqq3rASGxDs/WLN2aziqlCI/AAAAAAAAAe4/X82KKIiW7wsolUWjfXYbb4STbClq2frAgCLcB/s1600/Typhoon%2Bturbulence%2B-%2B80%2BKM%2Bacross%2BVongfong.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="111" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Kqq3rASGxDs/WLN2aziqlCI/AAAAAAAAAe4/X82KKIiW7wsolUWjfXYbb4STbClq2frAgCLcB/s200/Typhoon%2Bturbulence%2B-%2B80%2BKM%2Bacross%2BVongfong.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Consider another approach. Instead of a false projection, what if objects were
an expression? What if each moment was a unique and wonderful droplet of
perfection, never to be repeated? What if instead of an error, the entire
universe was an artistic creation? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;">What about the hopes and dreams and the many small things that
cause this particular vibration to be unique? I am not just a core of
awareness, but an unbounded pool of thoughts, energies, and expressions that is
not the same and yet indistinguishable from the rest of the world and the
cosmos. What if,
in fact, everything really matters?<br />
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I'm not saying that the first version is wrong or incorrect, but it leaves me
feeling hollow. I cannot generate warmth and kindness--- real warmth and kindness,
the wondrous sweetness of the heart, for a projection that is ultimately just
me in disguise. Nor does it require a sense of self and other, because
immersing into this sweetness obliterates concepts of self and other.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b> Ramesam:</b> Your
“What-if” questions are not any alternate doubtful scenarios. They are all
affirmed statements in the teaching of Advaita Vedanta. </span></div>
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As expressed in Bhagavad-Gita (BG)
Chapter 10, every form that you perceive, and interact with is nothing but a Godly
manifestation. BG IV – 24 says more explicitly that everything including you,
the sentient doer, the insentient instruments that help in performing an action and the doing
itself are all <i>brahman.</i><br />
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Yes, Sir, consummation in the Totality dropping the sense that 'I am a separate person,' and thus “immersing into this sweetness
obliterates concepts of self and other,” (as you say) undoubtedly and with certitude. The fact that "the sense of a “me” to be separate from the rest is just an illusory belief" will be understood and the individual ego dissolves
completely in that moment.<br />
<br />As far as Advaita is concerned, I would like to point out that the so-called
‘reductionism’ you are attributing to Advaita is different from the
“reductionist” approach in Science. Yes, the teaching does talk of the
irreducible Oneness, Consciousness, <i>brahman</i> or ‘X’ – call It whatever you like
– it is but a step in imparting the Advaita message. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Unlike what some people may think, Advaita is NOT about changing the world; it is also NOT about improvements to our puny imagined ‘self’ or 'selves.' It’s just an illumination that exposes in its brilliance our false beliefs and identities. It explicates that “What-Is” is all “That IS” and proclaims unhesitatingly that “You are That (<i>brahman</i>)” and not merely the tiny body-mind which you mistakenly take yourself to be.<br />
<br /><span style="line-height: 15.6933px;">The teaching does not end there. </span></span>It’s only a halfway house. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After having a taste of that ‘X,’ the student is
asked to find out Its nature and “experientially realize” the same by
himself/herself. Advaita does not provide any ready-made formula as an answer.
There are no ‘theorems’ like:</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">a<sup>2</sup>
+ b<sup>2</sup> = c<sup>2</sup></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">which you can learn by rot, then take to the market for application carrying a
setsquare and T. The seeker has to intuitively feel the Ultimate Advaita
understanding, grok it, and live it.</span></div>
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Advaita tells you that the usual worldly perspective is misguided.<br />
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We normally value the ring, necklace, bangle etc. We worry and take care to
preserve and embellish their shape and utility. The shape is the noun in our speech. Their
real substance, gold, is just a ‘changeable’ adjective in our syntax – a golden
ring, a silver bangle etc. Advaita points out to the misplaced accent in that.
It tells you that the variable form is NOT the real thing. Gold is the true
substance of value. It is more appropriate to talk of ring-y Gold, necklace-y
Gold, bangle-ly Gold. Gold is the true unchanging One ‘substance’ while forms
are merely changing appearances.<i> brahman </i>is the Gold and all the entities in the world are the varying forms like ring, necklace etc. in the above metaphor.<br />
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Advaita does not ask you to destroy the form or act differently. There are no
injunctions in Advaita. It’s not a religion with a laundry list of Dos and
Don’ts. It only nudges one to let all the action spring from that
"understanding" of Oneness as Oneness through Oneness within Oneness
after a full realization of the non-existing illusory finite ‘me.’ The
Consciousness that you called 'X' is not a crass cold clod of clay, insentient
and insensitive. </span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Consciousness is the very Life living Itself,
ever fresh, always anew and ever in the Now without any claim for the </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">agency (ownership)
of action. A river flows. It does not claim ‘I am flowing.’ It does not mind an
impediment in its path. It goes around it forever happy and bubbling. If it
does not flow, it is no more a river. It just stays as a water pool.</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Rupert Spira said in 2014:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Knowingness itself raises as Attention and appears as thought.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Beauty itself raises as Perception and appears as the world.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Love itself raises as Devotion and appears as the beloved (God)." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To that I added:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Tranquility itself raises as Equanimity and appears as justice.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">An author explains: " Equanimity </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">is even-minded openness that allows for a balanced, clear response to all situations, rather than a response borne of reactivity or emotion. It </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">stresses the importance of balance. A balanced heart is not an unfeeling heart. The balanced heart feels pleasure without grasping and clinging at it, it feels pain without condemning or hating, and it stays open to neutral experiences with presence." </span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>Questioner: </b> The Gold is real and the ring, bangle, etc. are not. That is one view. The other view is that the gold is valuable, but so is the ring --- you can now wear as an ornament. In fact, a well crafted artistic ring is much more valuable than the gold, even though its form is temporary. </span></span><span style="background-color: white;">There is an interdependence between the gold and its forms--- just as there is no ring apart from the gold, there is no gold aside from its various manifestations.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #1d2129;"><b>Ramesam: </b> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;">Advaita would want you to carry your inquiry into the dream and deep sleep worlds too and not just stop with the awake world. If you do that, you will see that the POV of 'economics' of the awake world will not work anymore in the other states.<br /><br />The inquiry also challenges you to inqu</span><span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="background-color: white;">ire into "gold" (or any object) without any form of manifestation.<br /><br />Just as you say "there is no gold aside from its various manifestations," the above inquiry will lead you to discover that there is no object of any type anywhere aside from " mind."</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><b>Questioner: </b> Why should I enquire into the other states? My questions pertain to the waking-me.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #1d2129;"><b>Ramesam:</b> Our aim in our inquiry is to find the ultimate reality. In order to obtain a full answer, I ought to inquire into all the sates in which a 'me' exists. Otherwise, the result of the inquiry will only be partial. You never experience of an absence of yourself. So we have to find what is happening to the objects we value in the awake state or dream state in addition to what is the meaning of the very word "value" we seem to give importance in the awake state.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"><b>Questioner:</b> Is a human Guru essential for a seeker?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #1d2129;"><b>Ramesam</b><span style="background-color: white;"><b>: </b> </span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">The traditional Vedantins (TV) believe in the necessity of receiving an instruction only from a Guru. In the good old days, there were no external storage media for the teaching preserving the correct pronunciation of the words etc. So all transmission of knowledge was through oral means of communication. The students too were taken at a very young age before their brains were fully mature. Such young lads had also to be trained in different fields of education like language, logic, arithmetic etc. The present times are different. The seekers are much older. They have basic education, they are reasonably trained in their ability to critically examine issues with focus and determination and so on. They come with certain level of maturity in the pursuit of inquiry. </span><br style="color: #1d2129;" /><br style="color: #1d2129;" /><span style="color: #1d2129;">Shri Atmananda, who propounded the Direct Path (DP), </span></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">himself did NOT insist anywhere in his own writings about the necessity of a human guru though </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">he </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">did meet in-person his guru - Yogananda. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Nityatripta who recorded and reported Atmananda's conversations with the seekers writes that Atmananda </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">sometimes spoke </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">about the importance of a direct contact with a Guru. However, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">that could </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">more possibly </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">be </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">a reflection of his own slant.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br style="color: #1d2129;" /><span style="color: #1d2129;">I remember that a question was posed to Nisargadatta Maharaj about the necessity of a human guru. He clearly told the questioner that even the "word" in the book would carry as much effect as his verbal sound even after hundreds of years after he was gone!</span><br style="color: #1d2129;" /><br style="color: #1d2129;" /><span style="color: #1d2129;">One comes across in India</span></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">stories from folklore and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the ancient Indian Puranas </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">that tell us </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">how the flutter of a tree leaf, the grunt of a pig etc. worked as "triggers" to evoke the 'tipping point' in a mature seeker.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br style="color: #1d2129;" /><span style="color: #1d2129;">I concede, however, the presence of a fully-awakened Guru will be highly useful for a seeker to clear his doubts immediately and authentically saving the time of the disciple who, otherwise, may have to spend time in the searching within the storage media (print/multimedia etc).</span><br style="color: #1d2129;" /><br style="color: #1d2129;" /><span style="color: #1d2129;">Other than that, I go perfectly with JK who said that "it is the guru who needs the disciples and not the other way" or something to that effect and also with UG who is known as the anti-Guru guru! </span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">What is important is the unswerving earnestness and sincerity of the seeker in his/her quest to find the Truth. The Grace is always there everywhere. It may arise in any form as per the need. </span></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It appears as though it is the teaching or the teacher coming in search of you.</span><!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
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Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-25545766634716108992017-02-01T17:31:00.000-08:002018-12-05T10:20:15.886-08:00The Two Courses to Advaitic Truth - 2<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Two Courses to Advaitic Truth - 2<br /><br />[<b><a href="https://beyond-advaita.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-two-courses-to-advaitic-truth-1.html?fbclid=IwAR0CMq1sFUU6perDZ7lFOT03EK4VkAAc6uLTdJrP4sN_BBG5sTW3VAbYyMw" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Part - 1</span></a></b>]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Oftener than not, the "loyalty" factor plays an
important role in the philosophical pursuit of the people who are strongly
bound by the apron strings of their background religion. Most of them take
easily to monotheistic or other dualist philosophies. Those of them who migrate
to Non-duality from such a background tend to carry the vestiges of their religious belief
structures and amalgamate the same into their Non-dual teachings. The manifestation of the loyalty factor may take several
forms with varied grades of intensity -- a servile devotion to the Guru (teacher), worship of a
higher power, adherence to elaborate rituals, clinging to a personal deity etc. They would insist that the only way a
spiritual aspirant should proceed is to approach a master, who is
well-versed in the scriptures and had realized the ultimate Truth "carrying with him
a faggot of wood" and get the initiation</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">only</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> from him (the realized Guru knowledgeable of the scriptures). They deride and despise
other forms of obtaining the Supreme Knowledge. They chant and sing rhapsodies and laudatory hymns adoring their favorite Godhead or many other godly forms who can
bestow specific boons. They honor tradition, they are conservative in approach, very disciplined and devotional by nature. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">They entertain an unshakable faith in the concept of 'rebirth.' They
have detailed descriptions of the way how their subtle body travels after the
death of the gross physical body carrying the effects of their past actions in
the form of 'tendencies' along with it. They firmly believe in the 'Theory of
karma.'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">[Interested readers may see here my essay on the "Infirmities in
karma theory": <span style="color: blue;"> <a href="http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/teachers/karma_ramesam.htm" target="_blank">Click</a></span> ]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The ending of "the cycle of births and deaths" is 'Liberation' for them. It is bondage to be subjected to "the cycle of births and deaths." Hence a created world and 'birth and rebirth' occupy an important place in their
approach. They have many prescriptive dictates to be rigorously observed
placing themselves at the center as the "Doer" of those practices. They hope to be rewarded from a meticulous implementation of the stipulated methods. Their initial goal is to achieve the
most subtle world called '<i>brahma loka</i>' as a result of performing meritorious deeds and strict observation of the rituals. The Lord Brahma is
expected to reveal to the eligible seeker the final Truth whereby he/she
attains the Self-realization. Thus Liberation, they hold, can be attained in a progressive manner. The followers of this system use frequently a mantra, a deity or some such prop for repetitious daily rituals and once they get habituated to it, they experience its tranquilizing effects. There is a danger that some of the seekers may mistake that sort of happiness itself as the ultimate and be lost in a "comfort zone" they may etch for themselves and begin to deify the prop used by them. [Sometimes it is also possible that the seeker may get into a dependency syndrome </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">on the guru</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> and be attached to the guru or in worse circumstances it can be a mutual dependency of the student and Guru with one another - a symbiosis of sorts.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> ]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I will like to call them as the followers of the Religious path. "Devotion" and a Master - slave attitude is firmly believed and expected to lead them gradually in progressive stages to the final Non-dual realization. Almost all of the persons who claim to be the followers of "traditional Vedanta" can be put in this group.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The traditional Vedantins subscribe to the view that the three states of awake, dream and deep sleep we go though in our daily life are not real and the three states appear and disappear on a background which never disappears and is constantly present behind them as their substratum. The unchanging substratum is called as the Fourth (in Sanskrit, <i>turIya</i>). <i>turIya</i> is said to be the true nature, the Ultimate Reality unavailable to the mind and inexpressible in words.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The traditional system is mostly in vogue in India and is also
claimed to be followed by many of the organisations that promote traditional Advaita through their centers in a few of the developed countries. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What is to be noted is that the Advaita teaching does not invoke or need a God. Even if a reference is made to a God as a provisional statement in an argument, not a moment is wasted in declaring that 'you' yourself are that God! In the words of the
well-respected Advaita scholar, Shri V. Subrahmanian, <span style="color: blue;">"In the method of
Advaita Vedanta, theism is only a means and not an end. Theism is a starting
point for spirituality and <b>the transcending of theism is the end of
spiritual process.</b> Thus, the Vedanta introduces (<i>adhyAropa</i> is
the technical term) God concept and portrays God as the cause of the observed
world. Its intention is to turn the aspirant’s mind away from the world where
she is engrossed and fix it in the Creator-God by enabling the aspirant to
appreciate the glories of this Creator-God. Here comes the role of worshiping
the God who is attributed with omniscience, omnipotence, etc. Once this is
accomplished, <b>the work of Vedanta is to take the aspirant further to
the point where the creator-concept is dropped</b>, the created-universe idea
is dropped (<i>apavAda</i>) and <b>the aspirant-consciousness alone is the
all-important one</b>, being unnegatable, undeniable. This consciousness is
shown to be the infinite, free of body-mind apparatus. Thus <b>theism is
not the end </b>of Vedanta.” </span>[Emphasis added by me.]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We find that the sequence of creation mentioned in different
Upanishads is not uniform. Creation is described in multiple ways. The
main purpose of the various Upanishads "is not in establishing a
real creation but only to teach us about the One 'Creator', <i>brahman</i>. In
other words, the creation <i>shruti-</i>s (scriptural statements) are only an <i>upāya</i> (means) to
drive home the idea of the Sentient Cause, <i>brahman</i>, but not in the
reality of a created universe." Shankara tells us that the gist of
Upanishadic teaching is essentially that "nothing is ever born; there is no
cause for birth." It is also said that the purported teaching about the Laws of karma is only to nudge the dull-witted towards true Vedantic understanding.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Advaita Vedanta is not a system that teaches approved and prohibited observations to be practiced. It does not have a list of dos and don'ts. It is not about changing the world or working towards self-improvement. Advaita is an inquiry
into the incontestable really real Reality, the Ultimate Truth. Advaita equips the seeker
with a few time-tested tools to enable him/her to conduct a bias free inquiry,
verifiable by oneself through one's own experiential understanding at each stage of
the inquiry. It does not lay out a "path" proceeding by which the
seeker is guaranteed to reach a goal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The inquiry into Truth begins with an analysis of one's own experience. The
two principal components of all experiencing are: the "I," the
experiencer and the object that is experienced. So two simple questions launch the seeker on the course of his/her Self-investigation: "Who Am I?" and "What is this world
that is being experienced?" This is what I would like to call as the logical or analytical stream.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The 20th century Advaitin trio Atmananda Krishna Menon, Ramana
Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj popularized this method of approach which is
christened as the "The Direct Path." It was Atmananda who gave the name "Direct Path." The seeker is upfront made to
realize the hollowness of the commonly assumed presence of a 'me,' a
touchy-feely solid entity, living somewhere inside the body-mind. Next s/he is
shown to be not separate from or different from what is perceived around,
including his/her own body-mind. When this is firmly ingested by the seeker,
s/he has to work towards bringing about his/her body-mind to be fully aligned in this understanding in its day to day functioning. The followers of the Direct Path consider that the awake and dream worlds are two modulations of the Deep sleep and the experience they have in the Deep sleep itself is their true natural position of Happiness. Thus, for them, <i>turIya</i> and Deep sleep are one and the same.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We see that The Direct Path of Advaita is spreading fast and has
become quite popular in the Western countries.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-56363153540812721022016-12-23T06:00:00.001-08:002021-04-30T02:43:52.558-07:00The Two Courses to Advaitic Truth - 1 <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">The Two Courses
to Advaitic Truth - 1<u><o:p></o:p></u></span></b></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> There appear to be two distinct courses which a seeker may
take, metaphorically speaking, on the journey upstream to find his/her Source
- i.e. the Ultimate Non-dual understanding (Advaitic Truth) that says there is neither a seeker,
nor a source to reach; neither a movement nor even a path to tread on. All is "What-Is" as IS right
here and now at this moment. I would like to call one as the
"Religious stream" and the other as the "Philosophical or
Analytic stream." The distinction between the two paths, though broadly apparent
from a distance, could appear to be pretty hazy and porous or fading at the
edges when looked at closely or under a lens. It may be easy to discern the differences
between the two streams if I describe the broad characteristics, practices, and
the geographic spread in their popularity. One may not fail to notice the
distinguishing shades between the two routes, perchance, if I provide some
names of their most prominent preceptors, as type examples. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Those people who take the route to Advaita with a strong
base in religious thought, go by the belief-structures that their religion
demands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">It is not difficult to surmise that ever since the “modern man,” Homo
sapiens sapiens, discovered</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">in the good old times</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> the advantages of group-living and learnt the dynamics of managing interrelationships and also
realized his capability for abstract thinking, religion played a pivotal
role in the development of his life and activities. It </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">helped</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> to </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">evolve conceptual schema which
in turn contributed to establishing a mature and harmonious society. It didn’t matter
whether it was a tribal society or a nomadic one, religion served as a
binding force for the group-members. It was looked upon as the arbiter of
justice within the society. It was the stipulator of the prescriptive norms that specified the acceptable code of conduct to be followed in living the daily life by
each member of that group.</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Comparable to the concept of ‘allegiance to a written or
unwritten constitution’ in the modern day nation states, religion acted in the distant past as the ultimate
authority to be loyal to. It was their symbol even to die for. It provided a purpose for life.
Unquestioning belief in the concepts promoted by that religion and also a formidable faith in a supervising Godhead that would police the acts and dispense justice formed the most crucial (and necessary) components of a religious framework. For
example, an ‘<i>Astika</i>’ is defined as
one who has firstly an unquestionable allegiance to Vedas, secondly believes in the existence of
other-worldly experiences, and thirdly, subscribes to the doctrine of rebirth. The
concept of rebirth, where it is present, is strongly shaped by the other 'religious
belief structures’ within that particular society. </span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Whatever it is, 'Rebirth' as a 'reward and punishment' mechanism
remained very useful in the repertoire of tools for the maintenance and
guaranteed management of a secure and harmonious society. It became a very
successful and irreplaceable ‘meme.’ Let me quote here what I wrote </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">in an</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">essay</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">in
2004 regarding the functional value of a Godhead in a religion:</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="background-color: #ffe599;"> <i>“... ... instead of having an external enforcer of the regulations constantly
monitoring the behavior of the individuals, self-regulation increases the total
efficiency of the system. A Godhead is a policeman internalized within each
individual to ensure, through self-regulation, a behavior that is in line with
the designed objective of overall welfare, comfort and well-being of not only
the individual, the whole society but also the total environment.”</i></span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Religion demands “loyalty.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">But the important question has to be to what should an
inquirer’s loyalty be? For an honest inquiry, it cannot be </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">to the form in which or how the Ultimate Truth is
expressed but to the Essence of the Truth.</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Can there be then a conflict between two individuals who have a
clear understanding of the Truth?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">(To Continue ... <a href="https://beyond-advaita.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-two-courses-to-advaitic-truth-2.html?fbclid=IwAR3SMbCErodeErCuSWYbst8K7xwainkfJ72OCX627oyEQnnM9znSbLf6LU8" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: blue;">Part - 2</span></b></a>)</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif" style="background-color: #0492e8; color: red;"><b style="background-color: white;">Wishing All Our Readers</b></span><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif" style="background-color: #0492e8; color: blue;"><b style="background-color: white;"><br /></b></span></span><br />
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Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-35405529426044657322016-11-18T06:00:00.000-08:002016-12-16T09:09:35.856-08:00Physics of Reality - 9: Complexity, Action, Time and Causation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SD0p-fXDTb4/WB8YjWA6M1I/AAAAAAAAAcs/foEpRmPb7iwCHkrlErEylq1Qt4ja4S66QCLcB/s1600/question.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SD0p-fXDTb4/WB8YjWA6M1I/AAAAAAAAAcs/foEpRmPb7iwCHkrlErEylq1Qt4ja4S66QCLcB/s200/question.jpg" width="190" /></a></div>
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<ol style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 0px 0px 1.625em 2.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Why Doesn’t Time Flow Backwards?</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Do Cause and Effect Really Exist?</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Where Does Complexity Come From?</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">What (or How Entropy) Powers the Earth?</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">What Is the Purpose of Life?</li>
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The above are some of the questions that all curious and observant persons ask at one time or another. Those very questions are at the base of all human investigation – be it a scientific quest or a philosophical contemplation. <span id="more-5281" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
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Many such Questions were raised and answered by the ancient Indian Sages and Seers. What they narrate begins with ‘<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">brahman</em>.’ By definition <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">brahman</em> is a pointer to that primordial unknown and unknowable “Is-ness” which has the potential for anything and everything, but by Itself is simple, formless, featureless, homogeneous, non-acting and beyond space and time. Scriptures describe <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">brahman</em> to be the cause (<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">kAraNa</em>) and the <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">jagat</em><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>(the world) as the effect (<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">kArya</em>). However, the <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">shruti</em> is vague on the transformation from One to many (<i>brahman</i> to the manifested manifold which we call as the world).</div>
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The principal difference amongst the various philosophical theories and propositions rests on this point of explaining the relation between <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">brahman </em>and <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">jagat</em>. Advaita holds that the <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">shruti</em> is vague about <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">brahman </em>to<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> jagat </em>transformation because the very appearance of <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">jagat</em> is an illusory (<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">bhrama</em>) superimposition (<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">adhyAropita</em>) on the changeless <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">brahman</em>. It also says that a cause-effect relationship does not really exist because ‘time,’ without which causation cannot arise, itself is non-existent.</div>
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It is interesting to note that leading theoretical physicists also arrive at a similar argument like Advaita with reference to the unreality of the ‘arrow of time’ or the non-existence of cause-effect operation. Causation is said to be no more than a name we give to a pattern we ‘think’ we observe in nature.</div>
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Here is a link to five short (3 min odd) Videos of Sean Carroll, a well-known physicist from Caltech answering the five questions given at the beginning of this Post. He explains in the Videos in simple terms the laws of Physics behind the emergence of complexity from simplicity; how there is no possibility for action happening in a simple system which is at its equilibrium; how we get a sense of the ‘arrow of time’ and other related phenomena.</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKbJ9leUNDE&feature=youtu.be&list=FLRhV1rWIpm_pU19bBm_2RXw" style="border: 0px; color: #1982d1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Click here for the Videos. </a></strong></div>
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Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-40936744681448986262016-10-21T06:00:00.000-07:002016-10-21T06:00:20.876-07:00Notice What You are Noticing by Sky Nelson<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Notice What You are Noticing </span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by Sky Nelson</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[<i>Please see <a href="http://beyond-advaita.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-source-of-synchronicity-by-sky.html" target="_blank">here</a> for an Intro about Sky Nelson - ramesam.</i>]</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“You” evolve out of the experiences you have</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Attention”,
or “Noticing”, is something that seems to come from inside of us. When we “pay
attention”, we “send” our focus to our environment. Just as when we pay money
we get a product, when we pay attention we get information. Without paying
attention, we can’t receive information.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> To see what I mean, try this. Sit quietly with your eyes
open. Soften your gaze. Let your mind wander to your plans for tomorrow.
Although your eyes are receiving light from the objects around you, you aren’t
paying attention to them. Since you are not taking in that information, you may
not even be aware of some of the things right next to you. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, keeping your eyes unfocused, notice something in your peripheral
vision. You are taking in information about what you see. After having paid
attention, you can describe what is around you. Before that, even though the
same light was entering your eyes, you were not aware of your surroundings. Without
paying attention, you cannot gain information.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: windowtext; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Quantifying Attention<o:p></o:p></span></span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let’s say the amount of attention you pay is equal to the amount
of information you learn or gain. This is handy because information is easy to
describe in physics. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you gain information, “entropy” goes down. Although the
entropy (or “disorder”) of the whole universe always goes up, this is not true
for each individual thing. For instance, when you eat, even though a lot of
food is destroyed, your body becomes more ordered as you grow. The world as a
whole becomes more disorganized overall, but a tiny little slice of it called <i>you </i>becomes more organized. The world is
full of pools of relative order and disorder, shifting and moving like the
surface of the ocean, and attention is part of what drives that “shifting”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Try looking at a bookshelf with focused attention. As you
observe it, you learn definite facts about the bookshelf (e.g. all the books
are fantasy novels), and remove other possibilities that can no longer be true
(e.g. there are no books about physics). By paying attention, you have
clarified the actual titles and removed other possible titles. <i>You have created a small amount of order by
applying your attention. </i>Attention is paid, information is gained, and
disorder goes down.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This may seem abstract, but it can be very practical.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: windowtext; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Information Changes You<o:p></o:p></span></span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Awareness is necessary to gain information. But how does the
information affect you? Information has to have an <i>impact</i> on you, or it is not information! According to a leading
theory by Giulio Tononi, “effective information” is the relative increase in
information that comes from your measurement. A key feature of a conscious
being is the effective information that is generated with each interaction. When
you receive information, you change in a measurable way. You literally become a
different person with each bit of information you take in because you <i>integrate</i> it into who you are.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tononi says “Information that is not integrated is not
associated with experience, and thus does not really exist as such.”
Information only has existence in relation to a “conscious observer who
exploits it to achieve certain (goals).” Without <i>you</i>, the world around you does not evolve. Without the world, <i>you </i>do not evolve.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Integration can be thought of as the blending and balancing
of new information with the information that, until this moment, you called
“you”. As you integrate new information, you assume a new concept of yourself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: windowtext; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The process of “I”-dentification<o:p></o:p></span></span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Who is that mysterious yet familiar person called “I”? You
know it intuitively from your direct experience. It is you, your ability to
observe, choose, and experience the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We might say that “you” are the information that you
“I”-dentify with.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Take the recent campfire I had with my daughter. It was a cold
night, with a warm fire, and the sticky-sweet taste of burnt marshmallows. All
of this information was taken in by her senses.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let’s say she didn’t like the cold air of the night. She may
have subconsciously thought “I am someone who doesn’t like being outdoors at
night.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But when she took in the warm fire and friendly people she may
have thought, “I am someone who likes being around a warm campfire with my
friends and family.” Then she tasted the sticky marshmallow, and identified
with that experience by thinking “I love roasting marshmallows!” <i>Her</i> <i>identity
was changed by her experiences.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I”-dentification with experience is what creates the “I”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You are what your mind eats. In other words, every piece of
information you receive changes your sense of who you are. Where you put your
attention determines who you become. Since attention can be quantified, we might
say that the more you pay attention the faster you evolve.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: windowtext; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Use Your Attention Effectively<o:p></o:p></span></span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To notice the quantity and quality of your own attention,
try these steps:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> 1)<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><b>Sit
quietly.</b> Allow the first thoughts to come and go. Begin to notice the
things around you. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> 2)<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><b>Notice
your attention.</b> Pick something to notice. What is it like to “see” that
thing? What is it like to gain information about that thing? Can you imagine
looking at it and <i>not</i> learning
something about it? Is it possible to turn off your attention?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> 3)<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><b>Think
about how you are <i>changed</i> by the
things you pay attention to.</b> Notice small changes. If you read the title of
a book off a shelf, it may remind you of a book you read in high school. It has
an effect on your thinking and maybe your emotions. It may inspire you to read
the book, or remind you that you are in the middle of a book you are enjoying. The
information you gain can actually cause you to take some kind of action, so it
has changed you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> 4)<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><b>Now, pay
attention to your attention.</b> Instead of sending your attention outward,
send your attention back to itself. Notice yourself noticing. This is very
powerful. You may notice your body relax, and your spine spontaneously straighten
on its own. By training the power of your attention back on itself, you gain
information about your awareness itself. This induces a natural settling and
sense of well-being.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> As you go through your day today, notice where your
attention goes, and how you change as a result of the information you gather. How
have you identified with your experiences? Since your attention is busy every
waking moment of the day, make conscious decisions about what experiences you turn
your attention to. Those experiences influence who you become.</span></div>
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Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-34680742171106364562016-09-17T05:00:00.000-07:002016-09-17T07:44:54.838-07:00Up The Creek With No Canoe By Elena Romanoff <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white;">[</span><i>Elena is an accomplished concert pianist by
education and training. Her life took a new turn when she listened to UG's dialogs. After 30+ years of being a pianist she no longer
practices or plays piano and hardly even listens to the classical music
which was her field of expertise. I am grateful to Elena who has been kind
to share at our Blog a few tidbits of her experiences - ramesam.</i><span style="background-color: white;">]</span><i> </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> I never looked for any <i>moksha</i>, liberation and yet
what Ramesam describes….., it hits home every time. I first come across
something extraordinary for me and then some time later an explanation comes
from unexpected sources. </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Not only I have not realized at that time that I am "realized," I didn't even stop to notice all the
bewildering phenomena that started leaking into my daily life seemingly out of
nowhere, creating symmetrical events that were intertwined also with
dreams. And also having recognition of this same thing permeating my earlier
life, but without recognition. Now I see it. Knowing that I was not
likely to find a satisfactory explanation for those, I never asked or mentioned
it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I now witness the world as if my mind
itself is symmetrically shaped. Earlier, there was a me, a dog, a
cat, a president out there - all standing on their own. Now the feeling is we
are all drawn in one stroke by some giant pencil that never ever was taken
off paper at all. And I see symmetrical events appearing almost daily. People,
fabrics, buildings, cars, jobs, actions of myself or others, photographs,
plants, all intertwined, often in the funniest of ways, logic-forgotten and irrelevant.
It is totally bewildering.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">My life began immersed in music and piano. I was called
a "prodigy," a "talent," was accepted into one of Russia's
most prestigious and rigorous music schools of the time. Later I
delved into philosophy as well. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NfE4lg2Kh-o/V91EpZnfBPI/AAAAAAAAAb4/7uJm-ny_lrQ5w4LCosw2P56aRhg4BQMQgCLcB/s1600/IMG_6003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NfE4lg2Kh-o/V91EpZnfBPI/AAAAAAAAAb4/7uJm-ny_lrQ5w4LCosw2P56aRhg4BQMQgCLcB/s200/IMG_6003.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I did a lot of reading all by myself. I liked
solitude, reading, playing piano. I did have friends and was highly
secular and social, partly due to constantly performing. From Kant and
Schopenhauer to Goethe, Metherlink to Thomas Mann, to even Marx and
Lenin - my reading was paramount. I was not satisfied. I never thought of
looking into bible. There was no bible in Russia. Later, when I
could look into it, I experienced complete aversion, closed it and never went
back to it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At some point in the 90's, I read Bhagavad-Gita and
Mahabharata, because someone put these two books in my hand. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I think I got rather deeply impressed; I even went
to a couple of Hare Krishna's meetings, appreciated what was said there, declared
to my parents that Krishna alone was God. That unsettled them terribly. God was
never talked about in my family, not at all. But nothing happened, life went
on, nothing developed into anything.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background: white;">I immigrated to US in 1993 after the collapse of
the USSR.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MewuKxM-Aq4/V9x0sFjlC2I/AAAAAAAAAbI/sSNWxWE5npYQh0qcbJLs3I4X69ULU6lsACLcB/s1600/IMG_5999.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MewuKxM-Aq4/V9x0sFjlC2I/AAAAAAAAAbI/sSNWxWE5npYQh0qcbJLs3I4X69ULU6lsACLcB/s200/IMG_5999.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I had my share of difficulties before
establishing my piano studio, launching on a lucrative teaching career,
performing, working in UW School of Music, recording, playing with orchestras
etc. I was a busy piano teacher with a lot of students, bringing up my son from
first marriage, divorce from the second husband etc. During that time,
I came across UG Krishnamurti's video. I picked it up in a
library thinking that it was another Jiddu Krishnamurti talk. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Making long story short, 11 years of listening to
UG's every word followed, internalizing it and holding up to it all the
daily events like a cashier might hold to light a $100 bill to check if it is
real. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Three years on into this practice,
though no one told me what I should do, I stopped teaching. I stopped most of
piano activities. I let go of that piano-self, the only self
I've known. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Not that I would recommend this sort of thing to
others. In my case after hearing to UG, piano just could not stay.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A barrage of odd jobs followed.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8Cy4AK73IQ4/V9x0_oLFY5I/AAAAAAAAAbM/lvIhH0T0UVQY6XrYAhLCJy6oNDkv5cBpwCLcB/s1600/thumbnail_Sunbelt%2B184.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8Cy4AK73IQ4/V9x0_oLFY5I/AAAAAAAAAbM/lvIhH0T0UVQY6XrYAhLCJy6oNDkv5cBpwCLcB/s200/thumbnail_Sunbelt%2B184.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">One week I was without any cash after
having paid rent and bills. The next paycheck was several days away. With 50c
in my pocket, I went to the store to get a banana. Upon exiting the
store I saw a sealed cold gallon of milk, standing right by the door on
the street side. I waited. No-one came. I took the milk. Now looking back I
call it <b>Brahman's Milk!</b> This - after being able to afford two cars, a luxury
apartment in Kirkland, pleasure trips etc. I was a self-made pauper, and was
aware of it. But I never once thought of going back to piano or teaching. Since
that time objects started to appear in a strange way, or come into view at just
the moment of corresponding thought appearing - as if there is a
person there responding to me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At 49, I had my own ‘calamity’ in the
form of advanced cancer. But because I was already out of dualistic thinking
patterns, I treated it as unreal. I didn't even realize I was that ill. It then
felt like I was just a salt doll falling down the ocean. There was no more
thinking - and yet I was still there. I thanked the cancer for showing me the
depth of that ocean...It was right after that I started getting rapidly much
better to everyone's shock and surprise.</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">About a week before I saw Ramesam’s Video
“You are Brahman," I was in a strange state.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background: white;">I kept asking myself: if I am here and I go over
there, did I go over there? No, because when I am over there, in that
"over there," I will still be “here.” So I cannot really stay
‘here,’ go over ‘there’ and from ‘here’ say to myself - I am over ‘there.’ I
can never be "over there" and look at myself from ‘here.’ So I am
only and always “here.” Then how come I can also go over there at the same
time? That is like I am already there, waiting for me to go there, and meeting
myself that is coming there. That means that “I” am some sort of a ‘space’
that is here, there and everywhere. And these hundreds of spatial and time
coincidences I have been witnessing for some time in bewilderment fell somewhat into this "I am a space" formula. I
am a place I said to myself, and was done. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One day coming home I was stopped
in my tracks with the "</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You are Brahman" video. As I was
watching it,</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Ramesam was describing exactly the
processes that were happening and I have been trying to get my mind around for
several years. "That's IT" I said to myself. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">For you to realize how deeply
unfamiliar I am with Brahman discussions outwardly - I only heard the name
Brahman from Ramesam's video. I never ever heard what <i>satsang</i> meant
until now. I only listened to UG and was deaf to everyone else until Ramesam
came into view.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Tears came down spontaneously. It
was like there was UG Krishnamurti in the beginning of being instructed from
within, putting UG there, next to one's heart, and closing all other
venues of influence. And now this video saying “You are Brahman” after an
incubation of about 11 years. I didn't know of Brahman, because I never heard UG
using this word in his interviews. I did never aim at being “brahman.” That’s
why I say my story is certainly up the Creek with no canoe. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">*** </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I am of the view that there is no
thought and no mind separate from the body. It is one whole process. And the
body consists of just diamond-like eternal structure, completely symmetrical,
completely objective. That's THE BODY. This structure has a way to squeeze
impurities out of itself – a mechanism of nature. I don't know more. But the
direct experience of the diamond structure is very clear, in hundreds of
incidences, I lost count. It is funny that UG never talked about such things,
and they appeared in my life without warning.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background: white;">For example, the other day "I" thought
of going out and getting a white paper for the printer. "I" is going
to a Safeway store. On the way suddenly it sees a posh car. The car is
making lots of noise, and as "I" is looking on, the car makes an unauthorized
U-turn, goes into a parking lot in front of 7/11 store that "I" is
passing by at that moment. The car begins to park facing the "I"
whereas all other cars are parked the opposite way.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background: white;">"I" proceeds to its
Safeway destination. On its way "I" thinks, "I should also
get a candle wick, and Safeway won't have it, but the Rite Aid might".
"I" heads in another direction, enters Rite Aid store, searches for
candle wick, does not find it, takes some white printing paper and the cashier
at the register says the total to be paid is $7.11. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background: white;">I that wanted something, went somewhere,
changed its mind – it was like surfing through symmetrical structure of some
sort . At no point in this occurrence a preplanned ‘thinking’ can be
pinned on me. Was 7/11 and $7.11 just waiting out there on the street for me to
come and check it out? "I" doesn't even come into it.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background: white;">A more recent example is what happened when I went
for a walk after attending to some e-mail correspondence with Ramesam. I found
a white paper lying on the sidewalk with the word "Free". I liked the
word. I picked it up, put it in my purse. After some time I am returning home,
and a bus, an empty bus, suddenly stops as I happen to pass by the bus shelter.
A friendly driver offers a ride, says “I am going this way anyway, and it is
the end of my shift. The ride is Free.” </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background: white;">I think at that moment: "This is a new
one. After a lifetime of waiting for the bus, running after the bus, collecting
the right fare for the bus, being in over-crowded buses, especially in my years
in Russia, as there were not too many cars back then, suddenly here is the bus,
just for me, and I didn't have to wait for it, I didn't do anything. And it is
Free! It was then I remember the paper with the word "Free" in
my purse. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">***</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> decided to make a mala the
other day, gave it to my son. In the next few days his girlfriend is
finding a new job position, her new boss's name is Mala. It goes on and on
here. Drawn with one pencil-all the way through. All-pervasive.</span></span></div>
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Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-10820787148747622342016-08-19T06:00:00.000-07:002016-08-20T05:05:47.279-07:00'manana' on brahman and ahamkAra<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>'manana' </i>on <i>brahman </i>and <i>ahamkAra</i></span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: blue;"><b style="font-style: italic;"><br /></b></span>
<span style="color: blue;"><b style="font-style: italic;">Question: </b><i>When I say that I exist and I am that
existence and the knowing principle which is the same as Brahman, am I referring to
my '</i>ahamkAra'<i> or to the ultimate Witness Consciousness ? Can I experience this Awareness? <o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>Kindly assist by sharing your thoughts.</i></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">(<i>From the Discussions of a Group on What'sup</i>)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: blue;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: blue;"><i>***</i></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xQqj-TNrtjU/V7MHFak7UHI/AAAAAAAAAac/ZbchruQ7gtwzrkWPDYk4J0xQ5dir9u8CQCLcB/s1600/rat%2Bflower.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="131" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xQqj-TNrtjU/V7MHFak7UHI/AAAAAAAAAac/ZbchruQ7gtwzrkWPDYk4J0xQ5dir9u8CQCLcB/s200/rat%2Bflower.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> That is a great way of "<i>manana</i>" that our
scriptures recommend to all <i>sAdhak-</i>s who have already heard the Non-dual message. One way
of '<i>manana</i>' is to reflect and analyse the message internally in one's own mind.
Another way is to discuss with like-minded people and this is recognized to be
far better - a true <i>satsanga</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Forget for a moment what the content of the question or the
answers is. Let us find the "source" from where they (both the
question and the answers) are arising.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Can they come up from the body which is apparently mouthing
them?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">After all the body consists of 'matter' which is inert. An
inert thing is not sensitive and intelligent to be able to raise questions or
give answers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The body is like the instrument Telephone. If you hear
sounds (words) do you ever think that it is the phone speaking and giving raise
to the words? So the source cannot be the body.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Can the source be the mind?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Just like the body is made up of inert matter, the mind is
nothing but thoughts. A thought does not perceive - a thought is perceived,
much like you perceive any other object out there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Can any object "shine" by itself, as though, announcing its own presence and asking you to notice it?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">How do you see an object? You see it only
when there is an illuminating medium - light for seeing. For other senses you
need an appropriate illuminating medium like pressure (for touch) or sound (for
hearing), some organic chemical compounds for smell and taste etc. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">What is it then which illuminates the thoughts? It cannot be
the mind because mind is nothing but a bunch of discrete thoughts. Clearly mind
or thoughts are insentient like matter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Hence, there has to be some other "Thing"
illuminating the mind or thoughts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Whether a thought is in the form of a Question or an answer,
basically they are all varieties of "thought." An interrogative
thought is labeled as a Question and an informative thought is called an
answer. Except the difference in the name, there is no difference in the
substance between them. It is like seeing two objects - a dead rat or a flower.
Whether it is rat or flower, you are actually 'seeing' the light photons only.
A rat or a flower are never known to you. What is known is only the
reflected light. Does the reflected light by itself, by its own nature, differ depending on where it is coming? Clearly no.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Therefore, what is "actually illuminating" both
the question and answer has to be one and the same.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">That "illuminating thing" cannot have another
illuminating thing behind it - It will then become an object only
leading us to an infinite regress. So let us take that very last "illuminating
thing." That thing has to be "Self-illuminating."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Can any inert 'object' which is matter "see" the
illuminating light in which it is appearing? Again clearly No.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The bodies and minds (of the people ....) are
"objects" which are perceived. So the bodies and even the mind cannot
"know" that "Illuminating Thing," whatever that is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The "illuminating thing" is the only One thing in
town which has the capacity to "know." So it knows Itself by 'being' Itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">All objects 'seen' in day light are actually the reflected 'sunlight'
seen, all words 'heard' are actually 'sound vibrations' and so on. Similarly, all questions and
answers are that "illuminating thing" appearing in that form at that moment - much like the light appearing as a rat or a flower modulated by those
objects. Your throat and mouth modulate the exhaled air into different sounds
(which are cognized as words having a specific meaning).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Hence it is the "Illuminating Thing" appearing in the form of thoughts when It gets "expressed" as statements - I
exist, I ask, I answer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Our interest is to know the "Illuminating Thing,"
the real "source," and not be carried away by the form in which it is 'perceived.'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Now you apply the above model to your questions/answers and
see what happens.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-78543735680666218072016-07-22T06:00:00.000-07:002017-12-18T07:36:58.974-08:00ABC of Advaita<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ABC of Advaita:</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The concept of a 'me' as an
'independent self' (</span></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">supported by a 'mind')</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">is required in the service of the upkeep and maintenance as
well as feeding of the body-organism. That sense of 'self' as the center of
actions helps in the performance of all actions that are required for the
minimum maintenance of the body for the span of its life. If a sense of a 'self' is absent, one does not know whether one's hand is feeding into one's own mouth or into that of a dog nearby!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MBdMuxRo38A/Wjfe1aRijPI/AAAAAAAAAig/x5lTqtLZGR0-fqEIR9yGYGa2RFbWQsijgCLcBGAs/s1600/folds%2Bin%2Bsheet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="415" data-original-width="556" height="148" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MBdMuxRo38A/Wjfe1aRijPI/AAAAAAAAAig/x5lTqtLZGR0-fqEIR9yGYGa2RFbWQsijgCLcBGAs/s200/folds%2Bin%2Bsheet.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">All such actions that go for the above specific purpose do not have
'carry-forward' effects as Krishna explains in the Bhagavad-Gita.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Therefore, one need not consider those actions for
philosophical discussions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A seeker needs to watch all other actions that go with a
motivation, a purpose, a desire for self-aggrandizement or self-protection (from insults etc.) of the self-image. These actions go
with a deep sense of ownership for things, doership for decisions taken and
agency for all the actions done.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">With the arising of 'agency' of actions, you become the
'</span><i style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">karta</i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">' (doer) and hence you will necessarily experience the consequences of
the actions done by you (i.e. you will be the '</span><i style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">bhokta</i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">' (experiencer)). There is no escape from this.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When you are the <i>bhokta</i>,
you will find that some results will be pleasant and some unpleasant. You
desire to welcome the pleasant ones and avoid the unpleasant ones. You then
struggle with what is 'happening' - judging the happenings in terms of what is
'good' for you or 'bad' for you. You create a world of your own where you keep
running away from (i.e. avoiding with fire walls) what is not good and building
'welcome gates' for what is good. All this struggle will result in
suffering for the '<i>bhokta</i>.'<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You want freedom from that 'suffering.' You seek powerful 'gods' who can protect you and you create elaborate belief systems and
processes (e.g. rituals) not only to perpetuate but also to reinforce the belief in your gods as well as your faith.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Gita suggests that you should "give up" all such
actions. If you cannot, at least practice performance of action without looking for the 'fruits.' If even this is not possible, begin actions by offering whatever you do to
<i>brahman</i> (<i>brahmArpaNa mastu</i>). If you follow a personified god, perform all actions offering them to Him (e.g. <i>KrishnArpaNa mastu</i>)<i>.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hopefully, this process will retrain your mind and gradually lead to
dropping all motivations and desires (achieving <i>vairAgya </i>(dispassion)) and thus <i>naishkarmya
siddhi </i>(being unaffected by the results of actions done). <o:p></o:p><i>naishkarmya siddhi </i>is "action in inaction." It refers to performing actions without the sense of "I am the doer" like a river flow. The river does not say that 'I am flowing.' The 'flow' itself is the river.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">By this way, you may or may not successfully achieve
reorientation of your mind and obtain <i>naishkarmya siddhi</i> right in this life of
yours.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What do you do then?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You will hope to achieve <i>naishkarmya siddhi</i> sometime in the future, maybe in the next life and that 'hope' requires you to necessarily believe in rebirth, a continuity of the same 'me' and all the
story that goes with it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Therefore, while we may continue to adopt the above method,
we should also find out who that <i>ahaM</i> ("I") is when Gita says
<i>ahamkAra vimUDhAtmA karta ahamiti manyate</i> (III-7) -- who or what exactly is that foolish fellow (the 'me') who thinks that "I am the doer"?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What to do to find out who am "I"?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One is the traditional way to find out who is it that thinks "I am the doer." </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In this method, you first listen to the final answer from a
reliable source (<i>Apta vAkya</i>) -- a Guru / scripture). This is called
<i>shravaNa</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Next you mull over in your mind what you heard and deeply
reflect over it until you get fully convinced (to the extent that not
even an iota of doubt is left in you about the 'teaching'). This is called <i>manana</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After that you adopt all sorts of techniques to constantly
remember every moment of your waking, dreaming, deep sleep life about what you got
convinced -- the One-ness of the individual and <i>brahman</i> (<i>jIvabrahmaikyatva</i>).
This is called <i>nididhyAsana</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">[The three steps (<i>shravaNa-</i><i>manana-</i> <i>nididhyAsana</i>)<i> </i>need not go one after another in a
progressive or gradational fashion. One may skip some step or other, all the
three may happen simultaneously and so on - many variations can occur.]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I will like to give an analogy to help in our remembrance
of Oneness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Think of a large uniform clean, neat shining white bedsheet
nicely stretched and spread flat without wrinkles. Is any one particular spot
on the sheet distinguishable from the other? No, all spots (locations) are
uniform, identical and homogeneous -- in fact, there is no possible way to
demarcate or distinguish a specific spot to be unique with a set of contours giving a shape to it. Every spot you may select is indistinguishably within that One continuous whole sheet which is undivided into parts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6Hblqo5xZgU/V38rGyPoXUI/AAAAAAAAAY8/q72ZSm33stQm8SCyLF4mmBsVlCdwc99gQCLcB/s1600/fear%2B3-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="123" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6Hblqo5xZgU/V38rGyPoXUI/AAAAAAAAAY8/q72ZSm33stQm8SCyLF4mmBsVlCdwc99gQCLcB/s200/fear%2B3-1.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now give a shake holding a corner or a side of the sheet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What will happen? (See the figure at the top).</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ue92x1i0mtc/V38qo1YnE2I/AAAAAAAAAZA/5lOanROKdJYTjPKzAaA339t8Dj4A-GMqwCKgB/s1600/fear%2B3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></a></div>
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ue92x1i0mtc/V38qo1YnE2I/AAAAAAAAAZA/5lOanROKdJYTjPKzAaA339t8Dj4A-GMqwCKgB/s1600/fear%2B3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="123" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ue92x1i0mtc/V38qo1YnE2I/AAAAAAAAAZA/5lOanROKdJYTjPKzAaA339t8Dj4A-GMqwCKgB/s200/fear%2B3.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some waves will form and as you lay the sheet down, the flatness is gone. The sheet gets folded. It raises up as hills in
some places. At some other places, it shows depressions. Some depressions may
be big; others narrow and small. Some hills may be conical and so on and on.
Many shapes and sizes can be distinguished. The One huge uniform sheet lost its
absolute symmetry. Several shapes and boundaries for those shapes can be
identified. You can give distinct names to those shapes like a hill, a cone, a
depression, a long valley etc. It looks like a composite of several shapes conglomerated together (See the figure at the left). <o:p></o:p>The sheet does not look as an undivided whole anymore. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Imagine one more thing. Think that the sheet is fluorescent.
When it was in the undisturbed flat disposition, it would have been appearing like a single sheet of self-luminescent brilliantly shining light plane.
This luminescence has also the power to sense and know things like a sensor (detector probe). But there is no-thing outside itself to sense or detect. It is all
One Infinite wholeness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After the perturbation (because of the shake), the hills and
valleys cause apparent variations (shades) in the luminescent light. Some spots
may appear slightly less bright (in a relative sense only - remember that the
entire sheet is self-luminescent, there are originally no inherent differences
in its luminosity). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now add another layer of imagination.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Think that one little depression, not exactly circular but
having an odd shape imagines itself to be different and thinks that it exists as a separate entity from
the rest of the sheet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Its ability to imagine, sense and know another (e.g. the hill nearby) still exists because of the self-luminescence at every spot of the big sheet. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The small depressed spot begins to feel bad that its shape is odd, it is lying lower compared to
the tall fellow, the hill, next to it. The hill appears to it as if shining with more
light and spreading its brilliance to a greater distance. The little depression
feels sad because it is not like that hill. It wants to become like that hill.
When it learns finally that it cannot succeed in its aim, it may even want to destroy the
hill.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You can concoct all sorts of stories further. Say a sudden gust
of wind and water eroded or altered the size or shape of that hill. The depression may
misappropriate to itself some power for having reduced the size of the hill. Or it may think that its worship of a powerful 'Storm God' helped achieve its desire
---------- and so on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Stop here for a minute. Hold your horses of weaving
imaginative stories.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Question yourself now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Was that 'depression' at any point of time separate from the
totality of the sheet? Is it really different and independent of the hills and
other shapes which it imagined to be outside itself?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Is there any action it has to take to become the whole one
sheet again? Has it at any point of time stopped being the whole sheet?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What action should it have to take to feel itself to be within the
Totality of Oneness?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It has to just remember that it never left the whole
Oneness. It is only its fanciful thinking that it is separate that brings in the "feel" of separation. Actually no rigid brick-wall like
boundaries exist around itself but for its own mistaking of the 'shades' (caused by
the changes in relief) as walls of separation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Yes, when the depression feels hungry needing some energy
input, it may look for food. It eats what it gets. But it knows one day that the boundary wall around itself will collapse and it will die. When the (imagined) wall is gone, it is automatically within the whole Oneness. [Some even imagine five layered walls - <i>panca kosha.</i>]</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Even after it realized that it was never a separate entity, the
past memory of being a 'separate ' may come back to it out of sheer habit.
It then has to make an effort not to forget<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>that it was never separated from the
Totality.<o:p></o:p><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The <i>shravaNa-manana-nididhyAsana </i>method is called the
Cosmological or progressive Path which is taken up after certain intensive pre-requisites are fulfilled. In the Direct Path --
essentially taught by Sages like Atmananda Krishna Menon, Nisargadatta
Maharaj and to some extent Ramana Maharshi -- the most important key element is to first totally UNDERSTAND and be convinced that the
small luminescent depression (the separate self, a Me) is non-different and lies within the totality of
the planar sheet, the Oneness which only exists. And then to abide in that understanding unwaveringly.</span></div>
</div>
Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-9054656449432991202016-06-17T06:00:00.000-07:002016-06-17T06:00:17.152-07:00Teaching Vedanta in Germany<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Teaching Vedanta in Germany</span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><b>By Sitara Mittag</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">[<i>I am grateful to Sitara for her ready consent to post her article at our Blog. For an Introduction about Sitara please see <a href="http://beyond-advaita.blogspot.com/2014/09/sexual-instincts-and-spiritual-pursuit.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">here</span></a> -- ramesam.</i>]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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I feel blessed to have the opportunity of teaching Advaita Vedanta to select students who are sincerely committed to explore the ultimate truth. The program I adopt is highly flexible and tailored to the particular needs of the students, yet I have a general approach that I apply with variations.</div>
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I have to admit that my way of teaching is quite time consuming compared to other teachers. But it works. That’s why so far I keep sticking with it. In the future I may have to change it because with more and more students joining I will have to find more practical solutions.</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Medium of Instruction:</strong></div>
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The medium of instruction is German, and usually I do not give classes in English. Even though most Germans have a working knowledge of English, some don’t (especially those who grew up in Eastern Germany where they learned Russian, and not English, as the second language). Most of my students are very intelligent and educated, but I also have a few who failed in school and do not know English. What I look for in a student is whether he/she wants to discover the ultimate truth and yearns for liberation (<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">mumukshatvam</em>). So if they have <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">mumukshutvam,</em> I accept them as students, with or without English. However, as the student advances in his studies, it usually becomes necessary to shift to English because I find that there are no suitable German translations of Vedantic texts, let alone Shankara’s commentaries on the Upanishads etc. Fortunately for us, so far there has always been one or the other student who could translate the texts from English to German with me carrying out the corrections. I use these translations in my classes.<span id="more-4932" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Outline of the usual Program:</strong></div>
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To begin with so far it has always been necessary for me to correct the perspective of the Western student’s mindset consisting in numerous pseudo-spiritual concepts – be they psychological, esoteric, or certain religious ideas. I do this in open talks with each student where I encourage him/her to ask any question that comes to mind. This initial deliberation helps the student to develop enough trust in what is on offer in Advaita Vedanta.</div>
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After a few such meetings, we start to go through the spiritual essays I published at my website (there are many more than just the ones translated into English). We discuss the topics in detail answering all the questions that may come up. In the course of that I familiarize them with certain Vedantic concepts without going too much in depth at this stage. If more than one student happens to start at about the same time, I conduct these sessions for all of them together.</div>
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As the time ripens for them to take up Vedanta in a more intensive way I first provide them with the background of Vedic culture by exposing them to select videos about India. I explicitly point out to my students that in this context we focus entirely on the upsides of the Indian world. Without this step, I realized that many things mentioned in the scriptures remain a complete mystery, resulting in misunderstandings that become impediments later. At this stage I take up Sw. Paramarthananda’s introduction to Vedanta, adding my own texts on the same issues written with the Western perspective in mind. Ideally there is more than one student in these meetings. After these 16 lessons, I give out a questionnaire that helps in self-assessment about what they have grasped so far. Once they know the basic terminology and concepts used in Vedantic teaching we study other treatises (<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">prakaraNa grantha</em>-s) and also Upanishads as appropriate. I use the commentaries published by Arsha Vidya Gurukulam in these classes. If they are not available, I take those from the Chinmaya Mission.</div>
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My students come from many areas in Germany (and some from other countries). The classes are conducted through telephone or skype conferences, which works very well for us. I purposely restrict the number of participants to be small. Also I take care to see that as we study the different texts, all the questions of the students are answered. My experience is that these interactive sessions are very successful when done with 4-6 people. I carefully choose the participating students for a class because I do not want some to get bored while others feel overly challenged.</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Vedanta Seminars</strong></div>
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I also have been offering a 6-day Vedanta-seminar suited to all levels twice a year. The participants observe silence for most of the time with me introducing certain processes (<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">prakriya</em>-s) and related concepts for them to dwell on. The whole process is based on a structure that is a mixture of silent sitting, listening to me as well as to (Indian) music, movement, going for walks, resting. Also all through the seminar everyone gets a chance to have special short meetings with me in order to clear his/her mind of any questions and doubts. We are going to have more of such seminars during 2017 in other areas of Germany. Taking part in the seminars is essential to the students. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Meer Suddorf</b><br />(Photo: By Kerstin)</td></tr>
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So far the seminars have been conducted on an island (see photo above) with just the sea and the sky and very few people around helping the minds of the participants to become exceptionally alert and imbibe the teaching in depth. New students get a really good start into Vedantic study while the advanced ones report that with each time they go through this process their minds become more and more subtle and sharp.</div>
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´Western students usually require a bit of motivation in taking up Vedanta in a systematic manner because there is so much on offer promising big gains with little effort to be made by the student. But quite soon they realize the value of studying Vedanta with resolve and commitment. The results of such a study are truly solid and every committed student is making steady and often surprisingly fast progress.</div>
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<i>Acknowledgement</i>: Ramesam inquired about the way I teach students in Germany. After receiving my answer he suggested to post it on Advaita Vision and also at this Blog site. He was so kind as to help me put it into better English.</div>
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Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-76085757213351947782016-05-20T06:00:00.000-07:002016-05-20T06:00:07.500-07:00dhyAna and samAdhi<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i><b>dhyAna and samAdhi</b></i><br />
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[<i>I copy the article published on May 11, 2016 at Advaita Vision (see</i> <a href="http://www.advaita-vision.org/dhyana-and-samadhi/" target="_blank"><i><span style="color: blue;">here</span></i></a><i>) for wider dissemination -- ramesam </i>]<br />
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<em style="border: 0px; clear: left; float: left; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; margin-top: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Meditation" height="200" src="http://www.advaita-vision.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/meditation-4.jpg" style="background-color: transparent;" width="200" /> </em><i>dhyAna </i>and <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">samAdhi</em> are quite fascinating, pretty alluring and romantically inspiring terms for an aspirant on the spiritual path. They are almost always spoken in a tone that creates an awe. They sound mysterious, other worldly and ethereal. Many stories are told in the Purana-s about highly revered Sages lost in deep meditation or <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">samAdhi</em> to the extent that they were unaware of their own body being buried in heaps of sand or eaten away by critters and crawlers. Hair-rising narratives too are often reeled out about the powers that <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">dhyAna </em>and<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> samAdhi</em> lead one to – clairvoyance, multiple accomplishments (<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">aNimAdi siddhi</em>-s), infinite longevity (<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ciranjIvatva</em>), visitations to subtler worlds inaccessible to normal human beings and so on. There is hardly a spiritual Guru who does not harangue about the glories a seeker will be bestowed through practicing <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">dhyAna </em>and<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> samAdhi. </em>Some teachers would even make these as a pre-requisite before any true ‘knowledge’ is imparted. As a result, the words <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">dhyAna </em>and<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> samAdhi</em> acquired varying meaning. Teachers too historically used or interpreted them in different ways. We shall attempt to take a synoptic view particularly from a Non-dual perspective what these terms connote and their role and relevance for a seeker who has adopted the <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">jnAna mArga</em> (The Knowledge Path) in his/her pursuit of liberation.</div>
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The write up is structured as a Power Point Presentation downloadable as a pdf file at: <a href="http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/downloads/dhyAna_samAdhi.pdf" style="border: 0px; color: #1982d1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/downloads/dhyAna_samAdhi.pdf</a>.<span id="more-4913" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
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The principal argument I make here is that just like bodily physical exercises (of PT,<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">haTha yoga</em>, <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Asana</em>-s. <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">tai chai</em> etc.), meditation is an exercise for the mind — an action done by a doer.</div>
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All actions will inevitably yield their results and surely whatever meditation technique one may use (mantra-based, breath-based, object-based, deity-based, Compassion meditation, focused meditation, mindfulness meditation etc.), one can expect certain outcomes.</div>
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The Neuroscientific evidence (taking into account the initial work done by the TM people, and later the research carried out at the Penn state University by Andrew Newberg, at Wisconsin by Dr. Richard Davidson and his group and many researchers at several other scientific Institutions across the world) shows that Meditation practices have a direct effect on the brain – a physical ‘object’ in the world.</div>
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The fact that meditation has an effect on the brain (which is a part of the body) implicitly means that the usually advocated “techniques” of meditation are useful in the wakeful state in the awake world. They help in relaxation, towards sharpening of the brain, in obtaining special skills, in increased thickness and increased number of folds in the top layer of the brain (cortex), in the generation of the neurotransmitters and hormones like opioids and cannabinoids (anandamide) etc. which give a happy feeling or produce squirts of dopamine.</div>
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But in Advaita, we consider the awake world and the actions that go on in the awake state are ‘<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">mithya</em>‘ (fallacious).</div>
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Further, Vedantic understanding says:</div>
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i) Actions arise in ignorance (<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">karma ajnAna janitaM</em>).</div>
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ii) Liberation cannot be ‘obtained’ as a “result” of an action done.</div>
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That being the case, how can Meditation, an action, a daily practice, lead to <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">moksha</em>, the pursuit of a seeker on the Knowledge Path (<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">jnAna mArga</em>)? It cannot. The real Meditation, as is understood in Advaita, is not something to be “done.” Meditation is the ending of the triad (observer-observing-the observed). It is just a “happening” like ‘Life happens.’</div>
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Some Teachers use the word “<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">samAdhi</em>” to indicate such a type of True Meditation.</div>
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Patanjali <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">sUtra</em>-s define meditation and <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">samAdhi</em> in a different way than the above understanding. Hence, <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">dhyAna</em> and <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">samAdhi</em> can be pretty confusing words unless one is clear about the system being followed.</div>
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However, one should state that Meditation as a ‘to do’ practice, along with actions like charity, pilgrimage etc. are useful in training the mind in the beginning stages for a seeker. Meditation may also help in the post-realization phase of a seeker towards stabilizing oneself in the abidance of an unbroken <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">brahman</em>-thought.</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Slides # 1 – 5: </strong></div>
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General Intro.</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Slides # 6 – 33:</strong></div>
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The first part of the slides deal with the Neuroscientific findings as evidence to show that different types of meditation affect different parts of the brain with attendant behavioral changes in the practitioner. (I have a couple of Video clips also in this part).</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Slide # 34:</strong></div>
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A short clip from a Talk by the Professor of Neuroscience, Nancy Kanwisher of MIT shows the discovery of the ‘Face recognition area’ in the brain. It also demos how the electromagnetic field in the brain impacts on what you see “out there.” A change in the electrical field will distort or alter your perception. This aspect is exploited in the technique of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) used to bring about a change in the neural connections of a patient suffering from depression, anorexia and certain other disorders. But the interesting point coming out from an Advaita perspective is that it is a projection of the waves in your brain that show you what you ‘think’ you see located somewhere there outside you. It is not that a thing is ‘already there’ and you see it as ‘it exactly is.’</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Slide # 35 – 41:</strong></div>
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We discuss here the issues of self-control and emotional maturity and the parts of the body and brain related to these behaviors. Present Neuroscientific findings lead one to conclude that ‘self-control’ is a finite resource and is not inexhaustively available for use. A period of recuperation is required for the resource to get replenished. We also try to locate the six enemies (<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">arishadvarga</em>-s) and the corresponding endocrinal glands in the body.</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Slides 42 – 46:</strong></div>
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There is a difference between obtaining mind-based worldly knowledge and the Non-dual Self-Knowledge as explained by Shankara. We also examine the role ‘attention’ plays in giving us ‘knowledge’ and contrast it with Consciousness which is the ‘True Knowledge.’</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Slides # 47 – 72:</strong></div>
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Next I take up the definitions of <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">dhyAna </em>and <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">samAdhi</em> as used in different texts like <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">aparokshAnubhUti, vivekacUDAmaNi</em>, Yogavasishta etc. We consider the Vedantic view as expressed by Shankara with a few quotes from BG and so on. I try to bring out the difference in the usage of the terms in Patanjali <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">yogasUtra</em>-s and Advaita. Finally I show that action will help to attain <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">citta sudddhi </em>which leads to <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">citta naishcalyaM, </em>but the next stage of realizing <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">jIvabrahmaikatva jnAna,</em> the <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">vastu tantra jnana,</em> is not a direct result obtained from the state of a placid mind. It has to happen by Itself (<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">tat prasAdAt</em>).</div>
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I attempt to show that the terms “<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">dhyAna </em>and <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">samAdhi</em>,” though highly technical, have been used to mean different things by different teachers historically and that there is no rigorous standardized universally accepted process or method that the words indicate. The slide # 51 presents the teaching of Sage Vasishta that realization of the Oneness of subject-object (i.e. Liberation) dawns on him who achieves ‘desirelessness.’</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Slides # 73 – 75:</strong></div>
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We end with an invocative prayer from <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">mahAnArAyaNa upanishad</em>:</div>
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आर्द्रं ज्वलतिज्योतिरहमस्मि । ज्योतिज्वॅलति ब्रह्माहमस्मि । योऽहमस्मि ।<br />अहमस्मि ब्रह्माहमस्मि । अहमेवाहं मां जुहोमि स्वाहा ॥ ….. 67.</div>
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Meaning: I realize this Identity of Jiva & Brahman by offering myself i.e., the <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">jIvatva</em> (the finite self) as an oblation into the Fire of Infinite <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">brahman</em> which I am forever. May this oblation be well reached for achieving <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">jIva-brahma</em> Identity.</div>
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(The above is a part of the <strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">अघमर्षण</strong> <strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">मन्त्र</strong> (<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">aghamarShaNa mantra</em>), seeking the blessings of Sage <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">aghamarShaNa,</em> recited ritualistically by traditional seekers while bathing or during the observation of other ablutions. The word <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">aghamarShaNa </em>also means the cleanser of demerit).</div>
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<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Acknowledgements</em>: I am grateful to the authors of the various sources from which I have freely adopted the material. As far as possible, I have given the references so that the reader can further pursue the matter, if interested. My thanks are also due to Dennis who kindly had a preview of the slides and made helpful observations. He has been kind to create the downloadable link for the pdf of the 75 slides.</div>
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Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-54842351201638149802016-04-22T06:00:00.000-07:002016-04-22T06:00:12.280-07:00Physics of Reality - 8: Prof. Basil Hiley's Views<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>Physics of Reality - 8: Prof. Basil Hiley's Views</b></div>
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[<i><a href="http://www.bbk.ac.uk/tpru/BasilHiley.html">Basil Hiley</a>, David Bohm’s
longtime collaborator and co-author of his final book,<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/041512185X/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=041512185X&linkCode=as2&tag=thecomidisgui-20">The Undivided Universe</a> is a
theoretical physicist at Birkbeck College of the University of London. Reproduced below are a few excerpts from an
abridged transcript of his chat in 2013 with Dr. George Musser of the
Scientific American. Sourced from <a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/critical-opalescence/the-wholeness-of-quantum-reality-an-interview-with-physicist-basil-hiley/">here</a>
– ramesam</i>]<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Physics of Reality - 8: Prof. Basil Hiley's Views</b></div>
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We were interested in undivided whole. How do you describe
wholeness without breaking it up into pieces? Bohr said you can’t analyze any
further: don’t make the division between the subject and the observing
apparatus, because everything is a whole, and as soon as you break it into
pieces, you’ve lost it; you’ve changed the phenomenon. I took a lot of insight
from Bohr. If you read our book, we never say Bohr was wrong, whereas most
other people say Copenhagen is nonsense. What we disagreed with Bohr about is
that he couldn’t analyze it further. What we’ve been trying to do is analyze it
further.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Our idea was to say, yes, you can do it. You can talk about
the individual, but it’s the quantum potential which puts in what you’ve left
out. So it brings the information of the environmental conditions, the boundary
conditions, and feeds it to this local entity–so this local entity knows that
it’s part of the whole.<o:p></o:p></div>
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How this does it, I don’t know. But what David and I
suggested was that the quantum potential is actually an information potential,
and we introduced the idea of active information. I was very worried about
using the word “information” because everybody would immediately go to Shannon
information. Shannon information is not information; it’s just information
capacity. There’s no meaning there, and the whole point was to get meaning into
this and that this was information for the<i>particle</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Then, of course, they thought we’d gone mystically East. But
I mean the quantum potential is not a classical force. It’s not a classical
potential. It’s something extraordinary, very strange. It doesn’t get
propagated, as far as we can find out. But that was the way I reconciled
wholeness with divisibility. If we divide, we must have something to put it all
back together again.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Nature is more organic than we think it is. And then you can
understand why life arose, because if nature is organic, it has the possibility
of life in it.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Let’s start this way. You’re looking for a fundamental
particle. So you divide the material into atoms and think: this is where the
real essence lies. Rutherford divided the atom and found the nucleus. OK. The
nucleus is where matter resides. And then you look inside the nucleus and you
find neutrons. OK, now we’re there. But then there’s quarks and we’ve never got
a hold of a quark. We take a proton, an anti-proton, and it goes, poof, into
radiation. So where is the solidity of matter? Where does it lie? Because
wherever we look at it … [<i>it falls through our fingers.</i>]<o:p></o:p></div>
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Suppose we start with something like<i>process</i>–no
particles, just activity, just energy. Then the first battle was: what the hell
do you mean?<o:p></o:p></div>
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I started reading. I read <a href="http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Grassmann.html">Grassmann</a>,
for example, and Grassmann was saying that mathematics was not about things in
space and time, but it was about <i>thought</i>–it was about the order of
thought. And he obtained his Grassmann algebra from that kind of consideration.
And I read<a href="http://www.williamandlucyclifford.com/">Clifford</a>‘s
original books, original papers, and it was all about <i>process</i>. Two
times three is equal to six–it’s not two objects times three. It’s the doubling
of three objects. It’s a process.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We’re not used to thinking about process. We communicate
with an object-based language. David invented a thing called “<a href="http://jongoodbun.wordpress.com/what-does-rheomode-mean/">rheomode</a>“–language
in which we speak to each other in a flowing mode. There are some ancient
languages which do this–Hopi Indian and some others. In his book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000PLXCKE/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B000PLXCKE&linkCode=as2&tag=thecomidisgui-20" target="_blank"><i>Wholeness and the Implicate Order</i></a>, you’ll find a
chapter on language, in which he discusses this rheomode. It didn’t work,
because we were still thinking of objects.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Every day in our life, we always have to be careful of the
order. You’ve got a cup in the cupboard. You’ve got to open the cupboard door
before you can the cup out. All our experience is doing things in the right
order, so our activity is noncommutative. It comes into quantum mechanics
because Heisenberg sought to explain atomic energy levels and what he found was
he had to make his objects into things that didn’t commute with each other. The
order was vital. There was a difference between first measuring the momentum
and then measuring the position, from measuring the position and then measuring
the momentum. That became the basis of his Uncertainty Principle.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It seemed to me that he was actually discussing a process.
He was talking about how something goes from one to the other, and he called
that a momentum transition, and a position from one position to another.<o:p></o:p></div>
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You’re creating your space and time, People say, “Well, what
do you mean we’re creating space and time?” Well, the world out there, there’s
not a geometry which you somehow just discover by looking at it. You actually
use physical processes to describe that geometry. How do we get the geometry of
space? With a radar set and a clock. We send the light signal out, send it back
again, and we construct the Lorentz transformation by what matter is doing.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Why would we expect the fundamentals of nature to be the
same as we experience in the macroscopic world? This idea is to say, no, the
real world is not. If you look behind it, it’s a mirage in a way. The algebra
is the implicate order. It’s the structure that’s there. Properties are given
by the whole, but we’re taking them out and we are making an explicate order.<o:p></o:p></div>
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[<i>T</i><i>he explicate order is what we perceive.</i>]<o:p></o:p></div>
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And it’s not everything. What the old classical physics said
was that we just want to stand god-like outside and just look at everything
without us being in there. We can’t. We’re in there, whether we like it or not.
We’re inside looking out, not outside looking in. What the implicate is, you
can’t explicate, but you must have different views because you’re inside it.
You can’t stand outside it. You only get a partial view.<o:p></o:p></div>
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When I lecture on this, I always use the old lady/young
lady–the gestalt. The lines are there, but what they mean depends how you
explicate one order over the other. Because a lot of things are based on things
that you can’t explicate at the same time. Nature is such that you cannot
actually explicate the position space and the momentum space.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So instead having just a trajectory, you have an unfolding
and enfolding process. The past actively works in the present. It reverberates
in the present to produce the future. What looks like a particle tracking
across, isn’t a particle tracking across. It’s just an explication.<o:p></o:p></div>
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[<i>One</i><i> shouldn’t think of this particle as a persistent
entity drifting through a void?</i>]<o:p></o:p></div>
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You’ve got to think of your entity not as billiard ball. Its
properties are not independent of the underlying process. Change the underlying
process, and the properties of this thing change. Don’t treat it as being
separate. Because its properties depend upon the environment. You’re making
objects out of things which continuously transform, but always into themselves.
It takes a bit of getting used to!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Do we create what we see? Maybe we do. I know people say,
“Oh, it’s all subjective.” But there are only certain things you can do with
it. You can’t magic things up. You can reorder things. You can rearrange things
when you are making your reality. We’re rearranging the processes. We are part
of the process.</div>
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Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-15301416130298458792016-03-18T06:00:00.000-07:002016-03-18T06:00:06.381-07:00Physics of Reality – 7: Are We Living in a Hologram?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Physics of Reality – 7: </span></b><b>Are We
Living in a Hologram?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">by Charles Phelan</span></b><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 16.8667px;">[<i>Intro about Charles at </i></span></span><a href="http://beyond-advaita.blogspot.com/2015/12/physics-of-reality-4-black-hole.html" style="line-height: 16.8667px;" target="_blank">Part 4</a><span style="line-height: 16.8667px;">]</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 16.8667px;"><br /></span><span style="line-height: 16.8667px;"><a href="http://beyond-advaita.blogspot.com/2015/07/physics-of-reality-1.html" target="_blank">Part 1</a> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 16.8667px;"><br /></span></span>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In prior segments reviewing
the work of Leonard Susskind on Black Hole Complementarity, we saw how modern physics
is pointing toward an observer-dependent reality rather than a single objective
universe. In discussing the black hole information loss paradox first identified
by Stephen Hawking in the 1970s, and the subsequent battle in physics
eventually won by Susskind, I omitted an important development that happened
along the way, and will return to it now. This is the Holographic Principle,
first proposed by Susskind in the 1990s as a consequence of his work on string
theory.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">One of the weirdest results of
all the research on black hole entropy and information loss was a mathematical
calculation that determined how much "information" could be stored in
a black hole. If the event horizon – the point of no return – can be visualized
as the surface of a hollow sphere surrounding the singularity at the center,
then logically we would expect the calculation to yield a <i>volume</i> result since any sphere is three dimensional. However, the
bizarre outcome was that the information capacity of a black hole is limited to
the <i>area</i> of the surface of the event
horizon, a two-dimensional result instead of three-dimensional! It is difficult
to convey how truly strange this is!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Think of it this way. Let's
say the Earth was hollow except for a tiny diamond at the center, so the surface
of the Earth is like the event horizon, and the diamond takes the place of the
singularity at the center. Let's be quaint and take information in the form of
computer printouts filled with ones and zeroes, and then use all that paper to
fill up the hollow sphere between the crust and the center. If you were to
calculate how much paper (information) could be held inside of the hollow
sphere, the result would be based on a volume calculation for a sphere the size
of Earth, taking into account the size and thickness of the paper used for
printing the data and how much information could fit on one sheet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yet the result calculated by
Jacob Bekenstein – work that Susskind later built on to develop his Holographic
Principle – showed that it doesn't work that way for black holes. Again, instead
of a volume result, the equations produce an area result. It's as though no
matter how many sheets of paper with information on them are poured into the
sphere, the result for maximum information capacity will always be the <i>surface of the sphere</i> and not its
volume. It would be like dumping papers into the hollow sphere but never being
able to fit more than would cover the surface of the Earth. For all practical
purposes, an entire dimension is lost, and 3D becomes 2D.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Translating this astonishing
finding back to black holes, it is as though there is no “inside” of the event
horizon, that as far as anything outside the event horizon is concerned,
nothing on the other side actually exists. So from the view outside the
horizon, the information available is limited to the area of the surface of the
horizon's sphere. If this does not boggle your mind, then you're not quite grasping
the strangeness of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">So far I haven't touched on
the issue of how information capacity could actually be calculated in the first
place, as this leads into difficult territory like Shannon entropy and the
Planck length limitation, which are beyond the scope of this article. But the
short version is that there is a smallest possible size for a single bit of
information, which allows an immense but <i>finite</i>
amount of information to be stored on the surface of a black hole's event
horizon. But why only an area? Why not a volume? Susskind's answer is the
Holographic Principle. Consider a simple hologram, where three-dimensional
information is inscribed in two dimensions on the surface of a plastic card or
other material. A three-dimensional projection appears at a distance from the two-dimensional
substrate and any one portion of the substrate contains information about the
whole.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Susskind's work involved
analyzing the mathematics of a special type of theoretical universe called an anti
deSitter universe. Anti de-Sitter space has a negative curvature, which results
in strange anomalies compared to a universe like our own, which is flat and
positively curved by comparison. For
example, an object thrown with sufficient velocity along a straight line in anti
de-Sitter space would eventually return to its original starting point!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">As it happens, a universe made
from anti de-Sitter space is an ideal universe in which to do certain complex
calculations. Within the specific framework of the anti deSitter space,
Susskind was able to show that the total information capacity was equivalent to
the area of the cosmic boundary, and this led to his application of the term
“holographic." It is as though any apparent 3D events are really just <i>projections</i> from the distant 2D
information field encoded on the cosmic boundary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It has not been proven yet
that our universe is holographic, but there has been considerable momentum in
that direction, in terms of thousands of physics papers supporting the
principle, and not just for anti deSitter space but also for regular space like
our own. At this point in the progress of modern theoretical physics, there are
still critics taking aim at potential flaws in the Holographic Principle. But
it remains a solid theory that probably deserves to be called a consensus. It
really does appear that our apparently 3D universe is just a projection from a
2D information matrix encoded on the distant cosmic boundary horizon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">How does the Holographic
Principle pertain to Advaita, or further our understanding of the nondual perspective?
Advaita teaches that the apparent creation is not actually real, that it is <i>mithyA</i>, a dependent reality. The Upanishads
teach that the apparent reality we observe with our senses, and even the mental
world we observe with our minds, is all just a trick by <i>mAyA</i>. It is all just a magic show where things appear to be one way
but are not actually as we observe. Science is beginning to tease out how some
of <i>mAyA's</i> tricks work. Drill down
into matter with a microscope and mathematics, and the result is <i>nothing</i>. Molecules contain atoms, which
contain particles like electrons or protons, which in turn contain quarks and
other members of the quantum zoo of particles, which contain – what? Tiny
one-dimensional vibrating strings that change depending on one's frame of
reference? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Drill down far enough and
there is only speculative mathematics and nothing more, nothing that is ever
unchanging or actually solid. I believe we can fairly describe all of this as <i>mithyA</i>, the snake in the rope, or the
ghost in the post. If it can ultimately be proven with certainty that our 3D
universe is actually just a hologram projected from a distant 2D cosmic horizon,
this would mean that the <i>mithyA</i>
nature of creation, known to Vedic sages for millennia, had actually been
demonstrated and accepted by modern science.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Further from the perspective
of the student of Advaita, it is fascinating to observe that modern physicists
often dance very close to discussing the role of Consciousness, but never quite
go there. Yet if reality is observer dependent, then where does the observer
come from? This is not a question addressed by physics, let alone answered by
it. Yet in result after result, modern physics seems to be converging to a view
that reality is indeed observer dependent. No observer means no universe. If we
jettison the God's eye view of reality and accept that each so-called
individual has their own reality cone, then the apparent paradoxes drop away
and all becomes much clearer. So perhaps it is only a matter of time before
some young physicist gets the bright idea to propose that Consciousness is
primary and that all else arises within it!</span></div>
</div>
Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-73543197566049299392016-02-19T06:00:00.000-08:002016-02-19T08:52:15.177-08:00Actor Is Action <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>Actor Is Action </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
In our day to day world the "Doer" of any deed is the subject. She/he is the 'agent' of the action taken. In other words, no action can happen without the actor.<br />
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qB5TCdRAQrE/VsXK7_xdXaI/AAAAAAAAAX0/dYeDuzgbE1Y/s1600/for%2Bblog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qB5TCdRAQrE/VsXK7_xdXaI/AAAAAAAAAX0/dYeDuzgbE1Y/s200/for%2Bblog.jpg" width="194" /></a><br />
The Advaita holds that the Actor is non-different from the Action. The Actor and Action are not two.<br />
<br />
Here is a short excerpt on the above matter taken from Chapter 3: Origination (<i>utpatti prakaraNa</i>) of Yogavasishta (being serialized at <a href="http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/Yogavasishta/yogavasishta_contents.html" target="_blank">Advaita Vision</a>).<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(From <i>sarga</i> 95, <i>utpatti prakaraNa</i>, <i><span lang="EN-IN" style="line-height: 115%;">yogavAsiShTha</span></i>):</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span lang="EN-IN" style="line-height: 115%;">Sage Vasishta: </span></b><span style="line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;">A flower bloomed. Fragrance
spread. Which is born first? It is not possible to say which originated first.
Both are born simultaneously. Similarly the doer and the action are not born
separately. They are born at the same time. Both have their roots in ignorance.
Individual beings also have their origin in ignorance.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;">---</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%;">Mind is the result
of ignorance. The action is the effect of mind. Ignorance is like the branch
(of a tree). Mind is a flower. Action is
the fragrance. People normally say that the flower has come out of the branch
and the fragrance has come out of the flower. This formulation is true in some
sense, but it is not the whole truth. Both the flower and the fragrance have
come out of the branch and they have come at the same time. This is the actual
truth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%;">Similarly, mind
has come out of ignorance. Mind is the doer. The actions have sprung out of the
mind. So the sequence ‘ignorance -- mind -- action’ is the understanding in
common parlance. It is like the sequence ‘clay powder -- lump of clay -- pot.’ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%;">In a sense the pot
is clay and the clay is pot. Likewise, mind is action and action is mind. Or
actor is action and action is the actor. But what I proposed is still subtler
than that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%;">There is a time
lag between the lump of clay and its appearance as a pot. But there is no such
time gap between the flower and its fragrance. Fragrance does not have a
distinct form of its own different from the flower. Hence we are bound to accept that
flower and fragrance are born out of the branch simultaneously and that the flower
and fragrance are not two entities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%;">The position with
respect to the mind and action is also exactly the same. Both manifest
simultaneously from ignorance and are identical. The real cause for the emergence of a sense
of separate self is ignorance. </span></div>
</div>
Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-11686044586440085772016-01-22T06:00:00.000-08:002016-03-17T12:52:26.696-07:00Physics of Reality – 6: Entanglement, Wormholes, and Firewalls by Charles Phelan <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Physics of Reality – 6</span></b><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Quantum Entanglement, Wormholes, and the Firewall Problem</span></b><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">by Charles Phelan</span></b><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 16.8667px;">[<i>Intro about Charles at </i></span></span><a href="http://beyond-advaita.blogspot.com/2015/12/physics-of-reality-4-black-hole.html" style="line-height: 16.8667px;" target="_blank">Part 4</a><span style="line-height: 16.8667px;">]</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 16.8667px;"><a href="http://beyond-advaita.blogspot.com/2015/07/physics-of-reality-1.html" target="_blank">Part 1</a> </span></span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">In the previous two articles, we reviewed Leonard Susskind's
mind-blowing theory of Black Hole Complementarity (BHC), which tells us that
two completely contradictory observations are both true for their respective
observers. We also noted that BHC is purely theoretical, not yet settled
science. In this article, we'll examine a recent challenge to the theory of BHC
called the “firewall paradox,” as well as Susskind's brilliant response to it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Let's start with a quick review on Black Hole Complementarity. At
the center of a black hole is a singularity, where matter has been squeezed to
an infinitesimally small point. The gravitational force of a singularity is so
strong that nothing can escape it, not even light itself. Hence the phrase
“black hole,” originally coined by physicist John Wheeler. The point of no
return where an object falling toward the black hole can no longer escape is
called the event horizon. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">According to BHC as well as Einstein's Equivalence Principle, our
intrepid explorer Alice will experience nothing unusual as she passes through
the event horizon. She will only become human “spaghetti” when she hits the
singularity later, which could take anywhere from less than a second to many
years, depending on the size of the black hole. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Meanwhile, Alice's partner Bob has remained behind to observe what
happens to her, and he sees a completely different picture. Bob sees Alice move
toward the event horizon but never reach it due to the time dilation effect
described by Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Both stories are true for their
respective observers, with the catch being that they cannot communicate with
one another (i.e. pass information back and forth). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">This lands us squarely in an observer-dependent universe, and
leads to reality-bending ambiguities in the bargain. For example, a particle
may be either a microscopically small object or a smeared out probability
distribution that covers the entire event horizon of an enormous black hole,
with both views being “true” depending on the observer's frame of reference!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Clearly, if BHC is valid, then it forces us to change our thinking
about an objective reality “out there” that is reliably the same for all
observers. While Susskind's BHC proposal was initially not widely accepted,
after advances in String Theory and other related subfields of physics, it did
come to be accepted by most physicists. There remain vocal critics, of course,
and papers challenging the math and logic behind Susskind's theory. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">The most significant attack came in 2012, when four physicists
(Almheiri, Marolf, Polchinski, and Sully) published a paper proposing a
solution to a perceived inconsistency in BHC theory. The solution proposed was
called the “firewall phenomenon,” and the proposal became known as the “AMPS
firewall,” AMPS being an acronym for the authors' last names. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">In order to understand the AMPS firewall, we first need to discuss
the concept of <i>quantum entanglement</i>. When pairs of particles are
entangled, there can be no independent description of the separate particles.
Essentially, quantum entanglement tells us that such particle pairs are a <i>whole</i> and must be described as a <i>system</i>, rather than as separate
entities. While this may not seem like such a big deal, it leads to some
astonishing conclusions that completely defy logic. For example, measurements
on entangled particle pairs are always correlated, no matter how far apart
physically the pairs have been separated. If we measure the “spin” property of
a particle, it's counterpart will always measure with an opposite spin, even if
the entangled particles are split to opposite sides of the universe before they
are measured! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">At first glance, quantum entanglement appears to violate
Einstein's discovery that nothing whatsoever can exceed the speed of light. If information
is somehow transmitted between a pair of entangled particles instantaneously,
that would constitute a violation of General Relativity, a theory that has been
proven over and over again via astronomical and other physical observations. In
fact, Einstein, together with his colleagues Boris Podolosky and Nathan Rosen,
published a paper critical of QM theory that became known as the EPR paradox.
The popular phrase used by Einstein to describe such instantaneous transmission
was “spooky action at a distance.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Another term for this is nonlocality, where particles are
considered as a whole rather than a discrete system of two separate entities.
It's a proven fact of physics that Einstein was wrong about this issue.
Nonlocality has been successfully demonstrated in entangled particle pairs,
beginning with the ground-breaking experimental work of Alain Aspect in 1982,
and continuing with many independent confirmations since. At least within the
context of quantum particle pairs, the universe is indeed nonlocal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Is nonlocality not suggestive of nonduality as conceived by
Advaita? To be precise, we must note that “quantum entanglement” refers
specifically to the description of a theoretical particle-pair, and we should
not leap to conclusions that “QM proves nonduality.” That caveat
notwithstanding, nonlocality does look like one of Maya's magic tricks. Measure
the spin of a particle, and its companion will collapse to the other spin
state, even if the two particles are in a condition of space-like separation
that would entail transmission of information faster than light-speed. Due to
QM being based on probabilities rather than certainties, all this happens
without violating General Relativity. Nothing can travel faster than light, and
yet particle pairs are apparently linked across vast stretches of spacetime.
Such phenomena appear to show us the "footprints" of nonduality,
stamped squarely on such paradoxes as wave-particle duality and quantum
nonlocality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Returning to the AMPS paper's rebuttal to Black Hole
Complementarity, the authors showed that there is a potential flaw in the
theory. To understand this criticism, we first need to know that highly
entangled particle pairs may only be party to “monogamous” entanglements. This
means that one particle is entangled with another, and cannot be the subject of
multiple entanglements. Yet there are at least two potential entanglements if
all the assumptions inherent in BHC are maintained. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Recalling our previous discussion on information loss in black
holes, we know information is reflected off the event horizon in the form of
Hawking radiation. So we have information falling into the black hole entangled
with information coming out of it, and also entangled with prior Hawking
radiation particles, leaving one entanglement too many. Their solution
demonstrated that a break of entanglement at the event horizon would lead to a
buildup of energy, hence the term “firewall.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">The AMPS paper skillfully argued that some key assumption must
give way to resolve the inconsistency of multiple entanglements. Joe
Polchinski, the “P” in AMPS, argued that the Equivalence Principle must fail at
the event horizon, and that instead of “No Drama” scenario experienced by
Alice, she will burn up when she hits the wall of energy there. The AMPS paper,
if correct, would resolve the apparent inconsistency in BHC where Bob and Alice
experience contradictory stories that are both true. And it would do so by
breaking the entanglement of particles at the event horizon. In effect, the
authors were saying there is no “inside” to a black hole, as nothing can get
past the event horizon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">How did Susskind respond? Working with Juan Maldacena, a fellow
physicist from the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton, Susskind
published a paper titled, “Cool Horizons for Entangled Black Holes,” in which
he proposed an answer to the firewall problem as proposed by AMPS. The short
version of their response was: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 35.3pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">ER = EPR<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">This means that entangled pairs are linked through <i>wormholes</i>
that tunnel <i>outside</i> the event horizon, thus resolving the apparent
identification of one too many entanglements by AMPS. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">The above explanation is very compact, so let's break it down and
elaborate a bit further. We've already touched on EPR above, the
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox of non-locality, or “spooky action at a
distance.” The “ER” in ER=EPR stands for Einstein-Rosen bridges, and refers to
a paper the two men published about wormholes connecting black holes across
distant regions of space. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Einstein and his colleagues did not link the two concepts, but
Susskind and Maldacena did. The idea is that entangled particles (EPR) are
connected by wormhole bridges with their counterparts outside the event horizon
(ER). One of the their key arguments was that the AMPS authors had assumed
there could be no connection between space inside and outside the event
horizon. The ER = EPR solution <span style="color: #1c1c1c;">provides for
particles inside the event horizon to remain entangled with their counterparts
in the cloud of Hawking radiation particles previously leaving the black hole.
Thus there is no need to break entanglement at the event horizon, and therefore
no firewall. This is why Susskind and Maldacena used the phrase “cool horizons”
in the title of their paper. ER = EPR preserves the “No Drama” interpretation
of BHC, Alice feels nothing at the event horizon, and she still turns into
spaghetti when she hits the singularity later. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #1c1c1c; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">As so often happens with cutting edge research, however,
this proposal implies much more significant possibilities than a resolution to
the AMPS firewall paradox. The ER = EPR theory points to a deep connectedness
underlying all of spacetime. We have already seen this with nonlocal
entanglement, and also with the wormhole idea. This approach says that ER and
EPR are two sides of the same phenomenon, the same thing viewed from different
angles. This is precisely why there is an equals sign in the equation! And the
“spooky action at a distance” that gave Einstein fits may actually be what
literally stitches together spacetime. As Maldacena put it, </span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">“... the solid and
reliable structure of spacetime is due to the ghostly features of
entanglement.” Further, the long-term physics project of uniting the conflicting
theories of gravity between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics may be
facilitated by approaches such as ER = EPR. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">As we have seen over and over again in these articles,
modern physics is converging to an understanding of reality as
observer-dependent. It seems we are coming closer to a scientific view that
supports the ancient Advaita perspective that “perception creates the world.”
We will never be able to say that science or physics has “proved” nonduality
conclusively, simply because any such knowledge or proof must always be less
than the Whole. But it certainly appears that we are starting to understanding
some of Maya's tricks. Look out to the extremes of the universe, at both macro
and micro levels, and it's possible to notice some of the rough edges. Quantum
foam that allows something to come from nothing, entangled particles,
wormholes, and black holes are some of those edges. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">It seems there is no limit to the bizarreness of some
of the new proposals in physics. Could science actually prove that the entire
empirical universe is nothing more than a snake-in-the-rope illusion, as Adi
Shankara advised us 1,200 years ago? Perhaps so! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sQDiS9Sw9wk/Vp5suDcMArI/AAAAAAAAAXg/-enmt999CLQ/s1600/Wormholes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: 'times new roman'; font-size: medium; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="143" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sQDiS9Sw9wk/Vp5suDcMArI/AAAAAAAAAXg/-enmt999CLQ/s200/Wormholes.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">( QM, 2015)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">(To Continue .... Physics of Reality - 7</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">In the next article, we'll
talk about the Holographic Principle, which says that we are living in a
hologram).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></div>
</div>
Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-61535543839034118722015-12-28T06:00:00.000-08:002016-01-09T08:43:41.695-08:00Physics of Reality – 5: Black Hole Complementarity by Charles Phelan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Physics of Reality – 5: Black Hole
Complementarity </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">by Charles Phelan</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[<i>Intro about Charles at Part - 4</i>]</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://beyond-advaita.blogspot.com/2015/07/physics-of-reality-1.html" target="_blank">Part 1</a> </span><span style="line-height: 16.8667px;"><a href="http://beyond-advaita.blogspot.com/2015/12/physics-of-reality-4-black-hole.html" target="_blank">Part 4</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">
<span style="line-height: 16.8667px;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">We can better understand just how astounding
Black Hole Complementarity is by taking a trip with Bob and Alice to a black
hole. Bob and Alice are the favorite veterans of many thought experiments
pertaining to extreme physics, and they are also stand-ins for a quantum
entangled pair of particles. When they near the black hole, Alice (usually the
more brash of the pair) ignores Bob's warnings and jumps down toward the event
horizon. Bob remains behind and watches Alice's progress from a safe vantage
point far outside the event horizon. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">What do Alice and Bob observe respectively? Alice observes nothing much
at all. She crosses the event horizon without even noticing it or feeling
anything special. We're in Einstein territory here, with the Equivalence
Principle coming into play. (<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Equivalence Principle tells us there is no difference
between how gravity "feels" compared to an identical force that has
nothing to do with gravity, such as constant acceleration. And in the context
of freefall, the laws of physics operate as though there is no gravity at all,
which directly brings in Special Relativity and its strange effects.) </span>Alice
is in free fall, and free fall in a vacuum doesn't feel like motion at all. So
she feels nothing special when she moves across the event horizon, passing the
point of no return on her way toward the singularity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Alice most definitely will feel something when she approaches the
singularity! However, depending on the mass of the black hole, which determines
its radius and therefore the distance between horizon and singularity, that
could be anywhere from seconds to days, perhaps even a lifetime for a super
massive black hole.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nRe-pedZfsA/Vn6m4aaZ3TI/AAAAAAAAAXM/2CMTuaGrPBk/s1600/spaghettification.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="122" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nRe-pedZfsA/Vn6m4aaZ3TI/AAAAAAAAAXM/2CMTuaGrPBk/s200/spaghettification.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Spaghettification</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">What does Bob observe? As Alice
falls toward the event horizon of the black hole, her voice sounds deeper and
deeper until it drops below his range of hearing. Due to the relativistic
effects of time dilation, the gap between her signals grows longer and longer.
Eventually it takes years for her signals to arrive. Bob could literally wait
an infinite time and still not observe Alice actually reach the event
horizon! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Which story is true? Does Alice
drop through the event horizon and feel nothing until she hits the singularity
later? Or is she trapped in space-time, moving ever more slowly toward the
event horizon, taking an infinite amount of time to reach it? <i>Black Hole
Complementarity says that both stories are true!</i> For Alice, it's true that
she falls through the event horizon and goes on to become human spaghetti later
on, and for Bob, it's true that Alice never reaches the event horizon. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">While this seems impossible at
first glance, there is an all important catch. They cannot communicate back and
forth to confirm both observations at the same time. (There is a technical
reason for this restriction, the No Cloning rule of QM.) So we are forced to
choose the perspective of one observer or the other, with each story being true
<i>relative to its own observer perspective</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">With this background in mind we can
more easily understand why Susskind named it Black Hole <i>Complementarity</i>.
This is a direct reference to the complementarity proposed by Niels Bohr
relative to the paradox of wave-particle duality. He said these two
descriptions were the complement of one another, and that both must therefore
be accepted as applicable within their respective domains. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">
</span></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">BHC is another kind of
complementarity, one that forces us to abandon any notion of a single objective
reality that holds valid for both observers at the same time. If BHC is
correct, then “reality,” at least as it pertains in the extreme environment of
black holes, is observer-dependent. It also forces some very strange
conclusions about particles. Here is Susskind himself on how bizarre BHC is:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 26.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“<i>To most physicists, especially those who specialized
in the General theory of Relativity, Black Hole Complementarity seemed too
crazy to be true. It was not that they were uncomfortable with quantum
ambiguity; ambiguity at the Planck scale was entirely acceptable. But Black
Hole Complementarity was proposing something far more radical. Depending on the
state of motion of the observer, an atom might remain a tiny microscopic
object, or it might spread out over the entire horizon of an enormous black
hole. This degree of ambiguity was too much to swallow. It seemed strange even
to me.” Leonard Susskind, <u>The Black Hole War</u>, p. 354.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 26.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Recalling the discussion in Part 3
of the series on QBism and the work of Dr. Christopher Fuchs, we saw that some
of the deepest paradoxes of Quantum Mechanics may only be resolved by
jettisoning any notion of a single objective reality shared by all. The wave
function describes the observer, not an objective universe as had been
supposed. So it seems we have a convergence to this understanding from multiple
researchers at the cutting edge of modern physics. And the consequences are
dizzying.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It appears there is no longer any
solid ground to stand upon anywhere. Ghostly virtual particles pop into and out
of existence on a foam of quantum probabilities, while photons behave as either
waves or particles depending on how we measure them. Matter is composed mostly
of empty space, yet at the tiniest possible interstices of that “empty space”
there may still be information in the form of vibrating one-dimensional
strings. It seems the more we learn about our universe, the farther away we get
from our everyday view of reality. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">
</span></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Yet is not this the essence of what
Advaita has told us all along? That the measurable objective universe we think
we see is actually an illusion born of Ignorance? What can be more <i>mithyA</i>
than two contradictory stories being simultaneously true at the same time?
According to Advaita, what do we see but <i>nAmarUpa</i>, name and form? What
is name and form if not information? The very word “information” breaks down to
in-<i>form</i>-ation. If <i>nAmarUpa</i> = information, then physics is
describing the apparent “creation.” Science began from the position that it was
possible to separate the observer from the observed, but that view has receded
and now we see highly suggestive confirmation that “objective reality” is
actually <i>personal</i> rather than truly objective. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Further, the commonsense view of
reality is that the creation/universe was there first, and then we came along
to see it. In Advaita terms, this would be <i>sRRiShTi dRRiShTi vAda</i>,
meaning creation first and then the perception of it. But this theory is later
sublated and replaced with <i>dRRiShTI sRRiShTi vAda</i>, giving perception the
priority. There is only an apparent creation there because we are perceiving
it, and more, that perception still doesn't make that apparent creation real
(anymore than dream perceptions make the dream-world real). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It seems to this writer that a
theory like BHC points clearly to <i>dRRiShTI sRRiShTi vAda</i> rather than <i>sRRiShTi
dRRiShTi vAda,</i> i.e., perception creating the apparent world rather than the
other way around. But we must note that BHC is not settled science yet, and may
never be. After all, it is impossible to directly conduct experiments on black
holes, so the entire discussion must take place via mathematics and thought
experiments. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Further, it is all theoretical -- simply
because no actual existing black hole will even start to evaporate until the universe
is vastly older than it is today. All extant black holes are still growing and
will continue to grow for hundreds of billions, perhaps trillions of years to
come. So we are clearly in speculative territory here. Still, it is fascinating
to see a theory like BHC make essentially the same point some Advaita thinkers
had already been making for centuries. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">(To Continue …….. Physics of Reality – 6<b>)</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In the next article, we'll review a
recent important challenge to the validity of Black Hole Complementarity and
Susskind's amazing response to it, and also explore some other fascinating new
ideas at the frontier of physics. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="background: white; color: red; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">Wishing All Our Readers</span></b><b><span style="background: white; color: blue; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="background: white; color: blue; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">Season’s Greetings and</span></b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span><b><span style="background: white; color: blue; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">Best Wishes For a Happy And Prosperous</span></b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span><b><span style="background: white; color: blue; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">New Year</span></b></span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211673002367960332.post-52009569957560021982015-12-18T06:00:00.000-08:002015-12-18T06:00:10.154-08:00Physics of Reality - 4: Black Hole Complementarity by Charles Phelan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Physics of Reality – 4: Black Hole
Complementarity </span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">by Charles Phelan</span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></b>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[<i>Charles Phelan is a fellow Blogger at
the popular </i><a href="http://www.advaita-vision.org/">Advaita Vision</a><i> web site. He is a financial consultant by
profession but has a wide range of interests with the rare quality of clarity
and in-depth understanding in the fields of physics, consciousness research,
philosophy, the Western esoteric tradition, and Advaita Vedanta. He is presenting
here for our Readers a series of Posts highlighting the similarities in the thought
process of the modern physicists at the cutting edge and what the ancient
Advaita knowledge says.<o:p></o:p></i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>I am grateful to him for readily
agreeing to my request and sparing his time for contributing to our Blog.
Charles can be reached at </i><a href="mailto:charles@zipdebt.com">charles@zipdebt.com</a> <i> -- ramesam</i>.] <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The previous articles in this
series explored the relevance to Advaita of some of the latest research in theoretical
physics. Science is converging to a view that no description of reality can be
complete without the observer, and that so-called “objective reality” is really
more of a holographic illusion than anything truly solid or substantial.
Today's scientists are busy trying to tease apart Maya's tricks to see how this
illusion works. Leonard Susskind's theory of Black Hole Complementarity (BHC)
-- the topic of this article -- provides a good example of this driving
curiosity in action. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8MB9s2W30Tk/VnHkRgDUIvI/AAAAAAAAAWc/w1SSNO0OiIs/s1600/susskind.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="198" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8MB9s2W30Tk/VnHkRgDUIvI/AAAAAAAAAWc/w1SSNO0OiIs/s200/susskind.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Dr. L. Susskind</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">BHC is another breakthrough that
forces us to dispense with any view of a single objectively real universe, and
demonstrates yet again that “reality” is <i>observer-dependent</i>. Susskind
developed BHC during his decades-long battle with Stephen Hawking. The
disagreement was about a quantum loophole identified by Hawking, which became
known as the <i>paradox of information loss in black holes</i>, and Susskind's
theory was his proposed solution to the paradox. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Before we get further into the
physics of black holes and information loss, let's briefly touch on a few
points from Advaita. The Vedas speak of in terms of vast cosmological time
scales, immense epochs (<i>kalpas </i>--
each but one day in the life of the creator Brahma), and the entire cycle of
creation, preservation, and dissolution, <i>sRiShTi-sthiti-laya</i>.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">If we are to take seriously the
Advaita teachings on the accrual of <i>puNya</i>
and <i>pApa</i> (i.e., karmic merit or
demerit) to the <i>jIva</i>, then we can
legitimately ask: What happens to the karmic "information" during the
period of dissolution between <i>kalpas</i>?
Does it somehow get "recorded" and carried over to the next cycle? Or
does it get destroyed in the <i>pralaya</i>
phase? Asking such questions is essentially no different from asking whether
information is conserved or destroyed when it enters a black hole. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Just what is a black hole anyway? When
a star collapses at the end of its life, completely spent of fuel and no longer
able to produce fusion, it may shrink by orders of magnitude and become a white
or brown dwarf or a neutron star, depending on its original size. Given
sufficiently large mass, a star will collapse all the way to what is called a <i>singularity</i>,
a point where the equations of physics break down and begin producing
infinities. (Perhaps we can think of <i>pralaya</i>
as a form of singularity?)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vIXybqiXUxc/VnHkySDGARI/AAAAAAAAAWk/5t7LTJ_nboc/s1600/suss%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vIXybqiXUxc/VnHkySDGARI/AAAAAAAAAWk/5t7LTJ_nboc/s320/suss%2B2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Black hole</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Physicists call this singularity a <i>black
hole</i>, simply because its gravitational force is so strong that even light
cannot escape. No form of matter or energy that falls into the clutches of a
black hole can ever get free again. To get out of Earth’s gravity well and into
orbit, one must reach velocities exceeding 40,000 kilometers per hour,
something we do routinely with chemical rocketry. With a black hole, even the
speed of light is insufficient. For all practical purposes, the escape velocity
of a black hole is infinite. There are no rockets, chemical, nuclear, or
otherwise, that can possibly escape a black hole. (Sorry, Star Trek fans!) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The point at which an object
falling toward the singularity passes the point of no return is called the <i>event
horizon</i>. Anything passing through the event horizon is doomed to eventually
hit the singularity, where the force of gravity is so strong that a human being
gets stretched into a piece of spaghetti thousands of miles long, most
certainly not an enjoyable experience!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Dr. John Wheeler, a key 20th
century figure in theoretical physics, and mentioned previously in this series,
was also a pioneer in the study of black holes. In fact, he is the physicist
who originally coined that term. One of Wheeler's early quips was, “Black holes
have no hair.” By “no hair,” he meant they are completely smooth and
featureless, without any apparent irregularities, essentially all the same as
one another except for size. This, of course, was just Wheeler's poetic
phrasing for what the equations of General Relativity were telling him about
the structure of black holes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Along came Stephen Hawking, who
proved that black holes are not entirely bald after all. Hawking discovered
that there was more going on with black holes than had previously been assumed,
and through a rigorous mathematical analysis he showed that they gradually <i>evaporate</i>
and fade away to nothing. The reason for this evaporation has to do with the
quantum entanglement of virtual particle pairs, with one part of the entangled
pair falling inside the event horizon and the other outside, i.e., “hair."
Theoretically, via this quantum mechanical process, photons are emitted as
Hawking radiation, causing the black hole to eventually evaporate and then
completely vanish. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hawking's analysis was rigorous and
solid, and it left physicists like Leonard Susskind scratching their heads. If
Hawking was correct, then objects falling into the black hole would carry
information beyond the event horizon and into the singularity where it could
never be recovered. That, of and by itself, does not represent a problem for physics.
However, if the black hole were to fully evaporate later, then the information
would be lost forever. This is a gross violation of the most fundamental
understanding of physics, which firmly denies the possibility of any such
information loss. It would be the equivalent of taking a safe and locking some
valuables inside it, only to then watch the safe evaporate and vanish, along
with the valuables. It seemed more a magic trick than science! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Many physicists were intuitively
convinced there was something wrong with Hawking's approach, but a solution
remained elusive for decades. What it took to resolve the paradox of
information loss was a series of advances in the physics of black hole entropy
and String Theory. Combining several such breakthroughs, Leonard Susskind's
proposed solution was Black Hole Complementarity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">What BHC states is that information
falling into a black hole is reflected off a "stretched" hot horizon,
and could theoretically be recovered from the Hawking radiation, AND that information
also passes the event horizon and is eventually destroyed when it reaches the
singularity. The catch is that <i>both observations cannot be made at the same
time</i>, meaning that an observer outside the event horizon could confirm that
information is reflected off the event horizon, and an observer inside could
confirm information loss, but never both at the same time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stephen Hawking ultimately conceded
the bets he had made about information loss in black holes. It had been proven
to his satisfaction that the information going into a black hole could come
back out via the evaporative Hawking radiation itself, rather than being lost
permanently as he originally proposed. By 2008, Leonard Susskind published
his book, “The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World
Safe for Quantum Mechanics.” The battle was over, but Hawking's brilliant
challenge had stimulated an entire new wave of research leading to some truly
astounding results. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(To Continue ….. Physics of Reality
– 5: will be posted on Dec 28, 2015)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="background: white; color: blue; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">Season’s Greetings and</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span><b><span style="background: white; color: blue; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">Best Wishes For a Happy And Prosperous</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br />
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Ramesam Vemurihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13670447320400400816noreply@blogger.com1