FROM A SITE VISITOR: Hi Floyd, Firstly i must thank you for this wonderful blog on Advaita and also your thoughfulness to provide a platform for asking questions. Although I am a Hindu by birth, only recently i was introduced to Advaita(about 6 months ago).
My concept of Brahman(God) has so far been like, It is the Ultimate spaceless-timeless Void which has Consciousness. The Void itself being aware nothing exists. There is no spirit, but only Consciousness without any substratum. Now, Consciousness is what provides for the experience. Not the experience itself. SO Consciousness should make you aware that you exist. Same goes for Brhaman. COnsciousness makes It aware it exists.
Now, in every religion there is no parallel existence to God. God does not change also. Even if there is Consciousness, how could God become aware of It's existence, unless there is some percievable change within it? Hypothetically, if i became deaf,blind,numb to touch, insensitive to smell all at the same time and there is no bodily feeling inside me, and my memories got erased too that wud mean i'm in a coma right?
How could i be aware of my own existence, without even knowing any external or internal changes happening? I understand that this would be the case even if i believed God to be a Spirit. I mean, there is not much difference. the Void should know nothing exists. the spirit should know nothing else exists. But how does this knowledge comes in the first place? Hope this doesn't sound like a babble. P.S: English is no my mother-tongue. so excuse me for my grammatical errors. Vignesh
F.: Hello Vignesh, Thank you for your e-mail. Since you have only been introduced to Advaita for a 6-month period, may I offer some considerations?
First, you are invited to consider a brief overview of “the problem” in order to understand how the Advaita Teachings can provide “the solution.” (Take “the problem” to be that the consciousness becomes corrupted or obscured as adults teach nonsense to children. That nonsense is the same nonsense that had been taught to the previous generation of children and includes ideas, concepts, dogma, beliefs and myths presented as if they were fact. Take “the solution” to be the process which removes all belief in all nonsense, that leads to an ability to differentiate truth from false—which some call “sanity” or “being in touch with reality”—and a realization of the truth which cannot be spoken but which can be understood during the pure, or re-purified, manifest consciousness.)
By the time a person has been thoroughly programmed and conditioned and domesticated and enculturated, seven degrees of separation from Reality will have been firmly entrenched. The closest that most on the planet will ever come to a realization of that fact is if they say in frustration some day, “I don’t even know who I am.” And so it is.
The effect of that programming and conditioning is this: for millions of years, the predecessors of “modern” humans lived a natural existence. When language developed along with the brain--allowing it to store and retrieve data--concepts and dogma soon followed. Magical, supernatural thinking was also introduced and persons soon lost touch with living naturally and began to live “unnaturally” and “supernaturally.”
The seven steps that bastardize the consciousness always happen in the exact same order. The sequence which corrupts or obscures the consciousness as it moves into manifestation and results in body identification has happened millions and billions and trillions of times all across the globe for several thousands of years.
(Consider: there is no body that “has” consciousness. Consciousness manifests, and that manifestation might appear to take any number of forms, but it is merely consciousness, period. As mentioned in a recent post, just because you travel from one country to another in a plane does not mean you are the plane. The plane is merely the vehicles in which you are being transported…in which you are moving about.)
The Teachings are nothing more than a set of pointers which can move “seekers” along a “path” which is the exact reverse of the seven steps that resulted in the obfuscation. For Realization to happen—for freedom from belief in nonsense to manifest—the steps that lead to the obscuring of the consciousness must be taken in the exact, reverse order.
Thus, that speck of consciousness called “Maharaj” said, “Follow the same path by which you came.”
NOTE: “Path” and “journey” are placed in quote marks in these postings because there is really no path and because there is no “journey” to take since there is nowhere to “go.” Rather, You Are THAT Which You seek. You need go nowhere but are invited to see that You Are already “there,” so to speak.
There is nothing to find and nowhere to go to seek it. The Truth is within and can be accessed via the inner guru, though some time with a teacher—or some time spent in the reading and contemplation of the teacher’s words which are merely the consciousness speaking—can often initiate the awakening process that can lead to the Realization of THAT Which You Are.
From the manifestation of consciousness to the acceptance of the belief that one is the body is a seven-step process whereby the consciousness has been corrupted or obscured. In order to “un-do” the effects of faulty programming, seven steps must be taken in a specific order (the explanation of which is too lengthy for this forum. See FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE).
[NOTE: There are other approaches available should the approach on this site not “work” for “you.” You can search this site to find the four most common methods for teaching the Advaita principles…or five counting pseudo-Advaita. Here, the Direct Path Method is employed. The system of yoga is the Nisarga (or natural) Yoga, inviting persons to Realize and then live out the remainder of the manifestation in a natural fashion rather than in an unnatural or supernatural fashion.]
That overview having been provided, certain considerations will be offered in regards to your comments and questions. The first is this: if you complete all seven steps of the “journey,” You will realize that you are not “Hindu by birth”; You will realize that you are more accurately Hindu by no choice, as is the case with the 6 billion+ on the planet who claim some religious affiliation but who have merely accepted blindly and unquestioningly the religious dogma of their parents or their cultures.
You will also realize why it is said that “you are not Hindu by birth,” the reason being that you were not “born” (and therefore cannot be "re-born"). Further, You will realize what it means when an Advaitin says that You cannot die. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
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