[Note: A rather lengthy e-mail was received from a site visitor named Raja. After reading his questions later, you will understand why some preliminary comments are being offered before providing responses.]
F.: Hello Raja. Before responding to your questions, it is suggested that you understand first that there are several methods of teachings involving Advaita Vedanta. The responses on this site might align with those offered by other teachers using the “Direct Path Method” and a Nisarga Approach…or not.
On the other hand, the Direct Path/Nisarga Yoga answers here will not always align with those offered by adherents of the Traditional Method, the Neo-Advaita Method, the Neo-Vedanta Method, or the Pseudo-Advaita method. All but Pseudo-Advaita are discussed in postings in July of 2007. It is suggested that you visit the archives in order to understand the differences.
Then, rather than decide, “I want ___ to be my teacher,” it would be a sane and sound approach to study the methods of teaching first, then find a teacher that adheres to the method that seems to make the most sense to you right now. (You may find—as “i” did—that exposure to several methods might happen before finding the one that actually re-purifies the consciousness completely.)
Most who begin a study of the teachings are drawn to methods that are top-heavy with concepts. Grand platitudes and lofty observations can have an appeal to some persons, early on. Some teachers will tell you what they think you want to hear, inspiring fictional attachments rather than pointing the way to true freedom. Others have distorted philosophy into religion.
Rather than employing the “use thorns to remove thorns and then cast aside all thorns” approach, some use the thorns over and over. In the case of this speck of consciousness, Full Realization came only after the last thorn went.
So, understand that the direct path method to the no-concept, non-dual Reality is the methodology shared on this site. The approach might be the one for “you,” but it might not. Your questions reveal that you seem to have been introduced to a version of the Advaita Vedanta Teachings that is blending the religious concepts you’ve been taught with the philosophical teachings. The Direct Path Advaitin will never suggest that you learn anything but will speak of un-learning instead.
You might find, unlike that approach, that some versions of the teachings will reinforce your past religious or spiritual concepts, will blend those with the Advaita teachings, and will then add even more concepts to both; however, peace and freedom come via de-accumulation, not via even more accumulation.
It has been witnessed that religious teachings can certainly move one to the third step of the seven-step “path” to Realization. Here, however, the invitation is to cast aside all ideas and emotions and beliefs and thereby clear the way to an understanding of the no-concept Reality.
The invitation here to those at the first or second step is to reach that third step, of course, but to transition that step and complete the entire “journey” to Full Realization.
Many at the third step assume a religious persona and/or a spiritual persona (or both) as personal identities. They will mistake the early dawn for high noon, thinking they have “made it,” that they have “arrived.” In fact, all personality is false, so no one identified with personality will ever realize the Truth (which can be known but which cannot be stated).
Your questions are many and include numerous redundancies. Since your interest seems sincere, level-appropriate responses will be offered. Understand, however, that the scope of this site cannot accommodate the full explanation to many of your queries, many of which would be book length.
Most of what you are asking about is explained in the book What Happens When I Die? [http://floydhenderson.com/whenidie.htm] which might clarify all that you do not presently understand about “birth” and “pre-manifestation” and post-manifestation. Of course you cannot die since you were not born, but other explanations should be understood before trying to move to that understanding. Now, to the responses:
R.: I have some confusions and doubts pertaining to advaita concept. According to Advaita all there is "is Consciousness" i.e, Brahman ,Absolute Reality, Omnipresent, all pervading entity.
F.: First, to the quote; later, to "Brahman" and "entity." Your confusion here is understood and is quite common, even among many who use the phrase you quoted. The expression “All there is, is Consciousness” deals first with the idea that there are forms of energy and that one form is energy that is capable of being conscious-of.
It functions at the core of all manifestation: the acorn knows how to make a forest; persons know how to make babies (though many do not know how babies are made); birds and bees know how to make birds and bees, respectively.
No “mind” and no “thinking” is required, which is no different from the way that the body digests food…automatically and spontaneously. Yet manifested consciousness is required for any of that to happen.
To clarify, pre-manifestation, there is still consciousness that is not conscious of itself but that can be conscious of, such as the case described in a November ’07 posting:
The proton and the electron particles “stayed together” because the electrical charge of each “attracted” the other in this original instance of the simplest form of conscious-of-ness, “a” being conscious of “b” and vice versa.) The movement of one affected the movement of the other, but neither particle was conscious of “itself.”
There is pre-manifestation or post-manifestation a form of energy with a capacity for being conscious-of even though not manifested. [Later, but certainly not now, you can investigate the “Advanced Seekers’ Package,” especially the book Consciousness/Awareness: The Nature of Reality beyond SELF-Realization. [See link below.] To say, “All there is, is Consciousness” is true during the “Is-ness” when the consciousness can be aware of itself; it can also be true if it is understand that the potential energy not aware of itself (a.k.a., “awareness”) can be conscious of something else, such as the case with the protons and electrons.
Such energy can be manifested or can be in a "state" of potentiality if not. For now, that is enough to ponder. The invitation is to avoid asking any further questions for a time, to consider the above, and to review the teaching methods discussed in the July ’07 archives before continuing. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
For more information on books that address all of the seven levels of the “journey” offered via the Advaita Teachings or that discuss in detail each of the seven steps, visit:
http://floydhenderson.com/nothingness.htm
http://floydhenderson.com/consiousnessawareness.htm
http://floydhenderson.com/iamabsolute.htm
http://floydhenderson.com/theessence.htm
http://floydhenderson.com/whenidie.htm
http://floydhenderson.com/liberation.htm
http://floydhenderson.com/peaceofmind.htm
http://floydhenderson.com/spiritualsobriety.htm
http://floydhenderson.com/bullshit.htm
http://floydhenderson.com/twicestolen1.htm
http://floydhenderson.com/twicestolen2.htm
http://floydhenderson.com/spiritjourney.htm
http://floydhenderson.com/twelvestep.htm
http://floydhenderson.com/castinglight.htm
http://floydhenderson.com/boardofdirectors.htm
