An Advaita Vedanta realization, enlightenment, nisarga yoga site discussing non-duality (nonduality), your original nature, and dwelling in the natural state as revealed by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.
FROM A SITE VISITOR YESTERDAY: It seems to me the consciousness which you say is the cause of nonsense is also the cause of all that is accomplished in the relative. like Steven was saying we have to work if we don’t have someone to pay our bills. We have to contribute if we want to have some sense of purpose and meaning and betterment. You have said Christ was an Advaitin. I am combining Advaita Vedanta and Christianity to live by. My religion lets me serve others. What is wrong with that? what’s wrong with trying to live like Christ and help others. That is not nonsense. Jim
F.: [Continued from Monday] To review:
You cannot “combine” Advaita and religion since the former invites the casting aside of all duality and concepts whereas the latter encourages belief in duality and concepts.
Ironically, either “spirituality” and/or “religion” facilitate reaching the third of seven steps to Realization.
The step cannot be skipped, but it must be transitioned for Full Realization to happen. With those reminders, the response to your comments about religion and Christ shall be address.
All of the ancient religions (and the modern religions which evolved from them) dualistically claim that escape from the pain and suffering on “earth” will eventually be available via a refuge in the sky. The “here vs. there” duality is at the core of ancient religions and the religions that have evolved from them.
Pointers offered by Advaitin Douwe Tiemersma that deal with this subject have been shared previously on this site but bear repeating:
There are various religions [that] suffer from certain inherent limitations. They couch into fine-sounding words their traditional beliefs and ideologies, theological or philosophical. Believers, however, discover the limited range of meaning and applicability of these words, sooner or later. They get disillusioned and tend to abandon the systems, in the same way as scientific theories are abandoned, when they are called in question by too much contradictory empirical data.
To suggest as you do, Jim, that religion (which refuses to recognize contradictory empirical data) can be “combined” with a philosophy that invites persons to see the contradictory empirical data (which refutes the dualistic beliefs propagated by religions) is an impossibility.
In fact, no other source has generated more dualistic (and therefore false) concepts and beliefs than religion: good-bad, moral-immoral, created-destroyed, past-future, right-wrong, sacred-secular, ethical-unethical, acceptable-unacceptable, heaven-earth, holy-unholy, paradise-hell, decent-indecent, proper-improper, saved-punished, consecrated-common, principled-unprincipled, OK-not OK, better than-worse than, reward-punish, saint-sinner, ad infinitum.
How can this notion of being able to “combine” the Advaita teachings (which invite you to fixate in the no-concept, non-dual Reality) possibly be reconciled, or combined with, the teachings from the very source of most of the planet’s concepts and dualities that result in the masses being out of touch with Reality?
Next, understand that this “Christ” you reference modeled this: he was programmed and conditioned by, and engaged in, organized religion. But what did he model after he was finally exposed to the Advaita teachings, began to question his earlier religious teachings, and cast them aside, at least when talking to certain “advanced seekers”?
He left organized religion and its “holy” buildings and would eventually share the teachings outdoors or in private homes. Ironically, what he modeled is ignored by “Followers” who now behave in a manner that is exactly the opposite of his example, spending billions to erect buildings and to practice organized religion.
The following pointer was offered in a June of 2005 posting on this site:
"One must either find a working philosophy or be doomed to adopt their ideology instead; experience shows that nothing is more destructive than buying into their ideology."
Is “destructive” an exaggeration? Only if you ignore historical and present-day evidence which shows how drastically religion’s “noble goals and claims” differ from the actual, relative results of their beliefs that are based in imaginary divisions that cause a sense of separation along religious lines (which has resulted, in turn, in thousands of years of fighting for their causes and beliefs and concepts).
Such is the case when seekers reach the third step, fixate there because they mistake the dawn for high noon, and are then driven by an entirely new set of personas. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
