Whose 'conspicuous ignorance' here? Are you contending saying Fleetwood is conspicuously ignorant [academically] because in his experience he is not quoting and speaking from the books you are referencing? As much as Turqb hates him, Fleetwood is the one here saying it in his own words without quoting or falling back on scripture or books. I appreciate that he says it so perfunctorily and clearly of his experience without scriptural and book reference. His is my experience too. I feel he does a great job writing about it all. A fabulous anthology of truly spiritual experience in life could be a compilation of Fleetwood FFL posts who you bombast as cheesy where he writes practically about spiritual experience from experience. He seems to most always cut through the words and footnote of the more strictly academic and scriptural 'in yur head' approaches. As brilliant as you smarty-pants academics might be he is bright in his experience. I appreciate that he takes the time to write from experience here and I admire him for his courage to take all the ridicule heaped on him by the conspicuously ignorant otherwise, -Buck in the Dome
Cheesey Mac’s contra-post was quite amusing. He demonstrates the emblematic persona of a bhogi (“experience” addict) even though he wishes to portray himself as an enlightened yogi. Brilliant! Just to set the “record” straight … having read Swartz’ book (Xeno posted the link to chapter 2), I decided to carefully check and verify Swartz' statements describing Shankara’s Advaita Vedanta. To do that I obtained a copy of a hard-to-get text called The Method of Early Vedanta – A Study of Gaudapada, Šhankara, Surešhvara, Padmapâda by Michael Comans, Ph.D. Also, along with it, I purchased Bhâmati and Vivarana Schools of Advaita Vedânta – A Critical Approach by Pulash Soobah Roodurmun. I am pleased to report that Swartz’ statements in his book track well with the written views of Shankara as expressed in his scholastically accepted texts, along with the views of his two successors. That alone belies the “evaluation” that Cheesey Mac posted. Knowledge and experience cannot oppose each other because they are different orders of reality. Knowledge alone opposes ignorance but fortunately, ignorance is curable. It is like realizing that the hulking, hunched-over figure in the dark alley is just a trashcan. Such a corrected judgment does not destroy the trashcan or cause it to displace to another location. The trashcan does not even disappear before our eyes. In the light of reevaluation, an erroneous notion is negated and a correct one presents itself. That is all. In the face of the experience-based misapprehension, “I am this body, this life, these thoughts and feelings, these deliberations and choices” the Upanishads declares the opposite. “You are this sheer Awareness itself (jñanam) - that which is hearing or reading these words at this very moment. Your Awareness is a changeless, invariant reality (satyam). It is limitless (anantam) because it does not have an ‘Other’ to limit or bind it.” If inquired into with dedicated attention, this recognition will engross the mind in this very awareness itself and lead to uncovering the native invariance and boundlessness of awareness-as-such. The fact is, Cheeso speaks from conspicuous ignorance and does so in a manner that is noticeably bombastic. It is an example of exclamatory self-fascination. Here is a quote that I posted previously that explains the basis of such “complaints and subterfuges”: TM'ers are instructed within a yogic-advaita framework - one that underpins their understanding about meditation and reality. Without exposure to Shankara's teachings and the traditional Upanishad methodology, it will be hard for any TM'er to entertain the original view. For there is the statement of the shruti : “The Brahman that is direct and immediate” (BU 3.4.1) and there is the statement “you are That” (CU6.8.7) which teaches [that Brahman] is already accomplished. This sentence “you are That” cannot be interpreted to mean you will become That after you are dead (i.e in heaven). Comans says: Firstly, Shankara is committed to the understanding that the Self is self-luminous, for it is by nature pure Awareness (BUbh 4.3.23). Secondly, in accord with this view of the self-luminosity of the Self as Awareness, Shankara has characterized the Self as “Experience Itself” (anubhavâtman). We should therefore expect that the experience about which Shankara speaks is the “intuition”, “insight”, or even “recognition” of oneself as pure Awareness. It cannot be a new experience of producing something that did not previously exist. Nor can it be an experience involving the objectification of Awareness. It is rather the “experience” of oneself as Awareness, without limitations. For that is what one is, and so finds oneself to be, when there is the apprehension of one’s own fundamental Awareness-nature, together with the apprehension of the “seeming”, or the apparent nature (mithyâtva) of all limiting adjuncts (upâdhis): those that pertain to the individual body-mind (tvam), as well as to the Lordship of Brahman (tat). TM'ers are not educated to receive, apprehend or articulate such a view about the immediacy of direct realization.
