Re "we, as pure awareness, do nothing": So we can't liberate ourselves - as we're just looking on. It follows that if moksha is possible it's a case of us waiting for the the three gunas to untangle themselves (as it were) and stop creating scrambled messages in our minds that give the read-out I AM IGNORANT. Still it does seem as if the key is to bring more awareness to bear on our mental processes - from which it follows that just reading the scriptures (say) or sitting at the feet of a guru has the desired effect on our automatic thought processes. That right?
---In [email protected], <punditster@...> wrote : According to Nisargadatta, "awareness is the source of, but different from, the personal, individual consciousness, which is identified with the body. The mind and memory are responsible for association with a particular body; awareness exists prior to both mind and memory. It is only the idea that we are the body that keeps us from living what he calls our "original essence" This seems to agree with MMY's statement that we as individuals, being determined by the three gunas, do not act at all. So, this was not a radical notion - in fact, there is no such thing as a "doer". According to Nisargadatta and other teachers of Vedanta, since "our true nature or identity is not the mind, is not the body, but the witness of the mind and body, we, as pure awareness, do nothing. " Apparently a less well known disciple, Ramakant Maharaj, received the naam mantra from Nisargadatta in 1962 and spent the next 19 years studying and meditating with the master. Go figure. Nisargadatta Maharaj: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisargadatta_Maharaj http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisargadatta_Maharaj
