On 7/9/2014 10:15 AM, [email protected] [FairfieldLife] wrote:
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?
>
The Nisargadatta is concerned with the three constituents, called gunas:
/sattva/, /rajas/ and /tamas/. The idea is to transcend these three
qualities. According to MMY: "The authorship of action does not in
reality belong to the "I". It is a mistake to understand that "I" do
this, "I" experience this and "I" know this. All action is performed by
the three gunas born of Nature."
The implications of these passages indicate that the nature of the mind
is appreciated as it is, separate from activity. The "goal" of
meditation does not consist in attaining anything or reaching anything,
but simply in recognizing what already is - that the "I" is essentially
uninvolved with activity. Here, the ONLY criterion is internal: the self
realized as independent of action - the one causal nexus.
/"The Vedas concern is with the three gunas. Be without the three gunas
O Arjuna, freed from duality, ever possesses of Self."/
>
---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
