-thanks, as usual for your extraordinary insights!
Personally, I "believe" (grok) that there is a genuine paradox of
Brahman; i.e. that existence is simultaneously relative and Absolute.
Paradoxes are found in mathematics, entities B. Russell and later,
K. Godel delved into. Examples: 1. the Cretan's Paradox, named after
a passage in the Bible which states that all Cretans are liars.
So, if one asks a Cretan, "are you telling the truth?", is the Cretan
telling the truth, or lying? This is a paradox since, if the Cretan
is stating the truth, he's actually lying.
A simpler one is to have a piece of paper on which is written on
both sides: "The other side of this paper is untrue". Is the
statement true or false?
The human mind may be tempted to demand an easily solution to such
paradoxes: right or wrong, yin or yang. Such dichotomies exist in
Aristotlean logic, but "the truth" often exists in the excluded
middle, the gray area between true or false.
One can find metaphorical analogues to the excluded middle in
quantum physics: a quantum particle may exist in a shadowy area of
quantum ghostliness, in a twilight zone of probabilities. Attempting
to pin down the precise location and momentum of such particles runs
up against Heisenberg's Uncertainy principle. It can't be done.
Metaphorical analogues to physical principles can be useful in
helping us to understand physics and metaphysics.
For one thing, there are serious wide open gaps between our current
store of "knowledge" and the actual state of the universe, which
nobody can account for. Such phenomena include dark matter and dark
energy.
In the current state of physics, there is no shortage of wild
speculative hypotheses to account for the existence of dark matter
and dark energy.
Metaphorical analogues can help people get pointed in the right
direction; subject to later confirmation by experimental methods
(hopefully)..
-- In [email protected], Duveyoung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Richard,
>
> In transcendental samadhi, it gets tricky, because to me, that's
still
> duality. One (a nervous system) is still saying "I am." One is not
> saying "I am suchandsuch," but nonetheless, it is saying, "I am."
But
> that's still two thingies, ego and amness. Or, if you prefer to go
up
> a notch in abstraction, 1. Absolute 2. Soul. Samadhi is amness,
> primal sinless ego, singing OM -- singing like hunters doing duck
> calls -- hoping to lure the Absolute down from the heights of
akhanda
> mandala karum. But, ha!, it's one smart duck!
>
> One transcends by doing less and less. Thinking a thought is work
> being done. The least work of this type is samadhi -- a nervous
> system is still operating but "in neutral, not in drive." If I have
> no awareness of anything outer, but I'm still aware, I've
transcended,
> stopped, MOST thinking, but awareness without an object is still
some
> work being done. That least state of excitation, that smallest
amount
> of working, results in the experience, amness, but it is not a
perfect
> silence since it is an action of a body that is intended to
symbolize
> the Absolute. The Absolute is, functionally, the imaginary friend
of
> amness. The problem with samadhi is that identification remains
> localized as body, mind, spirit. Time still seems to exist as a
> potential of Being, and urp, now I'm getting claustrophobic!
>
> The trick of enlightenment is to identify with the Absolute instead
of
> Being. It's a toughie, cuz you know Being is soooooooo convincing.
> How convincing? There's that story about the sage who had become so
> powerful that he could create a whole new creation with its own new
> Gods, so Indra and his boys sent a hot chick to twiddle the sage's
> twiddleables. And, yep, sure enough, ten thousand years of tapas
went
> down the drain, and then the sage didn't have enough shakti to do a
> new creation, so the Gods could relax. How sweet must Being Beauty
> be, eh? That chick musta been something to have a sage pay 10,000
> years of tapas for her fee.
>
> Like that, Being can suck ya in. Pun intended. One moment one's
> almost perfectly identified with the unbounded, then BLAMMO, you're
> Indra with a ton of work to do, or worse, Edg on caffeine.
>
> Nope, TM's mantra only gets ya to samadhi, and dwelling there is
good
> cuz as one gets "used to" identifying with a symbol of perfect
silence
> -- that is, the sound of OM -- one cultures one's nervous system
until
> it can shift from local, quality ladened, unbounded but yet fettered
> ensoulment onto the Absolute.
>
> Once this toggling of identification happens, that's the last
paradigm
> shift the mind can have -- when even wooden decoy bliss cannot bribe
> the Absolute down to the duck hunter.
>
> That's enlightenment -- one leaps out of the zombie.
>
> Edg
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --- In [email protected], "Richard J. Williams"
> <willytex@> wrote:
> >
> > Duveyoung wrote:
> > > To me Being is all the gunas perfectly balanced but
> > > still having the quality of being manifest -- that is,
> > > observable and thus distinct from the Absolute -- just
> > > exactly as a mirror is functional but "invisible" to
> > > human eyes that are tuned to see only to the mirror's
> > > reflections.
> > >
> > But Maharishi has said that the relative is separate from
> > the Absolute, that the Absolute is "free from the gunas",
> > and that the Absolute is not an object of knowledge.
> >
> > "The Vedas mainly deal with the subject of the three modes
> > of material nature. Rise above these modes, O Arjuna. Be
> > transcendental to all of them. Be free from all dualities
> > and from all anxieties for gain and safety, and be
> > established in the Self."
> >
> > http://www.asitis.com/2/45.html
> >
>
