--- In [email protected], mike brown <uerusuboyo@...> wrote:
>
> Steve,
>
> Thanks mate, I'm well and hope you are, too. I don't have a great deal of
> time
> to answer your previous post as I'm preparing for a 3 day Vipassana retreat
> starting tomorrow. Lot's of new doors to open and explore so I'm looking
> forward
> to returning and carrying on this diescussion! Just one thing that jumped out
> at
> me that I'd like to ask you. You wrote below:
>
> >..if Ultimate Reality is without inherent qualities such as intentionality,
> >and
> >all phenomena are unreal illusion, thenhow did this unreal illusion ever
> >arise
> >at all? The Advaita Vedanta people give no answer to this.
>
> Ok. Can you tell what you agree/disagree with in the below quote from Ramana
> Maharshi (which also, btw, seems to point at a particular meaning of
> 'emptiness'). For me, I think that he is much like Buddha in that he doesn't
> concern himself about where the universe began or came from (i.e. questions
> about the metaphysical), but rather concerns himself about how we can free
> ourselves from the illusion.
>
> "âWithout consciousness
> Time and space do not exist;
> They appear within Consciousness
> But have no reality of their own.
> It is like a screen on which
> All this is cast as pictures and move
> As in a cinema show.
> The Absolute Consciousness
> Alone is our real natureâ
>
> Mike
>
> Hey Bud, me again. I was rushing to catch a plane earlier and didn't have
> time to elaborate. I'm at the airport now and have a few moments. Here are a
> few comments on Maharshi's quote that are more in-depth:
"Without consciousness time and space do not exist."
Agreed. But without time and space, consciousness would not be aware of itself.
Consciousness and space/time are Not-Two.
"But have no reality of their own."
Yes, they don't have inherent, separate reality, but they DO have reality
relative to consciousness. Here I agree with Kashmir Shaivism as opposed to
Advaita Vedanta.
"It is like a screen on which all this is cast as pictures and move as in a
cinema show."
OK, dude, here's the thing. Advaita Vedanta likes to compare reality to a
movie. Kashmir Shaivism (and ancient Gnosticism) likes to use the analogy of a
mirror and it's reflections. I personally don't think it helpful using mundane
analogies from relative existence to explain these things. I agree that
everything arises in Consciousness.
However, imo, everything arises in consciousness NOT as a predetermined movie
script, but rather as an infinite number and variety of indeterminate
possibilities. One might say that these are snap-shots, but they are not
predetermined images. They bubble-up out of a sea of possibilities in an
indeterminate manner. IMO, it is more like an improvisational show than like a
pre-set movie. IMO, the One Mind voluntarily loses Itself in this field of
possibilities in order to experience itself in an infinite variety of novel
possibilities. A Hindu might call this the Play of Shiva. IMO, the One Mind
forgets itself and becomes you, me and everyone and everything else in order to
wake-up within the Play and remember Itself once again. This is the meaning of
the Primal Vow of Amitabha that all shall be enlightened. But in my opinion,
the One Mind is not a Big Person outside of the show looking in. Hence, even It
cannot be said to know what will happen. But it has voluntarily, through It's
own free-will, set the stage for this improvisational Play to happen. If the
One Mind is all that exists, then how can it ever experience Itself? IMO, It
does so by seeming to split into a multitude of sentient beings looking at
Itself from an infinite variety of view-points. This is the whole point of
enlightenment, imo.
> "The Absolute Consciousness alone is our real nature."
Again, I want to stress that Consciousness and It's objects are Not-Two.
Consciousness apart from It's objects would not know that It existed. The
difference between my view and Advaita Vedanta is that I see genuine novelty,
whereas they see a pre-set movie script. I believe that my view is fully in
accord with the facts. The physicist Nick Herbert has commented that, even if
Quantum Mechanics is not the final explanation, still the principles of
uncertainty and non-locality will remain, as these have been proven time and
again over the last 6 decades beyond a reasonable doubt. Any philosophical
explanation must take them into account. I do realize that all this talk is
very un-Zenlike. I am sure that Bill! is barely restraining himself from
shouting "Just sit down and shut-up!" ;-)
Steve
>
>
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