Advaita Vedanta

[AmericanKestrel]

I find this view of Reality intuitively vary compelling. Brahman, Atman, Maya -- there is an irresistible allure to non-duality.

I think the difficulties experienced in understanding Advaita is due to language and the meaning attributed to the Sanskrit terms and definition used in the philosophy.
Brhman (Brhm means humongous, bigness) is all there is. It transcends time and space, is causeless, and there is no space where it does not exist. It does not create anything. It has no attributes.
Atman (Atma is self) is Brhman when we experience the world of names and forms as sentient beings.
As sentient beings we experience the world with our body, mind, and intellect. The Atma does not experience anything. It is pure awareness, and it is by its illumination that we know the world.
A cinema screen is the metaphor for for Atma. The movie that plays out is the world. The viewer is the bod,mind, intellect complex that gets identified as the ego, I, consciousness, awareness. This is not the Self, Atman. The atman shines the light on our awareness so we become aware that we are aware.
The purpose of life is to realize the truth that we are not our ego/I /consciousness but the ever luminous Atman.
As long as we are attached to the ego the world exists, which we create. This is the Maya. It is not illusion, it is real, we transact with this world that we create. It is the source of our pleasure and pain and suffering.
I will stop here.

[popeye1945]

AmericanKestrel.
Is what you call Maya our apparent reality and if so, is it not apparent that apparent reality is a biological readout. All the sensory stuff that we are capable of sensing goes into perception which is in fact a reaction to said stimulus. This then is called illusion because it is bodily interpretation and thus not the ultimate reality. So, if apparent reality is an illusion then the body having the illusion is itself illusion? Schopenhauer's subject and object stand or fall together?

[AmericanKestrel]

AmericanKestrel.
Is what you call Maya our apparent reality and if so, is it not apparent that apparent reality is a biological readout. All the sensory stuff that we are capable of sensing goes into perception which is in fact a reaction to said stimulus. This then is called illusion because it is bodily interpretation and thus not the ultimate reality. So, if apparent reality is an illusion then the body having the illusion is itself illusion? Schopenhauer's subject and object stand or fall together?

Well, Schopenhauer did hold the upanishads in great respect and found correspondence in them to his own philosophy. The stimulus that you mention is desire which spurs all action. The remedy Advaita offers is to still desire, and to act only with detachment to the result. In fact don’t react. The body is not an illusion but transient as it is required to transact with the world. What remains is the Atma. Atma may be the will that Schop talks about.

[popeye1945]

AmericanKestrel,
My understanding of Maya is that it is created by one's own biology, it is itself reactionary perception a biological readout. You say it is to transact with the world, my feeling is it is the world, it is an emergent reality arising from the relation of subject and object. Desire may come into it at some time later but the actual quality of cognitive apparent reality is the union of subject and object. My understanding of stilling desire and only acting with detachment is to find shelter from the storm, a quest for peace itself a desire. All life may experience this biological readout this reactionary perception though having somewhat different carbon-based biologies apparent reality/Maya would be different with different organisms. In my thread here on the fact that there is no such thing as human action, there is but human reaction is the basis of my understanding of Maya/apparent reality, The world as will and representation fits quite nicely into this concept of mine how the cognitive world arises, the blind will would be the essence of all life.

[AmericanKestrel]

AmericanKestrel,
My understanding of Maya is that it is created by one's own biology, it is itself reactionary perception a biological readout. You say it is to transact with the world, my feeling is it is the world, it is an emergent reality arising from the relation of subject and object. Desire may come into it at some time later but the actual quality of cognitive apparent reality is the union of subject and object. My understanding of stilling desire and only acting with detachment is to find shelter from the storm, a quest for peace itself a desire. All life may experience this biological readout this reactionary perception though having somewhat different carbon-based biologies apparent reality/Maya would be different with different organisms. In my thread here on the fact that there is no such thing as human action, there is but human reaction is the basis of my understanding of Maya/apparent reality, The world as will and representation fits quite nicely into this concept of mine how the cognitive world arises, the blind will would be the essence of all life.

Interesting take on maya and i don’t disagree. Advaita explains illusion as the result when subject and object are the same. A quest for anything is desire, of course. So realization of the nature of Atman occurs spontaneously, some may call it grace.
Can you explain what the Schopenhauer’s Will is or what exactly you mean by the will.

[popeye1945]

AmericanKestrel,

Sorry for the delay, I had to ponder what I might mean by Schopenhauer's will. I think the only way to approach it is through metaphor. It necessarily would link back to a time before the first replicators, the first self-replicating molecules to a time before a condition could become a thing which is what apparently occurred when a condition rather than dissipating or changing its arrangement floating in a sea of nutrients using these nutrients became a thing a molecule with a hunger to say in being. Today one might think of it as that spark of life handed down through the generations without apparently losing its vitality. Perhaps another of the coming to be might be seen in the mowing of one's lawn, all summer long it is cut down, what if it said to itself what's the use, but it doesn't, it just keeps coming. So this endless coming to be arising from a condition which could change from a simple condition to that of a thing and from there mutate into many forms through natural selection would be the will to life a process which might even be the birth of consciousness.

[AmericanKestrel]

AmericanKestrel,

Sorry for the delay, I had to ponder what I might mean by Schopenhauer's will. I think the only way to approach it is through metaphor. It necessarily would link back to a time before the first replicators, the first self-replicating molecules to a time before a condition could become a thing which is what apparently occurred when a condition rather than dissipating or changing its arrangement floating in a sea of nutrients using these nutrients became a thing a molecule with a hunger to say in being. Today one might think of it as that spark of life handed down through the generations without apparently losing its vitality. Perhaps another of the coming to be might be seen in the mowing of one's lawn, all summer long it is cut down, what if it said to itself what's the use, but it doesn't, it just keeps coming. So this endless coming to be arising from a condition which could change from a simple condition to that of a thing and from there mutate into many forms through natural selection would be the will to life a process which might even be the birth of consciousness.

I think what Schopenhauer means by will is what Advaita calls Atman.

[popeye1945]

AmericanKestrel.
Atman I believe means world soul but what does that mean?

[AmericanKestrel]

AmericanKestrel.
Atman I believe means world soul but what does that mean?

Here you go:

I think the difficulties experienced in understanding Advaita is due to language and the meaning attributed to the Sanskrit terms and definition used in the philosophy.
Brhman (Brhm means humongous, bigness) is all there is. It transcends time and space, is causeless, and there is no space where it does not exist. It does not create anything. It has no attributes.
Atman (Atma is self) is Brhman when we experience the world of names and forms as sentient beings.
As sentient beings we experience the world with our body, mind, and intellect. The Atma does not experience anything. It is pure awareness, and it is by its illumination that we know the world.
A cinema screen is the metaphor for for Atma. The movie that plays out is the world. The viewer is the bod,mind, intellect complex that gets identified as the ego, I, consciousness, awareness. This is not the Self, Atman. The atman shines the light on our awareness so we become aware that we are aware.
The purpose of life is to realize the truth that we are not our ego/I /consciousness but the ever luminous Atman.
As long as we are attached to the ego the world exists, which we create. This is the Maya. It is not illusion, it is real, we transact with this world that we create. It is the source of our pleasure and pain and suffering.
I will stop here.

[popeye1945]

AmericanKestrel,
Ok thanks, to bad there is not a translation up to equaling the Sanskirt full meaning.

[AmericanKestrel]

AmericanKestrel,
Ok thanks, to bad there is not a translation up to equaling the Sanskirt full meaning.

There are online dictionaries for Sanskrit words.

[popeye1945]

Thanks for the heads up!!

[MacAurelius]

Why are you bringing that eastern concept into a philosophy forum?

Tell me, do you feel/think that Western philosophers like Arthur Schopenhauer, Herman Hesse, Ken Wilber, Alan Watts, Graham Priest, Martin Heidegger and many others have no basis in Eastern philosophy and therefore 'that concept' should not be discussed alongside all other philosophical thinking? Would they disregard 'that concept' in their quest for knowledge, wisdom and understanding?

[Me_Be]

Advaita or Non-duality is Absolute Understanding.

In other words: ''I Am that which knows that I Am''

[Me_Be]

Why are you bringing that eastern concept into a philosophy forum?

Tell me, do you feel/think that Western philosophers like Arthur Schopenhauer, Herman Hesse, Ken Wilber, Alan Watts, Graham Priest, Martin Heidegger and many others have no basis in Eastern philosophy and therefore 'that concept' should not be discussed alongside all other philosophical thinking? Would they disregard 'that concept' in their quest for knowledge, wisdom and understanding?

Personally, the concept is universal, except it's more recognised as originating from the eastern part of the world.

And since anyone, anywhere in the world who is conscious, can themself, recognise the eastern message as their own knowing.


There are many interpretations of the same one idea....as many authors appear to the one and only reader that is all of us.


Here is another idea...by another author.

"Your Consciousness is Not in Your Head." | Interview with BERNARDO KASTRUP, PhD

Screening now on the internet/inner-net via YouTube.