Geeze Vaj, don't hold back!
Did you stub your toe or something?
> > Vaj,
> > General notes:
> > 1. I'm not enlightened by any standard I know of, but I think I
> > have intellectual clarity about the concepts of Advaita. I find
> > most folks talking about Advaita to be "off a bit" and not
> > understanding the incredibly fierce philosophy that Advaita
> > presents. It took me many readings before I got it that I wasn't
> > grokking "silence," and that my ego was working against my
> > understanding of it -- because Advaita is a mofo ego "killer,"
> > though to be sure, the ego is not alive and cannot be found!
> >
> > 2. I've read a lot of the works of the neo-Ads.
> >
> > 3. I've read close to all of Ramana's and Nisargadatta's works.
> IMO, the problem with all of the above is that they were mostly
> written or transcribed via the POV of the students egos and do not
> represent authentic advaita vedanta, esp. lacking a teacher. I
like to
> call this 'dead avaitin syndrome': outside the presence of a
master of
> the tradition, ego translates and transcribes the teaching and these
> works are then merely read by the ego of the neoadvaitin. Subtle ego
> hears what it wants to hear.
>
> This whole syndrome is the start of neoadvaita ego poetry. Ego LOVES
> advaita partially digested and hurled. It's the perfect place to
learn
> to "neoadvaita shuffle" but it's really kinda like learning to dance
> by reading books.
Whew, I guess all that work you've put into Buddhism paid
off....look at the massive amount of forbearance you're displaying!
Wow, you'd never see a Buddhist having any of the above faux-
Ads' failings. Look at all that universal brotherly Buddhist love
that sees past the errors of seekers in all the traditions and
shines a bounteous spirit upon their struggles. I don't know if I'm
worthy of your taking the time to correct me when it's done with
such heart, such compassion, such practical psychology that takes
the student from where he's at to a higher plane. I'm so not worthy!
Oh well, I guess it's just my turn to be clunked by an unopened can
of whup-ass. That was the tell, you didn't open the can!
Okay, now time to lay some cards on the table.
I'm not a disciple of anyone if all I'm doing is reading books. I
don't and never have worshiped Ramana. I've merely done TM and
pretended that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was my guru; so given that
history, I have very little cred to justify pushing ANY dogma here
at FFL. But your tone above seems to indicate that I've sinned in
your eyes -- my sin being that I've expressed a POV that is
necessarily a work in progress and burdened by egoic blindness -- as
all POVs are.
Vaj, if your intent is to smack me sane, er, it didn't work.
After 29 years in the chair, selling my soul, my career, my life and
my family to a cult, do you think you've got a chance to talk me
into doing anything more along those lines? I know some practicing
Buddhists and have seen the tremendous amount of time they put into
their daily practices -- eh, no thanks. Why? Because all of them
were obsessed with their teachers and very invested in climbing some
evolutionary ladder in the eyes of their peers and teachers -- in
short, very much like TM's Purusha and Mother Divine -- seemingly
dedicated and a lifestyle pinched with sacrifice, but "Where's the
beef?"
Vaj, your moods and defensiveness are all anyone needs to see that
Buddhism has a lot more to do to your heart -- a heart I've
resonated with many a time, so I'm not any better than you, but
unless you wish to claim that your lashing out at folks is coming
from a very deep place of moral clarity such as Christ was imagined
to be coming from when he drove the money lenders from the temple,
you're lashing out cannot be a precisely wrought spiritual lesson to
the lashee. Are you claiming such clarity? Probably not. In the
meantime, trank it down, Boy!
This is where one trots out reincarnation and lifetimes of spiritual
work as concepts to inspire one. Well, not me. Fool me once, shame
on you. Fool me twice shame on me. Fool me everyday for 29 years,
and yep, I'm just about all fooled out.
And I'm not asking anyone here to jump into Advaita or suggest it
can produce faster results than any other technique. I don't have a
dhoti or a collection plate. When I wince at posts here that seem
so out of harmony with my understandings of Advaita, it may be
lacquered with an egoic veneer when I express it, but given my tons
of hours of handling the concepts, I'm pretty sure when I say
"something's not right" that I'm "onto something." Such as it is,
my "expertise" serves me well in that I have adopted Advaita as a
philosophy that is found reflected in most scriptures, and it has
given me enough clarity to ask hard questions when, say, two Mormons
knock on my door, or a practicing Buddhist wants me to recite a
mantra 10,000 times.
If you have a family, if you want a retirement scenario of some
worth, if you have yet-unextinguished worldly desires, if you
haven't seen the world, if you want a social life, why not take the
little life that's left and be happy for what you've got? Look at
your Buddhist peers -- aren't they at least a little like the Burger
King Krown Kids running the TMO? Uptight, long suffering, true
believers in a payoff that never comes, isolated from normal society
by dint of an assumed spiritual status that's superior to the
ordinary guy on the street, and on and on. If you think of yourself
as less mundane and more of the priestly ilk, then outrightly
declare your credentials if you want to brow beat the doings of
other seekers in other venues.
I may not be able to learn to dance from a book, but I never said I
could dance. I only said that most neo-Ads will spew words that
come off as hinky, and that critics of Advaita and neo-Ad should do
the work of at least being intellectually clear about the POV. I've
never met a person who was so stupid that they couldn't find
something to criticize, but I have met folks who know what they're
talking about enough that I am happy to listen to their shop-talk
about their area of expertise. I think I can talk shop with any
Advaitan today, and they'll recognize my level of scholarship even
if I'm not doing daily pujas etc. I think you can do the same with
Buddhism even if you're not a credentialed teacher. If we were on a
desert island, would you keep silent if I asked you questions about
Buddhism because "you're not enlightened?"
> > 4. I've read Ramana's "Talks" four full times -- taking up to a
> > year to do so each time -- reading about 30 - 40 minutes per
> > day....and thinking hard whenever the meaning of a sentence was
"not
> > immediately obvious to me." I continue to browse it with
> > satisfaction and resonance.
> The defining error (IMO) of modern advaita is this type of 'nondual
> poetry society'. It largely stems from Ramana's writings and people
> like Andrew Cohen are typical of the fallen neoadvaita student. They
> may have had a taste of nonduality and then begin relating to the
> embodiment of advaita from the POV of ego, all the while claiming
> "enlightenment" despite the fact their teachers deny this.
I strongly brace myself whenever anyone shows the least sign of
claiming enlightenment, and I truly feel sorry for the followers of
the neo-Ad teachers. Given how "dry" and "heartless" these teachers
"come off," they can hardly get my attention. But, again, on a
desert island, I'd ask them questions and see what I could
conclude. I'd rather have a copy of Ramana's "Talks" on the island
than any of the "living books" that today's neo-Ad teachers present
themselves to be, but I'll take what I can get. And that would be:
erp, Tolle on Oprah as Advaita's introductory lecture to the
masses. GAWD!
> > 5. I've read Nisargadatta's "I Am That" at least two times and
have
> > browsed the book often enough to constitute another reading.
> As long as you realize this was not written BY him, but was
> transcribed by students who were most likely unrealized.
Vaj, that's just a chicken shit snark. Yeah, translation is
important, yeah, things are chancy, but if you read "Talks" again
and again, the underlying truths becomes palpable enough that mis-
translations become "snaggy," and one stops reading and asks, "Hmmm?"
And again, I'm not claiming enlightenment, nor am I claiming it can
be gotten by reading books, nor do the translations of Buddhist
texts have any method to mitigate translation problems. Do you have
an American Buddhist who claims enlightenment and writes in
English? I'm betting not. I'm betting you're reading translations
too, and not being too bothered about it. And, I would guess that
most Buddhist literature is edited, translated, and handled and
passed down the line by many an unenlightened "helper."
>
> Nisargadatta's only book that was written BY HIM gets little
attention
> because it's brutally honest. It doesn't give some (often wrong)
> advice that you don't need to do any thing to "get" nonduality,
> instead very clearly says you must master kundalini and grok the way
> creation manifests in your approach to nonduality. This is not what
> the ego of the typical modern neoadvaitin wants to hear. They don't
> want to have to have mastery of themselves as a prerequisite. They
> loved the advaita poetry they've read (often JUST read), esp. when
it
> dispensed with all that silly mastery stuff. It's all so simple
> they'll often say, frowning upon the dualistic approaches and their
> mastery, and being happy with spewing their own regurgitated
> neoadvaita poetry.
So who's defending neo-Ads? Not me. Who's saying not to do pujas,
prostrations, asanas, pranyamas, prayers, mantras, diets, exercises,
readings? Not me. Who's saying intellectual clarity is
evolutionary? Not me. Who's saying that getting a subtle nervous
system is a snap and all one needs are some concepts? Not me.
Who's proselytizing here about Advaita and saying it is the answer
to for all seekers? Not me. Who's thinking that kundalini issues
are minor? Not me. Who's saying that the masses can be uplifted in
a single lifetime by a powerful technique? Not me anymore now that
I'm an exTMer.
Spew all you want about the neo-Ad opportunists and posers, but
don't include me in the group.
> You can ignore the fact that both Ramana and Nisargadatta mastered
> samadhi BEFORE they were nondual realizers, but you do so at your
own
> peril. You risk becoming just another neoadvaitin poet, spewing
> nonsense imagining the Tao that is written is the real Tao.
Who's ignoring? Not me. Ramana was letting the bugs eat him alive
in his cave -- I didn't miss the implications -- being a true yogi,
and trying to rinse the crud out of the sponge, requires every
fucking lifestyle tweak possible. It is the hardest task that a
human can attempt. It took 29 years in a chair before I realized
how little progress even four hours of spiritual practice a day can
yield. But, don't expect me to be a practicing Advaitan before I
write about it. I'll take my chances that some seeker gets the
wrong idea from me; I'm okay with that, cuz unless, like you say, if
a person isn't really walking the walk, then the talk isn't going to
do much for them....even if the talk is parroted perfectly.
I don't have illusions of being able to parrot perfectly, but I'm a
lot better at it than anyone at FFL as far as I can tell -- and I
say that only because every post about Advaita misses the mark in
conceptually identifying silence, and it rubs me raw. I'm a very
poor representative of the teaching, but I guess that's all FFL
deserves, eh? If I were a better teacher, I wouldn't be here
suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous Shemp, War Monger,
Off, and obsessive-compulsivers beating down anything that isn't
provably perfect.
Er, why are you here? You come off as much more scholarly than
anyone else here except Card and Angela who seem to know some shit.
Methinks you're pissing away your gold on the blind interpreters of
elephants.
Seriously, why are you here?
I'm here to get off on my own words and it's not a guilty pleasure.
What can you confess?
> > 6. I think, for our purposes here, I have a solid education in
> > Advaita, and think I could answer any question that these two
> > Masters could put to me about their works.
> But you're missing a key point here: THESE GUYS ARE BOTH DEAD. You
> were never their student. A membership card in the Dead Advaitin
> Poetry Club isn't worth much, even on eBay.
WTF, Vaj? I'm only saying I am convinced I can pick up on subtle
errors of language when most neo-Ads sermonize. Who said this is of
any value to anyone other than me? Not me. And, since you brought
it up, tell us what your living guru did to convince you that he/she
had the real goods. Tell us here what you do daily for your
spirituality and how much of it is guided by enlightened masters who
SPEAK ENGLISH OF COURSE.
And, in case you still don't get it, I've given up on realizing.
I'm only doing the philosophy for funzies.
> > Not that I know all the Sanskrit words in the glossary, but
that I
> > understand the concepts they represent. And, do not think that
I am
> > saying that I could pull of wearing a dhoti and grabbing a rose
with
> > pinky petals and be a guru who spontaneously says the truth. I'm
> > much more a writer who knows he needs to re-read and edit his
words
> > before he can be sure that they would resonate with Advaita to a
> > strong degree.
> You know what I notice? I notice you never mention Shankara, but
only
> dead recent realizers with no recourse to a living teacher whose
> teachings are transcriptions.
Again with the translation problem. Oy! What did Shankara say,
what words are available that are more true than Ramana's words?
Ramana was enlightened and had the truth as available to him, and he
spoke a modern language that could be translated into English much
more easily than Shankara's language -- er, was it Sanskrit he
spoke? Dunno. But I'm betting that if I had read Shankara instead
of Ramana, I wouldn't see any difference in my understanding of
Advaita today.
> Not much more to say. It seems to me you may be repeating the
typical
> patterns I see in modern neoadvaita.
You're projecting. I have no agenda other than to report the
pleasure my mind gets from Advaitan concepts, and that I'm hoping to
find others who want to jaw about it. The neo-Ads have collection
plates and group mindsets and values that can jar me to my bones.
In fact, I think I'm critical of neo-Ads for more legitimate reasons
than anyone else posting here has presented, but I'm not going to
rile myself up about it. There's far more wrong with this world
than beclouded neo-Ads shoe-horning their families into a lifestyle
attending courses taught by Wayne.
