The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

[Walker]

Would you like smiley sauce with that?

[Walker]

From the forward to I Am That.

“Maharaj’s interpretation of truth is not different from that of Jnana Yoga/Advaita Vedanta. But, he has a way of his own. The multifarious forms around us, says he, are constituted of the five elements. They are transient, and in a state of perpetual flux. Also they are governed, by the law of causation. All this applies to the body and the mind also, both of which are transient and subject to birth and death. We know that only by means of the bodily senses and the mind can the world be known. As in the Kantian view, it is a correlate of the human knowing subject, and, therefore, has the fundamental structure of our way of knowing. This means that time, space and causality are not ‘objective’, or extraneous entities, but mental categories in which everything is moulded. The existence and form of all things depend upon the mind. Cognition is a mental product. And the world as seen from the mind is a subjective and private world, which changes continuously in accordance with the restlessness of the mind itself.

"In opposition to the restless mind, with its limited categories — intentionality, subjectivity, duality etc. — stands supreme the limitless sense of ‘I am’. The only thing I can be sure about is, that ‘I am’ not as a thinking ‘I am’ in the Cartesian sense, but without any predicates. Again and again Maharaj draws our attention to this basic fact in order to make us realize our ‘I am-ness’ and thus get rid of all self-made prisons. He says: The only true statement is ‘I am’. All else is mere inference. By no effort can you change the ‘I am’ into ‘I am-not’".

Philosophical Faculty DouweTiemersma
Erasmus Universiteit
Rotterdam, Holland
June,1981

[Walker]

Question: None compels you, but I am compelled. My world is an evil world, full of tears, toil and pain. To explain it away by the intellectualizing, by putting forth theories of evolution and karma is merely adding insult to injury. The God of an evil world is a cruel God.

SNM: You are the god of your world and you are both stupid and cruel. Let God be a concept — your own creation. Find out who you are, how did you come to live, longing for truth, goodness and beauty in a world full of evil. Of what use is your arguing for or against God, when you just do not know who is God and what are you talking about. The God born of fear and hope, shaped by desire and imagination, cannot be the Power That Is, the Mind and the Heart of the universe.

[VVilliam]

However, if you can provide us with a truly logical explanation as to precisely how "The Supreme Ordering Principle of the Universe" - became - then I'm listening.

The answer is that this "The Supreme Ordering Principle of the Universe," has always existed although the question being asked does not anticipate the eternal nature of nature and thus includes the word "became" which means that the answer I gave is not related or relevant to the question being asked.

In light of that, the question being asked is therefore a leading question, specific to requiring an answer that "fits" or "follows" the intention (conscious or subconscious) of the questioner.

The questioner is "listening out" for an answer that does not exist, because the question has been shaped (consciously or subconsciously) specifically for that purpose. To "show" that there can be no answer to such a question, framed in the manner it is.

[VVilliam]

Question: None compels you, but I am compelled. My world is an evil world, full of tears, toil and pain. To explain it away by the intellectualizing, by putting forth theories of evolution and karma is merely adding insult to injury. The God of an evil world is a cruel God.

SNM: You are the god of your world and you are both stupid and cruel. Let God be a concept — your own creation. Find out who you are, how did you come to live, longing for truth, goodness and beauty in a world full of evil. Of what use is your arguing for or against God, when you just do not know who is God and what are you talking about. The God born of fear and hope, shaped by desire and imagination, cannot be the Power That Is, the Mind and the Heart of the universe.

I empathize with the emotion behind the statement from whomever "Question" is.
Indeed, I once had a similar outlook about life in Earth, in Galaxy, in Universe...

The statement "The God of an evil world is a cruel God." requires that one views the Universe as "evil" and thus any entity responsible for creating it would have to be "evil".

I reason along the lines that IF I were that Creator, SHOULD I view myself as "evil" and then get about identifying reasons why or why not something is "Evil" or "Not Evil".

IS the Mind and the Heart of The Universe, "Evil"?

How do I get about finding the True Answer to that Question?

One puzzlement is the existence of "Good"...why should it exist, if the Universe is the result of a Truly Evil Creator?

One could argue that in the Creator's Evil, the insertion of "Good" allowed for False Hope, but it still doesn't answer "where" this creator came up with such a diabolical twist - how does something truly purposefully and utterly Evil, even manage to understand what Hope is, or even what False Hope is, let alone insert it into the overall program of Human experience?

(I think to my "self")

"Perhaps this image of an Evil Creator derives from Human Projections based in emotional outburst, and is dressed up accordingly to suit the projection portrayed?"

[Iwannaplato]

It's really quite amazing how the adherants of non-dualism can manage to get into pissing contests, wild slippery slope accusations, nastiness, mocking and hatred of each other.

A naive person would think they are very confused about what they actually believe.

But perhaps this really is the goal: go East (through books and fantasy mostly), dabble in practices a bit, come back (metaphorically) and lord it over others while feeling so lovelypeachyspecial about themselves.

[Atla]

It's really quite amazing how the adherants of non-dualism can manage to get into pissing contests, wild slippery slope accusations, nastiness, mocking and hatred of each other.

A naive person would think they are very confused about what they actually believe.

But perhaps this really is the goal: go East (through books and fantasy mostly), dabble in practices a bit, come back (metaphorically) and lord it over others while feeling so lovelypeachyspecial about themselves.

They are confused and narcissistic. Nondualism is one insight or maybe half a dozen insights that can be written on a pamphlet, all the rest is just the dressing. They are debating which dressing is better but every dressing is nonsense.

I think people like me who realized nondualism through studying science are much luckier

[Iwannaplato]

It's really quite amazing how the adherants of non-dualism can manage to get into pissing contests, wild slippery slope accusations, nastiness, mocking and hatred of each other.

A naive person would think they are very confused about what they actually believe.

But perhaps this really is the goal: go East (through books and fantasy mostly), dabble in practices a bit, come back (metaphorically) and lord it over others while feeling so lovelypeachyspecial about themselves.

They are confused and narcissistic. Nondualism is one insight or maybe half a dozen insights that can be written on a pamphlet, all the rest is just the dressing. They are debating which dressing is better but every dressing is nonsense.

I think people like me who realized nondualism through studying science are much luckier

As much as the main non-dualist paths are not for me, there are non-dualists who actually put in the practices and wouldn't find themselves snarling and other non-dualists (or anyone) online. It's funny to watch some flip from the oneness and the I am etc. to threads where they are spitting on others, categorizing them and very clearly disidentifying with them. Making them a big THEM.

And then doing something similar here in this thread. Others, in this thread, do manage to not engage in these active disidentifications and us/them snarling. It's not everyone.

And I expect some Vedantic-ish justification presenting themselves as fortunate warriors, or butchers, just doing their thing while non-dualism reigns.

LOL

[Walker]

I reason along the lines that IF I were that Creator, SHOULD I view myself as "evil" and then get about identifying reasons why or why not something is "Evil" or "Not Evil".

IS the Mind and the Heart of The Universe, "Evil"?

Question: Do you mean to say that between good and evil there is no wall?
SNM: There is no wall, because there is no good and no evil. In every concrete situation there is only the necessary and the unnecessary. The needful is right, the needless is wrong.

Question: Who decides?
SNM: The situation decides. Every situation is a challenge which demands the right response. When the response is right, the challenge is met and the problem ceases. If the response is wrong, the challenge is not met and the problem remains unsolved. Your unsolved problems — that is what constitutes your karma. Solve them rightly and be free.

[Walker]

...

It's both interesting and funny that strawmen are most often some variant of moron.

[Walker]

Question: I am asking a simple question: there are about four billion people in the world and they are all bound to die. What will be their condition after death — not physically, but psychologically? Will their consciousness continue? And if it does, in what form? Do not tell me that I am not asking the right question, or that you do not know the answer, or that in your world my question is meaningless; the moment you start talking about your world and my world as different and incompatible, you build a wall between us. Either we live in one world or your experience is of no use to us.

SNM: Of course we live in one world. Only I see it as it is, while you don’t. You see yourself in the world, while I see the world in myself. To you, you get born and die, while to me, the world appears and disappears. Our world is real, but your view of it is not. There is no wall between us, except the one built by you. There is nothing wrong with the senses, it is your imagination that misleads you. It covers up the world as it is, with what you imagine it to be — something existing independently of you and yet closely following your inherited, or acquired patterns. There is a deep contradiction in your attitude, which you do not see and which is the cause of sorrow. You cling to the idea that you were born into a world of pain and sorrow; I know that the world is a child of love, having its beginning, growth and fulfilment in love. But I am beyond love even.

[Walker]

Megaphone
[https://www.kindpng.com/picc/m/10-10388 ... parent.png

Here's another situation where a megaphone was wrongly used.

Jewish man killed 'with megaphone' in altercation with pro-Palestinian protesters
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/j ... e-31378441

[Walker]

It’s rather interesting to read back a few pages over this thread. Here’s one I found that I missed because I post a lot and after I post I often forget where I left it.

However, if you can provide us with a truly logical explanation as to precisely how "The Supreme Ordering Principle of the Universe" - became - "The Supreme Ordering Principle of the Universe," then I'm listening.
_______

Interesting. What is the truly logical explanation precisely explaining how The Big Bang became the universe? I only ask because from what I've heard, all matter and energy in the universe exploded from an infinitely small point, and for lack of a more precise time measurement, in an instant. Now I'm no expert on the origins of the universe, and I may have heard wrong when listening to myself about what I heard, so can you precisely and logically explain how something like that can happen, without adding new variables that would also change the question?

I'm not interested in any links or explanatory graphs or tables or graphics or pictures, particularly the mean and nasty kind, btw.

What is the Big Bang explanation you hear when you listen to yourself, and can you hear yourself?

If you personally do not "believe," in The Big Bang (as if belief has anything to do with it but it is a popular word oft' employed by them), then you must have a basis for that disbelief rooted in knowing what it is that you disbelieve, in order to precisely and logically disbelieve, which means you would still have a grasp of The Big Bang, ultimate answer to explain how everything can fit into something so small, when most folks can't fit their fat ass comfortably into an economy-class airliner seat.

And where did all the stuff in the cosmic compactor come from?

I, not we, will be the judge of whether or not your answers are evidence of why I should listen to anything else you have to say.

[Harbal]

And where did all the stuff in the cosmic compactor come from?

It all came from a thought in the mind of God; although I suppose it could still have made a big bang when it happened.


3 And God said, “Let there be a universe,” and there was a universe. 4 God saw that the universe was good, and his mind was totally blown.

[Iwannaplato]

...

It's both interesting and funny that strawmen are most often some variant of moron.

Nice example of a category confusion on your part. It's a sign of spiritual advancement that you could laugh at yourself for making it.
I've clearly misjudged you and I'm sure your behavior in the thread brought you closer to Nisargadatta Maharaj and the non-dual.