The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

Is the mind the same as the body? What is consciousness? Can machines have it?

Moderators: AMod, iMod

Walker
Posts: 16383
Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:00 am

Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

Post by Walker »

- No, the wind is not a metaphor in the creation of a tree.
- It's not part of some acorn poetry, or metaphor.

- The wind is the source of carbon from (CO2), which is the bulk of the tree material.
- The tree grows out of the air, not out of the ground.

- This is no cause to hate God, btw.

- Richard Feynman briefly explains.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifk6iuLQk28
Walker
Posts: 16383
Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:00 am

Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

Post by Walker »

Gary Childress wrote: Sat Nov 11, 2023 11:40 am
Walker wrote: Sat Nov 11, 2023 10:25 am And the life is never so alive as after death.[/b]
I doubt it. But to be nice, it's a nice way to look at things.
Naturally. You can doubt everything and understand nothing.

Since my say-so causes your niceness, then I say always be nice when visiting PNF. Mind your manners, wash your hands and behind your ears.

The basic stuff.
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16929
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

Post by Dontaskme »

Walker wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 12:24 am - No, the wind is not a metaphor in the creation of a tree.
- It's not part of some acorn poetry, or metaphor.

- The wind is the source of carbon from (CO2), which is the bulk of the tree material.
- The tree grows out of the air, not out of the ground.

- This is no cause to hate God, btw.

- Richard Feynman briefly explains.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifk6iuLQk28
Concepts trailing all the way backwards through infinity attempting to explain their origin fail to explain anything of any significance except a fictional story written by no one.

Nice story though if you like that sort of thing. Sounds like my idea of hell tbh.
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16929
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

Post by Dontaskme »

Air con


Unconditional conditioning


🤪
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16929
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

Post by Dontaskme »

Walker wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 12:39 am
Gary Childress wrote: Sat Nov 11, 2023 11:40 am
Walker wrote: Sat Nov 11, 2023 10:25 am And the life is never so alive as after death.[/b]
I doubt it. But to be nice, it's a nice way to look at things.
Naturally. You can doubt everything and understand nothing.

Since my say-so causes your niceness, then I say always be nice when visiting PNF. Mind your manners, wash your hands and behind your ears.

The basic stuff.
You forgot to include yourself Richard.

Make sure to wash that man Richard right out of your hairy story.

Pump it with clean water every day.

That’s a good Richard Pumper💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦
Walker
Posts: 16383
Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:00 am

Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

Post by Walker »

Dontaskme wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 1:44 am
You forgot to include yourself Richard.
Nice, which is appropriateness determined by and displayed with objectivity, is a good topic for you to ponder for yourself.

I'll get you started.

Nissy’s M.O. is to offer inferences from a premise that he, or a question, initiates concerning an aspect of his view. This makes the demonstrated dialogue format an appropriate model of inquiry for the benefit of PNF participants.

I think that my sincere and earnest participation in this thread about the clear insights of the self-realized and enlightened human being, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, insights that are clustered on the brilliant arc of the bell curve, is the most appropriate expression of niceness for the parameters defined by the totality of this here thread’s situation.

It’s an appropriate form of niceness because commentary on Nissy’s insights invites participation on weighty topics, topics presented by the reading light of his wisdom which is also appropriate for, and a gift to, this philosophy forum.

Sincere and earnest participation in this thread by me, and some others, is appropriate not only out of respect for SNM’s wisdom, but also because that attitude (tone) provides a balancing tone for the topic, a balancing process that is required because of the disrespect to the topic that crops up now and then.

Take yourself, for instance. You encourage a thread climate of silliness, distraction, disrespect for words and their meaning to the topic, and disrespect to other participants. Your chief tactic is to project a giddy-girl act that disrespects whatever it is you are doing, whether it be participating in this thread, or visiting other threads in order to disrespect the topic and the people participating there. *

Taking the time and attention to tell you the truth about how such behavior is inappropriate for the situation, for the benefit of whatever it is you are presenting and for the benefit of the forum itself, is most appropriate to the thread, as is this run-on sentence appropriate to lessen any possible sting of truth with the distraction required for concentration … not only for the reason that doing so creates a proper attitude for the placement of attention, but for the reason that doing so holds the potential, albeit slim, to create a situation where an extra ration of nice in the form of truth concerning your tone may adjust your transmissions to a frequency more appropriate for the intellectual portals to mind that participate here via intelligent witnessing and offerings. (The wordy journey is to lessen truth’s bite, which admittedly may not appeal to those who favour the brutal half of truth over the objective half of truth.)

It's now up to you to be a Highlander and take us higher, and that higher for us includes you.



* I buried the lede of your interest in favour of an objective focus.
Walker
Posts: 16383
Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:00 am

Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

Post by Walker »

Question: I can see that my world is subjective. Does it make it also illusory?
SNM: It is illusory as long as it is subjective and to that extent only. Reality lies in objectivity.

Question: What does objectivity mean? You said the world is subjective and now you talk of objectivity. Is not everything subjective?
SNM: Everything is subjective, but the real is objective.

Question: In what sense?
SNM: It does not depend on memories and expectations, desires and fears, likes and dislikes. All is seen as it is.
Walker
Posts: 16383
Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:00 am

Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

Post by Walker »

Question: How do you look at the world?
SNM: I see a painter painting a picture. The picture I call the world, the painter I call God. I am neither. I do not create, nor am I created. I contain all, nothing contains me.

Question: When I see a tree, — a face, a sunset, the picture is perfect. When I close my eyes, the image in my mind is faint and hazy. If it is my mind that projects the picture, why need I open my eyes to see a lovely flower and with eyes closed I see it vaguely?
SNM: It is because your outer eyes are better than your inner eyes. Your mind is all turned outward. As you learn to watch your mental world, you will find it even more colourful and perfect than what the body can provide. Of course, you will need some training. But why argue? You imagine that the picture must come from the painter who actually painted it. All the time you look for origins and causes. Causality is in the mind only; memory gives the illusion of continuity and repetitiveness creates the idea of causality. When things repeatedly happen together, we tend to see a causal link between them. It creates a mental habit, but a habit is not a necessity.

*

Commentary: As a testifying witness ... In pratyahara the sensory gates close and the mental images indeed can become more clear, more detailed, with brighter colors, and more steady than the world revealed by the outer eyes. Such mental images arise unintended, and are witnessed without judgement created by duality. Without clinging, that observed world of the mind releases to pure, non-intellectual awareness of satori (aka a version of samadhi).
seeds
Posts: 2880
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2016 9:31 pm

Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

Post by seeds »

Walker wrote: Sat Nov 11, 2023 10:25 am Hey seeds, I’ll ponder your posting as evidence of what you consider a truly logical and precise explanation, to be.

This next one is a biggie.

SNM: In death only the body dies. Life does not, consciousness
does not, reality does not. And the life is never so alive as after
death.
How is that a "biggie"?

How is that a biggie when it appears to be nothing more than a simple precursory affirmation of what I offered with my "ultimate seed" metaphor?
Walker wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 4:54 pm Question: How do you look at the world?
SNM: I see a painter painting a picture. The picture I call the world, the painter I call God....
Image

...^^^From my book^^^ :wink:
Walker wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 4:54 pm SNM:...I am neither. I do not create, nor am I created. I contain all, nothing contains me.
"Nissy" is wrong on all* counts.

*(Except for perhaps the "...nothing contains me..." bit. But that's only in our post-death transcendent form. For he was certainly contained in something [God's cosmic womb] when he allegedly made that statement.)
_______
Walker
Posts: 16383
Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:00 am

Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

Post by Walker »

seeds wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 7:16 pm
"Nissy" is wrong on all* counts.

*(Except for perhaps the "...nothing contains me..." bit. But that's only in our post-death transcendent form. For he was certainly contained in something [God's cosmic womb] when he allegedly made that statement.)
_______
I see from the painting metaphor you have an affinity for Nissy, you’re even comfortable with the familiar and affectionate name. Here’s that same dialogue, continued, that may clarify his meaning.

*

SNM: … … It creates a mental habit, but a habit is not a necessity.

Question: You have just said that the world is made by God.
SNM: Remember that language is an instrument of the mind; it is made by the mind, for the mind. Once you admit a cause, then God is the ultimate cause and the world the effect. They are different, but not separate.

Question: People talk of seeing God.
SNM: When you see the world you see God. There is no seeing God, apart from the world. Beyond the world to see God is to be God. The light by which you see the world, which is God, is the tiny little spark: ‘I am’, apparently so small, yet the first and the last in every act of knowing and loving.

Question: Must I see the world to see God?
SNM: How else? No world, no God.
seeds
Posts: 2880
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2016 9:31 pm

Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

Post by seeds »

Walker wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 8:38 pm
seeds wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 7:16 pm
"Nissy" is wrong on all* counts.

*(Except for perhaps the "...nothing contains me..." bit. But that's only in our post-death transcendent form. For he was certainly contained in something [God's cosmic womb] when he allegedly made that statement.)
_______
I see from the painting metaphor you have an affinity for Nissy, you’re even comfortable with the familiar and affectionate name.
I have an affinity with certain aspects of all religions, for they all seem to possess their own unique piece of the "Grand Philosophical Puzzle" regarding the truth of reality,...

...which, according to Hermeticism, was given to them at their inceptions by God.

I use the name "Nissy" because you use it, and because it is easier to spell and type than the full name of the old and feisty, chain-smoking coot, seen in this video: https://youtu.be/z3IQcZanhVY

Furthermore, similar to how Immanuel Can is the forum's equivalent of a Jehovah's Witness for Christianity, and Veritas Aequitas is a Jehovah's Witness for Buddhism,...

...likewise, you and "Nissy" are the Jehovah's Witnesses for Hinduism

And the point is that all three of those ideologies (along with many others)...

Image

...are a part of the "old spiritual paradigm" that needs to be transcended before their divisive incompatibilities destroy the world (as seen taking place in the Middle East).
Walker wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 8:38 pm Here’s that same dialogue, continued, that may clarify his meaning.

Question: You have just said that the world is made by God.
SNM: Remember that language is an instrument of the mind; it is made by the mind, for the mind. Once you admit a cause, then God is the ultimate cause and the world the effect. They are different, but not separate.
There is nothing about that quote that doesn't fit in nicely with the "ultimate seed" theory.
Question: People talk of seeing God.
SNM: When you see the world you see God. There is no seeing God, apart from the world.
Right.

And that would be in precisely the same way that if you could have been cognizant of your surroundings after opening your eyes while you were still held within your mother's womb, you would have literally seen your mother, but not her ultimate form, which could only be viewed after being born out of her.
SNM: Beyond the world to see God is to be God.
Wrong again.

For that is like saying beyond your mother's womb, to see your mother is to be your mother. And that's nonsense.
SNM: The light by which you see the world, which is God, is the tiny little spark: ‘I am’, apparently so small, yet the first and the last in every act of knowing and loving.
Yes, a tiny little spark known as "I am" who (like a seed) has been imbued with the same infinite potential as the flaming Being that the tiny little spark, sparked off of.
Question: Must I see the world to see God?
SNM: How else? No world, no God.
Well, he seems to have gotten that backwards, for according to my flagship illustration,...

Image

...it would be more accurate to say "...no God, no world...", which means "...no you, no me, and no Nissy..."

It's time for the world's "J. Witnesses"...

Image

...to upgrade their pamphlets.
_______
Walker
Posts: 16383
Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:00 am

Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

Post by Walker »

seeds wrote: Mon Nov 13, 2023 12:23 am
...it would be more accurate to say "...no God, no world...", which means "...no you, no me, and no Nissy..."
_______
I must have have missed the point of that because I am, I infer that you are, and I infer that Nissy is as he always was to most who know of him.
Walker
Posts: 16383
Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:00 am

Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

Post by Walker »

Question: Do you see in the world a direction and a purpose?

SNM: The world is but a reflection of my imagination. Whatever I want to see, I can see. But why should I invent patterns of creation, evolution and destruction? I do not need them. The world is in me, the world is myself. I am not afraid of it and have no desire to lock it up in a mental picture.
seeds
Posts: 2880
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2016 9:31 pm

Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

Post by seeds »

Walker wrote: Mon Nov 13, 2023 9:00 am Question: Do you see in the world a direction and a purpose?

SNM: The world is but a reflection of my imagination. Whatever I want to see, I can see. But why should I invent patterns of creation, evolution and destruction? I do not need them. The world is in me, the world is myself. I am not afraid of it and have no desire to lock it up in a mental picture.
Just for funzies, let's analyze a random sampling of a few of Nissy's other quotes in an effort to mine them for accuracy and practical value...
SNM: You are not in this world. This world is inside you.
Really?

Is the highly ordered, multi-billion-year-old structure represented by this...

Image

...inside of you, or are you inside of it?

Contrary to Nissy's suggestion, the only thing inside of you (inside of your mind) is your subjectively created "vision" of the world, while the world that the quantum fabric of your body and brain are inextricably entangled with, is most definitely outside of you (outside of your mind).

(Continued in next post)
_______
seeds
Posts: 2880
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2016 9:31 pm

Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

Post by seeds »

_______

(Continued from prior post)
SNM: There is only one meditation - the rigorous refusal to harbor thoughts.
Hmmm, perhaps if Planck, Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and all of the other pioneers of quantum theory, along with all of the pioneers of modern medicine, modern farming, and modern industry, etc., had refused to harbor any thoughts,...

...then we wouldn't be burdened with all these annoying advancements that have allowed for more and more human souls to be awakened into existence.

I mean, just think of how less complicated the world would be...

(no space tech, no internet, no computers, no radio, no television, no cell phones, no cars, etc., etc.,)

...if only they had known of and followed Nissy's advice and refused to "harbor the thoughts" that ushered-in modernity. :roll:

(Continued in next post)
_______
Post Reply