Philosophy Now Forum

Thanks for your reply IC

And thanks for looking at the video and for your opinion in response to what you heard...that’s all I wanted to hear, was your opinion.

And from your response it is clear you have not grasped the non-dual message ..... it’s ok, nothing wrong with that.

Reality has not evolved that to happen in you ... well not yet anyway.

There’s no way we will ever understand each other at present , ok

But know this, what you believe there in your mind is right for you, for that is what’s happening.


I know this non-dual message is nothing new. In fact it’s timeless.

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 10:03 pm ...from your response it is clear you have not grasped the non-dual message ..... it’s ok, nothing wrong with that.

Oh, I grasped it alright.

But I still don't have an answer to my question of how you or Tony can speak from an "I" you don't believe in, with a "me" you don't believe in, about a "reality" you say doesn't exist.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 12:53 am

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 10:03 pm ...from your response it is clear you have not grasped the non-dual message ..... it’s ok, nothing wrong with that.

Oh, I grasped it alright.

But I still don't have an answer to my question of how you or Tony can speak from an "I" you don't believe in, with a "me" you don't believe in, about a "reality" you say doesn't exist.

To understand non-duality of the advaita vedanta sort:

Advaita is often translated as "non-duality," but a more apt translation is "non-secondness." It means that there is no other reality than Brahman, that "Reality is not constituted by parts," that is, ever-changing "things" have no existence of their own, but are appearances of the one Existent, Brahman

(Wikipedia)

The duality of the relative world we inhabit includes all synthetic explicit and implied propositions , both expressed and not expressed. DAM was speaking metaphysically using the language of relatively as we all must.

Brahman, and God too, are metaphysically non-dual. The creation, the creation that includes time, also includes relatively this and relatively that. Thus for instance cats and dogs are different from each other relatively but not absolutely.

Aristotle thought cats and dogs were absolutely different from each other. (see Aristotelian forms). Christians, with their ideas about an absolutist God, have followed Thomas Aquinas who Christianised Aristotle.

Modern Christians can live with relativity. Old fashioned Christians are absolutists.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 12:53 am

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 10:03 pm ...from your response it is clear you have not grasped the non-dual message ..... it’s ok, nothing wrong with that.

Oh, I grasped it alright.

But I still don't have an answer to my question of how you or Tony can speak from an "I" you don't believe in, with a "me" you don't believe in, about a "reality" you say doesn't exist.

But you would already have the answer to your question, and so wouldn't need to askme. If you'd really and truly ''grasped it alright'' and not just thought you had.
So I'm telling you, you would have had your answer, but not while you are still in seeking mode. Nonduality speaks of this ( net i ) problem.
Now who's being contradictory...

It's like sometimes, for some seeking people, the nondual message is received like a hot knife through butter. But for other seekers, it never takes hold. But none of this matters, for nothing is ever happening anyway...our dreams remind us of such.

God is just another word for unbounded unconditional love. Life is always unbounded and unconditional and spontaneous in every moment, to be exactly as it is. So whatever appears to happen could never appear to be any other way that how it appears. It's all the same one love action dreaming difference where there is none. Only in the dream of separation is there a knowledge known. AKA the fictional story.

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Belinda wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 10:06 am To understand non-duality of the advaita vedanta sort:

Advaita is often translated as "non-duality," but a more apt translation is "non-secondness." It means that there is no other reality than Brahman, that "Reality is not constituted by parts," that is, ever-changing "things" have no existence of their own, but are appearances of the one Existent, Brahman

(Wikipedia)

Thank you, B....but I already know this. It's garden-variety Hinduism.

Wikis aren't the best sources, but in this case, it's not too bad, so let's start there.

This sort of explanation has never made sense. And one of the reasons (there are quite a few, actually) is that it cannot speak intelligibly about this idea of "oneness," but has to resort to ordinary language, and then excuses itself on the basis that it's all "mystery." But it's not. It's simple self-contradiction. And contrary to your suggestion, those who buy into it are not a new and more sophisticated kind of thinker, but rather the kind of thinker that follows the Baghwan (Tony Parsons's guru) the "material-world-rejecting" owner of 90 Rolls Royces that didn't exist dualistically, but only existed as "oneness." (So I guess he had only one Rolls Royce. Or none.)

"By their fruits you shall know them," said Jesus Christ. Well, just how good is the fruit on that tree?

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 10:48 am ...nothing is ever happening anyway...our dreams remind us of such.

But you don't believe it. I can tell, because you argue for your view. You do believe in a "you" and a "me," in "reality," and in "change" and the possibility of "making a difference," (all things that creed denies) because you argue. So you are not living out what you say you believe at all. If you believed "nothing is happening anyway," you would be content and silent.

However, I'm not suggesting you should be silent. In fact, I'm happy to hear you talk...I just don't see it as possibly consonant with your other claims, and need to point that out.

God is just another word for unbounded unconditional love.

On what basis do you conclude this? A skeptic might well say that "god" is yin-yang, or even that a "god" is a Demiurge or something nasty. Clearly, you believe them to be wrong about that (not very non-dual of you to think it, but there it is), so on what basis do you conclude that all "god" is, is unconditional love? Has this "god" no other attributes? Has this "god" no intentions or wishes? (In which case, it would be hard to see how the "god" could have any intention to love...)

Life is always unbounded and unconditional and spontaneous in every moment

Actually, life is always particular and bounded. That's what makes it what it is, and not another thing. Your life is not mine, and mine is not yours. Nor is yours or mine the life of anybody else, or the life of the planet itself. These things are not "oneness" but difference.

Drifting off into hallucinogenic language is often a way of avoiding reason. And it's not surprising to me that unitary explanations like this find it frequently expedient to retreat into cyphers and koans when pressed rationally. Ironically, they then want to return to the real world and argue that their case is the truth...or "more true" than other beliefs. That's a hard thing to rationalize when "all is one" and "nothing is happening anyway."

Dontaskme wrote: But why would any sane rational intelligent person choose to want that imposed upon the self?

Immanuel Can Wrote: Nobody would choose it for himself.

"For one will hardly die for a righteous person; though perhaps for the good person someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:7-8)

What a funny contradiction, Pontius Pilate was a Roman.

Pretty convenient huh? Someone dying for your sins so you don't have to worry about them.

Laughable: the built in contradiction and hypocrisy. Only for lying cowardly fools, that want to have their cake and eat it too!

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 10:48 am ...nothing is ever happening anyway...our dreams remind us of such.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 4:16 pmBut you don't believe it. I can tell, because you argue for your view. You do believe in a "you" and a "me," in "reality," and in "change" and the possibility of "making a difference," (all things that creed denies) because you argue. So you are not living out what you say you believe at all. If you believed "nothing is happening anyway," you would be content and silent.

However, I'm not suggesting you should be silent. In fact, I'm happy to hear you talk...I just don't see it as possibly consonant with your other claims, and need to point that out.

Nothing is happening because everything is happening. Reality presents itself all at once, one without a second. There is no room for two. There is no pause button that can jump on board to get a peek up it's own skirt. For that which is always being purely whole and absolute without beginning nor end....cannot repeat. Infinity cannot repeat, all apparent repeats are already couched within that which is unreaptable. Nothing is ever repeated because there is only nothing. What seems to be apparently repeated is once again only nothing appearing to repeat itself. There is no need for a human to be the representative for reality.

You are still not getting IC ...there is no known knower which implies two, knower and known. There is nothing known that is ever separated from the knower, there's just no room for the apparent split, for nothing is causing this apparent split.

So even though you claim to be able to grasp the nondual message alright. You are still projecting your beliefs as if you are a knower there and I am a knower here... but nothing is making this apparent two way interaction happen, it's just the same one energy interacting with itself, nothing can be known about it except what nothing believes and thinks about it using concepts, which are also nothing.

Nondual message clearly states there is no person. There is only speaking, believing, thinking, and knowing by no one, no thing. There's just nothing and everything appearing and disappearing as the same one energy, dreaming difference where there is none within the illusory dream of separation..aka as and through knowledge.
Remember reality is at it is. Reality does NOT need or require a label attached to it for it to be what it is already being which is purity in every moment. It's only language that says this purity is bad or this purity is good, so language is just a conceptual overlay upon what is already just a total mystery that can never be known.

Language/knowledge is an appearance within this purity, it appears as intelligence, it knows and informs no one and no thing. Language then builds upon itself, to create things and beliefs and ideas, and the idea of there being a kower, but these things are all as empty as their source which is unknowable empty silence.

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Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 4:06 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 10:06 am To understand non-duality of the advaita vedanta sort:

Advaita is often translated as "non-duality," but a more apt translation is "non-secondness." It means that there is no other reality than Brahman, that "Reality is not constituted by parts," that is, ever-changing "things" have no existence of their own, but are appearances of the one Existent, Brahman

(Wikipedia)

Thank you, B....but I already know this. It's garden-variety Hinduism.

Wikis aren't the best sources, but in this case, it's not too bad, so let's start there.

This sort of explanation has never made sense. And one of the reasons (there are quite a few, actually) is that it cannot speak intelligibly about this idea of "oneness," but has to resort to ordinary language, and then excuses itself on the basis that it's all "mystery." But it's not. It's simple self-contradiction. And contrary to your suggestion, those who buy into it are not a new and more sophisticated kind of thinker, but rather the kind of thinker that follows the Baghwan (Tony Parsons's guru) the "material-world-rejecting" owner of 90 Rolls Royces that didn't exist dualistically, but only existed as "oneness." (So I guess he had only one Rolls Royce. Or none.)

"By their fruits you shall know them," said Jesus Christ. Well, just how good is the fruit on that tree?

I first learned about advaita vedanta through the writings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi the founder of transcendental meditation, who was a different person from the man who founded the 'Pinkies'. I respect ' Pinkies' as people despite their multi- Roller founder.
The guru you referred to was what he was despite his knowledge of advaita vedanta. Similarly many people who are Cartesian dualists are good people despite their ontological belief.

Advaita vedanta was easy for me to understand as it is a monism like in European philosophy which I had already studied at undergraduate level. I myself prefer dual aspect monism as explained by Spinoza.

When Jesus said "By their fruits you shall know them" He was not referring to ontology He was referring to who is a sheep and who a goat, i.e. who does good and who does bad. Elsewhere Jesus makes it plain exactly enough what actions are good and what bad. Ontology does not enter into what Jesus said. Jesus was a Jew and He took for granted the ontology that is accepted by Jews.

God is just another word for unbounded unconditional love.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 4:16 pmOn what basis do you conclude this?

Because reality is one without a second, there is no other reality or thing available to stop or change what is only ever happening in the instantaneous immediacy of NOW... which is ABSOLUTE and total freedom of being. Which logically informs us, aka no one, that there is no knowledge, or knower of what's only ever happening in the direct immediacy of what is always now and free to be, including every known concept possible...which is knowledge.

There is no be-coming, there is only BEING which is pure absolute not-knowing knowing. The word LOVE implies two which is a conditional love, and not what unconditional LOVE actually is. Conditioned LOVE is the pain of apparent separation and suffering. Whereas, Unconditional love is total acceptance, and surrender and is all allowing where no separation is known or possible.

In knowledge, the illusory dream of separation story, there apparently is not just the good guy, there is also the lying cheating wife beater, it's all the same one love in action dreaming difference where there is none. Sorry, but that's the real actual nondual truth, because the truth is always unconditional... it's always pure purity prior to any apparent soiling, which has no effect upon purity whatsoever.

So God is just another label that no thing, no one, appearing as everything and nothing is apparently applying...albeit illusory.

Since reality is unknowable, and doesn't require a knower to be what it is. It was here before any knower showed up. And so the knower must also be this unknowable mystery that can never be known.

It is only upon reflection, after what can only happen in realtime, that any event has ever been known to have happened....but this apparent knowledge can only inform of what is essentially not happening, only appearing to have happened, it's only nothing refecting itself as something, it's the same one energy appearing as two...so in EFFECT, there is apparently KNOWN absolutely no one, or no thing knowing what's happening. The knower, therefore is just an illsuory appearance appearing as though real, within the illusion of what is not happening, only appearing to be happening. In the context of Nothing and Something are the same one energy appearing different.

And this is why the nondual message is often rejected, because the nondual message makes no sense. The character within the dream believes it is real and so it does not like hearing it is not real. Anyways....there's just so much to explain about this nonsense....the point is, either the nondual message is heard, or it isn't, makes no difference, that which is not-happening will not be effected in any shape or form, simply because there is no other agent here that ever could touch it...because it's all the same one appearing as the many.


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Life is always unbounded and unconditional and spontaneous in every moment

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 4:16 pmActually, life is always particular and bounded. That's what makes it what it is, and not another thing. Your life is not mine, and mine is not yours. Nor is yours or mine the life of anybody else, or the life of the planet itself. These things are not "oneness" but difference.

Of course there is difference, but the difference is within the dream of separation only, as and through knowledge which can only point to the illusion of difference. In real reality prior to knowledge, there is no knowledge, no knowing...just what is, without the need for any label.

Need is only an appearance within the illusory story of I exist as a separate being. There is no such being, except in this artifical conception...overlaid upon purity that has no need or want or requirement to be any thing other than what it is in the immediate mysterious moment. Any appearent knowledge about this unknowable mystery is an illusion, full stop.
Man in his belief could not handle that he was unknowable and thus created God...human simply could not handle the actual truth that he did not exist in the way he thought he did. So he created a constructed concept known as God, and that's when all the religious troubles started, all because of the belief in a divine creator separate from the man...that had about as much reality and substance as a rainbow. A rainbow has no location whatsoever.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 4:16 pmDrifting off into hallucinogenic language is often a way of avoiding reason. And it's not surprising to me that unitary explanations like this find it frequently expedient to retreat into cyphers and koans when pressed rationally. Ironically, they then want to return to the real world and argue that their case is the truth...or "more true" than other beliefs. That's a hard thing to rationalize when "all is one" and "nothing is happening anyway."

There you go again..''hallucinogenic language'' ...wtf is that?

IC...you still do not grasp nondual message. It's plainly clear in all your responses.

NO altered states of consciousess are needed to realise nondual truth.

It's ok though, what is being presented in the form of the words seen above in your responses, is being read by the same one energy from out of which THE WORDS are appearing.

Many authors appear as many stories no one ever wrote, but there is only one reader, reading many stories no one ever wrote.

The real world doesn't need a story to be what it is. It's only in contrast that the real world is ever known..as through the knowledge of opposites, in the context real can only exist in the knowledge of its opposite unreal. In reality neither real or unreal exists except in this conception, a reflected image of the imageless...in other words a dream image, in other words, emptiness appearing full.

I'm never talking about the story IC....I'm always pointing to that in which the story is but an illusory appearance.

Which cannot be explained in words, it can only be realised and understood apparently as and through words...that NOTHING ever wrote and nothing ever read.
In the context, no word can describe WHAT IS...and yet every word is apparently WHAT IS. It's the divine paradox.

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 11:02 am You are still not getting IC ...there is no known knower which implies two, knower and known.

I "get it," meaning, "I understand what you're trying to say." But I don't believe it, because it doesn't add up to what it says it ought to add up to.

You can't have the claim "all is one" and then argue, and talk about a "you" and a "me" and a "reality." That doesn't work. It's performative incoherence. In other words, in the way you're performing, you're denying what you're claiming.

You finish:

... these things are all as empty as their source which is unknowable empty silence.

For an "unknowable empty silence," I hesitate to point out, you sure are talking a lot. And you're claiming to "know" this "unknowable" is true.

So again, I can see your claim, and I understand what it is: but it's not coherent, nor is it consistent with how you are acting.

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 11:19 am When Jesus said "By their fruits you shall know them" He was not referring to ontology He was referring to who is a sheep and who a goat, i.e. who does good and who does bad.

Not quite.

You'll notice, if you read carefully, that the goats, at least in their own view, had not done anything wrong. They say, "Lord..." (a term of respect, obviously), "...when did we ever do the things of which You accuse us?" And the sheep, likewise, protest, "Lord, when did we ever do the good things You attribute to us?" So the goats are, so far as they know, "good" people. They just happen to be wrong. And the sheep are, so far as they know, not "good" people; but they are.

That fact keeps us from thinking that what Christ is talking about is merely our own assessment of whether we are "good" or "bad" people; it's something else. And we shortly find out what it is. The Lord says that it is the way they reacted to the righteous. That was what made the difference between a self-satisfied "goat" and a humble, self-effacing "sheep."

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 5:56 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 11:19 am When Jesus said "By their fruits you shall know them" He was not referring to ontology He was referring to who is a sheep and who a goat, i.e. who does good and who does bad.

Not quite.

You'll notice, if you read carefully, that the goats, at least in their own view, had not done anything wrong. They say, "Lord..." (a term of respect, obviously), "...when did we ever do the things of which You accuse us?" And the sheep, likewise, protest, "Lord, when did we ever do the good things You attribute to us?" So the goats are, so far as they know, "good" people. They just happen to be wrong. And the sheep are, so far as they know, not "good" people; but they are.

That fact keeps us from thinking that what Christ is talking about is merely our own assessment of whether we are "good" or "bad" people; it's something else. And we shortly find out what it is. The Lord says that it is the way they reacted to the righteous. That was what made the difference between a self-satisfied "goat" and a humble, self-effacing "sheep."

That is interesting and informative, Immanuel.

The main point is about theories of existence.

Brahman is alone True, and this world of plurality is an error; the individual self is not different from Brahman.

Judaism includes that God transcends and has power over His creation: God and His creation are separate substances. This is not a monistic theory of existence. Monistic theories of existence recognise one ontic substance as in the quotation above.

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 11:21 pm Judaism includes that God transcends and has power over His creation: God and His creation are separate substances. This is not a monistic theory of existence. Monistic theories of existence recognise one ontic substance as in the quotation above.

Yep, I get that. I'm not having any trouble at all understanding what DAM is trying to say. It's really not that hard: you can't make things much simpler than "all is one." One is the loneliest number, as the old song says.

It's just that it still doesn't make rational sense, and doesn't reconcile with what DAM herself is doing.