Plan 211102tu3x321 from Beyond

No-thought is the unmanifest but the unmanifest is not reality.

Thought is manifestation and no-thought is the unmanifest.

Absolute reality is beyond thought and no-thought.

The unmanifest is brahman but reality is parabrahman.

No-thought waits at the gateless gate for reality to open it.

In the cosmic causelessness of things, maya is the only cause and effect.

endnotes

1. as deep sleep is the absence of duality, beyond the unmanifest is the presence of nonduality.

2. if manifestation is thought form, and thought is dreaming, lucid dreaming is seeing through thought-form.

3. no snake is not no rope.

4. gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate.

5. “Relax and watch the ‘I am’. Reality is just behind it. Keep quiet, keep silent; it will emerge, or, rather, it will take you in.”

6. for non-apprehension is the cause and misapprehension is effect.

afterword

koan and maya are two sides of one coin.

power is not absolute. thus absolute power corrupts absolutely.

love is the knot.

neti neti and the gospel of doubting thomas.

the only way is the tao of wu wei.

awareness is nothing if not self-aware. self-awareness is nothing but maya.

Maya, Jake, and Mystery Ed

Absolute awareness is inherently, naturally, spontaneously self-aware. Only Maya makes you think I’m not.

There’s nothing wrong with self-awareness unless you take a side. Absolute awareness is nothing if not self-aware.

Self-awareness is the crossroads of modern evolution and sudden enlightenment. Both roads are disappearing here.

Spontaneous self-awareness is this space-time of the same. Maya meets Jacob. The road is ever dust and dew. By its wayside, a horse is pissing on a mirror.

On Mandukya etc Translations

Mandukya / Karika/ Sankara translation update. Nikhilananda has copious end notes, most of which are insightful. But too often a note ends with an untranslated devanagari script. Gambhirananda has much fewer notes. That is not a bad thing. In reading the Mandukya with the Karika, and especially the commentaries of Sankara, one of either Nikhilananda or Gambhiranda is necessary.

But I’ve determined the Chinmayananda translation is also necessary. Not only is it the only one to include the romanization of the sanskrit, allowing for textual analysis, but the commentary has grown on me. Sometimes too long-winded but often insightful in a down-to-earth way. Chinmayananda translates the Mandukya and Karika but not the Sankara commentaries, although he often refers to key segments in his own commentary.

I always like including a third translation for triangulation purposes. Swartz is not a necessary translation, but a good third one. Especially for a westerner. Mandukya and Karika; no Sankara.

I say all this after reading the first Karika which includes the Mandukya and the second Karika which is a logical presentation of illusory duality. But I’ve gone back to the first because the Mandukya is worth reading three times quickly.

First, they say the Mandukya is the distillation of all Upanishads. Second, Gaudapada is the fountainhead of all advaita. Third, the Mandukya first appears in Gaudapada’s Karika, not necessarily meaning he wrote it as much as he rediscovered it.

psst, on the Mandukya and Gaudapada front, The Method of Early Advaita Vedanta: A Study of Gaudapada, Sankara, Suresvara and Padmapada, by Michael Comans, is really good.

Paraverse on M1&2

If an object is its name,

and aum is the name

for the manifest,

past, present, & future,

& the unmanifest,

and universe is brahman,

then aum is brahman,

and atman is brahman,

and this self-shining consciousness

divided into three states

& the stateless state,

aum.

If a rose is a rose is a rose, and a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, then aum is the name for that sweetness.

Spoiler alert! There are three states of consciousness: no thought, thought, and thought-form.

The fourth state of consciousness is the stateless state of pure awareness.

In street lingo, deep sleep is no thought, dreams are thought, and the waking world is thought-form.

Between the unmanifest and manifest is thought. That's basically the secret. 

Beyond the manifest and unmanifest is reality. That's the truth.

That Self-Awareness Show

In self-awareness, the self-shining consciousness of atman is the self, the absolute brahman is awareness, and maya is the hyphen.

And the universe is the reflexive space surrounding this said hyphen. Consciousness falls into a deep sleep and dreams a way out.

Awareness witnesses self-awareness whereas the mind sees only one side at a time. As Zhuangzi says, for every this there is a that.

footnotes

1. kalpayaty-ātmanātmānam-ātmā devaḥ sva-māyayā

~Gaudapada K2-12a (tr-chinmayananda)

2. there are seven states of consciousness: light, nuclear, atomic, deep sleep, thought, form, enlightenment.

3. see Julian of Norwich. again.

afterword

Self-awareness is where the science meets the metaphysics. Self-awareness is where maya works.

I’ve been trying to put the paradox of self-awareness into words and maya was there all the time.

The snake is a rope but a rope is a rope is a rope. All metaphors must end. The true physicist works in nonduality. Atma deva sva maya.

Epistle to Natural Consciousness

So-called personal consciousness is filtered consciousness but most people been down so long they think it’s natural consciousness.

Let’s define our terms. Personal consciousness receives everything. Natural consciousness projects through everything.

One is natural consciousness, but ordinary people think they’re just this personal consciousness produced by the body somewhere in the brain.

In this vein, natural consciousness is not ordinary to such people, but natural consciousness appears to be almost supernatural to them.

Communicating this paradox is why there’s gods, friends, and devils. You know the devil of every detail but one. God is consciousness.

Footnotes.

1. Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me by Richard Fariña.

2. Personal consciousness is the universal cause. Natural consciousness is beyond all cause and effect. I am that I am.

3. Scientific materialism is just a religion whose personal god is named scientific materialism. Dear eight pound, six ounce, newborn baby big bang. So cuddly but still omnipotent.

4. Beyond natural, maybe.

5. If jiva is atman, and atman is brahman, then brahman is jiva. Let the circle be nondual.

end notes

I am of the opinion.

Reality is consciousness minus mind.

Energy minus resistance is aum’s law.

Do the math.

Old math, new math. Real math is experiential.

Because numbers are the new names, tao is also numberless.

Tvam am tat.

Prajnanam brahma, ayam atma brahma, tat tvam asi, aham brahma asmi.

The self of self-awareness is brahman.

Another name for self-awareness is maya.

The world is just a cross-section of self-awareness.

I went to the crossroad and fell down on my knees.

If atman is the self,

and brahman is awareness,

maya is the self-awareness.

Welcome to My Paraverse

Consciousness knows everything except reality. For reality is consciousness and self-awareness is its dream state.

So living in the world is like suspending disbelief in a movie called self-awareness. Actors never die. Movies do. Myth is the script.

So religions sell myth. It’s not easy writing your own. For example, in advaita vedanta, vedanta is religion and nonduality is disbelief.

My myth is self-awareness, my disbelief is nonduality, and my religion is the loving personality. My poetry is my bible. Happy birthday number one daughter!

end notes

1.1. not only does consciousness know everything, it causes everything.

1.2. for the sea surrounds the island. the island does not surround the sea, says hafiz.

2.1. in the first place, you can't get there from here.

2.2. li po plays all along the watchtower!

3.1. if story is super brahman, myth is parabrahman.

3.2. i'm advaita america.

4.1. see the reflexive universe, spot. see the mandukya, jack kerouac.

4.2. love is all.

Aum Beatitudes

Aum is I-am as form, subsiding to concept, and resting as knowledge.

But this deep knowledge, universal consciousness, doesn't know the absolute; the nondual absolute knows it.

Such noumenal knowing, pure awareness, the witnessing I, is that without cause, and, without effect.

On Eka-ātma-pratyaya-sāram

After all the neti neti of Mandukya 7, this all-important positive line appears. Here are various translations: 

whose valid proof consists in the single belief in the Self 

~Gambhirananda 

The essence of the Consciousness manifesting as the self [in the three states] 

~Nikhilananda 

As one whose essence is the perception of itself alone 

~Olivelle 

 essentially of the Self alone 

~Chinmayananda 

 Always experienced as the unbroken “I-sense,” 

~Swartz 

The only proof of His existence is union with Him 

~Yeats & Purohit 

The essence of the assurance of which is the state of being one with the Self 

~Hume 

Essence of self knowledge 

~Raphael 

The essence of its certainty is the one Self.  

~Jones 

 

Essentially one-pointed self-awareness,  

~aumdada 

On Natural Apprehension. Commentary in Paraverse on Gaudapada K1.15.

Deconstruct misapprehension. Forget non-apprehension. Just know natural apprehension.

There’s no curing the common cause. You always know yourself. You’ve identified with something else.

Knowing natural apprehension is the direct path. Ekātma-pratyaya-sāraṁ. That’s not just awareness, that's oneself, bliss.

footnotes.

1.1. and do not forget i too took this road and still swear by the four agreements.

1.2. non-apprehension was never born. like social conditioning, or maya.

1.3. the guru, written or unwritten, only leads you to the wine. hafiz, drink it for god's sake!

2.1. if not-knowing is the first disease, knowing is original ease and non-doing.

2.2. leaves fall, a tree abides. trees die, the earth abides. the earth disintegrates, the sun abides. the sun implodes, black brahman abides.

2.3. the self is always witnessing self-awareness. people, all manner of things shall be well.

3.1. from superego to immaculate conception to universal consciousness. aum.

3.2. akāra ukāro makāra. waking dream, dreaming dream, dreamless sleep.

3.3.1. awareness is often mistaken as attention. the mind attends the senses and its memories.

3.3.1.1. awareness affectionately witnesses. this is why we speak in threes.

3.3.1.2. see satcitananda.

3.3.1.3. islands of happiness appear and disappear in spacetime. bliss is that in which the sea of spacetime is appearing.