On Maya, Turiya, and Satcitananda

In the world of Maya, there are three states of consciousness (waking, dreaming, and deep sleep as they are named in the Mandukya).

From a relative point of view, these three states exist within a fourth state, pure consciousness, named turiya.

This fourth state is the state from which the other three states are states of, in a mystical way of speaking.

From an absolute point of view, there are no three states of consciousness, never mind a fourth stateless state.

There’s only pure consciousness named brahman, the nature of which is existence, consciousness, and bliss, satcitananda.

This is three-fifths of the world as people know it. The other two are Maya, named name and form, or namarupa.

footnotes

it's only 3/5 of the world but I love it

the reflection of consciousness in this other 2/5 is a red hot mass of consciousness felt as I am

an altered state of consciousness is still within the waking state of consciousness

nonduality is nothing without duality

the mystical is nothing but paradoxical ananda

the absolute by its very nature of being absolute is neither non-existent, unconscious, nor unwell

they say the buddha said the world is suffering. suffering is the true definition of being unwell.

nonexistence is not exactly existence but it must do as a name.

unconsciousness is not exactly consciousness but it must do as a name.

non-suffering is not exactly bliss but it must do as a name.

thus existence-consciousness-bliss must do as a name. that's why it's called satcitananda.

satcitananda is not the name of a tripartate brahman. brahman is not a trinity. satcitananda is the nature of brahman. brahman is nondual.

Another name for pure consciousness is awareness. Another name for the reflection of consciousness is awareness reflected in consciousness.

Advaita vedanta warns that written words of revelation (sruti) may result in spontaneous self-realization. Caveat emptor.

Upanishads, bhagavad gita, and brahma sutra are like the gospels. The bhashyas and prakaranas are like epistles. Ramana and nisargadatta are like revelations.

Ice says begin at the unborn. What would alice do.

When it comes to english translations of advaita vedanta, chinmayananda is a go-to. His translations almost always incude sanskrit transliteration. This in itself is invaluable for ultimate digestion. Look, his commentaries may be wordy but often contain profound revelations.

Nikhilananda always.

As an aside, nikhilanda was basically joseph campbell’s guru.

Tejomayananda and gambhirananda are also excellent.

Then we come to dayananda.

Basically modi’s guru I guess. I know nothing of indian politics. I’m still trying to forget the american version.

Dayananda left the chinmayananda mission to begin his own. His spiritual right wing is respect for the original sanskrit.

Dayananda’s english translations are impeccable. And they do not suffer fools.

Dayananda almost never deviates from this wonderful fusion of sanskrit and english. His translations of the vivekacudamani and tattvabodah are revelatory, urging one to study his lessons in sanskrit in order to dive deeper into his advaitic commentary.

But the institution he left behind is beginning to release his basement tapes. To be fair, dayananda not edited by dayananda is not dayananda.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s better than no dayananda, if you’ve completed your degree in dayananda. Otherwise he’s with all of the above.

Advaita ashrama, chinmayananda mission, and arsha vidya old school are still trustworthy imho

Tmp mahadevan writes unbelievable monographs spanning guadapada to vidyaranya to ramana maharshi

Faith is not belief. Faith is like a map. One has faith in a map as long as the map is trustworthy. Sooner or later, you see, you’re the only map you trust

The Gita 500

It’s not that the future is predetermined but there is no future. There is no time. There is awareness being self-aware. It’s not even spontaneous as such, as ever-existent.

Somehow, through the preeminent paradox called maya, this ever-existent satcitananda appears to be a process of self-forgetting and self-remembering within a manifested spacetime.

The driver thinks this track possesses a starting gun and finish line. But the race is already won. The way is unborn, ever-existent, and just a joyful whole. 

footnotes

You can call me consciousness, you can call me existence, you can call me ananda aum, the joy of being whole.

Basically the ancient one first determines what the absolute must logically be to be truly absolute.

Then anything not absolute in nature (the absolute being obviously unborn, immutable, not suffering) must be an illusion, for the absolute is never not the absolute.

(The search of self to find the Self never ends. Like that mirage I saw on I-40 in New Mexico didn’t exactly end. But that coyote disappeared as I suddenly saw through it.)

The big bang is as much a story as the book of genesis. And there are no end times. There is no time.

The absolute is pure consciousness (another name for pure consciousness is awareness [another name for impure consciousness is that mass of consciousness experiencing those three mutable states of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep—call this red hot mass Aham the I Am]). 

The absolute is ever and all existent. I am, therefore I am the absolute. Or Atman isn’t Brahman.

afterword

Advaita vedanta is like logic laced with metaphor or paradox spiked with revelation.

Sanskrit is to Latin as tatvamasi is to dominus vobiscum et cum spititu tuo.

The thing about nonduality is it only exists within duality. Believing otherwise is not nonduality, but more duality. Nonduality is not a belief. It’s an antidote for belief.

It’s all in that same old ancient line of never knowing what one is, but only knowing what one isn’t. Such is the nature of the mind’s kind of knowledge.

On the other hand, true knowing is being only. For being doesn’t merely know the absolute. Being is the absolute.

When one becomes one with any object or action, one isn’t one with its name, form, or meaning. One is one with that satcitananda upon which such name, form, and meaning is a giant superimposition.

a technicality and note of thanks

tonight's handwriting has been manifested by a christmas-gifted lamy al-star ex-fine dark purple fountain pen with a new year's monteverde usa blueberry muffin ink.

smoke on the water, a fire in the sky.

On Seer and Seen

For every seen there is a seer, and every seer is the seen of a further seer, unless that seer is the furthest seer, the witness, the atman, is brahman.

Thus only consciousness is sentient—and the eye, mind, and person is insentient—for all sentient beings are these reflections of consciousness—

that aham present in the waking, dreaming, and sleeping quarters—fusing with a twisted ego—concluding in a red hot mass of consciousness.

Look, there is no mountain but the mountain is. That is, the so-called mountain is pure existence which the mind has formed and named a mountain.

If the rope is pure existence, satcitananda—and the superimposition of a snake upon this rope is the world, namarupa—then ignorance, avidya itself, is the one and only creator.

Maya veils reality and projects the world. As the material cause is the absolute, the efficient cause is ignorance, and the instrumental cause is thought. This is the real trinity in seer and seen.

footnotes

another name for the furthest seer is the witness, the saksin, the ultimate self, atman, parabrahman.

if the body, mind, and ego are seen insentient, and i am sentient, then i am not the body, mind, nor ego.

as only pure consciousness is sentient, i am that.

the i-am, aham, is that mass of consciousness in three states. i am the fourth, that stateless state beyond deep sleep.

look, i'm not in a dream. the dream is in my ultimate self. call me atman. my mind is like a food processor. satcitananda in. name, form, and meaning out.

as the material cause is the immaterial, and as the efficient cause is this inefficient ignorance, and as the instrumental cause is misusing thought, aum.

afterword

drg drsya viveka is revelation—discriminating seer from the seen. the nikhilananda translation is very good with extensive footnotes. the tejomayananda is an excellent translation supplying sanskrit transliteration and inspired commentary. the great dayananda isn't user friendly.

 

Nonduality's Thing

1.

Deconstructing the mind is silencing the mind with reasonable argument, 

logical presentation, and the mystical truth of consciousness only.

2.

Negating the false is one thing but being the truth is nonduality’s thing.

Renunciation is not what people think. No one renounces; there’s no doing in maya.

3.

When ripened in the nondualities of deconstruction and consciousness, 

things naturally drop. And don’t forget the revelations.

Feel the Prana! Witness the Prajna!

Prajna is awareness reflecting in prana.

Prajna is the fourth resounding in the three states of aham.

It’s always prana in and prajna out with this body-mind transistor.

Feel the prana informing every particle of this cubic body like a nuclear reactor.

Be aware of intuitions from awareness reforming the mind in upanishads of self-awareness.

We are ouroboros, a mass of consciousness with an open head caught in the act of self-awareness.

Beyond Theories of Everything: The Truth of Nonduality (with footnotes)

Maya is to universal quantum consciousness (isvara) as avidya is to individual mass consciousness (aham). Isvara is to quantum mechanics as aham is to general relativity. Like nonduality (advaita) is to the theory of everything.

This atman includes the four quarters. The four quarters are deep sleep, dreaming, waking, and turiya, the fourth, the quarterless quarter, pure consciousness, absolute awareness, parabrahman. This atman is brahman.

Aham (I am) includes the three quarters, this mass of consciousness consisting of deep sleep, the dreaming state, and the waking state, excluding the stateless state of that fourth, turiya, parabrahman. Listen, on a little lower layer, I am that.

footnotes:

1.

2.

~Mandukya Upanishad (tr-Chinmayananda

3.

4. 

1. ‘maya’ is the first word. and not for nothing.

2. brahman plus maya equals isvara.

3. avidya is maya relatively speaking.

4. quantum mechanics is to maya as general relativity is to avidya. none of it is real but they sure put on a good show.

5. maya, avidya, quantum mechanics, general relativity. only the names will change.

6. the personal (aham, i am) is based in avidya. the universal (isvara, vishnu) is based in maya.

7. a theory of everything will unify quantum mechanics and general relativity in the future, says science.

8. nonduality says, quantum mechanics is maya and general relativity is avidya. everywhere and always. here and now.

9. atman (the self) equals aham plus turiya.

10. Aham Equals Atman Minus Brahman!

5.

the chorus sings:

a theory of everything will unify quantum mechanics and general relativity in the future, says science. 

nonduality says quantum mechanics is maya and general relativity is avidya now.

6.

Atman equals Aham plus Parabrahman. I Am equals Atman minus Brahman! Atman is Brahman. Brahman is not Atman. Brahman is Atman minus Aham. I Am Is The Self. The Self Is Not I Am. The Self Is I Am Plus Awareness.

The Theory of Everything is like Atman equals Aham plus Parabrahman, I Am equals Atman minus Brahman, Atman is Brahman, Brahman is not Atman, Brahman is Atman minus Aham, I Am is The Self, The Self is not I Am, The Self is I Am plus Awareness. Self-awareness.

7.

Bond. James Bond. Awareness. Self-awareness. Atman minus brahman equals samsara. Do not believe the myth but transcreate it faithfully. Absolute, quantum, atomic, mass, organic, active, self-awareness. That aham equals atman minus brahman is quite the concept considering atman equals brahman.

Still Dreaming Day Ananda

This dream has no beginning nor no end. Buddhas don’t stop dreaming; they just dream the Buddha stuff.

Maya is unborn as well. It’s all about multitasking, you see.

It's a matter of material perspective. Whether it’s consciousness manufacturing the dream as it is or the dream manufacturing consciousness as it isn’t, there’s still going to be a dream.

Seeing Dream Things

I am the seer of I am. I am not the seer of dreams; I am is.

To be seen, the dream resolves itself into I am. I am is the mass of consciousness, the consecrated host of self-awareness.

The waking state is not awake. That waking dream is like a dream of deep sleep feeling the pain and suffering of dreaming a dreamer.

The Mass of Aham Asmi (The Garden of Dreaming Part II)

Awareness reflecting in consciousness is like a mirage of water in the desert air. If maya is mirage, consciousness is the water, and awareness is the space of sun, that is.

Disidentifying from the world body of the mind and identifying with this mass of consciousness known as aham asmi is the universal halfway house in nonduality for aham brahmasmi.

The mind, being an insentient object in reality, cannot know the absolute subject. This is why the absolute self is named the unknown.

This mass of consciousness is the sacred manifestation of the absolute self, called true knowledge. Dominus vobiscum. Et tu parabrahman.

The Garden of Dreaming

Prana in, prajna out. This body-mind complex is a consciousness processor. Awareness is always reflecting in consciousness but one has to pan for the gold

In the garden of dreaming don’t you know that you’re always true? In a universal garden, the knowledge of good and evil is another name for avidya. In this garden of nirvana, the body-mind usurps the noumenal.

Birth and death are mythic gods, concepts to be used in processing self-awareness, and not to be believed. Consciousness identifying with a form is the condition of my conditioning. Lucid dreaming is just being the self-evident unknown.