Broken Glass The Koan

How do you break the glass before using if you need what's underneath the glass to break the glass in the first place? In this way the koan exists to break through maya.

Look, consciousness doesn't appear in the brain, so neuroscience needs to research the opposite, starting with your basic nondualities.

Individual dreams are born. Universal dreams are reborn. Birth and rebirth are superimpositions on pure existence. Know that.

In the emptiness of the universe, a binary mind interprets disappearance as death and appearance as life, although all it knows from day zero is the existence principle.

For the Revelators

Paradox exists because the world doesn’t know what’s real.

Similarly, consciousness is not produced by a material universe in evolutionary time. The material universe appears in consciousness.

There’s no antidote for maya. Understand the snake is an illusion on the rope. That is all.

Only the mind could conceive non-existence. It’s absurdity itself. Thank god for the kindness of revelators.

On the Existence Principle

The space in space-time is not the ground of all existence. The existence principle in absolute brahman is, that sat of satcitananda.

But scientific materialism loves its space, believing its universal ground of existence was born of nothing 14 billion years ago.

Forgive them for we’re hypnotized by maya. The superimposition has become the substratum. The snake rules the world.

Space is the superimposition, speaks the revelation. The existence principle is reality. It’s the only logical conclusion.

*on pancadasi 2:60-77

Spacetime Dreaming

The i witnesses the reflection of the i. This reflection is called the i-am.

The i-am witnesses the reflection of the i-am. This fractal reflection is called the i-am-this. And so on.

For the dreamer knows the dream but the dream doesn’t know the dreamer. This fact is called maya.

Some call this space of dreaming, nescience. Some call this time of dreaming, reincarnation.

Space appears in maya. Mind appears in space. Time appears in mind. Dreams appear in time.

The I-Am of Avidya

1.

Technically speaking, the world doesn’t appear in the space of consciousness, but the world appears in the space of maya, and maya appears in consciousness. Similarly, the personal appears within the reflection of consciousness, and this i-am appears in consciousness.

2.

The person is to the world

As the reflection (i-am) of consciousness is to space (akasa)

As avidya is to maya

As atman is to brahman

As ayam atma brahma.

3.

And this is N’s yoga. A person resting in the reflection of consciousness is the i-am-this resting in the i-am without the conceptual this. For the i comes for the i-am. The i-am-this can never reach the i. And the mantra is the namarupa resting in the nama. Or the i-am-this resting in the i-am.

The Space of Maya

The power of maya is known only by its effect, the world. Further the power of maya is actually the power of brahman. And although maya is the power of brahman, make no mistake, maya isn't brahman.

Whereas maya is not absolute existence, neither is maya non-existent. Relatively existent, maya is as it is, undefinable and indescribable.

Before creation, there was maya, the darkness of maya covering the light of brahman. Brahman adorned in the cloak of maya is isvara, god, the saguna brahman, or the absolute with attributes.

And the first transformation of maya is space, in which the world appears, for brahman is spaceless, space being just a superimposition on the substratum of brahman.

reality sonnet

in maya,

every object has five qualities

about it—

name, form,

existence, consciousness, bliss.

namarupa is the great illusion.

satcitananda is the great one.

brahman.

listen in brahman,

there’s not only silence,

but no eyes, no tongue,

no nerves, no nose

as well as no ears

to hear.

Vidyaranya's Reality

Reality is existence. Reality is consciousness. Reality is bliss. Satcitananda is the nature of reality and not its components. Reality is the whole.

(In this way, Vidyaranya talks about the three types of differences: within a singular object, between objects of the same kind, and between objects of unlike kinds. Bheda: svagata, svajatiya, vijatiya.)

There are no parts within reality. Parts consist of name and form. Namarupa is the essence of the manifest creation. Existence is the essence of the unmanifest reality and not one of its parts.

Reality is alone. There can’t be another reality. Reality is uncontested. Existence can’t be opposed by non-existence; even emptiness exists as a superimposition upon existence. Look, it’s ekam eva advitiyam, one only without a second.

Zhuangzi's Moth: Three Footnotes on Four Stages

Without indirect knowledge, one must depend on the kindness of spontaneous combustion. It happens, I guess. I once knew a woman who won the lottery big time.

Not believing blindly, listening faithfully means accepting the guru’s transmitted knowledge as truth. Later alone one reasons it out—not to disprove the truth but to convince the mind of its logical foundation. And in turn, silence this disturbing noise of doubt. Or not.

Relatively speaking, listening and reasoning take effort. But meditation is effortless. No longer about the guru’s words, it’s now about that attractive flame of the satguru.

On the Four Stages of Knowing

In the Pancadasi, a 14th century handbook of Advaita Vedanta (or as was just auto-corrected to advice of the doctor), in the chapter entitled Tattva Viveka, the first of 15 chapters, Vidyaranya (the author, most likely) writes of the 4 stages of knowledge from indirect to direct.

The first is called the listening. The second is called the reflecting or reasoning. Sravanam is listening to the guru faithfully. Manaman is confirming this knowledge initially taken in faith with logical reasoning and careful analysis until the mind buys it and owns it. Or not.

Only when this indirect knowledge clicks does the third stage, meditation, begin. Nididhysanam is the one-pointed contemplation on the brahmakara vritti, the thought, I am Brahman—until the meditator and the meditating drop into the nirvikalpa samadhi of Parabrahman, the fourth.