Return to Satcitananda

1.

The fact of my outer self being an illusion is only a problem if I’m a materialist. I’m not.

At my worst, I was agnostic, but never atheistic, thank god.

2.

One late august evening, I decided to become a fundamentalist christian. My ear had twitched!

Of course, no one decides these things. They just happen. That’s the nature of appearances and dreams. Thankfully it didn’t take.

3.

Where was I? Ok, so materialism is not just a belief. It’s a metaparadigm.

In my book, a materialist is an atheist believing consciousness is an appearance in the material world.

4.

Believe it or not, it’s easier for a fundamental religionist to pass through that eye of a needle than an atheistic scientific materialist.

Return to consciousness, my friend.

5.

I am that raw electricity of consciousness and not the body-mind industrial complex.

Following myself to the source, paramatman is parabrahman.

Parabrahman SFX

Parabrahman is absolutely unbiased. Like the sun, it illumines all but doesn’t get involved with any.

Parabrahman can be called the efficient cause of all, like the soundless moon can be called the efficient cause of tides.

And parabrahman can be called the material cause of all, not unlike the brain being called the material cause of dreaming.

Ultimately parabrahman is the prime cause of this manifestation, as only the causeless can be the cause of illusion.

My Nonduality

1.

This is my nonduality.

Your nonduality may vary.

There are 8 billion nondualities in the naked world.

2.

There is an outer guru manifested by the inner satguru at every node of the space-time matrix of evolutionary self-awareness.

I don't know but I've been told there are as many nodes in the self-awareness matrix as there are stars in the universe.

Walt Whitman lives in one node. Nisargadatta lives in another. Neither may be the node in which you are currently finding yourself. That’s cool.

3.

My parents introduced me to the Jesus node, the Roman Catholic one. Jesus, how I loved that dude.

But John Lennon was right. The Beatles were more popular than Jesus.

Melville and Whitman were my newfound yin and yang—started off on Whitman but soon hit the beat stuff.

4.

Henry was my guilty pleasure until I read his journals.

For some reason, Don Miguel Ruiz talked to me, and from there to Nisargadatta Maharaj was like the speed of light (with stops at Tolle, Krishnamurti, and Ramana).

And now I’m at Advaita Vedanta in order to understand the air N breathes better.

Questioning God

Am I the god of consciousness reflecting in the subtle body or am I the evolutionary body within which god is reflecting?

Forget science. Science says I’m somebody whose brain is creating consciousness, when at best it’s a highly evolved natural transistor.

As saguna brahman, I’m creator of a subtle body made of myself and the god reflecting in it. What I’m not is an individual person.

As nirguna brahman, I'm that absolute existence, pure consciousness, and holistic infinity beyond maya. So never mind.

Nonduality Awards

You can be Isvara but you can’t be Parabrahman. Nirguna brahman be saguna brahman.

Thought may be writing our screenplay but raw satcitananda is the substratum supporting it.

And the award for best producer goes to Lord Isvara of Saguna Brahman, God of Universal Consciousness.

And the award for best director goes to Maya Sattva for there are no other nominees. 

And the award for best acting goes to this avidya formerly known as ignorance.

The aumdada for best picture goes to nonduality. Duality may be unborn but it's not endless.

The Sentience of Light Bulbs

A light bulb alit is just the reflection of raw electricity. Like our sentience is just the reflection of pure consciousness.

A broken light bulb isn’t dark because it’s broken. It’s dark because electricity is no longer present in it.

The material intellect thinks the light bulb is dead. Conscious intuition knows the spirit has moved on.

Universal consciousness has left the building. For between the source and body-mind is I, Isvara, wielding the power of maya.

The Proof of Nonduality

Universal consciousness is the manifestation of pure consciousness. Individual consciousness is the shadow of universal consciousness.

Universal consciousness is where maya dwells conceiving self-awareness. Individual consciousness is the darkroom of avidya—self-realization is developed here.

Nonduality is like a thorn extracting the thorn of duality; it’s not to be believed but used thoroughly and thrown away. There may be nothing to do and no one to do it, but only nonduality can prove it.

Advaita Variations on a Mahavakya

You aren’t brahman. You are atman. Atman is brahman.

The mahavakya, prajnanam brahma, only says the highest knowledge is brahman. That pure consciousness is the highest knowledge is left unsaid.

Tattvamasi is simply saying thatness is. That’s all.

I'm not literally brahman. I am actually brahman. Aham brahma asmi.

The Modus Operandi of Advaita

Advaita begins with the nature of parabrahman, and what reality cannot be in order to be reality.

Parabrahman must be infinite, immutable, and partless. And anything temporary, changeable, and separate, must be an illusion, for it’s certainly not parabrahman, and parabrahman is all there is.

And as parabrahman is all there is, then according to the vedanta, my pure existence and awareness is the nature of parabrahman, and anything not that is the 'this' of not this, not this. Thus I am that.

Parabrahman, Parabrahman

Parabrahman is witness and illuminator, efficient cause and material cause, undiluted being and unclouded awareness.

And atman is the self, the inner one beyond the outer many, parabrahman.