Some say Advaita is Buddhism without Buddha. And others say Buddhism is Vedanta without Brahman. Who cares?
Considered one of the oldest Upanishads, the Brihadaranyaka says ‘I am Brahman” and after sleeping on it, I agree.
This experiential awareness is the consciousness accompanied by, at the very least, the primal thought of ‘I am’.
And absolute awareness is that pure consciousness beyond this hydrogen bomb of a thought. I Am That, my dear Nisargadatta is echoing Brihadaranyaka.
All there is—this universe and everything within it—vibrates with life.
For all is projected from Brahman and exists within the ground of Brahman.
And that Brahman has supplied this great jolt like a diamond thunderbolt.
And those who are struck by this knowledge realize one's immortality.
For in awe of Brahman, this inferno burns:
Sun shines, rain falls, wind blows, and death runs out the course.
But if one prevails in realizing one is Brahman before the blaze burns out,
Then one is freed from such fearful embodiment by that great self-awareness.
1.
That awareness is nameless of course. Pure consciousness is nameless too.
Let’s say ‘attention minus thought equals awareness’ because the power of three.
Resting in awareness is as good a practice as any, but dreaming in awareness is what’s happening.
2.
I know what this natural awareness is but all I can say it's not any thought swimming in that awareness.
That awareness is the air beneath these wings, the sea beneath this wave.
That awareness is my everything.
3.
Some say awareness is not a name but a scientific term. I say awareness is as much a name as any name of god, Walt Whitman.
Shiva is as good a name as awareness and may be better. There is nothing more deserving of devotion than this grand nondual equation: a-t=A (attention minus thought equals awareness).
This natural awareness, this pure consciousness, this paramatman, this this, is the great substrate (parabrahman) upon which the supernatural (brahma wielding the sword of maya) is imposed.
footnotes
Seeing through cognition itself is seeing timelessness awareness, pratibodha viditam.
Shankara comments that the strength needed for knowledge of atman is acquired through atman alone and not through anything else. I call this the Paradox of Kena 2.4
Resting in awareness isn’t resting as much as listening to the tao of the satguru. Consciousness is talking to consciousness. Quiet on the set!
1.
You’ve been led to that deep well of awareness
But only you can drink from, and dissolve in, that.
2.
That awareness is the substrate, the real self, paramatman,
And not yourself.
3.
Not only is that sea of awareness always there,
This superimposition of yourself is merely conceptual, dreamlike, maya.
4.
Any thought, including yourself, is merely floating in that awareness,
like waves in the sea, like words burning in a fire.
5.
The more time you float in that water of awareness,
The more realized is that water is the sea, and there all the time.
6.
And further, time is just a concept floating on that timelessness,
And I am, in truth, that timeless awareness.
I'm going to strawberry fields / Nothing is real / And nothing to get hung about / Strawberry fields forever
1.
Brahman is not a name as much as an adjective without a noun—
big. As in beyond the bang.
2.
And atman is the very breath, the inner spirit, soul, heart, swing, poetry.
3.
Atman is brahman is the big reveal
and paradoxical revelation—
haiku kahuna koan.
No language can describe the nondual truth but scientific language in particular is especially out of its element.
Science is concerned with the material world and is quite wonderful in its ability to circumscribe that maya, but brahmavidya not so much.
The genius of scientific language is in the inner logic of locking its discoveries into place. In brahmavidya, logic is important too, but so is artistry and paradox, not exactly the expertise of science.
Shankara, that 8th or 9th century proponent of advaita vedanta, is nothing if not logical, yet often lands on metaphor for his most important points.
The rope is never a snake, the sky is never a cloud, the desert is never a mirage, the sea is never a wave, and truth is never a science.
The expression of brahman is always changing but brahman never changes.
The ignorant will freeze some particular span of space and time to worship for its monumental creativity—and defend its monument against all change.
Only the grateful dead live are the grateful dead. A poet reads in order to write. As consciousness, one writes.
The poet is not the word as brahman is not the universe but the wave is the sea.
It’s not true everyone is enlightened about their true nature, but it is true that no one is not brahman.
Enlightenment is just an ostentatious word for having rid oneself of this unborn ignorance once and for all. But I like it.
Not only is that one attentive to one’s natural awareness amidst the word cloud of the world’s loud benightedness,
but one is actually that awareness—awareness is always enlightening one if one is actually listening.
1
The mind may come to know what it isn’t and what the mahavakyas say it is and cipher exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two and wait there for the magic bus that is coming to take me away ah ha!.
They say realization happens in the intellect, that reflection of divine intelligence, that cave of atman, that city of brahman, that lotus of my heart.
Call it pratibodha and say om.
2.
So what science sees as a great black hole is actually the self-shining seer seeing science.
You can't see it. That's why you have to listen. Silence is not an end in itself. It's the prerequisite for this listening.
And one doesn't listen by this listening. One listens by heart.
3.
At the heart of every concept is awareness, pure consciousness, that essential principle of existence.
Vedantic scientists have named this postulate of truth, pratibodha-vidatam.
Vedantic poets call it rope and snake.
4.
Awake the lotus heart is lucid dreaming.
Stevie wonder dreaming in the city of brahman—skyscrapers and everything.
In my day, the grateful dead were grateful for their psychedelic resurrection as pure consciousness and the beatles went all the way to rishikesh. This was my generation baby.
5.
Everything appears in the self-shining light of pure consciousness (natural awareness), does it not?
So the question you have to ask yourself punk, are you the appearance or the natural awareness?
It's the simple equation behind every koan: om is mu.
X.
Call it pratibodha and say om.
So what science sees as a great black hole is actually the self-shining seer seeing science.
Vedantic poets call it rope and snake.
Awake the lotus heart is lucid dreaming!
It’s the simple equation behind every koan: om is mu.
6.
If you feel you need to breathe, your god is obviously still vayu.
And by the transitive property of the gods themselves, you may choose any aspect of this absolute manifestation to worship instead.
For this is the heart of all polytheistic points of view. Praise maya!
The sea pervades and envelops the wave that’s not a wave but is maya’s brave new world of dreaming unawareness.
For unawareness is just a temporary state, much like the grand appearance of a superstar and its transformative return to the great black hole of brahman.
Look, only the mind sees that paramatman as a great black hole; the nondual self is in reality the self-shining seer.
