Bhagavan Buddha's awakening occurred when he realized that you didn’t have to starve yourself and mortify your body, as was commonly practiced in India at that time to enhance spiritual clarity and wisdom.
Bhagavan Buddha:~ No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.
Bhagavan Buddha:~ There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth: not going all the way... and not starting.
Bhagavan Buddha:~ “Believe nothing because a wise man said it, Believe nothing because it is generally held. Believe nothing because it is written. Believe nothing because it is said to be divine. Believe nothing because someone else said it. But believe only what you yourself judge to be true
Thoughts arise to the person within the waking or dream. The thinker is the form. Without the form, thinking is an impossibility. Thus, thinker and thoughts are part of the known. The witness of the knower and known is formless.
Thoughts and thinker is nothing to do with the formless witness. The witness is that witnesses the thoughts, thinker and the world together and remains always in the within the waking or dream as their formless substance.
People think that more they think, the more they will get; but it is really an error. It remains only a thought and gives them back only thoughts. Anything seen, observed, cannot be the Self or the Witness.
Thoughtless awareness comes only when there is oneness in awareness in the midst of dualistic illusion. The dualistic illusion exists as a reality until the ignorance is there. Ignorance will vanish only when the nondualistic or Advaitic wisdom dawns. The wisdom dawns only when one becomes aware of the fact that the world in which you exist is a dualistic illusion created out of single stuff that is the consciousness.
Thus, by realizing the consciousness alone is and all the three states are merely an illusion created out of consciousness leads to nondual self-awareness.
Buddhist Sunyavada is incongruous because every thought has its opposite every word is tied to its coordinate for all thought and speech can only operate under such dualism. Hence, taking the most fundamental word, existence its implied opposite non-existence is also there, and vice versa. Therefore, the Sunya "non-entity" is meaningless without "entity". Both are there.
Buddhist Idealism speaks only of ideas.
What about the knower of these ideas?
Buddhist Nihilism does not ask "What is meant by Nihilism?
It is a thought. There must be a thinker of this thought.
Bhagavan Buddha kept silent, refusing to answer questions on the ultimate. Therefore, he was the wisest man in refusing to commit himself.
Zen is quite OK in mentioning non-duality: it is the nearest to Advaita, but it is still inferior because
(1) It fails to prove non-duality,
(2) It illogically gives ‘Koan’ exercises as a means of attaining that which is beyond attainment, because always here,
(3) It talks about insight or intuition to see Reality when sight involves a second thing, duality.
When you say "Nothing is" what is the meaning of "is"? "Sunya" is something which exists: you cannot prove that consciousness does not exist.
Zen Buddhism gives a high important place to meditation practice. The truth is that Zen advocates the necessity of meditation for those of its adherents who cannot grasp the absolute truth.
Zen Buddhism is also on this lower stage of Yoga because it depends on flashes of Intuition gained by meditation, not by reasoning.
Has the Void a meaning? If so then it is only your imagination.
Bhagavan Buddha gave up yoga after practicing it for six years. He saw it could not yield truth.
Bhagavan Buddha gave up his austerities of yoga as impossible and useless. (Page.70/71 "Buddhism in Translation” by Warren)
Bhagavan Buddha got enlightenment only after he gave up Yoga. Unless you exercise your Buddhi--reason--there is no chance of getting the truth, which is beyond the form, time and space. Buddhism is based on the form alone, and it does not include the time and space in its investigation.
Buddhism has not proved the truth of Nonduality. Buddha pointed out the unreality of the world. He told people they were foolish to cling to it. But he stopped there. He came nearest to Advaita in speech but not to Advaita fully.
Zen Buddhism Satori is not Advaitic wisdom because it comes as flashes, it does not depend on seeing the world and does not depend upon mental sharpness so much as intuition.
Zen Buddhists are only mystics ~ they do not offer proof. How is their main method different from that of Christian mystics, Hindu mystics, all of whom do not seek to prove by reason, but by "I know," intuition?
Remember:~
Bhagavan Buddha's teachings that all life is misery belong to the relative standpoint only. For you cannot form any idea of misery without contrasting it with its opposite, happiness. The two will always go together. Bhagavan Buddha taught the goal of cessation of misery, i.e. peace, but took care not to discuss the ultimate standpoint for then he would have had to go above the heads of the people and tell them that misery itself was only an idea, that peace even was an idea (for it contrasted with peacelessness). That the doctrine he gave out was a limited one, is evident because he inculcated compassion. Why should a Buddhist sage practice pity? There is no reason for it.
Advaita is the next step higher than Buddhism because it gives the missing reason, viz. unity, non-difference from others, and because it explains that it used the concept of removing the sufferings of others, of lifting them up to happiness, only as we use one thorn to pick out another, afterward throw both away. Similarly, Advaita discards both concepts of misery and happiness in the ultimate standpoint of non-duality, which is indescribable.
Buddhists say that a thing exists only for a moment, and if that thing has still got some of the substance from which it was produced, how then can they deny that its cause is continuing in the effect; hence its existence is more than a moment. Vedanta is concerned with whether it is one and the same thing which has come into being or has it come out of nothing.
Remember:~
Sage Sankara disagrees with Buddhists who say, there is nothing - a nonentity. Sage Sri, Sankara believes there is some reality, even though things are not what they appear to be. If one knows the truth, he will know what to do to find inspiration for action. The seeker of truth‘s subject is to know what is it that is Real.
Buddhism says:~ ‘All things are illusory and nothing exists. However, Advaita avers that it is not so. It says that the universe, of course, is illusory, but there is Brahman (consciousness), that exists, forming the very substratum of all things (illusion or universe).
Sage Sankara opposed the Buddhists only, who misunderstood Bhagavan Buddha and became atheists. According to Sage Sankara meditation always means the critical analysis about the Self to get salvation from the worldly tensions. Due to the eccentric ego of the then atheists, Sage Sankara did not go beyond this since the atheists will not accept God beyond themselves. This limitation is not due to limited knowledge of Sage Sankara but is due to the then-existing situation of the psychology of the surrounding society.
Bhagavan Buddha stopped at this point because the atheists cannot realize the existence of unimaginable God indicated through His silence.
The point of Bhagavan Buddha is that if God is non-existent, the entire creation including the Soul, the ‘Self ‘is non-existent.
How can anything exist without the Soul?
Atman is Brahman (God in truth), the One without a Second
The Soul, is present in the form of consciousness, is real and eternal. The world in which we exist is an illusion created out of consciousness.
Rig Veda: ~ The Atman (Soul or Spirit) is the cause; Atman is the support of all that exists in this universe. May ye never turn away from the Atman, the ‘Self’. May ye never accept another God in place of the Atman nor worship other than the Atman?" (10:48, 5)
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: ~ Brahman (God in truth) is in the form of the Athma, and it is indeed Athma itself’.
Sage Sankara’s Supreme Brahman (God) is impersonal, Nirguna (without Gunas or attributes), Nirakara (formless), Nirvisesha (without special characteristics), immutable, eternal and Akarta (non-agent). It is above all needs and desires. It is always the Witnessing Subject. It can never become an object as it is beyond the reach of the senses. Brahman is non-dual, one without a second. It has no other beside it. It is destitute of difference, either external or internal. Brahman cannot be described because the description implies a distinction. Brahman cannot be distinguished from any other than It. In Brahman, there is not a distinction between substance and attribute. Sat-Chit-Ananda constitutes the very essence or Svarupa of Brahman, and not just Its attributes. The Nirguna Brahman of Sage Sri, Sankara is impersonal.
Thus, it refers to formless and attributeless God, which is the Atman (Soul), the innermost ‘Self’ within the false experience. Thus it indicates clearly all the Gods with form and attributes are mere imagination based on the false ‘Self’. Thus Atman or Soul, the innermost ‘Self’ is God.
Sage Sankara wanted to establish the existence of Brahman. For this purpose, He made the Atman as the Brahman. He brought out the identity of Self with the consciousness and made the Atman the Brahman. Since one will not negate the existence of his Self, he will accept the existence of the Brahman, which is the Atman or Soul, the Self. Both Bhagavan Buddha and Sage Sankara kept silent about the absolute unimaginable God. The same philosophy was dealt with by them from different angles in different situations.
Sage Sankara not only proved the existence of God from the Vedic perspective but also proved the existence of God rationally by pure reason.
Sage Sankara himself had often said that his philosophy was based on Sruti, or revealed scripture. This may be because Sage Sankara addressed the ordinary man, who finds security in the idea of causality and thus, in the idea of God—and Revelation is indispensable to prove the latter. He believed that those of superior intelligence, have no need of this idea of divine causality, and can, therefore, dispense with Sruti and arrive at the truth of Non-Dualism by pure reason. : ~ Santthosh Kumaar
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.